A few weeks ago, I learned of blogger Susannah Breslin’s (Reverse Cowgirl) newest blog project, Letters from Johns, which was quickly followed by Letters from Working Girls. Johns and working girls send her their stories about their experiences with the sex industry, and she publishes them anonymously. The writing on the blogs is interesting, well-done, and insightful. Truth be told, I can never get enough of stories from inside the sex industry, told by people with first hand experience.
But something about the project rubbed me the wrong way.
Today, when Bound, Not Gagged reposted Susannah’s call for submissions in this post Letters from Working Girls, I posted a comment:
Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but I really value sex worker run, written and edited spaces. Instead of sending your stories about being a sex worker to that blog, we should encourage sex workers to start their own blogs or participate here on Bound, Not Gagged. There are many other sex worker bloggers who I’m sure would love to give a platform or guest blogging spot to sex workers who don’t want to start blogs but have a story to tell. I personally would rather see that than see sex workers send their writing to a blogger who, to my knowledge, isn’t a sex worker. This isn’t to say that Susannah has evil intentions for our words, but I’d rather see those words in sex worker run spaces.
Susannah responded with a post on Reverse Cowgirl containing my comment and a comment left by Amanda Brooks on Bound, Not Gagged. Her post title, and only commentary on what we had to say: So, Would It Be OK If I Fucked For Money?
That’s a pretty harsh way to simplify a conversation I was trying to have, but if you wanna go there, I’ll answer simply: Yes.
I’m not trying to say that the only people authorized to talk about the sex industry are sex workers - I like and trust many of our allies and like to talk to and encourage the people who write about us. However, there is a long history of sex workers being exploited in print and image, because our stories are titillating. Yes, she is providing space for sex workers and johns to write about their experiences and to my knowledge she isn’t editing those words, but she also didn’t acknowledge that these stories are already being told in cyberspace. She didn’t announce her new blogs and declare to be the first to provide space for these stories either - like I said, I don’t think she has any evil intent. I just wish she’d engaged with the community of sex workers already telling their stories online.
And the fucking for money comment? Jeez, I guess now we know a little better her attitude about sex workers - many of whom don’t fuck for money. I want to have as many voices chiming in as possible, but the whole idea of submitting stories to a blog without comments and without connection to sex worker communities… like I said, I think there are better places for those stories to be told.
2:17 am
It would have been funnier if she’d asked if it would be okay if she paid money to get fucked.
What I wonder, reading this and being provoked to think about it, is why sex workers are willing to give their stories away for free to her or to other people like her. I’m not putting a value judgment on it, just wondering what their motivation is or if it’s the first time they’ve felt like someone invited them to tell their stories or if they feel like they *need* an invitation from someone else with a built-in ready-to-be-titillated audience or why they think they need someone else’s platform in the first place. But I suppose those are probably some of the same questions that were running through your head . . .
Ugh. I just looked at the post on BNG and the spammy-ass email she sent. That’s fucked, that she’s spamming these people who already have web presences and are already telling their stories and acting like offering anonymity is some kind of a favor when really it just allows her to develop traffic and notoriety without reciprocating. Why the fuck hasn’t she put up any links to the blogs she’s trawling for stories? It must be awesome, to blog original content without writing any of it yourself.
2:48 am
I stumbled upon that site a couple of days ago and really liked the concept, at first glance. When I noticed that the stories are sent in anonymously and aren’t credited to so much as a blog or MySpace profile, it made me wonder two things:
a) How many of the stories will be made up? Fantasies? Will it be the Penthouse of sex work?
b) Is the site owner planning to publish a book once she’s received enough stories? Will the sex workers involved see any kind of pay for contributing?
Glad to see there’s some conversation sparked in the blogosphere.
3:20 am
I can’t stop thinking about how sketchy the “all letters will remain anonymous” promise is; what if someone doesn’t WANT to be anonymous or asks for reciprocity, like Kris said, to their own websites or profiles? It’s like it’s not even an option. Is that because she just doesn’t want to share traffic or give anyone credit? Or because she assumes no working girls could possibly WANT to be out about their work?
8:58 am
I think the title of her “rebuttal” says it all.
I hope no other sex workers contributes to her site and instead utilizes other sex worker sites or starts their own anonymous blog (easy to do).
Thanks for the follow-up, Audacia.
XX
9:52 am
I posted this on BNG, but I’ll be lazy and vaguely spammy and post it here, too…
– I’ve been going back and forth on this. My initial reaction was similar to Audacia’s and Amanda’s. And I still think that the first place anyone should go to hear sex workers tell their stories is to sex workers themselves. That’s why in my post on DLS I recommended BNG and a couple other sites ahead of Letters from Working Girls. However, I do think Letters from Working Girls serves a purpose, for people who might not yet be comfortable posting elsewhere. It might seem silly but I can relate to the feeling of wanting to slowly dip your toe into something, and being so terrified of the possible (real or imagined) repercussions.
So while I think Letters from Working Girls shouldn’t necessarily be a *primary resource*, I think it does serve a good purpose, as long as everyone realizes it’s not intended to be a *substitute* for places such as $pread and BNG.
–
One other thing… I hadn’t seen the “So, It Would Be OK If I Fucked for Money?” That’s distasteful at best. Bleh.
10:38 am
Irespect that some sex workers might not be “ready” for BNG or $pread, but it doesn’t compute to me that this bitch’s website is less scary or safer.
I think she’s shown her ugly colors to Dacia here. Even if she disagreed with Daxia, a real ally says something about how she respects the spaces sex workers create for themselves and aknowledges that fears of outsider exploitation are real and come from our experience of constantly being the object of projects from outsiders who find us the perfect platform to launch their careers.
10:45 am
In reality it’s probably *not* any safer. But I was just talking about how sometimes, people like to feel like there’s a cloak of anonymity. I can really only speak for myself here. But when I first started to actually write about my sex life, I did so behind a pseudonym. Not because I was ashamed of anything, but because I was still scared of possible reactions and repercussions. (I would love to be able to say that kind of thing never worried me and I never cared what other people think, but I’d be lying.) So I think maybe sending in a letter anonymously could have the same appeal for some people.
Agreed on her not acknowledging spaces sex workers create for themselves, though.
1:42 pm
I don’t think everyone should want to be out or to get publicity, I’m just annoyed by credit & links not being offered. At all. To anyone or any blog, including the topical ones she’s hitting up for free content.
1:54 pm
This is so irritating. As if sex worker run blogs and publications don’t/won’t run writing under pseudonyms or anonymously? Duh. I don’t begrudge for participating in the project, but I do begrudge Susannah Breslin for leeching. And that is exactly what it looks/feels like to me.
Her response really says it all.
No thanks.
2:08 pm
Agreed Trixie. She should definitely have (at the very least) a blogroll linking to these sites.
3:56 pm
Hi all. I became aware of this discussion through first reading the Letters from Working Girls blog, and am not a regular visitor to this site or BNG.
My sense of the Working Girls site, when considered with the companion site, Letters from Johns, is that it is artistic and showcases good literature in the form of short stories. Taken together, readers get diverse perspectives from different participants involved in sex work.
What I have seen here is an emphasis on the political aspect of sex work and whether Breslin is an ally or not. But what if people submitting stories don’t necessarily want to be involved in a political movement? Why, as Amber points out above, does Breslin’s site need to be a “resource” for anything? Although to many the practice of sex work is inherently political, isn’t there room for good stories to just be good stories?
I would generally agree in the criticisms that there are no links to other relevant sites, comments are not enabled, and certainly don’t like if there is a lack of crediting authors. However, if sex workers choose to submit to Breslin’s site, it might be because they prefer that space, and that decision should also be respected.
4:47 pm
I would argue that telling stories about sex work is a political act, but I also wouldn’t try to hammer that home to someone who just wants to get their story out in the world. As someone very entrenched in the movement, I fully realize not everyone (or even most) sex workers want to be involved on a deep level - and that’s fine. For some people this changes over time (I started out telling stories, after all) and for others it doesn’t.
I do think sex workers should feel free to choose where they want their stories told, no judgments, but I still find it curious that Susannah isn’t engaging with the discussion about this at all - and it’s been almost entirely civil.
6:09 pm
My guess is that she doesn’t have time to discuss it (like she probably doesn’t have time to write her own blog entries, snicker snicker; sorry, I couldn’t resist).
I don’t know why I’m feeling very assholish about this whole conversation . . .
6:18 pm
Did I point that out?
Oh, I guess the primary resource comment. Well, yeah. This blockquote kinda feels like a misconstrual (is that a word?) of what I was getting at, but probably I was just being unclear.
6:28 pm
[…] Waking Vixen » Sex workers speak up: but who publishes it? Interesting discussion. (tags: sexwork blogging socialmedia internet) […]
9:03 pm
i’ll be the petty one and say i never did like breslin’s many sex blog experiments, because she always struck me as a tourist writing from the perspective of a local.
12:06 am
“I do think sex workers should feel free to choose where they want their stories told, no judgments, but I still find it curious that Susannah isn’t engaging with the discussion about this at all - and it’s been almost entirely civil.”
This is my thought exactly. I didn’t filter her based on whether I personally wanted to contribute to her blog, I thought that posting her message at the blog was a very civil way of inviting BnG readers to decide for themselves if her blog is right for them.
I was shocked at her blog post in response. patronizing… dismissive…
I thought it was a legitimate question: Does anybody at BnG want to participate? I couldn’t answer that and frankly, I’m interested to see if people do, free will and all. Informed decision-making is an obvious benefit of the blog.
Preaching to the choir here obviously, but everybody has already said a lot of what needs to be said, thanks for your comments at BnG Audacia!
9:52 pm
I’m one of the “working girls” that sent a story in to Susannah. Here’s why I did it.
Amber hit the nail on the head, kinda:
“However, I do think Letters from Working Girls serves a purpose, for people who might not yet be comfortable posting elsewhere. It might seem silly but I can relate to the feeling of wanting to slowly dip your toe into something, and being so terrified of the possible (real or imagined) repercussions.”
It isn’t so much that I’m afraid of repercussions, I just wanted to tell ONE story, and have it heard. Her project was an outlet for that. At this moment (and it could change) I don’t feel the need to write about sex work all that frequently (I tried to blog about it but it got neglected because I was rarely inspired to sit down and write about it). I wanted a one-off, where I could say something and have it heard, and there it was.
I also don’t think that the aim of Susannah’s site is the same as the aim of the sites in the sex worker community. I could be wrong, since I am a relative stranger to sites like these, but these sites seem more geared towards discussion of experiences within the community, whereas her “Letters” project is intended for readers outside. Collecting letters in one place could serve to enlighten someone to the range of (very, very different) reasons people buy or sell sex, in a way that a singular sex worker’s blog couldn’t. I kind of like that idea.
I would write more but I am sick and going to bed. I appreciate both sides of this issue though, and I’ll probably be poking around on sites like this more often now.
12:47 am
[…] From Waking Vixen:Sex workers speak up: but who publishes it?"Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but I really value sex worker run, written and edited spaces. Instead of sending your stories about being a sex worker to that blog, we should encourage sex workers to start their own blogs or participate here on Bound, Not Gagged. There are many other sex worker bloggers who I’m sure would love to give a platform or guest blogging spot to sex workers who don’t want to start blogs but have a story to tell. I personally would rather see that than see sex workers send their writing to a blogger who, to my knowledge, isn’t a sex worker. This isn’t to say that Susannah has evil intentions for our words, but I’d rather see those words in sex worker run spaces." […]
1:27 pm
As libby pointed out, this is just the latest of many blog-like projects Breslin has undertaken. She’s got a history of deleting them after relatively short periods of time. So I’d say, this too shall pass.
As someone who makes my living by compiling and linking and reposting to titillating material of all kinds, I don’t really see her project as “leaching” or exploitative. But I do see it as a poor choice of venue for publishing these stories, because judging by track record, the site will be gone in two years.
I have speculated privately in the past that she’s uncomfortable, or at least has complex / mixed feelings about the erotic material she blogs about; it would explain why she doesn’t consider it valuable enough to preserve after she’s published it. Her vicious snark in connection with the current brouhaha sort of tends to reinforce my no-longer-private suspicion.
2:31 am
Sorry, must say I disagree completely and can’t see your issue. Maybe because I’m not involved with the adult industries?
So Breslin made some blogs where people submit content which she posts without revealing their names or links? That’s nothing new. In fact, it’s a huge area of the blogosphere right now. People like specialized, anonymous blogs containing posts from multiple authors. They like going someplace and knowing exactly what they’re getting. That’s why PostSecret has had international success and a thousand other sites take after it. I personally love them.
Say I’m a “working girl” with a blog. It’s not going to be all about my night job, sorry. Just because a working girl has a blog, doesn’t mean it will touch on the work at all. And if that’s what you want, you’ll have to do a lot more searching to find those interesting tidbits whereas, both of these sites, give you exactly what you want immediately.
Furthermore, while begging for content from other communities and sites is annoying, it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before.
If someone wants credit for their story or a link, it’s pretty obvious they won’t get it at Letters from Johns/Working Girls and they should simply stay away as I’m sure many have. However, as mentioned, there’s myriad reasons why one would want to tell just a story or remain anonymous or not have to maintain a blog and that gives submission blogs a strong presence in the online community.
Lastly, you say it would be better for Working Girls to have their own blogs or post on working girl-specific sites and I’m sure many do. These blogs are not about -them- however. They’re about the rest.
4:50 pm
[…] *Dacia questions Reverse Cowgirl’s co-opting of sex workers’ stories. It’s worth following all of the links, reading the comments and giving it some thought yourself. I think I vaguely recall Reverse Cowgirl’s blog going down for a period of time years ago (2003?) after which I abandoned reading it (shortly after discovering it, so I never got really “into” it). I do not relish the idea of someone who deletes blog history or is in the habit of abandoning her blogs compiling a bunch of stories by other people only to have them mysteriously disappear or be gathered up, deleted, and perhaps be republished in a book. Since she *is* a published author/more experienced (and, I assume, more ambitious) with publishing than your average hobbyist blogger, I’m curious if she has plans beyond the blogs for these stories she’s collecting and, if so, if she gets permission from the contributors for future/other uses (my guess is no, since the contributions are anonymous). Just thinking out loud and hypothesizing here. […]
4:50 pm
[…] *Dacia questions Reverse Cowgirl’s co-opting of sex workers’ stories. It’s worth following all of the links, reading the comments and giving it some thought yourself. I think I vaguely recall Reverse Cowgirl’s blog going down for a period of time years ago (2003?) after which I abandoned reading it (shortly after discovering it, so I never got really “into” it). I do not relish the idea of someone who deletes blog history or is in the habit of abandoning her blogs compiling a bunch of stories by other people only to have them mysteriously disappear or be gathered up, deleted, and perhaps be republished in a book. Since she *is* a published author/more experienced (and, I assume, more ambitious) with publishing than your average hobbyist blogger, I’m curious if she has plans beyond the blogs for these stories she’s collecting and, if so, if she gets permission from the contributors for future/other uses (my guess is no, since the contributions are anonymous). Just thinking out loud and hypothesizing here. […]
4:59 pm
[…] *Audacia Ray’s reaction (and discussion in comments) to Letters from Working Girls […]
4:59 pm
[…] *Audacia Ray’s reaction (and discussion in comments) to Letters from Working Girls […]
1:21 pm
I can appreciate keeping all entries anonymous, but my question would be this: Where is the statement of what she plans to do with them?
I might sound a bit jumpy, but I’d be a lot happier if there was some kind of disclaimer stating that all “letters” remained the property of their authors and would not be used elsewhere without specific permission.