[Music]
named melody bbw that’s an acronym it
means big beautiful woman it’s not
actually my surname
that’ll be silly age 27 all right for
quite a few years lund location London
UK although I do like to talk because
that makes me sound like a rock star
height five foot seven although in heels
I’m unable to walk so don’t even ask
just a voluptuous 42 double D yes it
services I provide a soft sensual
girlfriend experience which we are all
very surprised to know does not mean I
will pick up your pants whilst
complaining about your mother however I
can also be a strong dominant mistress I
will make you do whatever I want you to
do mainly cuz we both know you’re gonna
send me a very detailed email beforehand
telling me exactly what it is I should
tell you to do now outside of work I
enjoy the finer things in life which is
why I can often be found with a small
glass of something bubbly I am also very
keen on going to galleries and I
consider myself a connoisseur of Modern
Art’s of course there is nothing I enjoy
more than having a large weapon in my
hands now finally my donots list please
note I do not do anal well not unless
it’s on you
it’s not something you thought you’d
hear in a TEDx talk is it
I do not haggle over price because I am
NOT a second-hand car and finally I do
not do golden showers I might not do
golden showers all right if your
appointment is over two hours long
there’s a very strong possibility that
we’ll have to fortunately I’m in a job
where I can charge you fifty pounds
extra for the privilege hello ladies and
gentlemen actually my name’s Miranda but
for seven years that was me and that was
until 2013 where I made the very stupid
and short-sighted decision one which
plunged my friends and family into a sea
of despair and worry because I gave up
my full-time lucrative career as a sex
worker to become a stand-up comedian
I know what you’re thinking thank you I
know what that means and I have it many
times I will come offstage after working
solidly for at least ten minutes and
someone will hold my hands and look in
my eyes and say that that was brave and
I will think of the servicemen and women
people who are putting their lives on
the line to save ours and I will look
them back in the eye and shake their
hands and say yeah I know
now obviously obviously I don’t but
wouldn’t it be great if I could talk
about being in the sex industry and
people didn’t think that was brave I
would love to make jokes about my life
as a sex worker and everyone thought it
was just as normal and just as natural
as if I was talking about any other
industry as if I was a cleaner or a
teacher or or making coffee as a barista
or well maybe not a barista but I know
that there are people out there who are
gonna have their arms folded and their
brows furrowed and they’re gonna be like
well I don’t think a prostitute has
anything to laugh about but I can assure
you I do
and if you have that opinion think about
where you’re getting it from have you
spoken to one of us have you watched or
seen anything written by a sex worker I
mean chances are you have you just don’t
know it we’re everywhere
and as you can see we come in a variety
of different shapes and sizes so my idea
I would like to gently suggest to you
when a sex worker talks you listen if
you want to write about sex workers ask
us if you want to make laws that affects
us consult us there should be nothing
about us without us
now unfortunately something very strange
seems to happen when I put the word sex
and work together people get this weird
fog come over them it’s like a cloud
that’s made of judgment and morality and
stereotypes they go to a part of their
brain where all they can think of is
abuse and drugs and neon lights and so I
found myself with a very serious reason
for going into comedy I watched for
years on TV and films whilst the sex
industry as I knew it was misrepresented
misrepresented I didn’t see anyone that
I knew to be a sex worker I always saw
the the sex work industry as either
being people who were abused or as tall
statuesque models there was never anyone
who looked like me or the women I knew
so after a few years of watching this I
thought fuck it
I’ll do it myself
thank you you may have noticed that I’m
very good at talking about my favorite
subject which is me so I know you have
questions mainly mainly let’s sort this
out shall we
let’s just say that I served a very nice
but very grateful market now there are
certain assumptions that get made about
me because of my weight
some people think that I don’t enjoy
having sex when I look like this some
people think that I can’t have sex when
I look like this and so I’m often asked
well why did you become a sex worker and
the answer I mean there’s many reasons
why I think the answer which will
resonate in a room full of people who
are ambitious and seek success is that I
became a sex worker out of sheer
bloody-minded defiance I do not like
being told what I can or cannot do
actually I’m sure there’s quite a few in
here who love being told what to do and
that’s where ladies like me come in
something else that they say about going
into sex work is well surely you have to
do it out of Finance you’ll need and
yeah that is true
because I need to pay my rent we go into
any job because of financial needs and
so another assumption that gets made
about me is because I’m fat therefore I
must be lazy and stupid and so when I
moved to London and I was trying to find
a job I found myself in a series of
dead-end jobs that I hated
and so I made the choice one day where I
thought well I could either go into a
call centre where I would pray for
earthquakes and atom bombs and alien
invasions just so I didn’t have to go to
work that day
or I could do a job where I works from
home doing something I enjoyed where I
owned a lot more money and which was
quite frankly a bit of a turn-off
and so I put an advert up and my first
client came along and he wanted the
girlfriend experience which if you
didn’t know or if you’re pretending you
don’t know quite a few so but that
basically means sex it was nothing I
hadn’t done with previous boyfriends and
so I got to learn on my first day that I
could have hot I could have great sex
with a hot guy for a shitload of cash
whiles I went crazy and so I I mean
unfortunately what that wasn’t going to
be the same experience for all my
clients some of them now I know this may
seem like quite a surprise but sometimes
I can come across as a tad domineering I
know and so it wasn’t long before I met
my first money slave now this was a guy
who didn’t want anything intimates
instead he just wanted to shower me with
money and take me shopping which sounds
brilliant but we got to a very posh
department store on Oxford Street and
when we were in the perfume section he
decided to cry out loudly mistress
please buyer take the butt-plug out
I didn’t know he had one up there in the
first place and it was them that’s why I
love that you do need a sense of humor
to do this job honey and it’s not just
me whenever I meet other sex workers we
laugh a lot and again it’s that same
opit well what could you possibly laugh
about well is it the sex yeah we laugh
about the sex is it the money
well we laugh about the sex while
strolling on the money but the main
thing we laugh about is you and you
don’t even know it but it does bring me
to a very serious topic and it’s one of
the reasons why I’m here today because I
know that there’s actually something
that has been affecting millions of
people worldwide and is something that I
know there are quite a few of you in
here who are living with the shame and
the stigma and having to keep this
secret from your friends and your family
because I know there are people in this
room who are having sex for free
what could have brought you to this
desperate decision and some are saying
that the Internet is now making it far
too easy for people to meet up without
any financial remuneration websites
dedicating to having people meet up
without any hourly fee and they’re
forced to make small talk laugh each
other’s crap jokes and then at the end
of the meal you have to split the bill
even though you had a mains and he
definitely had a starter and an extra
drink
fortunately the sex workers of Twitter
we have gotten together to try and
rescue women from this humiliating
practice and if you look under the
hashtag of ban free ban freebies you can
see that we are here to highlight the
International scandal of unpaid sexual
labor we are hoping to already to rescue
and eradicate freebie giving women after
all we all know that giving freebies is
bad for the economy why if I had a
dollar for every time I had sex that
would be a fucking huge pay cut and I
wouldn’t glad to do it and we all know
that if you give it away no other man
will want you how will you ever meet a
nice man who wants to pay you guys come
on now this is just a little bit of fun
that we had on Twitter um but these
arguments these represent the things
that we hear every day anti sex work
rhetoric that tells us we’re wrong and
takes away our autonomy they are trying
to tell us that we don’t know what we’re
doing and it’s exacerbated by the media
ill informed members of the public and
anti sex work feminists now I’m a
feminist and to me that means I should
fight for the rights of all women no
matter what they do and I often think
that anti sex work feminists is an
oxymoron I always think that maybe
telling feminists that we need to hate
sex workers was the greatest trick the
patriarchy
blades so why is it important that you
listen to our stories well for one
reason is when it comes to making sex
work safer a lot of governments and
lawmakers tend to look only at
statistics I mean come on you must see
that you cannot put our experiences in a
numerical value not only that we are not
gonna stand around filling in
questionnaires from the government also
also the numbers get skewed and taken
out of context so I’ve done plenty of
debates on this subject and this is
something that comes up a lot this
quotes the average age of girls entering
prostitution is 13 now there’s a few
there’s a few Gospels of that but but
you don’t know the source and the source
of that quote is actually from a survey
that was taken from 210 children all
from abusive backgrounds and they were
all under the age of 18 so it was never
going to show that any of them were of
the age of consent and yet that quote
gets used to criminalize sex work for
millions of women throughout the world
and another thing that it reminds me of
is is one of my favorite quotes by a
journalist called Kevin Meyers and he
always says that the prostitution round
makes me want to start a charity for
abuse statistics couldn’t agree more keV
so what else is it important for you to
listen to us and and hear our our
stories well they are the reason is
because from where I’m standing and just
to make this frank from where I am it
doesn’t look like you know what the fuck
you’re doing I don’t I don’t mean in the
bedroom Department I’m sure you’re fine
for amateurs
I mean how can you talk to us how can
you listen to us how can you make laws
about us when you don’t even know what
to call us
how are we prostitutes are we escorts
always sex workers let me give you my
definition to me a sex worker is someone
who is selling sex willingly and without
coercion to me a sex worker is not
someone who has been abused or is under
threat of violence
those people are victims those people
have been prostituted and it’s those
people that sex worker rights activists
fight for because they are the ones who
suffer the most from the stigmatization
of the sex industry and stigma is that
little thing that that might have been
inside your head that says we need to
eradicate this we need to save the women
involved no one can be doing this of
their own choice and stigma is made from
stereotypes misrepresentation and stigma
kills because stigma is also that thing
that is in an abuser ‘he’s brain and
they say to themselves doesn’t matter
what I do to her I know that she is too
afraid to go to the police in case what
they do to her instead and they’re right
yes we need to help victims of abuse but
by criminalizing a whole industry we
push it further underground and we make
everyone more vulnerable
instead by listening to sex workers and
hearing our voices you stand to make the
industry safer for everyone so what is
it we’re trying to say well I can only
speak for myself personally but I
believe we should all be able to have
safe sane and can sense your sex without
fear shame or judgments whether you’re
doing it for free or not
I want to be able to work in a job that
I enjoy and consent to without fear of
persecution or prosecution I want us to
be able to work together to have
decriminalization so that we can report
abuse without fear of our own freedom so
that we can unionize and we can report
sexual violence against us without
anyone saying well you brought it on
yourself
so I want you our experiences cannot be
told you using numbers and figures and
surveys it’s up to you to listen to us
if there is a news report about sex work
is a sex worker talking no turn it off
is there a magazine article featuring a
sex worker no put it away is that person
on stage a sex worker of it experienced
in the industry
yes great listen to her learn something
maybe buy her a drink afterwards because
she’s big nervous
but right story about right stories
about us and talk to us if you want to
make laws about us consult us there
should be nothing about us without us
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
named melody bbw that’s an acronym it
means big beautiful woman it’s not
actually my surname
that’ll be silly age 27 all right for
quite a few years lund location London
UK although I do like to talk because
that makes me sound like a rock star
height five foot seven although in heels
I’m unable to walk so don’t even ask
just a voluptuous 42 double D yes it
services I provide a soft sensual
girlfriend experience which we are all
very surprised to know does not mean I
will pick up your pants whilst
complaining about your mother however I
can also be a strong dominant mistress I
will make you do whatever I want you to
do mainly cuz we both know you’re gonna
send me a very detailed email beforehand
telling me exactly what it is I should
tell you to do now outside of work I
enjoy the finer things in life which is
why I can often be found with a small
glass of something bubbly I am also very
keen on going to galleries and I
consider myself a connoisseur of Modern
Art’s of course there is nothing I enjoy
more than having a large weapon in my
hands now finally my donots list please
note I do not do anal well not unless
it’s on you
it’s not something you thought you’d
hear in a TEDx talk is it
I do not haggle over price because I am
NOT a second-hand car and finally I do
not do golden showers I might not do
golden showers all right if your
appointment is over two hours long
there’s a very strong possibility that
we’ll have to fortunately I’m in a job
where I can charge you fifty pounds
extra for the privilege hello ladies and
gentlemen actually my name’s Miranda but
for seven years that was me and that was
until 2013 where I made the very stupid
and short-sighted decision one which
plunged my friends and family into a sea
of despair and worry because I gave up
my full-time lucrative career as a sex
worker to become a stand-up comedian
I know what you’re thinking thank you I
know what that means and I have it many
times I will come offstage after working
solidly for at least ten minutes and
someone will hold my hands and look in
my eyes and say that that was brave and
I will think of the servicemen and women
people who are putting their lives on
the line to save ours and I will look
them back in the eye and shake their
hands and say yeah I know
now obviously obviously I don’t but
wouldn’t it be great if I could talk
about being in the sex industry and
people didn’t think that was brave I
would love to make jokes about my life
as a sex worker and everyone thought it
was just as normal and just as natural
as if I was talking about any other
industry as if I was a cleaner or a
teacher or or making coffee as a barista
or well maybe not a barista but I know
that there are people out there who are
gonna have their arms folded and their
brows furrowed and they’re gonna be like
well I don’t think a prostitute has
anything to laugh about but I can assure
you I do
and if you have that opinion think about
where you’re getting it from have you
spoken to one of us have you watched or
seen anything written by a sex worker I
mean chances are you have you just don’t
know it we’re everywhere
and as you can see we come in a variety
of different shapes and sizes so my idea
I would like to gently suggest to you
when a sex worker talks you listen if
you want to write about sex workers ask
us if you want to make laws that affects
us consult us there should be nothing
about us without us
now unfortunately something very strange
seems to happen when I put the word sex
and work together people get this weird
fog come over them it’s like a cloud
that’s made of judgment and morality and
stereotypes they go to a part of their
brain where all they can think of is
abuse and drugs and neon lights and so I
found myself with a very serious reason
for going into comedy I watched for
years on TV and films whilst the sex
industry as I knew it was misrepresented
misrepresented I didn’t see anyone that
I knew to be a sex worker I always saw
the the sex work industry as either
being people who were abused or as tall
statuesque models there was never anyone
who looked like me or the women I knew
so after a few years of watching this I
thought fuck it
I’ll do it myself
thank you you may have noticed that I’m
very good at talking about my favorite
subject which is me so I know you have
questions mainly mainly let’s sort this
out shall we
let’s just say that I served a very nice
but very grateful market now there are
certain assumptions that get made about
me because of my weight
some people think that I don’t enjoy
having sex when I look like this some
people think that I can’t have sex when
I look like this and so I’m often asked
well why did you become a sex worker and
the answer I mean there’s many reasons
why I think the answer which will
resonate in a room full of people who
are ambitious and seek success is that I
became a sex worker out of sheer
bloody-minded defiance I do not like
being told what I can or cannot do
actually I’m sure there’s quite a few in
here who love being told what to do and
that’s where ladies like me come in
something else that they say about going
into sex work is well surely you have to
do it out of Finance you’ll need and
yeah that is true
because I need to pay my rent we go into
any job because of financial needs and
so another assumption that gets made
about me is because I’m fat therefore I
must be lazy and stupid and so when I
moved to London and I was trying to find
a job I found myself in a series of
dead-end jobs that I hated
and so I made the choice one day where I
thought well I could either go into a
call centre where I would pray for
earthquakes and atom bombs and alien
invasions just so I didn’t have to go to
work that day
or I could do a job where I works from
home doing something I enjoyed where I
owned a lot more money and which was
quite frankly a bit of a turn-off
and so I put an advert up and my first
client came along and he wanted the
girlfriend experience which if you
didn’t know or if you’re pretending you
don’t know quite a few so but that
basically means sex it was nothing I
hadn’t done with previous boyfriends and
so I got to learn on my first day that I
could have hot I could have great sex
with a hot guy for a shitload of cash
whiles I went crazy and so I I mean
unfortunately what that wasn’t going to
be the same experience for all my
clients some of them now I know this may
seem like quite a surprise but sometimes
I can come across as a tad domineering I
know and so it wasn’t long before I met
my first money slave now this was a guy
who didn’t want anything intimates
instead he just wanted to shower me with
money and take me shopping which sounds
brilliant but we got to a very posh
department store on Oxford Street and
when we were in the perfume section he
decided to cry out loudly mistress
please buyer take the butt-plug out
I didn’t know he had one up there in the
first place and it was them that’s why I
love that you do need a sense of humor
to do this job honey and it’s not just
me whenever I meet other sex workers we
laugh a lot and again it’s that same
opit well what could you possibly laugh
about well is it the sex yeah we laugh
about the sex is it the money
well we laugh about the sex while
strolling on the money but the main
thing we laugh about is you and you
don’t even know it but it does bring me
to a very serious topic and it’s one of
the reasons why I’m here today because I
know that there’s actually something
that has been affecting millions of
people worldwide and is something that I
know there are quite a few of you in
here who are living with the shame and
the stigma and having to keep this
secret from your friends and your family
because I know there are people in this
room who are having sex for free
what could have brought you to this
desperate decision and some are saying
that the Internet is now making it far
too easy for people to meet up without
any financial remuneration websites
dedicating to having people meet up
without any hourly fee and they’re
forced to make small talk laugh each
other’s crap jokes and then at the end
of the meal you have to split the bill
even though you had a mains and he
definitely had a starter and an extra
drink
fortunately the sex workers of Twitter
we have gotten together to try and
rescue women from this humiliating
practice and if you look under the
hashtag of ban free ban freebies you can
see that we are here to highlight the
International scandal of unpaid sexual
labor we are hoping to already to rescue
and eradicate freebie giving women after
all we all know that giving freebies is
bad for the economy why if I had a
dollar for every time I had sex that
would be a fucking huge pay cut and I
wouldn’t glad to do it and we all know
that if you give it away no other man
will want you how will you ever meet a
nice man who wants to pay you guys come
on now this is just a little bit of fun
that we had on Twitter um but these
arguments these represent the things
that we hear every day anti sex work
rhetoric that tells us we’re wrong and
takes away our autonomy they are trying
to tell us that we don’t know what we’re
doing and it’s exacerbated by the media
ill informed members of the public and
anti sex work feminists now I’m a
feminist and to me that means I should
fight for the rights of all women no
matter what they do and I often think
that anti sex work feminists is an
oxymoron I always think that maybe
telling feminists that we need to hate
sex workers was the greatest trick the
patriarchy
blades so why is it important that you
listen to our stories well for one
reason is when it comes to making sex
work safer a lot of governments and
lawmakers tend to look only at
statistics I mean come on you must see
that you cannot put our experiences in a
numerical value not only that we are not
gonna stand around filling in
questionnaires from the government also
also the numbers get skewed and taken
out of context so I’ve done plenty of
debates on this subject and this is
something that comes up a lot this
quotes the average age of girls entering
prostitution is 13 now there’s a few
there’s a few Gospels of that but but
you don’t know the source and the source
of that quote is actually from a survey
that was taken from 210 children all
from abusive backgrounds and they were
all under the age of 18 so it was never
going to show that any of them were of
the age of consent and yet that quote
gets used to criminalize sex work for
millions of women throughout the world
and another thing that it reminds me of
is is one of my favorite quotes by a
journalist called Kevin Meyers and he
always says that the prostitution round
makes me want to start a charity for
abuse statistics couldn’t agree more keV
so what else is it important for you to
listen to us and and hear our our
stories well they are the reason is
because from where I’m standing and just
to make this frank from where I am it
doesn’t look like you know what the fuck
you’re doing I don’t I don’t mean in the
bedroom Department I’m sure you’re fine
for amateurs
I mean how can you talk to us how can
you listen to us how can you make laws
about us when you don’t even know what
to call us
how are we prostitutes are we escorts
always sex workers let me give you my
definition to me a sex worker is someone
who is selling sex willingly and without
coercion to me a sex worker is not
someone who has been abused or is under
threat of violence
those people are victims those people
have been prostituted and it’s those
people that sex worker rights activists
fight for because they are the ones who
suffer the most from the stigmatization
of the sex industry and stigma is that
little thing that that might have been
inside your head that says we need to
eradicate this we need to save the women
involved no one can be doing this of
their own choice and stigma is made from
stereotypes misrepresentation and stigma
kills because stigma is also that thing
that is in an abuser ‘he’s brain and
they say to themselves doesn’t matter
what I do to her I know that she is too
afraid to go to the police in case what
they do to her instead and they’re right
yes we need to help victims of abuse but
by criminalizing a whole industry we
push it further underground and we make
everyone more vulnerable
instead by listening to sex workers and
hearing our voices you stand to make the
industry safer for everyone so what is
it we’re trying to say well I can only
speak for myself personally but I
believe we should all be able to have
safe sane and can sense your sex without
fear shame or judgments whether you’re
doing it for free or not
I want to be able to work in a job that
I enjoy and consent to without fear of
persecution or prosecution I want us to
be able to work together to have
decriminalization so that we can report
abuse without fear of our own freedom so
that we can unionize and we can report
sexual violence against us without
anyone saying well you brought it on
yourself
so I want you our experiences cannot be
told you using numbers and figures and
surveys it’s up to you to listen to us
if there is a news report about sex work
is a sex worker talking no turn it off
is there a magazine article featuring a
sex worker no put it away is that person
on stage a sex worker of it experienced
in the industry
yes great listen to her learn something
maybe buy her a drink afterwards because
she’s big nervous
but right story about right stories
about us and talk to us if you want to
make laws about us consult us there
should be nothing about us without us
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
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