CENTERING SEX WORKERS

Funded by the U.S. Office of Women’s Health, Dr. Chrysanthi Leon conducted a series of focus groups centered around the lived experiences of sex workers. The use of focus groups captured conversations between people involved in street-based sex work. Participants collaboratively engaged in meaning-making and emotional validation, decentering the researcher. I-Poems were specifically chosen because of their ability to center participants' own words in research narratives. By preserving the words of the participants with minor edits for confidentiality, the poems highlight the autonomy of sex workers. Organizing the poems into different themes allows a narrative to develop, with stanza breaks indicating a new speaker.

The following poems were created out of focus groups with sex workers in the mid-Atlantic about their experiences. Dr. Chrysanthi Leon conducted the focus group, and Maggie Buckridge and Jules Lowman collaboratively crafted the poems using the words of sex workers.

I think it's a job

I feel as though

I’m not spending that money on a drug

I’m doing something positive with it

I feel at times

I can go out there and trick and carry myself with a little bit of respect

I think it’s a job

I looked at it too

I didn’t start up until after 11 o’clock at night

I was off the street before the sun came up

I’m not out there 24/7 so these kids can see me going to school dressed like some high ho trying to make a buck

I mean

I did that shit late at night

I didn’t want to see anybody but the date when I was out there

I didn’t want to see no bunch of people

I wanted to see the date and that’s it

I have somebody that

I will never just go out on the streets or anything

I have the same guy that

I’ve been with for like 7 years

I mean

I would feel like shit

I would just be trickin for like crack or something

I don’t get high

I don’t feel bad

I’m like doing it to put clothes on my kid and paying my bills

I don’t feel bad

I don’t ever just go out

I mean

I feel bad when

I did it

I do it, like get it for drugs

I mean

I don’t feel bad for doing it to feed my kids

I don’t

I don’t feel like nothing wrong with it when

I’m feeding my kids

I don’t

The 12 and 13 year olds

I’m not going to say that I got forced into prostitution

I had to help out in the family

I started trickin around 12 or 13 years old

I only had a sixth grade education level

I ain’t never been to no high school

I know all my life is to trick, trick, trick

I made my money

I got

I didn’t even get into the drug scene

I got into the prostitution

I got into the drug word

I started trading sex for drugs

I wouldn’t trade sex for money

I mean

I got into it

I said that because you make a valid good point

I’m not into that lifestyle no more thank God

I had to go to jail

I wish that it wasn’t like that

I wish there was some kind of program or some kind of place that we could go to

I am so glad to see someone actually reaching out to these sex workers

I mean

I’m not worried about me

I’m old

I’m retired

I mean

I’m going to be 45

I’m worried about the 16 and 17 year olds, that the 12 and 13 year olds that are already doing this

I’m not going to go out and tell them all

I mean

I can remember going out with gonorrhea

I mean

I am supposed to do?

I’m sore

I mean

I’m not going to tell you I got that shit

I want your money

I mean

I’m sorry

I don’t care

I don’t know what to tell you

I mean, how many men out there have

I given HIV to?
I never felt like

I was first diagnosed

I was HIV positive

I was

I have this disease

I’m not going to go out and tell them all