Rachel is a wonderful advocate for sex work decriminalisation across Australia but specifically in Victoria. It was an absolute pleasure speaking to her recently and we would love to share part of her story and what she stands for.

Rachel has a background in dancing herself, so can easily relate to people within the industry from past experience. Rachel danced across Australia and did burlesque performances for 7 years.

“Our industry survived COVID, sex work always survives in the dark times. Adult industry purchases (such as sex toys) increased dramatically, along with a lot of workers turning to online sex work for a stream of income. This goes to show how strong our community is, and how proud everyone should be of it.”

Selling dildos online is like the new Tupperware in 2020!

Something great that Rachel believed came out of COVID was normalising masturbation. How wonderful!

“The pandemic has made people realise the importance of income tax. In regards to accessing government supports that we saw during COVID. If you were not claiming your income, it would be extremely hard, if not impossible, to then go on job keeper.”

In 2020 Rachel ran in a council election! Fiona Patton has always been a mentor of sorts to Rachel, as the leader of a political party herself. Rachel thought it was important to run in this election as there were not a lot of women running and therefore not represented.  Rachel advocates for street work safety for women. Running in the election would help bring more women into positions of decision making, including queer women.

You can find out more about Rachel and her work at Eros here as well as her political work here.