This is your standard introductory podcast episode. We tell you a little bit about ourselves, and then we explain the origin story of the podcast… which involves Internet trolls, pearl clutchers, and human furniture. Plus our regular segments!
Chapters:
2:30 Who are Holly & Jenna?
7:00: The origin story of the podcast
24:01 Misconceptions: You don’t kiss/go down on sex workers
34:07 Shit People Say: Wide load ahead
"we don't apologise to furniture"
Links:
TRANSCRIPT:
Jenna Love 0:00
Welcome to Somebody You Love or The Sale of Two Titties. I'm Jenna love.
Holly Harte 0:08
And I'm Holly Harte.
Jenna Love 0:10
And we're experts in disappointing our parents breaching community guidelines, and banging the people who vote against our rights. Before we get into things, we'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we are recording today. So I'm on Darug and Gundungurra land
Holly Harte 0:28
and I'm on the land of the Ngunnawal people. We'd like to pay our respects to the elders past, present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded. We also want to make it clear upfront that we can only speak from our own experiences.
Jenna Love 0:42
Yeah, the sex working community is incredibly diverse, which is one of the best things about it, I think. But as white cis women, we have a lot of privileges within the industry. And we're simply not able to speak to the stigma and the discrimination that is faced by our peers who find themselves really in those intersections of the margins,
Holly Harte 1:00
We will obviously be discussing adult topics. So this podcast may not be suitable for those under the age of 18.
Jenna Love 1:08
And also, neither of us is the type to shy away from difficult subjects. So we'll likely cover some some sensitive stuff as well, but we will do our best to warn you in those situations.
Holly Harte 1:19
So Jenna, does the world need two more white women talking about themselves and laughing at their own jokes?
Jenna Love 1:26
No. No, but I think we need it-- we're millennials. I feel like it is a rite of passage, a coming of age experience for the millennial.
Holly Harte 1:38
Yeah, it's very on trend as well. And we're just trying to keep up with these modern trends. You know
Jenna Love 1:44
Yeah we're getting old
Holly Harte 1:45
we are getting old. We've got to keep young somehow. It is our hope, though, that if anyone other than our mums listens to this podcast--
Jenna Love 1:52
although we do kind of hope our mums don't listen to it.
Holly Harte 1:55
I really hope she doesn't.
Jenna Love 1:57
I bet you mine does, honestly. She's so keen for it.
Holly Harte 2:01
(lucky you) that eventually we can use it as a platform to share the voices that represent the diversity of the community in which we are the sex work community.
Jenna Love 2:10
But then I guess if no one does listen to it, then it would just be you and me sitting here talking to each other for no reason, which is pretty much exactly what we do now. All the time.
Holly Harte 2:21
Yeah, standard. We can roll with that.
Jenna Love 2:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Holly Harte 2:26
Alright
Jenna Love 2:27
Let's do it.
Holly Harte 2:27
Let's do it.
Somebody You Love 2:29
Interlude
Jenna Love 2:32
We thought it made sense in our first episode that we tell you the origin story of the podcast. But first, it might be helpful for you to know who we are. Now, while we're assuming that most people listening to this already know who we are and are just like our friends, you know, we hope maybe there's a couple of you out there who are listening who have no idea who we are. So we shall explain. Holly and I (I'm Jenna) are both full service sex workers in Australia. So the term 'full service' basically means that we do the sex,
Holly Harte 3:07
we do the sex
Jenna Love 3:08
we also do a hell of a lot of other things. And sex isn't necessarily always a part of what we do. We'll talk about that much more as the podcast continues. But basically full service means the doing of the sexing.
Holly Harte 3:22
Excellent. I'm Holly. I live and work in Canberra. Only Canberra, I do not tour. Canberra is the nation's capital. I have experienced working as a stripper, in brothels, and for about the past five or six years I've been a completely independent private escort.
Jenna Love 3:38
And you worked reception in brothels as well.
Holly Harte 3:41
I've done it all- I've done reception in brothels, management in strip clubs. I've done a little bit of everything. I've always been interested in the sex industry. So I've done a lot of sex industry adjacent work, or sex work adjacent, you know, stuff inching my way towards my dream.
Jenna Love 3:56
I haven't done any of that sort of stuff.
Holly Harte 3:58
You just jump straight into it though, whereas yeah, I sort of danced around it for years going, can I? Can I? You know
Jenna Love 4:05
Dance being the operative word.
Holly Harte 4:06
Oh, a pun. Our first pun
Jenna Love 4:10
Oh we've done it, we've made our first pun. Oh, shit. We haven't even got into the body of the podcast. Well, I live in the Blue Mountains, which is west of Sydney. I work at home. I also tour and work in different cities around the country. I've worked in brothels a couple of times briefly, but now I only work independently. On top of the full service sex work. I also do online sex work. So I'm a content creator, which is the 2020s way of saying basically I make and sell my own porn.
Holly Harte 4:43
Woohoo. That's something I haven't done yet. Yet being the operative word.
Jenna Love 4:49
That's exciting.
Holly Harte 4:51
Don't don't get anyone's hopes up. or fears up. I live with my three cats and a dog. It is a zoo. I have gone one cat too far. Self confessed accidental animal hoarder. I love them.
Jenna Love 5:07
It's only-- I don't like-- it's only because the final cat you got is a bit of a situation.
Holly Harte 5:13
He is a real jerk. You know, I love him to pieces, obviously. And I wouldn't. I would never part with him. But yeah, it's it's a lot to keep up with. Yeah. But yeah, it's a good life. And you Jenna, what's your living situation?
Jenna Love 5:30
Yeah. Well, I live with my husband who's currently half a metre away from me. And actually, we just celebrated our 12th anniversary on the weekend. So that's our--
Holly Harte 5:39
Woo congratulations!
Jenna Love 5:40
Thank you. We just sat on the couch and ate takeout.
Holly Harte 5:43
True romance
Jenna Love 5:44
Yeah, that's it. And we live with our cat, just the one for now. And again, for now, for now.
Holly Harte 5:52
I'm hopefuly, always hopeful.
Jenna Love 5:54
Always. I'm also polyamorous and I assume that that will come up in the future.
Holly Harte 5:59
Sure it will. Fascinating.
We're both in our early 30s use the pronouns she and her and are pansexual.
Jenna Love 6:08
Yeah samesies
Holly Harte 6:09
Samesies, twins
Jenna Love 6:10
Samesies. We do have an Instagram, a Twitter, and a Patreon. And our name on all of those places is somebody you pod, which is because Somebody You Love wasn't available on all of them. And I went for consistency, it's a bit weird. I don't know what somebody you pod means. It sounds like some kind of move. Or, I don't know--
Holly Harte 6:32
I like it
Jenna Love 6:32
Maybe it's like a euphemism. It is what it is.
Holly Harte 6:32
I love the consistency
Jenna Love 6:35
That's --Yeah, that's what I'm all about. Our Patreon starts at $3 a month, $3 Australian, per month. And at this point, we've just set that up because we're looking to cover the costs that are associated with starting up a podcast. But who knows where we will go with that.
Holly Harte 6:50
I think that's about all you need to know for intros. Let's actually move on to starting the show.
Jenna Love 6:57
Finally, let's do it. Whoo. Okay, so quite a while ago now, would have been early 2020. I was approached by BuzzFeed Australia to do some video interviews with them. They were putting together these two videos. One was 'never have I ever with sex workers'. And one was something like 'questions you've always wanted to ask sex workers' or whatever. And I was just covering, you know, the standard questions, we always get a million times. And so the videos were just featured me, Charlie Forde and Violet Devine. So three Aussie sex workers. And yeah, they were little videos, I thought, well, we'll pop them in the show notes. So you can have a look if you want. Yeah, you don't have to. But yeah, there's some laughs in there. And some dogs, which is always good. But a friend of mine pointed out to me that they had been shared on Facebook, which I didn't realise-- I thought BuzzFeed had only shared them on YouTube. Usually Facebook is pretty eurgh about sex work stuff. So I just didn't think they would have been shared there. But my friend pointed out that they had been and that there were 1000s of comments on them. And I had no idea. So I-- we were out at the pub, and I was like, "Oh, my God, I have to go home, I need to go, I need to go read all of these comments." And I went home. And I read not all of them. Because there was so many but a few of the comments. And it was wild.
Holly Harte 8:26
You are one brave woman.
Jenna Love 8:28
Yeah, yeah, look,
Holly Harte 8:30
It's a lot.
Jenna Love 8:31
Yeah, it's a lot. And I think this is the thing, like being a sex worker on the internet. We deal with so much crap.
Holly Harte 8:38
Oh, yeah.
Jenna Love 8:38
And that's--I'm not necessarily complaining about that. But that's just the reality of being open as a sex worker on the internet. And there's kind of different environments we face. So if you if you go onto Twitter, for instance, there's--a lot a lot of the sex industry is on Twitter, which is basically I think, just because nipples are allowed there, sort of. So we just we're like, well, we have the nipples so we all end up there
Holly Harte 9:01
Here's our place to show them.
Jenna Love 9:02
Yeah, this is where they are, yeah. And so that--it can be a fairly sex work friendly space. But you know, being the nature of Twitter is that people only have a certain amount of characters to write what they're thinking. So there's always arguments and explosions, and blah, blah, blah. So that can be a really, like, hostile space. But at the same time, there's a lot of like sex industry support,
Holly Harte 9:24
Definitely
Jenna Love 9:24
Then you go say, yeah, then you could say, onto Reddit, which is, from the Australian perspective, it's very kind of Americanized, it's quite, it's not very supportive of sex work. It tends to be very " ahh human trafficking, blah, blah, blah" conflating you know, consensual--
Holly Harte 9:40
yeah, absolutely
Jenna Love 9:41
--sex work with human trafficking, which is a whole episode that I want to dive into.
Holly Harte 9:45
It's a big one. Yeah.
Jenna Love 9:47
Yeah. But wherever you go on the internet, you're going to get like a different type of person that you're combating
Holly Harte 9:52
You do, you get different demographics, you get different interests, different overlaps and, and different battles
Jenna Love 10:00
Yes, exactly. And because Facebook is quite anti anything related to sex or anything, I sort of hadn't had the battle with that kind of audience before. And then I was introduced to them all with these 1000s of comments from, you know, people clutching pearls.
Holly Harte 10:17
Yeah, what a lovely way to meet them, yeah.
Jenna Love 10:20
Oh, it was beautiful, lovely introduction. And just, it was hilarious. Like th-- it was just, yeah, it was this this user base that I didn't know about, basically, because I'm, I live in a fairly sheltered world, most of my friends either work in the theatre or in the sex industry. So everyone's pretty fucking chill.
Holly Harte 10:38
Yep.
Jenna Love 10:38
So to suddenly be, you know, like to have my face and my words put in front of these mothers from Southern America, like it was,
Holly Harte 10:49
that's what I was gonna mention is that, you know, having kind of scroll through the comments myself and even mentioned it to you at the time, was that it was very obvious to me having a look at a lot of the profiles that were negative that they were from a region of America, which was interesting, because it was a BuzzFeed Australia video. But a lot of the comments were skewed from America, which I suppose you tend to see very strongly different, or differing views on sex work than you do from a lot of Australians, obviously, there's going to be, you know, different groups within different countries, but I suppose, because of the legalisation of Australian, or sex work within Australia that it tends to be a lot more progressive. Whereas in the US because of their laws, there does seem to be a lot more you know, as we call it, whorephobia, a lot more fear and shame involved with this industry. And yeah, a lot of people were really coming for you guys in those comments in a variety of different ways. And it was eye-opening
Jenna Love 11:41
Yeah
Holly Harte 11:42
Wasn't it?
Jenna Love 11:43
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was really intense. I mean, I loved it, because I quite enjoy playing with trolls
Holly Harte 11:48
You are unique. Yeah, you do love the trolls.
Jenna Love 11:50
I know. I do. I love that. And I've got a few pet trolls that I keep around, and they pop up every now and then I'm like, "Oh, honey, Oh, here we go again". I'm quite a fan of them. But anyway, so the point is, I was reacting to all these comments. I was responding to all of them because you know, not many people are in a position to be able to respond under their name and their face. And I am, so I do and then it was just there was so many of them that I was like "I'm gonna do like a reaction video". Because I love, you know, those like 'celebrities read mean tweets'. I love those things. I love people reading awful shit about them. I don't know what that says about me. But I'm into it.
Holly Harte 12:27
It breaks down the fear of it. The anger of it, doesn't it? It just ridicules, it's great.
Jenna Love 12:32
Yeah, yeah, you're spot on. There you go. Nailed it. But yeah, so I decided to do a live Twitter video where I was reacting to all of these comments in live time --real time. That's what live is. I don't know why I just explained to you guys what live is. There we go. So then that's where Holly comes into the story.
Holly Harte 12:51
That's me. So I received an inquiry somewhere around that time from a lovely gentleman called Darren, which may or may not be his real name, hint, it's not--
Jenna Love 13:01
Obviously isn't
Holly Harte 13:02
Definitely not. And he asked me if I do femdomme, which is basically dominatrix style a light, you know, dominatrix style activities. I'm definitely not a dominatrix. That is a whole other topic. We should get one on our show one day.
Jenna Love 13:20
Oh yes we should.
Holly Harte 13:21
They are absolutely fascinating individuals, people who work in that side of the industry. I'm definitely not trained to that standard. But sometimes I will happily you know, inflict some some fear onto someone if that's what they really want. So this individual--
Jenna Love 13:38
And boy do they want it. Boy is there a market for it
Holly Harte 13:40
There really is and I remember my first one--we'll talk about all that sort of stuff one day, but um, it took me a lot to hype myself up to it. So it takes a lot of mental fortitude to be mean to someone because naturally i don't think--i think a lot of--I think we're-- generally sex workers are very compassionate people so to make someone or to exert power over somebody is a big thing. So yeah, so Darren got in touch. He asked if he could be a footstool for the duration of a session of two hours. And during that time, I would watch TV or read a book or something which sounded wonderful to me. Didn't believe he was legit at first but he came through, he was legit and actually an absolutely wonderful guy, really likeable person. But yeah, he didn't want to be spoken to for the whole session. Yeah, that was basically the gist of it. He--
Jenna Love 14:39
and had you done anything like that before?
Holly Harte 14:41
Not that. Definitely not footstool. I have never had any human piece of furniture before. I have had, you know, slaves, which is another type of sort of light domme thing where they basically serve you and do housework for you and things like that. All another thing to discuss, you know, in another show, but yeah, this was my first piece of human furniture as he calls himself, which was really cool. And very--these are always really fascinating bookings. Obviously, we love the GFE thing. I love to do a girlfriend experience, I love to be-- I'm a naturally super affectionate person. But also like when someone comes in and throws me something totally left field
Jenna Love 15:20
Oh, the variety is one of the best things of our job.
Holly Harte 15:23
Absolutely
Jenna Love 15:23
That's one of my favourite parts of it
Holly Harte 15:24
It was really, really exciting to say this is going to be something I've never done before and give it a shot. I think he had a great time. So, on the day, I was getting ready doing my makeup and I noticed that Jenna had her live reactions coming up. And so I put that on in the background while I was doing my makeup and continued to play it. Then he-- Darren turned up and I thought I better put it away and I thought "oh, no, that's he really wants me to be entertained and do something that i'm amused by while he's here". So I kept the live going in the background and used him as a footstool while I giggled away at Jenna's reactions, which were actually hilarious. And he just had to sit there and act totally unamused while I was laughing at Jenna's video, so that was really cool. Um, yeah.
Jenna Love 16:19
So how long was that booking?
Holly Harte 16:20
It was two hours. Yeah. And I think he was happy. And I was certainly very happy. I had a great time. Yeah, then I heard from him, then I think you were coming to do a tour a few months later, and I heard from him to ask whether he could do that with both of us basically. So, yeah, I think he must have been quite enamoured or intrigued by you. And certainly--
Jenna Love 16:49
By my voice.
Holly Harte 16:50
By your voice, yeah. He was , you know, focused on being furniture for my feet. And he heard your voice and thought "she sounds like a woman I want to be a footstool for" which was. You can see the temptation
Jenna Love 17:01
Isn't that fascinating? Yeah.
Holly Harte 17:04
Yeah. So he asked whether he could die. Yeah, so he asked if he could be a footstool for both of us and serve us drinks for an afternoon. And we--What was your thoughts when I asked you about it, Jenna?
Jenna Love 17:13
Well, yeah, so Holly contacted me and said, "Oh, look, I know, this isn't the sort of thing you normally do" and I'm even like, far less of a domme than even Holly is, and Holly isn't a domme. It's very, very rare for me to do any kind of dominant services. And when I do, it's only ever with peopl--with regulars and people I'm really comfortable with. So um, but what she described what she was like, you know, it is-- there's a power play involved, but he literally just wants to be a footstool. And I think, I don't know, I don't know if I knew what-- like this sounds ridiculous-- but I don't know if I knew what a footstool was. Because I well I don't know, like, I don't have one. I don't think I've ever had. I kind of googled it and was like, "What?" I don't know, I just wasn't familiar with that particular piece of furniture.
Holly Harte 17:57
Very endearing.
Jenna Love 17:59
I'm not fancy enough to have had a footstool.
Holly Harte 18:01
I'm not gonna pick on you, but like, it seems self-explanatory
Jenna Love 18:04
Yeah it does. Yeah, okay, I'll give you that. But I just, yeah okay, I couldn't get a picture of it in my head. And then I looked at a picture. And I was like, "Yes, it is. It's what it says on the box". And yeah, but I was like, "well, I know... I know I'm not a domme, but I mean, sure. You sure? Is that--we literally just sit there and put our feet up?
Holly Harte 18:28
Well I don't know how much detail we want to go into on this podcast. But I said to him, "Do you want any release at the end of it"? And he said to me, "no, not at all. I don't want you to touch me at all, basically". And I thought, "okay, unusual". And then I met him and I really wanted to because I wasn't allowed to.
Jenna Love 18:46
Yes the temptation!
Holly Harte 18:48
Yeah. The fact that I wasn't allowed to, suddenly I wanted to touch!
Jenna Love 18:53
So yeah, I was a bit like, Oh, I don't know. It sounds sounds too good to be true.
Holly Harte 18:58
Yeah.
Jenna Love 18:58
But then I absolutely loved it. I really enjoyed myself. And I think a big part of that was because you were there. If I was on my own, I think I would have struggled a little bit and Holly was--
Holly Harte 19:09
Really?
Jenna Love 19:09
Yeah, well, you were helping me too, cuz I was saying, "Oh, sorry". And you were like, "Don't say sorry".
Holly Harte 19:11
"We don't apologise to furniture".
Jenna Love 19:20
Exactly. Yeah, Holly was really talking me through it, which was very, very helpful. Because as she said, it's a, you know, putting yourself in that mindset is, is something that not everyone's able to do and not everyone's kind of got the experience to do so it was a bit of a journey for me
Holly Harte 19:32
That's why I have so much admiration for proper dommes. It takes--it's a whole mindset--the mental-- yeah, I don't think people realise how much goes into it. So I've got all the admiration for them. Well I'm glad you enjoyed it
Jenna Love 19:45
Yeah, I did. I did. It was, you know, and essentially, this was what? 90 minutes of the two of us sitting on a couch with our feet up of course, there were some there's a little bit of instruction about where we might put our feet and to rub them into his face occasionally.
Yep he selected the footwear. He was quite specific in what he wanted with that.
But essentially we were just sitting there chatting. Yes. And my god, did we have a good time!
Holly Harte 20:08
Laughing. We were cackling, we were having a good old laugh. And I think we were both--we discussed beforehand that we were both a little bit concerned about whether we'd be able to talk organically with him there, whether we'd feel like, you know, stilted and uncomfortable, but we--time flew, and we had a great time before you knew it. We were like, "Oh, God, time's up."
Jenna Love 20:26
Yeah. And then afterwards, he like, so we had a quick chat with him at the end, which I mean, I really--he's-- as Holly has said, he is really lovely. And I wanted to chat more to him. But our time was up. And he talked about saying--
Holly Harte 20:39
Super interesting guy
Jenna Love 20:40
Yeah, very interesting. But he, he mentioned, that it was really difficult for him to sort of not laugh and to keep a straight face and not get too involved in our conversation. Yeah. Which made us go "oh, maybe it wasn't just us that was interested in what we have to say". And I, yeah, like I don't know about you, Holly. I imagine you've had this before as well. But I'm constantly having people say to me that I should start a podcast or if "have you ever thought about doing a podcast?", you know, or--
Holly Harte 21:10
I've never had it. People never want to hear me talk.
Jenna Love 21:11
Oh you haven't?
Holly Harte 21:12
No. Never ever! I think he said it at the end of that booking, he said something about it. And that was the first time I've ever even-- it's ever even crossed--So --
Jenna Love 21:21
I like hearing your talk.
Holly Harte 21:23
You're-- that's very kind of you - you'd be one of few. But I know you're wonderfully well spoken and you've done a lot of media stuff. And I think people obviously--
Jenna Love 21:31
Yeah, yeah
Holly Harte 21:31
love to hear from you. And it's something comes to you naturally
Jenna Love 21:34
I do speak a lot. That is something that I, yes, peaking and sleeping. My two top skills.
Holly Harte 21:38
I love those things. Yeah. And sex.
Jenna Love 21:40
But yeah I've always said no-- and sex. Sleeping, speaking and sexing... the three S's
Holly Harte 21:45
We are so good.
Jenna Love 21:46
But yeah, like I've always said no to it, because just the thought of taking on yet another project, having something that you have to create and deliver on a schedule, all of that and having people kind of demanding, I guess, more of my time and more of my, whatever, was just really kind of overwhelming and sounded really draining. But then you and I had this booking together in I think was maybe November last year, a good--over--more than six months ago. And suddenly, it just clicked for me and I went "this is something I want to do. I want to start a podcast with this person. I want to talk to this person regularly and have people listen to it".
Holly Harte 22:24
That isn't a massive compliment, thank you.
Jenna Love 22:26
It felt organic. Oh, yeah, no wucks. It made sense. And I'm somebody like, I'm really, I'm very driven by my gut. And if something makes sense, I just want to do it. So I was like, babe, can we do it?
Holly Harte 22:39
I think look, if you hadn't asked me, I think if other people had suggested to me this idea, I would have gone. "Oh, that's a lot". But you--what people might not know about Jenna is that she's a sucker for punishment. So if there is more she can take on then she really needs to she does. And so she's just--
Jenna Love 23:01
Don't, my psychologist might be listening!
Holly Harte 23:04
This obviously was something that she was really into. And I sort of went "well, okay." And then she just ran with it. And I'm sort of just, you know, scrambling to keep up with with Jenna's level of commitment. And no, she's so good at this sort of thing.
Jenna Love 23:19
Oh the love fest is disgusting. I'm gonna vomit.
Holly Harte 23:24
Um, but yeah, so So that's sort of how we ended up here. And, yeah, it's, it seems like we're going okay apart from a few technical difficulties haha, we're getting there
Jenna Love 23:36
Of course, that's essential. And I think if anything, Darren will probably listen
Holly Harte 23:39
I hope Darren listens. I hope he feels flattered.
Jenna Love 23:41
So I think we have one audience member
Holly Harte 23:42
Maybe one day, we'll get him on the show.
Jenna Love 23:45
Oh, my God, that would be wonderful.
Holly Harte 23:46
Wouldn't it? No, no pressure
Jenna Love 23:48
No presh, but that would be very cool. I think he's got interesting things to say
Holly Harte 23:53
He does.
Jenna Love 23:54
Let's put that on the back burner. And so let's move on to misconceptions, shall we?
Somebody You Love 24:00
Interlude
Holly Harte 24:03
Now on to a segment we call 'misconceptions'. Very creative title. They're basically exploring the misconceptions that, you know, the general public or that we had about the industry before we started and breaking them down a little bit and exploring those. So today, Jenna's got our topic, misconception topic of the--
Jenna Love 24:26
Yeah we need to come up with like a catchy name. If anyone has suggestions for a catchy name you like throw it at us. If you have any great suggestions for a title for this segment, go nuts. But in the meantime, we shall call it
Both 24:42
Misconceptions
Jenna Love 24:44
(sings) Misconceptions.
Holly Harte 24:46
Ooh I like a song
Jenna Love 24:47
There you go, I've got a jingle. Great. So the misconception today and this is something that I actually overheard an acquaintance of mine saying, not that long ago, and I was really taken aback by--even though it's a common misconception, I was really surprised. To hear someone, someone young and someone that I know saying it, which was, what he said was that 'you don't kiss sex workers'. And I've heard it said as both 'you don't kiss sex workers' and 'you don't go down on sex workers'. Yeah. So I was I was really surprised, because from my perspective, that is very incorrect.
Holly Harte 25:21
Yeah, definitely. That's not how it works in the industry. Obviously, look, there are some sex workers who don't allow kissing or cunnilingus or any variety of things. That's your right within the industry to determine your own boundaries and what you're comfortable with. There are people who charge extra for certain services. But for the most part, if you're hiring an independent full service sex worker, kissing is pretty standard across the board.
Jenna Love 25:46
Yeah. I think that's reasonable to say
Holly Harte 25:49
Generally
Jenna Love 25:50
Yeah, definitely not for everyone. But I think that's pretty, yeah, pretty standard and fairly expected from the client perspective, I think, yeah. And to me, thinking that that doesn't happen shows a real fundamental misunderstanding of why people visit sex workers, and the intimacy needs of humans. And really the point of our job and what it is that we do, because I think that suggesting that you go to a sex worker, and you don't kiss them, or go down on them or give them pleasure in any way, sort of suggests that the purpose for going to a sex worker is just for you to have an orgasm. And that's it. And then you often hear--I know a few times--I've spoken to the media a couple of times, and they often throw in this question, which they're weirdly obsessed with, which is, "Are you afraid of robot brothels taking over, taking away the jobs of sex workers?" basically, because I know in a couple of countries they've got--
Holly Harte 26:47
Oh, yes, sex robots, sex dolls
Jenna Love 26:48
Robot brothels as a novelty more than anything? and great, bloody awesome.
Holly Harte 26:51
Cool technology
Jenna Love 26:52
One day, I'll do one of those. Sure. But no, I have absolutely no fear about that. Because people don't go to see a human being, they don't spend hundreds of dollars an hour to be with a human being so that they can have an orgasm. Yeah, they spend that money and that time, and that energy and effort because they are looking for intimacy, they're looking for human connection, they're looking for touch, they're looking to feel safe to feel loved, to feel desired. So as much as for some people that doesn't involve kissing, or cunnilingus, and that's cool. But for a lot of people, what they're looking for is connecting with another person. And kissing is, is a huge part of that. So to me, it's--
Holly Harte 27:35
A vast proportion of clients, I feel, that's what I feel like they're looking for. And I feel like, you know, obviously, there's clients who do just want the wham bam, in and out and fine, whatever, that's totally, you know, not a problem. But, you know, timewise, in a booking, you know, sex is X amount, and the rest of it is really connecting and talking and touching and kissing. And that's, you know, having that human connection and feeling that something deeper, you know, it's not like we're, you know, any sort of therapist or any sort of anything like that, but just feeling that innate need that we all have to connect. And kissing is huge of that for a lot of people. In brothels, you know, a lot of the time a standard service is very, very basic. And it doesn't include kissing, and kissing is something that independently in the workers within the brothel can charge extra for. So it is something that most people see as a, or sorry, I should say most clients tend to see as a desirable commodity within the industry, not something that they try to avoid at all.
Jenna Love 28:43
Definitely. And that's something that I got no information when I worked in brothels, and no one told me that that I should be charging extra for something like that.
Holly Harte 28:52
Oh yeah
Jenna Love 28:52
I just thought everyone else was making out with their clients and apparently, I could have been upselling, but that's one of the reasons I don't want to work there.
Holly Harte 29:00
Yeah
Jenna Love 29:00
We're just yeah, that is so foreign to me. Yes, I do have the occasional client who doesn't want to kiss. But it feels really weird. I'm like, "Oh, I your dick's in me and we're not kissing" It feels weird. I find it really difficult to really connect with somebody when we're just like keeping our faces away from each other.
Holly Harte 29:20
I love to pash so particularly with clients, you know, not being supposed to kiss them in a brothel was very strange. Yeah, very strange. The other thing that's a really disturbing thing about that misconception, which, you know, we try not to obviously get offended by things, by these sorts of things. It's just, you know, part of this industry is that people do have their beliefs that we just try to challenge daily. But the vibe behind this one that you get is that people think that we're diseased or that we're gross, and that's why you don't want to kiss us and that's really not the way things work. That's quite a detrimental part of that assumption, which is really disappointing.
Jenna Love 30:05
Definitely, yeah. I mean, the fact is, that where laws work in the sex workers favour, where we have decriminalisation and to a lesser extent, legalisation, sex workers have consistently lower rates of STI transmission than the general public. So if anything... we're not the ones you've got to be worried about kissing.
Holly Harte 30:27
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, it's just a really disappointing part of that. But you know, I guess then part of what we do is in our interactions with the public, we try to pull apart those you know, misconceptions.
Jenna Love 30:41
Have you got a dog giving you a bit of a hard time there?
Holly Harte 30:43
Oh my god, fucking-- excuse the French!
Jenna Love 30:43
They're my favourite part about podcasts when I hear little pets in the bar
Holly Harte 30:49
I'm struggling.
Jenna Love 30:51
I'm personally hoping for that.
Holly Harte 30:53
He thinks it's time to go for a walk. And he's losing his mind. So it's a whole thing.
Jenna Love 30:59
Sorry, Hamish. For me, personally, I actually, like this is just such a laughable misconception, because now, not everyone listening will know this about me, but I'm a big squirter. And that is something that I get a lot of clients coming to me.
Yes, you can attest to that, I'm sure. You have been in the splashy zone.
Holly Harte 31:21
Very cool. Yeah.
Jenna Love 31:24
But you know, I get clients who literally don't know anything about me, they just read that I was a squirter. And they come to me for that purpose.
Holly Harte 31:30
Oh wow
Jenna Love 31:31
Yeah, I know, probably not so much these days. But when I was first starting out, I used to get that a lot.
Holly Harte 31:36
Wow that's very cool.
Jenna Love 31:37
And I was like, Alright, well, I'm happy to oblige. But yeah, so a lot of the clients that I particularly attract are people who really get off on seeing a woman orgasm, who get off on seeing a woman squirt, who really, really want to experience me experiencing pleasure. So it's not unusual at all for me to have bookings that are 90% of the time, the guy going down on me and fingering and all that sort of stuff. Or -- and it's to the point where sometimes it really just gets too much for me.
Holly Harte 32:10
Yeah.
Jenna Love 32:11
And there have been periods of my life where I've asked my personal partners not to go down on me, because it feels like work.
Holly Harte 32:18
It's been overdone
Jenna Love 32:21
Yeah, it has. I mean me laying there and receiving pleasure is just something that is such a huge part of my work, that sometimes in my private life, I'm like, "Oh, can we just fuck" Yeah, I just want to have a normal sex. I don't want someone to sit there and go down on me and make sure I'm pleasured until my eyes feel like they're gonna pop out.
Holly Harte 32:40
Yeah.
Jenna Love 32:41
So the fact that people go, "oh, people don't go down on sex workers". I'm like, "Are you kidding me? I can't stop them from going down on me, they're obsessed with going down on me. Which is probably not the case for everyone. No, particularly in my case, that's a big one.
Holly Harte 32:53
I have heard those views reflected elsewhere in the industry. I have heard, you know, other workers say that, you know, that they found a lot of people just want to go down on them this week. And they're, you know, exhausted from that. And so particularly in your instance, where you offer a really interesting side effect of that, which is the squirting and--
Jenna Love 33:10
Side effect! "Side effects might include..."
Holly Harte 33:14
It's a really exciting and fascinating thing for a lot of clients. But I have had it reflected with other workers in the industry. And, you know, it's not that people don't enjoy it
Jenna Love 33:22
Yeah don't get me wrong. It's not like I don't want to be-- yeah exactly of course
Holly Harte 33:25
People love it but the human body just goes. "That's enough. That's enough."
Jenna Love 33:32
So yeah, it's just funny, this idea of that no one would ever want to give us pleasure.
Holly Harte 33:36
Yeah.
Jenna Love 33:37
When that is such a big part of our job.
Holly Harte 33:38
It's wonderful. I mean, it's a great part of our job. Our clients do want us to have a nice time and they don't want to treat us like a sex doll where they just throw us down and, you know, have their way, they want us to have an interactive, mutually pleasurable experience. And often it is, and it's a real connection thing, like you said, and that's really special. So total misconception, myth busted
Jenna Love 34:05
Debunked
Holly Harte 34:06
Debunked.
Somebody You Love 34:06
Interlude
Holly Harte 34:10
Now, because this podcast was birthed in Jenna's responses to hate comments, we thought it would be fun to have a segment each episode where we highlight shit that people say, because as I'm sure you're aware that if you have any kind of online presence as a woman, you will have horrible things said to you.
Jenna Love 34:28
Absolutely. And if you add to that being a sex worker, the vitriol only gets worse. God forbid if on top of that, you also happen to be not slim or you have a bit of a tummy
Holly Harte 34:39
Get the pitchforks
Jenna Love 34:40
And if you happen -- oh the pitchforks of course. Fat women. Can't have them on the internet.
Holly Harte 34:45
Yeah.
Jenna Love 34:45
And if you happen to have the absolute audacity to pretend to be happy and or confident, I mean, you basically might as well get prepared for regular death threats
Holly Harte 34:54
That's it and just leave, retire.
Jenna Love 34:57
Get off my internet face
Holly Harte 34:59
Internet face
Jenna Love 35:03
Yeah, so yeah, we come across a lot of, as we mentioned before, a lot of trolls and not even trolls, people that just really want us to feel awful. I guess that's what a troll kind of is
Holly Harte 35:12
Just bitter people
Jenna Love 35:14
Yeah, just awful people. Generally I find it fascinating.
Holly Harte 35:19
Jenna's got some good content this week for that
Jenna Love 35:20
I do. So yeah, I thought I'd share a little conversation that happened on Twitter, which I found very entertaining. So I posted a picture-- I don't even know what it was, a mirror selfie
Holly Harte 35:33
It was gorgeous
Jenna Love 35:33
Some basic bitch thing. Of course, it was gorgeous. But you know, just a basic arse picture of my body. And this guy commented, "how much to clothe you? Warning Close your eyes, wide load on display. horrid lack of exercise", which, I mean, he's not wrong. There is a
Both 35:55
horrid lack of exercise.
Jenna Love 35:59
It's horrid. It is absolutely horrid, but it's not going to change. So I've accepted it you need to as well buddy
Holly Harte 36:05
Hard relate.
Jenna Love 36:06
Yeah, and I shared that and I said to everyone "warning" because I thought was hilarious that he was like "warning wide load on display" like I was expecting a reversing truck sound, you know. "meep meep meep fat chick!" So he said "warning", oh I said sorry, "I'm a woman whose body doesn't fit this particular man's standard of attractiveness. avert your eyes lest they burn at the sight of such imperfection". And then I added "Oh, and by the way clothing me will cost $500 (I have so much body mass to cover after all)".
Holly Harte 36:40
Yeah, he asked.
Jenna Love 36:41
A slim person you could you could close at a cheaper rate.
Holly Harte 36:44
Definitely. You need so much fabric.
Jenna Love 36:45
Yeah because of my wide load, so much fabric that it's just gonna cost hundreds of dollars. And I linked my Beem It which, if there's anyone here who isn't Australian Beem It is like Australia's version of Venmo - just an online payment platform. And I will point out that this was a good-- over at least a week ago and I have not received that money yet.
Holly Harte 37:06
He can't be too traumatised by your wide load Yeah
Jenna Love 37:10
Yeah. So he responded with "words are the fingers that mould the mind of men?"
Holly Harte 37:17
What does that even mean?
Jenna Love 37:18
I don't even know. I don't know. But it's it's wild.
Holly Harte 37:22
It's provocative. It's out there.
Jenna Love 37:23
It is--isn't it? The imagery is strong.
Holly Harte 37:27
Yeah.
Jenna Love 37:29
"I hope glasses that that shrink the lard on your bones are on the market soon." I mean, that sounds fucking excellent. "Life sure needs them. Large people like yourself, you can look half the size". So yeah, if glasses--if there's anyone out there making glasses that literally will shrink the lard off my bones, hit me up.
Holly Harte 37:50
Yep take my money
Jenna Love 37:51
I'm up-- I'm here for the investment opportunity. Absolutely. And then-- that's right. Then I went and looked and saw that he was following me.
Yeah.
And I was like, "Oh, honey". So I said, "someone needs to tell this man that he can unfollow me. My fat existence seems to be really upsetting him for some reason", like the poor thing. He can just hit unfollow, and then he won't have to deal with it anymore. You know.
Holly Harte 38:16
I don't know what they expect from this--like obviously part of it is I just want my words to hurt you. But like, I don't know whether he expects you to see this post and go, "Oh, I'm fat. I didn't know--I don't own mirrors.
Jenna Love 38:28
I had no idea.
Holly Harte 38:29
I didn't realise I wasn't a size six like oh my god, better buy a treadmill. I'm not sure what the reaction is
Jenna Love 38:36
No, no, just get a knife and slop it off
Holly Harte 38:39
Yeah what is this immediate reaction he expects? Like right now.
Jenna Love 38:44
So actually, he has given me some advice.
Holly Harte 38:47
Well, thank you, God. Lucky
Jenna Love 38:48
Of course. Yeah, here we go. So he said "in life, you get choices. You obviously made your choice. Many spoonfuls A long time ago" and correct. Yes. I have had many many spoonfuls over my lifetime. And it has been such a good choice. And then in all caps, "make the appointment for a health advice assessment. Obesity shortens your life all too soon". Which sounds like a disclaimer at the end of one of those like medical ads "Authorised by the Australian government, Canberra". I'm like, I love this "obesity shortens your life" like yeah, but I don't know if it shortens my life as much as being a fucking arsehole does.
Holly Harte 39:29
Absioltuely, that level of vitriole it's gotta be doing his heart-- his blood pressures some damage
Jenna Love 39:34
Yeah. And at the very least, he's inviting a good punch to the head.
Holly Harte 39:38
Yeah I mean that's danger. Yeah.
Jenna Love 39:42
Absolute danger.
Yeah.
So I go--a bunch of people jumped in. I wouldn't say to defend me because I think everybody knew that I wasn't-- I certainly wasn't upset by these words. I wasn't sitting there going, "Oh, no, I'm fat". I just thought was very entertaining. But people jumped into sort of to join in the anti trolling which is really lovely of them. And Leo, who is a Melbourne sex worker, Melbourne based I should say, says "I'm late to the Convo and I have a feeling that you're a troll", which is amusing because this person is actually a verified an actual client of sex workers.
Holly Harte 40:15
Supposedly, really? Wow
Jenna Love 40:17
Yeah apparently he actually has seen people
Holly Harte 40:20
Imagine that!
Jenna Love 40:18
So not actually a troll, not a troll in in the truest sense.
Holly Harte 40:25
Yeah that he actually has booked people. Wow. Fascinating.
Jenna Love 40:29
So that's horrifying.
Holly Harte 40:30
So Leo's jumped in - Leo seems like a lovely guy
Jenna Love 40:33
Leo seems really lovely
Holly Harte 40:35
Yeah, he does
Jenna Love 40:35
If everything goes well, COVID pending, I will be meeting him in a couple of weeks. I look forward to that.
Holly Harte 40:40
Yeah.
Jenna Love 40:41
Anyway, so Leo said "on the off chance that you are being legit, this is childish and disgusting behaviour from a grown man" which is spot on. And he responded back with "Leo, I'm sorry to offend your way of thinking" which, okay, "but I'm in charge of my thoughts". Correct. You are. "I think as a professional in any profession, quality is important. rejects are sold in the bins at the back of the shop". I was like, this is a whole new level. I'm literally -- he wants me in the reject bin.
Holly Harte 41:11
Like hi, I'm a human being like thanks
Jenna Love 41:13
Actually am a human being. Wild. And I thought well, first of all, okay, so I'll go with the reject prices. That's fine. You don't have to buy the rejects, babe. Like it's all good. There are always people who will. Everyone loves a bargain bin discount.
Holly Harte 41:31
Why would you follow someone that you find so repulsive? Like I just don't get it
Jenna Love 41:35
That you think is literally a rejection of a human being? Like, wow. And then the other thing is, and it's this, I mean, I don't want to toot my own horn. But I'm regularly booked out. I often have waiting lists. And it's like, I don't think that's it doesn't I'm not going in the bargain bin.
No you're doing fine. Thanks.
Yeah I said to him, like "don't go into retail babe because you don't have your finger on the pulse. You'd make terrible decisions". And then I've got one more screenshot that I'm reading from this. There was plenty more, of course. But Mischa Maxwell is another person I haven't met who seems really lovely. Yeah. So he said something on someone's post about "Oh, you're lovely. And the other women aren't as kind as you" or some shit. And she said, "mate, maybe other ladies aren't as kind to you because they can see how rude you are to women online. Like what you said to Jenna, for example",
Holly Harte 42:33
100%.
Jenna Love 42:35
And his response was "give us a break". Oh, poor thing. "I only know quality. I'm a sports attic. If you cannot present well get out of the game." And now. Like, there are all sorts of reasons why somebody might use the incorrect word, English may not be their first language. That might be autocorrect. Who knows. But when somebody is being an absolute fucking arsehole, I'm going to come at them for that. "I'm a sports attic" instead of--addict was presumably the word he was going for. And Mischa responded something like "Yes, Yes, I can see that. You've come from the attic. And I think you should, you know go back to attic. Just "I'm a sports attic"! He is an attic.
Holly Harte 43:28
Yeah.
Jenna Love 43:29
He's like, just full of all baseballs and whatever
Holly Harte 43:31
Yeah, he's definitely coming out of the attic.
Jenna Love 43:33
I mean I don't know, I don't know anything about sport, which is it because you know, horrid lack of exercise
Holly Harte 43:37
It loops around.
Jenna Love 43:38
It loops around. We'll come back to the beginning. And he was right. Well, so Ah, what a joy. That was. That was a good day for me.
Holly Harte 43:46
To know that would make him sleep well at night. He'd feel he'd feel really good knowing that he was right
Jenna Love 43:50
I think he would feel--Yeah, he's done a good thing, hasn't he?
Yeah. Yeah. Good man. Curing obesity. One random chick on the Internet at a time. Good on him. So I think that brings us to the end. I think we've talked shit long enough.
Holly Harte 44:05
Wow. There we go. That's our first episode of many.
Jenna Love 44:08
Yeah, we did it!
Holly Harte 44:09
Of many hundreds
Jenna Love 44:10
Of many - oh okay, all right.
Holly Harte 44:11
We'll look back on this day and wow we'll be nostalgic.
Jenna Love 44:16
Aiming high.
Holly Harte 44:17
Definitely. Okay, well, thanks for listening, everyone. Just a reminder that we do have our Patreon, we have our Twitter account, Instagram, that will be linked somewhere for you in the show in the show notes. Yep. We'll be looking for feedback from you guys. We'll have a few questions to you know, gather some opinions for our next show. And
Jenna Love 44:39
Yeah, we'd love to know what you'd like to hear and we'll be looking for some involvement from you.
Holly Harte 44:47
And thanks for joining us here on the first show and you know, keeping us company. Love you.
Jenna Love 44:52
Remember, Somebody You Love might just be a sex worker.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai