Speak Up! Media Training Materials as PDF

On April 18, 2009 Sex Work Awareness had our first Speak Up! Media Training for the Empowered Sex Worker in New York City. All the attendees got to take home a big packet of training materials, and now we’re making that 45 page manual available to the public with a Creative Commons license. Here are [...]

Sex Workers, Resistance, and the Media Panel at NYC Grassroots Media Conference 5/30

Join us at the 6th Annual Conference:HOPE to ACTION Saturday, May 30, 2009 9am-6pm: Hunter College, 68th St & Lexington Ave Registration is now open — save cash, register early!  Sex Workers, Resistance, and the Media panel/workshop Sex workers are frequently maligned and misrepresented in the mainstream media, where stories are most often about scandals, [...]

Mariko Passion sings “Decriminalize Me” in PSA for Sex Worker Fest

It plays when you come to the site, http://www.sexworkerfest.com/ You can download it here! http://www.sexworkerfest.com/PSASexWorkerFest2009.mp3

Support sex worker rights in Providence, Rhode Island May 21, 2009 by phone!!:

Forwarded on behalf of Maxine Doogan Support sex worker rights in Providence, Rhode Island TOMORROW by phone!!: Tara Hurley from Providence Rhode Island made a documentary about the sex workers there and legislation that is being proposed to make sex work illegal. She interviewed many sex workers in the area and has honestly represented their [...]

State of Arizona Commits Negligent Homicide Against Sex Worker

Yesterday afternoon, a female inmate of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Marcia Powell, who was serving 27 months for prostitution, perished in 100+ degree heat after being left outside for four hours in an uncovered holding cell.   A criminal investigation is supposedly underway to determine negligence. Sadly, one more for our beloved December 17th list.   [...]

Open Letter from Sex Worker Advocate to South Africa’s Honorable Premier Nomvula Mokonyane

This open letter comes to us through the activists at the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) in South Africa. SWEAT is involved in direct outreach work with sex workers around health and safety as well as public awareness and advocacy work. For much of our history the vast majority of South Africans suffered [...]

Quick Summary of the Situation

Someone else who doesn’t seem to be a sex worker has a great, quick, sarcastic answer to the whole CraigsList thing. I don’t have permission to post her text here, so I’m just linking to it.

In Defense of Craigslist

The dialogue around Craigslist has been raging for months, and in the wake of the announcement that CL will be discontinuing its “erotic services” category in favor of the new “adult services” I have a few points I’d like to discuss. I believe that we should be responding to the persecution of craigslist, and by [...]

“Erotic Services” Denied: Craigslist and Attorneys General Are Putting Sex Workers At Risk

This is a collaborative press release – please distribute and repost widely! Contact: Dylan Wolfe – Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK), swank@riseup.net Will Rockwell – $pread Magazine, will@spreadmagazine.org Audacia Ray – Sex Work Awareness (SWA), aray@sexworkawareness.org Susan Blake – Prostitutes of New York (PONY), pony@panix.com Michael Bottoms – Sex Workers Outreach Project – New [...]

Rhode Island getting closer to outlawing indoor sex work.

Today is a busy day for Sex Worker Rights.  With news of Craigslist(only in the US) canceling the Erotic Services section, we’ve had a flurry of press calls.  Plus Rhode Island (the only state where indoor prostitution is legal) just had the house pass H5044 Sub A, the vote was 62 to 8, and this [...]

Breaking: Craigslist to end Erotic Services

This just came across the news; posting for the sake of us having a place to hash out how to respond, what comes next, and field the inevitable questions from the press. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will be holding a press conference at 11am Eastern today. We’ll post more news as it develops. AP [...]

Good Review for Sex Work Books in Qualitative Sociology

Just wanted to make sure people know about a review essay of four books of interest to sex-industry students and activists. Academics AnneMarie Cesario and Lynn Chancer published it in Qualitative Sociology 32:213–220 (March 2009) – which is a mainstream academic journal in the USA. The essay begins: When Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign [...]