Battling a stigma

SAN FRANCISCO “”mdash; The advertisement in The Daily Bruin
caught Zeb Tortorici’s eye in 1999 when he was in his fourth
year at UCLA studying history.

“Male models; up to $1,000/day immediate pay; great face,
nice body; nude magazine/video work,” the ad read.

It took Tortorici around three years to respond and begin his
career in pornography, mostly because he was worried about the
safety and comfort of performing in videos with people he
didn’t know. But Tortorici, now a history graduate student,
says he usually performs once a month, mostly doing solo acts for
gay porn movies at a price of between $200 and $400 a night.

Gennifer Hirano, also known as Jenna Jasmine, started topless
dancing in San Francisco when she was 21 and a student at UC
Berkeley. Her first night she made $160, and when she started
dancing nude regularly at The Crazy Horse she said she was making
an average of $1,200 a week.

Hirano, now a first-year student in the UCLA Graduate School of
Education and Information Studies, said she quit The Crazy Horse
after nearly four years of steady work and decided to go back to
school. She now balances academic work with her own business
““ providing full body sensual massages.

Both Hirano and Tortorici say they are sex workers, a term with
various definitions but at its core refers to someone who uses
their body sexually in any way to make money.

But for the two graduate students, their emphasis in sex work
isn’t always the cash, performing, or dancing. Their focus is
changing cultural stereotypes of an industry they say is wrongly
labeled as dirty, unprofessional, and dangerous ““ stigmas
they say lead to violence, disrespect, and a subordinate role in
society.

The two traveled to San Francisco this weekend for the Sex
Worker Film and Arts Festival, a biannual event started in 1999.
The weeklong festival began May 1 and was a combination of movies,
art displays, forums and panel discussions intended to educate the
public about sex workers and the dangers facing them.

Festival Director Carol Leigh, also known as Scarlot Harlot,
wore a T-shirt that read “Sluts Unite!” and said
raising issues and struggling for the rights of sex workers in
public can be difficult.

Adorned with a beaded pink necklace and bright pink hair, Leigh
said many of those in the industry don’t want to march in the
streets or have a demonstration around the decriminalization of
prostitution and the rights of sex workers. Instead, she said a
different form of community organizing can be achieved through
artistic events such as the festival.

Leigh is also on the advisory board of the Sex Worker Outreach
Project, a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to ensuring
the rights of sex workers, and one of the three groups hosting the
festival.

Hirano started a chapter of SWOP at UCLA in January and was
fueled by a desire to get funding for projects about sex work from
an academic institution. SWOP hosts movies, art shows, and has
weekly meetings that are open to sex workers and allies on
campus.

At Dalva, a bar neighboring The Roxie theater where the festival
was in San Francisco, Hirano sips a Snakebite ““ a mixture of
pear cider and beer ““ and describes why she thinks sex worker
activism is important at UCLA.

Not only is SWOP a place for students who are sex workers to
feel safe and learn more about the industry, but it is an
institution that can help educate students at UCLA who may have
incorrect stereotypes, Hirano said.

Tortorici said he joined SWOP at UCLA soon after it was founded
because he agreed with its mission.

“When people think about sex work or think about porn or
think about prostitution … all this cultural baggage comes in
with it and all these stereotypes,” Tortorici said.
“You get people making up their mind and formulating
stereotypes about sex workers without ever talking to sex
workers.”

As part of the annual Clothesline Project on campus this week,
Tortorici and Hirano will be on a panel about the dangers of being
a sex worker. Hirano is also scheduled to set up an art
instillation that remembers prostitutes that were murdered by a
serial killer.

During Take Back The Night, an annual event remembering the
victims of rape and sexual violence, Hirano said she plans to dress
up like a prostitute and wear a shirt reading “Got
Consent?”

These types of events can lead to greater community
understanding of issues seldom discussed and challenge mainstream
perceptions, Hirano said.More Than Modeling

Last Wednesday night, Tortorici drove to a job in Studio City
where the director and his boyfriend lived in a house near
Mulholland Drive. Tortorici said he worked for the director before
and had been called to play the part of student and skater.

He said he has worked for about 15 different directors but has
never had intercourse in one of his videos.

Tortorici brought his skateboard, backpack, and laptop computer
as props and was asked to provide a 50- to 60-minute solo
performance where he would masturbate and use a sex toy.

He was in the couple’s extra bedroom that had been set up
with lights with reflectors, and said the director used a hand-held
digital camera to capture the act. After about two hours at the
director’s house, Tortorici said he left with $400.

But for Tortorici ““ who knows Japanese, Spanish, and
Portuguese ““ pornography performances are more than just
modeling, and he says the acting is at an intersection between a
creative space for production, his academic work, his interest in
pornography and his political activism.

Part of Tortorici’s graduate studies is researching the
regulation of sexuality in colonial Mexico and Brazil, and he says
his acting naturally falls into line with his academic studies.

Totorici is vegan and says he tries to live a life that
doesn’t cause suffering in any way. Tortorici, who has the
word “vegan” tattooed on his right wrist, said he has
recently explored alternative pornography that includes a
combination of the issues of sexuality and veganism.

He says pornography has been a way for him to grow as a person,
and remembers that even after identifying his sexual orientation as
queer, pornography helped reassert himself as someone who could be
sexual.

“It will be something that I experiment with for a long
time,” Tortorici said, adding that he enjoys mixing his ideas
surrounding personal, gender and political issues.

“It’s been cool to be able to merge that,” he
said.

The story is similar for Hirano who says that when she dresses
in a certain sexual manner ““ wearing fake eyelashes, wigs,
and make-up ““ she is an entertainer, and is wearing the
persona of the “Asian Princess” ““ a stripper and
feminist.

Hirano said she became strongly involved in issues of
women’s rights when she was an undergraduate and said one of
the reasons she began sex work was because she was interested in
the cross-section between her ethnicity and sexuality.

Both Tortorici and Hirano say their work in the sex industry is
more than just modeling, dancing or performing sexual acts. They
also concentrate on changing what they see as the incorrect
stereotypes attached with the industry and their work.

Sex work is a human rights issue, Tortorici says.

Tortorici and Hirano’s panel, “Have All Sex Workers
Been Abused?” will take place Tuesday from 1 to 3 p.m. in the
Schoenberg Quad.

For more information, e-mail
[email protected].