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In Plainspeak – Scarlet Road Review

Scarlet Road: Of Sex Work and Disability

In Plainspeak – review

A digital magazine on sexuality, based in the Global South: We are working towards cultivating safe, inclusive, and self-affirming spaces in which all individuals can express themselves without fear, judgement or shame.

Posted on August 1, 2014
Click here to view PDF
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Sex workers and people with disabilities. Two communities who are marginalized, disapproved of, and unsupported by a large section of society, come together in this f ilm with an enchanting name – Scarlet Road. My f irst viewing of the f ilm was quite a unique experience. I had watched it at a friend’s place, who had organized a screening of the film for all her friends. What made it special was that she and her friends were all visually challenged. Yet that was no barrier for this group of spirited people who were keen to watch the film. The sighted persons in the group took turns explaining the visuals, while they listened, experiencing the film, clarifying doubts as we steadily progressed. That was one of the most remarkable and insightful experiences for me – of film viewing, and that with a fun and unique bunch of film enthusiasts.

‘I will be as sex worker, I will be an out and proud sex worker, and I will be Doctor Rachel Wotton, sex worker.’ – Rachel Wotton

Directed by Catherine Scott, the film follows the work of Rachel Wotton, a sex worker based in Australia, who specializes in clients with disabilities. Rachel lives and works in Australia. She is a stunning personality – fearless, strong, confident, beautiful, sensitive and an advocate of the freedom of sexual expression. She is unlike any sex worker you have met. With a Diploma in Sexual Health and an ambition to do her PhD, Rachel will blow you away.

In the film, we meet two of her clients with special needs – John Blades, a 51 year old who has been living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) for 29 years. On a wheelchair, John has no movement below the neck. We then meet Mark Manitta, a 49 year old, who was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when he was ten. Through the course of the film, we see the relationships that develop between Rachel and them, and the impact she has in their lives.

For John, his sessions with Rachel have helped him regain body movement, not to mention his self-conf idence and self esteem. Mark always dreamt of falling asleep with a woman, and waking up beside her the next morning. Rachel doesn’t just give him that, but lends him a ear and spends time getting to know him. For her clients, Rachel is more than a sex worker, she is someone who they can talk to, share their feelings with and express themselves sexually. Like Mark says in the film ‘People do understand the difference sex makes. Part of having cerebral palsy, is spasticity and muscle spasms. I need sex to make my muscles relax… and I like sex.’

Sex work is decriminalized in New South Wales, Australia. For Rachel, sex work isn’t just a source of living, but a cause that she has taken up. It’s both a personal and professional struggle as she tries to cope with various laws on sex work, travelling, learning, and lending a voice to her thoughts. She represents the sex worker community with a certain élan, attending conferences and making her presence felt, moving audiences with her advocacy. She actively campaigns on international forums for the rights of sex workers to end the discrimination against them.

Rachel has helped set up Touching Base, a charitable organization based in Sydney that strives to connect sex workers and persons with disabilities. She also served as international spokesperson for Scarlet Alliance, the Australian Sex Workers Association.With all these strengths driving her, she comes as a breath of fresh air in the f ilm – a level headed young woman who loves her job, and would do anything to be good at it. What makes her different is her ability to connect with people like John and Mark, and give them what everyone deserves – a human touch.

For me, the f ilm did wonders. It not only made me more sensitive to the needs of people with disabilities, but helped me understand how both the communities are in the movement together, fighting for their rights, against social stigma and for the freedom of sexual expression. With their joint efforts, their voices are clear, prominent and outright. The private act of sex, generally conf ined behind closed doors, is now in the open – to be taken notice of and be granted a fair chance to all sections of the community. As Rachel mentions in an interview, Scarlet Road was created to show the diverse nature of the sex industry, and the diverse nature of those who participate in it.

I feel lucky to have watched the film with a special set of friends, who made me realize that there is no stopping you to experience what you want and embrace life wholeheartedly. I’d like to end with Rachel’s words in the film, that encapsulates the spirit of the film and states simply what her job means to her.

‘I like that my job always entails pleasure, making someone feel better about themselves, that they are the center of someone’s attention, and they deserve to smile.’ – Rachel Wotton

Video Blog – ‘Scarlet Road’, the hidden side of sex work

Video Blog – ‘Scarlet Road’,
the hidden side of sex work

– trust.org

Posted on June 24, 2012

PART 1
Scarlet road from Thomson Reuters Foundation on Vimeo.
PART 2
Scarlet road – Part 2 from Thomson Reuters Foundation on Vimeo.
This video blog is part of a live reportage from the Sheffield Documentary Festival 2012

By Maria Caspani

SHEFFIELD, England (TrustLaw) – Can sex work ever be a good thing or even do some good?

Meet Rachel Wotton, a witty, outspoken young woman from Sydney, Australia, where she has been working legally as a sex worker for the past 18 years.

It was her choice, and one she is proud of.

“I realised there was quite a lot of diversity within the sex workers community,” Wotton told TrustLaw during an interview in Sheffield, where she and director Catherine Scott are presenting the documentary in which Wotton stars.

“I had a lot of different aims and aspirations. In fact the sex industry allowed me to pursue these aspirations.  It allowed me to merge a lot of my passions and desires I wanted to accomplish in life,” she added.

“Scarlet Road”, screened for the first time in Europe on Friday at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival, aims at challenging the mainstream and widespread belief that sex work is a shady, dark, and morally wrong business.

Half of Wotton’s clients are people with disabilities. People like Mark, forced into a wheelchair by cerebral palsy but nonetheless a human being who needs to touch and be touched as much as he needs to eat and breathe.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Mark says in the film, “so I can’t share my feelings with just one person. Rachel makes me feel like I have a girlfriend.”

“I treat them as human beings,” Wotton said. “And they all have different needs and desires…it’s just about changing my service delivery slightly.”

Wotton, an advocate for both sex workers and people with disabilities, volunteers for Touching Base, a charity that assists and connects people with disabilities and sex workers.

ABC-radio – Rachel Wotton interview

Rachel Wotton

— ABC Radio Interview

Posted on February 29, 2012

Rachel Wotton says that people with a disability have adult desires just like anyone else, and for those without a partner a sex worker can be a godsend.

Often it’s the parents of the client who initiate contact with her, on behalf of their adult child.

Rachel is the co-founder of a network that seeks to bring, as she says, two of the most marginalised groups of people in the community together: Touching Base.

She was recently the subject of an SBS documentary called Scarlet Road.

Click here to listen to the interview…

Hot Docs 2012 // Scarlet Road | Now Magazine

HOT DOCS 2012 // Scarlet Road
| NOW Magazine

Posted on May 4, 2012

You’ve never seen a movie about sex work like this one. And Rachel Wotton is a sex worker like no other.

More than 50 per cent of her clients have disabilities, and she trains colleagues to serve that clientele and is active in Touching Base, an organization that links the rights of the disabled with the rights of sex workers.

Here, she connects to clients who talk poignantly about the healing powers of sexuality. In one exquisite sequence, she negotiates with a mother who wants to help her Down syndrome son lose his virginity.

The passionate, impossibly sunny Wotton is a winning hero in one of the best films ever made about a maligned profession.

May 2, 7 pm, ROM Theatre; May 4, 6:30 pm, Cumberland 3;
May 6, 9 pm, ROM Theatre.

By Susan G. Cole

eFilmCritic – Films You Will Want To See (2012 SXSW Edition)

eFilmCritic – Films You Will Want To See
(2012 SXSW Edition)

Posted on April 7, 2012

At the Sundance Film Festival this year, audiences and critics gave a lot of praise to The Surrogate, a film based on a true story starring John Hawkes as a nearing 40 year-old virgin due to his affliction with polio. Enter Helen Hunt’s “sex surrogate”, who differentiates herself from prostitutes, to ease her client through the process of having a meaningful sexual experience. In what couldn’t have been better timing for documentarian Catherine Scott, her latest film, Scarlet Road, tackles the current truth about the same subject matter through the eyes of an actual “sex worker.” Rachel Wotton works out of Australia and has become a specialist in working with a disabled client base.

Scott’s film follows Rachel to meet with several of them and their caretakers, explaining what she does and how she is working to expand the service through Touching Base (www.touchingbase.org) that is a haven for potential clients and others in her profession seeking legitimacy. It makes for two halves of an interesting discussion on the subject. The best aspects of the film involve Rachel and the clients; a true human interest story that should reach beyond any moral objections one has towards however people want to label her. Nothing is graphic in representation and while sex is a foregone conclusion, it is the basic human connection and tenderness that Rachel helps provide that makes any denial of it immoral in its own right. This is where I would have liked to see the film provide more insight into. Rachel’s advocacy in larger venues is seen going largely unheralded, and while she lights up the center of the film, another 10-20 minutes of interviewing subjects to voice such opposition would have made for a fuller film and may have even increased audience support in an age where such stick-in-the-muds for human rights have become more dangerous than mere buzzkills. Scarlet Road makes for an interesting introduction to the Wotton’s of the world though, especially (like The Surrogate) for those who might seem a little turned off by the whole idea of it. Those people should remember it is not about them though and all about those who need to get turned on once in a while too. (Be sure to read our interview with director Catherine Scott and star Rachel Wotton.

(March 12, 1:15 PM; March 13, 4:30 PM; March 16, 11:00 AM)

Erik Childress

BADASS Digest – A deeply heartening documentary about the intersection of sexuality and disability

A deeply heartening documentary about the intersection of sexuality and disability

– BADASS Digest

Posted on April 7, 2012

Call me a prude, but I consider sex to be a very private function. Like defecation, I don’t see the point of discussing it, much less watching it in a movie. The concept of an erotic narrative film is hilarious, actual porn makes me weep for the future of our species, and I would never expect a documentary that’s ostensibly about prostitution to strike so many emotional chords.

That’s largely because director Catherine Scott’s story is much broader and more important than I’d short-sightedly anticipated. Her camera mainly follows 30- something Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton, a composed and good-natured self-deemed “whore” who has spent a great deal of time establishing long-term physical relationships with several disabled men. Rachel maintains that these members of our communities have just as much right to sex as anyone, but are unfortunately given fewer opportunities to get it.

As her clientele expanded over the years, Rachel realized that this was a bona fide social concern, and set out to educate the public – as well as other sex workers – that there’s no reason to exclude the disabled from our bedrooms. We learn that she’s founded an organization called Touching Base, which aims to bring this unspoken concern to international awareness as well as provide options for those who haven’t easily found intimacy due to their physical hurdles. It’s a bold, unprecedented cause to champion, but Rachel’s tireless tenacity shows that the task is certainly not insurmountable.

Her clients are equally impressive in their drive and optimism. Two of them are happy to openly discuss the experiences they’ve had with Rachel, and entirely unashamed to say they pay for a woman’s company. John lives with multiple sclerosis, his limbs immobile but his wit and creativity as sharp as ever. After a memorable appointment with Rachel, he tells his friends, “I feel like a man again.” Mark, who communicates via computer due to cerebral palsy, explains to his mother that all he’s ever wanted is to spend the night with someone and wake up beside her. In the film’s most indelible moment, he does. There wasn’t a dry eye in my entire row at the screening.

That being said, the film avoids all obvious emotional pitfalls. Both of its primary focuses – prostitution and disability – are sticky topics that are here treated with a refreshingly minimal amount of melodramatic sympathy. Rachel is portrayed as what she is: a healthy, level-headed adult who is confident in her career path and determined to help others find their paths as well. She has the support of several friends, colleagues, her loving boyfriend and even her elderly mother. Her clients are treated with a similar respect by the filmmakers, never pitied or portrayed as defeated by their individual challenges.

Scarlet Road isn’t flashy, artsy or clever. It’s better than that: a plain, old effective documentary that benefits from its simplicity and objectivity. And – unless you’re a completely small-minded, judgmental asshole – it’s inspiring and unforgettable regardless of your age, background, vocation or freedom of mobility.

Published March 19, 2012 by Zack Carlson

The Scorecard Review – SXSW 2012 film review

The Scorecard Review
– SXSW 2012 film review

Posted on April 7, 2012

Scarlet Road

Director: Catherine Scott

The film follows the extraordinary work of Australian sex worker, Rachel Wotton. Impassioned about freedom of sexual expression and the rights of sex workers, she specializes in a long over-looked clientele – people with disability.
(North American Premiere)

WHO’S IT FOR? If you are willing to have a sympathetic view toward educated sex workers and the disabled people they sometimes serve, then see this doc from Australia.

OVERALL

Call me crazy, but I like to see people happy. I know, it’s what separates me from you.

When I read the description of this film, I figured this is exactly the kind of movie a film festival is for. Rarely would I make time for something like this otherwise. I’m glad I did.

Rachel has done everything. That’s right, she’s had tons of sex and been paid for it. She even wears a shirt that reads “whore.” She lives in a world where sex workers are legal, and she constantly crusades for sex workers’ rights. This is a hurdle that will separate many from watching this film. But you should know, it’s never that graphic in language or visually. It’s actually a warm film.

My heart (your heart, everyone’s heart) goes out to people with disabilities. Half of Rachel’s clientele are people who can’t know the physical, sexual touch from another. When she talks about a non-profit brothel, it actually makes sense.

Ever since seeing the documentary Being Elmo I have noticed something we’ll call the “glazing over moment.” They briefly show you not everything is perfect. For Being Elmo is was when Kevin Clash talked about being divorced. Immediately you want to know more, since everything else seems so nice, but the documentary doesn’t go that way. It just glazing over the moment. For Scarlet Road, it’s the fact that Rachel has a serious boyfriend. I know, right? There’s also the point where Rachel goes on vacation and never knows when she’ll find herself “working.” What the hell does this boyfriend think? We don’t get to know. We do find out a good “working dress” is one that slides off, with no buckles or straps.

When Rachel is working with at the World Conference for Sexual Health, you realize we need more discussion on the matter. When she’s with a man suffering from cerebral palsy, your heart goes out to him and his family. Yes, it’s crazy to listen to a mother’s hope for her son to be with a sex worker. But it’s not insane. It comes from love. That’s what Scarlet Road does best. It shows people doing things out of happiness and love for others. Unorthodox yes, but when a man truly dreams of going to bed and waking up with a woman next to him, shouldn’t he have that chance?

FINAL SCORE: 7/10

March 13, 2012 4:00 am – Jeff Bayer

The Austin Chronicle – SXSW Film Daily reviews and interviews

SXSW Film Daily reviews and interviews

— The Austin Chronicle

Posted on April 7, 2012

Documentary Spotlight

D: Catherine Scott

She hovers over his belly, smiling, then gently, almost imperceptibly, strokes his skin with her silken curtain of hair. Her hand guides his up and onto her, affording him the same pleasure, the affirming grace of human touch. Sex worker Rachel Wotton, who specializes in clients with disabilities, is on the job in New South Wales, where sex work was decriminalized, and this is her story. Director Catherine Scott lends a similarly deft and tender camera to the proceedings, not afraid to get in with close-ups, but perhaps not of what you think. While the film features two very intimate encounters, it never treads on the inappropriate or voyeuristic, instead capturing the subtle and everyday (“You can order in, like a pizza!”) and emotionally nuanced (“I finally feel like a real bloke again!”) with heightened sensitivity, offering the subtextual food for thought that for some, the world’s oldest profession might very well be less an occupation than an avocation.

By Kate X Messer, Fri., March 16, 2012

Sex Workers Unite! : The Scarlet Road SXSW Interview with Catherine Scott & Rachel Wotton – efilmcritic.com

Sex Workers Unite!

The Scarlet Road SXSW Interview with Catherine Scott & Rachel Wotton — efilmcritic.com

Posted on March 6, 2012

At this year’s South by Southwest Festival, a very interesting documentary is premiering about Rachel Wotton. She is a “sex worker” in Australia who works for the rights of not only her fellow specialists but also for a manner of service that is liable to get some extra attention in 2012 thanks to a film that just premiered at Sundance. I spoke with Rachel and filmmaker Catherine Scott about one of the films that fest audiences in Austin should have on their radar.

Catherine, what drew you to the subject matter and how did you go about cajoling Rachel into being a part of the project?

CATHERINE: Rachel and I met over a decade ago. We hit it off immediately and she has been part of my inner circle of friends ever since. In the early days we flirted with the idea of making a documentary about her and that stayed in the back of my mind. I ended up moving to Kenya for a few years and when I was back and after having my first son, it occurred to me it would be a great moment to embark on the film. I approached Rachel about the idea, and we discussed what possible angles I could take and I just picked up the camera and started filming. The focus of the documentary shifted and changed and finally centered on the work Rachel was doing with her clients with disability. Everything fell into place. This was the area in Rachel’s life she was most passionate about and very few documentaries have tackled this subject matter.

I have always been intrigued by Rachel’s job and her openness about what she does was disarming. I found her honesty and views on sexuality and disability truly compelling. Rachel deeply cares about others who work in the profession and has a duality about her, on the one hand being a ’naughty‘ girl, who for a fee, is delighted to cater to her client’s various fantasies and desires, and on the other, a passionate advocate engaged with the cultural and political battles that surround this clandestine world.

But even though Rachel and I had a long friendship the access was not as smooth sailing as I had expected. Rachel and I had a great rapport but even so, we still had to develop a new kind of trust in one another. Rachel had to trust that I was not going to do what most media people typically do and I had to trust that she knew what was most important to show about her life and let go of some my sometimes conventional expectations. Being a sex worker, Rachel is very good at negotiating her boundaries. However, in the early days I felt like I was constantly bumping hard up against them. As we went on, the more I engaged Rachel in the process of the film, showing her rushes, talking to her about how to go about filming events happening in her life, the more she opened up and let me and the camera into her world. What really surprised me was I had known Rachel for over a decade but there was so much more to learn about her life and experience in the world. I really thought about things I had never thought about before when I was making this film.

Rachel, what were your greatest concerns about how your story was going to be represented on film?

RACHEL: Sex workers have a general distrust of the media as we are too often misrepresented and mis-quoted. I knew Cathy was an excellent documentary maker and director but initially I just wasn’t sure how she could realistically portray the messages I wanted to share. I wanted my voice, the voices of other sex workers and our clients to be heard but I wanted to do it with dignity and respect and without taking the camera ‘into the bedroom’ at all! I was concerned that everything we were trying to convey would be dismissed as some cheap porno with the audience being forced to be voyeurs. It is a credit to Cathy that she really ‘got’ what we provide at work and finally, after much discussion, I gave permission for the shower scene with Mark to be shot. This moment of the film has become one of the most favourably commented on.

I was also very concerned that the film was going to be dismissed as just some kind of ‘happy hooker’ film. This happens a lot internationally where positive messages and experiences of the sex workers are blatantly dismissed. We are accused of being ‘privileged’ and not representative of anyone bar a small minority of other sex workers.

I was also very aware that the film had to clearly state that seeing a sex worker is but one of many options for people with disability, just like anyone else in society.

I also didn’t want people to become fixated on how much money I – or any other sex worker – was being paid per job. The over-arching message that all sex worker activists are trying to convey is that no matter if you are paid $1 or $1000 per booking that we all deserve equality and the ability to enjoy our Industrial, legal and human rights. To contribute and be acknowledged as members of society, like anyone else.

How did some of the other subjects feel about having their involvement with Rachel portrayed for the world to see?

CATHERINE: The representation of both sex workers and people with disabilities is a minefield and I really wanted to tackle these stereotypes head on. One of the aims of this film is to represent people with disabilities’ view of their own sexuality. People with disability are often not seen as sexual beings and on the other hand sex workers are often seen as ‘oversexed’, ‘victims’ or ‘damaged goods’. I really wanted to shift past all these preconceived ideas and get the audience to think about this in a whole new way. So when it came to filming Rachel with her clients it was a delicate balance. I wanted to show the touch and intimacy, without objectifying Rachel or her clients and reveal the sexual tenderness without titillating or shocking the audience. When I met Rachel’s clients, John Blades and Mark Manitta I was expecting it to be a bit of an uphill battle to get them to be in the documentary but I was bowled over by their enthusiasm. I remember I went over to John’s house and pitched the film idea and his response was “ I would be honored to be in this film.” Part of this had to do with his high regard for Rachel but I think even more significantly he thought it was so important to show how these sexual self-discoveries had transformed his life. It was the same when I met Mark who was also totally willing and excited to be in the film. Eventually his mom and dad also came onboard and they were just incredible. So it sort of flowed from there. It all happened in increments and kind of organically a little bit at a time. I filmed Rachel and all the people and events in her life over 3 years.

Rachel, what was the impetus in your life that made you want to dedicate yourself exclusively to disabled clients?

RACHEL: I have never exclusively provided services to JUST clients with disability. Ideally sex workers have the freedom to choose what service/s they would like to provide and to whomever they choose. I just happen to be someone who has built up a lot of experience seeing people with a wide range of disabilities. My prerequisites in accepting a booking with a client are more about them being polite and respectful and wishing to pay for the services I actually offer. I see all clients holistically – as people first and foremost. If they happen to have a disability I just adapt my services accordingly to best meet their desires and needs.

I’ve always found people to be fascinating and could never understand – even as a child – the active discrimination against people who are deemed ‘different’. As someone who was previously short sighted I guess I also try to always ‘walk a mile in other peoples’ shoes ‘ and wondered what it would have been like if I’d lost my sight completely. From that I have always tried to appreciate what I do have and also how I would like to be treated if I was in the other person’s position.

In early 2000 I was involved in a wonderful photographic exhibition called ‘Intimate Encounters’ (www.belindamason.com). As well as extensively touring throughout Australia, it has been shown in London, New York, Toronto, Spain and New Zealand. “This work explores the myriad of connections between disability and sexuality”.

It was around this time that a number of us were talking more about the sexual rights of people with disability and the barriers both sex workers and people with disability were facing when trying to connect and arrange appointments. We decided to create a forum for these two marginalized communities to talk and discuss these issues. From this day in January 2001, Touching Base was formed (www.touchingbase.org)

When it comes to America’s view of prostitution compared to the rest of the world, does it simply come down to our society having roots in religion, a freedom we fought for at the expense of so many other freedoms?

CATHERINE: Perhaps America is more puritanical because of its’ particular history but I think America’s view of sex work is not unlike many other places in the world or Australia for that matter. You have the high moralism of folks who decry all the naughty sin stuff that surrounds sex. This is often, but not always, fuelled by religious beliefs. On the other hand you have some liberals and feminists who only seem to talk about sex work within the human trafficking framework and this is currently doing more damage to sex workers’ rights than anything. It has spurred repressive laws against the buying of sex in Europe and made the working conditions very repressive for sex workers. So whether sex workers are seen as ’fallen women‘ or ’victims‘ it all end ups stigmatizing them and isolating them from the rest of society. Of course in reality sex workers are a part of our communities. That is one of the things we really tried show in Scarlet Road. We normalise the life of a sex worker by showing Rachel doing all the things she does, how she thinks, who she hangs out with, how she relates to people and the world around her. The everydayness of her life really takes people aback. It’s not the tantalizing seedy underworld that most imagine.

RACHEL: American advertising is similar to a large majority of the world where sex sells everything from jeans to cars to self help magazines. Yet when you actively chose to sell sexual services the moralizing begins. People get so caught up in the Hollywood imagery of either the “Pretty Woman” or the “drug-ravaged dead hooker on Law & Order” that they never stop to find out what sex workers ourselves are actually saying about our lives. With the internet, there is now absolutely no excuse for any journalist or interested person to not be able to connect with thousands of sex workers and sex worker organisations to gain a truer perspective of the real issues sex workers are facing day to day. There are amazing blogs, research and media articles written by sex workers every day but unfortunately people are more interested in perpetuating the stereotypes of what they think a sex worker should look like, behave ,do and consent to. At the end of the day the religious argument just isn’t a good enough reason for a government to keep sex work illegal. It is 2012 for goodness sake.

When I put a smile on my client’s face it might not be exactly what Jefferson and the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. But seriously America should be leading the way – or at least following in the sound footsteps of NSW, Australia and New Zealand where decriminalization has been proven to work. It is a disgrace that the USA is actively turning its back on sex workers.

Do you feel the whole safety issue is a smokescreen used by those with deeper moral objections to the practice? And what would be your concerns if you were on the solicitation side of things?

CATHERINE: I’m not sure what ’safety issues‘ you are talking about but if you’re talking about the safety of sex workers then decriminalizing the industry would be one giant leap forward in making the conditions much better. If a person is no longer penalized for being a sex worker then they can go to the police is there is any violation for example. So that’s one way to make it safer. I think a lot of people who have deep moral objections to sex work often feel like that are advocating for what’s best for sex workers. The funny thing is, not many of them have ever spoken to one. We have decriminalization in NSW where in theory sex work is treated like any other business. There is still more work needed to be done around the anti-discrimination laws but NSW, where Rachel and I live, and New Zealand are the only two places in the world that currently have decriminalization. This is what Rachel and many other sex worker organizations around the world are advocating for and it is also one of the reasons why this story is happening in Australia. Everything that Rachel and her colleagues are doing at Touching Base is only possible because of this legal context.

RACHEL: I agree with what Cathy has already stated. People go on and on about “protecting the sex workers” and “for the welfare and health and safety of sex workers” yet no one is actively listening to what sex workers actually want and need. Only decriminalisation can deliver true health and safety standards to sex workers.

The role of the police in society is to keep the citizens safe and to be there for us to report any crime done against our possessions or person. People jump up and down and say “why don’t sex workers report the crimes against them to the police?”. It’s because the police are the ones who will arrest them when they find out that they’re a sex worker – regardless of if the crime even happened in their work place. It is sad but true – and highly documented internationally – that it is actually often the police who sex workers need protection from (rape, assaults, stand overs, corruption of all degrees). Only Decriminalisation can clearly separate the police from the sex industry and remove them as the regulators and enforcers of archaic laws.

Knowledge is power so increased levels of education about sex workers, our lives, how we work and who we are is needed for the general population as well as specific Police Sex Worker Liaison Training. We need the media to stop perpetuating the old tired myths about what people THINK sex workers are and do and instead actually take the time to investigate the truth from sex workers ourselves.

Anti-discrimination laws for “occupation, trade or calling” would also help to remove some of the stigma and discrimination sex workers face every day (from trying to open a bank account, renting a house, getting a loan or putting their child into daycare). Interestingly enough – these same laws would benefit the police too! I have done numerous sex worker awareness training sessions with police and they also complain about suffering discrimination in their day to day lives that is based on their own choice of work.

“What would be your concerns if you were on the solicitation side of things.” I don’t know what you are driving at exactly?. But if I was a client of a sex worker I would want the same rights and responsibilities afforded to me as any other time I was a consumer in society. If you compare sex work to an accountant: I would want the right to go to a large accountancy firm, a small collective of accountants who shared premises or perhaps a small independent accountant who worked from home or a rented premises 3 days a week. I’d want the right to know the charges before booking an appointment and negotiating what services I needed and wanted. I’d like to know how long I should put aside for the appointment and also how payment was to be provided…. Currently in America sex workers can’t legally work anywhere except in very prescriptive brothels in certain sections of Nevada. They can’t openly discuss and negotiate what they will and won’t provide and therefore can’t give an open and honest breakdown of their prices according to services requested. They can’t legally work in large, medium or small collectives nor even on their own or in pairs. They can’t legally refer to other sex workers who may be more suited to the client’s needs (ie. an accountant may only do personal tax and refer on to someone else who specialises in business taxes).

If I was a client or a sex worker in the United States I would also like to know that I will not end up with a criminal record for participating in a mutually consenting service (which is what happens now when clients of sex workers are charged during ‘sting’ operations).

When it comes to safety, precisely would be the 100% guarantees that an individual or a brothel could offer to put the most unsure of client or objector at ease?

RACHEL: Decriminalisation gives sex workers and everyone working in the sex industry (this includes receptionists, managers, owners, cleaners, security guards, delivery persons, electricians, plumbers, other tradesmen employed to either build or maintain equipment on premises) the best form of safety and security.

There are already Occupational Health & Safety Standards and Guides available in Australia and New Zealand, so countries can just adapt these. To review you can go here and here

Have you had any negative responses from the disabled community or their caretakers?

CATHERINE: You know just before this went out into the world I got a little panicked for a moment, worried about what this could mean for Rachel who has come out as herself in the film. I always felt in my heart that this film would be good for her and all that she is trying to do in the world but I got last minute jitters. The discrimination and stigma that surrounds her profession is very pervasive. To my surprise and relief, we did not get any bad feedback at all from screenings or the TV broadcast and the disability sector in Australia has totally embraced the film. Touching Base, it must be said, has been working within this area for a decade and has paved much of the way. Touching Base provides links between people with a disability, their support organisations and the sex industry and was set up by Rachel and others eleven years ago. Many disability, sex worker and community organizations via the Touching Base network actively promoted the television broadcast in Australia. They became real stakeholders in the film and helped get it to a key target audience and that was just sensational. Touching Base received a deluge of emails that they could hardly keep up with from people all over the country wanting more information. There have been numerous requests from the medical and disability communities to have Rachel and her colleagues speak at their conferences. So you could not ask for a better response. They say that one in four people are either affected by disability or close to someone who is in Australia so when thinking about potential audiences you are talking about a significant amount of people who might have an interest in this subject. I am sure the same goes for America.

RACHEL: I have had the most amazing emails and phone calls of support since the film has been shown. I am overwhelmed by the amount of honest and heartfelt responses to myself and everyone featured in Scarlet Road. These messages of support and thanks have come from all over Australia and overseas by people who have been personally touched and moved by the film.[br]

It has already started to achieve what we set out to do, which is to create positive changes in peoples’ attitudes and actions towards both people with disability and sex workers. We hope that this can continue to grow so that legislative reform can include Decriminalisation for sex workers and pro-active policies and procedures within the disability communities to support the sexual rights of everyone with a disability.

I am truly excited about the amount of interest in Touching Base and what we are working towards (www.touchingbase.org). I am also delighted by the amount of enquires to host a fundraising screening of Scarlet Road as well as the increased interest in having some of us speak at conferences and schools / universities.

In a film that just premiered at Sundance that is liable to get a lot of attention during the prestigious awards season later this year, The Surrogate, Helen Hunt plays a sex surrogate who caters to a man afflicted with polio who wants to lose his virginity. What you do now seems to be very much the same and yet you still refer to yourself as a “sex worker.” How often do you feel that the language of the profession and how it is discussed and debated get in the way of the real issues.

RACHEL: I think that there is a place for both occupations to have a meaningful existence in society. Yes, the skills, knowledge and the actual services provided do sometimes overlap but to me that’s OK.

I have seen numerous virgins throughout my career. Just like others – some like to just throw themselves in the deep end and go to a sex worker and “get it over with” or just experience everything all at once, in one go! That’s completely fine. Others like to build up their experiences and knowledge sexually in a slower way, just like people do with boyfriends and girlfriends during school years and beyond.

Helen Hunt’s sex surrogate says the difference between her and a prostitute is that a prostitute wants you to keep coming back whereas her job puts a finality on the number of visits. Seems more like a semantic argument on her part, but how would you define the difference?

RACHEL: I have worked as a sex worker and also as a sexual surrogate. I have provided services to virgins in both capacities. I do agree with the statement from Helen Hunt. With surrogacy you identify both short term and long term goals that the client wishes to achieve and collectively you are working towards that point . Each session has a learning component and your aim is that the client is moving forward in their learning capacities. There is definitely an end point to your sessions though. A lot of the clients I have worked with have had to work through other issues such as social anxiety and self esteem with a therapist well before they are ready to face the challenges of learning to be intimate with another human being and how to even ask someone out on a date. In addition – sexual surrogacy often works in a triangulated model where the client, the surrogate and the therapist all work together and share information openly with each other.

Sex workers are also great educators and many clients come to us to learn different and new techniques and sexual expressions. They know that we too create a safe and nurturing environment and are experts in our field. For some they don’t need or want to see a therapist – they just want to explore sex and intimacy and be touched. Some clients choose to see a different sex worker every time and enjoy the experiences of a new touch and new body every time. For others they become loyal regulars to one or just a couple of sex workers over the years. These sessions can be pretty much the same kind of session each and every time with no cut off date or outlined learning schedule needed.

Others come to visit a sex worker to learn to become better lovers before they throw themselves back into the dating scene. Others need a bit of TLC after a bitter divorce or bad break up. Some of the sweetest clients I’ve seen or heard about are widowers who have lost their life partner and choose to spend some quality time with a sex worker. At their age it often doesn’t equate to the imagined ‘hot sweaty sex’ but more the gentle companionship, the human connection and ongoing friendship that you build with someone…

At the end of the day, you can learn from both experiences and you have a physical component in both work places but I guess you can say that the surrogacy environment is one predominately of learning and goal setting that includes physical touch (though there are a lot of other social skills people normally need to learn in earlier sessions). With sex work the predominate rationale for appointments are for companionship and physical services (but of course clients also often learn a lot of skills and things about themselves along the way). The surrogacy sessions will always have a defined end point but the client of a sex worker could sometimes ‘grow old’ with their sex worker and see them for 20, 30 or even 40 years.

I have actually presented a number of times about sexual surrogacy, including in conjunction with Saul Isbister here as well as:

– Wotton R, “Sexual surrogacy: from a surrogate’s perspective”, Oral moderated poster presentation, 19th WAS World Congress for Sexual Health, Goteborg, Sweden, 23rd June 2009

– Wotton R, “A personal perspective of a sex worker who provides services to clients with disability”, poster presentation, 19th WAS World Congress for Sexual Health, Goteborg, Sweden, 22 – 25th June 2009

Catherine, would you consider reaching out to Fox Searchlight, who is releasing The Surrogate, to help bring awareness to Scarlet Road and Touching Base?

CATHERINE: I am always interested in reaching out to whoever can help get Scarlet Road out into the world and seen by more people. We are working with our North American distributors, Women Make Movies, and the European distribution company, Cat & Docs, for the rest of the world. It’s pretty exciting to be represented by companies that are passionate about promoting documentaries and I have enjoyed our working relationship so far and hope that Scarlet Road will go well with audiences here in America and abroad.

Rachel, what positives or outright success have you had in your campaigns for sexual advocacy?

I think that the ongoing success of Touching Base over the last 11 years is an achievement in itself. We have been delivering successful workshops to both disability service providers and sex workers for many years. We have also written and published the Touching Base Policy and Procedural Guide which promotes the health, safety and human rights of people with disability accessing sexual services in NSW. We are hoping that this can be adapted and utilised by disability organisations around Australia and elsewhere around the world.

There has definitely been an ongoing increase in enquiries from people wishing to access services from sex workers. This is from people with disability themselves as well as disability support workers, carers, parents, siblings and friends of people with disability. I personally have had enquiries from around Australia and overseas, as have Touching Base.

The Touching Base website has been accessed by people residing in over 70 different countries in the last 18 months which really shows that there is an active and real need for information and services in this area.

It is also good that more politicians are interested in watching Scarlet Road and talking to us about sex worker rights. We are hoping in the future that that will equate to more countries enacting Decriminalisation into their legislation for the sex industry.

How broadly would you like to see Touching Base reach the world? Could it expand to areas of North America that either have legalized the profession or turned a convenient blind eye to it?

RACHEL: Touching Base has amazing success and has been acknowledged all over the world. We have achieved all this predominately through the generous in-kind donations and support from individuals and organisations. We are hoping that we will attract some very generous philanthropic benefactors over the next few years which will allow us to establish a permanent office and employ staff to continue our activities. We are still very keen to have a meeting with Sir Richard Branson (as seen in Scarlet Road).

We would definitely like to see the aims and objectives of Touching Base be established and enacted across the world. We hope that one day sex workers and their clients – some of which may have a disability – may be able to openly and confidently discuss and negotiate an appointment without fear of stigma, discrimination, arrest or prosecution.

What do you feel are the most commonly misrepresented aspects of the profession?

RACHEL: All aspects of sex work and sex workers are commonly misrepresented. Not all sex workers are female. Not all clients are male. Not all clients want “full service” (sexual intercourse). Some just want a sexual massage (in NSW, where the sex industry is decriminalised there are specific sex services premises which are locally known as ‘massage parlours’ which just cater to sexual massage (“rub and tug”). So not all sex workers actually choose to provide intercourse.

I think that society’s perception about what a sex worker looks like is generally wrong. I know a lot of sex workers who are NOT size 6 or less (USA sizes) – who are in fact quite curvy. I also know of many sex workers who would be deemed quite large who make a very good income from the sex industry. What billboards depict as ‘sexy’ and ‘desirable’ is often not what our clients are looking for. .

The depiction of what and who clients are is also extremely wrong. I often say : pick an eye colour, a hair colour, a gender, a size, a shape, a religion, an ethnicity, an occupation, an age…. and from all of those you will have described a client… and for that matter a sex worker. We are all members of society. We can be your brothers, your sisters, your mother, your aunt, your uncle, your teacher, your hairdresser, your cab driver, your neighbor, the list goes on.

What I do know is that generally what the media portrays and what TV and Hollywood portrays is wrong – or centers on a certain image or ‘look’ or demographic and tries to pass it off as ‘the norm’ when in reality is it often the exception to the norm.

As Cathy says – we sex workers are an incredibly diverse bunch… as too are our clients!

Clients definitely get a bad wrap in society and this was actually one of the reasons we wanted to bring people’s attention to this sub-set of clients that sex workers see. To me a client is someone who has engaged in a mutually consenting activity whereby they are happy to pay for a particular service and I am happy to provide that particular service for that amount of remuneration. It’s clear and simple to the sex workers and clients. Anyone who assaults a sex worker or robs them is a criminal – pure and simple and the police should charge them accordingly. Unfortunately the clients have also been demonized around the globe which is incredibly unfair. I am very thankful for my clients – without them I couldn’t earn a living.

That’s the other thing that people get caught up in – what do sex workers spend their money on!! I’m always amazed at this question. We spend our money the same way as everyone else: on rent or a mortgage, on clothes, food, transportation costs, education, bringing up a family, going on holidays, going to the movies, insurances, medical bills, taxes, paying off student loans etc. Basically buying bread and milk like everyone else

Personally the other thing I hate the media getting caught up with is the fact that when they report ‘how many clients’ a sex worker may see in a brothel / sex services premises per shift or per day. They seem to think that when they report “up to 8 clients a day” that that is a bad thing. I always laugh and say “well we’re not there for a picnic, that’s great that they can see that many people per shift”. No one cares that an accountant may see up to 8 people per day or a doctor may see up to 20 patients per day or a chiropractor may see 15 patients per day so why are people so up in arms if a sex worker sees X number of clients per day. If we are there to work I can assure you that sex workers want to maximise their earnings and earn as much as possible during their shift. It should not be reported in the media as some kind of horrific event if they provide services to more than one client per day.

Finally I hate when people try to report that sex workers are “selling their bodies” or “selling their souls”. No we are not. We are selling a service which may involve a certain action / activity and may be for the duration of that activity and / or a certain amount of time.. We go home with our own body – we do not “sell it” and I can assure people that we go home with our own souls. This is just using insidious language to beat up an issue that sex workers want no part of. We want our human rights recognised and non-discriminatory laws instilled.

There have been several fictional films that have dealt with the issue of prostitution, played both for laughs and dramatic purposes. What would you feel are the ones you have seen that have got it right, understood it, or simply you could point to one single thing and go “they did their research.”

CATHERINE: Black White and Sex by John Winter is a recent narrative feature film that I saw at the Sydney Film Festival with Rachel. The script rang true and many things that came out of the mouth of the actors I had literally recorded with Rachel. So there were quite a few side way glances between us. It’s a very funny and confronting film that gives a real inside view of sex work, the dynamics of sexuality and power so the research was definitely there. There is an Australian TV series called Satisfaction that is set in a sex services premises (commonly known as a brothel). Even though it is over the top at times it had some interesting characters and story lines that defied many stereotypes. But really you have to ask Rachel who is in touch with hundreds, if not thousands, of sex workers around the world and very attuned to how sex workers are represented, and more importantly, how those representations play themselves out on the ground for sex workers. The main thing I have learnt from working on this film is the sex worker community is incredibly diverse. Even though there are a lot of commonalities in the profession, there are so many different stories. I think the problem is we often only hear about the negative side of sex work and that paints the whole industry into a corner literally with terrible consequences for sex workers’ basic human rights.

RACHEL: Yes most of Black, White & Sex was great. Personally the ending didn’t sit well with me, but I can see that they definitely consulted with many sex workers and their voices came through.

For all that’s been said about Pretty Woman I actually commend it in a few ways. Firstly the lead character was ballsy and up front with condom use. The sex worker movement in Australia – especially those demanding condom use for services – was led by the street based sex workers in Sydney in the 1980’s. I completely recommend the documentary “Rampant: How a city stopped a plague” to learn more about the Australian sex workers movement and their incredible efforts and actions that allowed Australian sex workers to still enjoy incredibly high levels of sexual health and still – to this day – lower levels of STIs than the general population. (An interesting side note is that Andrea Lang, who is the editor of Scarlet Road, was also the editor of Rampant. In addition, Julie Bates, who is predominately featured in Rampant, is a good friend of mine and I have learnt a great deal from her over the years through peer education and support).

Secondly, I think that the level of discrimination shown to the lead character of Pretty Women based entirely on how she was or wasn’t dressed is indicative of how society treats people in general… which is pretty sad. An ongoing joke throughout the filming of Scarlet Road is that I predominately wear flat shoes and only wear high heels for special occasions. Yet people seem to think that I would live in high heels!

Finally I personally have enjoyed watching the Firefly series and the film Serenity where the role of “Companion” is seamlessly incorporated into the script and characters. While I will never support mandatory testing, the rest of the information is great!

Sex work and disability – Breaking the taboo – ABC Radio Interview

Sex work and disability – Breaking the taboo

ABC Radio Interview

Posted on February 29, 2012

Rachel Wotton has clients with cerebal palsy, down syndrome and advanced MS.

Some of them have very limited physical function below the neck, others need a computer to speak.

But Rachel isn’t a physio therapist, a social worker or doctor – Rachel is a sex worker.

And as a sex worker, she has specialised in working with clients with disabilities, who she says have as much right to sexual pleasure as any of us.

Rachel’s story has been captured in a new documentary called Scarlet Road. You might have seen it on SBS, and it’s about to be released on DVD and tour festivals all over the world.

Click here to listen to the interview…

‘Can I Play With Your Joystick?’: Crips, Sex and Scarlet Road – http://www.toddocracy.com

‘Can I Play With Your Joystick?’:
Crips, Sex and Scarlet Road

— http://www.toddocracy.com

Posted on December 14, 2011

Sex is the most basic need, most primal desire any human can have in the world. Often it brings us the most satisfaction, and bind us to other human beings like nothing else. Everyone notionally seems to be entitled to have sex in any way they want, in the privacy of their own home. That is unless you are physically disabled. SBS premiered a documentary on Friday night, which in my long experience is the only one that has seemed to deal with disability and sex in a factual, non judgmental manner. Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey chronicles three years in the life of Rachel Wotton, a sex worker that specializes in satisfying disabled clients, not only a sexual sense, but one in which her clients can truly feel like men.

As a man with Cerebral Palsy, I must declare a stake in this issue, it is one that is very close to my heart. I have gone through many of the same experiences as the clients in the film. I have even gone so far as to talk about my disability and sex way back in 2008.

The worst thing about having a physical disability is the lack of control I have in life. Everything is very clinical, get up at this time, eat at this time, have a shower at this time, and go to bed at this time. I have no control over these things. (With sex)…. I got to do things on my own terms…. it was the first time I felt like I was being treated like a sexual being with desires and needs that were important. All my life I have been viewed as an asexual being whose desires should be avoided or neglected. (It) taught me not to be afraid of my sexuality and not to push it into the background.

The latter portion of Scarlet Road deals with one of Rachael’s clients who has Cerebral Palsy. His wish for his birthday was to have Rachael act as his girlfriend and stay overnight in his bed. This was despite the fact that he could not talk and has severe spasticity in his muscles. I strongly identified with his desire. The loneliness I have felt for 99% of my life as a disabled person, unable to hold someone as they fall asleep is one of the most painful things I’ve had to endure in my life.

Can you also imagine sharing a bed with your girlfriend and then having a carer coming in to the room to get you up in the morning, sometimes accidentally during the middle of a sex act? This is both a possibility and a reality that I along with countless others face our entire lives. In order to fulfill her client’s fantasy, Rachael not only needed to learn how to perform a sexual act to client’s satisfaction, but also how to feed him, toilet him, and change him, so he could just have one night of privacy and romance. These acts of personal care hardly set the mood for a night of passionate and sexy love making.

One of the things that Scarlet Road did a remarkable job was showcasing the response of the parents of Rachael’s clients. Often the desire for their child to have sexual intercourse with a paid sex worker can be a moral affront for parents. However in some cases, parents of a child with a physical disability have to be involved in the process itself. Whether it be transferring the person onto a bed so the sex act can take place, or driving their child to a brothel, the notion of privacy between parent and child is almost eliminated, and that is only if the parents are willing to be open minded and supportive. Sometimes if a crip wants to have sex, it has to become a community based activity with physiotherapists, occupational therapists, carers and parents all having to consult a person with a disability so they can achieve their sexual desires.

However, Scarlet Road is bittersweet in a way because it has demonstrated what a unique and fantastic individual Rachael really is. While paying for sex is not my first preference, I wish her organisation Touching Base was operating in Queensland, so it could provide me with an easier way to explore the options available to me. The fact that the two marginalised groups: sex workers and people with disabilities have to come together to ensure every person has access to sex, speaks volumes about society. After all I am a cripple and I like to fuck. Who doesn’t?

December 4, 2011

Bridging disability and music for a busy life – SMH

Bridging disability and music for a busy life

Sydney Morning Herald

Posted on December 3, 2011

John Blades, 1959-2011

During his working life John Blades was an engineer who built bridges with the Roads and Traffic Authority, but the most productive elements of his life concerned the making of connections between people and disparate points of reference.

Blades, who has died a few weeks shy of his 52nd birthday, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1982 when he was 23 – the same year he commenced work in structural engineering.

From the late 1970s and through his university days, Blades developed a passion

for alternative music styles – cut-ups, electronics, plunderphonics, tape loops, industrial noise, experimental soundscapes – as well as a life-long devotion to music of the post-punk era.

Inspired by programs on the nascent Double Jay radio, he embraced the avant-garde and found musical equivalents to most of the visual art forms that interested him in a kaleidoscope of futurism, minimalism, music concrete, expressionism, Dada, surrealism, dub and reggae.

Not content to simply consume, he became involved – first with Double Jay’s Peter Doyle, Mac Cocker and Tony Barrell, later with the Biennale of Sydney and practitioners from the improvised music scene. He championed groups including Severed Heads and Scattered Order and keenly supported Ian Hartley, editor of Spurt magazine, the godfather of Sydney’s experimental music scene and proprietor of a clothing shop known as Skin Deep.

In 1981 he met broadcaster Richard Fielding at the Death Exhibition mounted by the Institute of Contemporary Events. Fielding would become his principal collaborator in The Loop Orchestra, a performance group that was to occupy Blades for the rest of his life.

He began reaching outside Australia too, forming new friendships with musicians from Cabaret Voltaire and Pere Ubu and assisting in multiple initiatives – both in recording and performance art pieces – and, subsequently, the Now Now Festival and exhibitions of Art Brut – or Outsider Art.

In 1981, after appearing on Hartley’s eclectic 2MBS-FM radio program, Disc Noir, he took stewardship of the program’s late-night timeslot, renaming it Hot Dog You Bet and co-founding the Contemporary Music Collective that still exists.

This program complemented Alessio Cavallaro’s seminal Contemporary Editions – later morphing into Background Noise which he hosted until a few weeks ago.

With Fielding and Anthony Maher, the first incarnation of the Loop Orchestra also emerged and its debut release soon followed as did others on the band’s own label, Endless Recordings.

Blades’ mother, Pam, had lived with multiple sclerosis and had not been unduly inconvenienced by the disease, so he remained optimistic even as it consumed first his mobility and eventually his motor function.

Two elements united to ensure his life remained productive and engaged. One was Blades’s formidable willpower. The other was the devoted care of his brother, Bruce. With Bruce’s tireless dedication he was able to live at home in Greenwich and cultivate his passions even as the disease robbed him of movement. When driving became impossible in 1997 he took to a wheelchair. When his arms ceased functioning, he bought an electric wheelchair with a chin control.

After 16 years in the workforce he was obliged to quit the Roads and Traffic Authority in March 1998. Engineers from Ability Technology eased him into the virtual age with a fully-integrated computer system, allowing him to type and control phone and internet connections with an infra-red beam manipulated by head movements. Dragon Naturally Speaking (Version 6) provided access to a text and email facility, sustaining his global connections.

Special-needs taxi drivers Emanuel and Ali ferried Blades to and from countless functions.

Despite requiring constant home care intervention and intermittent sojourns at Lidcombe’s Multiple Sclerosis Centre (”boot camp”), Blades remained alert, impassioned and involved with a wide circle of artists and creative people. He kept abreast of film, television, radio, the gallery scene, festivals and concerts. His themed Christmas parties were well attended by devoted friends, admirers and neighbours. He would sip beer through a straw and be fed by whoever was close to hand – more often than not, his orchestra confidante and co-conspirator, the tireless Emmanuel ”Manny” Gasparinatos.

Scarlet Road, a television documentary about sex and the disabled will be broadcast on SBS this Friday. Nominated for a Walkley, it featured John in a cheerfully forthright look at the unifying of two marginalised groups – disabled men and a sex worker providing therapeutic contact.

He was a prominent participant in the radio documentary The Too Hard Basket, which won a Walkley last year for Social Equity Journalism. It also received the human rights award and best documentary from the Asian Broadcasting Union. In every facet of his life, Blades was quietly, sincerely and humbly proactive, yet all his activities were informed with passion.

He lived life as it came – a day at a time – and maintained an impressive schedule until his final weeks.

His multiple sclerosis was ”under control” in recent years but complications from cancer therapy left him too weak for surgical intervention and he died peacefully in hospital on November 25.

He never took a backward step – nor, in his wheelchair days – a backward roll.

Doug Anderson

www.smh.com.au/national/obituaries/bridging-disability-and-music-for-a-busy-life

The Conversation – Is sex a human right? Ummm, yes … no … maybe … it depends on what you mean by sex really

Is sex a human right? Ummm, yes … no … maybe … it depends on what you mean by sex really

— The Conversation

Posted on December 1, 2011

The upcoming SBS documentary Scarlet Road follows sex worker Rachel Wotton and her relationships with her disabled clients.

theconversation.edu.au

Health care, fair trials and education are things we readily accept as human rights.

Unlike fresh air and food, we can actually live without school or a due process trial for a whole lot longer than without water, but of course, nobody is willing to give these things up. These aren’t rights as essential as peaceful protesting and voting and living without enslavement.

Sex should be included on this list. It is every bit as important as the right to practice one’s chosen religion or to not be discriminated against. It should be included on this list because, like religion, nobody should be forced to participate, but similarly, nobody should be denied access either.

Such a suggestion is of course, highly controversial as the new SBS documentary Scarlet Road testifies.

Thinking of sex as a human right, of touch, of pleasure, of orgasm as a human right and our concept of rights get blurry; our passion and advocacy for rights becomes much less fervent when we need to initiate dialogue about arousal and pleasure and satisfaction.

Sex might be nice, it might even be wonderful, but survival is possible without it, wants aren’t the same as needs and social mores dictate that right-status is rarely granted to something with so many caveats attached.

Ours is not a culture where sex can be had with whomever we please whenever want, and thus considering sex as a human right would be a complicated assertion.

I’m not going to place sex in the same category as food or water, obviously no one will die without it. But people won’t die without property rights or breached privacy either, and we still consider these as fundamental.

I am instead, going to contend that for many people a quality life necessitates sexual contact and that just as access to public transport for the disabled, or postal services for the geographically isolated are crucial in a civilised, compassionate society, that access to sex needs to be considered just as important as other rights. I’m similarly going to argue that feeling uncomfortable talking about a topic is never reason enough to shelve it.

Before defending sex work services for the disabled, for the elderly, for the lonely, the kinky and the just plain horny, I will acknowledge that considering sex as a right raises some very obvious concerns related to consent and sex provision; concerns which I will of course, repudiate, but which need tabling nevertheless.

Considering sex as a human right, potentially offers justification for rape: it could be contended, for example, that a man was simply partaking of his marital rights; that a woman was just exercising her right to orgasm. The exercising of such rights, potentially opens up a Pandora’s box of legal defenses: rampant horniness suddenly sounds legitimate rather than tabloid laughable.

Similarly, to contend that a person has a right to sexual conduct implies that for those not in a relationship or without ready access to a willing partner, that a partner must be supplied; that people need to be provided to service this right.

These are both valid concerns, but concerns which are easily mitigated by that fabulous liberal dictum of choice. Sex may be a right, but like free speech, it cannot be exercised at the expense of others: you cannot force people to listen to your ramblings and you can’t force another person to have sex with you.

Similarly, while considering sex as a right provides justification for the sex industry, nobody should be forced to work in it; those who choose to need to be financially compensated – as in any other service industry – and those who don’t need to be offered protection.

Our culture readily accepts the outsourcing of all kinds of domestic services. We happily have our dogs walked, our lawns mowed, or shirts laundered all by people we don’t have breakfast with nor buy a card for on Valentine’s Day; our busy lives are readily propped up by the physical labour of others.

Sex has to be thought of in this way. No, maybe it’s not a romantic assertion, and perhaps not a politically correct one either, but pretending that sex is always about lovemaking and declarations of devotion is a naïve and discriminatory contention.

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey – Age Melbourne

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey

— Age Melbourne

Posted on December 1, 2011

BY TURNS confronting, funny and moving, this film documents the work of an extraordinary woman. Rachel Wotton is a sex worker who specialises in disabled clients. She calmly destroys every preconception you might have had both about sex workers and people with disabilities. Wotton performs a vital service with disarming honesty. “I like the fact that my job is always about pleasure,” she says. One of the other stars of the show is Mark Manitta, a wheelchair-bound man with cerebral palsy.

Having sex helps with the spasms of his disease, he explains via his keyboard. “And I like sex,” he says, mischievously. With the blessing of his mother, Mark has been saving to pay Wotton to spend the night with him on his birthday. “It has been my dream to have a woman stay in my bed overnight,” he says. One can’t help contrast the compassion Wotton brings to her work with the mean-spirited moralising that will doubtless be aimed at her.

When the human touch works wonders – Gold Coast Bulletin

When the human touch works wonders

— Gold Coast Bulletin

Posted on December 1, 2011

IMPASSIONED about freedom of sexual expression, Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton works with many clients who have disabilities. Her work is the subject of the 2011 Walkley Award-nominated documentary Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey.

Filmed over three years, the program follows Rachel in her relationship with John, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 26 years ago, and Mark, a client with cerebral palsy, and reveals the therapeutic aspects of human touch and sexual intimacy. This unique documentary gives voice to two men generously sharing moments of sexual self-discovery. Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey shows Rachel in her daily life and follows her on a journey to the UK, Denmark and Sweden where she meets sex workers and people with disabilities. – Gold Coast Bulletin

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey:
Friday, 10.05pm, SBS ONE

Sex worker Rachel has a passion for liberty – Centralian Advocate

Sex worker Rachel has a passion for liberty

— Centralian Advocate

Posted on December 1, 2011

SEX worker Rachel Wotton is passionate about connection with many clients who have disabilities.

Her work is the subject of the 2011 Walkley Award-nominated documentary, Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey.

Filmed over a three year period, the program follows Rachel in her relationship with John, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 26 years ago, and Mark, a client with cerebral palsy, and reveals the therapeutic aspects of human touch and sexual intimacy.

This unique documentary gives voice to two men generously sharing moments of sexual self-discovery.

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey shows Rachel in her daily life and follows her on a journey to the UK, Denmark and Sweden, where she meets with sex workers, people with disabilities and their families, as well as making quite an impression as a speaker at the World Congress for Sexual Health.

In addition to undertaking a Masters in Sexual Health at the University of Sydney, Rachel is an active campaigner for the rights of sex workers.

She co-founded the charitable organisation Touching Base to connect people with disabilities and sex workers focusing on access, discrimination, human rights, legal issues and the social stigma that these two marginalised communities can face.

Rachel’s dream is to raise enough money to set up Touching Base in every state and territory in Australia and then the world.

It’s on SBS1 at 10.05pm Friday 2nd December.

Scarlet Road – YourTV

Scarlet Road

—YourTV

Posted on November 29, 2011

A sex worker opens up in this revealing documentary, which aims to quash myths and prejudices related to the industry.

In Scarlet Road Rachel Wotton, a funny, educated, successful woman, defies every stereotype about who sex workers are. Studying for her Masters degree, in a loving relationship and very much choosing her profession, Rachel is an articulate advocate for the rights of sex workers. However, she campaigns most strongly for Touching Base, an organisation she works with that educates both the public and other sex workers about serving patients with disability.

Rachel operates unhindered in New South Wales, which has a decriminalised sex industry. As a consequence, she participates honestly and openly in the documentary, as do two of her clients: Mark, a cerebral palsy sufferer and John, a client with multiple sclerosis. Mark and John give voice to an often forgotten section of the community and express that they are complete human beings with the same needs and desires as anyone else. Rachel’s work for Touching Base involves training in the practical aspects of the job such as techniques for working with clients with limited mobility, but also the therapeutic benefit of physical touch and affection for her clients.

Rachel is a convincing spokeswoman for her industry. Educated, motivated and compassionate, she argues that the prejudices that exist about sex work are often inaccurate. Similarly, she argues that the understanding of the needs of the disabled remain stereotypical. The most touching moments in the documentary come from the parents of disabled children who are trying desperately to give their children a full, meaningful life. Award-winning director Catherine Scott has created a documentary free from sensationalism about an industry mired in stereotypes and misconceptions, and presents a genuinely surprising and thoughtful piece about two communities that remain hidden.

Scarlet Road airs on SBS ONE on Friday, December 2, at 10:05pm.

Dale Rolfe

Sexual Healing – The Age

Sexual Healing

– The Age

Posted on November 29, 2011

Mark Manitta loves sex. Can’t get enough of it. But being confined to a wheelchair with cerebral palsy has cramped his style. So, for the past seven years, he has been a client of Sydney sex worker Rachel Wotton.

”People do not understand the difference that sex makes,” Manitta explains in the new SBS documentary Scarlet Road, speaking through a voice machine that makes him sound like a randy Stephen Hawking. ”Part of having cerebral palsy is spasticity and muscle spasms. I need sex all the time to make my muscles relax. And I like sex.”

Three years in the making, Catherine Scott’s documentary explores the relationship between people such as Manitta and Wotton, who specialises in disabled clients. The film, which has been nominated for a Walkley Award, provides a rare glimpse into a world that most people are oblivious to or would rather pretend doesn’t exist.

”People assume disabled people don’t have the same biological needs and desires that everyone else has,” Wotton says. ”But sexual expression is a basic need for everyone, not just for those who can walk and talk freely.”

Outspoken, articulate and utterly unflappable, Wotton, who has spent 17 years in the industry, describes herself as a ”whore”, a brazenly self-deprecatory term that belies her intelligence and ambition. But it’s her empathy and pragmatism that resonate most strongly.

”Part of my reason for doing the film was to wipe away the ‘us and them’ mentality,” she says. ”We’re all one car accident away from being in the same position as these guys. Tomorrow we could all wake up out of coma and not be able to eat let alone have sex or touch ourselves. What I say to people is imagine the next time you go to have sex or masturbate having to call your mum and have her organise it all for you.”

Indeed, for parents brave enough to recognise their disabled children as sexually mature adults, sex workers such as Wotton are a godsend. ”I remember the first brothel we visited,” Mark’s mother, Elaine, says. ”It was supposed to be wheelchair accessible but it wasn’t. So I had to carry Mark up the stairs. Then I just broke down and cried the whole time I was there. But then as the years have passed I have got to enjoy waiting around and meeting the girls. It’s just become part of life.”

Getting the clients and their parents to come on board wasn’t as hard as you might think, according to Scott. ”People with disabilities want to be viewed as whole beings.

”Think about how important your sexuality is to how you are perceived. These people aren’t seen like that, so you can imagine how that makes them feel.”

One of Scott’s favourite scenes is when wheelchair-bound multiple sclerosis sufferer John Blades, who sadly passed away only days before the documentary went to air, is sitting at an outdoor cafe with friends, having spent the previous night with Wotton. ”It was just a great night of sex,” Blades tells them. ”It made me feel like a real bloke again.”

Scott hadn’t planned to take three years to make the film. ”But it actually worked out really well,” she says. ”Because it took so long, all these things happened, like Rachel fell in love.

”In the end, you get a picture of her as a real, rounded person who is doing this extraordinary work.”

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey

SBS One, Friday, 10.05pm.

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey – Airdate

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey

— Airdate

Posted on November 29, 2011

By David Knox on November 27, 2011

On Friday night, SBS screens a documentary which is nominated for a Walkley Award tonight.

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey explores the world of sex workers who service disabled clients.

One of the best signs of a good doco is access to its subjects.

What’s remarkable about this one isn’t just that sex workers are giving interviews -that’s been done before. But how brave of disabled clients to talk about their needs for sexual gratification, and allowing cameras to discreetly film intimate moments.

The doco is frank, but not explicit, and educational to those of us who have no understanding of how fragile this world is.

Impassioned about freedom of sexual expression, Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton works with many clients who have disabilities. Her work is the subject of the 2011 Walkley Award-nominated documentary, Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey.

Filmed over a three year period, the program follows Rachel in her relationship with John, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 26 years ago, and Mark, a client with cerebral palsy and reveals the therapeutic aspects of human touch and sexual intimacy. This unique documentary gives voice to two men generously sharing moments of sexual self-discovery.

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey shows Rachel in her daily life and follows her on a journey to the UK, Denmark and Sweden, where she meets with sex workers, people with disabilities and their families, as well as making quite an impression as a speaker at the World Congress for Sexual Health.

In addition to undertaking a Masters in Sexual Health at the University of Sydney, Rachel is an active campaigner for the rights of sex workers. She co-founded the charitable organisation Touching Base to connect people with disabilities and sex workers – focusing on access, discrimination, human rights, legal issues and the social stigma that these two marginalised communities can face.

Rachel’s dream is to raise enough money to set up Touching Base in every state and territory in Australia -and then the world.

10:05pm Friday on SBS ONE.

Sexual Healing – SMH

Sexual healing

– SMH

Posted on November 29, 2011

A new documentary tells the story of a remarkable woman.

Mark Manitta loves sex. Can’t get enough of it. But being confined to a wheelchair with cerebral palsy has cramped his style. So, for the past seven years, he has been a client of Sydney sex worker Rachel Wotton.

”People do not understand the difference that sex makes,” Manitta explains in the new SBS documentary Scarlet Road, speaking through a voice machine that makes him sound like a randy Stephen Hawking. ”Part of having cerebral palsy is spasticity and muscle spasms. I need sex all the time to make my muscles relax. And I like sex.”

Three years in the making, Catherine Scott’s documentary explores the relationship between people such as Manitta and Wotton, who specialises in disabled clients. The film, which has been nominated for a Walkley Award, provides a rare glimpse into a world that most people are oblivious to or would rather pretend doesn’t exist.

Unflappable … sex worker Rachel Wotton tells her story in Scarlet Road.

”People assume disabled people don’t have the same biological needs and desires that everyone else has,” Wotton says. ”But sexual expression is a basic need for everyone, not just for those who can walk and talk freely.”

Outspoken, articulate and utterly unflappable, Wotton, who has spent 17 years in the industry, describes herself as a ”whore”, a brazenly self-deprecatory term that belies her intelligence and ambition. But it’s her empathy and pragmatism that resonate most strongly.

”Part of my reason for doing the film was to wipe away the ‘us and them’ mentality,” she says. ”We’re all one car accident away from being in the same position as these guys. Tomorrow we could all wake up out of coma and not be able to eat let alone have sex or touch ourselves. What I say to people is imagine the next time you go to have sex or masturbate having to call your mum and have her organise it all for you.”

Indeed, for parents brave enough to recognise their disabled children as sexually mature adults, sex workers such as Wotton are a godsend. ”I remember the first brothel we visited,” Mark’s mother, Elaine, says. ”It was supposed to be wheelchair accessible but it wasn’t. So I had to carry Mark up the stairs. Then I just broke down and cried the whole time I was there. But then as the years have passed I have got to enjoy waiting around and meeting the girls. It’s just become part of life.”

Getting the clients and their parents to come on board wasn’t as hard as you might think, according to Scott. ”People with disabilities want to be viewed as whole beings.

”Think about how important your sexuality is to how you are perceived. These people aren’t seen like that, so you can imagine how that makes them feel.”

One of Scott’s favourite scenes is when wheelchair-bound multiple sclerosis sufferer John Blades, who sadly passed away only days before the documentary went to air, is sitting at an outdoor cafe with friends, having spent the previous night with Wotton. ”It was just a great night of sex,” Blades tells them. ”It made me feel like a real bloke again.”

Scott hadn’t planned to take three years to make the film. ”But it actually worked out really well,” she says. ”Because it took so long, all these things happened, like Rachel fell in love.

”In the end, you get a picture of her as a real, rounded person who is doing this extraordinary work.”

Tim Elliott

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey

SBS One, Friday, 10.05pm.

Scarlet Road – No Magazine

Scarlet Road

— No Magazine

Posted on November 25, 2011

“For too long, people have felt it’s OK to talk about us, without consulting or including us” / Imagine a sex worker. Nope, step away from the street corner, you’ve got it wrong. The star of Scarlet Road, a touching and bold new documentary, unveils some truths about getting paid to do it.

Sex sells, say the suits. But Rachel Wotton, the protagonist of new Australian documentary Scarlet Road, says talking about it in an honest way still makes folk squirm. Even though, “As the song goes, ‘People are having sex all the time.’”

I’m pretty sure People Having Sex All The Time isn’t actually a song, but I don’t disagree  with Wotton, herself a proud sex worker of 20 years and ardent campaigner for sex  workers’ rights. Quite frankly, if people aren’t actually doing ‘it’, they’re probably thinking about it, how much they’re not getting of it, or going online to look at it.

Yet despite the power of sex to dictate so many of life’s decisions, we often (and quickly)  close the door on addressing the topic with frank discussion. Sometimes, we’ll even shut off the lights and hide under the blankets.

Of course, right at the other end of this spectrum is sex work – taboo, even in our erotically charged society. We still assume shady back rooms and unsavory characters, and it’s the  shattering of these assumptions that lie at the heart of filmmaker Catherine Scott’s new film. “We want Scarlet Road to break down some of the myths and  prejudices around who sex workers are and what our lives are like,” says Wotton. “We do  not live in some kind of bubble, in isolation and in despair.”

As the documentary begins, I’m unsure. As a door shut, lights off and under-the- blankets  kind of lass, I squirm a bit – seemingly unable to shake memories of those early sex  education classes; pastel pamphlets about the sacred flower that is The Sexual Encounter.  Surely a cash transaction undermines the candle-lit act that, from early on, we’re all (cringingly) assured is ‘lovemaking’?

But watching Wotton openly discuss her life as a sex worker, I realise I’ve become  prejudiced about something I know little about. What an ignorant prude! I stop squirming,  sit up straight, un-squint my eyes, and give Scarlet Road my full attention.

My initial naivety can, I think, be forgiven. Assumptions about sex work are easily made:  that it’s dangerous, that it’s born of desperation, that it forgoes an intimacy that should –  many feel – be implicit. Accordingly, when I ask Wotton about her involvement in Scarlet  Road, I stumble at the first politically correct hurdle and insinuate that sex work is never  voluntary. The correction is immediate.

“Your comment is quickly sliding down the slippery slope of sex work = non voluntary, so therefore sex work = rape. This is one of the biggest problems ALL sex workers face – this  constant stigma and discrimination and false belief that we do not have agency in any way  and we are incapable of consent … a sex worker has the option of where to work, how to  work, the right to refuse a client and the choice as to what services they want to offer.”

Wotton has earned her authoritative voice, with a Masters in Sexual Health and the  campaigning she does for sex workers’ rights and equality via Scarlet Alliance, the  Australian Sex Workers Association. She confronts preconceptions about sex work in a variety of ways in the film, but perhaps most enlightening of all is the focus on Touching  Base, a foundation Wotton has played a major part in developing. Touching Base permits  people with disabilities safe and discreet access to sex workers. It’s a project Wotton feels  especially strongly about. “It’s important to increase the awareness of the barriers and  difficulties people with disabilities still face today for equal rights, including the right to  sexual expression,” she stresses.

In a particularly moving scene, the mother of Mark – a client with cerebral palsy –  prepares her son’s room for his birthday present: an evening with Wotton. Anticipating the sex worker’s arrival, Mark’s mother scatters rose petals around the bed, places a box of  chocolates next to freshly plumped pillows, and counts out the notes for Wotton’s fee. In  demonstrating a mother’s utterly selfless dedication to her son, the aim and ethos of Touching Base is legitimised. Powerfully. As Mark explains, all he wants is to know what it’s like to wake up beside a woman. I’m immediately reminded of the romantic notions of  those pastel pamphlets – handholding and all.

For all her straight shooting, Wotton’s vulnerability is potent. It’s at the heart of Scott’s  film, constantly unpicking our position as voyeur: we’re not spying, we’re being asked to  take a closer look. It’s crucial to “… put faces and names to both sex workers and their clients,” says Wotton. “For too long, people have felt it’s OK to talk about us, without  consulting or including us.”

The documentary mirrors her attitude: it isn’t sanctimonious, it’s intelligently grounded.  Wotton casually elucidates that, “At the end of the day, everyone works for the same  reasons; to earn money to buy the things we need and want.” But for Wotton, sex work is  more than mere endurance. “I often say, ‘I am so lucky’. My job is centered on providing someone with feelings of pleasure, joy and happiness.”

The next morning I sit at my desk entering data into cell A7 of my spreadsheet – not  providing anyone with pleasure, joy or happiness – and her statement resonates. Scarlet Road achieves the enviable aspiration of any documentary: changing minds.

Mine included.

Interview/ Katherine Patrick For more information about Touching Base, visit touchingbase.org. For the Scarlet Road trailer and DVD, visit scarletroad.com.au.

In touch with the disabled

In touch with the disabled

Posted on November 25, 2011

SEX worker, activist, loving girlfriend and school dux; a unique documentary about the life of Newtown sex worker Rachel Wotton is sure to debunk a few stigmas.

Due to be screened on SBS later this year, the film documents the work of Touching Base, an organisation based in Sydney’s inner west which connects sex workers with people with  a disability.

Ms Wotton, a sex worker of 17 years, speaks with candour about her work during the film,  which is a finalist at this year’s Sydney Film Festival for the Foxtel Australian  Documentary Prize. Independent director Catherine Scott, who met Ms Wotton a decade ago through mutual friends, shot the documentary over three years.

The film captures poignant footage of Ms Wotton and client Mark Manitta, who lives with  cerebral palsy and whose 46th birthday wish was to have a woman stay overnight.

‘‘People with disabilities deal with touch all the time, being washed and dressed and bathed,’’ she  said.

‘‘But they crave a different type of touch; they crave tenderness and I believe that  people with disabilities have a right to express themselves sexually just the same as  anyone else in society,’’ Ms Wotton said.

The Newtown resident, who has a background in psychology and a masters degree in  sexual health, is a co-founder of Touching Base and said its set-up in 2000 was only made possible by decriminalisation in NSW.
Ms Wotton said she wouldn’t have consented to filming the documentary if she lived within the Marrickville local government area of Newtown, which restricts sex workers from operating from home without a development application.
‘‘The City of Sydney council has an inclusive sex industry policy which allows me to work safely and discreetly from home.’’

Ms Wotton said she was not affected by mainstream moral derision to her cause. ‘‘People have sex all the time . . . it happens every day behind closed doors.’’

Digital Romance Lab

Digital Romance Lab

Posted on June 24, 2011

 

investigating love + romance in videogames

As it happened, and as these things tend to do, the most moving and wonderful film experience for me this year happened entirely by accident. Or, at least, from a set of unforeseen circumstances. Far be it to explore these instead of talk about the film though, as out of the two paths that could be traversed here, the film is the much more interesting route.

Suffice it to say the Sydney Film Festival was the destination and therein a documentary Scarlet Road, of which I had not heard previous. The summary provided in promotional material as follows:

“Scarlet Road follows the extraordinary work of Australian sex worker, Rachel Wotton. Impassioned about freedom of sexual expression and the rights of sex workers, she specialises in a long over-looked clientele – people with disability.”

A topic not on most people’s list of interests, and one that some may actively avoid. And while I’m not averse to such themes it’s not something I’d generally queue for, so a chance viewing in this instance was certainly a lucky circumstance.

Another moment of happenstance revealed itself as the packed theatre finally settled in; most of the cast and crew were present. It was after all, the premiere.

After an introduction by the producer and director and a short film (which was excellent yet unpleasant (the story of a young man in an abattoir)), the feature began.

Immediately engaging, within ten minutes the personalities had leapt from screen to heart as they conveyed their message with warmth, passion, conviction, and justification, exuding confidence in the material presented. The viewer had no reason to question character as each were worn on sleeve and each grounded to common sensibilities; happiness, empathy, honesty and love.

The documentary follows a slice in time of Rachel’s working career as a sex worker, and specifically around two of her clients John and Mark.

With character on sleeve then, Rachel unabashedly a sex worker, just as John with Multiple Sclerosis, and Mark Cerebral Palsy. “Sex workers are people too” is mentioned and you can’t help but infer the same qualifier for the disabled on behalf of the audience, yet the magic in the overall work is that the statement feels unnecessary. Indeed, one should realise the statement only pertains to and wishes to highlight the challenges faced in both, as opposed to a pointed suggestion that the audience may think differently.

Both John and Mark are wheelchair bound, and both have limited function of body. John can talk, but Mark relies on a machine to vocally communicate. Both are men and have needs and desires as any, and over the course of the film you come to see how important the basic sense of touch is, and how much the general populous takes it for granted. Sure, the touch is sexual, however here it is far more sensual and emotional than you might expect; the shower scene with Mark and Rachel is perhaps the most beautiful and moving I have seen on film not just for the context or how it was shot, but because it was real. The emotion unquestionable.

Family plays an important role in the film too, and Mark’s is in danger of stealing the show. An older couple, Mark’s mother and father have an obvious absolute love for their son. The father set in his ways and a character of his time, he builds parts for Mark’s mobility in ‘the shed’, and expects dinner on the table at knockoff time. He’s the hilarious non-pc grandfather you had or wished you had, and the audience loved every second he was on screen. The mother showing unwavering care and love, when her eyes well with tears so too the audience. The empathy palpable.

Both were just a few rows up in the theatre. I could have only imagined their thoughts, and how proud they must have felt watching the film and experiencing the gushing emotion from everyone present.

The end brought uproarious applause.

This is a film every person should be forced to see. Let’s face it, it’s not the most approachable subject. It’s such a beautiful story and one which fills the viewer with a sense of greater humanity, a reminder that there are wonderful people out there doing such important work that touches so many lives. A feeling of, you know, humans are alright.

Scarlet Road 2011

Scarlet Road 2011

Posted on June 24, 2011

EDIT: Rachel Wotton contacted me with some constructive criticism of this review, which I’ve welcomed. All the edits below are in italic, so you can also see the original content and what has been changed. I would also like to say that Scarlet Road was the first instance I have seen the work that Rachel does, so I’m very new to the discussion. In the interests of transparency, her original comments are posted below as the first comment to this post. I hope that it can be used as the starting point for further discussion.

Can I gush before we start? I like gushing sometimes – the “omgyouhavetoseeit” schoolgirl-style fawning. Eeeeee!

Let me put my serious reviewer hat on and say in a more controlled manner – I really like this film. I like it even more that its Australian.

Scarlet Road is a documentary that follows Rachel Wotton, an Australian sex worker, and her involvement in helping disabled people have a fulfilling sex life. We don’t often think of those who are physically disabled as having active sex lives, possibly assuming it’s something that they would have had to forgo given their disability, and this film is a real eye-opener. They do need to be touched affectionately, sexually, they have the same desires as the able-bodied. It feels weird typing this – and I feel a little ashamed that I didn’t automatically assume this was the case. Possibly because society never speaks as openly and refreshingly about this subject as Scarlet Road does.

It is well structured, and filled with so many memorable characters. Mark, the man with cerebral palsy, and his parents who treat him like a grown man and acknowledge his needs as such. Matt, Rachel’s partner, who needs to be a model for so many other men in this world in his open-mindedness. However, the star of the show is Rachel herself – articulate, beautiful, and I couldn’t think of a better spokesperson for her cause promoting awareness of sex work and disability.

My only issue that I must mention is that while many prostitutes * sex workers in Australia are as empowered as Rachel, there still needs to be the awareness that some prostitutes * sex workers in Australia aren’t (think those trafficked and sold into sex slavery as seen in The Jammed).#

* The correct term is ‘sex worker’.
# I understand and acknowledge Rachel’s point of view re: this paragraph. My intent with this paragraph was to raise awareness of a completely separate issue. I did not mean to associate any of the work that Rachel does with trafficking, and understand her frustration. I wish Rachel and co. all the best with turning perceptions of the sex industry around.

This is a film that the community needs to support, but I can see getting some backlash from conservatives. Watch with an open mind.


Strongly recommended.
4.5 stars

SFF #6 : Scarlet Road

SFF #6: Scarlet Road

Posted on June 24, 2011

An excellent social documentary I’ve seen at the Sydney Film Festival is Scarlet Road, another Aussie film which was competing for the Foxtel Documentary Prize (won yesterday by Life in Movement). The film follows Rachel Wotton, a Sydney-based sex worker who has many clients with disabilities, and who also works tirelessly to raise awareness of the sexual needs of people with disabilities through the organisation she helped to start, Touching Base.

 

The film manages to present Wotton’s work as utterly non-confronting – and I mean that as a compliment. There are no filmic flourishes and the construction is unadorned, but this works to demonstrate the normality of sex work. The film begins immediately with Wotton’s voice, so it appears she is telling her own story rather than having it told for her. Wotton herself comes across as an incredibly personable, down-to-earth character, and demonstrates a particular ease with her clients even through large difficulties of communication – a skill that not many people have.

I caught up with Rachel during the week, and she agreed that this was something she hoped would come across in the film. “People have these wild imaginations about what the sex industry is,” she says, “and we really wanted to illuminate the industry, shine a light on it and the people involved.”

She likened the fear of the industry to a child scared of a monster under the bed, but then when you turn the light on, there’s nothing there. She points out that much of the misrepresentation of the sex industry comes from people making up their own minds without actually consulting industry members, and that one of the great things about the film is the opportunity to demonstrate that sex workers are networked as part of an industry, and not isolated like many believe.

The film covers a lot of ground, including Rachel’s work with two of her clients with disabilities, her advocacy and training work, her trips overseas to present at conferences and her personal life.

I asked Rachel how she felt exposing so much of her life on film, especially given the broad lack of understanding of her line of work. “I always felt comfortable that Cathy [Scott, the director] would portray it well, always with dignity and respect,” she says. Cathy and Rachel have been friends for years. “But worries are always there. I know people in NSW who have been hounded out of their homes. I’m lucky, I have a strong network of support, and it’s not the first time I’ve been in print as a sex worker. So it’s got to a point where I’ve tested the waters and I feel comfortable showing my life.” But it can be draining, Rachel admits.

In the film, her friend Pye, a Swedish sex worker, makes the point that every time she meets someone new, she has to make the decision whether to tell them what she does for a living. Rachel concurs that sometimes she just can’t be bothered: “You have to size people up, sometimes they have the usual 20 questions and you have to do ‘sex work 101’.”

Rachel says she’s usually very open about her work, but adds that we’re living in a world where there’s still a lot of discrimination, not just for the worker but for their family also. Rachel makes this point in the film, that her mother can be particularly isolated. It’s not just Rachel who’s taken a leap in opening herself up on film; her partner, Matt, also appears extensively, as do two of her clients with disabilities, Mark and John.

Rachel says that both Mark and John were immediately open to the idea of the film. They’ve always had to struggle for rights in relation to their disabilities and so, she says, they have similar beliefs to her around social justice and equity. In fact, this was the impetus behind Touching Base – two marginalised communities coming together with one powerful voice.

Ultimately Rachel says she’s really thankful for the opportunity the film has brought to raise further awareness of the work she does. She says they’ve achieved a lot of their aims, but not quite yet the main hope mentioned in the film, of getting Richard Branson’s ear. She laughs as she finishes up by asking me to add this mission to my post – so Mr Branson, if you’re reading this, Rachel Wotton is waiting for your call. You can also see an interview with Cathy Scott, the director of Scarlet Road, on the SBS film site.

Scarlet Road will be screening on SBS in December this year.

Sex and the Disability – touching tale hits festival’s silver screen

Sex and the disability –
touching tale hits festival’s silver screen

Posted on May 17, 2011

IT’S not often that an elderly couple would make up their son’s bed with satin sheets and spread rose petals in readiness for a visit by a sex worker.

But this is no ordinary birthday celebration for Mark, who has cerebral palsy. and yearns for an intimate relationship despite being confined to a wheelchair. Mark speaks via an electronic communication board but his eyes light up at the prospect of an overnight liaison with Rachel Wotton, a Sydney sex worker with 17 years experience.

The liberating, unexpectedly romantic encounter, features in independent director Catherine Scott’s insightful and touching documentary, Scarlet Road. It centres on Wotton’s tireless campaigning for the rights of sex workers and for people with disabilities who are typically perceived as asexual or not in the dating game.

Scarlet Road is among the films vying for the Foxtel Australian Documentary Prize at this year’s Sydney Film Festival in June. ‘‘Representation of sex workers and people with disabilities is a minefield but I wanted to tackle stereotypes head on,’’ says Scott who befriended Wotton a decade ago and gained the trust to take her handheld camera behind closed doors.

‘‘The documentary is positive and pro-active about two marginalised groups,’’ Wotton says. ‘‘Sex workers are everywhere and they come in all shapes and sizes. They are not these isolated, lonely or damaged figures but people who go the the supermarket and lead ordinary lives. The joy of the documentary is that we get to talk about giving pleasure and shining a light on an issue that people haven’t thought about.’’

Wotton, who has a background in psychology and is studying for a master’s degree in sexual health, has become highly specialised in working with clients with cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and those with degenerative conditions. One of her clients, John, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 26 years ago. A chin-controlled wheelchair affords him mobility but he insists that his sessions with Rachel have enabled him to regain some body movement and improved his self-esteem.
‘‘It’s amazing to see John’s progress. We are always being taught to look after our bodies, to eat the right things but everyone deserves to be touched, to be hugged and shown tenderness.

Wotton expects that Scarlet Road will become a useful tool in educating people from all walks of life about a subject that is too often shrouded in mystery and taboo. For several years she has been part of an international movement to try to gain rights for sex workers and to eradicate the social stigma and discrimination surrounding her chosen occupation.
Thoughtful and articulate, Wotton says that she still keeps in touch with Mark and that he has since celebrated another birthday since the documentary was made.

‘‘It’s a great privilege that the clients trust me and ultimately it’s about treating them with dignity and respect, and having fun. I would love for sex workers to be included in rehabilitation programs if they so chose. It’s about empowering people to make decisions in their life that make them happier and healthier.’’

Wotton hopes that Scarlet Road will shatter myths and prejudices. ‘‘I’ve put in the hard yards of activism and lobbying to fight for the human and legal rights of sex workers. After all the voluntary work with Touching Base [a charitable institution established in 2000] it would be great to get funding to further bridge the gap between people with disability, their support organisations and the sex industry.’’

Scarlet Road, produced by Pat Fiske, screens at the Sydney Film Festival, on Saturday June 11. The screening will be accompanied by a Q&A with guest film-makers.

Bryce Hallett, May 11, 2011

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