BENSION SIEBERT'S NMF: The Threat That Made Him Go Public as a S*x Worker
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What sparked Bension Siebert to become a sex worker and investigative journalist?
It's a Lot is recorded on Gadigal land. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians of this land and to elders past and present. We also would love to extend our respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people listening today and remind you all that sovereignty was never ceded and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
It's a Lot is everyone what a thrilling nightmare fuel we have this week or last week recently i don't know when this is coming out recently there was an incredible article on cheek media where this gorgeous amazing amazing person came out as a sex worker and said listen i become a sex worker to fund my investigative journalism career and i am right here with that gorgeous person ben c and c but how you going
i
Happy! Hello! Hello! Hello! I'm thrilled to talk to you. We just had a little chat about what you're investigating. Quickly tell the people so they can look out for it, but don't tell them too much because we don't want to give away the lead, journalism...
Well, it's about institutional coercive control in the performing arts. And it's one of those kinds of stories that it's certainly not of the scale of like a Me Too kind of situation, but it's of a similar character because it's the kind of thing that everyone knows about, but it's never really been said. It's never really been compiled. So I'm going to be doing an investigative podcast over the next few months. I'm flying around the country thinking, fucking my way around the country, um, reporting this story and, um, hopefully it'll be out. Yeah. In the next few months.
So excited to hear it. And you're so right that it's so, it's so pervasive what the topic of the, of the podcast is. We don't want to give away too much, but even in this room, all of us had something that we'd heard someone go through something similar or we'd experienced it ourselves or something. So, um, It's so important to tell these stories, but it's interesting. Is it interesting? Is it sad? Is it good? Is it wonderful? It's notable that you've had to quit your job or when you got made redundant, you had to change your career path in order to fund something journalism and it's worrying to me not that you're doing sex work hell yeah diva it's worrying to me that we're having all these creatives who are having to find alternate incomes whether it is sex work whether it is getting a job that they fucking hate in order to try and try and fund this so let's talk about that for a bit how did you make that decision to do sex work in order to fund your career
well i guess they're both your career you know half of your career exactly um When I got made redundant, I was real pissed off. You know, I was real angry because, you know, especially, you know, middle class millennials where we get to the end of high school, we go to uni and we try really hard and we try and get the big job and we go for the thing and we do the unpaid overtime and we just work really hard. And then, you know, I was pretty much sort of the peak of my career at a national news podcast. And I was just, you know, dumped. And also I'd been trying to be an investigative journalist for pretty much my entire career. And I'd done lots of daily news reporter jobs where in whatever time I could carve out, and often it was, you know, in my bedroom after work,
doing investigations because, you know, daily news is really important. It's great. I care that it's accurate. I want to know what's going on. But if I can find out an important secret about a powerful person or a powerful institution doing something wrong, harming vulnerable people, and I can embarrass them about that in public, sometimes other parts of the system jump and sometimes there's change and there's positive stuff that goes on. And so that was always the kind of journalism that I really wanted to do. And, you know, the the week after I got made redundant, I because, you know, I've always been like a horny, horny guy. But also I've always thought, I knew sex workers who were making so much money and this is not a universal experience by any stretch.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What sparked Bension Siebert to become a sex worker and investigative journalist?
0:00–6:16
2
How did the threat from an NMF client push Bension to go public about his work?
6:16–13:21
3
Why did Bension decide to pursue sex work after being made redundant?
13:21–19:00
4
What challenges did Bension face when a client threatened to out him and report him?
19:00–23:36
5
How does Australian defamation law affect investigative reporting and sex workers?
23:36–30:51
6
What solutions does Bension propose to reform defamation law and protect journalists?
30:51–33:06
7
How does Bension balance his online presence with the risk of platform bans?
33:06–33:29