We have a Gatehouse Netball team and we are terrible. Unless there is some miracle and we win our last (and only) game, we will most certainly finish at the bottom of the competition. And given this is no Disney movie, I’m not hanging out for that miracle moment. We are injury prone, motley and completely oblivious to the rules. To be honest I would pay good money (that, incidentally, I don’t have) to be a fly on the wall when the other teams are trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with us. We certainly don’t make a lot of sense – particularly the part where we come with a photographer with two big cameras to capture the total terribleness.

But our skills, or marked lack thereof, is mostly irrelevant. Maybe not to the other teams who are looking for more of a challenge than we provide, but who are (generally) kind enough to help us when we have no idea what we are doing. What is relevant is that when we get our bibs on there is no more division between sex worker and straight – we are a team. It’s one of the few occasions the sex workers get to feel like a part of the ‘normal’ world, and equally its an opportunity for us straights to get a sense of what it is like to be a bit different.

No one in the league knows half the team are sex workers, that half of those again are playing under the influence. What they do know is that we are pretty crap, and I would suspect they know we are a little bit different. Drug use leaves its mark, and its not just tracks in the crooks of elbows. It’s bad skin, paranoia and scant attention. It would be easy for us straights to explain away the funny looks and occasional snide comment by contextualising the players – but while it would be a convenient excuse, its not actually an accurate one.

We don’t get to scapegoat because sex work is not the reason we are the worst team in the league. We are the worst team because I’ve only played five games in my life, because Sally panics when she gets the ball and throws it in haste, because Dee overestimates her ability, because we don’t train, and the list goes on. Sex worker and straight alike we are equally bad (in all truth our two star players are sex workers), and we wear that together.

Last night we lost 30-0. But I tell you, as we drove home in the minivan, we were buzzing – our sport endorphins heightened by beating the odds against us getting onto the court at all. We analyzed the game, and gave ourselves credit for keeping the other team moving. The rain dotted the windows, framing us in refracted traffic lights, and we made our way back to St Kilda chatting and laughing. We might be terrible but we sure feel like a team. A normal, completely unco, team.

And while normal in this context is the ultimate achievement, I have to confess it is a word that is making me nervous at the moment. This morning as I walked down to Gatehouse I saw Bell working and stopped to have a chat with her by the side of the road. I gave her a kiss hello, and we continued last night’s game analysis. I kept it brief because I didn’t want to scare any mugs off. As I walked away it occurred to me how quickly its become normal to stop and have a chat with a sex worker while she’s working. How quickly I have submerged myself into being a part of Gatehouse, rather than just an observer. And while the point of my argument that we are all just people regardless of profession is proved by how quickly I have acclimatised, my realization made me nervous about how clearly I can see what I am photographing.

I once moved into a house that had horrible ugly curtains. Really, really, bloody horrible curtains. For the first week I lived there I noticed every day how ugly those curtains were. Ugly. The second week I noticed less frequently, but still most days. The third week I was moved to vague annoyance a couple of times. And after that I forgot about the curtains. In this instance my anxiety, however unnecessary, is that I am going to get so involved in Gatehouse that I am going to stop seeing what is right in front of me. That my role as a photographer is usurped by my desire to be a part of something.

To summarize something my Dad said to me to appease another anxiety – its not the end result so much as the journey that matters – and its true, the book doesn’t matter as much as the opportunity this project is providing to the women involved. But I still want the book to be as powerful a tool for change as the project. I want the images I take to change how people see sex workers. How people treat sex workers. And I worry if I stop seeing the curtains, I won’t be able to articulate the core message that sex workers are more than just one dimensional sexbots.

This project is in motion, and I know each anxiety will pass as it gathers momentum, but its important to me that I chronicle where I am while its going. That when I look back I remember each step. Each moment that contributes to the whole. Because this is no Disney movie, the miracle moment is not in the finale, when, to a emotive soundtrack, we make our way from underdog to victory. The miracle moments are going to occur along the way (though probably not on the netball court), and I need to trust I am going to keep seeing the ugly curtains.