Shownotes
In this episode we get to hear from none other than Carol Leigh (AKA: Scarlot Harlot), one of the OGs in the fight for sex workers' right and who's credited with coining the term "sex work." She tells us about how the term "sex work" came to be. We also talk about some sociolinguistics in the feminist movement as well as the anti-trafficking framework that dominates the way we think and talk about sex work.
Carol Leigh's Links:
Linktree: linktr.ee/CarolLeigh
Twitter: @carol_leigh
Instagram: @scarlot_harlot
Her Book: Unrepentant Whore: Collected Works of Scarlot Harlot
Things We Talk About:
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
Podcast Links:
Website: parkerwestwood.com/podcast/
Patreon: patreon.com/SexyGalaxyPod
Twitter: @SexyGalaxyPod
Transcripts
Parker
Welcome to a sex workers Guide to the Galaxy where the answer to life, the universe and everything is sex workers. I'm your host, Parker Westwood. And I am so happy to be back, it's been a while since I've posted I originally thought I was going to be taking about a month off and I ended up taking about two, two and a half months off from posting, and I just want to say thank you to all of you for giving me the space to do that I needed it. I do this thing where I just underestimate what sort of time, I'm going to need to do things and, and here I am. So, I needed a little bit more time to settle into my new home and get oriented than I thought I was going to, but I think this interview was worth the wait. Today I am bringing you an interview with the one and only Carol Leigh or Scarlot Harlot who has been a hero of mine in the fight for sex workers rights and in the creative process and all of that. She spent decades of her life in the fight for sex workers rights and has just made moves she's most known for coining the term sex work and we get to hear a little bit about that in the interview. We also talk about so the socio linguistics in the feminist movements, anti-trafficking rhetoric, and the framework in which we have to fight for sex workers rights, currently, and all sorts of other things. Her storytelling abilities are out of this world, I had such a wonderful time. The questions that I drafted for this interview were a total moot point, we didn't we didn't go anywhere near them, and I loved it, it was so much more fun than what I had envisioned. So, so there, or as my mother would say, sew buttons on your underwear. But before we get to the interview, I just want to say thank you for listening and if you'd like to further support the show, you can find us at Patreon at patreon.com/sexy Galaxy pod 50% of the Patreon proceeds goes towards the work of a network of sex workers to excite revolution or ANSWER Detroit. ANSWER Detroit is a collective of sex workers working towards the decriminalization and destigmatization of sex workers everywhere through harm reduction and mutual aid and you can check them out at ANSWER detroit.org. And if you're unable to financially support the show right now, or you just don't want to, that's totally cool, I'm glad you're here, glad you're listening, and feel free to tell your friends about it. That always helps and if you feel so inclined, a five star review wherever you listen to your podcasts is super helpful to get this podcast to other people, the algorithm likes it and the algorithm rules all. You can also follow us on Twitter at sexy Galaxy pod and I post podcast-ey things on my Instagram at Parker dot Westwood and I believe that's all of that stuff we have to cover. So, let's get on into the interview. Let's go. Alright, listeners, I'm really excited today because I'm coming to you with someone who I have really looked up to in the sex workers rights movement and we're just we're just gonna introduce you to somebody who I'm really excited to talk to. So, Carol Leigh, also known as Scarlot Harlot, welcome to the show.
Carol Leigh
Well, thanks so much Parker. I'm so glad to be here too and I'm so glad to meet you. So, I mean, I've I've seen your, your you know, the notes about your podcast and it always seemed amazing and thank you for inviting me.
Parker
I'm so happy to have you. Um the way we generally start the podcast is having the guest introduce themselves with a name, pronouns, where you're located, and what kind of sex work you do or have done.
Carol Leigh
What kind of sex work I have done, and, um, okay. Name Carol Leigh, pronouns she/they, located Aloni land San Francisco. What was the other question?
Parker
What kind of sex work you do or have done?
Carol Leigh
Oh, sex work. Well, um, let's see so mostly, I've done full-service kind of escort, prostitution, in call, worked in massage parlors, little bit of porn, um a fetish, worked at a fetish business for a while, haven't done webcam, it was a bit after I, my career was over.
Parker
Yeah.
Carol Leigh
Something else might come up but that's all I remember now.
Parker
Amazing. A multi, multi-talented woman.
Carol Leigh
I did, I only did dancing, stripping once at the Golden Banana in Peabody, Massachusetts. It was only one time, but it was memorable for me.
Parker
I bet you were wonderful. And how did you get started in sex work?
Carol Leigh
Well, you know, I mean, I feel like I trace it back to, I trace it back to my, my youth not in that I was doing sex work, but I was curious about sex work. My families talked about my older relatives, sometimes seeing prostitutes, and they talked about it in a very exotic way, and it made me wonder what it was about. Um, I think there were a lot of factors, and some factors were very negative, I remember when my mother was angry at my father, she would say that he treated her like a prostitute. So actually, the kind of symbology around whore and prostitute was always a part of my life. It was always present; it wasn't something that wasn't discussed. One way or the other, either, sometimes romanticized, my father had a porn collection hidden away, but I found it. And of course, I looked at the women and I wanted to look like that when I grew up. What is that thing about, nobody ever wants to be a sex worker when they grow up? What is that?
Parker
Right?
Carol Leigh
I don’t get that, what is it?
Parker
Neither do I, I certainly did when I was young,
Carol Leigh
It's just weird, because it's so blatantly not true. Not like I, well I wanted to pose in those magazines and with my breasts.
Parker
Yeah.
Carol Leigh
Look all happy under Christmas tree, it was Christmas Carol, I remember, and that was one goal. So, so those factors influenced me. As a feminist, uh, I, in some ways went the other direction but I was always very political, I was a red diaper, baby, and you know, I know a lot of red diaper babies who then went on to do sex work actually.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
I have an extra. Yeah, you know about this too?
Parker
A bit, if I if it's what I think you're talking about, but like, yeah, the,
Carol Leigh
The parents were socialists, I mean, my parents were socialists in the 30s and I know quite a few. So you're saying you run into people like that too?
Parker
I think if you'd like, my parents were very socialist minded very, like, they would call themselves hippies, for sure. And I think with that sort of a mindset, I was raised in a, an environment where I didn't judge as much and I really was raised to question assumed judgments and society's take on things.
Carol Leigh
Interesting what, you know, I hadn't even thought of these recent generations. Well, because I think when I interviewed many of my friends about being a red diaper baby turning into a socialist it was, was about the parents’ rebellion and continuing that. Um.
Parker
Sbsolutely.
Carol Leigh
I think that when my parents were getting older, it was during the period when some of their friends were veering towards supporting Stalin. So they taught, taught me very fiercely to always question every possible thing and I think I, so they never wanted me to accept the right or the left. I mean, I was really raised on kind of a critique of capitalism and a critique of communism, or socialism, or just a critique of everything. So um, I mean I know a lot of other people like me that it's interesting, but I guess a lot of the parents, the parents, we know we're leftist and hippies.
Parker
Absolutely.
Carol Leigh
I was a leftist and hippie I just didn't have any kids.
Parker
You've influenced a lot of people I can tell you that much.
Carol Leigh
Oh, right. I'm the whore mother to so many and I like that.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
That's a way of being a mother for me.
Parker
Um, would you mind telling us about your experience taking your first client like when you first kind of walked into the world of sex work?
Carol Leigh
Sure. Well, I'm I need to go back a little bit because this is a long story.
Parker
For sure.
Carol Leigh
So, um, as a feminist, I learned that it's problematic to capitulate to men's desires when they only have to give you money, they don't really have to be nice to you. That made sense and I also, my own realization was walking around in a world where women are naked and men are clothed, there was a disadvantage implied. You know, I would have had to be pretty defensive to not admit that there was something going on there that I needed to examine, then, you know, Betty, oh, excuse me, Gloria Steinem went to work at Playboy and decided to write an expose. So, I figured as a feminist, it would make sense for me to explore then I was also having some sexual fantasies about prostitution. Then also my whole lifestyle was all about working as few hours as possible and doing my art.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
So, what was my art? As a child, I wanted to be like Shirley Temple, I majored in theater in high school, then I switched to writing and poetry, which I majored in Boston University, I went to study with Anne Sexton, and that's when she committed suicide. So.
Parker
Yes, that's right.
Carol Leigh
Um, so, meanwhile my quest was to not work 40 hours a week, and I sold pot, I just was living underground, I was a hippie. I did that for a long time and trying not to do prostitution because I was a feminist, and I wasn't so sure, but Gloria Steinem did it, so maybe it's okay.
Parker
Right.
Carol Leigh
So, I did, I dabbled. I did try dancing on amateur night at the Golden Banana in Peabody, Massachusetts and I actually had sex with two men in the parking lot.
Parker
Oh my gosh.
Carol Leigh
I know can you beleive it?
Parker
Were you were you paid for that?
Carol Leigh
Very little. I got $30. I didn't know, I had no idea you could really make money from this. Oh, I forgot I did do something. When I was young, I do think I was over 18 though I don't quite recall, but, um, so I went to run away from home sort of, I didn't tell my parents I was running away. I told them I was staying with a friend anyway, to the east village to stay with more hippies. Then I went to the newspaper, The Village Voice, and I did try out for a play, and I was in a play where all the actors were like, on stage, being naked and flopping around. I don't get this play it was kind of like an artsy thing, but it was so dumb. I was in the chorus, it was like the dumbest thing ever but fine, it was like on East 14th street that was, that was sex work. And then I also went to work at a nude modeling studio.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
And I did not really get what that was. So, I must have been a bet I was 18. So, I just didn't quite get it, I didn't understand it was prostitution. It seemed scary enough or just odd enough that you would have sex with a stranger.
Parker
Yeah.
Carol Leigh
So, this was way, I mean, this was before feminism. So, this was in his late 60s feminism, I became a feminist in 73, so I wasn't too aware of too many things but, but an old man so he must have been over 40,
Parker
Yeah.
Carol Leigh
Right? Oh, oh, oh, I mean sorry to be ageist but when I was, you know a teenager,
Parker
Oh, yeah.
Carol Leigh
Old men seemed so gross to me. I'm sorry. You know but it was just like that.
Parker
Yeah. I mean, we're social-, we're socialized to think that way for sure.
Carol Leigh
Yeah, of course. I don't know if he was my first time, but anyway, so it turned out he wanted to jack off and look at me when I took my clothes off.
Parker
Oh my goodness.
Carol Leigh
For $5 eewww. How can I do that? Ewww I'm really compromising myself, ewww. But I did because I had to try everything, I was very adventurous, come on, $5 was nothing I knew it was nothing, it was nothing, then it was nothing. I just did it because I just wanted to see what it was like, so it was gross, I didn't go back when I realized you know what, what it, but I shouldn't say that. Nobody ever told me you could make a lot of money at prostitution, not saying that this is true for everyone, I'm not saying that this is also, I can make more money with my privileges. I'd remind right always remember, but it no, but really, I, I didn't know you can make actual money. I'm lucky that I didn't start earlier, I understand different people have different lives and I don't want to insult people's experience. But I'm glad that I was quite developed emotionally, intellectually, and I didn't really start until I was about 27. So even though I dabbled, and I tried to be a stripper a few times, they thought I was too fat. You know what? I was not fat at all.
Parker
Fuck that. Yeah, that's, they, I got turned away from a club once because I used to be a stripper as well and got turned away from a club because I wasn't attractive enough and they thought I was overweight and I certainly was not. Yeah, yeah.
Carol Leigh
It's like, I can't believe they didn't want to hire me I was so cute.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
So, I mean, I understand everybody's different lives works out for everybody differently. But for me, I'm very glad that I was developed and could handle the challenges of a lot of the stigma of being a sex worker.
Parker
Oh, absolutely. And early 20s, early to mid 20s, is for I started late as well, I didn't get started in full service sex work till 28, and that's not true ‘til I was 30.
Carol Leigh
Oh, wow interesting.
Parker
Yeah. And it, I would not have had the boundaries and self-worth that I do now, if I had started in my 20s. So, I relate to you on that, for sure.
Carol Leigh
You know, that's interesting to me, too. Because I've always had kind of yucky boundaries you know what, I'm not a, an assertive person. I'm very good, I was good at speaking truth to power when I was young person but my problem when I did sex work was that when they wanted to stay longer, it was just hard for me to get rid of them it was just hard and all they wanted to do was talk so they want to talk for an hour about their family. It was just hard for me too and they were just like trying to steal my time, I think I mean, I feel like they were gaslighting me. They didn't use that term in those days, but it was crazy, and it was I found that so stressful. That they were like these gentleman types, and they were just sitting there talking about the most boring thing. I wound up doing an hour and a half, usually and I always felt that I had to compromise because I was always afraid that I'd get arrested if I was having to go out and find more clients all the time. So, I always felt like I was sort of forced to be more compromised and I was having boundaries was not easy, but I worked around it very brilliantly. I always, I just said, I knew how much I could handle, I tried to work as little as possible, that sort of thing. I just figured out how to keep as sane as possible, given my flaws so I, oh, I've always been like that. They always bother you about, you don't have your self-esteem is bad, I don't know, everybody.
Parker
But who-, whos is? I hate when they target that at sex workers.
Carol Leigh
I hate that too.
Parker
Yeah. So, it drives me wild.
Carol Leigh
I know I know, I know. Well, you know, whatever. With my self-esteem, I really, really did learn to work with all my flaws and a system in which my flaws could become strange and that's part of the artist I am part of the art I've created. So, a lot of the rules that you hear in society about how your personality is supposed to be constructed, so you're not like a bad slut, I guess. I realized those rules didn't necessarily have to be the rules that I could find my own life and, and be proud of who I am.
Parker
Exactly.
Carol Leigh
So, the first client is still not going to be the first client, so the first client then, finally I got into sex work because I moved to a strange city, I didn't really have too many friends, I remember the last job I had I was a waitress, the boss came on to me, and I thought, this is just like, well I should be a prostitute? You know, for the first time having moved to San Francisco, and all the signs, sex massage girls, you know, and Gloria Steinem did it, and Hemingway went off to war, and, and this is a terrain of combat and sexual politics, and I should just try it and then I'll write about it, I'm doing it.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
I didn't know anybody who did it. I went down to a massage parlor, and I knew it was a place for sex because of well they weren't selling ambience. It was just sleazy when I went in and I knew that you weren't supposed to kind of talk about things, I understood that again, I was in my late 20s, you know, yeah, I knew I would implicate them, so I had to be careful. And I just I don't remember what I said, or I just, just like a nice, cute woman, nothing special, nothing sexy, just regular and they sent me with a regular and he was lovely. Now he was 35 butt by that time, I don't know why I remember that, but he was 35 and by that time, I was, he was not old to me. I mean, actually, I prefer young, younger men little younger, but he wasn't old to me. He had curly hair, he smelled nice, he was clean everything nice about him very cheerful, he said he wanted French and I guess what it was.
Parker
Did you guess right?
Carol Leigh
I guessed right!
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
It was a blow job and I guessed right and I got $35. Whoa, I'm coming up because I said my last one was $30 so, I'm making a little more. I had no idea how much to ask for I still, I still didn't get that there was real money involved in this.
Parker
Yeah.
Carol Leigh
Um because nobody even in the dressing room talked to me yet. But it was a very diverse environment and massage parlors, that was women from all over the world, Korea, Vietnam, Mexico, and I was I felt so fortunate to be there amongst those women. Of course, I was fascinated with how they dealt with the stigma and the circumstance of their lives and prostitution, and I, I mean, I knew that first day, this was going to be the center of my life. And I understood, yeah, I mean, I skipped all the, you know, the stories about developing my art and how that was central to my life and trying to find meaning in my life, but anyway, I knew that this was what I was, everything I was looking for in terms of exploration about life. And I remember going home on the BART underground kind of bus, or yeah, like a subway and I'm, you know, those mirrors on the bus they're dark, and you could just see your face. I remember looking in that mirror, and it's just a window on the BART and I was thinking, wow, now that's a prostitute.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
And I realized right, like, I was, at the same the person and that nothing changed. Okay, now I’m a prostitute and there is, no line dividing women, other women from prostitutes, the line disappeared and that revelation.
Parker
Absolute because we're taught otherwise, we're taught that we become demons or like villains, like, just so many things once we crossed that line and you're right, it just evaporates once we step over it.
Carol Leigh
Ss a feminist, this was such a revelation as a feminist, because I'd learned so much as a feminist that being a prostitute was evil.
Parker
Right.
Carol Leigh
Just to have that revealed was, I mean, I learned the ways that feminism could be untrue and that was an essential part of my life, because feminism was really, you know, my prior revelation that was, you know, really at the center of my life along with my art that I sort of, I was completely immersed in, in feminist theory. I never really went along with no, no, I didn't go along with everything, but it's not really I just, I was always questioning.
Parker
Yeah.
Carol Leigh
And buying into most of it, too.
Parker
I mean, yeah, you have to buy in sometimes to expose the fault lines and I think I had the same experience with feminism was where I realized where feminism can fall prey to patriarchal thought and and when you exclude sex workers and you exclude trans folks from your feminism, like that's, that's a problem. That's not really feminism anymore. So.
Carol Leigh
Oh gosh, feminism, well I don't know. Oh, no. Now I know, so do we identify as feminists? It's a good question. Tell me about your feminism. How do you deal with feminism? And do you identify as a feminist?
Parker
I do identify as a feminist, I think, I think it's really important to, to claim that, I think, I hold out hope I'm kind of an eternal optimist, but I hold out hope that the that all feminists will kind of come to some sort of agreement that like, maybe there can be enough discussion that like sex workers rights can be part of the feminist platform, that trans rights can be part of the overarching feminist platform. I do hold out hope for that because I've seen people's minds change around those things. And I'm just hopeful and I think there's no reason to give up the word feminism just because there are some people who identify as feminists who don't hold the same beliefs.
Carol Leigh
One of my favorite subjects, Um I have a lot of thoughts on it and you know, sometimes my ideas contradict themselves. So, I'm not against having feelings in both directions, contradictory ideas, I hold contradictory ideas. So.
Parker
We contain multitudes, absolutely.
Carol Leigh
I don't know, how people manage to figure things out without saying, well, one thing is true and the opposite could be true too.
Parker
What a radical idea.
Carol Leigh
I know, it seems like how could I get my life if I didn't think that. So here's what's my feminism? Um, I do really deeply question having the issue of gender be at the center, I, well, I do define it, that there is a center that has to do with gender, and that also an attachment to the rise of yen or femaleness or so I do start there, I guess. I don't know. That's, where are you on that?
Parker
I mean, as far as like, where does feminine, the feminist like origin begin?
Carol Leigh
Well, do you what, what is fem? What is feminism? I mean, is it centering female? Is it equality? I don't know. I mean, what I mean, when I define feminism, I really do define it as an okay, I'll just say what I think, and you think more and then we'll go back.
Parker
Yes, please, yes.
Carol Leigh
Okay. I have more thing I want to say I wanted to say. Okay, I want to say that I'm an essentialist, I am a cultural feminist. So, part of my identification, as a feminist has to do with the people I knew, when I discovered the various kinds of thought systems that went along with feminism and the culture that I was from, about, for the first time learning to love women, learning to be proud that I'm a woman so to me, that's the feminism that I love. Now that cultural feminism, I think, also is related to my privilege, I do think that I have like a cis white, I don't even need to say it's just like feminism. You know?
Parker
Right.
Carol Leigh
I mean, just this, while I'm envisioning that culture that I love so much, I'm thinking of the Michigan Women's Festival, and I'm thinking now the center of why I was doing was about work. That center where people fighting about excluding trans people, and, and how, and how our communities were with transwomen and most of the people I know, weren't really doing much about and weren't sure what to do.
Parker
Yeah,
Carol Leigh
So, here's my culture. So, I'm saying anyway, so there's opposite opinions I have, I still, and I embrace some of those stories, embrace some of those moments. I mean, not the moments of discrimination, but I just embrace the parts I choose. And then there is part of me so I was exposed by the guide to the Goddess by anti-porn activist, macho woman gold, and I used to women's,
Parker
Woah.
Carol Leigh
I know right she's still around, but she does environmental work.
Parker
Good for her.
Carol Leigh
And I'm not really, I haven't communicated with them, and I don't recall but I see no work on the web, but they do environmental work. And they just said there was too much in it, but although I think she is her prone and I'm what, she still believes in anti porn endpoint ideology, but she doesn't want to fight about it anymore. So, she taught me, then and I in my group, there was a woman who was a stripper or my first exposure Hinda Potete, who is also a writer and has a website, a brilliant woman, and she and Marsha were having like this kind of love affair and they were fighting and hypocrisy that I saw from Marsha about her kind of desire for that woman and her condemnation. I found that hypocrisy really enlightening. So, um, I see, I'm just going on and on about my own questions, but, but you know what, now here we are, and feminism. How can I have it center on gender as, you know, as the lens through which I look at justice when the economic justice, gender is an issue, and especially around gender fluidity.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
It's an issue, but feminism for me, is not centered on gender fluidity. For me again, it's about moving towards the feminine principle. My essentialism says that feminine is good and men are bad. Do people extract little, little pieces of my interview and say that and look how bad Scarlett Harlot is? Do they take these little pieces where I, They do don't they?
Parker
Probably. That's often what happens. I think too, like we only beat men when they want it. You know? But I think, I do think that with feminism, at least for me, the way that I, I tend to look at feminism is that it's the antithesis of the patriarchy, it is centering femme identity, maybe not even identity but like femme qualities, which is like acceptance, compassion, inclusivity, intersectionality. Like it, it's no longer centered around this like rigid idea of gender but these like concepts that have been left behind in patriarchy. So, for, for me, feminism isn't so much centered around gender as much but like these concepts that are associated with the feminine.
Carol Leigh
I get that with my attachment to the ascendance of the female principle, well we're saying the same thing there.
Parker
Yes, exactly. I did want to ask you, because I really want to hear about the genesis of the term sex work because you, you're credited with credited with the coining the term sex work.
Carol Leigh
Oh, yes.
Parker
And I would love to hear where that where that came about, and how you how you coined the term sex work.
Carol Leigh
Well, I like that whole thing, but I really love deconstructing the terminology around sex work. Like I had one more thing I have to add,
Parker
yes, please.
Carol Leigh
It can't be excluded about feminism. Women of color, all my friends forget feminism and what it's done to them it’s very, the majority, I mean, might identify as a womanist, my whenever talk about feminism, my also, make sure to critique the way feminism has, has been discriminatory towards women of color, that is such a huge factor in my life. That's half of how I deal with feminism as part of this community with this lived experience. So, for me, you know, if I'm going to call myself a feminist, I can only do it by qualifying it with that fact and by qualifying with everything else I qualified it was before. Snd the only thing I support it with is my, you know iy sounds a little privileged. It's just my wanting to embrace some personal nostalgia justifying it in that, well, if I do it privately. Well, if I explain, maybe there's room to deal with it, okay room to process it. So I said it, Okay. Okay. So here we are on sex work, so, how I coined the term sex work?
Parker
Yes, please.
Carol Leigh
That's where we want to start. Okay.
Parker
Yes, please.
Carol Leigh
You know, that's the story I'm supposed to tell all the time. Okay.
Parker
Yeah.
Parker
But my favorite is to deconstruct the terminology about sex work, because I mean, sex workers are starting to do that more and more, and that's kind of new. So, I find this so exciting. But sex work? Well, um, it was in late 70s, early 80s and I'm not 100 percent exactly which year I know, the event was a conference. So, I've been a sex worker, actor, prostitute, activist, I had never used the term, but prostitution-activist. As soon as I became a prostitute I went out and I started writing poetry about it, I had a theater show, I mean, I developed an act, I was in San Francisco, I was a performance poet. So, I was going to a conference as part of COYOTE we used to go to the anti-porn conferences and sort of make a stand as people who are actually in the business wanting to give a first-person perspective by individuals involved. So um, so I went to one and I do remember that we, I think it was at Mills College. I keep trying to find it, but I remember being outside and picketing in a circle. I think I remember Priscilla Alexander being there, I remember attending workshops and now I remember this one workshop I went to, I remember walking up the stairs in this building and at the top, there was a newsprint pad and I remember the name of this workshop, I don't know if it was a manual or anything, but I just I looked online, but it was something about the sex use industry. Right? That sounds bad.
Parker
It sounds terrible. Yeah.
Carol Leigh
Right. But I wasn't like even thinking about that whole thing use. I was thinking that you know, we are feminists. So why are we identifying the situation by what the men do, the men use the services. Right? We should be identifying what the women do and what are the women do, they work, they work.
Parker
I love it.
Carol Leigh
The Sex Work industry. I remember, I crossed it off and just put the word work there. What is a Workshop.
Parker
on the official workshop sign you crossed it off and just wrote it in?
Carol Leigh
This is in my memory and this is I know, this is what my memory says,
Parker
Yeah, let's go with it, I'm here for it.
Carol Leigh
Let go with it. I think I might of actually, actually crossed it out. But anyway, when I got to the workshop, I began to talk about it, but nobody thought anything, I remember sitting in a circle, and there wasn't any reaction anyway, you know, most of the people there, they don't know anything about porn, any porn, they were just their feminist trying to learn things. They weren't on any side there was a few rabid people who might have but I never thought about it before. So, nobody, there was no issue. So, you know, it just stayed there and that was fine and when I left and so no discussion, I don't remember that the discussion that ensued, it wasn't because I think if, of course, the people who are presenting the workshop are the anti-porn people and I, I don't recall what the, what we all discussed in that workshop but um, I knew when I left that this was a good word sex work.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
Very interesting to me that nobody objected. Now I didn't really understand at that point that it was going to be kind of the center of our movement but I did realize that I figured something out and especially when I went, went home, to write my poetry.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
And write my play. I was probably really writing a play comprised of poetry. Right? Edna St. Vincent Millay, we had a one-woman performance piece or play. I just there, were some, there were some poets who wrote in that, in that format and this was what I was doing, I wrote little poems, and then I weave them together with a script and my adventures of scarlet harlot was about a prostitute, exactly. me.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
Who was going to come out and change the place of prostitution across the world. And so, the first thing she does, she goes on stage, and she has a paper bag on her head, and it says, this paper bag symbolizes the anonymity prostitutes are forced to adopt, and she can't see and she's clumping along. I wore tap shoes, so she clomps up the stairs and she can't see anything clomp, clomp, clomp and she has the paper bag on her head and as she takes it off, she goes sex workers unite.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
We won't remain anonymous and then she has a manifesto. And this I got from the Dyess because it just says whore, whore, whore, in big letters. Right? But she's reading off it, there are laws in this country.
Parker
Oh my god.
Carol Leigh
See, I don't remember what it said but it said all the things that prevent me from blah, blah, blah. You know?
Parker
Yes, yes.
Carol Leigh
That, that. And so, there I came out as a sex worker and then I'd say, oh wow, I'm gonna announce it to the whole world. So, then I would call people and get their advice, I called Priscilla Alexander, a great activist in COYOTE, and she was kind of sex negative and uptight, so she gave me a funny view. Her funny view was like, oh, you know, she was like blasé about the term sex worker but what she told me something about the insidious relationship between the sex, the sexes, and the feminization of women she told me that lipsticks are insidious, and that lipsticks when she looks at them, she knows what they symbolize, they symbolize doggie cocks. And so, it's like thank you Priscilla, thank you for enlightening me. She goes, and she'll just call one person after the next, she comes out to her mother and then I come on stage, okay, so that's the story. So that's how the term sex work was born.
Parker
And it's fantastic.
Carol Leigh
The play was really, really good and it did say it and established it and made the whole argument for it. It was really Priscilla Alexander and I, who, who created the prevalence of the use of that term she'd called, I was part of the book that she published Sex Work. I had several chapters in there, many of my chapters that I'd been writing inter woven through the book and, um, you know, philosophy I developed with Kate Marquez, a girlfriend of mine, who's now recently writing a book about herself and me and sex work and how, how prostitution saved my life. Um, so all these people around me, you know, I developed this philosophies with everyone around me and Margo St. James, and COYOTE and,
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
And Priscilla. By:Parker
Absolutely.
Carol Leigh
That's the whole sex work story.
Parker
I love it. I think, I think it's so important, I love that everyone was just kind of like, yeah, yeah, call it whatever you want but like, the importance of that term, identifying that we are workers is so key to identifying the sex workers rights movement as a labor movement as like, a worker’s rights movement. And I would love one of the things you said you wanted to talk about was like the socio linguistics in the sex worker movement and I would love to hear your thoughts on some of the other words that we use and how that just like, open that brain of yours. Tell me about it.
Carol Leigh
Don't, don't we need more socio linguists in our movement? Don't you think we don't have enough? I mean, I noticed that we weren't people discussing, oh, well, Robin Lakeoff Language and a Woman's Place was what influenced me. So, you know, early feminism, of course, we created the term Ms. and chairwoman, not chairperson. I mean, the way that feminism impacted language was, was profound and empowering and I say, as a cis white woman who saw you know, I just to say, you know, I love feminism because it empowered me, it gave me power and I see that this some of that came a lot of that way of loving this politics came from my privileges. And that's something I've learned about you know, so people never let go of that in their feminism. Some people didn't wake up and realize, oh, you know, this movement is, these realizations gave you so much because the position you have in society, ways you could network, and the revelations empowered me.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
But not everybody.
Parker
No, not everybody.
Carol Leigh
One thing interested me is that there was one question, and I think this was the I think this was when I was looking all that brilliant work by Hack-, Hacking and Hustling.
Parker
Ah, yes.
Carol Leigh
Right. And they had amongst, on their panel, and I, it may have even been an actual panel about this, it was about sex work and anti sex work. And there were some people suggesting that the term sex work implies that work is good and implies that work is good, that there's an implication that work like you know, you're supposed to work and have a job and be a good supportive person in society and that the term sex work has that implication.
Parker
Yeah, ah, I am making a face right now listeners because I don't buy it. Um, I think, I think that is a, that's not a problem they have with the term sex work, that's a problem they have with the term work. Right? And, and the thing is like, it is work and we live in a capitalist society and so to identify it for what it is makes it so that we can fight for the rights of the workers. Um, I'm not arguing that work is good or bad at this point. I would definitely say that capitalism has its flaws, but I think yeah, they, they definitely don't have a well, if they have a problem with the term sex work it's something other than what they identified.
Carol Leigh
Wow. Well, you must have thought about this or are you just saying that because it's so much part of you?
Parker
That's, that’s coming off the top of my head, I'm coming to the defense of sex work.
Carol Leigh
Everything you said is what the other people would say when they, when I ask them what they think. Isn’t that funny, interesting. Well, some, one academic suggestion that there is some, I'm totally leftist, of course. Now, you know, I mean, I'm not a libertarian, I know, in the United States, there's a very huge libertarian contingent.
Parker
That's true.
Carol Leigh
And but, I am a leftist. But I'm not anti-communist, of course, because my family would be put in jail or deprived jobs, they weren't, really my family wasn't put in jail but people I know were rounded. Anyway so, I'm not anti-communist, but that some of the leftist discourse and the older leftist discourse around prostitution and sex work has not really been digested, as well as it could be in that, that's impacting some of that current discourse on, on sex work
Parker
Absolutely. There's, there's a lot of perspective shifting, we still have to do for different groups of people. Honestly, I think that different groups of people have different qualms with sex work. So, it takes a lot of, it's going to take a lot of conversations with different groups of people to kind of, what is the phrase I'm looking for, but to be on the same page about like, what sex work actually is.
Carol Leigh
I'm fascinated in this and I have to say, I don't it's one of these things I don't at all understand yet um an academic explain to me that there is a lot also some very sophisticated kind of sophisticated students of Marxism, that are developing these theories that if you don't have the exposure to this, that it's hard to understand that there is some um, that's what she said that I'm missing. You know, I, I would I'm not going to get this until I study up a bit more.
Parker
Yeah, I'm probably in that boat with you as well. There's definitely some more Marxist theory I could, I could digest and, and learn a few things from but in the meantime, I still think sex workers rights is worth fighting for. So.
Carol Leigh
Now Thought Scholar, do you know their work?
Parker
Oh, my god, I'm in love, yes.
Carol Leigh
Well, they're one of the only, I mean, I don't think they every day say oh I'm a philosopher but isn't that, Thought Scholar seems so much like a philosopher to me.
Parker
Oh, yeah. Well, certainly a poet, certainly a poet and I think that once you start to, like, have that love of language, and you you're a poet, so you can can attest to this. Once you have that love of language, you can't not fall in love with philosophy, the way that words influence society and people. It's really hard, it's really hard to not get into philosophy, if you love words,
Carol Leigh
And the term sex work, oh I know from these years of people in the movement, objecting to it in various ways. So, I know from that, um, some people would object because, uh, not because they don't casually use the word.
Parker
Right.
Carol Leigh
Because it's not unless you're an activist, you might, but even if you're an activist, you won't be going, oh, I'm going to go home and do some sex work, you might say, I'm going to go work, you will say that, in fact, that's what we said, when I was coining the term sex work. And that's why I knew that, you know, everyone around me, and like totally regards this as work.
Parker
Yes, I gotta put on my uniform. You know? Yeah.
Carol Leigh
I mean, it was always bizarre to me that it was such a surprise that it was work. They, the other people think it's either an expression of sluttiness or it's some kind of rape, that is it. So, we the people experiencing it as work and then the people against it but I don't want to be dualistic. Um.
Parker
No, but that's how that ties right back into what you were saying earlier that like we are complex and the issue is complex, and we contain contradictory things. Right? So, like, it's really hard to talk about sex work because like, as a sex worker, I find like, I want people to believe that it's work. So, I want to talk about like the good parts but I don't want to completely invalidate the experiences that I've had and that my friends have had and that other people have had where it's like, not great.
Carol Leigh
But wait, work is bad. Wait isn't work like, oh, I have to go to work. I mean, most? No, there's good work and there's work you like that you want to do, and there's work so much work, like, I don't want to go work at the restaurant tonight. Unless it's like I have a rare feeling to see somebody. Right?
Parker
Exactly.
Carol Leigh
It's really yucky.
Parker
It's like any other job in that way, except that we're not protected.
Carol Leigh
You don't mind talking about that? Or do you even want to sometimes veer away from talking about it as a yucky job? I don't know, some workers don't experience it as a yucky job, I'm not sure I experienced it as a yucky job, I don't think I ever experienced it as a yucky job. I.
Parker
Yeah. I think it's just, um, it's it, I want to talk about it in its multitudes. Right? But like, when I'm talking to people who are very anti sex work, I find myself wanting to talk about it in all its good forms, and not talking about it in the other multitude of ways that it can be experienced and I think that happens a lot you sta-, like, there are a lot of sex workers I see that are just like, it's empowering. And like all these things, and it can be that I experienced it that way. But I've also experienced it where like, I've had a client who crossed some boundaries, and I felt like I really needed the money and I felt really beholden to that moment and like, like, I didn't want to be there and luckily, I've not had like, a violent client. I'm very, very grateful for that but it's, it's one of those things where, like, I, I think it's important that we talk about it on the whole, and like the way that many people experience it, rather than like, what society wants us to do, which is like pigeonhole it into different things, right? Like, we're either like, we make thousands of dollars, and we like glorify it, and it's like, neon lights, and all this stuff, champagne bottles all the time, or villain, like criminalized, like, um, the way that people assume like street workers’ work. You know, what I mean? I think its.
Carol Leigh
I know, and, you know, it's also not recognized that, that continuum is so discriminatory and, and really, you know, leaves out the most vulnerable members of our communities. So, it's, it's such a horrible thing, too, you know, be forced into that situation where you are or where you're not admitting anything bad. It's so discriminatory, it's so there's so much cruelty in that and, and I think a lot of times, maybe more privileged sex workers are just, um, don't quite understand that kind of conundrum. It's really a hard one to get out of, because yeah. I don't want to put too much blame on people for being also under the microscope all the time. People say, oh, you know, you, your view, you hate sex work you're not admitting it, you're deceitful, and then you're just having to kind of just say, Oh, no, it's really great, I make money and then leave out the millions of people who just you know, don't want to do it.
Parker
I think people just want it to be cut and dry, because it's easier to find a solution when it's either this or that and it's a complex industry, that that is going to require, like, complex solutions so that workers can have rights like it's not like a one size fits all sort of thing. Um, sex work is so many different things. And when people try to lump sex work and trafficking together that makes it even more of an issue and I know you had said that you wanted to speak on this, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Carol Leigh
Well, I didn't notice, wait let me take a break, can you take a makeup break?
Parker
Oh, yeah.
Carol Leigh
A makeup break.
Parker
Yeah, makeup break, I should probably drink some water. This makeup break is the perfect opportunity for me to remind you that this podcast is sponsored by Companion Tax. If you are a sex worker and need help with your taxes, Companion Tax is where I go and I highly recommend it so check them out at companion tax.com Now I think we've had enough time to powder our noses so let's get back into the interview.
Carol Leigh
20 years I was one of the producers of a small film festival, San Francisco Sex Worker Filming Arts Festival. But I've, then I what I've worked on them for the next whatever the most main part of my older life was a video series, collateral damage sex workers in the anti-trafficking campaigns and studying about trafficking. So basically, um and working with international activists, and mostly, you know, I'm kind of in Lauer Augustins camp, yeah, in terms of, I really challenge the anti-trafficking framework. I.
Parker
Good.
Carol Leigh
The difference, I think I do work inside the trafficking, tangentially with some organizations, because I want to see what they're doing. I want to fight to represent prostitutes, even though these contexts are bad. So, the anti-trafficking framework, I think, is a booby trap for sex workers.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
It combines disparate conditions, situations, ie, like youth who left home could be living with other youth, homeless people, or people who work in factories, and all kinds of sex workers. And it combines disparate communities under a framework that molds it into one kind of idea that well, the idea that we have to keep people out of our country, is, one um, that we have to stop immigration and that immigrants are being tortured through trafficking, and that we can't let them move around as part of it, and that sex workers are tortured through sex work, and we can't let them move around. We can't let them be legal because being a sex worker, is, is equals rape.
Parker
Right? So, we, the idea is that that we protect these folks by removing all of their rights. Which just like it, it never really made sense to me the anti-trafficking movement, they, they tell this like supervillain story of like traffickers, and like, what, what a prostitute actually is or what a sex worker is and then they create all these laws around it, not taking into account how it actually affects our community. Where like, it's illegal for, like two or more sex workers to share an apartment in order to work out of and like work safely. Right? Like, that's considered an illegal brothel or what have you. And, um, even I think you've, you identified this in your book, um Unrepentant Whore which I love that title. That, that even our loved ones could be considered as like living off the arrears of, of a sex worker, which is in these anti-trafficking policies considered a, an offense, it's illegal.
Carol Leigh
Well, that was true before pimping is just, your family could be a pimp, that was escalated the, the charges and they made it even to a more serious crime, and then they, they sort of call it trafficking.
Parker
Yeah.
Carol Leigh
So um, that but the thing, and also what it, what concerns me is that there are so many definitions of trafficking, the UN has one, the US has a different one, because in the US, it does say in the TVPA, it does say that all sex work is trafficking. It says that, but that's not an operational, because definition because in US Code, the well it used to be in US code within trafficking codes, I guess they don't penalize commercial sector itself they only penalize it when it's accompanied by other kinds of force. I don't know how to say this quite well but I do know that, I do know that there are so many definitions and that when people talk about trafficking, even to say that trafficking is bad, no matter what they say, it doesn't take into account like what definition of trafficking, who is trafficking, or that or those people are talking about commercial sex in general.
Parker
Right.
Carol Leigh
They're talking about, you know, for sex work with, you know, that it, you know, that, of course does a portion, I mean that it's absolutely impossible to understand what they're talking about. So I feel that it reifies the kind of the concept of trade trafficking and gives people that the idea that it is one thing, or one monolith of a structure and that when in reality, there are so many circumstances, and there are so many kinds of abuses of exploitation, and why are they taking the most extreme that happens, but happens, in course, in a much rarer rate than that, a million every day and justices that we face as workers and as migrants, you know, why are they taking that those elements, and making that symbolic for all trafficking, and then making it symbolic for prostitution? You know, the trafficked person is a symbol of the prostitute for the general public, well, they try and our we have anti trafficking allies. Right?
Parker
Yeah.
Carol Leigh
And the anti-trafficking allies really, really believe that we can change what trafficking means and that trafficking can refer to all labor, and that we can use trafficking laws to us to stop these a lot of abuses these abuses, but with the history, I'm not so sure. And one thing, I am sure of is that by instituting that direction, and not making people wary of what has happened, what could happen with scapegoating sex workers, they just continue the, this long thread of abusing sex workers because, you know, the victims making us into horrible victims and, you know and abusing us. And I think that the trafficking framework is dire, I think that people need to call it out., I don't feel like people are discussing the framework.
Parker
Yeah, I mean, this comes back to like the sociolinguistics of it. Right? Where like, the definition of trafficking is super important. And, and I think you're right, they make us into victims so that they can take this real paternalistic view and swoop in and save us with these overly simplistic, oh, like one size fits all laws that actually put more sex workers in danger. They don't solve the problem, because the analysis of the problem is completely out of touch.
Carol Leigh
Yes, it's, it's all there to prevent migrants from moving and prevent people from doing sex work. It's all historically constructed that way znd I don't think that, you know, the planet has done much to change things. I just heard this the other day, that really, I like this one that I feel like trafficking gerrymanders our, all our, the multitude of abuses that we've experienced into a place where we don't have power.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
Oh, you know, we have our waitstaff that bosses might be trying to have sex with, make us have sex with our friends, aversion, you know, people do take their passports away when they are trying to get jobs in domestic field. I mean, there's a million abuses that are, that do qualify or that they're not spending money on, is talking about enforcement of anything, but, um, and the reality of our work is being gerrymandered away from our, the source of power for us. And yes, until people stop buying in now, I mean, my friends are in anti-trafficking groups.
Parker
Yeah.
Carol Leigh
I mean, my friends, look at me, I just there was something I just let through. And our law, SB 32, three set 357 that we're trying to get rid of loitering. People are saying that they need the letter charges because we're sex workers, they need the loitering charges to get rid of the trafficking. And I have to you know, of course, they're saying that, and I have to say we have been fighting back using the trafficking and saying, no, it helps traffick victims, you know traffick, and if we don't arrest traffick victims, it's better for them because, um, they, then they're not so vulnerable.
Parker
Exactly.
Carol Leigh
But the problem is that still reifies, the whole trafficking framework, and there was a document and another activist called out and just said, we just have to be so careful of not fighting trafficking with, with the trafficking framework. And I just was like.
Parker
It's so hard, it's so hard. And I think one of the things that I that drives me crazy is like, is pitting the people who are pro-sex work, and people who are anti-trafficking against each other? Because as someone who is pro-sex work, I am also anti-trafficking, like, what, what the definition that they have of trafficking, like I don't want, I don't want people to be treated the way that people are treated when they're trafficked.
Carol Leigh
And I don't even like to say that, because I would always use other words for trafficking if I was, um.
Parker
I think that's smart,
Carol Leigh
Here's a good one, anti-abuse, anti-exploitation. I'm against it, the treatment that is identified as trafficking is a teeny, teeny little change.
Parker
Love that.
Carol Leigh
And then you don't have to say your anti-traffick, against, you know, things identified as trafficking things categorized as trafficking. I think it's night and day.
Parker
But I think that's so important, yes.
Carol Leigh
It's really important. But you know what? The piece was too short, and you couldn't put identified as trafficking in the piece every single time. So, I gave up, I didn't even make that itsy bitsy little change, because I was fighting trafficking with trafficking. So anti-trafficking was a trafficking framework as a tool.
Parker
Yeah. Oh, my god, language. Um, I am going to use this moment talking about language to kind of pivot to your more creative sensibilities. Because you are, you're an artist, you're a poet, you're a musician. You, You're an incredibly talented person and you did run the sex worker, San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival. You founded it?
Carol Leigh
Yes. With, but my mother helped me found it.
Parker
Wow.
Carol Leigh
who is my friend who died in:Parker
Oh, wow.
Carol Leigh
But we mostly kept going and, and local activists too.
Parker
I love that. And one of the things that I've always appreciated about your work is this like theatrical aspect to a lot of your activism, like, making it relatable and entertaining, to have people think, but also this, this emphasis on the importance of self-expression and documentation for marginalized communities. I think you even put that in the list of like, things you can do for sex workers rights in the back of your book that made me so happy to see. And I just, would you mind telling us a little bit about why it's so important to make self-expression and documentation available for marginalized communities?
Carol Leigh
I don't know if I have time for this one because I've just, that's been a lot, because I've been doing a lot of work on this lately. Kamal Ganhar is an organization in India and they talk about it, they talk about how essential it is for, to be able to have our diverse members of our communities work together. And how essential it is to use creative strategies and strategies with arts and creativity to support our communication, that, that is kind of the route that we need to incorporate to communicate because of the diversity and this is just a document. I mean, to I just not just need to link Chris Iliadis RIANZ artist activist, and it's so important to me as an artist, and that sex work has it, that is a creative form. It can be I mean, of course, it can also just be like, you know, clearly off the table as a waitress, but it really can be an actual kind of work, you know, like dance isn't. It's almost like dance, there is a creativity to this too, different ways to take it, but I just think that the relationship between sex work and art is important to understand that not everyone is going and you know, I, I can talk about privilege, but and that has a lot of meaning, especially in the colonialist cultures, there's different meanings if you're in a colonial or colonized culture. And I think, you know, what I see coming out of colonized cultures isn't art, that's very in sex worker groups, just like an art that it's coming directly from the sex workers. I, it's communal art a little bit different than what we see in the United States and maybe in Europe. And that art form, I feel like has been central to the sexual movement. I just don't think I'm up to explaining it all.
Parker
Oh, that's fine. I think. I think I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I suppose well, my interpretation of it is that like, it's, it's a way that we get to tell our own stories and our own history, like that is that is the importance of self-documentation and self-expression. Right.? And so, we don't want to let our oppressors do that for us. Yeah, I have a cup-, one, one more question. And then some rapid fire? Um, is there something that you would want the greater public to understand about sex workers or sex work as a whole?
Carol Leigh
Oh, you know, I saw that, and I didn't think about it right away. Now, the main thing is that people just need to understand how diverse it is. That's, that's, you know, I can't think of anything else because a, in a diversity to some people in regular jobs, some people can be in something exciting and intriguing in their life's work at some people. It can be something they're forced into; it can represent a kind of rape it can and everything in between. So, I think that diversity, they have to, and they also have to understand a monolith. I have one more of these too okay, monolith if they have to understand that it has been seen monolithically, not only do they have to understand how diverse it is that there's so many different people whose living so many different types of lives in the fabric of society, but that people have regarded it monolithically and they just have to be able to embrace, you know, either they deal with people who are in a really abject situation, or you think everybody's like making like, you know, $10,000 a day.
Parker
Exactly, yes.
Carol Leigh
But the one thing the other thing, I didn't say that I really think more than anything, this isn't really in your category question here. But okay,
Parker
That's fine.
Carol Leigh
You know what our feminists, and feminism, have to get together and admit what harm women's movements have done to sex workers, we all have to understand we have to embrace this crime, we have to go forward, that movement needs to go forward with a recognition of the harms and use that as a model for change. So.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
Yes. And I think I mean, I put this online, somebody said, that didn't sound too likely. I mean, I, you know, I just think that nobody's doing that strategy. I don't see anybody among the feminists, you say, just look at what you have done and then start to take it another way.
Parker
Yeah. Well, it's, we live in a culture right now that is so allergic, like deathly allergic to admitting that we're wrong, that for an entire movement to come forward and say, we were wrong would be huge. Like, it's important to admit we're wrong, because then we can move forward and do better. Right? And I think you're incredibly Right? Like, the feminist movement needs to admit that it was wrong.
Carol Leigh
Yeah. And I mean, the movement still does not work countries understand that they sometimes like, disavow their colonial heritage. Sometimes, it's a struggle, but there are some models and it's hard to really I don't really want to compare it to anything because it's not really fair, but there's models and they need to start using that framework.
Parker
Agreed. Agreed. That's how change is going to happen. Alright, are you ready for rapid-fire questions?
Carol Leigh
Oh can I have a drink?
Parker
Yes, yes. get hydrated. Okay. Pancakes or waffles?
Carol Leigh
I'm stumped. Waffles.
Parker
Excellent. Salty or sweet?
Carol Leigh
I'm like the worst at this oh my god.
Parker
I love it. These are these are hard for no reason.
Carol Leigh
I need both. I will always take both. I'll take both.
Parker
Yeah. Do you have an order? Do you like sweet then salty, or salty then sweet or doesn't matter?
Carol Leigh
That doesn't matter.
Parker
I love that. Okay, glitter or sequins?
Carol Leigh
Well glitter is medically dangerous, and I'll have to pick sequins.
Parker
Excellent. What is your favorite place?
Carol Leigh
but I like glitter a little better.
Parker
I love it. What is your favorite place you've ever been?
Carol Leigh
Oh, I love that but I don't know. Oh my God, what's my favorite place I've ever been? Oh my god.
Parker
I know you've been so many places.
Carol Leigh
Just because yeah, there's little traveling around the world. I don't know, my favorite place I've ever been? Can I not answer that?
Parker
Oh, yeah, you have too many favorites.
Carol Leigh
Yeah, some of them are the favorites for different reasons, I don't want to like one that's bad.
Parker
I love it.
Carol Leigh
I liked one. I learned the most at but it's not any place I'd ever call my favorite and then I could just say Venice, because it was beautiful but I don't want to say that.
Parker
Yeah, we can, we can be exempt from this question that's fine with me.
Carol Leigh
I'm exempt from this.
Parker
We'll plead the fifth. A book from your mandatory reading list?
Carol Leigh
Sex Work I guess.
Parker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. Um, a song, an album, or a musical artist you've been obsessed with lately?
Carol Leigh
Ohhh.
Parker
I love the way your face just lit up.
Carol Leigh
A song or artist? Well, I do have a few, Megan the Stallion, Lizzo.
Parker
Yes.
Carol Leigh
I love them so maybe I'll just go for them.
Parker
Yeah.
Carol Leigh
I have one that I have been really obsessed with lately, though, that. Those are my general obsessed ones but I think I might come up with I do have one more than I was too.
Parker
Yeah. Just to do yell it out when you got it.
Carol Leigh
Okay.
Parker
That happens to me all the time. Someone will ask me like, what are your favorite bands and I'll be like, I've never listened to music in my life. All information has just left my brain. Um, what is your secret talent?
Carol Leigh
Oh, yeah. workaholic. Oh, yeah. I know that, when god comes up at those meetings huge workaholic. Totally. It's my superpower that people have. That's it.
Parker
Oh, that's so funny.
Carol Leigh
I'm the biggest workaholic.
Parker
My next question is, if you had one superpower, what would it be?
Carol Leigh
Oh, okay.
Parker
So workaholism?
Carol Leigh
That's my superpower is what was the other one? And what would be.
Parker
The other one was what's your secret talent?
Carol Leigh
Oh, well, the same thing.
Parker
Yeah, I love that. and complete the sentence, good sex is.
Carol Leigh
Something I've had very little of.
Parker
Mm huh. Wow, that's a good answer but also breaks my heart I wish for you to have good sex always. Um, what is something simple that brings you joy?
Carol Leigh
Any vacation. I just had that happen that's why I was so happy. And I forgot one other vacation because was COVID you couldn't even leave and I left and I was like, I don't think I experienced pleasure so deep in two years, and I remembered what pleasure was.
Parker
I love that so important. And that brings us to the end of the interview. That's my last question. So, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Let's say goodbye to the listeners.
Carol Leigh
Listeners goodbye.
Parker
Bye listeners.
Carol Leigh
It was nice to talk to you and see you soon.
Parker
Bye, everyone. I just love where that interview ended up going. So big thanks to Carol Leigh for being on the show. Thank you all for listening as always, I really appreciate it and be sure to tell your friends. You can find all Carol Leigh's links, including a link to purchase her book in the show notes as well as links for everything we talked about at least as many of the things as I could find links for. And yeah, enjoy checking those things out, I tried to have a wide variety of things for you all to look at after the show if you so choose in the show notes. So do check those things out. I'm so thrilled to be back in the saddle or on the spaceship or whatever, whatever metaphor we're using, but I'm really grateful to have this podcast to return to after the move. I need a little bit of normalcy and I'm really grateful that y'all are here to listen to whatever I'm putting out and be a part of that for me. So, thank you. And now is the time for a space fact. If you're like me, you end up with a bunch of weird bits and bobs in your pocket like rubber bands, loose change, probably a hair binder or pocketknife, whatever it might be. Keep the stuff in your pocket when you are traveling the galaxy because you never know what might be of value on another planet. You may not quite understand what sort of bartering chips you have in your pocket that you ascribe very little value to. So, keep those things around because when you're running loose in the galaxy, you need as many tricks up your sleeve as you can get. Nanu nanu motherfuckers.