Danny (left) and Annie Sprinkle (right) having fun and making a scene at the World Whores Congress in Amsterdam, 1985. Photograph by Jacques Prayer, courtesy of Andrew Sorfleet.

Upon Danny’s return from his travels he continued to work with Maggie’s, including participating in a June 1993 cabaret benefit for Maggie’s called Whore Culture at A-Space in Toronto. Whore Culture program booklet, courtesy of Andrew Sorfleet.

Carol Leigh, also known as Scarlot Harlot, documented much of the 1993 Whore Culture festival and produced a documentary that included an extensive on-the-street-interview with Danny that is excerpted here. Video provided by Andrew Sorfleet, with permission from Kate Marquez, executor of the Carol Leigh Foundation.

Danny spent much of 1990-92 travelling. His extensive travel diaries are housed in the Danny Cockerline Fonds at The ArQuives in Toronto. While traveling and international whoredom was not new for Danny—he had already attended both World Whore Congresses in 1985 (Amsterdam) and 1986 (Brussels)—the early 1990s was his most intensive period of international travel.[1] It was also during this period that he tested HIV-positive. His travel diaries shed light on his internal struggles with his new reality and his concern that his HIV status would undermine his work as the poster boy for safer sex in the context of prostitution. Danny was never particularly out publicly about being HIV-positive for this reason. His travel diary entry from November 26, 1990, while in New Zealand highlights this internal struggle:

I think a much more solid position for a prostitute rights group to take is 1) you do not get AIDS from prostitution, but from unsafe sex and sharing needles and 2) it is perfectly safe to be a prostitute if you do not have unsafe sex and you do not share needles. I would add 3) that if a prostitute does get HIV, whether from a lover or a client, she should not be blamed but treated with compassion. HIV[-positive] prostitutes can certainly continue to work (as I do) as long as they have safe sex—just as HIV[-positive] people in general can have safe sex. Hemophiliacs organizations continue to encourage male HIV-infected hemophiliacs to fuck their HIV-negative wives with condoms. So why not prostitutes? The woman of the infected hemophiliac is at far greater risk than the male client of an infected female prostitute who insists on condoms.

The call for HIV-infected prostitutes to be quarantined is really the call of male clients for federally inspected grade A whores. They want to be able to fuck without condoms with no worry of getting a disease. (we’ve never heard of a prostitute holding a gun to a man’s head and forcing him to fuck without a condom, but we have heard the reverse).

And why, if society does not want HIV-positive prostitutes to work, do they want to lock up and punish them? Why not provide workmen’s compensation?

 Having HIV-negative prostitutes argue that prostitution can be safe (and therefore that prostitutes should not be quarantined and prostitution stopped) is far more convincing than having HIV-positive prostitutes make the case. The reasons are obvious. So when I continue to make the argument publicly, I do not acknowledge I am positive. I continue to state, as I did before I knew my status, that it is an irrelevant question as long as safe sex is practiced.

I feel more confident to publicly speak on these issues outside of North America because I feel if I do get AIDS, the news of my illness will not reach these shores and be misused to discredit a valid position. It is most unfortunate that every time a prostitute gets AIDS the attitude of the media is “see, we told you so.” This kind of false information must continue to be challenged.

Other parts of his diaries are much more quotidian, lamenting the bad weather in Hawaii, the terrible music of gay clubs in Brisbane, the fickle men of San Francisco, and more. Yet here and there Danny shares introspective reflections on love, sex, desire, community, and his personal vision of the good life:

Personally, I have rarely found that people who provide me hot sex are the same people who provide me good loving. Not that these things have not come together for me but just that I do not see that they need to. I have found I am at my happiest and most secure when I have a few good friends who I depend on for mutual intimacy, support, and love, plus a steady supply of hot guys to fuck with. I think it somewhat foolish to believe that a single person can fulfill all of one’s needs—it’s a terrible burden—but I think it's worse that we are all expected to attempt this madness. 

Because sex and love for me are most often separate, this does not mean the sexual contacts I have are cold and inhumane. On a few occasions they have felt that way—some people may even want them that way—but for the most part a casual sexual encounter for me is like any casual contact with a stranger—a warm smile as someone passes on the street, a friendly hello, an offering of help opening a door of lifting something. Casual sex is something that most often leaves me feeling good towards my fellow human beings. It is a sharing of something special. 

I know some people who are unfulfilled by casual sex. I think this is because they are looking for something more—usually a lover. Perhaps there is not enough love and intimacy in their life with friends. Perhaps they cannot let go of the belief—rammed down all of our throats since early childhood—that we must find a single partner to fulfill us. I think many people would be better off letting go of this belief than trying to make it a reality. Which is not to say that there aren’t a lucky few that get what all of us should have, but that there are other equally worthwhile ways of living that are just as rewarding and fulfilling. 

My ideal is not the monogamous couple, but the strong individual who is loved by and loving of many, a part of a community of lovers, some of whom he has sex with and some not depending upon personal preferences. I find it easier to find in most people something to love than something to get off on.[2]

Danny’s travel diaries also outline his reluctance to do porn despite doing a substantial amount of shoots while on the road. He complains about performance anxiety, aging and not feeling as attractive as he once did, an inability to stay hard while performing in porn, and the ease of working as a prostitute by comparison. He also shares humorous insights about working in live gay sex shows during his short stint at the Nob Hill Cinema in San Francisco in the early 1991—again resulting in the realization that he is a much better prostitute than public performer.

[1] Gail Pheterson and Margo St. James, “$ex Workers Make History: 1985 & 1986 – The World Whores’ Congress,” Report of the European Conference on Sex Work, 2006.

[2] Danny Cockerline, “Tavel Diaries—New Zealand: November 26, 1990,” Danny Cockerline Fonds, The ArQuives, Toronto, Ontario.