World Cup mania has struck worldwide, and along with the stories about team victories and groups of fans gathering cheer on their home teams, are stories about the economic effect the World Cup has on South Africa. Countries host sporting events on the scale of the World Cup and the Olympics for a number of reasons, but attracting tourists and boosting local economies is certainly a big motivator.
Despite all the positives to report on, the media loves a downside–and for huge sporting events, the downside is human trafficking, which the United Nations defines as:
“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”
Mainstream media outlets have been reporting that 40,000 women have been trafficked into South African brothels for the World Cup. That’s a pretty horrifying statistic – except that there simply aren’t any good citations that confirm it.
To be fair, there is some critique of the World Cup trafficking scare happening in mainstream media – for example, this month Yahoo! Sports ran piece called “Debunking the World Cup’s Biggest Myth” and the Wall Street Journal published an article called “Suspect Estimates of Trafficking at the World Cup”– but the voices of South Africans, and particularly people who work in the sex industry, were entirely absent from the articles. It’s a shame, because people in South Africa certainly have quite a bit to say on the subject.
The South African grassroots organization Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Task Force (SWEAT) has recently launched an online resource about their push to decriminalize sex work in South Africa. In addition to useful resources about myths and facts, and why people should support decriminalization, the website features the perspectives of sex workers themselves and critique of the reports on trafficking and the World Cup. SWEAT is careful to make the distinction between trafficking (which involves coercion or explicit force) and sex work (which, like many jobs, is often undertaken because of the circumstances of a person’s life), while many news reports present these situations as interchangeable. SWEAT supports anti-trafficking initiatives while also supporting sex workers’ rights to a livelihood without violence or discrimination. Their work also focuses on the examining the realities of HIV transmission among the sex working population.
South African Researchers Marlise Richter and Tamlyn Monson wrote up a Human Trafficking and Migration issue brief on the subject, in which they write:
… there is no evidence to support claims that trafficking is already a significant problem in the Southern African region. Furthermore, there is no evidence to support the expectation that a large sporting event such as the 2010 Soccer World Cup is likely to increase human trafficking levels. The claim that trafficking is linked to large-scale sporting events is based, implicitly or explicitly, on the belief that events which attract large numbers of tourists – especially male tourists – increase the demand for paid sex. This supposedly increased demand is then assumed to be filled through women (and children) trafficked for sex.
Germany’s experiences during the 2006 Soccer World Cup contradict claims that trafficking volumes will rise during the 2010 event in South Africa. Before the 2006 Soccer World Cup, media reports and NGOs claimed that 40,000 women and children would be trafficked into Germany. Yet, in research conducted after the 2006 World Cup, researchers found evidence of only five cases of trafficking.
Trafficking is a very serious topic, but it’s important to recognize the differences between trafficking and sex work, without doing so, we do a disservice to both victims of trafficking and sex workers. It’s great that the World Cup has brought attention to these issues, but we need to make sure we’re doing it in the right way, and that the voices of those who are affected are included in the solutions.
Hosted by Audacia Ray Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
Thursday, July 1. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10
21 and up – FREE
15% of the bar tab supports PROS Network (Providers and Resources Offering Services to sex workers)
Starring:
Damien Luxe is a multi-media performer and artist who has worked in DIY/indie print, web, theater and audio production for over 10 years. She has performed all over Canada and the US, has two self-published music albums out, and from 2006-2009 she Art Directed the award-winning $pread Magazine. Currently, she is the Co-Head Madam of the NYC Femme Family, Co-Creative Director of the H[art] Collective, is completing a DIY MFA, and is touring work that honors feminine hero/ines.
Christina Cicchelli has spent five years as a sex worker with experience in a myriad of industries, including phone sex and professional domination. As a Mistress, she has worked in several NYC dungeons and also visited clients on an independent basis. As a phone sex operator, she maintained a large amount of callers who enjoyed her guidance, creativity and experienced in fetish and role-play.
Christina is best known for her career as a porn actress. Under the non de plume, Simone Valentino, Christina has performed in a handful of sexy films. She received an AVN nomination for Best Actress for her role in Afrodite Superstar and won “Best New Starlet” at the Feminist Porn Awards in 2008 for her role in Audacia Ray’s The Bi Apple.
Christina is $pread Magazine’s “Media Whore” Columnist and her work is also featured on Betty Dodson’s website, Dodsonandross.com. She currently resides in New York City where she is hunched over her laptop spinning erotic conspiracy theories and sexual speculative fiction.
Poet and performance artist Izzy Oneiric‘s writing has appeared under various names in nearly twenty print and online publications such as $pread, Exquisite Corpse, Wheelhouse Magazine, Opium, and Burdock. For several years she was Poetry Editor for other magazine. She has lived and performed all over the country and has been a stripper, fetish model, and gay porn clerk. She holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies and an MFA in Poetry. She currently lives and teaches in Chicago.
Rope Boi is the founding member of a household of queer, kinky women and bois in the Boston area. She strives to live critically and to forge new arrangements of sexuality and relationality. She is a student and an educator. She will be presenting at TES Fest in Piscataway, New Jersey, on July 2-5, 2010.
Busty Kitten is a theatrical know-it-all, muse and artiste, and feminist barstool philosopher. She co-produces and co-hosts The Giddy Multitude Vaudeville Co, a monthly cabaret of circus, music, dance, comedy, and burlesque. www.giddymultitude.com. Her work explores issues of sex and sexuality, body image, and constructed identies of femininity. She holds a BA from UC Santa Cruz and will be pursuing an MA in Applied Theatre at CUNY in the fall. She can be seen burlesque dancing at the usual venues around NYC and proudly earning her sweat equity at WOW Cafe Theatre.
ThePROS Network (Providers and Resources Offering Services to sex workers) is a coalition of sex workers, organizers, direct service providers, advocates, and media makers. We exist to collaborate on programs and campaigns around sex work-related issues in the New York metropolitan area. We work with people of all genders who, by choice, circumstance, or coercion, engage in sexual activities for money, food, shelter, clothing, drugs, or other survival needs. Grounded in principles of social justice and human rights, the PROS Network embraces a non-judgmental, harm reduction approach. Check them out on Facebook.
This is a video keynote speech I produced to be shown at the LOVER magazine conversation on sex work in Utrecht, Holland on June 23, 2010. Though the bulk of the conversation at the event is about local prostitution law, I was asked to provide a rights-based perspective to get the conversation started.
Thanks to Marije Janssen (website in Dutch) for the invitation. Hopefully next time I’ll be delivering my speech in person.
Transcript:
The sex industry is complex and contains many different worker experiences, from extreme violation of human rights to middle class employment, and many experiences in between. This means not just that it’s hard to talk and write about, but that it’s really difficult to make effective policies that protect the people who work in the industry from exploitation and other potential harms while not encroaching on their livelihood and bodily autonomy. People who work in the sex industry do so by choice, circumstance, or coercion – and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish among these situations. It is vital that we as policy makers, advocates, managers of programs at non-governmental organizations, and members of civil society — including people who work in the sex industry and people who patronize the sex industry – ensure sex worker rights and access to health and social services.
I am a former sex worker and a current sex worker rights advocate. I work with local sex worker communities in my hometown, New York City, to create visibility and awareness of the stigma and discrimination that sex workers face. I also do information and communications technology development and technical assistance for grassroots groups through my work with the International Women’s Health Coalition and the Global Network of Sex Work projects. As the co-founder of the Sex Work Awareness project, I lead media training workshops for sex workers who are seeking to do media advocacy work and improve their ability to interface with mainstream media. I host a monthly public storytelling series, the Red Umbrella Diaries, where sex workers tell stories about their lives. I am committed to putting sex workers at the center of conversations about our welfare.
To improve the lives of all people in the sex industry, including women, men, and transgender women, we need to have a vision of what the ideal would be. And even though it seems like a somewhat fantastical and out of reach exercise, I think it’s important to dream of a better future for sex workers. Ideal conditions for sex workers would recognize and protect their human rights and dignity. For me, a positive future for sex workers would have two different dimensions: economic justice and bodily autonomy. In a better world, people would be able to freely choose how they make a living and with whom they choose to share their sexual selves.
Throughout the world, wage inequalities between men and women are firmly entrenched. Women make less money than men in all industries except for the sex industry. Whether women are in the sex industry because of the coercive acts of men who know what women’s market value is or because of the economic circumstances of their lives, many will not have the option to leave the business unless there are viable jobs that pay as well or better than sex work. The fault of this situation does not lie with the sex industry(!), but rather with the greater structures of sexism and valuing of women’s erotic labor over other forms of work. It is a problem that needs to be fixed on a grand scale and cannot be solved by eradicating the sex industry.
Throughout the world, women are robbed of their bodily autonomy through rape, early and forced marriage, inability to access safe abortion, and intimate partner violence – to name a few. Although some advocates regard sex work as violence against women, it is the culture at large that is harming women, and perpetuates violence against all women, especially those who are transgender, poor, or vulnerable to abuse. To view the work itself as harm is a narrow vision.
It is only with economic justice and bodily autonomy for all people, including men and transgender women, that a better reality for sex workers can be attained. So my charge to you, and to people working to improve the living conditions of sex workers around the world, is to consider the (much needed) steps that will take us closer to this distant but hopefully not impossible dream.
Last fall, when I took a trip to India, visited with SANGRAM in Sangli district and shot a lot of video, I got to see the beginnings of a video project that was giving people in the community the skills to produce their own films. The Community Video Unit (CVU) is a project run by Video Volunteers over the course of eighteen months, and 10 people in Sangli were just starting to learn how to operate a camera, see a good shot, and edit their own footage.
SANGRAM is a nationally and internationally rights-based organization in India’s Maharashtra State working towards halting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India through assisting sex workers, rural women and girls, and other marginalized groups to mobilize and secure their rights and access to health services. They do this not only through advocacy at the local, national and international levels, but by empowering local communities to make change for themselves. One of the ways they are making this change is by documenting the experiences of people in their communities.
The above video, “The Reason I Left School,” is the group’s first effort. The video focuses on the struggles of the children of sex workers in Sangli to get an education and stay in school when faced with ridicule and discrimination. It’s especially interesting to hear the perspectives of adult children of sex workers as they talk about their experiences and how their thoughts on school, and their mothers, have changed as they have become adults. The plight of the children of sex workers in India has gotten plenty of attention over the years, but there are frequently overtones of moral judgment in the pieces. It’s refreshing to hear directly from the children themselves, in a piece of media that is self-produced. Seeing the difficult challenges they have faced through their eyes is important in and of itself, and essential to gaining a better understanding of the economic and social circumstances their communities face.
On June 15, 2010 the New York State senate passed a bill that, effective as soon as Governor Paterson signs it, enables survivors of human trafficking to vacate their convictions for prostitution-related offenses. This amendment to New York State Criminal Procedure Law grants those who were trafficked into commercial sex the opportunity to start over with a clean slate.
The Sex Workers Project (SWP) worked closely with Assembly Member Richard Gottfried to draft and introduce the bill in April 2009, which is also sponsored by Senator Thomas Duane. Supporters include the New York City Bar Association, the New York Anti-Trafficking Network, and Sex Workers Action New York.
The new legislation empowers survivors of trafficking by allowing them to move on with their lives, and function in society without the stigma of past exploitation. Survivors have a better chance of escaping re-victimization or further coercion when they do not have criminal records that often prevent them from obtaining work, getting stable housing, and adjusting their immigration status.
Who does this affect?
Over the past eight years the Sex Workers Project (SWP), a legal advocacy and services organization housed by the Urban Justice Center, has given legal assistance to many people who are in the sex industry by choice, circumstance, or coercion. As they assisted survivors of trafficking in accessing their rights and attaining safety, security, and a better future, it became clear that there was a need for a legal remedy that would allow survivors to move forward with their lives.
One client, “Carmen,” was trafficked from Mexico, and was beaten, abused and forced to do prostitution. She was arrested over 10 times during this nightmare, but her fear of the police made it impossible to inform law enforcement that she was being exploited by a third party. “Stacey” is a United States citizen who was trafficked into prostitution as a teen when she ran from an abusive home. She recovered with help from service providers, but has had trouble getting a job because of her prostitution conviction. As a result of the passage of the vacating prostitution convictions legislation, Carmen will no longer be blocked from immigration status because of her prostitution record, and Stacey will no longer have to inform potential employers of her record.
Why is this good?
People who are coerced into the sex industry and are then convicted of prostitution are handed a raw deal. In addition to being survivors of abuse and coercion, they saddled with lifelong stigma by the criminal justice system. With a prostitution conviction on their records, survivors of sex trafficking have a difficult time moving forward. This is not justice; it is harmful to survivors and can lead to re-victimization if they are unable to secure legal status in the United States and in the workforce.
The passage of this bill has shown us that it is possible for sex workers rights advocates to have their say, and that there are state legislators who will listen to our concerns. This gives us hope for changing a system that so often institutionalizes violence and discrimination against sex workers.
What’s next and what can I do about it?
If you live in New York State, this is a really great opportunity to make your Assembly and Senate representatives’ acquaintance. Send your representatives a letter (feel free to use the sample text below or write your own).
Find out who your Assembly member and Senator are here. Call or write to them to express your thanks!
To make it even easier, we’ve set up a form you can submit. Sign a “Thank you” petition on Change.org – which will automatically be sent to your representatives – here.
There is, of course, more work to be done. There is another bill making its way through the legislature right now that, if passed, will stop police and prosecutors from using possession of condoms as evidence that people are engaging or intending to engage in prostitution. Right now in New York people who are profiled as prostitutes, very often trans women, often have their condoms confiscated as evidence of prostitution. In addition to thanking your representatives, you should urge them to support New York State Bill A10893/S01289A.
Sample letter:
Dear ______ ,
Thank you for voting in favor of New York State Bill A7670/S04429, which enables survivors of human trafficking to vacate their convictions for prostitution-related offenses.
I live in your district and I support the human rights of people who are in the sex industry by choice, circumstance, or coercion. The reasons a woman, transgender woman, man, or transgender man may enter and continue to be in the sex industry are complex and are often tied to economic instability and inequalities faced by women and LGBT people.
As you know, an advocate’s work is never done. Currently, bills A10893/S01289A are making their way through the legislature. If passed, this bill will stop police and prosecutors from using possession of condoms as evidence that people are engaging or intending to engage in prostitution. This practice affects public health initiatives promoting condom use and distributing condoms to at-risk populations. Please support this bill and remove the fear of carrying condoms among our most vulnerable populations.
Sincerely,
NAME
Address
I’m not a New Yorker. How can I advocate against harmful policies in my state?
Ask most people about government and they tend to talk about their federal representatives, the White House, or maybe their Mayor. But the state government may have the most significant impacts on our daily lives, particularly in the realm of criminal justice. Although the process from bill to law varies widely state to state, there are some common strategies sex worker advocates can take.
Familiarize yourself with the current laws that affect sex workers.
Criminal Law– find out what crimes sex workers are arrested and convicted for – it could include prostitution, solicitation, loitering, or others. Talk to sex workers in your community who have been arrested and ask them about their experiences with the law.
Civil Law – find out if sex workers can be evicted from their homes, denied custody of their children, or lose their jobs.
Exotic dancers, pro-dommes, porn actors, and others – Find out if there are laws that discriminate against these workers.
Ask a friendly lawyer for help!
Look for current bills that make changes to these laws – for better or worse. Try a search on your state’s legislative webpage for key words like “prostitution.”
Make allies – research local organizations that may be allied with your goals. Try LGBT orgs, public health orgs, harm reduction orgs, civil rights orgs. These organizations may have legislative advocacy staff that can help you get oriented.
Develop your platform. Think small – look for concrete objectives that can be accomplished with adjustments to the law. Any of these New York bills could be used as “model legislation” to make similar changes in your state. Your platform may include opposing bad bills that increase penalties for sex work.
Research your local representatives. Identify potential allies and opposition to sex workers rights.
Write, call, and meet with your legislator once you have a clear ask (“I would like to ask for your support on bill XXXXX” or “I have an idea for a piece of legislation that would accomplish…”). Assume they know nothing about sex work and may be surprised to hear from a sex worker/ally constituent.
My quote is one sentence on the second page of the article, but I thought I’d share the longer interview Chloe did with me via email, which better captures my perspective:
1) Briefly, what is your general perception of how sex workers are talked about and treated in American culture?
Sex workers generally aren’t treated as whole human beings worthy of dignity and respect in American culture. When they are discussed, sex workers are talked about as victims or the punchline of a joke, and they are always talked about with the assumption that there are no sex workers present.
2) Is the sexual assault rate among sex workers higher than among the general population?
This is hard to answer precisely, because sexual assault rates are based on what is reported, and sex workers (whether their jobs are legal or not) aren’t likely to report assault. I don’t know of any good statistics about sex worker’s rate of assault, partly because of political ideologies about sex work prevent good, clear research from being done – and some researchers consider the work itself to be assault.
3) Briefly, what are the difficulties that sex workers face when seeking justice for sexual assault? Eg. Are report rates lower? Are police unresponsive to reports? Is it more difficult to get an arrest, trial or conviction?
The biggest barrier to sex workers seeking justice for crimes committed against them are the police themselves. Police are notorious for raping and abusing sex workers who they arrest or who ask for their help. Trans women and men who sleep with men have this especially bad, crimes committed against them go largely unreported. The much celebrated Rape Shield Law, a federal law that says that rape survivors cannot have their sexual histories admitted as evidence, does not apply to prior prostitution convictions in some states. In New York, if a prostitute takes his or her rapist to court, regardless of whether she was working when she was raped, they can discuss her prostitution record from the last three years.
Welcome to the first Red Umbrella Diaries Blog Carnival! I haven’t decided yet which one I’ll read, but I’m going to perform and record one of the following stories at the July 1st event.
Stay tuned for the line-up of the the live Coworkers and Co-conspirators event happening in NYC on July 1!
The relationship between the busboy and dancers is ridiculous. The dancers make way more money than the busboy, who happens to be an undocumented immigrant. They send him out for smokes and dinners and pay him only for what he buys, and never bother tipping. It’s fucked up. One day he had a few drinks, and started telling me that he really liked me.
-”Work with me now..” from the blog Civil Undressed, by Mona
Working in the field of sex makes you lose your filter very quickly and the “sexy” because the hohum. While we aren’t sex workers, our organization serves thousands of people with contraception, STD tests/treatment and abortions. Sex consumes 80% of our work life, the remaining 20% is the usual: who forgot to reload paper in the copier, whose turn is it to buy coffee, and why doesn’t this conference call number work?
I oversee the staff who answers weekly sex questions on a blog and runs the social media of a reputable provider in reproductive health. Here are some samples of email exchanges that happen daily:
“This week, anal sex is a priority. Chlamydia simply has to wait.” “There is a burlesque show that wants us to hand out condoms. Who has bordello red lipstick and a Weimar Republic outfit?”
“Enough with the hets, already. It’s been, like, 3 weeks of breeder info.” “Did everyone know extra-large condoms are just a gimmick? Why don’t you people tell me this stuff?”
“Vajazzeling, again?” “Anyone recommend a music video that goes well with an STD post?”
“I know it is late, but can you squeeze in a sex toy review? I hate to even ask.” “Anyone ever find the emergency contraception costume? We have an intern who is actually willing to wear it.”
“Wow. Did you guys know you can get custom cockrings that are diamond studded?” “This post on bondage reads like instructions on how to scrub your kitchen sink. Can we please edit?”
“Did anyone else lick the cola flavored dental dam? Gross.”
What is the “whore look”? It’s a look of disapproval mixed with snobbery and a twinge of sexual tension. The viewer thinks, “How sad. How dirty. How much for me? I’m cute. Free?” Vixen and Sera weren’t bothered; they were inspired. In the bathroom, drunk, giggling about “the whore look,” and noting their seemingly incompatible mirror images, they hatched their brainchild: “Mismatched Whores.”
Since I started doing the Sex Worker Literati events a year ago, lots of people have been bummed out that they aren’t in NYC and able to attend. And now I have an answer. The Red Umbrella Diaries Blog Carnival is a way for sex workers and their allies to participate in the Red Umbrella Diaries from afar. Every month, I’ll do a carnival of pieces of writing on the upcoming event’s theme.
For the next event, which takes place on July 1, the theme is Coworkers and Co-conspirators. Here’s a little something to get you started thinking:
In every industry, quirky coworkers keep jobs entertaining, livable, or sometimes downright miserable. But what’s too much information and even sexual harassment at other jobs is just a day in the life in the sex industry.
Send me a piece that is up to 700 words long, and I’ll pick my favorite to read at the event – and of course then I’ll put the recording in the new Red Umbrella Diaries audio podcast, which will launch in July. Your piece can be previously published on your own blog or elsewhere, or you can conceal your identity and email me a piece that you can’t put your name on. The themes can be interpreted all kinds of different ways, I love to see creativity. Send your links or text to stories@redumbrellaproject.com by June 15th.
There’s an annual conference happening in Massachusetts this coming weekend called Stop Porn Culture – the aim of the meeting is in the name. The conference is organized by notorious anti-porn feminists and women’s studies professors Gail Dines and Donna Hughes (there’s plenty about them online, google to find it because I don’t want to link to them). Violet Blue has rallied the pro-porn troupes to speak out against the conference with a website, video, and contest: check out her Our Porn, Ourselves project.
Part of the reason that arguments about porn, sex work, and sexuality are infinitely exciting and drama-producing is because they sit at the nexus of several issues that get people very wound up about: sexuality, representation, and the business of sex. These seem kind of similar, and they do overlap but it’s also important to unpack and distinguish between them:
Sexuality: I’m using this word to refer to desire and the pursuit of sexual pleasures.
Representation: The outrage about images and “the gaze” are all about how these things contribute to the objectification and debasement of cis female bodies and acts of sex.
Business of Sex: The combination of sex and money is volatile stuff that is often abstracted in conversations about sexuality & representation. In discussions of porn, the oft-quoted, never confirmed “$11 billion a year” adult industry focuses on porn companies and producers who benefit from porn. The rights of porn performers, as workers, are almost always left out.
I have critiques of this current anti-porn/pro-porn dust-up on a few different levels: the contents of the argument itself and the specifics of what are and are not being discussed, and the choice to engage in this argument (because what’s the fun of semantics without a little meta for good measure?).
I think both sides of the pro/anti argument are missing the mark somewhat. Anti-porn feminists focus mostly on the harm that watching porn and visually consuming cis women’s bodies has on the individual psyches and sexualities of the people who watch the stuff. In the anti argument, porn is an evil monolith, full of grotesque heterosexual acts that debase female performers. There is a lot that is awful about porn, but most of the representational stuff is a matter of taste. There simply isn’t much of an evidence-based correlation between porn consumption and acts of physical violence. Pro-porn feminists use the argument that female viewers exist as evidence of the notion that the consumption of porn can be a feminist act – again, a matter of taste. In accordance with the “taste” argument, feminist porn viewers also point out that there is porn that is produced by and for women and queers (meaning cis dykes, female-bodied genderqueers, and trans men).
Both sides are all over the sexuality and representation aspects of the conversation, but are missing a critique of the business of sex and the working conditions under which porn performers do their jobs. To me, good and bad porn is not so much about what it looks like, but the business transactions and pressures happening behind the scenes.
It’s often hard to tell just from looking at a visual representation whether or not the performers are being placed under duress or if their working conditions are bad. Can you tell by looking at a tee shirt whether it was made by workers in ethical working conditions? Nope. Not unless you look at the label and then do your homework on the company.
Sometimes when I present the idea that its not the aggressive anal/choking/cum splattering that makes porn unethical or unfeminist, but the conditions under which the performers are doing said acts, people say things like, “its impossible to know what the working conditions are.” It isn’t impossible – it just requires some research. Just as people research textile factory conditions and then put pressure on corporations to have better practices – the same could happen with porn.
Violet Blue is entangled with this debate on porn as a critic – this is an important fact. She’s never produced porn or (to my knowledge) taken money from the mainstream porn biz. She’s actively posed as a nude and fetish model in her own creations and the creations of her friends and colleagues. She’s been a vocal advocate of women’s rights to consume porn, as well as a harsh critic of a lot of the truly awful porn that the mainstream industry spits out. This is important because there are plenty of people involved in the mainstream hetero porn world who are proponents of free speech being generously applied to the adult industry (dicey legal construction of “obscenity” be damned!), but their commitment to free speech is more about protecting their business interests than being renegade First Amendment advocates. Violet is very much not one of the motivated-by-porn-profit people, her interest in porn is actually about having an interest in the sexualities of women. But I would love to see her, and the other folks who are standing up and proclaiming themselves to be pro-porn, to incorporate a critique of the awful stuff in porn, especially the business practices that put performers in risky work and sex situations.
Now for the meta layer.
I started tinkering with a post about this pro/anti stuff last week when the Our Porn, Ourselves project was still in the Twitter outrage phase of things (one of my fave things about twitter is seeing ideas and projects evolve in real time).
I made a few comments on my twitter that I want to expand on here:
Sometimes fighting the opposition is worthwhile. Sometimes fighting extreme stupid is just stupid, and your time could be better spent.
WRT to last tweet, thinking in particular about people mobilizing around feminist anti-porn conference. what can be gained from that convo?
More generally, maybe fighting with self-righteous feminists is stupid (but can be good fun, if you’re feeling feisty).
Going head-to-head with the likes of Hughes and Dines seems like a bad idea to me. At the moment I can’t think of an instance in which I would accept an invitation to debate those ladies – and I’ve been invited to do so on a number of occasions. It’s not worth the stress and strain. I understand and appreciate the concept of public debate, but since I’m not a politician that format just doesn’t have a lot of sway in my world. Why engage in fiercely oppositional arguments, when people on either side aren’t going to shift their positions? Who does that benefit? I would much rather spend my time openly and respectfully discussing nuances of the issue with thoughtful people who might not be clear on their position with respect to the sex industry, but are curious and interested in listening. I’m interested in coalition-building, and forming alliances with people who are concerned about creating spaces for healthy sexual expression and support the economic and bodily autonomy of people in the sex trade.
It’s amazing and inspiring to me that there is so much sex worker culture being produced. Three things below: the last Sex Worker Literati before I start doing my solo-hosted Red Umbrella Diaries is tomorrow, the Sex Worker Cabaret extravanganza happening this Sunday evening at the Slipper Room in NYC, and a call for Kickstarter funding for a performance art project happening during the Desiree Alliance conference next month in Las Vegas.
Hosted by Audacia Ray and David Henry Sterry Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
Thursday, June 3. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10
Stick around after the reading to dance and party with hos, hookers, and ne’er do wells! 21 and up – FREE
Spending over a decade in New York City has been far from mundane for Randi Newton.
Moving to Manhattan from Omaha, Nebraska- in 1998 to pursue an acting career. Newton started by working as a live-in nanny, to trading up for a position at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, to managing for a for a prestigious liquor company, being laid off and eventually wandering into a gentlemen’s club where a year long waitressing position, turned into a stripping stint that parlayed into opening surprising media appearances and writing opportunities. Featured as the cover story, April 2009, of the Sunday New York Post about women stripping in times of an economic crisis, Newton has also appeared internationally to speak about the recession and the gentlemen’s club industry. In addition she has been featured in Radar Magazine, Penthouse Magazine (fully dressed) and such television programs such as; Inside Edition, The Insider, The TODAY Show, CBS This Morning, Entertainment Tonight. She’s also appeared as a panelist multiple times on FOX News The Strategy Room, and appeared on The Gayle King Show/Oprah Radio, and went face to face with Bill O’Reilly on the controversial “The O’Reilly Factor”. Newton has also appeared in such television programs such as various appearances on “Howard TV On Demand”, “The Sopranos”, “Nip/Tuck”, and films, “Mona Lisa Smile”, “Sean Lennon’s Friendly Fire”, and most recently the Darby Crash biopic, “What We Do is Secret”.
In addition, Randi is a columnist for one of the most respected trade publications in the adult nightclub industry, “Exotic Dancer Magazine”. She attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha, on a scholarship provided from the Miss America Organization, and has more recently studied at The New School in New York City, The Groundlings in Los Angeles, and Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City. She spends her spare time, reading, writing, playing poker, and enjoys karaoke. She is currently working on her second memoir and working at Rick’s Cabaret’s flagship location in New York City. Newton resides between New York and Los Angeles.
Cameryn Moore is a writer, comedian, sex educator, performer, and, oh yeah, a professional phone sex operator. Her one-woman play, Phone Whore, opens in Boston May 15-16, and will tour to 17 other cities in North America this summer and fall (including Brooklyn’s Brick Theatre November 5-6!). In Boston she is the host of f*ckbucket, a monthly talk show/sex-trivia night at the Savant Project, and regularly appears at the Naked Comedy Showcase, the Comedy Studio, and Good Vibrations. Catch more of her in NYC this weekend: June 4 at Ochi’s Lounge with the Back Room, and June 5 at her first NYC Naked Comedy Showcase. For tour dates, visit her at www.camerynmoore.com.
Sarah Jenny is a community organizer, activist and visual artist. She is a co-founder and organizer of the NYC chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP-NYC) and Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK). She has previously served on the board of directors of the Desiree Alliance Conference and as the New Media Director of $pread Magazine. Sarah Jenny is currently a masters candidate at New York University with a focus on mobile technology for public health. She is co-organizing the Sex Worker Cabaret at the Slipper Room on June 6th and hopes you will attend.
Stephen Boyer will forever be in his early twenties fucking and getting fucked under the alias Dorian or Dorian Slay. Since the years are quickly stumbling away from his point of entry, Stephen has devoted his energies to writing, painting and performance. His work has been published by 2nd Floor Projects (San Francisco); Marjorie Wood Gallery (San Francisco); TRY zine; in the anthologies “Cool Thing: The Best New Gay Fiction from Young American Writers” and “Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism”; and a collection of poetry entitled “Ghosts” by Bent Boy Books came out this past January 1st, 2010. He has also shown work at Poet’s Theater, and has been involved in many a friends performance. Currently he is wrapping up a novel, producing a play and has an art show June 5th-6th between 12-7pm as part of the Bushwick Arts Festival with his friend Kevin Sheneberger at 301 Grove St. Brooklyn, New York. And check out his website www.minorprogression.com
‘Dominick’ is a founding participant of ‘Reading for Filth’, a monthly series founded by the late Dean Johnson. At the inaugural reading, Dominick came out about his 3-year stint as a full-time sex worker. In subsequent appearances, he’s honed his confessional voice, drawing on his sex worker diaries and correspondence to delve into a range of topics- his youth as a kept boy, his evolving persona as dominant guido-for-hire, the digital transformation of the sex industry, ass health- and of course, the johns, in all their splendor. Since retiring from sex work, Dominick walks among civilians in NYC’s real estate industry- where the art of the sell is supreme.
Mariko Passion, Educated Whore and Urban Geisha is a performance artist | activist | educator | whore revolutionary. She sings and rhymes her experiences and reality over beats and produces auto-documentary videos. She educates the community and fights for social justice issues related to sex workers rights in LA, across the U.S and the world. She has performed at the International AIDS conference Global Village stage in Mexico City, a conference that drew 20,000. She tries to feature or open mic perform somewhere in her hometown of Los Angeles a few times month. She is a singer, spoken word, visual and performance artist using various mediums to speak on the intense drive and passion of certain born to be hustlers living in a male privileged world.
About HIPS:
HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive) was founded in 1993 by a coalition of service providers, advocates, and law enforcement officials as an outreach and referral service. HIPS mission is to assist female, male, and transgender individuals engaging in sex work in Washington, DC in leading healthy lives. Utilizing a harm reduction model, HIPS’ programs strive to address the impact that HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections, discrimination, poverty, violence and drug use have on the lives of individuals engaging in sex work. HIPS is a nationally recognized program that meets the needs sex workers and assists them in their efforts to eliminate the transmission of HIV, increase sexual health, and reduce violence and harm associated with sex work and drug use. HIPS programs serve an estimated 2,000 sex workers a year on the streets and in our drop-in center, providing a full spectrum of programs to address basic & immediate needs, long-term goal setting and life skills development.
Sex workers take the stage to tell their diverse stories through burlesque, comedy, narrative, contortion, aerial performance, and more at Sex Worker Cabaret. Producers Sarah Jenny and Rachel Grinstein are proud to present an evening cabaret showcasing some of the most vibrant creative talent in the sex worker community. The cabaret is in homage to Annie Oakley’s Sex Workers Art Show (1997-2009) and will take place during LGBTQ Pride month, a time to reflect on the importance of community. Come bare witness as sex workers eloquently, and at times raunchily, speak their truths.
The Sex Worker Cabaret will take place on Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 7pm at the Slipper Room located at 167 Orchard Street, New York, NY. The event will be MCed by Go Magazine’s 2010 Readers Choice Award “Best MC” winner Sarah Jenny and DJed by DJ Sirlinda (Hey Queen!, Rumours, Gayface). Go-go dancers Calvin Clamdigger, Essence Revealed, and Violet Noxx will grace the stage during intermission.
Performers:
ANNABELLE XAAH
Annabelle Xaah is a Renaissance whore, who likes swinging from ropes, naked, singing and playing the mandolin. Her performance entails rope-swinging burlesque with original badass beats.
BUSTY KITTEN
Busty Kitten is a theatrical know-it-all, muse, and barstool philosopher with a feminist bent. She will perform a series of monologues and a burlesque routine about lap dancing.
ESSENCE REVEALED
Essence is a dual degreed, former lap dance engineer of the upscale gentlemen’s club scene, from NY to Vegas and sweet, sticky places in between. Essence innovates a dance form she calls “stripperlesque” in an excerpt from the finale of her solo show, Essence Revealed.”
GERRY VISCO
Gerry Visco is an illegally blonde writer, performer, photographer, and fashionista, who regularly covers events and the arts for New York Press.
INBRED HYBRID COLLECTIVE WITH LOGAN STEVENS
Inbred Hybrid Collective’s mandate is to stimulate a consciousness of the external factors affecting our human existence. Inbred Hybrid Collective will perform a musical conversation between hustlers in Times Square.
JODI SH. DOFF
How did a nice Jewish girl wind up spending a decade naked in Times Square? Writer Jodi Sh. Doff presents a peek from her one woman show.
LORELEI LEE
Lorelei Lee is a student, writer, and porn performer based in Brooklyn. She will read a work of autobiographical fiction.
LYDIA LOVE
Lydia Love mixes movement and spoken-word into performances of sincerity and sensuality. With candidness and complexity, Lydia will perform dance and spoken-word.
MATTHEW LAWRENCE
Matthew Lawrence is a writer and curator from Providence, Rhode Island. He will tell tales of why he wasn’t a very good escort.
**JUST ADDED!**
MARIKO PASSION
Information coming soon!
Are you interested in supporting sex worker rights? Go to http://kck.st/96VUMQ and support. We are seeking supporters to pledge to donate as little as $5 to support the 2010 Desiree Alliance conference scholarship program and performance art event “If it happens in Vegas… it’s still illegal.” The performance “IF IT HAPPENS IN VEGAS… IT’S STILL ILLEGAL” will be our most visible event during the conference and will reveal that not only is sex work unjustifiably subject to law enforcement across the United States that the same applies in the “wild” “party” town of Las Vegas.
Donors will not only get the pleasure of supporting sex workers in a cool way but also get exclusive access to a bunch of photos and video about the conference/performance and event via a passcoded website. People donating $25 or more will be able to access a special blog where we spill the beans about how we organize and strategize. Other supporter premiums include the Soixante-Neuf package (for donors of $69, we send you our underwear!) and the Art Lovers Special ($100 or more, we send you movies made by sex worker advocates and a CD from Mariko Passion).
We have to raise $2500 in total by Friday June 18. Donations are also tax deductible.
Damien Luxe is a multi-media performer and artist who has worked in DIY/indie print, web, theater and audio production for over 10 years. She has performed all over Canada and the US, has two self-published music albums out, and from 2006-2009 she Art Directed the award-winning $pread Magazine. Currently, she is the Co-Head Madam of the NYC Femme Family, Co-Creative Director of the H[art] Collective, is completing a DIY MFA, and is touring work that honors feminine hero/ines.
Poet and performance artist Izzy Oneiric‘s writing has appeared under various names in nearly twenty print and online publications such as $pread, Exquisite Corpse, Wheelhouse Magazine, Opium, and Burdock. For several years she was Poetry Editor for other magazine. She has lived and performed all over the country and has been a stripper, fetish model, and gay porn clerk. She holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies and an MFA in Poetry. She currently lives and teaches in Chicago.
Spending over a decade in New York City has been far from mundane for Randi Newton.
Cameryn Moore is a writer, comedian, sex educator, performer, and, oh yeah, a professional phone sex operator. Her one-woman play, Phone Whore, opens in Boston May 15-16, and will tour to 17 other cities in North America this summer and fall (including Brooklyn’s Brick Theatre November 5-6!). In Boston she is the host of f*ckbucket, a monthly talk show/sex-trivia night at the Savant Project, and regularly appears at the Naked Comedy Showcase, the Comedy Studio, and Good Vibrations. Catch more of her in NYC this weekend: June 4 at Ochi’s Lounge with the 
Stephen Boyer will forever be in his early twenties fucking and getting fucked under the alias Dorian or Dorian Slay. Since the years are quickly stumbling away from his point of entry, Stephen has devoted his energies to writing, painting and performance. His work has been published by 2nd Floor Projects (San Francisco); Marjorie Wood Gallery (San Francisco); TRY zine; in the anthologies “Cool Thing: The Best New Gay Fiction from Young American Writers” and “Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism”; and a collection of poetry entitled “Ghosts” by Bent Boy Books came out this past January 1st, 2010. He has also shown work at Poet’s Theater, and has been involved in many a friends performance. Currently he is wrapping up a novel, producing a play and has an art show June 5th-6th between 12-7pm as part of the Bushwick Arts Festival with his friend Kevin Sheneberger at 301 Grove St. Brooklyn, New York. And check out his website 
‘Dominick’ is a founding participant of ‘Reading for Filth’, a monthly series founded by the late Dean Johnson. At the inaugural reading, Dominick came out about his 3-year stint as a full-time sex worker. In subsequent appearances, he’s honed his confessional voice, drawing on his sex worker diaries and correspondence to delve into a range of topics- his youth as a kept boy, his evolving persona as dominant guido-for-hire, the digital transformation of the sex industry, ass health- and of course, the johns, in all their splendor. Since retiring from sex work, Dominick walks among civilians in NYC’s real estate industry- where the art of the sell is supreme.
