Unconditional, a 2023 Women’s Fund grant recipient, offers support and resources to Hoosier women in the adult entertainment and sex industries. By and large, that refers to dancers and strippers at adult clubs, but the term (and Unconditional’s service base) includes those working as prostitutes.
Operating since 2012, Unconditional and its staff are trailblazers in Indiana. Still unique for our state, their work is sorely needed. According to in-house surveys, Unconditional found that nearly half of their clients began sex work as minors, 82% have experienced domestic violence, and 42% claim domestic violence played a role in their decision to enter into sex work.
As founder and CEO Sarah Daniel puts it: “We meet women wherever they are with whatever they need. If they’re leaving sex work, staying—it doesn’t matter.”
In practical terms, that assistance often starts out with a group of volunteers who go into local strip clubs once a month to distribute gifts for employees along with a message about Unconditional’s services to anyone interested.
Those services are as varied as the women who take up the offer. In some cases, that includes financial assistance for those who want to leave the adult industry but don’t have the resources to absorb what is often a large pay cut.
“The population we serve may differ from a lot of other nonprofits,” Sarah said. “While a majority of dancers may have grown up in poverty, many don’t live in poverty while they are dancing. After they decide to leave, that is when they have to navigate a significant financial drop.”
Before that decision, some of Unconditional’s clients are making middle-class incomes or better—an increasingly rare opportunity for Hoosiers without a post-secondary degree. But if and when they leave the strip club, many find themselves starting over from scratch.
“Sometimes, after leaving the industry they have to learn how to be broke again,” Sarah said. “You go from fistfuls of cash, working nights, your kid sleeping at a friend’s house, to fifteen dollars an hour before taxes and trying to pay for daycare. Some of our clients get their first paycheck and are like, ‘Is this a joke?’”
That’s why at Unconditional, women find resources for housing, employment, financial planning, business development, document assistance, and even childcare assistance.
Some of Sarah’s clients have gone on to run successful businesses, often returning to employ other women from Unconditional.
That sisterhood is an outgrowth of the family atmosphere the organization has cultivated. For some, it’s the most important service Unconditional provides.
“We can over-think this sort of work,” Sarah said. “A lot of times, the best thing you can do is just hang out and listen. Many of the women we serve have been on their own since they were thirteen. Some are runaways from abusive homes. They don’t have family support systems. Everything they have, they got for themselves, often without any help. They are proud of that. But you never outgrow a need for family.”
Unconditional serves that role. The depth of impact is easy to hear in the testimony of those who have spent time with Unconditional. Clients credit the group with everything from being a rare source of affirmation to providing life-saving intervention.
Sarah notes, however, that this level of trust and credibility takes time.
“For the first three years, I felt like I wasn’t making any traction. Women were polite, but hardly anybody was responding.”
Her tenacity paid off. Today, with a growing staff and an expanding facility on Indy’s eastside, Unconditional reaches nearly 200 women a month at seven different partner strip clubs.
That growing capacity is fortunate. Like many industries, the pandemic severely reduced profitability in adult entertainment. The need Unconditional fulfills is growing.
“Women are coming to our food pantry now who are in the industry,” Sarah said. “That was never the case before the pandemic. We didn’t even have a food pantry.”
The destabilizing impact of the pandemic also pressed some women into more illicit and dangerous parts of sex work. Unconditional’s doors are open to them, too.
However, even working at legitimate clubs, Sarah’s clients deal with a level of abuse and extortion that is treated far more seriously in other industries.
“One hundred percent of our clients have been assaulted at work. The vast majority can’t even count the number of times. Indiana has no-touch laws in place but it doesn’t matter. People do it anyway. If somebody touches you without consent, that’s assault. It’s the same as if you worked at Target. But I’ve seen law enforcement just laugh it off or even take part in it.”
That treatment, combined with misperceptions about the sex industry itself, contributes to what Sarah refers to as “the most marginalized group of women in our community.”
She continued: “A lot of people don’t want to deal with how complicated sex work is. Most women are in this work due to circumstances. There aren’t other options for them for economic survival. Their entry into sex work didn’t happen in a vacuum. For some women, sure, it might be by choice and making money for themselves. Many of the women we serve, though, are in this work because they were coerced. Many are forced to give their income to somebody else.”
For Sarah and Unconditional, that complexity is exactly why the organization must keep its mission as expansive and inclusive as its name. Their approach has granted them hard-earned trust from their clients and growing support from organizations like Women’s Fund.
This article was published within the November 2024 issue of the Women’s Fund’s Diane magazine.
