For the last several months, Marfa Public Radio has been working behind the scenes on a project that many West Texans have caught wind of by now: Texas Monthly 's Boomtown. The podcast, produced in partnership with Imperative Entertainment, brings listeners into the heart of America's most productive oilfield β the Permian Basin. It explores the lives of people directly affected by the boom and bust cycles that have defined the the region for nearly a century, from roughnecks and executives, to barbers, waitresses, and sex workers.
Below, listen to two episodes of Boomtown that Marfa Public Radio's Sally Beauvais helped report and edit β alongside freelance journalist Susan Elizabeth Shepard and the staff at Texas Monthly β that explore a different kind of boom in the Permian Basin. From Christian Wallace , Boomtown's host:. Young men flock to the oil patch during a boom to rake in more money than most of them have ever seen. Many of these guys are single, and those that are married often leave their families behind and send paychecks home.
This creates a certain market for those who sell sex. Feminine charms are also valuable in the service industry. Over the next two episodes, we explore several ways that some women are cashing in on the boom. To tell this story, journalist Susan Elizabeth Shepard takes over hosting duties. Susan worked as a stripper while attending the University of Texas in Austin. After she graduated, she started traveling the country, working at clubs on an unofficial circuit.
Over the next six years, she danced at a club in the small boomtown of Williston. While most of the cities and small towns Susan worked in had a lot in common, Williston was different.
In our second of two episodes focusing on sex work in the Permian Basin, guest host Susan Elizabeth Shepard returns to speak with advocates and law enforcement who work directly with both sex trafficking victims and those who sell sex consensually. As Susan explains in this episode, there are many misconceptions about sex work, and about traffickingβand strongly differing opinions about everything from the legal rights of those who sell sex consensually to who is actually a victim and who is not.
