This is the story of a queer sex worker from the Balkans. He now lives in Vienna. Pauli spoke to him for an hour on the phone and took notes. This is the information he wanted to share. To preserve his anonymity, no name is given, he has asked not to mention the country he comes from and to write “Balkan country” instead, and the name of the organization he is active in has been changed.

Short introduction 

Hi, I'm really happy to hear a little bit more about you and your migration story and your journey in sex work.

I am 36 years old and came to Vienna from a Balkan country 5 years ago to be closer to my partner at the time, who was also a male escort. It took 2 years for me to get my legal permit/residency in Austria. During these 2 years working as a sex worker really helped me survive financially. The job provided safety whilst waiting for official permits. I had already worked as a sex worker since about 5 years.

Introduction to Sex Work

How, when and where did you start working in the industry, what’s your story?

I started as an escort in my home country. As a student I needed to finance my studies, pay the rent etc…so I worked in a tobacco store part time. This girl walked in. She started to come more often and at some point, we started to talk…after a while I realized that she tried to convince me to start working as a sex worker. Because she was one. Although she never used the word sex worker herself. She said something like “having fun for payment. She told me about a high-class work date in an embassy. And that there were a few men who want her to join with a guy. So, she asked me if I wanted to join.

At first, I did not know what to do…I was super excited on the one hand, but I was also scared. They were politicians- it was in an embassy…. I thought which kind of game am I entering? With a driver who picked us up and briefed us. No talking about it. Lots of pictures of criminal, dangerous situations came to my mind. But in the end, I decided to try.

So, on the work night, the driver came to me and asked me many questions, trying to check me out. He was very serious about me not telling anyone where I went. “Speak to nobody”.
Inside, I basically just watched her…waiting for her to tell me what to do and waiting for instructions. I saw her as my boss or mentor.

So we started to work together about once a week and she would call me from time to time. She did not have many clients who asked for male services. After only a couple of months I left my job in the tobacco store and earned my money through sex work only.
So it was very spontaneous my introduction to the sex industry.

I became more and more confident in this field and asked her to find more clients for me. She said, most clients want females, not male. I started researching. I found a webpage in my home country for LGBTQI and opened my first profile as escort.

Working experience as a male vs. trans Sex-worker

Would you like to talk about your experience working as a male sex worker and as a cross-dresser /trans worker?

Well first I want to mention that I also worked as sex worker before coming here to Austria. I worked in different countries and never had any negative experiences when working with clients as a male sex worker…BUT working as male sex worker and cross dresser (trans sex worker) you attract a different type of client. I experienced a lot of violence from clients when working as cross-dresser. — I can say there is a clear mirror of the sexism and chauvinism within our society. I felt more vulnerable as female* sex worker. Clients left without paying, treated me disrespectfully etc.

The first profile I made was as a female with fake pictures from the internet. I took pictures from porn webpages. When clients texted me, I chatted, made them horny and outed myself as a male later. About 50% left with insulting me…the other half wanted to meet me. My strategy was to text after midnight. This was the trick: When they came home from drinking…drunk, horny and with no alternatives.

This is how I worked for a couple of years.

Then, I started to work as transgender from home. I professionalized with nice clothes, nice shoes, nice wigs…and I had many clients- about 5 or 10 per night.

No one around me knew I did this. NO-ONE. I was very popular in my social circles. So, I also professionalized a system of secrecy for my work life vs my private life. So that no one would ever find out what I do.

Every week I switched off my private phone for 2 days. To “visit my sick grandmother” and take care of her. I told everyone not to call me in this time to make her better. In these two days I switched off my private phone and turned on my work phone. I went food shopping and bought stacks of food to stay at home for 2 days straight without having to leave the apartment. Because no one was allowed to see that I was home when I said I was granny sitting.

It was exhausting but I earned a lot of money in these 2 days every week.

Then, I started traveling to different European countries. I found out I could earn the same amount of money as a male sex worker travelling than as trans sex worker at home.

Working experience in different countries and under different circumstances

What do you think is the reason for this difference?

Working as trans was difficult. People in Balkan countries don’t know about the terminology of trans. I always had to make sure they know what this means before they came. So they knew what they were getting into.

I want to share a funny story I had with a client. We were chatting and were about to set the date for a meeting. So, I tried to find out, if he knew, what it meant if he was meeting me as a trans person. I asked him: “do you know what trans is”. He said he knew. But I was not so sure about that, so I repeated “do you really know?” and then I asked him to explain to me what trans means.

He said “Sure I know what trans is. It’s a girl who is into trans music.”

Another difference in acceptance I realized this when I worked on the streets. I did not really do this for money but out of interest and to meet other sex workers in the industry. At the time, I was sharing an apartment with a female worker. She was also a hooker on the streets. She invited me for a walk around her workplace. We took a thermos full of tea and she introduced me to the other working girls. I went cross-dressed. They did not really like me there as a trans because they did not want me stealing their customers…so I went back as a male …I only worked 3-4 times and only to meet peers.

Colleagues

Did you ever meet other sex workers and stay in touch?

After years of working secretly I met other sex workers and I started to keep in touch. This really was the next stage of my work life in sex work and a good example of community power. I had always worked secretly without exchange and supervision and always at risk…we started sharing apartments, sharing rents, and were there for one another…there were many more who organized like this. Living and working in the same household. It empowered me knowing I was not alone and felt safer.

Police Repression

Did you ever encounter police whilst working?

Working in apartments and organizing to keep safe and have fair working conditions was difficult because it is not legal. There were many police raids that always had the same set-up: they took one sex worker and named them as “organizer” to fine him/her and put in prison. The person was charged for trafficking- organized illegal prostitution. It was always one sex worker. And all the others were labelled as victims and were made them go to court and say they were victims of trafficking and blackmail.

Why xxx

So founding xxx – the migrant sex work community in Vienna was because you felt the need to organize?

Yes. I started to communicate with other migrant sex workers in Vienna who were facing the same problems. We talked about our concerns of working, asked questions about registrations and health checks. In other countries, especially my home country I always got in contact with organizations working with sex workers in order to get contacts, information on std checking etc… and when I came here I realized I did not find anything accessible when I started writing emails to organizations (I will not provide names) asking about sex work related topics for myself. The organizations working with sex workers did not offer services for male sex workers and the LGBTIQ*organizations offered no services regarding sex work. So, what to do as a gay male sex worker? I was in Vienna and there was no way to get information or help according to my work here in Austria. 

So we, as migrant sex workers, needed to organize ourselves. We started as a peer support with meetings where only few sex workers came and we shared basic information about where to find condoms, where to register, bringing working materials to meetings to share etc.

This is basically how xxx was born.

And then we grew. Many sex workers, mostly migrants came to work together on different projects. So my activism really started from a personal need- in Vienna.

I am still in contact with my peers from back home. Most of them continued to work and some still visit me in Vienna from time to time. Our friendships evolved.