Sex, Money, and Pretty in Pink: Savitri's Story

By Irfan Yusuf

In today’s liberated and civilized world, we have turned sex into a commodity. It can be bought and sold. In the last few years, since brothels have been decriminalized, my home city of Sydney has seen the number of brothels increase ten-fold.

And don’t think it is just drug addicts who work in brothels as sex workers. Students, teachers, nurses, even lawyers can be found working there. Why do they do it?

I spoke to Savitri (her name has been changed for obvious reasons). Now Savitri is a typical Sydney sex worker. Why?

She dresses modestly. She has another career (believe it or not, she is a counselor!). She is educated, and articulate, and she is attractive. If you saw her in the street, you would never think she was a sex worker. And that is what makes her a typical sex worker.

From her name, you can tell she is Indian. Well, not quite. Her ancestry is Indian, but her mum is from South Africa and her dad is Welsh. She had a middle class upbringing and a fairly normal Australian childhood. Savitri’s parents split up when she was young and she ended up looking after herself and her siblings most of the time. One of her sisters used her substantial pocket money on boutique drugs that triggered a seven-year battle with paranoid schizophrenia.

At age 20, Savitri moved from the sleepy backwaters of Adelaide to the big smoke of Sydney. She spent her time like most young people do when they move to the big city. She spent six months staying in-bed at her aunt’s house feeling depressed. She had lost her job and had no money. Then she met a guy who dragged her out of her aunt’s bed. She fell in love. He loved her. Well, she thinks he did. Who knows?

He got into some trouble with the law and she was prepared to do anything to show her commitment. He needed representation and she didn’t know what to do about paying the lawyer’s fees. Then someone gave her an idea. Here is how Savitri rationalized her way into the sex industry:

“It would only be a few months’ work. ‘Pretty In Pink’ was a high-class place. The clients were mainly lawyers, judges, businessmen, financiers. Guys in suits. Most of them married or with girlfriends. I could work a few shifts a week, and earn around $100 an hour. One shift would pay for my boyfriend’s legal fees. After a few months, I would have enough for a bond, my textbooks and my college fees. A few months would not harm me.”

Five years later, Savitri was still working. Yes, in the meantime she had finished her counseling course and was working a few days a week doing locums. And she still spent her weekend evenings at various high-class places. How did it happen?

“I just got sucked in by the money. It was easy money. Most of the clients on a Friday and Saturday night are drunk. They usually fall asleep on me. The rest just want to talk and are lonely. Maybe only 40 percent want to have sex. It’s not that I am materialistic or anything. It’s just that I find it so much easier to make money this way.”

But what about the stigma of sex work? Does she tell anyone? Is it dangerous? What if she sees a client on the street or at a club?

“Once or twice when I went to the waiting room to introduce myself, I would see a familiar face. Once I saw an old friend from school. He asked me what I was doing there and I asked him the same question. He had just found out his girlfriend had cheated on him and now he wanted to cheat on her. He used me as the means to do so. Funny enough, we are still friends.

Some clients have asked me out on dates. Mostly they are regular clients. One guy even asked me to accompany him to a curry night!

One of my relatives saw me walking into a brothel. He rang up my mum and told her. You can just imagine what she thought. When she confronted me about it, I just denied it. We don’t talk about it now, except when we argue. I didn’t want to hurt her, and so I hid it from her. It is hard enough for her knowing that one daughter is schizophrenic. To know that the other works as a prostitute would just be too much for her. So I just keep denying it to her. She knows I am lying.”

Today, Savitri is slowly getting out of the industry and getting back to leading a more conventional lifestyle. She wants to study further. She also wants to settle down and have children. But how will she find a man? What happens if he finds out what she did earlier? How will she be able to sleep with him without comparing him to the hundreds of others who saw her?

“Life is so weird. I always promised myself I would never go out with a client. And now I am seeing three of them! They are actually giving me a lot of support in leaving the industry. One even visits me every now and then when I am working. I hate him seeing me wearing a wig and Marylin Monroe dress and working in a brothel. He says he does it deliberately to annoy me so I leave quicker.

I am lucky though. Most of my clients were nice people. I picked the three nicest and befriended them. I see them and talk to them regularly outside. Maybe I’ll pick one to be my partner. Or maybe I’ll go overseas and look elsewhere. Who knows? Maybe my mum has a nice Gujarati boy lined up for me in Durban!”

Savitri has learned plenty about men and about sex.

“One of my ex-client friends put it to me like this. Sex f#cks up your brain. Simple as that. And now that I look back on all my years in the industry, I can see he is right. It is so hard for me to separate sex and love. It is almost impossible for me to take a guy seriously when he does something nice for me. I immediately assume he just wants sex.

I would like to have kids one day. And a husband. But for some reason, I will always have to hide my sex work. Meanwhile, other girls who were happy to give sex to many guys for the cost of a few beers will still keep their good name. It’s just so hypocritical.”

And would Savitri allow her daughter to enter the industry?

“No way! I don’t want her to be as mixed up as her mother was. I want her to be able to demand commitment from a guy who wants to sleep with her. She won’t be able to do that if she works in the sex industry.”

So there you have it. From a veritable expert on sex. Is it any wonder, then, that just about every religious and ethical system seeks to regulate human sexuality? Sex does f#ck up and poison your brain. The only anti-dote to the poison is love, genuine commitment and contractual obligation in marriage. Even a prostitute can figure that out!