Hackney activist highlights campaign to end violence against sex workers

Thierry Schaffauser at Dalston Roof Park earlier this year. Photograph: Ena Miller
Saturday 17 December is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, with associated activities including a candlelight vigil in Soho this evening (Thursday 15 December) and with a film about this autumn’s Sex Worker Open University that took place at Dalston’s Arcola Theatre.
Ena Miller, who visited the ‘University’, spoke to sex worker Thierry Schaffauser about his job and his role in trying to safeguard others engaged in this line of work.
“I don’t have any disgust for the human body, so I know I can have sex with any man,” says Shaffauser. His French accent softens the intensity of what he had just said.
But this is the life Schaffauser chooses. Men pay him for sexual satisfaction, so money – not taste – largely dictates who he sleeps with. “Everyone always asks who my clients are. They can be your father, your brother. We are your family, your colleagues, people around you.”
The Sex Worker’s Open University weekend, held in October at Dalston’s Arcola Theatre, was a unique project bringing together sex workers and activists from around the world.
Many of the organisers and activists involved in the initiative call Hackney their home. They campaign and seek to address problems affecting sex workers who are too afraid to speak out. As Schaffauser maintains: “sex work is not dangerous. What makes sex work dangerous is the conditions in which we do it.”
The Sex Workers’ Open University event sought to enable sex workers to explore the diversity and contradictions of the industry on their own terms. Challenging the stereotypes of sex workers as ‘victims’ and ‘criminals’ seemed important.
The event also included closed workshops to help deal with the media, explore new skills in touch and pleasure, and navigate the complicated issues of client relationships and intimacy.
Whilst the ‘pro-sex work’ mantra was on repeat and porn directors publicised their new business ventures, there was a nod to the damaging and destructive nature of human trafficking and exploitation.
“I don’t think we pretend to speak on behalf of everyone, but what we say is not in contradiction. Of course there is violence and abuse in the sex industry and we want to fight against that, but do you think you can do that with prohibition or do you think you can do that by giving more rights to the workers?” asks Schaffauser.
No more strip clubs or sex shops are allowed to open in Hackney following a decision by the council on 26 January this year to ban such businesses from opening in the borough. The four strip clubs and one sex shop that currently exist are able to continuing trading, subject to conditions. There are no lapdancing clubs in Hackney, and under the new policy none are able to open. No existing or new massage parlours, saunas and businesses operating under such euphemisms are affected.
A low-key hello and swapping of contact details led me to the Dalston Roof Garden, where my interview with Schaffauser took place (not the best choice when it’s windy and cold – but lesson learned) so in the audio recording you’ll hear the wind periodically interrupting the flow. Our feet settled into the fake green grass soaked by the morning’s rain. A cracking view of Hackney’s skyline was our backdrop with a cute garden shed and plastic flowers setting the scene.
Schaffauser is not defined by his job as a sex worker; he is unusual in that he dares to be open about his work. It’s a part of him that supports everything else he does. He is a sex work activist as well as President of the GMB Trade Union’s Sex Workers Branch; he is also a recent masters graduate trying to decide on a thesis topic for his PhD.
Our time is up. Thierry Schaffauser has looked cold for a while, but did not complain. We clear our coffee cups and head back inside. It doesn’t feel right to start small talk and ask if he’s working tonight.
He gives a plausible list of reasons for his choice of job (and probably left several more off the list). But “education can be an expensive addiction” is the reason I remember the most.
Hackney Activist!
I have never heard of this guy and I have been stiring shit around Hackney for the last 20 years.
Our kids need a better future than an introduction to Prostestution. What is this paper saying to our kids.
“Dont worry kids if you fail your GCSEs you can always become a hooker and work in the same establishments as this guy writing the articale”.
Its about time this paper starting telling it as it is.
Michael, did you not read the article?
What this article is calling for is not saying that children SHOULD consider sex work an employment option, but is calling for sex workers to be protected and not abused in their line of work, which should be a right given to all people of all employment universally.
Also if you prohibit sex work, it will make those who do work in the sex industry will be largely at risk. Prohibition never solves anything
I was not calling for Prohibition. I was asking that being a Sex Worker is not a good career move for Young People, simple, “Dont be a Hooker”.
If I sent a Health and Safeties rep on to a building site for an inspection, I would at the least expect the Union to respect her guidelines, to maintain H&S.
Now you as a Trade Unionist are advising your members in the Sex Trade to throw the Health and Safeties book out the window and allow the Punter to design your safety guidelines. Very very strange..
@Michael: “Just say no!” doesn’t work any better than prohibition – that’s already been demonstrated in relation to drugs. And Thierry Schaffauser isn’t a careers advisor, but a union rep for those already engaged with sex work.
I don’t see Mr Schaffauser state anywhere in the article that punters should make the rules; are you just making that up, in an attempt to be controversial?
More like the great smell of excrement. The sex industry is driven by the Under World that controls it, such as Gansters.
The difference between regulated and unregulated is zero. Women and Young people are Exploited, Abused and sometimes Murdered.
Next thing you will be saying Joe Bloggs is a Trade Union Rep in the Drugs Industry.
It is simply rediculous to talk about the Trade Unions and the Sex Industry.
If people such as Mr Schaffer choose to work in such an environment then he must expect to be exploited.
It is bad enough fighting against exploitation in the work place without adding to it by effectively fighting to protect the Under Worlds right to exploit people. That is what Mr Schaffer is calling for at the end of the day.
Oh, I see: you’re not interested in discussing the pertinent issues, or considering viewpoints other than your own (including those of sex workers themselves) – you’re simply using the article as a pretext to try to force your ill-informed, narrow minded views down the throats of others, and to spread smears about anyone who disagrees with you!
For your information, prostitution (unlike the drugs trade) is something of a legal grey area in the UK, and many sex workers work for themselves, without coercion from a pimp. Have you not heard of ‘Belle du Jour’, the academic and sometime prostitute? She’s not alone in her chosen profession(s), you know!
Admittedly, prostitution isn’t a line of work which most of us would consider entering, but how exactly do imagine that stigmatising sex workers (or portraying them as archtypal victims, without offering any practical assistance) is going to help their situation?
You say that you’ve “been stiring [sic] shit around Hackney for the last 20 years”, but it seems to me that you’re more intent on flinging it, in the hope that at least some of it will stick!
If people want to read ore about the sex worker open university and receive our newsletter, please click on the link above. ( my name i think ).
There are probably 100 000 people working in the sex industry in the UK : porn actresses, escorts, erotic masseurs, erotic phone operator, pro dom etc. You can pretend we dont exist because you think it s morally wrong, but that wont make us disappear. Sex work is work, We need labour rights. It s simple.
I am accused of spreading shit in Hackney and not having read the article by Mr Scaffer. Let me take a few point and say, Either he has been badly misquoted in the article or he needs to look at what he is saying.
As Schaffauser maintains: “sex work is not dangerous. ” Well maybe he would like to meet the families of sex workers who have been Murderd maimed and wrecked by the trade.
The amount of women trapped as sex slaves in the sex trade is hardly a safe industry I would think.
It is about Morals and I am proud to say I have a moral code which tell me that the exploitation of Women, Young People and the Poor is Morally wrong.
As with sex, individuals have the choice to have sex with whoever they want and I have no moral issues about this at all, providing it is consentual and with another adult. I do believe children and vunernable adults should be protected from adults attempting to have sex or encourage them into the sex industry.
So please do not confuse the matter by talking about my morals.
“I don’t think we pretend to speak on behalf of everyone, but what we say is not in contradiction. Of course there is violence and abuse in the sex industry and we want to fight against that, but do you think you can do that with prohibition or do you think you can do that by giving more rights to the workers?” asks Schaffauser.
I am afraid you are ducking the issue which shaffer talks about. I have a 13 year old daughter and an 11 year old son and I would hope that God for give they ever find themselves doing what Shaffer talks about.
“I chose my customers and who has sex with me”. This may be Mr Shaffers situation. It is not the case for most of the women walking up and down Shackawell lane any night of the week.
They are poor junkies selling their bodies to feed a habit and they are not having the choice which Shaffer attempts to pretend is the case for sex workers.
How many of those women are in a union let alone being protected or have real choices about what happens to them tomorrow or next week.
The only choice they have is a plea in the court the next time they appear, guilty or not guilty, before they make the same journey to Holloway Prison.
Yes there are Victims and Shaffer has to realise that. Not all people make a choice to sell their bodies nor who they sell it to.
Every human being has the right to be protected but Shaffer is not prepared to talk about the dirty end of the sex industry, where most sex workers operate.
The odd celeb who has made it in the sex industry says nothing.
@Michael: you’ve quoted Thierry Schaffhauser in a highly selective, out-of-context manner – what he actually said was, “[S]ex work is not dangerous. What makes sex work dangerous is [sic] the conditions in which we do it.”, i.e. he acknowledges the very real dangers which many sex workers face in the course of their occupation, whilst denying that all sex work is INHERENTLY dangerous. Are you setting out deliberately to misrepresent Mr Schaffhauser for some reason, or are you simply unable to digest information that’s right there in front of you, and which any adult capable of reading English can check for themselves?
I ws so right when i responede to you previously. I do not personalise my arguements, unlike you that stoops to criticise peoples inability to express their argument by accusing them of being unable to read English.
This is the same tool used against sex workers from other counties, “they cant speak English so let just do what we want”.
I can only refer to Schaffer because thats who the article is about. Sex workers are secondary.
@Michael: you’ve tried to twist Mr Schaffhauser’s words (see example above), and now you’re attempting to twist mine. If insist on commenting and believe that the views you express are valid, why resort to such blatantly dishonest tactics?
Great smell who is getting all moralistic now, talking about dishonesty. I think this debate has run its course and by all comments made, you have lost the arguement, live with it. Now I sign off. Merry Christmas to all and stay safe.
*shakes head in sheer disbelief*