>Yes, I know a few women, now professionals, who say that if they couldn't
>get professional work, they would go _back_ to sex work, in preference to
>shitty, badly paid, unskilled jobs.
Yes, I knew a lawyer a few years ago who told me she had been a sex worker. But I'll resist the temptation to draw parallels between the two lines of work.
>Maybe the cost of living is lower (?) in Tasmania, making it possible to
>live on a pension. Over here --- and even more so in Sydney and
>Melbourne --- many, if not most, of the sex workers _are_ single parents,
>disability pensioners, students, etc.
Maybe. It depends on what you call "living". Anyhow, people live on the dole, so with the benefit of a network of friends and family it must be possible to live on a pension, which pays substantially more.
"Living" on a pension, or the dole, can be a bit tricky if you have expensive habits, like drugs or alcohol, naturally. The options are to either prostitute yourself or live rather more simply. Most people choose to prostitute themselves, though the ruling class lives in eternal fear that the working class will suddenly refuse to do so, bringing the whole system to an abrupt end.
Except for tobacco I don't have any expensive habits myself and being a naturally gifted financial manager I can live on the dole. (Or maybe living on the dole for so long has imparted superior financial management skills?) Either way, it isn't all that complicated once you know how to live poor. The trick is to value the things that are free. To realise for example that free sex is better than sex that you pay for, or that labour freely entered into is more rewarding than labour performed for money.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas