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Ask Audacia Anything 4

June 24, 2005

Yesterday after I wrote my raw anger post, I felt really purged of a lot of that anger. Although I’ve become increasingly emotionally restrained in my blog of late, for a variety of reasons, I felt that it was useful for me and my readers for me to lay my emotions bare around this thing that happened to me. This is partly because I love the power and draw of the blog (as I mentioned yesterday) but also because I write about sex, and unfortunately painful accidents can be part of sex.

After my online public emotional purge I left the house and didn’t check email for another twelve hours. I went off to a $pread editors meeting, got a phone call from my brother (who’s in Spain right now), and then met up with the brilliant and lovely ladies Jane and Ellen and went to Jersey to be a guest speaker in Ellen’s human sexuality class at Rutgers University.

It was a good day, as was today – and despite the fact that I’m a little slow moving and have to sit down carefully, I’m feeling a lot better in my brain.

Anyway – onto this week’s Ask Audacia. In the talk I did at Rutgers last night, I basically went through a run down of what the average week looks like for me. I started out by talking about my work with $pread Magazine (issue 2 out soon!) and then asked the class what kind of jobs they think of when they think of the sex industry. From there I went through the play by play of my professional lives. In between days, there were a lot of really fantastic questions, and here’s one of my favorites…

If you could improve one thing about the sex industry – other than decriminalizing prostitution – what would you do?

Plain and simple: health care. Of course in American society in general I think health care could stand for some major improvements in terms of access, acceptance of alternative lifestyles (I can’t believe I just used that phrase), and sliding scale fees depending on income. Though of course obtaining health care is difficult for an independent worker or freelancer in any industry, it’s pretty crucial that sex workers – especially those who provide services that include sexual contact with customers – have access to good, unbiased health care. For those who do have insurance, it’s unfortunate that most insurance carriers don’t cover more than one pap smear a year and that most companies red flag files if the insurance carrier has more than one HIV test in a year, which could make it more difficult to obtain coverage if a new insurance provider is needed. Although testing is required in the adult film industry, the majority of companies don’t pay for their employees’ tests ($150 every 30 days for the standard set of tests, plus a lab fee and any extra tests like a throat culture).

Anyway, I know this is basically empty bitching because I don’t necessarily have a workable solution to this problem that keeps the government out of our pants but enables sex workers to have access to health care without shame and without a heavy financial toll on our existence. But, if I had a magic wand, I would make health care better in general, and specifically with respect to sex workers.

Posted by Dacia at June 24, 2005 11:02 PM

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Comments

The issue of files being flagged for more than one test a year is troublesome for people with a non-monogamous lifestyle too. If they really want to slow the spread of HIV and other STIs they really need to make it acceptable to get tested more often than once a year. As usual, the religious reich (and other conservatives) are asking for two conflicting objectives - less STIs but also less safer sex education and less testing. (I know they think we’ll just have less sex but that’s the stupidest thinking I ever heard.)

Hmm, I just realized that the testing issue is more a question of money for the insurance companies. If they see you as high risk for HIV they don’t want anything to do with you due to the costs associated with treating it if you do become ill. Of course, earlier detection could reduce the spread and thereby the cost. They can’t see more than two feet ahead of them apparently.

Posted by: Nadia at June 25, 2005 07:45 AM

Health cards for everyone. Just like in Canada. Supposedly, the taxes are worse here, but I’ve lived in the US and Canada and I don’t see a difference.

Posted by: Carlton at June 25, 2005 10:52 PM

Posted by: number at January 25, 2006 11:39 PM

Posted by: dawned at March 7, 2006 12:16 AM

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