Spicy Work
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Lady came to sex work after years of watching intimacy get taken for free. This episode gets into the safety, the shame, the emotional labor, and why she calls it empowering, alongside the story of CeCe McDonald, who survived a hate crime and built a movement from inside a men's prison.
In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun sits down with an anonymous guest who goes by Lady, a Black trans woman who came to escorting at twenty-nine, after years of religious shame and romantic disappointment
Lady breaks down what it takes to do this work safely: how she reads a text message to assess threat level, why she has clients stand outside a building she can see from her window before she ever opens a door, what she keeps nearby in case that's not enough.
The conversation gets honest about shame and the difference between survival sex work and chosen sex work. Lady makes the argument that in a world where intimacy gets extracted from women for free every day, getting paid for it is not degradation.
In the history segment, Shaun centers CeCe McDonald, the Black trans woman who survived a white supremacist hate crime in Minneapolis in 2011, took a plea deal for defending herself, and was sent to a men's prison by a state that refused to recognize her gender until it was time to punish her.
If you're searching for honest conversations about sex work and the trans experience, Black trans women and survival, escorting safety and emotional labor, or the connection between gender, criminalization, and bodily autonomy, this episode is for you.
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Credits: Host: Shaun Dawson · Audio Engineer: Aaron Freeman · Producers: Shaun Dawson & Nandikayyy · Sound Design: Nandikayyy · Music: "Soul of Orleans" by John Lopke; "Street Gospel Hip Hop Piano – 75bpm – Bbmaj" by nnaudio (licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0).
Sources:
— "Black Trans Bodies Are Under Attack": Activist CeCe McDonald, Actress Laverne Cox Speak Out. Democracy Now! Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOuH43-_4Yo&t=493s
— "I Use My Love to Guide Me": Surviving and Thriving in the Face of Impossible Situations. Barnard Center for Research on Women. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AorudSjIhEk&t=1332s
— Free CeCe. University of California Television (UCTV). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4WDdM-4geQ
— Laverne Cox At The LA Film Festival with Her Film FREE CECE. Rich Girl Network.tv. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ynPXo1rzME&t=3s