LAST CHANCE to grab your seat for the online, live taping of Sex Gets Real to celebrate our 200th episode. Enter to join us here. It happens on March 22nd at 5pm Pacific, so this is your last chance.

This week Dawn Serra is chatting with author Juniper Fitzgerald and artist Elise Peterson who created the book, “How Mamas Love Their Babies” – published by Feminist Press.

The book is the first children’s book to feature a sex worker and it’s brilliant.

So, Juniper, Elise, and Dawn talk about sex working mothers, the realities of being a new mom, why this book is so important, and what they learned along the way. Sex work should not be stigmatized and you are not a better feminist for not consuming sex work. Let’s talk about why.

Want to hear the funny bonus chat about Juniper and Elise’s favorite memories from sex work? Well, pop over to Patreon and if you support the show at $3 and above, you can tune into all the bonus content from each week.  patreon.com/sgrpodcast

This episode is brought to you by HIMS. HIMS is an online men’s wellness service that allows you to consult with a doctor and get treatment for hair loss, skincare, and sexual wellness all within minutes at a fraction of the cost. And, listeners get a special rate of $5 for your first month if you head to forhims.com/real. Check it out now!

Follow Sex Gets Real on Twitter and Facebook. It’s true. Oh! And Dawn is on Instagram.

About Juniper Fitzgerald:

Juniper is a mother, writer, academic, and former sex worker. Her work appears in Tits and Sass, Mutha Magazine, Pacific Standard, SeaFoam Magazine and others. She has a forthcoming essay in the anthology, The Red Umbrella Babies, is the author of the first children’s book to talk about sex work, How Mamas Love Their Babies, out by the Feminist Press, and is currently compiling a work of auto-theory on motherhood, sex work, and feminism.

About Elise Peterson:

Elise R. Peterson is a writer, visual artist and on camera personality living and working in New York. Writing clips have appeared in Adult, PAPER MAGAZINE, ELLE, LENNY LETTER, and NERVE among others.  Her written work doubles as storytelling and investigating the nuance of identity and sexuality as it relates to marginalized communities.

 

Her multidisciplinary visual work is informed by the past, reimagined in the framework of the evolving notions of technology, intimacy and cross-generational narratives. Socially, it is her aim to continue to use art as a platform for social justice while making art accessible for all through exhibitions of public work and beyond.

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Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: You’re listening to Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra, that’s me. This is a place where we explore sex, bodies, and relationships, from a place of curiosity and inclusion. Tying the personal to the cultural where you’re just as likely to hear tender questions about shame and the complexities of love, as you are to hear experts challenging the dominant stories around pleasure, body politics, and liberation. This is about the big and the small, about sex and everything surrounding it we don’t usually name. The funny, the awkward, the imperfect happen here in service to joy, connection, healing, and creating healthier relationships with ourselves and each other. So, welcome to Sex Gets Real. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.

Hey listeners, welcome to this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. I want to start by saying there’s just a few days left to grab a spot to join me, and dozens of others, for a live online taping of Sex Gets Real. We are celebrating 200 episodes and 4 million downloads. So if you want to be live with me online, Thursday, March 22, at 5pm Pacific. You can join anonymously, you can ask me questions, we’re going to laugh and answer questions, and share stories all in real time. And then, I will release that as an episode of the show. Please head to the show notes for this episode and to dawnserra.com for more details and to throw your name in the hat. Because I would love to have so many of you there to help me celebrate. 

Dawn Serra: I’m also ridiculously excited about this week’s episode with Elise Peterson and Juniper. They created this incredible book – it’s a children’s book that’s all about mamas. And it’s the first children’s book to ever feature a sex worker. The conversation is really rich and juicy. And something really fun for our Patreon supporters, Elise and Juniper are both former sex workers, and they share some pretty hysterical stories about their time as sex workers. So if you support the show at $3 or above, you’ll get access to that bonus content and all of the other bonus content for previous episodes. So, just head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to either support the show or if you’re already a supporter, thank you. You can hear the yummy, funny bonus about sex work stories there. 

So let me tell you a little bit about these two. And then, you can hear all about teaching kids about sex work and the politics of motherhood. It’s a really, really, really interesting conversation that I think you’re really going to like. So Juniper is a mother, writer, academic, and former sex worker. Her work appears in Tits and Sass, Mutha magazine, Pacific Standard, Seafoam magazine, and others. She has a forthcoming essay in the anthology, The Red Umbrella Babies. She’s the author of the first children’s book to talk about sex work, “How Mamas Love Their Babies,” which is out by Feminist Press. And she is currently compiling a work of auto-theory on motherhood, sex work, and feminism. Whoa. 

Dawn Serra: Elise R. Peterson is a writer, visual artists, and on-camera personality, living and working in New York. Her writing clips have appeared in adult paper magazine, Lenny letter and Nerve among others. Her written work doubles as storytelling and investigating the nuance of identity and sexuality as it relates to marginalized communities. Her multidisciplinary visual work is informed by the past, reimagined in the framework of the evolving notions of technology, intimacy, and cross generational narratives. Socially, it is her aim to continue to use art as a platform for social justice, while making art accessible for all through exhibitions of public work and beyond. 

So, people are always asking for books that are for young folks and this book is beautiful. Elise did the artwork and Juniper wrote it. And it’s all about different kinds of mamas. We talk about why Juniper chose the word mamas and how tough it was for her to use that word and when it leaves out. But also the importance of including the different types of labor that mamas do with their bodies, including sex work so that young children can understand. And we can reduce the shame and the stigma around people who do sex work. So here is my conversation with Juniper and Elise. 

Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Juniper and Elise. I am so excited to talk with the two of you about “How Mamas Love Their Babies,” which is put out by Feminist Press. So, welcome. 

Both: Thank you.

Dawn Serra: You’re so welcome. Okay, so Feminist Press is a publishing company that I adore. I’ve had several of their authors on the show over the years. I think they’re doing such incredible work in the world. And of course, this story and this art is so stunning. So, for anybody listening who has a young person in their life, this is hardcover children’s book that’s all about mamas and their babies. And it’s the first kids’ book that features a sex worker, which I think is long, painfully overdue and we need much more of it. But, I would love it if either of you just told listeners a little bit about the book and what they can expect from it.

Juniper Fitzgerald: Maybe I’ll start and then I would love it for Elise to jump in. But, I have been thinking about writing a children’s book that portrays a sex working parent for longer than I’ve actually been a mother. And so, this book not only talks about sex working mothers, but also addresses many different forms of stigmatized labor that femme presenting people often engage in that we rarely talk about.

Elise Peterson: And I have not long since dreamed of illustrating a book for children. The portrayed sex working mothers, however, I jumped at the opportunity to participate. When I connected with the Feminist Press and they brought me Juniper’s words, I just was really blown away. And, I think taking on this project, I was not yet a mother, in the process became a mother. So that was a really beautiful, full circle moment for me. And then also being able to bring to life Juniper’s words and being a part of history, which totally I hadn’t realized when we jumped onto the project.

Dawn Serra: So, I was reading as much as I could about the two of you and this book in preparation for our conversation and I read, Juniper, that you have worked as a stripper and occasional escort, a porn producer, a peep show performer. You did some work with Madison Young, who’s been on the show. And, one of the things that you noticed was that the there were lots of people you worked with, within the various aspects of sex work, who were mothers. 

What’s so fascinating to me as other than Madison Young, I’ve had numerous sex workers on the show and motherhood and parenting is something that has not really come up. And it occurred to me because of your book, how invisible sex work and sex working mothers are in our culture. So I’d love to hear a little bit more about why do you think they’re invisible and why we need to make them visible.

Juniper Fitzgerald: Those are really amazing observations and really beautiful questions. And, I will start by saying I recently wrote a piece for the incredible online magazine Tits and Sass And I remember when I first got a job stripping, I was barely 20 years old and there was a woman in the back room, I will never forget her, who was nursing a fat lip. She had just been smacked in the face by her partner. And, I will never forget her talking about how the only reason she would not leave him is because she had children with him and he would use her sex work against her in court. 

So that was the first time that I was ever really exposed to this world of sex working parents. A world that, like you said, is very much silenced and invisible. And, to bring that back to progressive circles, I guess, I think a lot about Terry Gross’s now infamous program where she had a sex worker on her show. And prior to interviewing this particular sex worker gave a listener warning for people with small children, as if even just mentioning sex work is so anti-thetical to being a parent or having children present for that conversation. So, I think it’s very much wrapped up in historical ideas about sex, and particularly, femme presenting bodies and how we just generally, in our society, want to silence and make invisible bodies that make children. We make children and then we want to forget about how those children were made in the first place.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, I feel like our culture has, well, there’s so many things. But, our culture has a tendency to make invisible so many different bodies and identities. To both de sexualize and to criminalize disabled bodies and black bodies, and Muslim bodies, and sex worker bodies and just in general femme and women’s bodies. It’s just one of those places that I think is so fascinating that people feel so scared of, when absolutely there’s age appropriate ways to talk about really big issues. I mean, Anastasia Higginbotham and her Ordinary Terrible Things series with Feminist Press is exploring some of those big topics. But ,I just think that it’s so important to name this thing of talking about sex work and acknowledging people who do sex work is not, in some way, inherently anti-child or abusive or harmful. It’s, I don’t know, it’s really frustrating to me, frankly. But, what do you wish more people knew about sex work and motherhood? 

Elise Peterson: Well, first I would say I would be a liar if I said that when I started this project, I didn’t think, “What the fuck? How are we going to make a children’s book about sex work?” More so, how am I going to create visuals of sex work that are for children? That just seemed so counterintuitive for me. And so, there was a lot of unlearning that I had to do in the process as well. And, because it is a reality for so many – for so many children, and so many families. So what are the visuals that stand out when we’re talking about sex work? Obviously, I’m not going to depict an escort servicing a client in the bedroom for kids. But, maybe someone is used to seeing their moms’ Lucite heels in the closet. And so, those are the visual triggers that could represent sex work for children. 

So I think for me, that was a really big – this project allowed me to reimagine sex work and through the lens of children. Because although I worked with a lot of sectors, and there’s my child, who are also mothers or were mothers at the time, I had it really considered their perspective. or maybe some of the things that they were dealing with. So, definitely a learning curve for me as well.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. And, what are your thoughts in addition to this wonderful book? What are some ways that – I am constantly encouraging people who have young people in their lives, adults who have young people in their lives – to talk about body parts and to talk about touch, and consent and taking up space and boundaries. From the youngest of ages, building in the framework that you’ll need to be able to navigate conversations and relationships down the road. And so, how can we, as adults who are trying to create a less oppressive world and more just an equitable world, also including those conversations, things about sex work?

Juniper Fitzgerald: Well, I just want to start by saying that I think it is so beautiful to be able to hear Elise’s little baby background. I love that so much. So that, to me, is so representative of the messy parts of being a parent and how those messy parts of being a parent just really connect us back to our humanity. I truly believe that. So when we’re talking about social justice and sex workers’ rights, I think we also have to hold space in our hearts for all of the messy things that happen in life, which is something that I don’t think a lot of anti-sex work stances keep in their heart when they talk about sex work. 

A lot of a people who are anti-sex work, I think, ignore the really nuanced, complicated, messy parts of being a human who exists under white supremacist, capitalist, hetero, patriarchy.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. One of the things that comes through so beautifully in your book, as well, is the ways that mamas use their bodies to work and to care. And, something that I just thought tied so beautifully to so many of the questions that I get here on the show is, I work with so many women specifically, and get questions from women who are really concerned about libido and desire, and not wanting sex as often as they think they “should.” And, when we start doing some digging, we often find that there’s loads of emotional labor and caretaking, and tending that’s happening in the relationships; and this unpaid labor that women specifically in our culture have to navigate is something that is deeply invisible and or undervalued by so many. 

So I’d love to talk a little bit about emotional labor and also sexual labor. What are those things? And how can we start noticing them more in our lives?

Elise Peterson: Oh my goodness. So literally, this is a conversation that I have with my son, even though he’s eight weeks old, every day. Literally today, we were on set for the shoot and we’re both working and I needed to change his diaper and he’s crying. And, he really just wants me to hold him. And I’m like, “But mommy doesn’t get paid to hold you. I mean, I wish I did. I wish I could just get paid to be your mother and I would do it. That would be the only thing I would do. But unfortunately, I have to do a lot of other things.” So, that is something that I’m, now on a daily basis, grappling with and a new facet to my life is the emotional labor of being a mother when you’re like, “Yeah, I’ve been inside all day, but I’m drained. And I’m not quite feeling like I have control over my emotions the way maybe I did before having a child,” or “I’m just tired.” 

So all of those things, I think, are really difficult to navigate and can be extremely isolating. When we’re talking about the balance, yeah, the balance of motherhood. And then also, oh my god, I don’t really have the desire to have sex anymore. I literally have searched this on some mother message boards like, “Is anyone having sex yet?” And women are like, “I’m 12 weeks postpartum. Nope. No desire at all.” I’m not the only one but it’s also really disappointing, actually, for me in a way because I consider myself to be a highly sexual person prior to giving birth. And so, it’s all those very I guess nuanced facets of self that you, in a way, feel like you’ve lost or you’ve had to alter now. And I don’t think that we have enough dialogue about those things like, “Hey, are you masturbating?” “Hey, how are you emotionally?” When those things take up space and take up our day, and then we still have to show up for our children and show up for other people. And a lot of times, that’s at the cost of showing up for ourselves, which is really tough. 

Dawn Serra: Yes.

Juniper Fitzgerald: Yeah, I’m four years postpartum and I absolutely have no sex drive. So I can relate.

Elise Peterson: No!

Juniper Fitzgerald: I mean, I guess I shouldn’t say I have no sex drive. I think that sex is extremely different for me now. And I think there is something to be said for the immense profound amount of emotional labor that it takes to be a mother, particularly. At the end of the day, it’s just like, “God, I could have sex or I could sleep.” And I definitely know which one I’m going to choose. And at this point, I actually don’t even remember what the initial question was. But yeah, sex is difficult after having children.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, and I just want to name, too, that because we live in a culture that highly prizes toxic masculinity and patriarchy, that often there’s a tremendous amount of guilt associated with it. Because, so many men feel entitled to their partners’ bodies and to sex as if partners and I’m being a little harsh around this because I know there’s a lot of men who are very loving and caring of their partners, and still kind of have this underlying expectation. But, kind of this belief that partners are vending machines that are supposed to dole out sex. And when we are in a variety of situations in our lives, sometimes that’s just not where we are. 

I think there’s a lot of guilt that gets placed on women when they “don’t want sex enough.” And I think that that sexual labor is something that’s very invisible inside of heterosexual relationships, especially.

Juniper Fitzgerald: Yeah. I would say, to all of your listeners, that being a femme person and only having sex with other femmes is definitely the way to go.

Elise Peterson: Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve given up on having sex with other women. But, I still have hope for first sex with my male partner. However, I would say I get a lot less pressure from the outside and more so from the inside. And I’m sure that’s because of the conditioning of our society. But for me, I felt like, “Oh my god, I have stretch marks on my stomach now.” I remember I bought my first sexy bra postpartum. Because I was like, “I have got to do something to feel good about myself.” And, I had not expected to feel like that at all. I didn’t feel sexy and I didn’t feel attractive. And I felt the sexiest and the most attractive when I was pregnant. So, it was a huge shift for me in my own thought process and how I was processing how I looked to myself into the world. 

I think for me, that was the biggest thing and that’s also something that I think more and more, now, women have to deal with – with social media and everyone snaps back and looks amazing after having a baby. No, I didn’t. I still look five months pregnant.

Dawn Serra: Your body’s doing whatever it needs to do, and that’s okay.

Elise Peterson: Yes, and that’s what everyone tells you. And you want to be like, “Yeah, shut up. It doesn’t matter.” I don’t have ankles and I don’t have knees and I didn’t look like this before.

Dawn Serra: Changing bodies, man. They give us feelings. So, something else that I would really love for us to talk about is, so many people in my audience are queer, trans – somewhere under the LGBTQTIAA umbrella. And so we’re frequently talking about inclusion and gender and pronouns. You are very deliberate about using the word “mama” for this book. So “How Mamas Love Their Babies,” and throughout the book, it’s about the relationship that mamas have. And I’d love to hear a little bit about the thought process and the decisions to use that word.

Juniper Fitzgerald: So I’ve actually been asked that a few times and it was a really difficult decision for me to make, particularly, as a person who does not generally have sex with cis men. But, the use of the word mama – I think, mama can be a catch-all word for femme presenting people. And so, I wanted to highlight femme experiences, specifically, because although non-binary parents and trans men who are parents, and also working in the sex industry, of course face a great deal of stigma. But, the intersection of hetero-patriarchy and sexism – how that impacts particularly femme presenting sex workers is something that I really wanted to stick to, even though it was a difficult decision. Because I mean, we see every year on December 17th, we have a memorial for sex workers around the globe who we have lost to violence; and most of these sex workers are femme presenting. So, the world of sex work is different, I think, marketly different for femme presenting people. So that’s why I decided to stay with the word mama, although it really was a difficult decision to make.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Elise, I know that as an artist, you’re very interested in storytelling, especially around identity and marginalized communities. And I’d love to hear more about the ways that we can use storytelling in our own personal lives for grappling with identity and the feelings that we have, about the ways we move through the world and the relationships that we’re in.

Elise Peterson: Yeah.

Dawn Serra: It’s a simple question. Just a little one.

Elise Peterson: It’s a simple question. Being a black woman, and I think especially within African-American culture, as it then relates back to African culture, the African diaspora storytelling is inherently a part of who we are and how we’ve communicated. And so, I thought it’s just incredibly important to share truth and to document truth. Because there tends to be nothing more fascinating than the truth, in my opinion. So in my visual work, even outside of illustrating books, I constantly, secretly actually record my family members and our conversations. 

I mean, I can really just – I would speak from my personal perspective, when I became pregnant, literally at the same time, I had lost my biological father, who I hadn’t met until I went to his funeral. And so for me, I had to grapple with so much of the weight of a part of myself that I had not known and that I had to get to know now, without my dad being there. So I think it’s important for us to face the murkiest parts of self and find ways to level with that. And that doesn’t always look like a nice, neat resolve. Sometimes it’s just acceptance. Because it all makes up who we are. And for me, grappling with something like death of a parent, especially a parent that I didn’t have a relationship with, helped me to better understand myself, having conversations with family members.

Elise Peterson: I mean, I think that dialogue is the only way to make true change. In this world, we have to start talking to each other and most importantly, we have to start listening. And once I really started listening, I was able to hear things about myself and other people in their truth. Some good, bad, and otherwise that was important for me to hear, especially coming into parenthood. So yeah, I think that’s what’s important is for people to have these conversations because I think we’ll learn so much about self and listening to others. And the connective tissue that holds us all together.

Dawn Serra: So, you mentioned that, and we have heard already, Elise, that during this project, you became pregnant and now you have your beautiful baby there with you. And, Juniper, I know you mentioned that you’ve had a hysterectomy during the creation of this book. And so, the two of you are navigating changes in body and so many of my listeners have fear or are struggling with changing bodies, either menopause or surgery or disability or pregnancy. I’d love to know where you are in relationship to your body as it’s been going through the changes in the way that you experience it now.

Juniper Fitzgerald: So I’ve been a chronically-ill person, most of my life. And, this chronic illness resulted in an emergency hysterectomy as we were working on this book. So I had a full hysterectomy and had many of the emotional waves that Elise was talking about post-pregnancy. So it was, I mean, a spiritual experience in one sense – going through this process of a particular kind of birth that didn’t produce a child, but it was a birthing nonetheless. And my body has certainly changed as a result. I have been in and out of menopause twice now, which is extremely rough on the body. I actually identify as a cis woman, a queer cis woman. But I had to take large amounts of testosterone in order to fend off my chronic illness. And so, I had a bit of hair loss on my head and a bit of hair growth on my chin. 

So, I would describe my body now – I was a stripper for a really long time and I had this super hot bod. And, now I would describe my bod as a dad bod, which is also hot in its own way. But, grappling with those changes just over the course of a couple of years is pretty remarkable. But finding new ways of understanding beauty is quite a gift.

Elise Peterson: Wow, I totally commend you, Juniper. I am over here upset about a C-section scar and some stretch marks. But I think, like I said before, I actually felt surprisingly amazing pregnant, which was actually kind of gross. I got hit on a lot more, which is not what made me feel so amazing, but it was some weird confirmation. But the way I’m feeling when people see it, too, because I felt super fucking hot. But, I think for me a huge adjustment that I had to make even before having my child was during labor. I had dreamed of this home-birth and I was going to wear this white dress and we had candles, and the playlist and the whole bit, and it was going to be magical, which it still was. But, I had not prepared for my body to not work in that way and ended up being in labor for four days. And then, ended up having an emergency C-section. Of course, nothing goes to plan because we are not in control. Surprise. 

I had never had major surgery before. So I was not emotionally equipped, one, to give birth in the hospital. But, two, to have a C-section; and what that meant trying to care for and love my baby the few days postpartum, and I can barely walk. And so, that was really a difficult adjustment for me was healing from surgery and healing from that experience. And then, having the energy to love and care for my child, when it was really difficult to love and care for self. I mean, I wore pants in front of my partner for the first couple of days, which sounds ridiculous. But because my legs were so swollen from surgery, they look like tree logs. And so, I just had a really tough, tough, tough time adjusting to how my body looks because I felt like I looked unrecognizable, which I’m sure is such an exaggeration. But we are our own worst critics. 

Elise Peterson: For me, that was really difficult, especially when a lot of the work I also do is on camera work. So I expected to look perfect within a couple weeks so that I could be back on camera and look like I never had a baby to begin with, which is so incredibly unfair to myself.

Dawn Serra: If you’ve listened to this show for more than five minutes, you know how I feel about penis size, raging hard cocks, and toxic masculinity. You know, my mantra is: “You are not broken. You do not need to be fixed. Your body is never something to apologize for.” And I also know that sometimes surviving in this world is tough. We need to take care of ourselves if we want to show up for the things and the people we love. The Man-box means men are much less likely to go to the doctor, to seek therapy, and to get help with the things that are bothering them. So what if you could get help with hair loss, skincare, and sexual wellness without ever having to take time off work or leave home? Hell, what if you could do it all from your phone in just a few minutes? Hims a one stop shop for hair loss, skincare, and sexual wellness for men. Hims connects you with real doctors and medical grade solutions to treat those very things. Because if addressing your fears and concerns about your body gives you the confidence to be a better lover, both in and out of the bedroom. Then let’s make that happen in a way that’s ridiculously easy for you. Order now. 

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Dawn Serra: Something else that I think comes through very much in this conversation around changing bodies and motherhood and sex work, too, is… And it ties back to what you said, Juniper, about how our messiness is actually what connects us to our humanity. But as a culture, we’re not really equipped to navigate messiness and this place of how our bodies can be nurturing and sexual at the same time, or sick and sexual at the same time. or sick and nurturing at the same time. And how, as a culture, we tend to either put people in the nurturing parent category or as a sexual being that’s separate from that. 

I love to roll around in that a little bit with you of the different ways that we can experience and be in our bodies and the different things that they can do, and how we erase that in our culture.

Juniper Fitzgerald: Well, I would just, I guess, like to start out by saying that my chronic illness was not – the extent of the illness was not discovered until I was having sex with my former girlfriend. And it was while we were having sex that I doubled over in pain and started puking and needed to go to the emergency room. And it’s there that they found that I was in stage four of endometriosis. So, it’s really quite beautiful that having sex with a woman under a hetero-patriarchy probably saved my life. Particularly when I think about how my illness was able to grow for so long. I’ve been in chronic pain my whole life and never believed, and likely because I am a femme. 

Our pain and our illness, both of those things, are often thought of as we’re exaggerating them or we’re being dramatic. So, just the poetics of fucking a woman and finally feeling vindicated in my pain and my illness, and having a surgery, an emergency surgery that saved my life probably.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, that denial of pain, I think, is so real. So many of us, I think, can relate to that. For people who are listening, I have gotten a number of questions the past couple of months, not only from people who are considering sex work, but more interestingly and specifically; I’ve gotten several emails from mothers, who are considering going into escorting or porn or camming. And they’re worried about what that could mean as a mother. I am not equipped to offer advice. And so, I try to hold questions like that for people who might be able to speak to that with a little bit more experience and wisdom. 

So, if either of you have anything that you would like to share, if there’s a mother out there of a child who’s considering entering into sex work, anything that you want to offer advice, thoughts, words of warning, that might help people who are in that “Should I? Shouldn’t I?” place to decide.

Elise Peterson: Like I said before, I was not a mother when I did work as a professional dom. But for me, I had a ton of fun at work for the most part. I mean, it was probably the most honest space I’ve ever existed in was in the dungeon. Because, when we’re talking about pleasure, we can’t really police pleasure and a space like a dungeon. You want what you want. So, that, I appreciated it. But however, I think that – at least I was very ill-informed about the emotional labor that goes into being a sex worker, specifically for me as a dom, because so much of that is just being a therapist. And I’m sure that’s the case for a lot of different sex work as well. It’s listening to people in their deepest, darkest secrets and issues and things they haven’t even shared with their partners. And, that was the reason why I got out of sex work, actually, was that I could no longer take on other people’s emotional baggage. 

I found myself crying in a session with a client and I was just like, “I cannot do this anymore.” I felt really drained. So I think that would just be my, I don’t want to call it a warning, but just something to give thought to is, I couldn’t imagine also then having to be emotionally available for my child while taking on the emotions of so many people at work.

Dawn Serra: Thank you.

Juniper Fitzgerald: I wouldn’t ever want to scare anybody or try to… I mean, I hope this doesn’t come across as further stigmatizing sex work. In fact, I hope this comes across more as a critique of cis men and the systems that are created in order to support them. But I actually did do a bit of sex work after having my child, and had a messy divorce with a cis man who was the father of my child. And I live in a pretty conservative state and it was pretty terrifying, actually, for a while. I had a lawyer who was really great, but she said, “In court, the thing that they are going to be focused on is – they’re going to try to prove that you were an escort. You’ve done all of these different kinds of sex work. And they’re going to try to prove that the majority of it was escorting work.” Because, of course, there is a whorearchy. There is lateral whore-phobia. 

There is way more stigma slung on people who do escorting work than, say, legal sex work like stripping. So the kind of lateral stuff, as well as the external hierarchies of sex work, really became obvious to me as I was going through my custody battle and it was not pleasant, obviously.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. So for people who aren’t familiar, can you just define a little bit about the whorearchy and the ways that certain types of sex work are seen as much more acceptable and/or offer a lot more privilege versus other types of sex work? I think some people who listen to the show might be familiar. But I’d love it if you would just offer a little recap for folks who are new to that language.

Juniper Fitzgerald: So I have a theory, actually. I think that the more masked the payment, the more socially acceptable the form of work. So, making a porn is legal, doing cam work is legal, being a stripper is legal. Selling sex is not legal. You can sell sex if you’re performing a sex act for money in the form of pornography, but you cannot sell sex in a hotel room. So, I guess my theory here is that the more closely that a sex act resembles these traditional ideas that we have of romance and love, the more likely it is to be socially sanctioned. Whereas the more the sex act is blatantly commodified, the more likely it is to be criminalized. And there are people even within the sex industry who perpetuate the idea that certain kinds of sex work is disgusting or unsavory or what have you. And, these ideas are certainly perpetuated by civilians who have not done sex work as well. So I’ll let Elise piggyback on that.

Elise Peterson: Yeah, and to piggyback, I think you’re absolutely right. I even felt like in the beginning– It’s interesting because when I got into being a dominatrix, I was like, “Okay, I don’t want to be a stripper only because I don’t want people that I know to be able to find me.” The average joe goes to a strip club and that’s totally acceptable now. So I was like, “I can be a stripper because no one can know that I’m doing this work.” And then, I didn’t want to be an escort because I was like, “Oh my gosh, gross. People have sex for money.” But I mean, that’s ridiculous. I mean, we also have sex for free and then that sometimes is awful, too.

Dawn Serra: Fact.

Elise Peterson: So, I thought that being a dom was going to be a happy medium for me. And then I found myself in positions where having any sort of fluid exchange is considered prostitution. So peeing on a client, spitting on a client is considered prostitution. And so, being really terrified in that space that, “Oh my gosh, we’re going to get rated and I’m going to get arrested and I’m going to have a prostitution charge on my record. How will I explain that to anyone in the future?” We’re in the present. And so, it’s just really complex. Again, there’s so much unlearning to be done. Because I had this false sense of safety coming into working as a dom that totally did not exist at all in how we were looked at from the outside, when you’re just doing a day’s work. So that was just something that came to mind when we were talking about this hierarchy and how for me, I totally got humbled on my ass the day that we were potentially getting rated and everyone’s freaking out. I wasn’t even working that day. I was coming to get clothes on my locker in between classes. And I was like, “Oh, my God, I’m going to get arrested for prostitution and I wasn’t even working today.” So it goes back to – how do we protect sex workers as a whole?

Dawn Serra: Yes, yes. So for people who are listening who are not sex workers, but probably consume the labor of sex workers in some way – they either watch camming or they watch porn, or they have in-person services with folks, how can we make the world a safer place for sex workers and how can we also start removing the stigma and lift the veil? I love asking this question because we need to be having this conversation every day. But, what are some ways that you think that non-sex workers can make the world a safer place and to remove stigma?

Juniper Fitzgerald: People really need to understand that these in-demand policies that are sweeping the United States right now are not helpful for sex workers. They are dangerous policies, even though they are framed as helping sex workers, helping survivors, helping sex trafficking victims. They’re actually about more policing, more policing in already over policed areas. They are about pushing marginalized sex workers even further to the margins. So, to be really conscious of these alleged progressive policies that are doing more harm than good, nothing – nothing more than decriminalization is the answer to the problem of violence against sex workers. So, a decriminalization framework which is different than legalization, which is markedly different than in-demand policies.

Dawn Serra: Yes, yes. Something else that I’ve talked about with other folks, too, is non-sex workers need to be coming out that they watch porn, that they watch camming, that they visit a dom, that they whatever it is, to start actually being the ones who are taking on some of the risk as well. So that we can not only have all of the attention and all of the risk placed on sex workers, but on the consumers. There’s far more consumers than there are producers in this field. 

Elise Peterson: Oh my god. Yes. That is exactly what I was going to say. People need to be honest. We wouldn’t be in business if we didn’t have people to service. Period. I was never at a shortage of clients in a dungeon that was supposed to be a secret and you had to know someone to know someone. Trust me, plenty of people knew someone to find their way to that dungeon. And billions of people are watching porn and consuming sex in so many different ways. I mean, we’re constantly seeing politicians who are anti-gay and anti-sex work. And then they’re getting caught in a gay scandal. And it’s like, how about we just be honest with self?

I think, again, if more people could live in their truth, which apparently is a really difficult thing to do, I think it would be a lot easier for everyone. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah.

Juniper Fitzgerald: I was just going to add, I think, oftentimes when I’m having conversations like these I think about what Meghan Murphy would say in response to what we’re talking about. Meghan Murphy is a vehement anti-sex work “feminist.” And so, I would add to this conversation that we’re having, that even for people who don’t watch porn or don’t pay for the services of sex workers, that does not make them morally superior and it’s actually not more of a feminist act to not engage in the sex industry. It’s not more of a feminist act to refrain from watching pornography. So, to get rid of those hierarchies as well. I think it’s important.

Dawn Serra: I love that so much. Yes. Oh, my God. I’m going to turn that into a quotable for sure. I think that we can allow people to decide whether or not they want to engage with certain things without vilifying people who are making different choices. And, also make sure that for those of us that are consuming, that we’re doing so ethically. That we’re paying for the porn we watch, that we’re paying into being cam workers, that we’re treating people with respect and not expecting full access to their personhood, and also paying fair wages for people’s time. Because I can tell you, $10, $20, $30, $40, even $50 is not a fair wage for someone. So being able to be a little bit more honest about where our money in this capitalist system is going and who is supporting. 

So before we started, Elise, you brought up something that I thought was really fascinating, because one of the conversations that I engage in a lot is around self-care, specifically for people who are experiencing oppression and trauma, who are marginalized in some way. Self-care can be really, really tough, especially depending on how much access to financial security you have and the body that you’re in. And you had mentioned that one of the things that you’ve been trying to navigate is, as a working mom, who’s an entrepreneur, you don’t have the luxury of being given a paid maternity leave. Regardless of what kind of entrepreneur or employment status you have, if you’re not given that maternity leave that so many people in corporate get, it can be really challenging. And I’d love to hear a little bit more about how you’re grappling with that and navigating it, and trying to make space for that care of self.

Elise Peterson: Oh, man. I would say step one, I don’t care what kind of family structure you have. You have to have a community of people to support you when you have a child. It is like a necessity and I know many times it can be a luxury because some people are doing it by themselves. And I commend them. Because I would not have emotionally survived without my tribe, specifically of women, who’ve been able to support me in my transition into motherhood. And I’ll say, it was really difficult because I was on deadline for so many projects and I had a three week old son and people don’t care. They’re in your email like, “Hey, I need this. I need this.” And, there was a period of time in which I became really resentful of being a mother and the responsibility of that. Because prior to being a mother, so much of my identity was wrapped up in my work and the things that I make, and the things I create in my world was very centered around self. And that’s just impossible in motherhood to do that. You can make space for self, but I, personally, I couldn’t keep self at the center. And so, that was hard when I wasn’t given the proper time to bond and love my son, and just enjoy our time together. Every time he wanted to be held, I was frustrated because I needed my hands to do something else.

So that’s just, honestly, still an ongoing process for me because I’m now eight weeks postpartum and I haven’t had any time to breathe. I have to work. I have to keep working. Not just for me, but for him. And so, I’m learning now how to balance even if it’s just a moment to take a deep breath or not being afraid to ask for help. Even if that means, “Hey, I just want to go walk to the store. Can you watch my baby for a moment?” So I can have five minutes of fresh air and someone not attached to my body. So yeah, I’m still figuring that part out. But I do know that it’s a necessity and it’s a constant conversation that I’m having where I think that eventually I will have to take a year off. So I can just breathe and enjoy what I’ve worked so hard on, which is creating a whole human.

Dawn Serra: Yes. I’m wondering for both of you, when we’re talking about sex work and sex, and bodies, part of the reason why people engage with sex workers is for pleasure. And part of the stigma is because we’re terrified of people with certain bodies, specifically, accessing pleasure. So I’d love to know for the both of you what does pleasure look like for you right now in your lives?

Juniper Fitzgerald: Oh my gosh, that’s such a loaded question. What does pleasure look like? I have found I am definitely a solo person right now and I’m really enjoying that. And way less sexual, I think I said that at the beginning of the show, way less sexual than I ever have been in my life. And it’s strange because now when I masturbate, I imagine the fantasies that I have are about projects I want to work on and pieces that I want to write, books that I want to write. So, somehow my attraction has changed and perhaps, in some ways, I’m becoming… to go off of what Elise was saying about coming back to the self or in motherhood, at least at the beginning of motherhood, not having the ability to do so. So in some ways, even my sex life is focused on returning to the self, which I have a four year old, so it’s much easier to do than having a little newborn baby.

Elise Peterson: That makes me feel so much better than traditionally non-sexual things turn you on. Because the very first thing to come to mind was money, which probably is awful like capitalism at its finest. But, I really like making money. And so, that really does it for me these days. Also, projects really do it for me these days. Being able to be creative again. I’m working on illustrating my second book now and I literally could not – I’ve been putting this off for months because I just didn’t have that part of myself – that creative part of myself just was not functioning until recently, which is a new space for me, too. Because I mean, I used to be a sex worker. I’ve always been a highly sexual person. I did not even masturbate until five weeks postpartum. And I couldn’t even watch porn when I was masturbating, which is just unheard of for anyone who knows me. I like to use my imagination, which is new.

I think pleasure now just looks different. I find pleasure in little things in moments with my son and making greater opportunities for both of us. And then, I hope soon– I’m sorry, I’m also laughing in my head because I was texting a friend right before I started this. And I said, “Well, I’m going to be on a sex podcast.” He was like, “You’re always talking about sex.” I was like, “I know. And I’m never having it.” He was like, “Yeah, exactly.” So, I hope to get back to sex at some point or have the desire to get back to sex because I do like it or I did, at least.

Dawn Serra: Well, we are about to go record a little bonus for our Patreon supporters. And we’re going to talk about sex workers stories and I’m going to request some fun stories out of the two of you from your times as sex workers and working with clients. So for people who support the show, be sure to tune in. Head over to Patreon to grab that bonus. But in the meantime, I would love it if both of you would share, one, where people can get the book and, two, how they can stay in touch with both of you online and follow along with the work that you do.

Juniper Fitzgerald: So you can get the book from the Feminist Press website, which is feminist press.org. I believe you can get it on mainstream websites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. 

Elise Peterson: Yeah, totally. 

Juniper Fitzgerald: And I’m on Twitter at @juniperfritz. So that’s how you can stay in contact with me.

Elise Peterson: And I am on Instagram at @elierpeterson and then my website is eliserpeterson.com.

Dawn Serra: Great. Well, I will have links, of course, to Feminists Press so that people can grab this book. I am constantly getting questions from people about what kinds of sex positive books they can get for their kids. So this will absolutely be on the list. So everyone, make sure you grab a copy of “How Mamas Love Their Babies,” the first ever kids book featuring a sex worker. It’s age appropriate and lovely and incredibly beautiful. To you, Juniper and Elise, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your wisdom and your stories. I know you’ve given everyone listening a lot to grapple with and think about, and I love it when that happens. So thank you for being here.

Juniper Fitzgerald: Thank you.

Elise Peterson: Oh my gosh, thank you so much. This was good. 

Dawn Serra: Great. To everybody listening, be sure to check the show notes and/or head to dawnserra.com to grab all the links, to get your copy of the book. Of course, you know, I love hearing from you so you can submit questions, anonymously if you’d like to, using the contact form at dawnserra.com. And Patreon supporters, don’t forget, head to Patreon. If you support at $3 a month or above, you get access to the weekly bonus content and we are off to talk about sex work. So thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you next week. Bye

Dawn Serra: A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured in this week’s intro and outro. Find them at vocalfew.com. Head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show and get awesome weekly bonuses. 

As you look towards the next week, I wonder what will you do differently that rewrites an old story, revitalizes a stuck relationship or helps you to connect more deeply with your pleasure?