Grace Morris
Videographer, Animator, Editor
The Sex Worker: Protection and Hope
The Sex Worker: Protection and Hope
“This job I couldn’t lose like some others. I have kids and I need to take care of them,”
Sitting in a red seat in Alameda de Hércules, Ariadna Riley, is not at all different from the other women, who like her, relax in the sun on this spring afternoon. The wind shakes her black hair and the seed that fall from the nearby tree dance in her face with the same joy and her smile. She grabs a cigarette from her pack, lights it and takes a sip of the Coca Cola she ordered. When drinking, the piercing on the septum of her nose tinkles the glass. Her look is intense and strong, sincere. Nothing differentiates Riley, in essence, from any other women, but her work- the work she can’t lose- is uncommon.
“I am an independent sex worker, an escort and I am about to be 32-years-old and I have been working since I was 19 years old,”
In Spain, prostitution is not prosecuted under the law, like soliciting prostitution and variants of sexual exploitation are. According to the Criminal Code of Spain, since 1995, the year when prostitution was decriminalized, anyone can be freely employed as a prostitute, an activity that, moves 3.5 billion euros a year in the country, .35% of the GDP. The base of the business is 100,000 sex workers, of which only two out of every 10 are voluntarily employed in this work; Riley is among them. Among other reasons, she chose to be an escort because give her more control over her clients. While the crime rate in Spain is not among the highest in the world, the sex business can bring higher safety risks, according to the newspaper The Local.
“At the beginning, it was complicated because it’s scary not knowing with who and with someone you don’t know, you know...I started working with couples because I’m bisexual and that gave me peace of mind in the sense that there were women there and I felt calmer.” After a sip of her soda, another puff of her cigarette and a deep breath, Riley explained the details of the laws surrounding prostitution. Although prostitution is not criminalized in Spain, if a sex worker approached a client in the street, both can be fined as this particular practice is illegal under the law. Many of the Spanish prostitutes offer their services in clubs or on websites like passion.com
“On these pages, you can find absolutely everything,” The latter is Riley’s preferred option because it is the one that allows her to earn more money: she charges between 250 and 300 euros per hour. “In a club it’s much cheaper...the hour ranges between 50 and 60 euros.”
Click or scroll through the map to see one location where sex work is common
A women approaches Riley and gives her a tap on the arm. She has a cigarette between her lips and makes the gesture of lighting it with an invisible lighter. Riley smiles, takes hers and lights it. The women walks away.
“The jobs that I had, jobs that paid my salary and had my hours usually matched schedules [with my kids] that didn’t allow me to include motherhood. With that work, where most of the time I would lose my job or I would have to leave it to take care of my children and I decided to take time off to work sexually,” Riley recognizes that, at the beginning, her decision was not easy for her family; from what she said they have spoken about it many times.
“My family at the beginning was very difficult… They understand that the pussy is sacred and that nobody can touch it. They didn’t understand that sex work is not always forced, and at first, that was very difficult,”
In Spain, the profile of users of these services has changed over the years. In 1998, the majority of men were 40-years-old and married; in 2005, men of 30 years, as stated on the news site PROCAN. According to El País, in 2017, the average user was a man between 19 and 21 years of age. Currently, 39% of men in Spain have paid for regularly pay for sexual services, as stated in The Local.
“Basically [OTRAS] is to fight for labor and social rights, decriminalize sex work, make visible the position of the women fighting against the stigma mainly. That fighting against the mixing of sex work and real sex trafficking victims,”
Founded in 2018, as stated on their website, OTRAS (Organization of Sex Workers) is the first and only union of sex workers in Spain. Among its objectives, decriminalize sex work, defend the labor and social rights of prostitutes, give voice to women who exercise sex work freely, destigmatize the profession and help victims of sexual exploitation. For Riley, the last objective is the most important.
“The difference between sex work and trafficking of women for the purpose of sexual exploitation [is huge]. To start as a sex worker you have to always be voluntary and with volunteers,” The government of Spain, despite the fact that this point of view is shared by many sex workers, as of now, does not recognize OTRAS as an official union. It believes that doing so would lead to even greater exploitation of sex workers and trafficking victims, according to The Local.
"Well basically… it is a fight for labor and social rights, to decriminalize sex work and to make visible the position of the women in order to fight against the stigma,"
Riley mentions this stigma as she is preparing to leave, it is the reason she asked me not to use her photo in this article. She gives one last puff on her cigarette and finishes for Coke, the stigma surround her work is something she knows too well and has suffered from. “I was in brutal depression, I was on medication and just stayed in bed for a long time because of the stigma… the stigma kills,”
Two tattoos on her arm serve as a permanent and constant reminder of the struggle she has overcome and the consequences of stigmatization. The first is a semicolon, a symbol of a movement, as described in an article on the news site The Daily Signal, started in 2013 on social media by activist Amy Bleuel after her father’s suicide. Unlike a period, which signifies the end of a sentence, the semicolon allows a sentence to continue to be written. Thus, this tattoo represents hope for people who have faced or are facing depression, addictions, self-harm or suicidal thoughts. The second tattoo is a red umbrella, that according to Sex Work Europe’s offical site, is symbol since 2005 of the International Committee of the Rights of Sex Workers (ICRSE) and represents the struggle of the collective to protect themselves from the abuses to which sex workers or subjected. Abuses by pimps, customers and the police, as well as – and perhaps above all – the ignorance of our society.
Photo by Ariadna Riley
An umbrella and a semicolon. Although today it does not rain in Alameda as Riley walks away from the bar, and although the spring the – a symbol of new beginnings – shines in Seville, her skin does not forget for a moment that struggle of her rights and for the rights of all sex workers that is ongoing. She does not forget that it is only thanks to this struggle that she will continue to maintain her work with dignity and continue to bring home money for her children. With protection and hope.
