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[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Harv, we've talked about work a bit on this show. Do you get inappropriate questions about your job?

HARVINDER WADHWA: You know what I do?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yes

HARVINDER WADHWA: I'm a project manager. What possible inappropriate question they can ask, did I put the right schedule?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Did you manage that project?

HARVINDER WADHWA: So, no, there are no possible inappropriate questions about my profession, but I know exactly where you're going. This episode is about sex workers.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah, the team and I were interested in doing an episode about sex work and in our research and in talking to some sex workers, the question that came up a lot as an inappropriate question they get asked is “What was your worst experience?”

HARVINDER WADHWA: Elena, this is the first episode I am a little bit nervous about.

Oh, yeah?

This is the oldest profession and this is also the most stigmatized profession. So I'm hoping I don't say anything that will offend our guests.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I got to be honest, I'm feeling the same way. I'm really interested in this topic, but I definitely don't want to offend anyone either. I think so much of what any of us know about sex work is from what we watch or what we read. And I'm pretty sure those things are probably misinformed quite a bit.

HARVINDER WADHWA: We’ll find out.

Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: I'm hoping in this episode we are able to bust some myths and also to understand more about this profession.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Let's do it.

[Music]

VIXEN TEMPLE: The bad aspects of sex work is not something that sex workers should have to tell people and have to share with people.

AK SAINI: A lot of time, it’s asked out of sympathy or compassion.

ANDREA WERHUN: He may feel that he's entitled to my time, my body and my soul so he can ask me any question that he wants.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Before we get started, just a heads up that we talk about topics like sexual assault and abuse this episode. There’s also a bit of explicit language. Andrea Werhun is a performer, sex worker and author of the memoir Modern Whore, she's also a peer outreach worker at Maggie's Toronto Sex Workers Action Project.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So, Andrea, let's start with the basics. How would you define sex work?

ANDREA WERHUN: Sex work is a very broad umbrella of jobs in which some form of sexuality is traded for money. That's the short answer. And then within that broad definition, there is all sorts of different types of jobs that range from indoor to outdoor, in person to online and not in person. There's a very wide variety of jobs one could do within the sex industry.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: And within that, you've had a couple of jobs yourself. Do you want to tell us briefly about your career and your journey through sex work?

ANDREA WERHUN: Yeah, for sure. So I started as an escort in my last year of university. I did that for two years until my mom asked me to quit and I signed an agreement with her saying I would.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Oh wow, very official from mom! Like she got the paperwork and everything.

ANDREA WERHUN: Oh yeah. Yeah. The day that I graduated university, she's like, OK, so when are you going to quit that job of yours?

HARVINDER WADHWA: So she was aware of your job.

ANDREA WERHUN: I told both my parents six months into doing the work because I'd always been very open and honest with my parents about everything that I'd done. And I felt no shame about the work that I was doing. Of course, I am fully aware of the stigma and the taboo and that it's probably, you know, one of the worst things a parent can hear. But I just wanted to be open with them and honest about what I was doing and how I was making so much more money than I was, you know, doing any other kind of work, why I was suddenly dressing so well. And so then I, after the two years working as an escort, I quit and I took a few years off and did a wide variety of jobs, including farming. And I worked as a, you know, an assistant to a TV and film agent. I worked as a bike courier. And then after getting almost doored like 10 times.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Oh God!

ANDREA WERHUN: I was like, I wonder what's more dangerous, working as a bike courier or as a stripper, because I think that's where I'm ready to go. So at 27 years old, I started stripping and I worked there for three years until the club closed down for the pandemic. And during this year and a half of the pandemic, I've been dabbling in some online sex work. So that's basically my sex work history over the last ten years.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Andrea, do you mind sharing a story with us when you were asked this question, “What was your worst experience?”

ANDREA WERHUN: Oh, let me pick one. How do I do it? Well, OK. How about the time I was giving a guy a lap dance? I was in the middle of the lap dance.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Damn.

ANDREA WERHUN: And he was like, “so what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you here?”

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Wow.

ANDREA WERHUN: And I, I'm on his lap like I'm getting naked. I'm performing this very erotic dance for him. And so I, I turn around and I look him in the eyes and I say, rape. Like, what do you think what what kind of answer are you looking for here, pal? And then he says, “well, it's it's not rape if you pay for it.” And then he puts his hands over his mouth and he's like, “oh my God, I can't believe I just said that. I can't. I I'm so sorry.” And I was like, you know what? It's fine. I'm sure lots of people believe the same thing. You are revealing a prejudice. You felt so comfortable. First of all, asking me that question and then declaring that thing that seemed to come out of like a bat out of hell, out of your unconscious. It's true that a lot of people do believe that sex workers are ripe for the raping. Why? It's a criminalized business. If it happens, it happens. We're not going to tell the police. We don't have a good relationship with the cops. If we go to the cops, we're bound to get arrested ourselves. So he just handed me a bunch of twenty dollar bills and left. So that's just one story.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Damn. Wow. When you know, someone like that client asks that question, do you think they're expecting, you know, a really traumatic, difficult answer? Are they ready for that kind of answer or like where are they coming from, do you think?

ANDREA WERHUN: You know, they couch it as a sort of playful, innocent curiosity. Especially in a client context when a client asked that question and perhaps he's you know, he's paying for our time.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA WERHUN: He may feel that he's entitled to my time, my body and my soul so he can ask me any question that he wants, which is so incredibly inappropriate. There's something about entitlement there. About people just feeling like our existence is a joke, you know, dead hooker jokes are very common, you know? You wouldn't ask any other type of professional person that question.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah,

ANDREA WERHUN: Unless you pathologize their work, unless you thought that their work was some continuation of a previous bad experience.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: So people kind of connect the fact that someone is doing sex work to the idea that they've had a bad experience in their life and this is a continuation of that?

ANDREA WERHUN: Yeah, I mean, to give another example, I had a guy I was with him and his friend, and we were having a good time. And then all of a sudden he's like “what happened in your childhood to bring you here?”

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Oh, my gosh.

ANDREA WERHUN: I was like, what?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Wow.

ANDREA WERHUN: What an incredibly inappropriate question to ask. And he's like he says, well, women don't just become strippers. I'm like, man, I thought we were having a good time here. I stopped paying attention to him and I started just talking to his friend because his friend is obviously way cooler.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Perfect.

ANDREA WERHUN: And I looked back at this man. The blood had drained from his face and he was super pale. And he's like, you know, let's go to the VIP. And I was like, really, you want to give me money, right, sure, that'll make up for this. So I go upstairs with him and he's like, he gives me $200 and he says, “I don't want to dance. I want to say that I'm sorry. And the only reason I asked you that question was because I had been sexually abused as a child, and I wanted to know if you had too.” And sometimes that's why they ask the question, because they think that you're similar. You've had a similar trauma and they want to know that they can connect with you on some very deep level. And, you know, while I can sympathize with someone like that and OK, that's cool, I'm not a trauma specialist, I'm not a counselor, I'm not trained, I'm at work. I have to shake my ass for money for the rest of the night. And now I get to carry both of our traumas.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Eventually, don't you get numb to these stupid questions, let's put it that way.

ANDREA WERHUN: No, it makes me mad every single time. It makes me mad every single time. And I get upset about it. And I'm always like real with these people because, you know, there's no gentle way to put rape. And then I had another guy who I told him rape. And his response was, “no, that doesn't happen here.” And then I got to sit there and like what, convinced him that it happened. And then by the end of it, I was like, all right. So do you want to go upstairs to the VIP now? He said, “no, I'm disgusted.” And then I'm like, why did you ask, what did you expect? And he said, “you just didn't look like the type to get raped”.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Wow. OK, dude, that's a lot to unpack there

ANDREA WERHUN: And you know, when people talk about the trauma of sex work, that's a big part of the trauma of sex work is fielding questions like that and and being asked to continuously relive my trauma for people's entertainment and not even for money. No, that's trauma.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Yeah, you've mentioned trauma. So would you say there was trauma involved in your work?

ANDREA WERHUN: I will say that most of the trauma involved in sex work is not necessarily what happens. It's the way that we can't tell anybody about it.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA WERHUN: So you can't share your highs and lows with people. You can't tell the cops if something bad happens to you. You can't expect any justice if something happens to you. And it's the way that other people treat you when they find out you're a sex worker. The trauma of being a sex worker is being outed as a sex worker and then being prevented from holding any other type of position in your life and being barred from opportunities. The trauma is having your children taken away when you're exposed as being a sex worker. The trauma is having your housing taken away when your landlord finds out you're a sex worker.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Oh wow.

ANDREA WERHUN: Is there trauma? Is the trauma within the work itself or is the trauma outside of sex work?

HARVINDER WADHWA: That's a very, very good answer. Very good.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I didn't know all those things could happen. Oh, it's awful.

HARVINDER WADHWA: And Andrea, I think I have a follow up question on that about how dangerous is the life of a sex worker?

ANDREA WERHUN: It depends, I think, where you're situated on what we call in the business, the whore-archy. So that's the class hierarchy within the sex industry. You know, like I was saying before, there's indoor, there's outdoor work.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Sorry you have to explain a little bit more, what is inside, what is outside?

ANDREA WERHUN: Sure. So people who work on the street, you know, people who work on strolls, on tracks, as they're called, people who negotiate their services in the rates in a car, essentially, and that's where they do their services or they go to somebody's house or they go to their hotel. But they're doing outdoor sex work, indoor sex work, like escorting or stripping, which is what I've done. You know, you're working inside a building, whether it's a hotel, whether it's a strip club. All of these different distinctions within sex work have an impact on the class and the social status of that sex worker. And, of course, everything that impacts class outside of sex work like race, education, gender identity, orientation, you know, whether you come from money, whether you can charge a lot of money, all of these things play a big role in how vulnerable someone is to violence. And so the high class white escort who's charging $500 to $1000 an hour, that person is a lot less likely to experience violence than the Indigenous or Black trans outdoor sex worker who also uses drugs, is precariously housed or perhaps homeless. That person on the street is so much more likely to experience violence, whether it's a client or whether it's the cops. You know, the cops have been known to attack sex workers.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: That’s awful.

ANDREA WERHUN: It's absolutely heartbreaking. So is sex work violent? Depends who you're asking. It depends where someone is situated on that hierarchy. For me personally, having worked indoors as a white, cisgendered woman who caters to a male clientele, I've experienced some sexual assaults, certainly not impervious to it. But I would say that on the whole, my experience has been overwhelmingly positive.

HARVINDER WADHWA: It's funny because even in, like everywhere, it is the class that eventually comes into the picture, right?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Oh, totally. Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Andrea, let me let me share something with you. I come from India.

ANDREA WERHUN: Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: And in India there are not a whole lot, but quite a few movies made on sex work. And in each and every movie, the sex worker becomes sex worker because of some family needs or you know, all that reasons which you have, some of the reasons you have outlined, so if you talk to anybody from that culture, there would be a 100 per cent assumption I'm sitting here that people have gone to this field for some reasons which are beyond their control.

ANDREA WERHUN: Yes.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So I would like to talk about it a little bit more from your perspective of how this work is perceived in Canada.

ANDREA WERHUN: I will say it's not an unfair assumption that some circumstance has forced the sex worker into her position. We live in a capitalist society, where we all need to work to survive. We all need money to survive in the society or we fall through the cracks and we become homeless. We're already forced every single one of us by circumstance to work and to make a living in order to survive. OK, so then you consider your range of options. The thing about sex work is that it's very well-paying. You can make a lot of money on your own terms as far as being able to pick your own schedule. OK, so it's flexible, well-paying, and on top of that, it's often quite enjoyable if you like the work, OK? And not everybody likes the work, but they like the money, OK, and that's perfectly fine. That's a very valid reason to do any job. You do it for the money and that is not unique to sex work. For the people that choose sex work or settle with sex work, it's because they know they can make more money doing sex work than they can make doing other types of work. That's a very human choice to make. We don't need to pathologize sex workers for taking their clothes off for money. That's not necessary. It's not helpful. It's it it totally removes the labour aspect to this, which is at the end of the day, sex workers work for money. Case closed.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So Mr. Harper brought in a law which is still on the books where sex work is legal, but paying for sex is illegal, if I understand it correctly, the law correctly. Which kind of makes no sense. And also, when you start making things illegal, things don't go away. They just go underground, which makes it unsafe for everybody. I would like your thoughts on this.

ANDREA WERHUN: I absolutely agree with you there. As a sex worker advocate, I believe in the decriminalization model. We can look to New Zealand, which has had sex with decriminalized for the last, I believe, 20 years now.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Wow!

ANDREA WERHUN: So there's absolute ample evidence that it is the safest way for sex workers to engage in their labor respectfully and safely. For instance, a woman who worked in a brothel was experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace from her boss. So she took him to court.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Nice, nice.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Nice.

ANDREA WERHUN: And she won!

HARVINDER WADHWA: Wonderful.

That's what we're talking about. I used to think that rape was an occupational hazard for sex workers, and I now believe that rape shouldn't happen to anybody. Shocking idea. No one, no one should be raped, period. OK, no one deserves to get raped. We should not create the conditions that make rape easier. OK, and that's what criminalization does. It makes it easier for people to be violent against this group of people by virtue of their occupation. And that's deeply wrong.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Very troubling.

ANDREA WERHUN: It's wrong.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I’ve heard about the argument between decriminalizing and legalizing sex work, what’s the difference between those approaches and what do you advocate for?

ANDREA WERHUN: I will say that there is a pretty big difference between legalization and decriminalization and we advocate for decriminalization because legalization means regulation and it means the state regulating the industry, which means that there will continue to be rules, criminal rules about where someone can do sex work, who can do sex work. You have to put your name into a database. You need to have I.D. You need to, all of these things create a black market. So even if you do regulate it, you're still going to create conditions that make it taboo and make it go underground. And so that's why we advocate for decriminalization, because we do not believe that the exchange should be a crime.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Fair enough.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Makes sense.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Andrea, to close out asking a sex worker about their worst experience. Is that an inappropriate question?

ANDREA WERHUN: Yes, I would say it is an inappropriate question. And it, the person who wants to ask the question. I think if they've got it on the tip of their tongue, they have to understand that what they're asking the sex worker to provide is trauma porn for their entertainment. And if they want to be that kind of person, that's fine. You know, that sex worker is probably going to get really uncomfortable and she's either going to speak her mind or she's going to bite her tongue depending on the situation, but know that it is kind of a dirtbag thing to ask.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Dirtbag questions, new name of the podcast. Love that for us.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So let's flip it. Is there an appropriate question that you would rather be asked?

ANDREA WERHUN: I would love if they asked, what's the best thing that's happened to you in sex work?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: OK, OK, so maybe can I ask you that now? Like, what have been the best parts of your job?

ANDREA WERHUN: I mean, especially working as a stripper for the last three years, but also having published a sex work memoir called Modern Whore, I've been able to meet so many sex workers all across North America at least, and I hope to meet more around the world. Being part of this community is like the best thing I think about being a sex worker. Sex workers are the most badass people that I know. They're funny as hell. They're strong. They've got really tough boundaries. You can not like, it's just sex workers are just the absolute best human beings, the kind. They're compassionate and they're just always the most fun at parties.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Nice.

ANDREA WERHUN: So that's been my favourite part of sex work is really just getting to know other sex workers and of course, making enough money to survive in Toronto and while being able to pursue my creative interests, because that's a privilege.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: We stan survival.

ANDREA WERHUN: Yes. Yes. We stan survival.

[Music]

HARVINDER WADHWA: Sex workers not only get these questions asked from their clients, but from their friends and family as well.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Here's a voicenote.

VIXEN TEMPLE: My name is Vixen Temple. I am a New Zealand based sex worker. I am a stripper, sugar baby, performance artist, writer, and I have a podcast where I talk about sex worker issues and I hope to elevate sex workers’ voices. When I first started getting asked about my worst experiences back when I first entered the industry, I always felt like I had to tell people. You know, I'd go to a party and people are saying what their jobs are. And I say, oh, I'm a stripper and everyone's “oh my God, what's like the worst experience you've ever had? Oh, my God. You must deal with such creepy customers.” And it's just like you asking us to relive trauma. You're asking us to recall sexual assaults, stalking, harassment, rape, police brutality, being ostracized from our family, from our communities, from our friends, from our loved ones. The bad aspects of sex work is not something that sex workers should have to tell people and have to share with people, but people always feel so entitled to know our trauma and it's exhausting. So these days, if people ask me what my worst experience is, I just say, “oh, well, I took the guy to court. So you sure you want to know?” And it makes them feel really awkward. Oh, that's really serious. Yes, it's fucking serious. I had to take someone to court, so that's what I say now. It just instantly shuts the person up.

Since starting my blog, I've tried to paint the more positive side of sex work purely for the reason being that the media is always painting the negative and they always want to talk about the the exploitation and the sexual assaults and the trauma because, again, it sells. And when you make those traumas of sex workers into entertainment, people start to expect that and then when they met face to face with the sex work and I think, oh, I've got my own personal sex worker to tell me a story that will entertain me. I suppose I wish that civilians would ask us more about like what's a good customer experience you've had. I'll tell them. I'll tell them about the time a guy worked an extra shift so that he could send me money for my birthday. I'll tell them about the time a guy booked me for a lap dance. He booked the biggest dance that I'll get the most money for, and he just sat there and talked with me. And so if I'm able to just share the more positive stories and try to humanize us in a positive aspect, I hope that that resonates with people and they'll finally respect that sex work is work just like any other job.

[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I'm speaking with AK Saini. They have a bit of a different perspective on this question.

AK SAINI: My name's AK Saini. My pronouns are she/her, they/them. I have had about over a decade of experience in the sex work industry as a full time indoor service provider.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Sometimes when clients ask this question, she feels there's certain answers she's expected to give.

AK SAINI: I was having a session with someone that I would call a good client who I still have a good relationship with him. We were in our session and we were kind of casually chatting and I don't remember how we got to this point in the conversation, but I don't really think that there's any real way to organically get to this point in the conversation. And then he asked me the question in question, “which is what's been the worst thing that happened to you? Like nothing bad has ever really happened to you, has it?”

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Oh.

AK SAINI: I knew that part of the session, part of the sort of the girlfriend experience role play is for me to say, no, nothing particularly bad has ever happened to me. That's part of why he's paying for. So I said no, which is the easier route. And then it's sort of reassuring in the sense that he wants to feel as if he's not participating in the broken and sordid nature of a sex worker’s life. Often it's a totally different question, but it sort of comes out of sort of the same intention. I often get asked by clients, “so what's your what's your job? What do you do? What do you do for a living?” Which is incredible. I do this. Also, I'm a philanthropist. So it's a similar sort of wish or hope or idea in their mind that I'm the exception. And they're not participating in sort of like a seedy underbelly kind of situation. On the flip side, if you are going to answer yes, which is actually totally acceptable, you can say, “yes, horrible things have happened to me then”. They want to understand it as a contrast to what's happening with them, and they want to see themselves as very different than a perpetrator.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: So they want to kind of absolve themselves of a kind of guilt that they feel by participating in sex work?

AK SAINI: Yeah, I think people want to see themselves as separate from systems of violence. And then many of them, even though they are consumers of sex work, they also buy into the negative stereotypes and conceptions of sex work, which really tells you it shows you how powerful it is. So they have firsthand knowledge and understanding what the real world of sex work looks like. But they can still maintain a conception of sex work that contradicts that. On one side, a lot of people and institutions want to stigmatize and debase sex work and then on the other side there is the romanticization and the glamourization of of sex work, and the reality is complicated and squarely down the middle.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I'm interested in that narrative you kind of brought up of on one hand romanticization and on the other hand, stigmatization. Can you tell me a bit more of that and what they look like?

AK SAINI: Yeah, I mean, the stigmatization. I've been on panels talking about feminism, where, like a fellow panelists, often someone that I have some respect for is arguing that I'm oppressed. It's a form of slavery which does violence to folks who have actually experienced slavery. It’s dehumanizing. My relationship with sex work is so complicated, but it does allow me to own my own business and call the shots. I think it's like one of the only or I think the only industry where women make more than men.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Interesting. I wouldn’t have thought about that, but it makes a lot of sense.

AK SAINI: Yes, it is empowering. Especially as a disabled person and someone who comes from poverty and working class culture, there is this sort of feeling that like folks like me were never meant to make these like big bulk sums of money. And in the case of sex work, a lot of times you're doing stuff that's kind of fun, if you're lucky. You know one thing that I like to share with folks is I really rehabilitated my relationship with my body through sex work. You know, it's really nice to spend your workday with people who are super into the way that you look. But it's grimy and unpleasant in ways that people don't want to think about. And they'd rather flock to this question of what's the worst thing that happened to you, you know?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: to clarify and this is something we often ask people, would you call this an inappropriate question?

AK SAINI: It's like I should just say, yes, it's an inappropriate question. But in many ways, I would say it's not an inappropriate question because the reason why it gets asked so much is not because people are trying to violate me or upset me. They feel like it's like a caring act. A lot of times it's asked out of sympathy or compassion. A lot of times it's asked as a way of educating themselves. They're inappropriate in an interpersonal sense. But the reason why we need to talk about them is because there is an appropriateness that is sort of supporting these questions and these ideas.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: You know, these people who have this genuine interest, is there a way they can express their curiosity in maybe a more appropriate question?

AK SAINI: I would actually say I wish that people would stop asking sex work related questions to sex workers. You know, if I wanted to talk about it, I would have brought it up. This is not my first rodeo. Those conversations almost never feel satisfying or productive.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

AK SAINI: There are times where folks will want to maybe talk about the worst experience that they've had. And a lot of times folks just want to talk about the positive. You know, it's this complicated nature of sex work and the complicated relationship that you have that I'm just kind of like maybe don't ask questions and just listen.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: That’s fair!

AK SAINI: Best to just keep it cute.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Perfect.

[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: We have one more voicenote, also from New Zealand!

HARVINDER WADHWA: Seems like the place to be!

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah, please take us to your beautiful country. Here’s the Stallions, a traveling male revue show with their thoughts on where this question comes from.

JAY: Hi, my name is Jay. I’m our team captain.

HARLEY: I'm Harley.

LEVI: I'm Levi.

CAIO: I'm the sexiest humble guy in this van. I’m Caio.

BLAKE: And I’m Blake, a.k.a. the lost shepherd.

JAY: Being in the industry, you're going to have bad experiences like there is always going to be times where someone was too drunk, too handsy and things like that. And I guess in those situations, you just deal with them as best you can. That's like a taboo subject, right, so they just want to know more, it’s interesting.

CAIO: Yeah, people are afraid of probably judgment so whenever they get a chance to ask somebody who works in the industry, they go deep in. And because we are not afraid to express ourselves, we're not afraid to share our experience and they get comfortable because that's what our job is, like make them feel safe without judgement.

HARLEY: There definitely is a huge difference between the way males and females get treated in this industry. That's a lot harder for the women, for the way they get treated. They get sort of looked down on, whereas we get put more on a pedestal. But they get a lot more opportunities than we do. Guys are a lot more willing to hire women, or go to a strip club, spend their money, whereas we, it's very seasonal for us.

BLAKE: The challenge is people already have the ideas and thoughts about what we do. And that could be hard with, say, our personal lives, with dating. Some of the rewards are amazing. One of them is being in a van with all these amazing guys and touring around New Zealand. The money's good, but obviously we don't all do it for the money because it's fun as hell.

STALLIONS: So on behalf of me and the boys, thank you for listening. Boys say goodbye. Later. Bye, everyone. See ya. Ciao!.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: So before this episode, you were feeling a bit nervous, how are you feeling now?

HARVINDER WADHWA: Pretty good, actually. So now I can now say that my nervousness was misplaced. The discussion went very, very well and it was fun.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah, I feel that, too.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So two myths got busted for me. One was that all sex workers are not in the business because they were traumatized or they had some sexual assaults or any such type. That was one. And the second point, which was a bit of a surprise to me, was that sex workers prefer sex work to be decriminalized and not legalized. So that came to me as a big, big, big surprise.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: A point that stood out to me was how our guest described sex work very much like a normal job where there's there's highs and lows. And I feel like we often, because of the way it's portrayed in media and the things we know about it, we think it's only negative, and we don't think about those good parts.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So, Allena, I am glad we did this episode because that really pushed both of us outside our comfort zone.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah. And we learned a lot. Agreed. I'm glad we did that, too.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So we have to raise the bar.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: More uncomfortable questions?

HARVINDER WADHWA: Absolutely.

[Theme up]

HARVINDER WADHWA: I'm Harvinder Wadhwa.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: And I'm Elena Hudgins Lyle.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Thanks for getting inappropriate for us.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: A huge thanks to our guests Andrea Werhun and AK Saini. You also heard voicenotes from Vixen Temple and The Stallions: Jay, Harley, Levi, Caio, and Blake.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Every episode has an accompanying webcomic and this week it was illustrated by Sarah Kohtala. You can find it on Instagram @IQ_podcast. Also, make sure to visit cbc.ca/iqpodcast for a full transcript of this episode.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: The curious crew behind this podcast are Sabrina Bertsch, Cindy Long and myself. The show is mixed by Andrew Norton. Our chase producer is Sarah Melton and our digital producer is Judy Ziyi Gu. Our senior producer is Geoff Turner and our executive producer is Arif Noorani.

[Theme out]

HARVINDER WADHWA: An inappropriate question for a project manager is, no one asking you what you do.

Transcript: Inappropriate Questions Season 3, Episode 9

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