Sex work and the Single Nurse, or, The Brigade of the Nice White Ladies
I got accepted into grad school, to become a psych nurse practitioner, and today was orientation. Today was also the day I was to meet my advisor.
I was the only psych NP at the orientation, and only one of four grad students out of the twenty students there. The orientations was quite useful: tour of the facility, introduce the faculty, and an opportunity to meet other students. I finally found out my class schedule, and it looks like I'm going to graduate and sit for the boards in 2.5 years. I'm cool with that.
What I'm not so cool with, is an aversion to researching sex workers. No, seriously.
During my admission interview, I brought up research and clinical experiences, and inquired about the possibility of sex work. I got the icky-poo face. You all know the one, the face that someone smelled something bad. These ladies said that no one was doing research with sex workers, and a clinical experience would not be feasible. They actually asserted that sex workers had "nothing to do with psychiatry" (huh?), and were unable to "see how that topic would contribute to the field" (Wha?) I forbore from rolling my eyes, and reframed the conversation to a more fashionable topic, that of human trafficking. The interviewers relaxed, started smiling again, and everything was hunky-dory.
I know that some might be offended by the idea that human trafficking is a fashionable topic, but you'll have to grant that it's received a lot more airplay recently than sex workers. Our senator managed to kick a huge grant to my area to fight human trafficking, and there's a big yearly conference here, and the local media talks it up quite a bit. Human trafficking is a foul business, and a blight upon our society. I am not making light of the seriousness of the problem.
Last Saturday I had slashy breakfast with dine, chaosraven, sorchar, and neci_ouida. They encouraged me to keep trying, and that I should be prepared for some resistance. Okay, thought I, I'll try again.
What pisses me off is during my meeting today, I spoke with a different advisor, and got the SAME FUCKING REACTION. The pursed lips and the crinkled nose. The expression of distaste. The assertion that my area of interest was not germane to the field.
So I mentioned another PC topic: the transgendered population and mental health. She relaxed and burbled at me some more.
Nice Suburban White Lady Syndrome. I really thought that nurse practitioners, especially ones who are pushing us to work with underserved populations, would be a little more au fait. Seriously, I live in a area that has the most strip clubs per capita in the US, and I can spit and hit an adult toy shop. It's next to a middle school. It's actually owned by a pretty nice guy who also owns the bear bar down the street.
Our fair city has several major streets that are home to street-level sex workers, and one of the two mental health providers has a contract to "rehabilitate" sex workers. There are at least two advocacy groups, secular and religious, who engage in outreach. It is a community safety issue, and a mental health issue, but these people don't get it. People are treating it like a case of moral turpitude, of spiritual incontinence. Human trafficking is an acceptable topic, because the poor little dears were forced into it, but everybody knows that whores decide to go on the stroll.
I can name several reasons why it might be a mental health issue: addictions, untreated PTSD (I remember when one young lady knifed her pimp--the deputies cheered), untreated abuse, personality disorders, situational depression, and probably others. I see patients who struggle with these problems, and had they received treatment in the community, they probably would not have committed crimes and become incarcerated.
In addition to this willfull blindness about sex work, I also found out that I can't do research and write a dissertation. I'm in a master's program. I want to do research. I want to write a thesis paper. Grrr. Because my degree is a practice degree, the faculty encourages students to write a journal article for submission. I told my advisor that I didn't know if I wanted to pursue a Ph.D or a practice doctorate, and I wanted to write a thesis paper to help me make that decision. It's bad enough that we don't have a statistics course. I was hoping for some math, but I'm SOL.
I was so angry that I called dine from my car to have coffee after work. She essentially patted my hand and we slurped coffee and administered doses of therapeutic baklava. I calmed down and we discussed topics, and talked about asexuality.
I want to work with my population of interest. I want to have my questions answered. I want sex workers to be seen as something other than a disease vector or tainted goods. This is bullshit and I'm going to figure out how to get what I want.
So there. (Entitled much?)
I was the only psych NP at the orientation, and only one of four grad students out of the twenty students there. The orientations was quite useful: tour of the facility, introduce the faculty, and an opportunity to meet other students. I finally found out my class schedule, and it looks like I'm going to graduate and sit for the boards in 2.5 years. I'm cool with that.
What I'm not so cool with, is an aversion to researching sex workers. No, seriously.
During my admission interview, I brought up research and clinical experiences, and inquired about the possibility of sex work. I got the icky-poo face. You all know the one, the face that someone smelled something bad. These ladies said that no one was doing research with sex workers, and a clinical experience would not be feasible. They actually asserted that sex workers had "nothing to do with psychiatry" (huh?), and were unable to "see how that topic would contribute to the field" (Wha?) I forbore from rolling my eyes, and reframed the conversation to a more fashionable topic, that of human trafficking. The interviewers relaxed, started smiling again, and everything was hunky-dory.
I know that some might be offended by the idea that human trafficking is a fashionable topic, but you'll have to grant that it's received a lot more airplay recently than sex workers. Our senator managed to kick a huge grant to my area to fight human trafficking, and there's a big yearly conference here, and the local media talks it up quite a bit. Human trafficking is a foul business, and a blight upon our society. I am not making light of the seriousness of the problem.
Last Saturday I had slashy breakfast with dine, chaosraven, sorchar, and neci_ouida. They encouraged me to keep trying, and that I should be prepared for some resistance. Okay, thought I, I'll try again.
What pisses me off is during my meeting today, I spoke with a different advisor, and got the SAME FUCKING REACTION. The pursed lips and the crinkled nose. The expression of distaste. The assertion that my area of interest was not germane to the field.
So I mentioned another PC topic: the transgendered population and mental health. She relaxed and burbled at me some more.
Nice Suburban White Lady Syndrome. I really thought that nurse practitioners, especially ones who are pushing us to work with underserved populations, would be a little more au fait. Seriously, I live in a area that has the most strip clubs per capita in the US, and I can spit and hit an adult toy shop. It's next to a middle school. It's actually owned by a pretty nice guy who also owns the bear bar down the street.
Our fair city has several major streets that are home to street-level sex workers, and one of the two mental health providers has a contract to "rehabilitate" sex workers. There are at least two advocacy groups, secular and religious, who engage in outreach. It is a community safety issue, and a mental health issue, but these people don't get it. People are treating it like a case of moral turpitude, of spiritual incontinence. Human trafficking is an acceptable topic, because the poor little dears were forced into it, but everybody knows that whores decide to go on the stroll.
I can name several reasons why it might be a mental health issue: addictions, untreated PTSD (I remember when one young lady knifed her pimp--the deputies cheered), untreated abuse, personality disorders, situational depression, and probably others. I see patients who struggle with these problems, and had they received treatment in the community, they probably would not have committed crimes and become incarcerated.
In addition to this willfull blindness about sex work, I also found out that I can't do research and write a dissertation. I'm in a master's program. I want to do research. I want to write a thesis paper. Grrr. Because my degree is a practice degree, the faculty encourages students to write a journal article for submission. I told my advisor that I didn't know if I wanted to pursue a Ph.D or a practice doctorate, and I wanted to write a thesis paper to help me make that decision. It's bad enough that we don't have a statistics course. I was hoping for some math, but I'm SOL.
I was so angry that I called dine from my car to have coffee after work. She essentially patted my hand and we slurped coffee and administered doses of therapeutic baklava. I calmed down and we discussed topics, and talked about asexuality.
I want to work with my population of interest. I want to have my questions answered. I want sex workers to be seen as something other than a disease vector or tainted goods. This is bullshit and I'm going to figure out how to get what I want.
So there. (Entitled much?)