Kama: Devadasi Escort

Every since I arrived in London I have been subjected to a very strange phenomena. Out of the blue my age, race, nationality and occupation are posited as reasons for panic and suspicion, but usually by older white sex workers.

The presumption was because I was young and South Asian I should be passive and incapable and for this read: Stupid, however because I wasn't "stupid" I was dangerous and that was translated into me being "trafficked" so I could be excluded. I have always believed much of this was motivated by race and the financial competition I was perceived as representing in some way.

So the strategy was I would be accused of being "trafficked" so I could be excluded from the regular sex work community because of this invented suspicion. This suspicion was originally imposed on me by older white women who considered themselves to be "important members" of the sex worker community that they then de-facto policed according to their own agendas.

Now within the sex worker's activist community my race and occupation is used to posit me either being stupid because I supposedly I want to participate in an academic list-serve to pick up clients !! (which of course I don't) or that I am dangerous because I might be a "spy" but it is once again an older white woman "who is an important representative of sex worker activism" who resorts to this "dangerous or stupid" dichotomy to try and exclude me from participation by creating suspicion and panic for no apparent reason.

Now what fascinated me are the parallels between the two events and the various actors involved and how in each case my differences and my voice precipitate a crisis.

Indian sex workers are acceptable when they are in India or when they act as European Sex workers and when they don't lay claim to their own culture or political voice as part of their sex work outside of India.

Indian sex workers are commended and feted for their political action as long as they do this in India, but if that voice appears outside of India and speaks to their experiences in the West of racism or other problems in sex work it seems it is not acceptable, sometimes just being present is enough to attract attack.

The voices of Indian women are regularly appropriated by various political agents all of whom seem to include numerous little brown people among their friends as long as they stay in India or stay in their place if they come to Europe.

I believe that it is going to prove more useful for migrant sex workers to ally with migrant rights groups rather than sex workers groups as the probable lack of solidarity within sex work activism means that structurally we have more in common with other migrants than we do with local sex workers.

Gains made by local sex workers often exclude migrant sex workers (especially non-western) and while we slowly organize in our home countries it seems we are considered with suspicion and contempt when move beyond that "legitimacy" by going abroad and seeking entry into fora that might allow our voices to be heard on issues outside of our "legitimate" concern.

It is VERY important to acknowledge that this has been done to me by a small minority of people, but their ability to create suspicion and panic because of their gatekeeper roles and the lack of effective remedy against their attacks makes them very powerful.