How to go
What: Stilettos to Sneakers Run for Women. (Men can run too.)
When: 7 p.m. Sept. 23 with check-in and registration beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Where: RiverScape MetroPark, downtown Dayton
Registration: $25 per entry. Online at www.speedy-feet.com
Proceeds: Benefit Oasis House
For more information on Oasis House: (937) 898-7811 or www.oasisforwomen.org
On most weeknights, you’ll find Lisa Chafin at home preparing dinner for her husband and teenage son.
But for the past year, her Wednesday night routine has been dramatically different.
The Englewood woman, who works as a Kettering Medical Center registrar, joins her daughter-in-law and a dozen other committed volunteers and heads for Dayton’s North Dixie strip where they deliver comfort food, healthy snacks and warm hugs to the exotic dancers who perform at “gentlemen’s clubs.”
Chafin, 42 and a grandmother of two, is an active member of Oasis House, the Christian-based women’s organization dedicated to offering hope and support to women in the sex industries.
“We’re concerned about these women and want them to know that God created them for a purpose, not to be abused or degraded,” says program director Diane Ream, who’s been with the organization since its inception in 2005. The outreach ministry founded by the Rev. Sharon Amos, a pastor at Dayton’s Higher Ground United Methodist Church, is headquartered in a comfortable home at 6333 N. Dixie Drive, surrounded by strip clubs and directly across from the Adult Superstore. Free services include counseling and GED training; future plans call for a residential center where women can have a safe and supportive place to live.
The group’s executive director, Cheryl Oliver, formerly served as the coordinator for the Montgomery County Criminal Justice Council’s Prostitution Intervention Collaborative (PIC). She estimates there are between 2,000 and 3,000 women working as street prostitutes, erotic dancers and escorts in the Miami Valley, a figure she derives by adding the number of city of Dayton police arrests in a given year, the average number of dancers on the rosters of each of the club, and the number of local escort listings on internet sites such as craigslist and Backpage.com
Oasis House, she says, interacts with about 250-300 women each week. Of those who agree to fill out a questionnaire, about 80 percent are homeless or have been homeless, about 80 percent have children with 50 percent acting as custodial parents.
Over the past six years, according to Oliver, about 40 women have left the sex industry after connecting with her organization. But not everyone believes all of these women need rescuing.
Dianne Sikel, a topless dancer for years who now works as a communications consultant in Phoenix and publishes a “Life, Love & Money” website, insists it’s a misunderstood vocation.
“Many women are smart, intelligent, nondrug using, have high school and college educations,” says Sikel. “Additionally, many women raise well-adjusted children, invest their money and go on to lead very productive lives. The services the organization (Oasis House) provides are fabulous and very generous, however when the girls are working they don’t need support from other women, they are there working for cash from the ‘gentlemen’ customers. The hugs are going a bit too far.”
But D.J., a former Dayton erotic dancer and escort who agreed to be interviewed anonymously, tells a different story. She says she was emotionally and sexually abused by her father and other family members from a early age.
“I didn’t know it wasn’t normal to be having sex with your brother until the kids at school told me when I was 12,” she says. Pregnant at 17, married at 18 and divorced at 19, she spent 12 years as an exotic dancer and two years as an escort. She’s now homeless with a 14-year-old son.
“You come from being told you’re stupid and will never amount to anything and that you’ll end up just like your mother and you enter the dance world where the guys worship you,” says D.J., whose mother is in prison for murder. “I liked the money, and it kept a roof over my head. But I had no integrity or self worth. When you’re an escort or a prostitute, you’re nothing more than a number — your phone number. You’re shutting the door of a hotel room with guys you don’t know, you’re being robbed and beat up and having guns held to your head.”
About six months ago a friend suggested she stop at Oasis House to see if they could help her find another job.
“I was petrified,” remembers D.J. when she talks about knocking on the door for the first time. “Diane and Cheryl opened the door and asked me to come inside and gave me big hugs. They listened to my story and there was no judgment.”
Since that time she’s graduated from the YES program, the Oasis-led support group that aims at boosting self-esteem. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever graduated from in my whole life,” she says. She’s done part-time secretarial work for Oasis House, has been baptized, and has been sharing her story at local churches. She dreams of having her own home someday and opening it to foster children.
“This is huge for me,” D.J. says. “I had lost who I was but they brought it back.”
Common Pleas Court Judge Gregory F. Singer labels the Oasis House philosophy “cutting edge.”
Although sex-related offenses are classified as misdemeanors, Singer says women who show up in his court on theft or drug-related felony charges often have a history that includes working as escorts, dancers, or prostitutes. Many have lost custody of their children and evidence a lot of shame.
“It’s so complex,” says Singer, who served on the PIC task force and likes to quote Franklin County Judge Paul Herbert who says “the world’s oldest profession is also the world’s oldest oppression.”
“I like Oasis House because it’s addressing what turns out to be a very special type of offender,” says Singer, who believes female sexuality is exploited by our society. “If we look at these women carefully, we see they have been victimized their whole lives. I became impressed because Oasis House came into jail with the prostitutes to help them become self-sufficient.”
Celia Williamson, a professor at the University of Toledo who has been studying sex trafficking since 1993, says traditional approaches to the problem simply aren’t working and labels the Oasis House philosophy the “best practice approach.”
“It builds relationship and creates a bridge that is non-stigmatizing and doesn’t dehumanize,” says Williamson, who says it’s often a slippery slope from waitress to dancer to prostitute. “You don’t need degrees, you just need to become the person that walks them across that bridge and gets them to the help they need. You can be spiritual about your work but walk with practical feet.”
Chafin says there’s great satisfaction in seeing a woman come to the house, get GED tutoring and eventually chose another line of work. One of the dancers texted her recently to say she’d had an interview at Walmart and gotten the job.
“She wanted me to stop by and say hi,” says Chafin. “She said the money isn’t as good, but she feels happier, and it’s a job she can be proud of for her little boy.”
The Wednesday night volunteers are trained to look only above the neck when encountering the scantily clad or nude women at the clubs and to avoid watching performances. Those who don’t feel comfortable going into the clubs or jail can help in other ways — with office work, or sorting and pressing clothing for the Palms Boutique, a thrift shop that raises funds to support the cause.
After visiting the house, the confirmation class from Bellbrook United Church of Christ raised money to buy Valentine’s Day roses for the dancers and the women of the church knit scarves for them for Christmas.
“These Oasis House volunteers are entering into a risk-taking mission, there would be some folks who wouldn’t like to see them helping these women,” says the Rev. Terry Heck, Bellbrook’s pastor.
Surprisingly, the North Dixie club owners aren’t among them; all allow free access.
Kevin Fox, owner of The Harem Adult Nightclub, calls his Wednesday night visitors “delightful and wonderful women.” Can you believe, he asks incredulously, that each Thanksgiving they host a big meal for all of the club owners?
“If they came in calling these women sinners and judging and belittling them, they would find opposition and closed doors,” Fox says. “But they’re not judgmental, they’re not trying to stop anyone from doing what she wants to do, but they know these women can’t do this forever.”
Fox, who has 500 dancers on his roster, has been in the business for 25 years and has owned clubs in other towns. He’s married to a former dancer and says the average performer makes between $200 and $700 a night and performs for about two years. His wife, he says, found it hard to give up both the money and the attention.
“She felt like a rock star, and that’s an addiction in itself,” he says. “Women do not come to this business from inspiration, they come from desperation. It’s usually about economics. They are either single mothers, students, or victims of substance or spousal abuse.”
The Oasis House volunteers, Fox says, are good listeners who offer advice or prayers only when asked. If the dancers are willing, they’re offered free therapy sessions at Oasis House.
“What you’re dealing with is an underserved patient population who oftentimes has very limited access to care,” says Dr. Christopher Manetta, who served as acting psychiatrist for the organization while a fourth year resident at Wright State University School of Medicine and now practices in Albuquerque, N.M. He counseled about two dozen women over the course of the year.
“Most of the women were homeless or shacking up with a relative or friend,” he says. “None had health insurance, the majority had no vehicle, they didn’t have many resources and were struggling financially and socially. Most came from a traumatic upbringing and as a result formed a particular way of looking at the world that led to a lot of relationship and intimacy problems.”
Manetta says many of the women he counseled suffered from depression and anxiety issues, often coupled with drug or alcohol addiction. When it was time for them to take their clothes off and perform, he says, they may have felt uncomfortable and started anesthetizing themselves with drugs and alcohol. Almost every one of his patients, he said, suffered from post traumatic stress disorder.
The good news, he adds, is that the women he counseled at Oasis House proved to be very resilient. “Resilience is something we know very little about, but many of these women did get better when they were given healthy and appropriate resources.”
Lisa Chafin says her work at Oasis House has provided an eye-opening education.
“I had stereotyped ideas about what type of women would be at the clubs, but those ideas were thrown out the very first week,” she says. “I saw all types of women from all walks of life — college students, soccer moms, women of all ages. It blew my mind. What I’ve discovered is that these women are just like us.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2440 or mmoss@DaytonDailyNews.com.
About the Author
