To professors, adjuncts, and graduate students:

We know – from our own experiences, from reading academic publications, and from being involved with academic research and/or presentations ourselves – that sex work and sex workers are a hot topic in postsecondary research and teaching, in disciplines including sociology, criminology, gender studies, socio-legal studies, health science, and more. We also know, from our previous experiences as guests and research workers, as well as the sex workers-cum-academics among us, that postsecondary institutions have various pots of money available to support courses, faculty (including part-timers!) and graduate student research, as well as funds available for what is increasingly being referred to as Experiential Education, which can include guest lectures from people talking about their lived experiences of marginalization and criminalization.

Photo by Dom Fou on Unsplash

So why do we sometimes hear about people in academia asking sex workers to share their experiential knowledge without offering to pay them? Or (perhaps worse) saying, “I would but I can’t”? This post features some arguments and tips that we hope will put a stop to that nonsense and facilitate academics paying sex workers for their time and expertise.

Postsecondary institutions can be very bureaucratic and, depending on how much prestige or job security one has, it can be complicated to find and secure a suitable source of funding. But it is possible; it is also essential to respect people who will be helping you do your job, which you already get paid for – whether through a salary, an hourly rate for teaching, or even graduate student funding – by paying them! So, here are some reasons and strategies you can use to make it happen:

1. If you are inviting sex workers for a guest lecture, offer an honorarium (i.e., lump sum payment) up front. We at WSTS think that a reasonable lump sum should not be less than $100. Given that university classes are usually 1.5-3 hours long, consider that a longer guest lecture should be paid more, or break up your class so that the guest lecture is only for part of it, or give them the option to leave early. Inviting 2-3 sex workers may also make folks feel more comfortable. Paying an honorarium is important because it shows that you respect your guests and the fact that they are coming to share their perspective and experiences with you and your students, and that it takes courage to speak publicly as a sex worker because of stigma. Additionally, most sex workers are either independent contractors or independently self-employed – either way, they do not have paid personal time/days – so guest lecturing for your class takes time out of their work schedule. Also consider allowing them to present in a way that they won’t have to spend that much time preparing – for example, send questions in advance that you will ask them in class in a live interview style, or simply allow them to speak about whatever they think is important and related to the key themes of that day’s class.
2. If you have access to an expense account or departmental funding for guest lectures and other guest expenses, consider planning to spend all of the money allotted for guest lecture honorariums for your course. For example, if your department allots $200 per course, and the sex worker guest is your only guest lecturer in the course, pay this person the entire amount. Alternatively, if you are applying to some sort of Experiential Education fund or using your university expense account, offer and organize to pay for their parking or transit costs as well. Do the legwork to find out about all of this before you even invite someone to speak, so that you have a specific amount to offer.
3. If you do not have access to institutional funds, or if none of the above efforts work, to pay a sex worker for a guest lecture, pay them that $100+ out of your own pocket! They are doing you a favour, providing personal insight to your students that you would not be able to provide, and also saving you the time and effort you would have spent preparing that lecture yourself.
4. If it is a fancier event than a guest lecture in a course, such as a conference keynote or a departmental event, pay more! Consider that this is a prestigious event that will contribute to your department, unit, and/or institution’s reputation, and may involve a much larger audience, and will likely take much more preparation than a relatively informal guest lecture.
5. Sex worker organizations or individuals who do a lot of public speaking may already have a set speaker’s fee. As with sex workers’ erotic service prices, agree to it. Do not try to bargain!
6. Communicate clearly with your guests about how payment will work, including how long it will take, exactly how they will be paid (e.g., by cheque in the mail), and what kind of information they will need to share with the institution. Especially if it is a larger speaker’s fee for a larger event, the person may have a compelling reason (i.e., more than a preference) to be paid in cash. If this is the case, you will need to advocate on their behalf for the institution to pay them in cash – this may involve emailing, phoning, and cajoling various people in various offices (e.g., department heads, administrators, finance people) to explain why a cash payment is needed. Be prepared to justify, insist, argue, persist, and repeat! This may take some time and involve talking to university bureaucrats to whom you have never before spoken. 
7. If you are asking sex workers to participate in a survey or interview, this should also be paid. Consult a professor who does this kind of research with sex workers, and pay attention to the methodologies of other studies, to find examples of how much honorariums are for this kinds of participation in your area. Consider how long it takes to participate, and that an in-person interview that includes traveling to meet you will take longer than, for example, an online survey (unless the survey is very detailed). Also consider that sex workers feel strongly about being compensated for their time, and while you will have to balance this with standard ethical considerations around free consent (i.e., not such a large amount that people would participate who wouldn’t have otherwise just for the money), you may not (in Canada) get participants if you offer less than $20-50 for an interview. Pay more for a longer interview, or a very detailed survey.
8. Interview honorariums should be paid in cash (not a gift card or voucher – it inherently suggests sex workers can’t be trusted to spend money responsibly, which is condescending!), up front (before the first question, not after the interview).
9. While it may seem more feasible to pay online survey participants through some kind of anonymous electronic means (e.g., gift card to a popular store where they could buy various kinds of things, like a drugstore or an online marketplace), consult a local sex worker organization about how much and also what form of payment they think would be reasonable, especially if you want them to help advertise to prospective participants.
10. For other kinds of payment considerations, such as occasional consultation, meetings, or other involvement in a research project, your institution may already have useful guidelines on hourly rates for research or other similar services. These rates may vary by educational attainment or professional standing – e.g., the minimum hourly rate for undergraduate research assistants may be comparable to minimum wage, and the minimum rate for MA or PhD students may be considerably higher. Because sex workers’ experiential knowledge is an asset that they are uniquely positioned to offer, it should be treated as equivalent to a professional or educational credential. In short, the hourly rates paid to sex workers for this sort of contribution should not be less than those paid to people with or in a graduate degree (e.g., $25-45/hour). Also consider the availability of, or substitution for, benefits and expense coverage in your calculations.

There are lots of ways to involve sex workers as guests, participants, peers, consultants or experiential experts in research and teaching, and lots more resources out there on how you can embark on this respectfully. In addition to payment, there are other things to think about such as how will what you are doing benefit the community, and how you may have to accommodate sex workers who work at different times than the nine-to-five standard office day. Here are some additional links to help you plan, approach, and work more respectfully with sex workers and other stigmatized, criminalized and marginalized folks:

A Note for Researchers, Academics, Artists & Reporters, by Maggie’s, Toronto

Nothing About Us Without Us, a manifesto by people who use illegal drugs

Peer Payment Standards, by the BC Centre for Disease Control in collaboration with peers and providers