Cheap Oil Is Ruining Aberdeen's Sex Work Industry

It's a strange time to work in Aberdeen. Oil prices fell from around $115 per barrel in late 2014 to just above $50 per barrel at the end of June 2016, contributing to a climate of uncertainty in the European oil capital. Its status as the UK city with the highest average disposable income has diminished, with oil workers forced to turn to food banks as their jobs disappeared.

Before that almost 50 percent oil price dip, off-shore workers – many of them equipped with relatively high wages and long stretches of involuntary celibacy – made up the bulk of the regular and high-paying clientele for sex workers operating in Aberdeen. It made the Scottish city a popular pit-stop on the tours of escorts from the UK and beyond. But without that relative job security, Aberdeen-based sex workers have had to shorten their tours or opt for other cities in Scotland, from Edinburgh to Glasgow.

For Emma*, a part-time escort and a volunteer for Glasgow-based sex worker charity Umbrella Lane, the chasm between pre- and post-oil bust Aberdeen was vast enough to deter her from working there altogether. "I used to work for an [escort] agency years ago in Aberdeen. At that time, it was very busy and we did well," she says. "Then a few years passed and I went to Aberdeen to try it out again – I'd always heard business was quite good – but when I arrived it was really slow. I only stayed for two days, even though I had a whole week booked."

It's a sentiment that I hear echoed by other women who rely on the business of oil workers in Aberdeen. On saafe.info, an advice and support forum for sex workers, several posts gauge whether or not working in Aberdeen is still a viable means of income. On the 22nd of May, one poster wrote: "Lots of girls who used to go up there just don't now, it's just not worth it. It's not the money-making place it used to be," while another wrote: "I have heard that things aren't as good as they once were since the oil industry took a hit".

Other businesses in Aberdeen have felt the knock-on effects of falling oil prices. An August 2015 report from the Economist states that hotel occupancy was down 18 percent compared to the year before. By March 2016, hotels had suffered a 43 percent revenue per room drop on 2015. Speaking to Alexander Kemp, professor of petroleum economics at Aberdeen University and director of the Aberdeen Centre for Research in Energy, Economics and Finance, it's clear that the low price of oil is starting to have a lasting impact on the trades that sex workers tend to rely on.

"The local economy is certainly suffering very substantially," Kemp says. "Hotel occupancy rates, hotel room rates have come down a lot. Office premises are now empty and aren't being filled, and it's more difficult to sell houses." Despite the oil prices wobbling back to pre-Brexit levels, Kemp reckons we're unlikely to see a quick recovery for Aberdeen's local economy.

"My view is that the difficult times will continue for the rest of this year. Already, every week we are seeing redundancies being made, and it's difficult to see any improvement this year". On the risks of establishing new businesses in Aberdeen, he adds: "According to our modelling, with the $50 oil price, it is still very difficult for new projects to be viable".

Lower hotel room rates could work in the favour of escorts and sex workers in the city, lowering their overhead costs. Umbrella Lane co-founder Staci Ryan, isn't so sure about that argument. "Even if you could get a hotel or an apartment for cheaper, it doesn't necessarily increase your clientele," she says. "If business has gone down in the area, if there are fewer people in Aberdeen and people have a lot less money because of the crisis, I don't think cheaper hotels would work completely in the favour of sex workers. And from what I know, it's not made any more sex workers go to Aberdeen."

There's more to the story, though. The recent tragic murder in Aberdeen of Jessica McGraa, a mother and escort who frequented city, has also contributed to other sex workers feeling hesitant about working in the area.

"I think Aberdeen has been a wee bit off the list since what happened to Jessica," says Ryan. "It's put a few sex workers off from going there for a while." McGraa's death also had an impact on Emma, who has since made no plans to return to Aberdeen. She points out that, despite the low likelihood of something that awful happening again, the very nature of her work leaves her without legal protection.

"One woman I spoke to told me she was really scared to work because of what happened," Emma says. "It just caused a lot of people to become very afraid; and then obviously a lot of sex workers are quite isolated anyway".

McGraa's murder and a smaller clientele pool hasn't necessarily made all sex workers avoid the city, though. Sarah* had been working as an escort in Aberdeen for around four years before she noticed that business wasn't as lucrative as it had been. But there are still opportunities to make money.

"Finding clients has definitely been difficult lately," she says. "I first realised there was a problem at the end of last year, when I only had one half-hour booking. That's never happened to me, in all my four years of working in Aberdeen." But she goes on to say that for sex workers whose clients have a variety of jobs, there's still some money to be made. "Because I've been going consistently for the last four or five years, I've got regulars, so it cushions the blow. If you don't have regulars like I do, it makes it quite difficult to work there."

We don't know yet whether the slump has been so devastating as to permanently damage Aberdeen's sex industry. But given the dubiousness of Scotland's place in the EU and potentially in the UK, tougher times may well be ahead for sex workers in Aberdeen. In the view of escort and activist Laura Lee, however, "three trades always survive in any recession, and that's gambling, pubs and sex work. It might deplete a little bit, but there's always going to be demand, no matter what".

*Some names have been changed to protect people's identities

@kubared

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