La vie en rose

“I’d rather sell my ass than my soul, it’s harder but much cleaner”, Claudette told me on one of our first meeting.

“I’d rather sell my ass than my soul, it’s harder but much cleaner”, Claudette told me on one of our first meeting. How can one not write a story about her?

I had been working for a few months on a documentary project about sex workers in Switzerland, seeking to understand why this country considers that prostitution can be a job as any other as opposed to the French state which stipulates that every form of prostitution is a violence against women.My documentary on the subject does not attempt to explain this job, which has as many sides to it as it has persons practicing it. The project seeks to give a voice to Claudette, to let her tell her story and express her views. Because one of the reason that explains the differences in legislations between Switzerland and France is that in France one rarely hears the opinions of the ones for whom we make the laws. We think we know better than they what they need, and we refuse to believe that a priced sexual relationship might sometimes be desired by a woman. A prostitute is unhappy, we are told, and if she claims the opposite it’s because she is not aware of being miserable.

Often, because of her job people pity Claudette, or try to “save” her. But rarely do they listen to her when she talks about her achievements as a father and grandfather, her record as a champion cyclists and her victories as a sex worker’s rights campaigner.

Claudette controls her life, makes her choices clearly and knowingly. She does more than just live her life, she loves it. She has endured her whole life the discourse made by strangers trying to reduce her to what she is not, because of her job but also because of her gender. Claudette is hermaphrodite. She is born with both male and female genitals, a condition that is not very well known and often mistaken with transgender. People often think that being different is a difficulty to overcome, that a physical peculiarity is a trauma, especially when it comes to gender. But the way Claudette was raised has allowed her to never feel undermined by her gender.

Claudette unnerves some people because she lives a happy and coherent life while denying a fundamental moral precept. But her case is neither isolated nor unique. Claudette and others like her have a right to be heard, to be participants in the debate on legislation that currently criminalizes and excludes them. Prostitution is a complex profession that one cannot reduce to a simple rapport of victims facing their tormentors. This documentary is a testimony that seeks to deconstruct manichean ideas by telling the life of Claudette, as a whole, a life where prostitution and gender play a part without defining it.