This week, we spoke with licensed marriage and family therapist Kamil Lewis who is also one of the amazing psychologists who work with Pineapple Support, a free resource that offers therapy and mental health care for members of the industry. Lewis sheds light on the importance of boundaries, offers tips on how to set them, and talks about the different challenges Black sex workers experience and how the industry can improve.
Can you tell me about yourself, how you got involved in psychology and with Pineapple Support?
So I got involved in mental health specifically because I wanted to be able to provide a support and resource for the Black community. I then focused my niche and started working as a sex therapist. I think it’s also essential to be talking about intersectionality with different identities, so not only gender identity and sexuality or sexual orientation, but also race and profession, ability, and all of the things that impact how we experience the world.
I think that when we talk about sex therapy and sex, we have to be talking about sex work, consent, and sex work as a valid profession, and necessary profession that's been running the world for as long as the world has existed. I think that at my last practice, we got involved with Pineapple Support because we just believe in it. We believe in the accessibility of mental health for sex workers and providing the most resources that we can for those folks in the industry. It’s also important to me personally, and I really resonate with the work that they do and how they are a resource to support and validate sex workers.
What would you say are the most common issues sex workers bring to your sessions?
Some of the most common issues, I think, would be boundary-setting, burnout, and relationships. So navigating their relationships with their own partner or partners outside of their work or inside of their work. A lot of the clients that I've worked with might be in relationships with other Models or other folks in the industry, so navigating that is a common issue.
Also, navigating how they manage their relationships with their families and how they manage relationships with partners who may be outside of the industry who don't get it, who don't have the compassion, who make the assumptions that this comes from, you know, the overhyped stereotype of daddy issues and things like that. To help them understand that this is legitimate work that people actually love, and it doesn't have to come from a place of trauma. Trauma can be present, but it’s important for them to have a robust community that is supportive and understanding.
Courtesy of Kamil Lewis
What kind of advice you can give to someone to help them set these kinds of boundaries?
First of all, boundary-setting is hard. It is something that we're not really taught, I think, even from a young age. And if we expand the word "boundary" to include "consent," we don't have a lot of societal or formalized education around what consent looks like and means.
As I work with clients to implement boundaries, we start by looking at the small boundaries that we can make. It doesn't have to mean cutting somebody out of your life. It doesn't have to mean blocking somebody on social media. At first, it can just mean, "Hey, I don't check my emails before 10 a.m." That can be the boundary. "Hey, I have a nighttime routine that is really important and grounds me." That can be a boundary. So looking at how to widen that definition can be supportive because you have to start somewhere and see who is immediately respecting them and who is immediately pushing back. If I’m setting a small boundary and I'm getting pushback on it, then it's important for me to look at that relationship.
Then, if you get a really positive response, it’s like, "Okay, this is actually safe for me to do. So I can set larger boundaries and bigger boundaries," and that helps us respect ourselves. Even though we might think that boundaries push people away, it’s important to remind ourselves it actually allows us to be closer to one another because if I'm respecting your boundary and you're respecting mine; we're going to feel safer in the relationship.
What would you say are some of the most common issues Black sex workers bring to your sessions?
I’ve had some cases where Black folks have had difficulty with getting engagement, especially from an online perspective, and they'll notice like, "Hey, I've been doing this work for years. I’m very skilled. I'm really talented." But there could be, like, a white performer who comes in, charges more, have way more boundaries and restrictions, can set more limitations, and they're getting booked left and right.
I think that there's a lot of frustration around that and around visibility, especially for Black folks, for non-binary Black folks, and for darker-skinned Black folks. There's a lot of that and looking at the types of Models and performers who can kind of fit into the industry and be backed up by certain platforms and have a community around them where the Black clients are feeling less respected. I think that there's rightfully resentment against that. That they have to work harder or in more difficult situations.
It’s about boundaries, too. Learning from an early-on perspective, that when they enter the industry, their nos might not be as respected or their nos would have more severe repercussions than, I think, white performers. So they feel like they have to be really careful on how they navigate that if they want to continue to do this work or continue to do this work on certain platforms. It’s also very frustrating when you see how racism and colorism affect every part of every place of our society, unfortunately.
What kind of advice can you offer to platforms, like Pornhub, in terms of changes they can make to help shape the industry in a more positive way for Black performers?
I love this question because I think that that's a big part of what I think either draws folks in or pushes folks away. I think that it's important for us to just be curious about individual experiences because we can be pigeonholed or washed over.
For example, the tag and category “ebony” works for some people and doesn’t work for others. For some performers it might be where their bread and butter is. They really like it and have their names associated with it, but that doesn’t have to be the case for everyone. I think categorization is helpful when people are looking for what they want to watch or how they want to be entertained. However, it’s also important to look at how we can also be highlighting individual performers more as what their work is and what their work represents so that they don’t feel like they only have to be represented one way.
Some people prefer the term “Black,” some people prefer “African American,” and other people prefer “BIPOC.” There are so many different types of terms and languages that we can all identify with, so there’s no need to feel like you have to live and be housed in one place. I think platforms should offer more different languages, that might resonate with more Models and be like, "Oh, I can categorize myself here and then I can promote myself here."
Keep up with Kamil Lewis on social and find more info about her work on her website:
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