The sex industry in South Africa is huge. By all accounts thousands of women (and men) are making a living selling their bodies in strip clubs, at truck stops, in massage parlours, suburban homes or backstreet alleys across the land.
Whether they’re pole-dancing, stripping, titillating or offering intercourse, the overriding reason for a career in sex is money.
“The sex industry offers better-earning prospects and greater flexibility than many other jobs,” says Vivienne Lalu, former director at the Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT).
“Research shows that sex workers earn three to five times more working in the sex industry than they would in ‘normal’ employment. For those needing immediate cash, sex work provides cash in hand instead of a month-long wait.”
Sex work is also seldom regarded as a permanent profession.
“Sex workers don’t generally view the job as a long-term career choice,” says Chandré Gould of the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) and co-author of Selling Sex In Cape Town.
“On average, street-based sex workers spend six years in the industry moving in and out, depending on their circumstances. Seventy-six percent of sex workers interviewed in the survey [on which the book was based] entered the industry because they needed money.”
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'The massage-parlour girl' - Thembi
“I left school and home in Orlando when I was 13. My mother’s boyfriend had been messing with me since I was 10. When my mother died in a car accident there was nothing left for me. By the time I was 14, I was working in an escort agency downtown. I made a lot of money because men, especially the foreign European guys, love sleeping with young girls. I made more money before I was 20 than I do today.
“In the beginning I sent money home to my younger sister and brother, but then I started with crack [cocaine]. The drugs messed everything up. Soon I was on the streets in Hillbrow, and things got worse. Then [in 2009] I tested positive for HIV. I got sick and nearly died. I decided to get ARVs and get off crack. So far I have managed to stay off the drugs, although I still smoke dagga. I tried to do normal work, but I could only find work as a cleaner and couldn’t even earn R3 000 a month.
“Recently I began working in a massage parlour in Randburg. All you do is give the client a massage and a ‘happy ending’. I earn about R400 per session. I only work about six hours a day and see about three to five guys a shift, so I can make about R1 500 a day, five days a week, making between R20 000 and R30 000 a month. You don’t even have to sleep with the guy. ‘Wank wank, go to the bank’ – that’s what we say.”
'The Agency girl' - Savannah
“Some girls think working in an agency is like being in some Pretty Woman movie, but it’s not like that. You get some really sick men who want to do everything that they can’t do with their wives. Every second guy wants anal sex. I always wonder if they aren’t all gay! They often try and get sex without condoms, and they love to come in a girl’s mouth or on her face. In porn movies that happens a lot, so I think most of these guys are trying to live out the fantasies they’ve learnt from watching films.
“The thing is if you say no to a guy, he just picks someone else. In the end you do what you thought you’d never do. You’ll change all your standards for money. I’ve tried to leave many times, but I always land up coming back. I don’t have a proper education; I left school without matric. I can earn between R20 000 and R40 000 working here, sometimes more if I travel. I support my family; I have two children of my own. Where else can I get that kind of money?”
The stripper Rehane*
“I came to Joburg from Hanover Park on the Cape Flats when I was 22, looking for work. But I could never find anything that paid me more than R6 000 a month. I was a good student; I was one of those nerdy types, teased for being a teacher’s pet. I started stripping because I was desperate for money, and I’m a good dancer.
“One night I went to a club and thought: ‘I can do that.’ I like using my body and being watched – it makes me feel powerful. I don’t drink or do drugs. I look much younger than my age. The girls who drink and do drugs a lot – you can see after a few years – look terrible.
“If a guy offers me a lot of money to sleep with him, I will. I don’t do it often, but I would be lying to say I never do. Most of the time I make my money from private lap dancing where the guy pays to watch and he sometimes masturbates. I dream one day of opening my own dance studio.”
READ MORE | 'The money we make walking around naked isn't enough' - Stripper Gina on her future dreams
The experts
According to Gould, the average earnings for agency-based sex workers is R10 186 a month, while street-based workers on average earn less than a third, R2 700. The survey undertaken in Cape Town by the ISS and SWEAT revealed conditions vary across the industry.
“Most agencies charge by the hour rather than for a particular service,” says SWEAT’s Lalu.
“Prices vary from as little as R170 an hour to as high as R2 000. The sex worker usually pays the agency 30 to 60 percent of that fee. Sex workers working for themselves will not have to pay anyone a fee and set their own rates.”
“Fees for travel and sleepovers are much higher, ranging from between R850 and R6 000,” says Gould. Some massage parlours are also brothels behind the scene.
“These businesses are often hidden, leaving room to misconstrue the nature of the business,” says Gould.
“Massage is usually part of the service,” she says, “but it ends with masturbation (or oral sex or a full house) or whatever the client and therapist agree on.”
Brothels and agencies survive on the fees that the sex workers pay. Most brothels force the workers to pay for advertising, security, coffee, tea and the actual workspace, and it usually far exceeds what they actually get for the money they pay.
Although the upside of working in an agency may mean better security and earnings, there are many agencies that disregard their employees’ rights.
“The sex workers are required to report for duty on time and stay for 8- to 10-hour shifts, sometimes longer,” says Lalu.
“If they fail to adhere to these rules, they are fined, and these fines are deducted off their earnings. Sometimes the fines are ridiculously high. I’ve heard of women being fined R1 000 for being late. Imagine if a secretary arrived an hour late and money was deducted from her pay!”
Coming late, not cleaning the room after use or fighting with colleagues are other “fineable” offences. Often fines are meted out on the whim of a manager.
One manager said, “If the girls make me cross or they are cheeky, I fine them.”
According to Gould, not much is known about the owners and managers of brothels.
“In general, brothel owners said they had entered the business because the opportunity presented itself when they needed an income. A number of the female owners had started off working as sex workers before working behind the scenes.”
*Name has been changed.
Useful contacts
SWEAT: www.sweat.org.za
Institute of Security Studies: www.iss.co.za
