ANA: Ms. Beasley, please take a seat. Ca...

ANA: Ms. Beasley, please take a seat. Can I get you anything?

CLAUDIA: No, thank you. I won't take much of your time.

ANA: Alright.

CLAUDIA: I heard about the talk you plan to give at the symposium. I read the abstract, and I have a bone to pick with you.

ANA: Oh?

CLAUDIA: Your alarmist presentation is going to put me and my colleagues at risk.

ANA: Excuse me! I will not condone the trafficking of any...

CLAUDIA: I'm not talking about traffickers...they're the bane of my existence. I'm a sex worker, and the laws you think are going to protect children are only going to hurt us.

ANA: I'm sorry. I don't understand.

CLAUDIA: Look, you can't treat every transaction of sex for money as a potential trafficking situation.

ANA: Why shouldn't I? Who's to tell if an adult prostitute was trafficked and coerced from a young age or is a willing adult?

CLAUDIA: That's why you need to advocate for sex workers' rights. A right to register as a sex worker. To get a sex worker's license. So we can have our freedom and dignity to work in the profession we choose, safely.

ANA: Choice? You want to talk to me about choice?! Who's to say that traffickers just start registering their victims as sex workers? We then legitimize slavery in this country again.

CLAUDIA: Dr. Saco, please listen: we both want the same thing. I hate seeing these girls and boys, these women forced to do what they don't want to do.

ANA: Have you done anything to help them?!

CLAUDIA: In fact, I have. Dr. Saco, over the course of my career I rescued over 30 women and children from sex trafficking. It's tricky business because the pimps think I'll work for them. Mine and the victims' safety are put at risk.

ANA: I only have time to advocate for so much.

CLAUDIA: If you advocate for the rights and decriminalization of sex workers, then we catch those who are subverting the law. The jerks that make my work unsafe. Those who dehumanize and take our neighbors, our children, and use them for their own gain. The only way to counter the darkness is to bring sex work into the light.

ANA: You must think I'm naïve to think that what you're proposing will actually help the majority of victims! Look, I consider myself a person who doesn't judge, but how could you possibly be okay with your career field? Being raped for money!

CLAUDIA: Listen, Dr. Saco, I am not being raped! Do you know who built the West in this country? Huh? Do you? Prostitutes did. Sex workers did. The proverbial saloon girls. They were independent, brave women who, with their money, built schools, built clinics, built towns. The American West wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't for sex workers. I choose my clients. I make my own hours. I have to carefully and strategically market myself. I'm a business woman. I've had clients that I've serviced for over 25 years...that's more than some marriages. Some of my clients are disabled. Should not a paraplegic, a disfigured man, or a person with Down syndrome still get to experience the intimacy of a sexual relationship? Or the man who lost his wife and just wants to hold another women in his arms and cry without judgement? Those are my clients, Dr. Saco!

ANA: Ms. Beasley, will you kindly lower your voice in my office?

CLAUDIA: Work with me, Dr. Saco, not against me. Sex work will continue to happen whether you like it or not. Let's make it safe for everyone. Let's not continue to allow sex work to function in the dark. Bring it out into the light. People can then understand what's going on and see there is nothing shameful with sex. What's shameful is exploiting the most vulnerable among us.

ANA: Ms. Beasley, we have two very different experiences with the sex industry. Perhaps you haven't dealt with the perverts, rapists, and pedophiles that I have, and, yes, what you're addressing is something to consider...but it's going to take me some time.

CLAUDIA: I'll be waiting then.

For further information or licensing inquiries, please visit Gretchen Suárez-Peña or email [email protected]