Andrea Werhun: Modern Whore

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  0:02  
The Women of ill repute with your hosts Wendy Mesley. And Maureen Holloway.

Wendy Mesley  0:07  
So Maureen, it's kind of funny like people ask us why we call the podcast Women of Ill Repute. 

Maureen Holloway  0:15  
Yeahit's an old fashioned term. And traditionally it is meant late well known out ladies, women who have sex for money, prostitutes, that's what they are. Or were

Wendy Mesley  0:24  
for we're Yeah, well, we sort of repurpose the women of ill repute title to mean any woman who's chosen a non traditional path was supposed to be a compliment. So it's about um, it's about dealing with pushback or challenges and all that kind of stuff,

Maureen Holloway  0:39  
which we should mention that we have. Actually, we talked to man as well. And to non binary people. So I was thinking maybe we should change the name to house of ill repute. Oh,

Wendy Mesley  0:50  
dear. I'm not sure we want to go there. I think we're this close enough where we are anyway, not today. Because you know what, this time we are talking to a real actual woman of ill repute.

Maureen Holloway  1:02  
Actually, Andrea Wareheim calls herself a modern horror, like just There you go. That's the name of her memoir. And it is a fascinating read.

Wendy Mesley  1:10  
Yeah, we both spent a few days reading it is pretty much a compilation of everything you've ever wanted to know about sex work, but you might have been afraid to ask well, we're not well,

Maureen Holloway  1:20  
not afraid. So Andrea, or Marianne or Sophie, she's had a few known to gather stage names. She's worked as an escort a stripper, and online sex worker and of course, a writer. And she's worked for a long time as a peer outreach worker for an advocacy group that fights for the decriminalization of sex work to make it safe and equitable for everybody. 

Wendy Mesley  1:44  
Yeah it's big deal for her and the book. I mean, it's it's almost it's like a coffee table book. There's all kinds of beautiful photographs of her. Taken by Nicole Bazuin . I have to double check with her how to pronounce that. But the book is full of like dips and lists and short stories. There's Maureen, there's even a centerfold. There's

Maureen Holloway  2:05  
this centerfold, I know.

Wendy Mesley  2:08  
And this can be made into a motion picture.

Yeah, starring Andrea herself.

Maureen Holloway  2:17  
So here she be here. She'd be our first actual woman of Ill Repute. It took us a year and a half to get to you. But here you are. Welcome, Andrea. It's so nice to meet you.

Andrea Werhun  2:27  
It's so great to be here.

Maureen Holloway  2:29  
I don't even know. Okay, it is like I've got your book behind me on the bookshelf, and quite a few people picked it up and went, Whoa, what's this? And so we are what is this? Let's start with that. What is this? Well,

Andrea Werhun  2:41  
it's a memoir of the 10 years I've spent on and off in the sex industry in Toronto. And it's a compilation, as you've mentioned, of short stories of a centerfold of memoir, also some pretty clearly written fiction, poetry even and 100 naked photos of me.

Maureen Holloway  3:06  
Let's get let's get Nicole's last name. Pronunciation is it's Bazuin?  

Andrea Werhun  3:11  
It's Bauzuin.  

Maureen Holloway  3:14  
There you go. Bauzin. So how's it been? It's been out for almost a year now, I guess, well, maybe a little less. How's how's it going? How's the reception? Well,

Andrea Werhun  3:24  
it's amazing. I mean, the story of the book itself is that the edition the hardcover edition published by Penguin, Random House, Canada, has been out for a year, but the original version of modern for the first edition came out in 2018, as a self published book, and it was the first half of the current edition of modern horror. And so, you know, I've been out there for a while with this, this work, but yeah, this like, new iteration with the second edition, postmodern horror, postmodern horror, it's been fucking

Maureen Holloway  3:58  
me. It's, that's fine.

Wendy Mesley  4:01  
We've used that word before. It's all right. But I am kind of wondering I mean, that the the world's oldest profession is sort of the the Go To line about prostitution, and now called sex work. But I wonder like, you're calling yourself a modern horror. It's been around forever. Is anything actually changing? I mean, are you different? Or are you just saying, Hey, can we please have some rights?

Andrea Werhun  4:24  
I mean, I think there is something different in that. I can be a legal name, face out writer and performer with a memoir about being a sex worker and feel like I'm safe enough to do that. I think there's a lot of reasons why that is class reasons. And I'm white and I'm educated and I'm cisgendered. And it's a little bit more digestible, perhaps to a mainstream audience. Even still not super digestible to everyone. But I think that there is an opportunity today to get more stories out there that have now We're been told before, I think that's part of what's what's modern about being a sex worker today is that there are more avenues than ever for sex workers to be able to tell their stories. And hopefully do it without fear. I mean, we're not quite there yet. I think there are still enormous risks in sex workers telling stories. But, you know, yes, it's been 1000s of years of, of prejudices against women who use their sexuality to get ahead in this life explicitly.

Wendy Mesley  5:30  
But we still look at the book, and there's like, there's boobie shots, and there's naked shots. And we're like, Oh, my goodness, we're only used to seeing these in I don't know, bend nose or blade bore. And this is like a it's a book and it's, it's out there. And it's I don't know, it's, it is modern. It's

Maureen Holloway  5:48  
a beautiful book, too. I mean, it's, it's beautifully made. It's beautifully bound, good quality paper, gorgeous photography. But it's a real book, right? It's not some sort of something that you pick up in a back alley, I want to ask you, as everybody does, Andrew, I'm sure let's go back. So here you are, you've come from apparently a solid middle class background, relatively loving home, and we all can discuss our own backgrounds, but well educated, beautiful. Why did this particular profession attract you so much,

Andrea Werhun  6:21  
the first thing that I wanted to be was someone who ran a kissing booth

Wendy Mesley  6:28  
for a lot of money.

Andrea Werhun  6:31  
Guess for a nickel, I would have done it, I thought it was so cute, to be able to, you know, share a little love and get a little money in return for that. And then the way that that that sort of consciousness manifested as I grew older, I was 18, I was working at a cafe, slinging coffee, getting tips and realizing that there was an absolute correlation between my cleavage and the amount of money I was pulling in with tips. And so starting to feel like in various service industry jobs, especially working in restaurants, that I was already in a sense, selling sexuality. And I could just get to the point make a lot more money, and work a lot less, which is, you know, a pretty cool thing when you're young, and especially as a university student. So it just became kind of a way to maximize my potential. And also, as a writer, I was always very curious about this sort of secret world, especially about something that it was clear, I wasn't supposed to talk about that that even drew me in more into people's secret lives and how people really behave behind closed doors and the reality of people's naked bodies and their desires and, and how they treat me I was just very curious about that. And so yeah, that's how I started I like I talked to people, I started to get a kind of sense. At first, I wanted to be a stripper, which is a bit more, I guess, a more accessible path into sex work, because I think the physical act of exchanging sex for money is is more taboo than dancing naked on a stage. And I spent a year really thinking about what it would mean for for me to become a stripper, I read memoirs, I really tried to educate myself, prepare myself, do a lot of reflection about what it was that I really wanted to do. And in the end, I had a friend who suggested to me that maybe escorting was a safer and more private and better paying way to engage in sex work that might be more ideal for me. And in the end, I took the plunge, I contacted an agency and immediately got a job. There's

Wendy Mesley  8:47  
so many things to talk about. I mean, there's a whole that the feminist thing, the writer thing, the sexuality thing, all of it. But before

Maureen Holloway  8:55  
we do, before we do just the nitty gritty. So when becoming an escort, this is very different from, you know, streetwalkers have to use again, of dated term, this is a somewhat protected situation where you have an agent and the driver. They used to call the madam or but yeah, and a driver. I just want to clarify that there are different types of way there are hookers, you never use the word hooker. You were an escort. And it was arranged through an agency. So I guess my question is, there are levels, I guess, or even classes are a hierarchy of of prostitution. Is there not?

Andrea Werhun  9:34  
Oh, absolutely. I mean, in in sex work, we call that the whore-arkey. Okay, you know, and it's the class structure because right there is a difference between somebody who is working on the street and you know, the high class escort who can demand $1,000 an hour with a three hour minimum, and all expenses paid. There's an obvious difference between the those two people, those groups, however, we're all sex workers. There's no real difference. We're all whores, we are doing exactly the same work. And any distinction between us is strictly class related. And so yeah, there's definitely different I mean, the nomenclature of Hooker, you know, versus prostitute versus, you know, whore, whatever call girl. Yeah, I mean, there's all these different things. But like, an agency escort is pretty specific to somebody who is working for an agency that advertises for the Escort hires a driver to send the escort to appointments. The driver also acts as security as they know, when and where people are at any given time and are usually waiting outside the location, which does provide safety as far as the client knowing there is somebody who knows, but who is waiting for this person to check in. You know, I think the most dangerous situations are when clients assume that the sex worker who has arrived has no bonds to anyone, you know that no one's going to come looking for this person, the more bonds that we have with our communities, the safer we are

Wendy Mesley  11:17  
so who are the John's you know, you like now the the new law brought in during the Stephen Harper era was that it's the John's are the criminals and so we can talk about about all of that and how you get protected. But I'm wondering who you say something about nearly all the the guys that you ended up with were married? Like who are they? Maybe I've watched too much television but all the guys there they're like they're like, creepy or violent, but we probably need to get into there is some creepy, there is some violent and that's why you need protection. But who are these guys? I think our husbands are not involved.

Maureen Holloway  11:59  
That'd be a hell of an episode.

Andrea Werhun  12:05  
Not gonna reveal anyone's indiscretions. Without changing names, I I think that the vast majority of people who engage the services of sex workers are the most normal people that you can imagine. And they I think there is a reason why we demonize clients or we why we have certain unquestioned prejudices against the people who pay for sex, I think there is like a function there that that continues the oppression of sex workers and also justifies violence against us by perpetuating the myth that it is this universally violent profession. But I can tell you that there are, you know, a wide variety is valid reasons that people seek out the physical pleasure and companionship that an escort can provide. I think when people think of, like what happens between a sex worker and a John within an hour, I think people imagine that it's just like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang sex for an hour. And that's just not how it works. It's more like 45 minutes of talking and, and 15 minutes of sex, and, you know, it doesn't usually last very long. That's just, you know, just to give you a more like, detailed sense there, but the people that see sex workers, yes, often are married, but often are heartbroken. You know, they're getting over something, and they just want some touch. They're traveling a lot. You might, they might not have anyone in their life, but they know they're, you know, they're bumping around from city to city and they just want a little companionship for a while. They're nerds, you know, they're people that can't, you know, have a really hard time picking people up in bars, or, you know, or, or dating in general, I think dating is getting a lot harder, especially when a lot of men know what they want, when they they meet a woman that they find attractive, they know they want to have sex with them. There are a lot of hoops to jump through, if that is your primary goal. And it can often be quite expensive. And so you know, there's this sort of like, lazy bachelor, who may in fact, be quite, you know, dateable, but knows what he wants and knows its sex and knows that if he has to go on several dates with someone and pay for dinners and, you know, who knows, like, it just might be more economically friendly to pay a professional to get the job done.

Maureen Holloway  14:30  
I find this fascinating. You're so articulate about this, that it's really Yeah, it's just fascinating. So I'm going to just jump into the dark side here in which the question of rape and you've had several experiences both as a as an escort and as a stripper where the your boundaries have been crossed. And you any point out, and I'm pointing out again, there will be people go well, what do you mean consent was already established when you walked in the room? So how do you deal with that? If,

Andrea Werhun  15:00  
obviously I would disagree with the idea that consent happens, oh, I

Maureen Holloway  15:04  
would, too. But that argument will be made, of

Andrea Werhun  15:07  
course. And yeah. And to break that down, it's like, consent doesn't happen when when I walk into the room or when the money is exchanged. It doesn't shut me up to accept money. It doesn't remove any of my boundaries, like I'm still a human being with with desires and autonomy and, you know, wish to be safe. And so consent, whether it's in a sex work context, or it's in a romantic context, or any other context, can be withdrawn at any time. And that that always has to be respected. I think we, I think we assume in our prejudice against sex workers that we don't have the ability to consent, or that we sign off our consent when we decide to become sex workers, that any violence that we experience is, in fact, our fault. Because we've chosen to put ourselves into a situation that is considered dangerous. And I think that's incredibly harmful. Right? Like that's, that's not fair. You know, in in New Zealand, they've decriminalize sex work for 20 years. And one of the things that it says in in their law, what's on the books is that sex workers can withdraw consent at any time. That is on the books. And so I think we have a long way to go in Canada to just like, talk about consent and about sex and about sex work, you know, because I think that we're still grappling with what it means to be a sexual person in general. Right. And so I'm hoping that those conversations will take place about sex work as well.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  16:49  
Women of ill repute

Wendy Mesley  16:51  
it's really interesting, because I mentioned before talking about the Johnson has probably watched too much TV, but you write about it in your book about trauma porn and about how you know, people want to pay you to reveal about why you're a sex worker, and it must be all horrible. And I'm just one person, and you're one person than everybody else. Like, I think you deserve human human rights. But but there is there is this idea of you can't rape a sex worker. So I mean, how do you, which is obviously wrong, as Moe in the end, everyone acknowledges how, I don't know how do you change that take? That's what you're trying to do. But are a lot of people going to buy modern, I say, who are witches with apparently the old way? It's whore, right? How do you how do you change that? That's because that's not your take, like bad things happen. But you don't want to focus on that. Yeah,

Andrea Werhun  17:47  
I mean, the idea that you can't rape a sex worker is something that I bring up in, in the book, because it's something that someone said to me while I was giving them a lap dance. And, you know, he was so mortified that it had come out of his mouth. Because the question he had asked was, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you here? And I said, rape, and he said, but you can't rape a sex worker. And he was so shocked by what he had said. And I said, you know, no, I'm glad that you said it. I'm glad that you said it. Because this is what people believe. People believe that we don't have agency and to suggest that we, we, it's just that it suggests that we consent to rape, right? That's the implication and that's so incredibly dark. And I think as far as like, what I would like to contribute to the world, as far as my own personal experience is stories as a vehicle for humanity, because I don't think that people would want me to be raped. You know, I think like once you hear my story, you're like, wow, that's that's a fully fledged human being I care about this person, I don't want her to be in a dangerous situation. And I think that that's the that's what stories do stories, create connections and relatability and you realize like this, you put a face to a profession that feels so secretive and so dark and the reality is that we are all weird there's just so many human beings just like me who are engaging in this work who don't deserve to be raped

Maureen Holloway  19:15  
when you were talking about this before you came on and I just have to say you tell an incredibly good story both the humor and but some of the some of the stories and this is what I think I would have the biggest problem with and it's this not a shame thing and it's not a minute I certainly at this point my life while probably not start my career as a sex worker I'm not much bothers me or shocks me. But you tell some stories of some jobs that were absolutely repulsive. Usually in terms of hygiene, both their own and their environment where that's where I would say I couldn't possibly do this. So I want like that would be my that would be my line in the sand. I can't do this. Nevermind the danger. Nevermind the poured into shame. It would be the repugnance, you're laughing? Is that is that a hard line for anybody for you to cross? Was it? Or is that just me being? What Wendy said, I was approved, and we had a fight about this, I don't actually think you're

Andrea Werhun  20:20  
you know, it's personal preference. And it's also boundaries. And, you know, I don't want to say that my job is to accept people for who they are, and to kind of provide care for them. And whatever state of hygiene they're in, I will say that a lot of the experiences I had were, the hygiene was an issue was when I was like, a little baby, squirt. You know, I was like, 21, I, you know, I didn't have a ton of sexual experience going into escorting and I didn't have a ton of experience, putting my foot down and telling a man to take a shower. You know, and especially with money on the line, and knowing that, like I needed the money, your boundaries start to get a little blurry when money is on the line when this is your job, right. And I think maybe that's also where the consent issue comes in. And is like learning how to establish boundaries, without making people repulsed by you. Right? This is also like, this is a women's a woman's play, you know, like, we always have to figure out how to assert boundaries without pushing people away or without losing opportunities. And when money's on the line, and you need the money, and you're working to pay rent, it's like, can I afford to say no to the stinky man.

Maureen Holloway  21:35  
But uh, baldly.

Wendy Mesley  21:39  
There is so much, I mean, you talk about how you wanted to be Prime Minister as a kid and and reading about it, it was, you know, it was like, Yeah, I wanted to be a veterinarian, I'm allergic to animals. But you know, aside from that, it would have worked out great. And you're obviously not prime minister. But, but I wonder, like, everybody has, has these dreams. And now you're a writer. And now and it's just so I mean, it's the whole shame thing, and that prejudice thing and the, the stigma and the shame, but it is all about money. And power, really, and and you have been you have managed to be in a position of power, except for a couple of stinky guys.

Andrea Werhun  22:24  
I'm still a sex worker, you know, I'm still a horse like that my position of power is fairly negligible. Yes, I have the opportunity to tell my story and, you know, be published by Penguin, Random House, Canada, and like, you know, work on a movie based on the book

Wendy Mesley  22:39  
and kind of a deal. It's great here. But

Andrea Werhun  22:42  
I think like, you know, my desire to be Prime Minister, when I was a child, there was something in me that desired power, but also wanted to inspire change in the world. And what I was able to recognize, once I got to high school, beside being the prime minister also meant lying pretty consistently to people that you are in charge of, of taken care of. And I realized that what I really wanted was to be a writer, because I could have power, but I could also tell the truth, and also inspire change. And so my desire to be a writer is sort of what trumps everything else. Sex work is a job for me, it's, it's I talked about in the book, you know, three different ways to, to look at work. And, you know, one of them is survival, you just do it for the money. And then the other is occupation, you're doing it because it's your job, you have other options, you can, you know, do other things, but this is your job, it's your occupation, and then vocational, you know, like, some people do work, and they feel like it's their higher calling. And sex work has, for me felt, you know, somewhere in between occupational and vocational at times. These days, it's far more occupational than anything, but writing has always been, my vocation always been the thing that I want to do. And so, sex work happens to be the vehicle in which I can write and tell my story and, and be able to talk to wonderful women like you. Sex work is just kind of,

Maureen Holloway  24:12  
it's just a job. Just a job. I was thinking a lot about writing and sex work this weekend, because this is I had my, you know, head deep into your book. And it occurred to me that in some ways, because I write or aspire to write, I write that as you're putting yourself in a more vulnerable position when you put pen to paper or, you know, fingers to keyboard than you are. When you know you're you're having sex for money. I mean, that's, that's between two people, or three or four, I mean, depending on the scenario, but when you're writing, especially for other people, you're putting your you're revealing far more of yourself.

Andrea Werhun  24:50  
Yeah, writing is very vulnerable. And it's part of why it's so incredibly difficult and why writers often hate writing, because it's so hard to be that one Trouble with the page. And also I think we intuitively understand that it's only in being vulnerable that we can reach people create writing that is actually moving. And so there's just there's a lot of fear. And there's a lot of frustration. And there's a lot of blockages that arise when we try to express ourselves in honest ways on the page. And yeah, I mean, I just I felt like I had to shoot my shot. You know, I What have I got to lose? Like, I'm already a public prostitute. I may as well just like, lay it all out there and see what happens.

Wendy Mesley  25:29  
Well, your mom, she was a aureus, a devout Catholic. And it sounds like there were a few hills and valleys with her during this, this process. But she said, Do you want to you just like, tell the world that you were a sex worker or whatever, and then write comedy. I'm like, you're very, you're very funny. You're a very good writer. You're obviously articulate. Why didn't you do that? No money.

Andrea Werhun  25:53  
I mean, I'm, I think there's comedy and everything that I do.

Maureen Holloway  25:58  
You were receptionist in a comedy? We didn't name names. So we won't now configure it where you were. But yeah, that is a that's a very interesting hat to throw with threads, the other headgear you have? Well, yeah, I

Andrea Werhun  26:11  
mean, I, I've always been interested in comedy. I have lots of experience doing improv and doing silly things on stage. I have lots of experience doing that. And yeah, I think that that's never gone away. I think that humor, humor is actually one of the most important aspects of my creativity and of my sexuality. And I think the three are firmly intertwined in how I express myself. And I think humor is what connects us all. And if we can make jokes about the things that are the most uncomfortable and the most taboo, I think there's such an opportunity to break down walls that we have that separate each other. And so yeah, that's, that's where I am still in comedy.

Maureen Holloway  26:57  
We all are aware, there's so much more that we want to ask you on. I just, I just don't want to forget, I did want to ask you, and you probably get asked this a lot. And I feel like despite reading all about you and looking at your pictures, I feel like I'm I might be being intrusive here. But I'm curious for a sex worker where the line between intimacy like your own personal, personal, intimate relationships, how that comes to bear, or came to bear that I don't think you're doing this actively anymore. With your own personal, intimate relationships. How do you marry the two or separate the two?

Andrea Werhun  27:36  
I've been very fortunate I have an incredible loving partner that I've been with now for almost 13 years. Wow. Yeah. And so he's, he's quite understanding of my work being work. There's a separation, if money is exchanged, it's work. It's not anything more than that. And then as far as my own relationship to my clients, in the past, it's like, these are relationships that I cultivated over years. It's never just wham bam, you know, these are conversations that develop over time. They are relationships to me, that do involve in exchange of money for sexual labor. And I don't know, it's, it's different. It's easy for me to compartmentalize paid sex and free sex.

Wendy Mesley  28:32  
But I wonder like, we're obviously like, a couple of years older than you. I wonder if if there's a generational thing going on here because I was raised in an age where, you know, prostitution was a bad thing, a manual jock, the little shoeshine boy, you got get and I was I was a child, and there was this sort of moral panic and prostitutes were a bad thing. And pornography was a bad thing.

Maureen Holloway  28:56  
But the happy hooker came out at the same time. Yeah. And

Wendy Mesley  28:59  
there's a review of her in the New York Times, which is wonderful. But I just, I don't know, I just wonder are things actually, I mean, you spoke about this a little bit at the beginning, but there's good and there's bad and you talk about all of them in your book, as well as the photos, the beautiful photos, but are we are we changing it? Or is it just a generational thing? Like are our young people like cool with it, like I am so supportive of you having the rights to work however the hell you want to work, whether it's, you know, minimum wage and at a at Walmart or whether it's doing whatever it is that you want to do, but I guess I'm just trying to get a sense of is it? Is it just all people that that have an idea of of prostitution and porn and all of that as being something that needs to be regulated? Well, you've argued that it should be decriminalized.

Andrea Werhun  29:56  
I think there is a generational issue. Pull, you know, as far as what young people believe in, I think that we are far more open to different types of relationships that we can have with people. I think perhaps boomers have have a greater attachment say to something like marriage, right where younger people just don't get married as much anymore. Like we don't want to be necessarily legally bound to people. I know I have a complicated view of marriage like I don't have any interest in it. For instance, I'm also polyamorous so I'm in an open relationship. And you know, a lot of young people are also just sort of understanding that like this idea of, of owning your partner or owning the people in your life and and making claims to their desires and their sexuality. It's kind of out like honest communication is in married couples have always cheated on each other. That's just non consensual polyamory,

Maureen Holloway  30:53  
except our husbands of course, as we know, your husband's

Andrea Werhun  30:58  
Yes, absolutely no question there. But, but the reason people cheat is because they, they they're not communicating their desires to one another. They're not being honest with each other. And I think younger generations, we just, I think we're, we're just more willing to have those conversations with each other and, and pursue the things that we desire. And I don't know, I think maybe it's because we we've grown up in a climate crisis, and, and our futures look kind of bleak. And we don't have access to the same sort of comfort insecurities of homeownership and retirement, like our life is work, you know, our life, we live in a capitalist hellscape, we need to work to survive. And that's another thing that I think impacts younger generations, as far as our perception of sex work, like we can't, we have to work. And so sex work. Sex work is another form of labor that so many people are doing. And I think there's just, there's less fear about just being honest and open about the fact that that we are doing sex work to survive capitalism in an in a way, no one has a choice. When it comes to work, we all have to do it, it's just a matter of finding the best of, you know, not a great platter of options, right? And, and sex work is ideal for some people, because it's the most amount of money you can make in the shortest amount of time. You know, you can be your own boss, you don't need you don't need to work for an agency, you don't need to have a pimp, you know, you can advertise you can, that's changed

Maureen Holloway  32:33  
you that's, that's a big difference to to Wendy's point between now and then is that you can be your own boss, as it were. And traditionally could,

Andrea Werhun  32:43  
yeah, you can be independent. And I think that for a lot of women, who and a lot of trans people and men, people who engage in sex, work, run, run the gamut as far as gender, sexuality, race, class, everything, everywhere, there are sex workers everywhere around the world doing this labor. And, you know, we do it for the money. We do it because we have to we do it because we like it. We do it because we feel it's our calling. But at the end of the day, we do it for money. We live in a time where we're in an affordability crisis. It is so expensive to exist. We know what happens when we become impoverished. And society discards us. And, you know, if we become you know, is the moment that you hit the streets insult hurled is, is get a job. Okay, well, sex workers have a job. You know, and they don't necessarily rely on people. They don't want handouts. You know, a lot of sex workers are fiercely independent, fiercely proud and autonomous. And they they're doing what they have to do because they don't want to rely on anyone else.

Maureen Holloway  33:51  
Hey, Wendy, I know you're gonna wrap it up. I got one more. I have one more question. We've gotten we've got logged on this. But it's I mean, I could talk about this for another hour. This is a sort of silly question, because I know you're making a movie of modern horror and you're going to be in it. Because again, imagine who else will play you'd be perfect for you. I wonder just out of curiosity, there were a lot of movies made about prostitutes from Pretty Woman to Bell does your Do you have a favorite? Do you have oh my god when where you go either? It's not at all like this, but I enjoyed it or, or yeah, this story my life. Like hustlers. I mean, you mentioned that in your book to the Jennifer Lopez movie that came out that really put the world on this year. Do you have a fave? fave?

Andrea Werhun  34:37  
I mean, I really, I like, I like Shawn Baker's work. So he did the Florida project. And that film features a sex working mother. And the sex work isn't the sort of like main subject, right? It's the story of the children and what they do and they're sort of running around living life. But I thought that that depiction of sex request just so nuanced and compassionately viewed, like it didn't feel prejudiced. I think that there was a lot of work that went into making sure that that depiction was complex and neither, you know, a super positive glamorized depiction of sex work. Or a, you know, one note dark, traumatizing, terrible depiction at the same time. I think you like understand when you watch that movie that

Maureen Holloway  35:28  
that's with Willem Defoe, isn't it? Was it? Yes or no? No, I loved it. It was fantastic movie. Not pretty woman that you mean, that's not realistic.

Wendy Mesley  35:39  
And we all look just like her. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's been quite eye opening to talk to you, Andrea. So thank you so much for your book and the way that that you think and and if you ever go back there, just make them take a shower.

Maureen Holloway  35:56  
Is there a real pleasure to meet you and hear good luck with everything? I hope? I mean, for all our sakes, I hope that some of the things that you wish for sex workers happen because? Because it's a necessary service. How about that? And it needs to be made safe for everyone. Yeah, there's

Wendy Mesley  36:12  
a reason it's been around for 1000s of years. Thank you so much for for making us think and making us laugh and good luck in the movie.

Andrea Werhun  36:19  
Thank you so much. I spent a total pleasure.

Wendy Mesley  36:25  
Wow. So yeah, she I really, really enjoyed the book more and I know you did too. But it just makes you think makes you feel kind of queasy. But it also really makes you think and she's and she's wonderful.

Maureen Holloway  36:39  
Is it cello for me to say my God? Is she pretty? It's just beautiful came on

Wendy Mesley  36:45  
the screen. I was like, she looks like she's six? How could she be 30 Whatever

Maureen Holloway  36:49  
she, she is She is young. Maybe not as young as she appears. I kind of wanted to ask her. Don't your John's fall in love with you. Not just because she's so beautiful. But because she's so warm and empathetic and charming and funny, and all those things. And I'm sure that must happen. She had a lot of repeat customers. She had a lot of regulars. One

Wendy Mesley  37:10  
of them actually said the reason I didn't call you back was because I was afraid I was going to fall in love is Yeah. And then I think being a little creepy. Yeah. Yeah. And the most interesting thing was like, I've always, I think, been supportive, or I hope I've always been supportive of the idea that you're a human being you deserve rights as it is work. So your work should be should be supported. But her whole idea is that it's you know, is it any worse really? Then then? I don't know, doing some horrible job for 50 years, like, Yeah,

Maureen Holloway  37:49  
I know. We also didn't talk about, you know, her mother gave her an ultimatum and said, I would like you to be out of the city here. And she did, but then she took up stripping. Which brings, you know, a whole other set of conditions into play.

Wendy Mesley  38:08  
After all of these years, women of ill repute. Sorry, this sort of started as a woman of influence on his heels. We're not we're Women of Influence, I hope but why are we dreamed to be but we're we are kind of avail repute as the first sort of prostitute that we've spoken to. And it was quite, quite mind blowing, I think, let

Maureen Holloway  38:31  
me ask you a quick question. Because God knows we're going on forever on this. We went to a series but like, I have sons, and then there are male prostitutes. But they're a bit majority are women. How would you feel given what Andrea has shared today? If if your daughter were to say, Mom, I think I'm going to become a sex worker, it's the best way to make money.

Wendy Mesley  38:51  
Well, my daughter who just turned 25 She has a number of friends who were sex workers, and were involved in sex work and, and it was, to some degree, you know, some of it was just like, I've got great feet, my feet and that you can get off on my feet. But so so is that really sex work? Or? No, but but some of it was more than that. Um, I don't I've never I don't think I would be comfortable with that. I think I don't

Maureen Holloway  39:22  
think I would be either. I don't think it would be either. And I think that's that's normal given our the way we've been socialized and, and maybe our generation, but yeah, I would be very dismayed because it's dangerous. And because it takes like there are a lot of really fucked up people who who work in the sex trade or use the sex trade and you just don't wish that for your child to be exposed to that but that being said, people like Andrea are responsible and for for the changes that have taken place. Well,

Wendy Mesley  39:55  
and she's she's got a book and she's very successful and

Maureen Holloway  39:59  
but are nice nice partner and he seems very happy so who are we to judge?

Wendy Mesley  40:05  
Let's keep judging

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  40:11  
women of ill repute was written and produced by Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley With the help from the team at the soundoff media company and producer Jet Belgraver