Kayla Concannon (00:14):
Okay, so welcome back to the Lived Expertise is Greater Than Degrees Podcast. I have a awesome guest on today that I've been following on Instagram for probably around five years. I have Elle Stanger on today, also known as the Stripper Writer. Um, and I couldn't be more excited to talk about all the things we have planned. So Elle, would you like to introduce yourself?

Elle Stanger (00:38):
Yeah, Kayla. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really thrilled you can still find me on Instagram @stripperwriter because I'm so severely throttled, limited, restricted, shadow-banned, on the naughty list, um, for no good reason. I could tell you the two things I got punished for and you'll- you'll agree they're not, they're not good. It's bad AI at the very least. Uh, so I am a sex education and self-help podcaster for the last six years out of Portland, Oregon. I have been a published adult internet nude model since 2005. I started doing touch work and adult entertainment, uh, in person, as a stripper in 2009. And besides Covid shut down I've been full-time active as a stripper for 14 years. Uh, I became certified by ASECT which is the Association for American Sexuality Education, uh, American Association of Sexual Educators Counselors and Therapists. Very important that I can remember the acronym. Uh, that was in 2021, and I was a Certified Holistic Sex Educator in 2018, I believe, uh, through the Institute for Sexuality. And I'm actually about to start teaching for them there.

Elle Stanger (01:55):
I also have worked for the city of Portland in different harm-reduction capacities doing trainings for people who are EMT's, firefighters, uh, police adjacent, probation, parole, a lot of medical and people with harm-reduction backgrounds in sexuality, so specifically youth, queer, trans issues especially related to people who are experiencing houselessness or domestic violence. I worked as a facilitator in therapy groups for sex workers, not for a couple of years, and I'm always really happy to receive feedback from people around the world related to their experiences in sex work or trafficking or relationship, uh, and I forget like... Uh, there's one more thing. But we're going to- we're going to remember it along the way. So I am very busy. Thank you for having me.

Kayla (02:49):
Yeah, I- Thanks for taking time out of all of that and that extra bonus thing. Do you have it?

Elle (02:56):
I remembered. I'm, it's funny I'm making notes on little Post Its right now. Um, I am co-president of the Oregon Sex Workers Committee. We are a public education, and, I say, limited resources and trainings, uh, organization. We're a 501c3, at this time.

Kayla (03:14):
Yeah. Wow. Wow. I... I'm trying to think how we first got connected but it- it probably is related to kind of the sex educator ASECT route. But I'm not ASECT-certified but I was involved in their nominating committee back in the day. And I- (laughs) I know it's not a requirement to be certified to remember the acronym because it's quite a long one.

Elle (03:42):
(laughs) I usually do, uh, much better but this is the first coffee of the morning. Oh, and for what it's worth which I think is a little bit, uh, I- I actually as a child and a teen thought I wanted to work in investigations or law enforcement so I got my bachelors in criminology from Portland State University, uh, about 10 years ago now. And by that time I'd been working in adult and sex work and I understood that the systems were very corrupt and I didn't want to be a part of them anymore. So I finished the degree. I sat through graduation. I could hear my, my cohorts behind me talking about if they were going to apply to border patrol or homeland security and I thought "that is not for me." I hope I make money at the club tonight. And, uh, so I'm- I'm happy for my pivot but it's interesting because I do have a college background and I was a pretty, uh, square kid with no arrests, I didn't even smoke weed until it was legal. Um, I- I can infiltrate some really "normie" and conservative spaces. Uh, I also worked as a lobbyist in Salem briefly but I really didn't like that at all. Um, that was about five or six years ago.

Elle (04:51):
So, I have a unique ability that a lot of people who work in adult entertainment or sex work do not have. I have a privilege and a little bit of safety to go into spaces where they are typically hostile, or discriminatory at the very least, or dangerous at the very worst, and that's given me kind of an interesting, um, insight and an edge to some of the work that I do.

Kayla (05:15):
What a cool background to have go- in- in your field and all the different parts of your work because in criminology you're learning about, you know, the laws, the criminal justice, in air quotes, system. And, and then we have things like SESTA/FOSTA and things that you need to understand what the fine print is saying in order to protect yourself and your friends and your colleagues. And I bet there are not that many people that have both experiences like you do.

Elle (05:47):
It's really interesting because I think you're right, uh, when I started going through the sex educator training I was the only known, out sex worker that they had had at that time. There's been many more since and I've been able to add to, uh, a little bit of their catalog which is great, teaching about sex negativity and whorephobia. And then there was another part of that. When... When I enter into more conventional spaces I see the bureaucracy and the processes and how they are ineffective and I also see a severe disconnect between the people who truly believe they're helping while they are legislating harm. That's what I was going to say, I have explained FOSTA/SESTA to numerous district attorneys' assistants, or people that actually prosecute sex trafficking cases. They had never heard of it, not a single one of them.

Elle (06:44):
So after 2018, yeah, after May 2018 when SESTA/FOSTA was signed, I believe, I believe it was April actually but May was when a lot of the changes started happening. Microsoft and, and Skype said that they were no longer going to allow nudity on, uh, on Skype because what if you're paying for it. They didn't want to get slapped for that. That was a thing that actually happened. In May of 2018 Microsoft updated their terms of service saying that nudity and profanity would no longer be allowed on their Skype because they were afraid of people that would be going against FOSTA/SESTA by doing a crime which could be some kind of prostitution.

Kayla (07:19):
How would they know?

Elle (07:20):
Exactly. How would you know if someone's paying for it or not? Just like how would you know, at a glance, if someone's being trafficked? There may be sometimes signs that might point to situations, or there may not be because- I'll give you an example. In Portland, Oregon last couple of years there was a senate bill that said that people who work in bars and venues are now legally mandated to report suspected sex trafficking, which that's great. We all should report suspected sex trafficking, however, for the first time it made them liable of some kind of punishment if they had not reported suspected sex trafficking. So a worker might want to cover their own ass and call the cops on a couple that might not make sense to them, which might be, in a lot of discriminatory cases, an older white male and a younger black woman or woman of color. She may or may not be hustling him. Let's assume it's consensual because actually a lot of sex work is. Most trafficking is in labor, textile, food, clothing manufacturing. Okay? Uh, not sex work.

Elle (08:24):
So, anyway so, our committee wrote to people on the OLCC which is the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, and we said, "Your definition of trafficking that you have in your training, that you are giving to people that now are expected to participate in this, your definition of trafficking is actually something that describes accurately what strippers do every single day, which is exchanging a service for a fee, a sexual service for a fee." So, are people calling the OLCC on strippers? This doesn't make sense. There's a lot of gray areas in the laws because the laws are actually not based on adult consent. Prostitution laws are based on the idea that it is wrong to pay for or buy certain sexual services. It's not "does she not want to be there," "does he not want to be there." And a lot of cases the people that are being arrested, no one's asking, "You work for yourself?" Sometimes they're being asked.

Elle (09:24):
So, I just want to really drive home- prostitution, anti-prostitution laws are created to tell people what they can and cannot do with their bodies. It actually makes it more difficult to focus on rape, trafficking, exploitation, murder, even, when we are equating consensual buyers as criminals. It's a huge waste of resources- and a lot of people in conventional and criminal justice systems- they're role has always been punitive, to punish or to investigate. So I've literally had police tell me, investigators tell me, "What would our role be, then, if we're no longer doing stings?" And, my answer to that is, "Your role might have to pivot to where you're not doing decoy stings where you're arresting the guy who pulls up on his car and wants a hand job. You're not arresting him and giving him a $1400 fine because you think he did something wrong. Now you have more resources to, maybe, open a shelter for all those teenagers that got kicked out of their houses for being queer, and now they're actually looking for places to work and live and sleep, and they end up doing sex work or selling drugs for someone because that's what happens to youth when they're manipulated by adults who can manipulate them." I threw a lot at you.

Kayla (10:46):
No, I took notes (laughs). Um, I, okay, one of the things that I wanted to talk about is, yeah, just the transactional nature of sex work, because I often say when I'm giving, like, a presentation on this that all sex is transactional, whether it is for a fee or whether it is for dinner, or for love or for relationship status, or for orgasm or companionship. All sex is transactional and we just get upset when money is involved.

Elle (11:17):
Mm-hmm, yeah, we're exchanging lots of things, totally.

Kayla (11:20):
Yeah, um, and so I think that's, that's, that's a really interesting thing to start with when it, when we think about, like, stereotyping and wasting resources and being punitive towards people who, like you said, a majority are involved consensually. And that consent is hard to measure, I guess, or hard to make assumptions about, but it's the most important part. It's way more important than the money that might be exchanged. And thinking about whether or not people are involved consensually, we- we also think about the people that aren't involved consensually and how that is a smaller portion that needs different supports.

Elle (12:03):
For years, for decades - and purposely - misinformation has been shared by large organizations that are sometimes, um, conservative religiously funded, uh, with messaging that is just blatantly false but also really difficult or impossible to measure, uh, by the average person. So, I can tell you as a adult from 18 as a nude model, and then 22 as a stripper, and 30, almost 37 now, I have worked with hundreds, hundreds, hundreds, hundreds, maybe a thousand and a half different people, and only maybe once, twice, three times did I either hear a phone conversation that led me to believe that someone was going to be very pissed if they did not make the money tonight, or they told me. My mom or my baby daddy or my boyfriend is going to be so mad I didn't make rent tonight to where it was like duress, a fear. You know, they're not... So,

Elle (13:00):
But then people who work with youth who are coming through shelters and unhoused, they only see the worst side of it, where it's, again, youth that are trading sex or sex acts to sleep somewhere overnight or sleep for a while, or food or drugs. So, there is negative bias that happens, and then there's positive bias that happens to me, too, but statistically, globally, and this is why organizations in harm reduction for decades again and around the world have recommended full decriminalization of sex work, because it's easier to go after harm when you don't put consensual work into a black market or in the underground.

Kayla (13:41):
Right, and then also, because when there's situations where someone who is in this industry, in sex work, in adult work needs supports, and they have no one to turn to, because it's spun on them as it being their fault.

Elle (13:57):
If the work you're doing to survive is a crime, or heavily stigmatized, the resources do not exist, and a lot of church-based anti-trafficking resources require that in order to receive any services from them, this might be baby food, diapers, transportation, legal, you know, whatever, you have to either claim that you are being trafficked, which leads to false statistics, maybe you're just poor and you're working for yourself, or you have to not do any consensual sex work at all, or they won't have you, and what if that's your only income?

Kayla (14:31):
And, and a lot of times it can, it can become, yeah, a Catch-22, where you need the income, but also you need this resources. And so how... then you're trapped in this kind of spiral of how to support yourself and your family while making sure that you can still support yourself and your family because you haven't been arrested or something. So-

Elle (14:54):
My friend, I want to tell you really quick, my friend Bella, she's in Florida, I can share this story. She's, she's, she's testified a few different human, uh, rights commission events. So she's been arrested three times in three different prostitution stings, where she thought she was doing a client job, and instead she was being surveilled by cops and then interrupted. People do get sexually assaulted in these situations, because who are they gonna call? In at least one of those cases, she was forced to sit in the surveillance room and watch them do this operation to other people, at least one other person. She has three prostitution convictions as a result of this, and a lot of fines.

Elle (15:32):
Her pimp, which she was never asked about, no one ever asked her, "Do you need any help? Are you working for someone else?" Uh, her pimp has no convictions, no criminal record, because he had, uh, all of the documents and everything in her name. Financial abuse is very, very common in domestic violence. We know this, and this is how it can also relate to pimping or trafficking, because the person pulling the strings will make it so that the people under their control are the ones leaving the money trail or could be held responsible, so they get away free and clear. So that is not uncommon, and in states like Florida, where they do anti prostitution stings, or in states like Texas, where they made it a felony crime to try to pay for sex a couple years ago, it's such a waste of time and money, and it's also just these inhumane operations that are really meant to belittle people.

Kayla (16:25):
Yes, and, and as you're saying, Florida, Texas, like it seems like states that, kind of, are always in the news for different, kind of, conservative, sort of, political something.

Elle (16:36):
Human rights violations. Yeah. (laughing)

Kayla (16:39):
That's a lot. Yeah, they tend to go, "Okay, they're criminalizing sex work. They're also not disability friendly, not queer friendly, not safe for people."

Elle (16:48):
Thank you for bringing up disability because I... so I have had a client, at least one, through my sexting app who reached out and said, "I'm a 40-something year old man," he ver- like I've seen pictures of him, he verified his identity, and also in order to have an account, you have to verify your identity anyway, it's, it's very streamlined and controlled. We don't want minors on our apps. Um, he told me, he's like, "I have this condition, um, I'm under the care of my parents. I've never been touched. I would love a pretty lady to rub on me. Can we talk about what a blow job is like?" He told me he was suicidal. He told me that he had used a gift card that his aunt had gotten him to pay for this service.

Elle (17:25):
And I haven't heard from him in a year. I don't know if he's alive. So there's one person who, because of their developmental or their inherited disabilities, is being denied contact and this is literally what surrogate partners do, um, and sex workers can do and offer. Um, and then on the other end of that, I got a message from a woman, I've gotten this a few times but the most recent one was in the state of Washington, she said I could share this, were her intellectually disabled brother answered a escort ad or posted one, you know, didn't know it was illegal, what he was doing, and then the house actually was raided by cops, smashed the fence, scared the shit out of the parents living there. This is taxpayer funded. Now he's facing... I don't remember. He's facing charges. So what a waste of time.

Kayla (18:13):
I, that ma- uh, both of those stories make me, like, feel emotional, because we take for granted, if somebody's had, you know, their own, like, sexual experiences, romantic experiences, we take for granted what life would be like without them if we wanted them. And so like asexuality, aromantic, a spectr- spectrum, that's all very valid. But for people who want experiences and can't access them, because they live with parents or caregivers or family long term, because they have disabilities that, uh, m- make it so that they need care, or need supervision, or that people infantilize them and don't treat them like adults, it's, it can become a very lonely, um, life, like a whole life.

Kayla (19:01):
This, this one person's 47. And then also, then they take matters into their own hands, because nobody trusts them or expects them to want that stuff on their own. And so when they take matters into their own hands, they might go about it the right way, like the first one who used a gift card, because he's probably not in control of his own finances. So he had to find a way to sneak onto this app to talk to you, and I'm so glad that he did. But then you wonder where he went, well, if the gift card ran out, he might-

Elle (19:33):
Or the parents found the phone, you know. Yeah.

Kayla (19:35):
yeah, and there's so much, like, parental control, and some of it is helpful for safety, but a lot of it tends to be overbearing and, um, unfair, kind of, monitoring of technology. And then you have the second person who, again, didn't have anybody to turn to, to ask questions to and tried to figure it out on their own, didn't go about it in the best way or, you know, had these big consequences.

Elle (20:04):
Arguably-

Kayla (20:04):
And-

Elle (20:05):
... we- they went about it in like the, the most obvious way. Like, I'm looking for this, yeah, I can pay for anything in America, you would think, right? Yeah, uh, no, no.

Kayla (20:12):
Yeah, the most direct way. And, in, in an effort to do it by themselves, now created a situation where everyone in their family and community knows about it.

Elle (20:24):
Yeah.

Kayla (20:24):
And so it's embarrassing.

Elle (20:26):
It's, speaking of everyone in their family and community knows about it, so often, when you see a news story about a sex trafficking sting, look and see what the charges were against those individuals because if the only charges named are solicitation of prostitution, it was not a sex trafficking sting, it was an anti prostitution sting. And these names and faces of these men who tend to be lower socioeconomic status and men of color, because these are the men who have less resources to go on escort websites, which do exist but are expensive. So the people arrested tend to be already marginalized. But then to call them, falsely, sex trafficking participants, people lose their jobs, lose their families, because it's not clarified. This is very common, the, the huge 49, you know, person, so-called sex trafficking sting in the beginning of this year 2023, uh, I think in Dallas, was viral. 100s of 1000s of reposts on so many different platforms. And I looked at it and I was like, "That was a prostitution buy."

Kayla (21:32):
A, yeah, like, the media can swing it in different ways. And it, it is never in the favor of sex workers or in people who are just trying to, you know, make connections. I, I think about, um, for a lot of my clients, I think about their finances a lot, because most of my clients are neurodivergent, um, adults. And when it comes to finances, we always talk about ethical porn and safe toys and, and, you know, like, re- respectable forms of, uh, arousal.

Elle (22:11):
[inaudible 00:22:11] mm-hmm.

Kayla (22:11):
Yeah, and all that stuff is important because you have to pay the people that are putting effort into it, and it's their job, and sex work is work. But also for my clients that don't have access to their own money, buying $100-plus vibrator or paying for porn is, is literally impossible because they have to ask their parents for money. And usually if parents or guardians or whoever gives them money, it'll be $20 cash for pizza or something or going out to dinner. It's not a credit card. It's not something that you can use at your own discretion, a lot of times, and then it, it creates really unsafe, uh, options for people.

Elle (22:53):
And quality sex toys are typically incredibly expensive because the materials are made better and chain supply reasons. Somebody sent me a link to, uh, I don't know how to say it. T-E-M-U, Temu, it's-

Kayla (23:05):
Oh, I keep getting that ad.

Elle (23:08):
... T, ugh. So it's, like, Shein was found to have, and still are, probably, forcing their workers to work for, I think, like, one day off a month, people are wearing diapers, 'cause they're not allowed long enough potty breaks, like... You can tell I'm a parent, I just said "potty break," uh. So, Temu or however you say it, um, looks like the same low, low, low quality stuff. So my friend sent me a link, he's like, "This site makes sex toys, look at the prices," it's, like, $7.49 and I, my literal response to him was, "A lot of poor people are gonna get infections and not understand why."

Kayla (23:47):
Yeah, it can cause big issues and, like, I r- I remember hearing this joke multiple times, that, like, anything's a sex toy if you're brave enough.

Elle (23:56):
(laughing) A person with a penis said that, okay? Because you don't know about UTIs, I'm thinking.

Kayla (24:00):
Yeah, yeah, you're thinking anything can be an insertable and that is false. And it's scary when it comes to things like cheap sex toys, dildos, vibrators, whatever, because if you're sticking something inside your body, it has to be of a certain caliber, and it has to be cleanable, and so many of those things aren't, so then it's, like, well, okay, are we going to put a condom on this thing and do this every time? And people are, get creative because they don't have other options. But then p- people can have like noticeable, like, BV, yeast infections, like, people around them end up knowing because they're not taking good care of themselves, because they don't have an option to.

Elle (24:42):
Yeah, I feel like I had a thought to that and I lost it. My apologies. Um, oh, and what we're talking about when we say high caliber sex toys, people, we mean, how porous is the toy? So, right, if it's, like, made of stone or glass th- that's not porous. It might not be glass. If it's cheap, it might be a synthetic and you don't know. But if it's, like, rubber, that's gonna soak up moisture, like, your body fluids, and bacteria, and it's not gonna come out. So we're talking about porousness, so you probably want, like, a silicone toy and pure silicone toys are actually pretty hard to find, and a lot of companies lie, they'll use blends.

Kayla (25:22):
Right, and then also if you use different kinds of lube, it can degrade the s- the materials that it's made with and make it not- more porous anyway. So yeah, a, using sex toys is not as simple as it seems. Like I, I often talk about how when I'm a sex educator, and you see sex educators on Instagram, it's like, here is my dildo collection and here is my lingerie and my photoshoot and I'm, like, "That stuff is awesome." I love following those accounts and cheering them on. But that's not what I ended up doing. I, I ended up working with a lot of people who are registered or at risk of becoming registered sex offenders

Kayla (26:01):
because of the way the systems don't allow for people with disabilities to be sexual.

Elle (26:07):
You might want to look into, um, Shania Luther is her name, and the website is amongfriends.org. I cannot remember her qualifications, but she does training to people that are in caregiver situations about how to manage like masturbation and hygiene for their clients. Yeah, exactly. Teenagers that want to masturbate and don't know when it's appropriate or how to clean up.

Kayla (26:31):
Right. Because often, I get referrals for a parent or a school that's, like, "Help. We have this student trying to take pictures of classmates." Or, "Somebody's getting an erection and in c- ... in school." Or, you know, they don't recognize the time and the place. And I'm, like, "I ... I'm happy to jump in there, because that's important, but lets ..." It's not as sexy as it seems when you say you're a sex educator.

Elle (26:55):
Oh yes.

Kayla (26:55):
Um-

Elle (26:55):
Definitely. No, not at all. No, I've ... I love playing the game, "Let's try to diagnose that vaginal irritation with my friend at the coffee shop. Because they're, like, they're, like, "I, I can't get an appointment yet, and I don't know who ..." I'm like, "Well, tell me your symptoms." (laughs)

Kayla (27:08):
I mean, yeah, you [inaudible 00:27:09]

Kayla (27:09):
on the strap or no? (laughs)

Kayla (27:09):
And it's so good 'cause that's ... But that's also, like, lived experience. I think all this stuff that we've been talking about, you won't learn any of this in a public or private school or college, or anything. None of this stuff is talked about, even in sexuality programs, like you said, you were the only out sex worker in your program, and, and now you're going on to be a teacher, which is the best full circle situation.

Elle (27:36):
And there's, there's other students that are out now, and have been for apparently years since. So, um, I was right on the cusp of the new beginning of that, and that feels really good.

Kayla (27:47):
Oh, but that's huge. And it takes one person to make it okay. To, kind of, set the tone for other people.

Elle (27:53):
I really ... I ... And I think that might have been ... I don't ... I think I might have been the first person that trusted, uh, Dr. Roz, the program director, to ask. Because based on the stuff she was saying, I can ki- ... I can screen for a sex negative person or a sex work negative person really quickly. And I was, like, "I think she's safe," and she was. My question to her was, "Am I wasting my time and money if I'm not going to get certified because of my previous erotic work, some of which is currently illegal in this country?" Right. Yeah.

Kayla (28:28):
And, and a brave conversation that you had to have, because she could have been disappointed or upset, or kicked you out of the program or said, "Yeah, you're wasting your time, get lost." And then (laughs) I mean....

Elle (28:38):
And you'd know-

Elle (28:41):
No, do you know the, the story of Nikki Gilliland?

Kayla (28:45):
No.

Elle (28:46):
So, real quick. Yeah, Nikki ... Nikki is probably about 40 now, about my age. Uh, so Nikki did porn from the ages of 18, 19, 20, 21. She was a child of the foster system. She had a really good time doing porn. Her first lesbian scene was with iconic Nina Hartley. If you don't know who that is, people, look it up. Right, you do. Um, no bad times. Well, you know, whatever. She, she doesn't look back on her adult work negatively.

Elle (29:16):
But she did a few years, won some awards, uh, paid a bunch of bills, was self-sufficient, and said, "What next?" So she pivoted to nursing. She worked in a ambulance. Yeah. She had rave reviews from her coworkers, years and years. Uh, said she helped participate in, you know, in the saving of countless of lives and loved the work. She wanted to further her education, and get herself out of a domestic violent situation with her daughter's dad, so she decided to go to nursing school in Southwestern Oregon Community College in Coos Bay. When the program director, who is still teaching, found out that she had done legal adult porn over a decade ago, she accused her of plagiarism, changed her grades and flunked her out of the program. Nikki almost killed herself. She became houseless, and her children were taken away and put into foster care, one of which suffered, uh, abuse. Maybe both of them. But one of them she said a year after she got it back the child still was nonverbal because of that. Um, and actually, they tried to give the kids to the ex-husband first, even though he had two ... not charges, but two convictions of strangulation against their mother. Because the community didn't want a whore to have her kids or to sully the nursing program, because the nursing program was very well connected to the social work program, and Coos Bay Oregon is a very small, very conservative town. So she was literally spit on in public. She lost everything. She somehow survived. She sued Southwestern Oregon Community College last year, um, on a Title IX discrimination case. She won part ... She partly won, but now they're challenging it, so no funds of the $13 million have been awarded, which would have gone to pay her lawyers, and to re-establish her life. She's not safe in Oregon. She moved to Boston. Uh, she's a legal ... law student now. So, um, but they're still arguing, and she's never ... The teacher's still teaching. You know? Not enough people know about this, and Nikki didn't get any monetary justice. This shit still happens, and I get messages from people all the time that say, "I got kicked out of my nursing program. I got kicked out of my, you know, whatever training program because they found out about my legal, or my previous work in adult." So, how do people expect us to supposedly, you know, do better or elevate ourselves out of this stigmatized industry if we're literally not allowed to sometimes?

Kayla (31:38):
Right. It's so backwards. They go, "Don't do that." But also, "You can't be hired to do anything else now." That's, that's your option. So then you turn back into doing it. And then everything in your life becomes like continued risk weighing because you, you have to protect yourself in the process. That's a, that's a heartbreaking story. And, it's so sad that she's had to relocate and change her life and everything. And it's, like, yeah, from the start, the school didn't want to damage their reputation. But like, "Good job you did it to yourself." (laughs)

Elle (32:11):
Yeah, I-

Elle (32:13):
I enjoyed watching that teacher woman squirm from the back, because I got to sit in just day ... one of the days of the trial I went down, uh, a couple hours to Oregon to be there with Nikki. And, um, it was fun to watch her, kind of, squirm a little when it was, you know, testifying, going through documents and her changing grades and reading the email thread, and ... But it's just not enough. (laughs) And these people exist in every single walk of life.

Kayla (32:39):
Yeah. In every industry. Like there's a big thing ... There's a lot of unrest in my occupational therapy field with like a professor, um, being fired from her position unfairly, and there's been a lot of unrest. And then our professional organization is a mess in handling it. And our next conference is in Florida, and people are upset about going to Florida. And so-

Elle (33:00):
Not safe.

Kayla (33:01):
Yeah. And it, it's not safe. And then organizations try to pick certain people to be spokespeople for, like, uplifting things. And it's, it's tokenizing too, and then nobody feels like you can trust your professional organizations, or like this. Like your school or your career, because if you have a license at stake it makes it all riskier.

Elle (33:26):
Mm-hmm.

Kayla (33:26):
Um, I also wa- wrote down earlier to talk about kind of that mandated reporter thing. So we, you brought up how people became responsible for reporting suspected trafficking. And for a lot of people with licenses, like the social workers and nurses, the OTs, there's also a conversation happening right now around being mandated reporters in places where things that are considered illegal are really not fair. Um, and so, like, Florida, Texas, if you had to be a mandated reporter, if someone is in gender-affirming care, because it ... the state has labeled it, like, self harm or something. Then, then you have to weigh what's my licenses versus my, like, humanity. And it's really challenging, and I just wish the powers that be would stop making us have those internal debates, because it's exhausting.

Elle (34:23):
Mm-hmm. Definitely.

Kayla (34:26):
Uh. Um, so a lot of this stuff has been so enlightening. And thank you for being here. I also want to ask (laughs) out of all of this stuff, or everything that you're doing, what is something i- that you learned in school that has helped you navigate your life and your work?

Elle (34:46):
Learning how to present information in a more coherent way, learning how to teach. So that can be very literal, like, if you write on a board, or you have a presentation, use a color that most people can read because of ability awareness. Uh, or, sensory overwhelm. Don't use multiple colors. Um, if I'm having a guest on, look up how I pronounce their name beforehand. Um, s- don't make your slides too wordy. So, like, what I learned, literally that was the most helpful for me is presentation. Especially as someone who is autistic and has ADHD, uh, I can hyper fixate, and give you exactly what I think you want, but maybe you were just asking me the weather, and not for an analysis of the next week. Um, yeah. So I'm really grateful to that. And that is really only stuff that I learned in the last five or six years.

Kayla (35:48):
Well that stuff is, like, thinking about accessibility and inclusion. You either learn it from watching other people role model it, or from your own experience or from somebody telling you, "Hey, I would appreciate if you just used black on white." Or, "Just keep it simple." Or, "Let's turn the lights off and make it a little bit more relaxing in here." And, and it's very interesting, and so you're probably an expert in all the sensory details of life (laughs) from, fro- from being autistic, from being neurodivergent and, and also from being, I would guess, an expert in just setting the mood. (laughs)

Elle (36:24):
I try, I try. (laughs) I really try. I joke to ... You know, it's funny, because in the strip club, I look at people who have listened to the podcast. Or on the sexting app, I will get people that found me on Instagram, you know? Or whatever. So I'm kind of ... That's why I asked you at the beginning, like, "How long have you been with me, and where so I know what you know?" Because it's a lot of code switching sometimes if I'm on my sexting app, and I'm pretending to be, you know, Hot Mommy, like, at home, versus I need to update my other subscriber page, and let's talk about these local laws that are really, (laughs) really not good right now.

Elle (36:56):
So, it's kind of funny, because I'll get sext clients sometimes that I definitely lose money, because they're, like, "Oh, you're political." But then I attract resources, and networking and, and other clients, and long term clients that are, like, "Oh, you align with my beliefs, and you're consistent, and I feel safe with you."

Kayla (37:14):
Well, and it's less, less mysterious. Like a mystery can be erotic, but it can also be threatening.

Elle (37:21):
I try to make sure my transactions are never open-ended, like, we know how long the Zoom is going to go for, or the visit, we know what it's going to cost. (laughs)

Kayla (37:33):
Well yeah, then everybody can plan their life around it and, and you've set the boundary in advance so that you can keep yourself in the situation that you're expecting.

Elle (37:43):
[inaudible 00:37:42]. It, it really is. It comes down to safety. And it's kind of ... This is the sex work thing that is, like, a privileged sex worker thing. I can screen my clients very heavily, because I can afford to say no to more of them. Uh, people who really need money, and it's just worth a gamble to see what you can get by with, without them, like, coming at you too hard. So it's, like, "Yeah, I don't like the way this client is touching me, he has scratchy nails, but, like, the price is twice as much as I need to make for tomorrow, so, like, maybe I'm just going to do this." Um, so, you know, again, capitalism is complicated, but I'm lucky that I can, yeah, screen really heavily. So if someone's freaking me out just from the get-go, I'm like, "Well, I guess I'm not going to make money in this situation." But, you know, I have options. And again, that's why we don't want to limit people's options.

Kayla (38:34):
Right. So everyone can choose what works for them, because there's lines that pretty much are universal, and then there's lines that are more personal. And so trying to figure out what works for you, and what works for other people and hopefully giving people the opportunity to have all of that. And that comes with decriminalization, legalization, and s- treating your job like a job that anybody could have. Like it's ... Like it's normal.

Kayla (39:00):
Um, I think about, often when it comes to sex work and disability, this isn't the, (laughs), planned question, but I, I think about it in both ways, because I work with mostly neurodivergent clients with, like, intellectual developmental disabilities, like we talked about the person that you were chatting with. And, yeah, wanting, wanting to be touched, wanting to have sexual experiences and not having a chance so far, like, naturally in your own life. And then I also follow people and read about people who are disabled and in the sex work industry. So, like, both providers and, kind of, um, customers.

Kayla (39:42):
And I think it's really interesting to think about how those two, kind of, interplay and how other countries might be doing it better. Like, I know in- Andrew Gerza talks about it a lot in Canada. And there are some positive things that have happened in Australia recently, in terms of, like, allowing people to spend their money on whatever they wanna spend their money on, but we're very far from that in, in this country.

Elle (40:07):
Mm-hmm. I get propositioned or solicited for paid sex probably at least three times a week when I'm in the strip club. And honestly, that would be a gold mine if that was my hustle. (laughs). Um, don't have sex in the strip club, by the way. No one's gonna like it, like, the management is not gonna like it. I tell, I tell people, "We're not built for ejaculations here, so, no, I don't do that here." (laughs). Quite honestly can't take that kind of body fluid here.

Elle (40:34):
Um, so I think about, there is such a desire, because I get asked all the time, and I know a lot of my coworkers get asked all the time. And I wish that I could, and sometimes I have, referred them to someone else. I say, "I wish I could," because a lot of people I know stopped working sex after COVID. Uh, the local economy in Portland has kind of dried up in some ways.

Elle (40:56):
But that's a whole different conversation. Um, but, yeah, people ask me all the time, and they're not, they're not creepy, monstrous, you know, gnarled-like crusty old men. Like, there are some pretty hot dudes that are, like, or women actually, that are, like, "Yeah, I travel a lot. You smell nice and we're connecting nicely." Like, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Why are we criminalizing that?

Kayla (41:26):
Well, and a lot of times I think, yeah, we get sold the, the storybook version of it or, (laughs), the not storybook version. But with, like, just this hyped-up model of, yeah, that it's creepy, and that it's unfair, and that it's, like, so, like, salacious, and meanwhile, it's just people who wanna have some companionship. And everybody is aware of what the exchange is, and that it's time and companionship and maybe sex for money, but that it shouldn't be such a scary thing.

Kayla (41:57):
I often say to, like, professionals who are scared about their family members or their clients having sex, and I'm, like, "What if you didn't? If you didn't go home to somebody at night? If you didn't go home and, and have somebody to watch TV with? Like, wouldn't you miss that too? That's part of being a human for most people."

Elle (42:16):
Mm-hmm, definitely. How are we on time?

Kayla (42:21):
We are wrapping up, I think. But I, I wanted to ask also, what's a lesson that you've learned outside of school that, um, has impacted your life and career?

Elle (42:34):
Hmm, formal lesson, informal lesson. Okay, lesson I have learned outside of formal training, okay. Oh my God, so many things, and I should've mentally prepared. I, I feel like I would've just been able to pick something, but now I'm, like, "oh, where do I begin?" Um, the processes in place often do not make sense and some of them have just been in place for so long, that they're difficult to change. And it's not that they're helpful.

Elle (43:07):
Um, I have learned that technology is advancing way faster than the laws are being adapted. You probably know there's generally no laws on the books against upskirt photos, or taking photos of people out in public without their permission, because the idea has been the, uh, level of ex- expectation of privacy for so long. And these laws were written before cell phones. So, the idea is once you leave your house or a reasonable, you know, area of privacy, that you don't have the right to refuse someone taking a picture of your underwear apparently.

Elle (43:47):
Um, which actually happened to me and my kid in a Target some years ago. I think this guy was trying to get a picture of us from behind. He didn't get like an up thing, but we were actually wearing dresses, because it was a hot day. I was wearing shorts. That's a whole other story too. I definitely followed him around for a while, cursing him out. She was little and she didn't know what was happening. (laughs). She was just looking at the colors and stuff. Um, and then about a year later, I learned about a man who had been a serial offender at the Targets and the Fred Myers in this area. And I was, like, I wonder if it's him? I couldn't find a photo. I didn't look that hard.

Elle (44:17):
Anyway, so I have learned, yeah, you can't trust a lot of the laws and practices in place, and in terms of online harassment, stalking, um, content being stolen, being harassed, having your content sent to family members, there is not really any laws and protection for that either. At the very best, you can contact private orgn- you know, companies and organizations that specialize in content removal. The DCMA, uh, take down notices. So the police really can't help you in a lot of situations. And my last thing I would like to say, if we want to, if we wanna improve these systems, we really need to look at law enforcement not as law enforcement, but as community safety.

Kayla (45:08):
Yeah, 'cause words really do matter. And so thinking about, yeah, enforcing the laws, well also, if half the laws are way too old to be helpful to people, um, then it's, it doesn't create a safer society for anyone. So that's, that's interesting. And, and community safety is a lot better. And I think a, that's been such an important conversation for the last several years.

Kayla (45:36):
Like, thinking about, like, mass shootings and stuff like that. And I mean, it all, you can't talk about sex without being political. So it ends up being related, (laughs), to, so quickly to, like queer inclusion, disability inclusion, like, reproductive rights, gun violence. Like, everything ends up being looped in together, because that's the-

Elle (46:01):
It is.

Kayla (46:02):
... way our ... It is, yeah.

Elle (46:03):
It is, and it was designed that way. The laws were always made by people who wanted to control reproduction and production. Um, I mean the first thing that was taxed was salt, not prostitution. But ever since, yeah, salt was the first commodity to be taxed and sold.

Kayla (46:18):
What?

Elle (46:18):
But hands down -

Kayla (46:19):
I didn't know that.

Elle (46:20):
Yeah, I mean, we preserve our food in it, and we can't live without it.

Kayla (46:25):
And it tastes good. (laughs).

Elle (46:26):
So there ... And it tastes good, it makes everything taste better. Uh, so for I think, 5,000 years and an elder in the queer, um, sex positive community and she's a clinical sexologist, her name is Elizabeth Allen, uh, she was explaining this to me on the phone yesterday, where she's, uh, basically telling me to not get too bogged down with the frustrations of progress against decriminalization of sex work here locally, because she said, "That struggle has been going on for 5,000 years."

Elle (46:55):
Laws were determined what organs you could sell. If you could sell your blood, if you could sell your children, if you could sell your wife, if you could sell your cattle, if you could sell herbs that you grew in your yard. There's always been laws about what you can sell. (laughs). And sex has always been, kind of, on that list since we had taxation.

Kayla (47:13):
Because it's something that people will spend on. It's, it's also something that improves your life-

Elle (47:20):
Mm-hmm.

Kayla (47:20):
... for most people.

Elle (47:21):
Mm-hmm.

Kayla (47:22):
Wow. That's really interesting. And that's something I've been trying to learn from activists in different, like, political and local sort of campaigns, is that you have to focus on, you know, the problems, in order to ask for the changes. But you also have to, kind of, be gentle with yourself in the process. Because it's really hard work. It's really, really hard to be an activist and an educator, and have all of these different arenas that you're focused on, because you have to take care of you too. And you can't compare your personal progress with, like, the actual world history, (laughs).

Elle (48:01):
Mmm, yeah, context is really important when people are like, "Oh, porn is, you know, leading to trafficking." I, I think about how maybe these people didn't have the same history class I did. Or they don't know or remember that people have been selling their children for thousands of years. So-

Kayla (48:20):
Wow. Like even, even something like a dowry, like in marriage, right, (laughs), is kind of, kind of interesting thing to think about too. It's like-

Elle (48:28):
Yeah, "How hot is your daughter?" " How much land do I get?"

Kayla (48:32):
(laughs). Yeah, how much do you have to give somebody to take her off your hands? (laughs). And yeah, and then, like, misogyny and sexism and all of those sorts of things all come in, too. So I know everybody has to go and follow your Instagram and listen to your podcast, "They Talk Sex". Where else should people find you that we can put into the show notes?

Elle (48:55):
Yeah, ElleStanger.com is my anchor landing site, where hopefully I can never get kicked off by Zuck or Musk. Uh, so that is not updated often, but it leads to everywhere else you need to go. And that means podcasts, that means porn, that means writing, that means schedule. So find me at ElleStanger.com.

Kayla (49:17):
All right, thank you so much Elle, I'm gonna stop the recording. But thank you for being here, and I hope everybody checks you out and finds your other features.