It's the oldest profession known to humans. But what is life like inside the sex industry in Orange?
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The Gateway Club on Moulder has been an Orange institution since the late 1980s. When sex work was decriminalised in 1995 the venue became, and remains to this day, the only legal brothel in the Orange region.
Head receptionist Teresa coordinates the operations and running of the parlour.
She has two rules for the sex workers at The Gateway.
"No drugs and no drink, that's all I ask," she says.
"My girls", as she describes them, are self-employed and hire a room at the brothel. They get discretion, privacy and safety from Teresa and her team along with the room. The payment, made at the start of the booking goes towards the room rental and the sex-workers' service fee.
Prices start at $200 and go up from there.
"The Gateway is my little place that I look after, and I'm very proud of," Teresa said.
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The head receptionist will tell you there is "no ordinary day" in her line of work. But there is some routine to running the parlour.
"I open the gates, turn on all the lamps and make sure all the rooms are ready to go. I make sure all the rooms are stocked with their condoms, lube and dental dams, that kind of thing, and I make sure the girls are ready," she said.
"Then I wait for the phone to ring or the doorbells to go. I'm the person who welcomes clients, gets them to sit on the lounge and ask them if they have any questions.
"Then I'll send down the girls. They'll go behind the curtain one-by-one and have a quick chat with the client. I then go and have a chat with a client and see who they would like to pick and how long for and organise the booking," she said.
The client will then get walked to the room with the girl of their choosing and the girl will do a quick health check to make sure there are no open wounds or obvious sexually transmitted infections.
"Just so everything is safe and above board," Teresa said.
"And then after that, the client does have to take a shower for hygiene purposes on their time. So I always say don't take 15 minutes but have a decent shower."
There will be a drop sheet on the bed and there will be fresh towels and sheets for the booking.
"Our standard service is oral sex with a condom, sex with a condom and erotic massage," Teresa said.
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After the booking is over a girl will let the client out of the exit door and they'll clean up the room and that's it.
There is no such thing as an ordinary regular at The Gateway Club on Moulder. Teresa said any person can be a client, just as any person can be a sex worker.
"We get all genders and all sexualities. We get women, we get couples, we get men who want to explore their sexuality by cross-dressing ... but yeah all sexuality and all genders," she said.
If something does get too weird or dangerous for one of the sex workers, Teresa can shut it down quickly.
"A girl can come and say to me 'this guy is pushing all the boundaries and he's not listening to me'. That's when I go in and say to the gentleman: 'Your booking has ended, it's time for you to get dressed and it's time to go'," she said.
Teresa is born and raised in Orange, she's worked at Coles and at the Electrolux factory, she might have even facilitated your COVID vaccine during the pandemic.
She is a self-professed ordinary mother and wife. She just doesn't like the ordinary nine-to-five grind.
"I love my job. I love chatting with the ladies. Some of the ladies have lived seven different lives, and they're the same age as me," she said.
Teresa takes safety and discretion very seriously, for her girls and her clients.
"My priority is always their safety and their discretion and then the client's discretion. I am very, very discreet" she said.
"In the country, you do have to be very mindful about privacy and discretion."
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She's been working at The Gateway Club on Moulder for over seven-years.
"I do have some really strange stories, but I don't want to shame anybody," she said.
Teresa is emphatic about making her clients feel comfortable.
"It's not strange, anything in this industry that a normal outsider, civilian, would think strange or odd, is normal in a brothel setting. It's a part of our daily life. This is a wide industry; you can be upfront and honest, no judgement at all about what you're into."
Want to meet a sex worker at the Gateway Club on Moulder? Catch our next installment of Lifting the Curtain on the Sex Industry in Orange, next Thursday.
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Grace Ryan
Online editor - regional NSW. Working with The Northern Daily Leader, Daily Liberal and Western Advocate. Based in Nyngan.
