Feb
19
Manar – “My existence is an act of resistance”
February 19, 2021 | Leave a Comment
Please watch this video I made about Manar, a queer, nonbinary, Muslim Egyptian sex worker.
Below is the profile narrative I wrote about her.
Hospitalized more than a few times for attempting suicide in both 2018 and 2019, Manar has always had a rough history with mental health Besides being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) by a therapist, Bipolar 1 by the mental hospital Manar went to, and BPD by their psychiatrist, Manar also struggles with judgment form the same people that are supposed to help them. “So many therapists and psychiatrists look down at what I do. At my absolute lowest, health care professionals made me feel even lower.” This struggle with mental health was only expanded by Manar’s struggle with gender identity. Identifying as non-binary and using the pronouns they/them, Manar fights for people to recognize their gender and struggles with how it conflicts with their job as well. Blaming Manar’s problems on their job, psychiatrist and therapists disregarded that Manar had the symptoms of these disorders before starting work. They felt hated and pressured to quit. This struggle and pressure to quit their job would not only come to them from their doctors but from their friends, potential relationships, and even from their family.
As a queer, nonbinary, Muslim Egyptian, Manar’s childhood was very strict and reserved. The topic of women’s bodies, healthcare, and sexuality was so taboo in the household that when Manar started their menstrual cycle at the age of 9 years old, they hid their underwear away for fear there was something wrong with their body. It wasn’t until their mother found their hidden soiled underwear that they were forced to come clean.
In Egyptian culture, the avoidance of sexual topics is the norm, especially for women. Women are meant for a man’s pleasure and rarely feel any of it for themselves. Karen Badt retells the story of why he will not marry an Egyptian woman. “We have killed our women…They cut it off—that little thing between women’s legs—when they are two years old.”1 In Egypt, women’s clitorises are cut off at a young age and as they grow up they are not taught what it was meant to do nor why it exists. Manar confirms this and was lucky enough that they were born here in America and so did not have to go through that. It is supposed to be about being faithful and having respect for our bodies. The first time Egyptian women are supposed to have sex is when they get married. “I can see it in my mother.” Manar’s mom doesn’t know what a lot of sexual things are and doesn’t understand the sexual references around her. Manar says, “I had my vibrator out and there was nothing it could have been but a vibrator, and my mom had no clue what it was.”
Manar was born here and then at three months old, their parents moved back to Egypt. They were young and don’t remember most of it but when they came back to America at age eight their family moved into a Muslim community. Sex was never mentioned in their household and in fact, Manar’s parents pulled them out of sex-ed classes and continued to do so until the class was made mandatory in high school. “Sex is something to make your husband happy, it is not something for you to enjoy.”
Manar first discovered porn through their brother and by going to a New York City public middle school. When they were 16 years old they told a boyfriend that they would highly consider going into making porn videos. A virgin until they were 17, Manar was still very comfortable with their body and sexuality. Their boyfriend took it in a very negative light and flipped out on them in a misogynistic degrading way. “It was basic, insecure male bullshit.” Manar’s boyfriend said he would never be able to have them meet his parents or bring them around his friends. Manar would consistently be judged by their partners and parents for their open views on sexuality. This contrast between Manar’s culture and their more liberal ideals of sex and gender and sexuality led to big disagreements with their parents.
Leaving to go to college was Manar’s way of escaping. It was their way out from under the control of their parents. That is when she went through her mental breakdown in college. They needed college as an escape but failed out of classes as they struggled with their identity. Having to come back and live with her parents was not helpful for her mental state of mind and in fact, she was kicked out of her house not long after.
Manar was living on a friends’ couch and they needed money, and they needed it fast. After applying to other jobs and hearing no reply they looked into it googling how to be a dancer, and how to audition. “It’s not that hard, you buy an outfit, you buy some shoes, and call the club up and ask for audition times.” In strip club jobs if they decided to hire a dancer, they are hired immediately and started working that night. The club gave Manar two songs to dance to and they auditioned and got the job. Starting the night with only $13 to their name and one outfit and one pair of shoes, Manar made almost $350 that same night. Many movies led Manar to think that they would feel ashamed and spend the night after stripping crying on their floor feeling dirty and ashamed. However, all Manar could think about was that they had financial stability and could make in a night what some people make in a week. Manar was dancing and making money from the beginning of December until the end of Spring.
Manar had to stop dancing after moving back in with their parents in April. Manar’s parents were going through a rough divorce and their parents were abusive. That was supposed to be Manar’s safe haven but they couldn’t dance anymore because she couldn’t lie about the hours. Sometimes, they would be working the midday shift or night shift and they would get home late which, in a strict family such as Manars’, was unacceptable. “Either way I was coming home late and I couldn’t lie about those hours. That is when they decided to go into escorting. Manar went on Reddit and Twitter to find out how to become an escort and found a Reddit page about independent escort page where you can put up ads. Within a week of putting up an ad, they made $2,000. Manar originally put their listing price as four hundred dollars an hour and as they gained experience raised that price and now lists themselves at $500 an hour and going higher. Sometimes they would be making $1,000 a week.
Manar left their parents’ house in the middle of the summer after starting to escort. They knew their parents had an inkling of what they were doing to afford their bills. Manar’s father had kicked them out before after going through their bank account and questioning how they made their money. Manar tried to lie and say they worked at trader joes but their dad threatened to follow up. They felt it would just be better to leave and not come back.
As an escort Manar does not just have sex with men who buy their time. “A lot of the time it is just these lonely men who wanna be around a pretty girl.” Their highest paying client booked them for four hours and all they did was sit around and talk, he wanted to hear their poetry. The most important part is the screening. “You can find out who they are depending on how good your stalking abilities are.” Manar has had some clients who are all about sex though. They have met basketball players, people who do Ted talks, people who write books, etc. Manar has made more friends in their line of work, and they all have their own experiences. “Most people go into sex work because they are in a position when they need the money. The fundamental line for people in sex work is I need bread.”
Escort agencies do make Manar’s work safer, but she describes them as high-class pimps. They give them transportation, screen clients, and give certain hours to work, but the agency also takes half the money Manar makes. With escorting they can make anywhere from $4k to $6k a week depending on how good the clients are. Manar does not want this to perpetuate the image that sex workers make a lot of money. “There are nights that I left the strip club after 8 hours and I only left with $50.” The money is inconsistent and there is no real way to guarantee what the pay will look like.
Paige Simmons would describe herself n the past as a sex worker but more specifically a sugar baby. She started to sugar baby when she was in high school. She had a part-time job at a grocery store and started seeing this guy called Nav that paid her for her time and sexual favors. He also convinced her to help him with his underground drug business. Paige did it for a while and enjoyed the money she was making. She would use it to take care of her mother, who had a psychotic breakdown, and her younger brother. “It was too much money than I knew how to deal with. I’d go home, pack a bag, go to his house, make two drop-offs and then go to my job all morning or all night and then get off and do the same thing.” One guy she remembers working with got beat up after a deal went awry. It was so bad he did have to go to the hospital to deal with his injuries. Nav convinced him not to go to the police and aid for his medical bills. Two weeks later the guy was back working again. That shook Paige into quitting being with Nav and made her realize how addictive the money could be.
As an escort Manar sees drugs a lot. Their clients love to party and the one drug they see a ton is a cocaine. After smoking with a client one night, Manar went home googled what he had given them. “He called it Tina, it was crystal meth.” After struggling with their addiction issues, they are scared to fall into that pattern again as it doesn’t take much for them to become addicted.
Manar does not have a difficult time crossing culture, religion, and their job. They still consider themselves Muslim and do not think anyone could get in between themself and god. The problem for Manar is how people take the Quran and the culture and use it to justify their actions. Manar knows that Egyptian culture is strict but still believes everyone should have the right to choose what they believe in and what rules they follow.
Manar thinks sex work would not be accepted there but definitely knows it happens. Manar thinks sex work in America would profit more people if it were legal. They advocate against policies that harm sex workers. “Policies like FOSTA and SESTA, which were passed to try to help victims of trafficking but really ended up hurting consensual sex workers like myself.” In mid-2018 these two laws were signed by President Trump himself and had many celebrity endorsements. These two laws were meant to protect victims of sex trafficking and make it safer for people. What they actually do is hold online accounts accountable for the selling of sex work that is done on their websites. 2 No sex workers were actually consulted when this legislation was made and so the lives of sex workers have become more difficult. Essentially this bill moved sex work off of online platforms and onto the streets. This erases the progress sex workers had in becoming legal and safer and gets rid of their opportunities to screen clients, and makes them have to rely on pimps.
Manar says these laws restrict their access to information and screening and what they imply is that they wouldn’t choose to do this work for themselves if they had the choice. But Manar would. This is not something that they want to do forever, and they know it’s not something they can do forever. But Manar is an advocate that women and all people should have the ability to express themselves when they want to. “We are all human at the end of the day. And we all deserve to be treated with respect.”
