Story by Jeff Lily | Illustration by Gary Bedard

Imagine that your occupation involves being in dangerous situations, with strangers in strange homes, late at night, and for the purpose of providing sexual gratification. Sound like a really gritty crime drama?

Welcome to the “glamorous” world of escort work. This was reality for one Ferndale resident, who came forward to tell her story. Her name, and many details, have been changed to protect her identity; the pertinent facts, however, are all true.

This is Alice’s story.

She tells it to me while sitting on the sofa in the small, neat front room of her friend’s house. She’s younger than you’d think, and looks it despite all she’s experienced. She’s petite, willowy, almost fragile-looking. That last is an illusion, though, which disappears when you look into her eyes. They’re dark, sharp, and intelligent; they measure and weigh you, objectively calculating, cautious. There’s strength there, too, the kind that comes from facing down tough situations and coming out alive.

“I got out of jail. Two felonies and a misdemeanor, all drug- related.” She says. Not ashamed, and not flippant, either. Just the facts. “I had about $2500 in debt that needed to be paid. I was working three jobs, and still not making it.” They were waitressing jobs, she explains when I ask, because after jail there’s not many places that will hire you. One night, a friend of hers who worked as a stripper suggested stripping “as a joke.” Alice declined, but when she heard about escorting, it sounded appealing.

“All you do is go on dates, and they pay you,” is how she says it was described. It turned out to be more complicated than that.

Looking at Alice now, it’s difficult to believe that someone like her — smart, good-looking, charming — would need to go to these extremes. But anyone can have a bad start in life.

“I have the perfect background for it.” Alice explains. She was adopted, bounced around in a series of foster homes, and suffered abuse. “No one becomes a stripper because you were loved too much as a child. No one escorts because their daddy told them they were the best. Everyone in the business is broken, one way or another.”

So it was that she found herself in a hotel room one night, photographed in lingerie, and advertised. The money was more than she’d ever made before. But after a couple of months she’d had enough, and quit.
But she still needed money, so she went into stripping. The hours were long, the work exhausting. She still has side effects from wearing her costume shoes, which made her feet swell and bones
curve. There were other dangers as well.

“We (the dancers) all drank pretty heavily.” Alice admits. She didn’t get into drugs, but some of the women she worked with did MDMA, cocaine, Xanax, and others. At the very least, “You’d go home drunk and wake up the next day hung over. Every day.”

The work also affected her personal life. “My boyfriend couldn’t tell his friends what I did for a living.” Alice recalls. “He couldn’t tell his parents. That put (a lot of) strain on our relationship.”

Finally, she reached her limit. “I watched this documentary about girls in the porn industry. I never did porn, but they were saying the same things, the exact same things, that I said to justify stripping. Things like, ‘It makes me feel beautiful. I get paid to party. I’m having the time of my life.’ Hearing them say that scared the life out of me. I couldn’t do it any more.”

Despite everything, she won’t condemn the whole adult entertainment industry, or try to tell anyone how to run their life.

“It’s not the industry that’s bad. What they do to the girls is,” she says. Because so much of the business is illegal, it operates undercover and can’t be regulated. “I’ve talked to a couple of girls since I got out, and they asked if I could help them get started.” So she told them the truths that the pimps and the club owners won’t. Bottom line: You’ll lose too much of yourself for a paycheck. It just isn’t worth it. The girls she talked to decided not to take the leap.

Alice is putting her life together. She has steady work now, still too close to the industry for comfort, but no longer in it. She finished her high school education, all AP classes, with honors, and is looking forward to starting college.

She’s also determined to take the hard lessons she’s learned and educate other young women who are considering working as strippers, escorts, or in adult films. Her eyes light up as she talks about her project, joining with a large group of former adult entertainment workers to collectively develop a blog.

“All you do is go on dates, and they pay you,”

“It’s called ‘Married to the Money’ because so many girls have trouble leaving, because of the money.” Alice explains. The blog will tell the stories of adult industry workers, with the goal of educating others about the realities of working in the business. What anyone does with the information, and if they choose to believe it, will be their choice.

Creating the blog is painful work. It dredges up a lot of memories, and of course the stories hit close to home. But that the point. “I want something honest. Almost too honest. If I can make even one person stop and say, ‘Wait a second. Maybe this isn’t as good, as healthy, as I think it is…” She pauses. One of her jobs while stripping was to recruit other women into the business. “I wasn’t very good at it. It hurt me to tell them, ‘Oh, you’ll just be waitressing.’ Because I guarantee, if we recruit you, within a month you’ll be on the pole…”

I see then that the blog will have a lot of uses. I understand that it’s not just helpful information, or a public service. It’s also therapy.

As of press time, the blog isn’t quite ready. Ferndale Friends will publish the address when it goes online.
Meanwhile, Alice is busy with her studies, dreaming and planning.

“The best feeling in the world is leaving that stage for the last time, knowing you’re never going back.”

At that, she finally cracks a smile. The stage is behind her now. Her life is just ahead.

If something happened with our health, we believe there is a solution to any maladies in a preparation. What medicines do patients purchase online? Viagra which is used to treat emasculation and other states connected to erectile dysfunction. Learn more about “sildenafil“. What people talk about “viagra stories“? The most substantial aspect you should look for is “sildenafil citrate“. Such problems commonly signal other problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as heart trouble. Causes of sexual dysfunction turn on injury to the penis. Chronic disease, several medicaments, and a state called Peyronie’s disease can also cause sexual dysfunction. Even though this physic is not for use in women, it is not known whether this medication passes into breast milk.

Story by Jason Shubnell | Photos by Bernie Laframboise

The LGBT community, with its growing acceptance in U.S. society, has made big strides over recent years. Both celebrities and the federal government have played a part in this progressive wave. However, remedies for the unique challenges the trans community faces in the healthcare system have lagged behind. Sex reassignment procedures and hormone therapy are just a few of the services the trans community needs; unfortunately not every doctor and physician can (or will) provide these. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 banned sex discrimination in most healthcare facilities and programs, so it’s not always a matter of lingering bigotry but also a lack of familiarity and training.

“Finding safe and affordable healthcare providers who are respectful and knowledgeable regarding transgender healthcare can be a huge challenge pretty much everywhere,” said Daniel Herrle, who runs FtM Detroit, a transmasculine activism and support collective. “Ferndale has a lot of resources available that fit this description. However, transgender folks aren’t always aware of what is available to them.”

Enter RAD Remedy, a virtually-operated nonprofit collective with team members and data entry volunteers located across the country.

RAD, which stands for Referral Aggregator Database, was launched in 2014 to help bring a solution to one central problem: connecting transgender people with healthcare providers that can meet their needs.
“I kept consulting referral lists from community organizations only to find them inaccurate or out of date,” said RAD Remedy Executive Director Riley Johnson. He was looking to connect with others in the trans healthcare space. “In one memorable example, the provider in question was a friend of mine who had passed away two or three years prior.”

Johnson eventually found the Trans*H4ck, a transgender hackathon, speaker series and code school based out of Chicago.

“We began as a team of strangers: two social workers, two developers, and me,” Johnson continued. “Twenty- seven hours of work later, we won top honors at the event. We felt it was important to seek as many perspectives as possible, so we later decided to attend trans conferences and do a needs assessment so we could develop the tool to be most accessible.”

Along the way, Herrle joined the team. He is a Ferndale resident and the organization’s design director.
“I had been looking for ways to start up something similar, and through my searching, I found that RAD was just getting started,” said Herrle. “They had a booth set up at the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference in 2014. I attended the conference, found them there and immediately got involved.”

Herrle, who along with Johnson and many other RAD team members is transgender, hopes more providers in the area will connect with the organization: “This can become an even more valuable resource if local residents review these providers and suggest more. Participation of residents sharpens and refines what is available through RAD.”

The RAD Remedy database has over 3,000 providers nationwide, with new providers added each day. Johnson said the organization would ideally have reviews available for all providers so people “can know what they’re walking into before they access care. However, we don’t measure success by vast amounts of providers in the system…We prefer to empower users, work to improve capacity for organizations, and work with providers to improve their services, forms, and systems.”

On the medical and insurance side of things, Johnson says, “It can be challenging when necessary surgeries and treatments are deemed ‘cosmetic’ or ‘experimental.’ Such procedures have been practiced for decades and are necessary and responsible treatment for diagnosed conditions, but all too often blanket exclusions prohibit insurance coverage, making access to such treatment impossible for most folks. Trans health is something untaught in most U.S. medical schools, so it should be no surprise that many doctors have no clue as to how to proceed. We at RAD Remedy want to take the guesswork out of things by providing clear and low-stakes consulting so providers can improve forms, systems, and practices with the clients they serve.”
RAD has a volunteer team and board comprised of people across the country in areas such as Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, New York City, Portland, Minneapolis, and Columbus, Ohio. According to its website, there were 37 providers within the Detroit area at time of writing.

RAD has been working with Affirmations, and seeks to expand the partnership.

“Affirmations currently hosts a network of LGBTQ- affirming healthcare providers that are located throughout southeastern Michigan and are accessible on our Health and Wellness Network.” Explains Kelsey Hug, Affirmations’ Community Resource Manager. RAD Remedy hosts a similar network at a national level. We haven’t completely sorted out the details of what that partnership will look like, but we’re excited to find ways to best serve transgender community members across Southeast Michigan in the best way possible in partnership with other LGBTQ+ serving organizations.”

RAD has not been without its struggles. “For many on our team, paying work must be prioritized, so if we are able to secure organizational funding, we may be able to have team members work more actively on RAD and thus get more aspects completed,” Johnson said. A crowdfunding campaign can be accessed at www.rockethub.com/projects/61520

“We also face an obstacle in that the communities we serve often have trauma around getting care, so it can take time to earn their trust, both for us and for the providers who work with us to improve their services,” Johnson continued. “We strive to be both a community project (where many people contribute) and a community resource (where many people benefit), so we feel it is important to build our networks and prove our worth over time.”

The organization is always looking for more help. RAD is hoping to boost its tech team, along with adding a development person, although Johnson said they can always find ways to make use of all sorts of people and all sorts of skills they may have.

Speaking on the makeup of the RAD organization, Herrle stated: “While our team is mixed, it was important for us to maintain a level of, ‘by the community, for the community.’”

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Check out RAD Remedy online at www.radremedy.org

If some happened with our soundness, we believe there is a solution to any maladies in a medicament. What medicines do patients purchase online? Viagra which is used to treat impotency and other states connected to erectile dysfunction. Learn more about “sildenafil“. What men talk about “viagra stories“? The most vital aspect you must look for is “sildenafil citrate“. Such problems commonly signal other problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as core trouble. Causes of sexual disfunction turn on injury to the penis. Chronic disease, several medicaments, and a status called Peyronie’s disease can also cause sexual dysfunction. Even though this medicine is not for use in women, it is not known whether this medication passes into breast milk.