« Sex Worker Visions and other awesomeness | Main | sex worker visions sneak peek »
The press, the publicly funded university, and the sex worker activist
March 21, 2006
Sex work, as you know by now, is a hot topic. It’s an especially hot topic when sex workers, activists, academics and various allies, enemies and otherwise interested parties get together to talk about it in a forum that is open to the public, like the Sex Work Matters conference next Thursday will be.
Last December a writer at everyone’s favorite right-wing rag, the New York Post, caught wind of the upcoming Sex Work Matters conference co-sponsored by CUNY and the New School and did some phone-calling around to get some quotes for his piece (the text of which is behind the cut at the end of this post). He was doing his research the week between Christmas and New Year’s – I was the only person from $pread who he was able to get a hold of, and when he started firing away with his questions I knew immediately that this wasn’t going to be a good article. Instead of being all “no comment, no comment” I gave the blandest, most uninteresting quotes I could manage, and hence didn’t get quoted in the article. The organizers of the conference weren’t in the country at the time, so they weren’t interviewed at all. The writer did, however, have a conversation with Carol Leigh aka Scarlot Harlot, who was her usual outrageous self, and delivered the goods on her efforts with last year’s Whore College as well as other activism she’s been involved with.
The subtext of the article – which uses the charming non-word “prosty” in the title – is an outrage at the idea that YOUR tax dollars are funding prostitution! Talking to Carol about it on the phone last week, she said that in retrospect, she sees that the reporter was really trying to get her to talk about CUNY funding in particular and the ways that taxes are supporting whoredom. Although the article is ostensibly about the conference, the Post’s readers got the gist, angry letters were sent and CUNY officials got crazed and decided to ban “that woman” (Carol) from participating in the conference or they would yank funding (Incidentally, the New School’s reaction to the scandal has unofficially/allegedly been “Who reads the Post anyway?”). For good measure, Norma Jean Almodovar, a long-time colleague of Carol’s and one of the early organizers of the west coast sex worker rights org COYOTE, also got shut out of the conference at CUNY’s request. This sent the organizers scrambling and left Carol and Norma Jean bewildered about what exactly had just happened to them.
In recent weeks there’s been a lot of careful calculating to figure out exactly how to include these two women in the conference – the official word was that they wouldn’t be forcibly removed from the conference but couldn’t officially be present either. Norma Jean decided it wasn’t worth it to come to New York, but Carol has persisted in trying to be heard. Because $pread isn’t aligned with the conference in any formal way and we can do what we please, I included Carol in the art show – a video of hers will be playing and on the night of the opening she’ll be signing her book Unrepentant Whore. Melissa Gira and I started to talk about ways to include her in the actual conference – as moderators of a panel, we realized the potential of our power and wanted to use it to facilitate discussion and potentially confrontation. Over this past weekend Carol started to circulate a long email about the situation with CUNY and the fact that she’d been banned. It started to really pick up steam, and now it seems that she’ll be permitted to participate in the conference, officially.
These conflicts are not new, but they are frustrating and a little bit ironic – the subtitle of the conference is “beyond divides” and everyone has really had to work to show that it’s possible to get beyond divides. The whole incident (which I’m sure has not yet come to its peaceful conclusion) shows exactly why a conference like this is necessary – the often ill-informed, right-wing and just plain nasty members of the press have made up their minds about what their stories on sex workers are before they do their research, public universities won’t stand up for the free speech rights of sex workers, and the movement itself is fraught with mixed opinions on how “we” want to be represented, what political ideals should be forefronted. Its ugly, and I don’t know that it’ll “all work out” but the talking is good. And hopefully that’s what will happen at the conference, more talking about these hot issues, between people who should be talking to each other.
The roundtable will actually be webcast live – I’ll be sure to give details of that as we get closer to the date.
And now, I should get my ass to bed, because in the morning I’m giving a talk at CUNY. Funny eh?
New York Post, January 6, 2006
CUNY SEX TALKER TO GIVE PROSTY-TUTORIAL By PHILIP RECCHIA CUNY is bringing in the “dean of academic studies” from “Whore College” - a hooker who advocates legalized prostitution - to speak at an on-campus scholarly conference on sex workers’ rights.
Carol Leigh, 54, who markets herself as “Scarlot Harlot,” is scheduled to be a featured panelist at the public college’s spring conference, “Sex Work Matters: Beyond Divides.”
The academic event - said to be a first for the Big Apple - “brings together sex workers, artists, activists [and] academics” for a discussion on recognizing prostitution and sex work “as a legitimate profession with the accompanying legal protections.”
It’s slated for March 30 at the City University of New York Graduate Center. The public conference kicks off the night before with a “Sex Workers Soiree” sponsored by Spread, America’s only magazine covering “the sex industry from a workers’ perspective.”
“Prostitution is legal in most civilized countries, but the U.S. has done a pitiful job of protecting the rights of sex workers,” said Sibyl Schwarzenbach, a CUNY ethics professor and adviser on the conference, who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard.
Schwarzenbach also slammed the Bush administration for making a “repressive situation” worse by backing a law that requires federally funded HIV/AIDS programs to oppose legalizing prostitution.
“The current political climate necessitates that New York - home to many academics engaged in the sex-workers-rights debate - host a sex-workers conference this year,” Schwarzenbach told The Post.
While the conference topics are not yet finalized, those on the short list include “Sex Work Careers,” “Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Transsexual Sex Work” and “Sex Work and the Family.”
The event is the brainchild of CUNY grad student Antonia Levy and New School grad student Alys Willman-Navarro, whose Web site says they have “funding for travel scholarships for eligible participants.”
Leigh, who hails from San Francisco, said she is among those participants. In May 2005 she launched Whore College - a series of classes for sex workers - in conjunction with the San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Art Festival.
Courses included “Safer Oral Sex Techniques,” “Advanced Erotic Touch” and “Six Herbs That Can Cure Anything, with a Focus on Genital Health.”
To date, Whore College has bestowed diplomas on 40 students. The next round of classes is scheduled for July, in Las Vegas.
Leigh’s CUNY presentation on ‘sex-industry politics’ will be lifted directly from her WC curriculum, she said. Asked if she still practices ‘the world’s oldest profession,’ WC’s self-proclaimed dean of academic studies answered: “Of course - though just part-time now.”
CUNY officials declined to comment.
Posted by Dacia at March 21, 2006 10:07 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.wakingvixen.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/493
Comments
well, i’m sure you know all about it by now, but it looks like carol is back on the program.
university bullshit.
i hope to hear all about the conference, art opening, and everything else! i wish we had a break so i could go up for it!
Posted by: Melinda at March 28, 2006 09:36 PM
