The hard sell
Making the decision to put yourself on the market is not easy, says Fiona Russell Powell

So Magazine - 1997

The other day someone asked me if I'd ever hooked. 'Have I ever what?", I repeated incredulously. "You know, hooked, sold yourself, worked as a prostitute." "No way Jose, I could never do that", I put him straight firmly while privately reflecting that it was a shame given the amount of times I'd given it away for free. It's true though, it's a line I simply cannot cross; though I would have if I could have when I was younger. But I have always carried this belief, an innate knowledge that I could never come back from hiring my body out. In spite of the many justifications served up by working girls and pornographers alike, I'm convinced that the objectification of one's self most damage the psyche in some way. To look at yourself as a commodity up for grabs if the price is right is so wrong; it's dehumanising. I'm sure that if you didn't start off as damaged, you will leave the sex industry feeling shop-soiled at the very least, and broken and bitter more often than not. I used to be very good friends with Pamella Bordes, the former beauty queen who became notorious at the end of the eighties as the House of Commons call girl. I think I was her only friend who wasn't a tart and she fascinated me. Drop-dead-gorgeous, clever and very good at her job, she was always in control. She had evolved her own little philosophy of life, tailor-made to assuage any qualms she may have had about the path she had chosen. I remember one of her favourite home-spun aphorisms: "Let me tell you a thing or two about life, Fiona. All men are bastards and they will fuck anything once. And all women are whores. Those that say they're not, are; and those that aren't wish they were." I would concede that she might have too bad a point there but God, what a cold way of looking at things. She could not understand why I never took up the nice little earners she offered to throw my way. You see, I had no moral objection to being a whore and all power to the girls that manage it, but I just balked at the whole sordid pretence that seemed to be involved.

Anyway, my friend's rather surprising question brought back a memory, one which had long since faded from my mental picture album. It was the only time when I was so desperate for cash that I very nearly did enter the oldest profession. Picture this: 1978, Sheffield, flares are still in and Confessions of a Window Cleaner is doing big business at the adult. cinema in Attercliffe. I was fifteen, a teenage runaway living with my art student boyfriend who was trying to support both of us on a home grant. Impossible, of course, and it was not uncommon for us to go to bed hungry. As I was underage and on the run, I could not sign on or look for legitimate work. Then, one day, I saw an advert in the local paper for 'trainee masseuses, no references necessary.' All innocence, I replied and went for an interview, scheduled ominously for late evening. I began to feel a bit uneasy when I reached the sauna on the other side, the wrong side, of town. The establishment itself was run-down and seedy, over-heated and full of bead curtains and half-empty bottles of baby oil warming up on the calor gas heater in the reception. The place appeared to be manned by two clapped out old tarts, one a grim-faced frizzy permed brunette, the other a bottle-blond with centre-parted black roots who looked uncannily like Bet Lynch. "Mr Michael will be with you in a minute, luv", said Bet, the more friendly of the 'girls', thirty-five if she was a day. She sat me down with a 'glamour' magazine and it dawned on me what the job might entail. But Gordon and I had not eaten that day and there was a lovely pair of strappy gold sandals in Dolcis I had been lusting after for weeks. Bet outlined in clumsy euphemisms the requirements of the job. Basically, it was hand-relief with an extra fiver if you took your top off. "Oh, I don't know if I could do that", I said. "You do it for your boyfriend, don't you, luv?" I nodded. "Well, just think of it like that, only you're getting paid for it instead. Believe me, it's easy, it's just the first time that's hard. After that it's like shelling peas."

Just then, Mr Michael stuck his head through a bead curtain. He looked like Jason King and dripped with chic gold jewellery. "Ello luv, like to join me in the back for a chat?" He dismissed the girls and Bet mouthed "good luck" to me as she departed. Dutifully, I followed him into a dingy inner chamber with only a leatherette table upon which sat the ubiquitous bottle of baby oil. Mr Michael looked me up and down. "Oh what a smasher, you'll go down very well with our clientele, you could earn a lot of money. Are you sure you're sixteen?" "Yes" I lied. He looked dubious but didn’t push the point. He gave me the same as Bev, then came the humdinger. "You know what, luv, why don't you practice on me? I won't push you, you can start at any time. Just give me the word." I said I'd try, and I did, believe me. He told me to take off my shirt (a Fifties snake print from Oxfam) while he left I room to undress and fetch a fresh towel. I stood there semi-naked under the yellow light and suddenly realised I couldn't go through with it. I put my shirt back on just as Mr Michael returned with nothing but a towel wrapped round his waist and a stalk-on poking through. He was most reasonable; suggesting I discuss it with my boyfriend then let him let hims know if I changed my mind. It was all very civilised and he insisted upon driving me home. As we tooled along in his Merc, smoothly negotiating the areas with their terraced back-to and outside loos, Mr Michael turned to me with a dreadful leer. "You're not really sixteen, are you?" I knew it", he said in triumph. "I always tell a woman's age just by looking at her tits." He leaned conspiratorially closer. "One thing luv, I can tell you're a smart girl, and a smart girl keeps her mouth shut. D'you what I mean?" Oh yes, the message was loud and clear. I got out of I away from the pungent whiff of aftershave and the insinuation of violence hanging in the air. Then I waved goodbye to the opportunity to a career in vice. Instead, I grew up and became a journalist. Same difference some might say.