The Sign Flashes ‘Girls Girls Girls’ And It Reminds Me That I Exist
by Antonia Crane
It’s easier if we stay silent and pretend it’s not happening. Because if we speak out about violence against sex workers, we will be blamed for living a “risky” lifestyle. We will be fingered the Whore.
In the mid ’90s, when I was a baby stripper, I rode the 22 Fillmore to Market Street Cinema in San Francisco, a filthy nude strip club where I danced nude three or four times per week. One time, a man sat next to me. My heavy gig backpack was on the floor, between my feet. It overflowed with zebra print spandex booty shorts, red gingham bikinis, glitter, purple hairspray that smelled like bubblegum and Hello Kittyeverything.
The man’s legs pressed against me, so I inched closer to the window to scoot away from him. He looked down my shirt, put his arm around my shoulders. He sniffed my neck. I looked ahead, frozen. We sat like that for what felt like ten minutes, but was probably sixty seconds. The bus lurched ahead, up and down the steep hills from Hayes Valley towards Market Street. At the next stop, I got up, moved to another seat where I sat alone and watched the wet fog darken the city.
