[Read all of the articles in our Love/Sex issue HERE! Looking for a print copy? Look at this handy-dandy map!—eds.]

Elle Stanger is a certified sex educator, stripper, writer, podcaster, and sex worker. She’s spent the last 20 years in the adult entertainment industry and is now certified through the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT). Stanger’s latest podcast endeavor, They Talk Sex, explores various topics around sexuality, identity, and self-help. Stanger recently sat down with the Portland Mercury to set the record straight about sex work, sex trafficking, boundaries, and finding sexual empowerment. 

Portland Mercury: How long have you been in this field?

Elle Stanger: I started nude internet and print modeling at the age of 19 in 2005, and touch work, specifically stripping, in 2009. I’ve since expanded to dominatrix, phone sex, porn making, web cam, and more.

How do you define sex work?

Sex work, in my definition, is the exchange of sexually relevant services, usually related to arousal, as defined by the participants for agreed-upon compensation or trade. Ideally, these people are adults, and doing so consensually. Someone, in my experience, who identifies as a sex worker does sexually relevant services for trade, usually money, sometimes for bartering.

Would you consider a site like OnlyFans in the realm of sex work? 

Yeah, definitely. You’re making erotically-charged media for an audience that is paying to see it and its production. It is a type of sex work because… there is some degree of interaction with your fans.

What about stripping?

Some people, I would say, are “adult entertainers”—[for example] if they’re making soft core porn, or maybe they’re pole dancers who aren’t doing lap dances. …Stripping is a very challenging, legitimate—and can be a privileged—type of sex work, for sure. Some people are going to call themselves hustlers. Some people are going to say they’re artists. Some are going to say they’re dancers. I think it depends on the politics of the stripper and how they want to identify.

Can you talk about important physical and/or emotional boundaries involved in sex work?

Clients will show up in a wide spectrum of ways. Some people will be so concerned with hurting you or making you uncomfortable or being inappropriate, that they can’t relax and enjoy it at all, and that’s a shame. Other people don’t care about you as a human being and are there to objectify you, maybe even with malice or as an emotional and physical punching bag, and that is scary and dangerous. So it’s a spectrum. A lot of people are in the middle, whereas they’re curious, maybe aroused, but they don’t know how to behave and haven’t been given context to know how, because our society kind of sucks about talking about consent—so I make notes on physical and/or emotional boundaries that work for me. 

I give people an idea of how much I’m charging and how long it will last… I also try to be clear about touching—[as in where we should or should not touch each other]—to avoid conflict, or to address and circle back when someone breaks an agreement. 

I’ve had clients come to see me for 15 years because they feel safe and know what they’re getting, and this isn’t always something people can get in personal relationships or in new dating.

What are some of the most common stigmas or misconceptions you encounter about sex workers?

I sometimes still meet people who assume their life is more important than mine, and it’s uncomfortable for them to view me as having things in common with them. It’s also unfortunate, but some of the most common stigmas or misconceptions are that all clients are men. They are definitely not. Women are also clients. Sex workers are also clients sometimes.

What are the legalities around paying for sex in Oregon?

The Oregon statute on prostitution [says] a person commits the crime of prostitution if that person engages in or offers or agrees to engage in sexual conduct or sexual contact, in return for a fee. Well, what the fuck is a lap dance then, right?

It’s a Class A misdemeanor, and yet so much of our fair city is built on strip clubs. There’s no continuity between what the law says and what’s actually happening.

Police [are] running operations which include surveillance, targeted at men paying for sex from people working outdoors. It targets a specific class, or range of people, which is poor and middle-class. Most of these arrestees are of color, and then they pay about $1,400–which a lot of people just don’t have–to go through a rehabilitation program we call “John school” which is full of shaming and misinformation. The idea of the program is telling these men that by trying to pay for sex, you are furthering trafficking, which is not true.

On that topic, we've heard a lot about sex trafficking lately, particularly from police. Do you think that's indicative of a large human trafficking problem in Portland, or do you think police are misusing that phrase?

Oh absolutely, yeah. They’re doing it on purpose. Police purposely misuse the phrase “human trafficking,” because they get more positive media attention, public approval, and funding by mislabeling anti-prostitution stings as anti-trafficking. 

It’s the Nordic “end demand” model: preventing or punishing clients from interacting, which is a passive way to do violence against the sex workers themselves. The police working on these cases [often] deal with victims’ cases, so there’s the assumption of harm.

Meanwhile, it makes it harder for people who are actually trying to make money… to get clients, because clients are scared. When clients are scared, they act weirder and it’s harder to screen. They’re less likely to give you screening information that you can verify, or they’re more likely to want to do it in a furtive place and not come to the rented room. Sex workers do not report crimes to cops when they can’t trust the cops, because they’re doing weird shit like this.

Do I think there’s a large human trafficking problem in Portland? Yes, because homelessness hit the biggest rate ever during COVID. I don’t know how much better that’s gotten, and that includes youth. A lot of youth who are working in sex trades are doing so because they’re not safe at their homes, or they’re foster children that aged out of the system. So a lot of youth [sex workers] are working for an adult… because they don’t have resources. 

In order to address sex trafficking, we have to address domestic violence, homelessness, coerced sexual labor, substance dependency, food scarcity, poverty, and incest. These are all fuel for human trafficking… and yet people don’t want to publicly address them, and they’re not offering real services to the victims.*

On that note, how can we foster a safe/healthy sex work landscape without encouraging trafficking or exploitation?

We have to start seeing sex work as a type of labor. No matter what you’re doing for work, you should be able to negotiate safety, rates, timing, when you leave, any dangerous factors. Youth who turn into adults and want to do sex work will be more informed if we live in a society that teaches consent and communication, and people can advocate for themselves and be able to identify intimate partner violence, or exploitation, while also keeping themselves safer online. It’s a myriad of things.

Youth are less likely to be doing dangerous labor—and that includes sexual services—if they’re not struggling to survive.

If prostitution was decriminalized in Oregon, our already clogged courts and legal systems would be only pursuing crimes like robbery, rape, murder, coercion, fraud, trafficking, and violence. 

What's the secret to sexual empowerment? 

It helps to have good role models. I’m 38, so I was coming into body awareness during the time of extreme “heroin chic,” like Kate Moss and Paris Hilton. Looking back on Project Runway clips, they were calling these girls “plus-size,” and they were like 120 pounds. It can be helpful to have reframes, and that includes media that’s body positive, curious, risk-aware, and sex positive. Portland is really good about this, with resources like the Q Center. She Bop [a Portland sex toy shop] is a great jumping off place, and my podcast, They Talk Sex is a really good way to network. A lot of people have not only found resources—they’ve learned more about themselves.


*Editor’s note: For their part, Portland Police Bureau says it partners with a nonprofit called Safety Compass to provide advocacy services to sex workers younger than 25 who’ve experienced “commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking.” The Bureau says it offers trauma-informed, victim-centered services to trafficking victims who often have “trauma bonds with traffickers and fear of retaliation.”