Catherine Clay
Podcast Transcript Season 1 Episode 1
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Liz Goldwyn: Hello, welcome to The Sex Ed. I'm your host, Liz Goldwyn, founder of thesexed.com, your number one source for sex, health and consciousness education. Our ideas about sex are shaped by our cultural background, religious beliefs and personal experiences. The Sex Ed's mission is to inspire open and informed dialogue around sexual wellness. We believe that these conversations can lead us to a safer more sex positive society. And what's in it for you? Better self knowledge and pleasure, better communication with your partners, and let's be real, better sex.
On this show, we'll be sharing uncensored interviews with specialists in various fields related to sex, health and consciousness. Whether they be a burlesque queen, doctor of sexual medicine, or an expert in guided meditation. I created this podcast to share with you the practical advice I've gathered along the way, from all of these incredible experts. My takeaway from asking them a million questions about sex? There's always more to learn.
I hope you'll find something useful in each episode. So please, keep an open mind and enjoy The Sex Ed.
Today on The Sex Ed, I'm speaking with Catherine Clay. Though she's now retired from the industry, Catherine was groomed by the women in her family to be a sex worker from the time she was a pre-teen. I met Catherine at an event held by Dress for Success, a global non-profit that empowers women with the tools to achieve economic independence. That was the first time she told me her story. As soon as I heard it, I knew it needed to be shared. In our conversation, Catherine talks about being a young sex worker, the sacrifices that she made for her family, and her long journey out of addiction.
A brief warning before we start, this episode contains descriptions of abuse and sexual trauma. If you find these topics triggering, you may want to skip this episode.
Liz Goldwyn: Welcome Catherine.
Catherine Clay: Thank you for having me.
Liz Goldwyn: Yeah, I'm so excited to have you here, to talk to you. We met through Dress for Success.
Catherine Clay: Yes.
Liz Goldwyn: And you have an incredible story and I'm excited to talk to you about it.
Catherine Clay: Thank you.
Liz Goldwyn: You grew up being told that you had a pocketbook between your legs and...
Catherine Clay: Whenever we open our legs, a man should be putting money inside of the pocketbook.
Liz Goldwyn: So you were basically born into the profession?
Catherine Clay: Absolutely. Not just me, but I come from a family that groomed the younger ones into this profession. As I look back, I know that there's just full support. So that we've never been told, that's not something you shouldn't do. It's always been told that, that's what you should do and we should never be broke as long as we have that between our legs.
Liz Goldwyn: You were telling me that your grandmother hitched-
Catherine Clay: My grandmother hitchhiked from Louisiana to California, and she just always told us a story of, "This white guy pick me up and he drove me to California." But when they got to the Golden Gate bridge, he told her to get out the car and look over at the water. And when she got out and looked, he walked up behind her and told her, "Don't ever get in a car with another stranger,” because if he would have pushed her over, nobody would have known what happened to her. And then as a child, I remember, I could still smell her foundation when she would get ready to go to the bookie joint. I remember all the beautiful lingerie that she had, and her getting dressed to go. I remember when she would bring the men there, we would already know what was going to happen because she would make these huge meals. It would be steak, and these fancy fruit salads with apples. And she would just prepare in a whole different way.
And when the men would come, they would bring us gifts, and candy, and chips, and she would always say, "These are my grandkids and you don't talk to them." We were always exposed to meeting the people who she was doing business with. We just never knew until we got a lot older, listening to the names that she would call us, it was just an understanding of why she was calling us those names was because of the lifestyle she lived.
Liz Goldwyn: Meaning she wouldn't call you by your real names or?
Catherine Clay: She would sometimes do things, when we got a little bit older, she would start accusing us of having sex. She would tell us things like, "You guys are walking around like dogs in heat, and the guys are following you." And my grandmother raised 22 of her grandkids because all of children were on drugs. So she had all of her children's children inside of the home. So there was 18 girls, and there was a lot of guys always trying to talk to us. And one day we came home and she had the guy sitting in the house, waiting for us to come in there. And we was just like, "What are they doing in here?" And she said, "Well because I don't know who you guys are dating. So I got you guys some dates and they're going to pay to rent and everything." And so we was just like, "Whoa, we not even having sex yet."
Liz Goldwyn: How old were you?
Catherine Clay: Probably around 14 or 15. I was the oldest. So if I was 14 or 15, the youngest one at the time would have been maybe eight or nine. And so when I speak on things happening to us, as a group in the house, that younger one, Nikki, was always included. We've always did things as a group. If we were going to go strip, we did as a group. If we were going out to go prostitute, we left in teams. We was just always groomed, inside of our house for whatever it was we were doing.
Liz Goldwyn: Where was your mom?
Catherine Clay: My mom was on drugs and she was there, present, in the house. But she didn't never indulge in the part of soliciting me or waking me up to go out and leave with guys. She never really took part of that part. But she took part in the part of, once we all were fully pledged escort mode, there was a guy that sometimes he wanted to be with older women. So my mom and my other two aunt, they would go and turn tricks with this guy. But she never really solicited me to go and do anything. It was just really us being told by my aunts, what the expectation of us was and my grandmother saying like, "Well they're paying the rent." Things of that nature. But my mother also was a prostitute in Vegas, during her younger years prior to me being born. And she indulged in the lifestyle also.
Liz Goldwyn: You grew up thinking of it as a survival skill, a way to put food on the table.
Catherine Clay: Absolutely.
Liz Goldwyn: We're speaking in Los Angeles, right in the neighborhood where you grew up. And you were talking about your grandmother turning tricks with the guy who owned the grocery store.
Catherine Clay: It would be times at the end of the month, we wouldn't have any groceries, and my grandmother would call BCD Market and just be like, "My grandkids are hungry. What do you have over there?" And he would have boxes for her. And we would just get in the car and we would drive over here, and we'll pick up the groceries, and she'll walk all back there. And she'd be hugging the owners of the grocery store. And the ironic thing is when you think about this timeframe, it was the early 80s, and the owners of the grocery store were Asian. And so she had this tight knitted bond with these Asians. It wasn't like it was another black person or something. Paul was Italian, and so he lived up in the hills, right here on the other side of the freeway. So when I think of all the different men that were involved in coming and giving things to my grandmother, only one of them African-American. The others were all different other nationalities and cultures.
And they would give us beautiful gifts and take us to expensive restaurants. They would give me jewelry. I know the gifts that I would be given, and so I could imagine the gifts that my grandmother was given.
Liz Goldwyn: So, like, it's kind of like a very strange Santa Claus. (laughing)
Catherine Clay: Exactly. But then you get to see all these different Santa Clauses in the neighborhood market, because all of the tricks she had was all from right here in this area, and the locals of this community too. So when we were at BCD Market, we were probably going to run into Toby, or Paul, or to the different tricks that she had inside of the liquor store. And they all were very familiar Christmas and July, or Christmas and August, or maybe Christmas, three or four times a month. Depending on the frequency of who she was seeing and what was the need of the household at that particular time.
Liz Goldwyn: How old were you when you started to prostitute professionally?
Catherine Clay: I was maybe 21.
Liz Goldwyn: So before that, when the gentlemen would come around and your grandmother would sort of solicit you, it wasn't...
Catherine Clay: That was different than me deciding that I wanted to prostitute…
Liz Goldwyn: Right.
Catherine Clay: …on my own. So at the age of 16 is when I met my son's father. And when I met my son's father, because I was only 16, he was afraid to even have sex with me yet. But he was already paying my aunt money to just spend time with me, to get me out of the house. At that point, he was contributing money to my grandmother, I guess secretly or anonymously. He was a big time dope dealer. And he was giving the household money, but he hadn't began to sleep with me, yet. But whenever he was ready for me to come out and just go drink with him, or hang out with him, they got paid. And he would give me huge stacks of money, too, and buy me clothes and everything. But he was afraid that my mom would call the police once she knew what was going on.
And so he said, "I haven't given her any drugs for you, yet." But I knew that he was giving them to my aunt and to my uncle, because they were the ones that would come and get me out the house. And my son's father at the time, he was my boyfriend, he would pay my family members to have alone time with me. So while he was grooming me to be his girlfriend, they were getting paid. And so he would pay me like $500 a week.
Liz Goldwyn: When you're 16?
Catherine Clay: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Liz Goldwyn: Wow. That's a lot of money for a 16 year old.
Catherine Clay: I know. Every Saturday morning, it came like clockwork. (both laugh)
Liz Goldwyn: What did you spend it on? You didn't save it?
Catherine Clay: Well, no. He would give me things that he wanted me to spend it on. And even when he was sending me to go buy clothes, he would show me different things that he wanted me to go and buy. So even when it came to colors, he was telling me what to spend the money on. So it was my money, but it was really spending it the way he wanted me to spend it. So it was really about him prepping and grooming me for me to be specifically just his. When I decided that I'm going to go and dance, and then the dancing led me into escorting, I was officially 21. So the previous years, from 16 to 20, it was really my family benefited from me, as being a minor, and them getting paid.
Liz Goldwyn: And you had your son.
Catherine Clay: I had my son at 19. And when he was like one, my son's father left and I didn't have any means. I tried to go to work, but then my son's father was complaining about me leaving my son. And so then I knew that because he had another family, elsewhere, like he wasn't coming at night, that opened the door for me to start stripping when my cousin introduced me to that lifestyle. And from the stripping is when I went into the escorting business.
Liz Goldwyn: Yeah. You were telling me about your and your cousin's rates. You set the bar really high, right? You said your cousin wouldn't take less than, what was it? $1,500?
Catherine Clay: My cousin wouldn't take less than $1,500. So anyone that was willing to spend anything less than $15, then became my customer or my other cousins’ customers.
Liz Goldwyn: What was your minimum?
Catherine Clay: My minimum was $500, and you would pick up the tabs, you would pay for me to be able to get there. $500, regardless of what it was you wanted me to do, even if you wanted me to have phone sex with you, was going to be the going rate. I had a client before, all he wanted to do was just shave me. And so it was actually him and his brother, and they lived in Brentwood, right on the outskirts of UCLA. And they just wanted to shave me and take pictures of them shaving me. So I walked away with $1,000, just with them taking turns just shaving me and getting in the shower.
Liz Goldwyn: To shave your legs?
Catherine Clay: No, to shave my private parts.
Liz Goldwyn: Yeah. Well I was just wondering if also they shaved your legs, so you kind of got a service out of it. (both laugh)
Catherine Clay: Well, no. Because my legs were shaved, previous. But I had met them inside of one of these really expensive cigar clubs in Beverly Hills. On the top floor of this nice, expensive smoke shop, we had already had an encounter where they were able to pull my panties to the side and then them telling me, "Don't shave yourself. I want to be able to shave you. So we'll call you in a couple of weeks." So I already knew what to expect, they knew what to expect. They just knew that the going rate was $500. So whatever you wanted me to do, for at least like 15 minutes, $500. With two people being there, they both had to pay me the $500. And they just took turns with shaving my vagina and I took a shower and left.
Liz Goldwyn: That's pretty good money for-
Catherine Clay: Real quick money, good money.
Liz Goldwyn: And we were talking about when you were working in these strip clubs. Which, maybe not everyone knows, that strip clubs, especially in Los Angeles, are a place where you break really new and good hip hop tracks. And a lot of people go to these strip clubs, a lot of famous people go to strip clubs. You also had some people who could spend a lot more than $500.
Catherine Clay: Oh yeah, absolutely. I actually worked in what's called The Afterhours. Our Afterhours was in a really nice area, right up Pico. Actually I worked in about three different Afterhours on Pico, on the other side of La Brea. And one Afterhours that was ran by Doobie, who is Nikki's boyfriend, is...
Liz Goldwyn: Nikki's your cousin.
Catherine Clay: Nikki's my cousin, my little cousin. This Afterhours was like super amazing. There was celebrities that gave private parties from the Lakers. There was celebrities that were famous rappers, famous comedians, just about every walk of life or every big buck walk of life, from the African-American community, was inside of these Afterhours. Literally, they could shut down the Afterhours. And I don't know if you're familiar with Afterhours, but in Afterhours is a big business. There's a lot of cocaine just being passed around, there's a lot of liquor, there's a lot of women like myself, at that particular time, and my other cousins. That's they're doing business transactions. And so I had been offered really, really large amounts. So $500 for 15 minutes is small change compared to when the celebrity from the Lakers was actually trying to get me to come with him. He offered to pay $2,500 to my cousin that was working the door, when I told him that my son was at my cousin's house.
So he said, "No worries, we'll pay him $2,500 to babysit." He offered me $5,000, but then he offered Doobie $1,000 just for him, meeting me inside of Doobie's Afterhours. And so even when I said like, "Oh no, I don't want to go. I just want to stay here and drink. I just want to work." More money was increased, and then at that time everybody's saying, "Catherine, you better get your ass and go." And the most amazing thing was the morning when we left, because we would go to work from 12 o'clock in the morning to maybe like 6:30 in the morning, my uncle called and he said, "The Lakers are playing, and I'm going to drag you down there and I'm going to tell them, I'm sorry she took too long but here she is. You made me get my pimp suit out the closet. So we're going to drag your ass down there to The Forum, and you going go down there."
And I laughed it away, but I was just thinking like, "I wonder how serious is he about saying, you wasn't supposed to pass up that money and you knew what you was supposed to do." And so it was funny, but it really wasn't funny. It was also a part of being able to say how my family wasn't even ashamed to telling other members of my family of what it was that I had passed up. The Afterhours was good money. I mean like absolute good money. Sometimes I just feel like I wasn't drunk enough to even indulge in being an escort.
Liz Goldwyn: Yeah. Because you were telling me that you didn't enjoy sex.
Catherine Clay: So I've done a lot of therapy, and one of the things that I've had to do was take sexual therapy. I'm a survivor of child molestation. And so one of the things that I had learned, I guess pretty early on, was how to detach my physical body from my mental. So me being married, it was hard for me and my husband. Like I could get drunk and I could turn tricks, because I was so intoxicated. But when I was sober, I would cringe with the part of my husband and I having oral sex. There was times that he would tell me that I was like a corpse, because I would lay there and something would happen that would make me flashback about me being molested as a child. So it took a lot of therapy for me to even understand sex, and even connecting the part of being a survivor of child molestation, being a survivor of child sex trafficking inside of my own home, and then even indulging in prostitution on my own will.
And so when it came to me having sex with my husband and my partner, I didn't even want to. So I had to go through therapy just to be able to understand some tricks and techniques to even want to get intimate with my husband.
Liz Goldwyn: What kind of tricks and techniques did you learn?
Catherine Clay: One of the things that my clinician first advised was using KY. Then it was massage, to be able to connect the personal encounter that was now going on as personal. Foreplay, before the sex even came and then that would change my mindset, if it was me turning a trick or if it was me being molested. It was the connection of intimacy first. That was the huge connection for me.
Liz Goldwyn: We talked a little, the other day, about having really bad PTSD from all of your experiences in childhood. And I remember you telling me a couple things that really struck me. One was that you had a moment when you realized your body was a temple.
Catherine Clay: Absolutely. I've been in mental health for the past six years. And so even though I did sex therapy, it wasn't a part of my mental health therapy. And so when I got to mental health and they got to teach me all these different tools, and they taught me about red flags. This one particular day, me and one of the other ladies that was inside of mental health, we left early. One of the other ladies said, "You guys are leaving?" And I said, "Yeah." And she said, "Why?" I said, "Well first of all, I haven't stopped drinking. So I don't want to go into the class." So me and the girl, we left, we go sit at the bus stop on Century, which is a high sex trafficking area. And we're drinking beers, and we're drinking beers, then next thing you know, a guy walks up to us and I just instantly go into Shawn.
Liz Goldwyn: Shawn's your trick name.
Catherine Clay: Yes. That was my seductive name. And so, you see, I say it different, Shawn. And so he just approached us and next thing you know, I did a business transaction and we were in the car with him, and we dropped my friend off. And he was dropping me off, and the minute I got out the car, it hit me. Uh oh, the alcohol was a red flag. So if I wouldn't have never drunk, I would have never got in the car with that man. So it was at that point, I just began to understand. At my job, I was becoming a peer advocate and the clinic I received my mental health from is the state's only all women's mental health clinic. So I began to advocate about STDs and STIs. And I learned, or I got to be in this class with all these different ex-prostitutes that were now HIV positive. And that was like, my biggest aha moment. And I remember talking to one of my classmates and she was just so drop dead beautiful.
And when she revealed that she was HIV positive, I said, "Oh hell no. You would have been one of the women that I would have slept with. I would have brought you home with me, we would have been turning tricks together." So that was the biggest oh my gosh moment. I didn't get AIDs, I didn't get HIV. I've never gotten beat. I was able to walk away from a lifestyle that so many had got caught up in, and it wasn't a beautiful piece. Not saying that my walk was a beautiful piece, but right now I've never had a disease, or I've never gotten beat, and I've never gotten robbed. It just took me a moment to be able to say, "I'm not going to put myself back in those positions. I'm so sorry for doing this to my body."
And so I began to just want to worship my body. I stopped drinking. That was the first part of me saying, “Oh no, I know if I drink, I'm going to go right back in.” And so mental health helped me with the awareness to be able to identify what were some of the red flags that would just put me back into that lifestyle, even if I wasn't getting dressed to go. Because it was a step for me, even to go to work. So when we were homeless and I had my other three girls, we were there. When we would get ready to go to work, we would be laying there and we had to turn on the music. We knew we had to drink. We had to prepare to even prepare our minds to even get into the work line. It was just being able to say, “No, how do I stop?” Once I got those tools, I was just like, no, I'm worshiping my body. I'm so glad I didn't get AIDs. I'm so glad that those bad things that could have happened to me, didn't.
And so that's what these last-- it started off at five years but then I relapsed and went back into prostitution about two years ago.
Liz Goldwyn: For one...
Catherine Clay: For one day.
Liz Goldwyn: One day.
Catherine Clay: And it changed my life. That one day still haunts me.
Liz Goldwyn: But it's so hard with financial struggles and debt. You've got these offers where you can make so much money, so quickly, and you've grown up not knowing any other job skills. The amount of strength it takes for you to even step out of it, is very admirable.
Catherine Clay: When we talked before, you asked, do I think about it, going back to the lifestyle? And the true reality is when I meet men, there's always the part of me that says when they're looking at me a certain way. Like mm-hmm (affirmative), I bet you they want my business, I bet you. And so it's an ongoing thought that always races through my head, whether I'm actively doing it or if I'm contemplating doing it. Sometimes it's just about me just meeting somebody and the way that somebody's looking at me, then that's what triggers the whole thought of, mm-hmm (affirmative), I bet you I could get him to pay me some money to do some things. And so it's just like a thought of unconsciously thinking about doing it, and then sometimes it's consciously, I'm thinking about okay, I know I can make it out of this if I just do this one little trick. It'll help me so quick.
The amazing part was because I was introduced to the lifestyle, I never had to walk the streets. The owners of businesses would flag us down to come inside the business.
Liz Goldwyn: Some very well known restaurants, you were telling me.
Catherine Clay: Absolutely.
Liz Goldwyn: Like the maitre d’s were all in on it.
Catherine Clay: We would get calls, them telling us, "Oh, there's some people here from China and they work for big computer corporations, and they're looking for African-American women." Even days we weren't showing up to go and do business in Beverly Hills, we were still getting calls from the maitre d’s and from business owners to come and do business. It wasn't just men. Like, there's a really famous business owner in Beverly Hills that's a woman that I had sex with in her kitchen. It wasn't just men. It was just absolute, wonderful lifestyle that we were introduced to, and it just opened us up to be able to fly and do things that wouldn't have never been offered to us.
Liz Goldwyn: Yeah. You were telling me about private planes.
Catherine Clay: Yeah. So we got private planes to fly us all the time to Palm Springs or to Las Vegas. We had limousines picking us up to take us back to business owner's homes. We would get private shopping sprees by designers of clothing lines. We would get to go inside of department stores, when the malls were closing down and the store owners would come and open up, tell security that we're going to their particular boutiques. So we lived a really good lifestyle. And at no point, dealing with the people that I dealt with, that I absolutely felt like my life was in danger.
Liz Goldwyn: Well you told me one story that I thought was interesting, that the only incident of violence was actually you got violent.
Catherine Clay: I'll never forget. I believe that it was actually my first trick that this encounter took place with. So I talked to you about Doobie and he was the owner of The Afterhours. Doobie had a brother, he had lots of money and he had other Afterhours too. But they weren't in the LA area. And he came and he picked me up this one particular day, and as I said, I live really close-netted to my family. So in this particular time, we were living in the Baldwin Hills area, and we were managers of this apartment complex. And my family had maybe eight or nine units inside of this apartment. So my little cousins were playing in the yard, but Strawberry knew... That was his name, Strawberry. He knew my younger cousin's name, and when he said her name I just was like, "How the hell you know her name?" But then when we got to the motel, as I was getting dressed to start dancing, he just kept saying how beautiful the little girl was and if he was her father, what he would have been doing to her.
And so I'm drinking and I've danced for him, and he's throwing the money all over me. And then I pick my money up, I've been there a hour and he gives me another $500, and then he's throwing money on me. And by this time, I had a couple of drinks and he makes a comment about my little cousin, Ebony. And next thing you know, I picked up the bottle and I hit him over his head. That was the only time that I've ever been violent. I had never been in a position where my one of my tricks tried to be violent with me, absolutely never.
Liz Goldwyn: Were there a lot of female clients or was it mostly men?
Catherine Clay: I had a lot of female clients.
Liz Goldwyn: Was it easier with women?
Catherine Clay: I think with the women it was really more so about dancing with them inside of the club, and drinking, and fondling with them. I think with the women it wasn't really like sex, sex. It wasn't really nothing to me. Looking back, I just think that I didn't have a terrible time. We were always taught, we don't have sex with African-American men. And so there was a reason behind that, it was because regardless of if you took on a black man as a client, they were going to want to fuck you to death, they were going to want you to stay for a full hour. And the consequences were going to be a whole lot. Instead, if we dealt with women and other cultures, they didn't care. Once we made them cum, the money was already paid to us and we were just free to go. And so I think with the women it was just a lot more intimate.
Liz Goldwyn: Yeah. You were talking, when we first sat down, about trust.
Catherine Clay: I thought I was becoming friends with men. But then they would proposition me for sex. And so it just put up a barrier, not to trust so easily, especially when it comes to men. Like, what is your alternative motive for even smiling or saying hi? And so one of the rules of prostitution is you never look nobody in their eyes. So I try my best to be able, when I'm talking to a man, not to look him in his eye. Because I don't want him to get the wrong understanding. But then when you're stripping and you're dancing, that's rule 101. You have to look them in their eyes to let them know that you are making a contact to them. So when, as Catherine, that's not in the business anymore, I try to stay away from the things that I know that would mislead a man into trying to proposition me. It gives me a lot of trust issues with shutting down and not being as open and as friendly as I am, to men, just because I've been tooken advantage of.
Liz Goldwyn: The limo guy.
Catherine Clay: Brad. (both laugh) So Brad was amazing. I met him at the Hollywood Park Casino, and my cousins and I were all at a club and when the club ended, I happened to see this caucasian older gentleman sitting there by himself. I just said, "Don't look so sad, things will get better." And he invited me to come and sit at the table. We had a conversation and he brought a drink. And, of course, I'm with my cousins, but of course they know what the business is, is because I'm sitting down with this white guy that I have no contact with or never knowing him ever before. But he invited me over. Now he's buying me drinks and sending drinks over to the table where my cousin is. And so we exchange numbers, and at this particular time I lived maybe like two blocks away from Hollywood Park Casino.
So according to Brad, after I left, he had a winning streak and he won this big amount of money and he wanted to share it with his good luck charm. And he came and picked me up and took me to Windsor Hills, where he lived at. And he became my personal trick for, at least, maybe like three or four years.
Liz Goldwyn: He wanted to marry you.
Catherine Clay: He knew that I was already married, and he was just like, "Well what about if I just buy a house by the beach? And I'll live in the front and you and your husband, and your mom, your whole family could stay in the back. And when I want you, you'll just come through the back door and when I die I'll leave the property to you." And when he would go to poker tournaments, he would just pay for me to come to him wherever he was at. It didn't matter if it was in Palm Springs, or if he was at the Hollywood Park Casino, or if he was in Las Vegas, wherever he was. Because he was the owner of a limousine company, he would always send transportation to come and get me.
These past few months, I've really been thinking like, damn, I wish I could remember Brad's number. Like, all I could remember is 818. And so I really been trying to say, "I'm not going to go back out on the streets. Or, I'm not going to go back to Beverly Hills. But if I could get ahold to Brad, I'm absolutely open to going back into prostitution." (both laugh)
Liz Goldwyn: Yeah. It's like the Pretty Woman fantasy, right?
Catherine Clay: A prostitute or a escort's ultimate goal is to marry a trick, and to take them out of that lifestyle. So I have friends that have married their tricks. But the funny thing is when they marry the tricks, the tricks don't have the money that they had when we first met them, that they was able to spend on us. And so now they're watching out for their money and now I want to settle down. So I have some friends that have married their tricks, and depending on what's actually going on in the prostitute's life, that's their ultimate goal. So they don't have to keep going.
Liz Goldwyn: And you were saying that we don't talk about sex trafficking in our community. We don't talk about it here in America.
Catherine Clay: When I first started hearing about sex trafficking, a few years ago, it was about how the Asian community was being brought over here to work in the massage parlors. So I come from the urban community and sex trafficking looks different in the black community. I was under the age of 18 and so was my cousins. But my auntie Sue was the one pimping us out. It looks different, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be brought to another state, it doesn't mean that you have to be out there on the streets. Sometimes it happens inside of the households. And sex trafficking just looks different in different communities. I was a part of sex trafficking, and it went on inside of my own house.
Liz Goldwyn: What could we do?
Catherine Clay: The day we met you, it was myself and one of the other ladies from Dress for Success, Annie. And prior to that morning, I had never knew that Annie had been in the lifestyle of prostitution. Except for when we were talking about like, look at the big people here, today. And Annie said, "Shit, I hope I could find a trick." And we laughed, and we just began to have a dialogue, talking about the lifestyles that both of us had lived. And then you got up there and you talked about that book. And prior to that, everybody that morning had been asking, "How did I get involved in Dress for Success?" I just said, "I got a job and my job sent me there to get dressed." I didn't want to say I was coming out of prostitution, and I didn't know how to dress. So I was dressing, still as I was a prostitute, cleavage exposed. And you got up there and talked about the book, it was the aha moment of feeling like the conversation is now happening.
You said, "Why is it looked down upon?" That was just the moment of, I didn't have to be ashamed of why I was initially brought to Dress for Success, because you were speaking on it. And so when I went to the restroom, I seen the director of Dress for Success and I was just telling her I was so thankful that you were there and you was actually addressing the topic that was so taboo to me. I couldn't tell everybody how I really got brought into Dress for Success, until you spoke. And then Annie walked out, and Annie got to telling her about her prostitution days. And she said, "I'm going to introduce you guys to Liz,” after she finish speaking. It was just a part of you bringing awareness and speaking about it, in the open.
It made me feel like I didn't have to be shameful on how did I actually really come into Dress for Success. Having these conversations and these dialogues is what helped me feel like, okay, I don't have to be ashamed to talk about prostitution, because she up there and she wrote a whole book about it (Liz laughs). And so she saying, why does people got to look down at us for even doing it? It just really opened up a part of, I didn't have to feel afraid or ashamed about my past.
Liz Goldwyn: So what we're doing right now is what you suggest we do. Sex, we got to talk about these issues and help everyone feel comfortable with where they came from, and where they're at now, and where they're going.
Catherine Clay: I have some friends at my mental health clinic, and the crazy part is a lot of them have five and six kids, but they're afraid. They don't want to talk about sex. It's a topic they don't feel comfortable with even talking about. But when organizations are trying to give you housing, that's one of the only ways to get housing, is if you talk about you being a prostitute. But the women don't even want to talk about that part. So it's so taboo. Like, no one wants to have this conversation, we have to be able to be comfortable and this is something that is really major.
I'm a part of Department of Mental Health, I'm the only former prostitute that get to sit in on these meetings and advise them on how to outreach and engage to the prostitutes. Because of my former lifestyle, I also get to operate with 77 police department when they do prostitution stings. I get to talk to the prostitutes and offer them a mental health, helping them understand and identify what is the other outlook, and what is possible, and what are the dangers of even indulging.
I try to use my voice from my past to be able to help and say, "I made it out, and it might not be as easy for you as it was for me. Because I didn't have a pimp." When you're a ho, there's no off days. So I don't care if it that's time of the month, you just pack yourself and you got to still go do what you got to do. You take a shower, you pack yourself. When you're going to places like in Beverly Hills, sometimes they do watch you and sting you, and security will check you to see if you have money on you after you done went up to a room. So sometimes you got to even put your money inside of your vagina, just to hide all things. So it's just, it's a lifestyle that's... It's a underground world that nobody really understands, unless you live in the world.
It's a lifestyle that will eat you up and spit you out, and wait for the next person, if you're not strong enough to survive. So I just think having these conversations and having these dialogues is really important to bring awareness that there are alternative ways out and there is help to get out.
Liz Goldwyn: Thank you.
Catherine Clay: Thank you.
Liz Goldwyn: That was amazing.
Liz Goldwyn: That was Catherine Clay sharing her story. If you'd like to support women around the world seeking self-determination and economic independence, please consider donating your time or money to Dress for Success. You can find their website at dressforsuccess.org.
Thanks for listening to The Sex Ed. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. And be sure to visit us at thesexed.com.
I'm your host, Liz Goldwyn. This episode was produced by Idea Farmer in association with Fanny Co., and edited by Rob Abear. Alissa Van Tucci did our sound recording and Eddie Ryan was our line producer. Special thanks to Josh Bean. Louis Lazar made all of our music, including the track you're listening to right now. As always, The Sex Ed remains dedicated to expanding your orgasmic health and sexual consciousness. Thanks again for listening.