OPINION | ‘We Are Aileens’ Shows the Power of Peer Support Among Sex Workers in South King County

Two years ago, I wrote about Sweetheart Deal, the documentary about sex workers in North Seattle who were drugged and sexually abused by Laughn Elliott Doescher, the “mayor” of Aurora. The film is in theaters locally now, and if you live in Seattle, you shouldn’t miss it. If I could, I would make it required viewing for Seattle City Council, who voted to establish a banishment zone penalizing sex workers in the area covered in the film.

But there’s another film you should consider watching if you want to learn about the grassroots systems that support sex workers in Washington: We Are Aileens, a short documentary made by the staff and volunteers of Aileen’s, a mutual aid group and hospitality space for people working in the sex trade along Pacific Highway in South King County.

The film has been screened at festivals and, in June, was made available to watch for free on YouTube. It’s a powerful, tender, smart accounting of what mutual aid often looks like. If you were outraged, as I was, by City Council’s passage of SOAP and SODA, and want to know about programs that actually support sex workers in our community, it’s worth watching. (You can also learn more about Aileen’s work and ways to support it online.)

The peer support-led team at Aileen’s distributes condoms, period products, warm socks, underwear, coffee, emergency contraception, toothbrushes, hygiene items, and other necessities through an outreach program located in Federal Way. We Are Aileens documents this work in real time, as program staff, volunteers, and clients use the circumstances of Aileen Wuornos, the group’s namesake, as a caveat to discuss the abuse and violence sex workers often encounter in their work, and the sense that perpetrators “just get away with it.”

Wuornos’ claim that she only killed men who had sexually assaulted her comes up repeatedly as a point of discussion. It means she would’ve been assaulted seven times in a year. “Do you think that’s reasonable?” the camera operator asks one peer leader. The response comes quickly: “Most definitely.”

In popular culture, Wuornos is known as an infamous serial killer. She’s the kind of figure middle-aged women with true-crime podcasts love to mock and make jokes of, but the dynamic she described was all too real: People working in the sex trade are frequently harmed by those who seek out their services, and Pacific Highway South may be one of the most upsetting examples of this. It’s where Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, would pursue the sex workers he would go on to murder.

“Yet he’s sitting over in Walla Walla while Aileen Wuornos was executed by Jeb Bush,” says one Aileen’s member in the film.

Over and over, the women of We Are Aileens (and they are mostly women, trans, and nonbinary folks) discuss the possibility that Wuornos’ life could’ve ended up looking very different if she had had more support, like the fellowship and resources they offer each other — resources, says one peer leader, that are important because they don’t come with a built-in agenda.

The group focuses on harm reduction and meeting people where they’re at, they say. At other programs that purport to help sex workers, “it always ends up where there’s an ulterior motive. Aileen’s is the first place where I didn’t feel like there was some ulterior motive.” There’s also an emphasis on checking in and challenging the erasure and ignorance that kept Ridgway’s killings from being solved for years: “When somebody didn’t show up, they were always asked about.”

There’s “a sense of family” at Aileen’s, says another participant. It’s “nonjudgmental.” No one is here to proselytize.

As I watched the short film, which is beautifully chaotic and includes footage of the videos being strung together and good-humored wisecracking among volunteers and staff members, I thought about some of those other programs, the ones that are predicated on getting people to leave the sex trade, the kind that were spotlighted by Cathy Moore when SOAP and SODA were still under discussion.

It’s clear from We Are Aileens that those kinds of programs, however well-intended they may be, miss the mark in choosing not to center the experiences of the people they claim to be helping. But what’s powerful about Aileen’s is that every person on staff is someone who first came to the group for services, the documentary explains.

At Aileen’s, says one staff member, “You can go there and relax and just be yourself …  you don’t have to be judged like all the other places that are out there.”

“When I joined peer leadership,” says another, “I felt like I was at home.”

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