>Would you ever seriously become a sex working-class prostitute on the street?
Diamanda Galas did for a while. I don't know if she did it between her childhood classical music training and her graduate school piano training, or if she did it after graduate school.
"A special place is reserved in her heart for drag queens, especially the black drag queens she met when she was a prostitute. Her street name was 'Miss Zena' 'A bunch of drag queens taught me to make up. I dressed as a man dressing as a woman. An there were pickpockets and stuff, playing all sorts of pranks.
Once I was attacked by a man and they defended me. There was a lot of sweetness, a sense of fraternity which I had never felt before.
I wanted to be one of the girls. I was carrying a knife and working for a living.' Working as a prostitute was not only a means of earning money, but also a way of coming to terms with her fear of attack by men. She affirmed her right to be in public places late at night, her presence needing neither explanation or apology."
http://www.redrat.net/blackhole/dominating_obsessions.htm