“SAVE” Bill would Help Traffickers and Hurt Youth, Homeless and Other Vulnerable Groups – Take Action!

Sex Worker Outreach Project - Chicago

Senator Kirk (IL) and Senator Feinstein (CA) recently introduced a bill (S. 2536) to the federal senate which would change requirements for placing adult advertisements, as well as record-keeping requirements for adult advertising websites.

The bill, titled the “Kirk-Feinstein Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation (SAVE) Act”  can be found here. The bill would impact any individual who places an online ad for any adult service (fetish, stripping, body rub, escort, and adult film), as well as all websites that contain sections devoted to adult services, even those that do not charge for ad placement.

Summary of the S. 2536

• Requires individuals placing ads to submit a valid government ID and telephone number.
• Requires all individuals placing ads, whether free or paid, to submit valid debit or credit card information.
• Prohibits payment with pre-paid cards, money orders, cash, or bitcoin.
• Requires ad websites to maintain records of advertisers’ identification, phone numbers…

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Medical Survey of Human Trafficking Victims

I’ve been asked to pass this along. The survey looks at medical care recieved by victims of human trafficking in the US during the time they were trafficked. It recognizes both sex and labor trafficking. The survey is available in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.

The intro letter:

Hello,

I am an emergency medicine physician (currently at Columbia-NY Presbyterian, but still affiliated with Mount Sinai Medical Center) in NYC, conducting an anonymous survey of human trafficking survivors. The survey was designed with Dr. Susie Baldwin and the aim is learn more about survivors’ experiences with healthcare providers, while they were being trafficked, so that we can educate providers about this patient population in an evidence-based fashion. Participating survivors, so far, are recruited via community based and not-for-profit organizations, and receive a $10 gift card upon completion of the survey.

We hope your organization would like to participate; please reply if you’d like more information on how your organization can get involved!

Thank you for your consideration,

Makini Chisolm-Straker, MD
Department of Emergency Medicine
Columbia – NY Presbyterian Hospital
and
Mount Sinai School of Medicine

If you want to discuss the survey’s language or focus, please talk to Makini Chisolm-Straker.

The survey’s website, HumanTraffickingED and the survey page.

The point is for victims of trafficking to give input. If you know victims of trafficking, pass this along to them. Pass this along to any org you know who works with trafficking victims.

Selling Consensual Sex Means Jail. Doctor Sexually Assaults 7 Women, No Jail

This is so wrong on so many levels. 

From USA Today  31 May 2013

Seven women tearfully recounted in court how their doctor abused their trust to sexually exploit them.  Then they watched a judge sentence him to probation Thursday instead of prison.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/05/31/iowa-doctor-sexual-abuse/2376235/

ALFRED, Maine (AP) — A Zumba fitness instructor who pleaded guilty to using her Maine studio as a front for prostitution is going to jail, bringing to an end a scandal featuring sex videos, adultery and exhibitionism.

Alexis Wright was sentenced Friday under a plea agreement to 10 months in jail for 20 counts including prostitution, conspiracy, tax evasion and theft by deception.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/31/zumba-instructor-to-be-sentenced-for-prostitution/2374943/

 

 

Cleveland Kidnapping

I understand this is a bit off topic as there hasn’t been information released, to my knowledge, isn’t inherently related to sex work. Although as sex workers we are all vulnerable to this kind of situation. Some of us have faced it first hand ourselves.

But for anyone who knows me or knows of me these events obviously touch me on many levels very deeply.

These girls are heroes beyond imagination. While the man who helped get them out is being called the hero and he is. His efforts still are tiny in comparison to what these girls endured for ten years. If they ever stumble on to this blog I hope they know that anything they did to survive is something to be honored and cherished.

I have seen very ignorant commentators in the news related to this state they can’t believe these girls had no chance to escape in ten years. People who say things like that have no idea what they are talking about. While it is now coming out that they were kept in restraints. Being kidnapped, raped, likely tortured, and fearing that anything they do may cause them horrendous pain or to be killed is a more powerful restraint than anything physical could ever be.

I am so pleased these women escaped. And so hope that they all find love, support and assistance to help them go through the very difficult recovery process. Hopefully the women will hear a lot of people tell them that they did nothing to deserve this. This was a choice by psychopaths to do this to them and that they will get all the love, support and whatever else they need to rebuild their lives and somehow go on from this.

As someone who went through something very similar to this. I am so pleased they were able to escape and so hope they get all the support they need. I endured far less than ten years of what they did and know the staggering effect it has had on me. Ten years is almost hard to fathom.

The women are heroes. What it took to survive this and to take the chance to escape is courage beyond pale.

Sex Worker Conference in Las Vegas- Register and/or Submit Your Proposal!

5th Desiree Alliance Conference-The Audacity of Health: Sex Work, Health, and Politics

July 14-19, 2013 Las Vegas, NV   http://desireealliance.org/conference.htm

Registration is Now Open for the 5th Desiree Alliance Conference

Please read the registration details below to begin the process. http://www.desireealliance.org/conference/Registration.htm

Submit proposals for presentations by April 1, 2013 http://www.desireealliance.org/conference/CFP.htm

The Desiree Alliance is a national social justice organization that is led by current and former sex workers in coalition with health professionals, social scientists, educators, and their supporting networks focused on building leadership, capacity-building, organizing and constructive activism for sex worker rights and autonomy.

As we prepare for our 5th national conference, our priority will be centered on health, sex work, human rights, and following-up with the XIX International AIDS Conference (July 2012) and the 9th National Harm Reduction Conference (Nov 2012).

The Desiree Alliance conference is a forum for people who have experience in sex work and sex trade and allies of sex workers.  Sex work includes working as an exotic dancer, hustler, webcam model, street-based sex worker, massage worker, escort, prostitute, tantric practitioner, sexological bodyworker, living with the support of a sugar-daddy or a sugar-mama, having sex for housing / food / clothing, drugs, or having sex to get the money needed to survive.  Our membership base is made up of current and former sex workers as well as activists that do not identify as sex workers themselves, but advocate for sex worker rights. Desiree Alliance is made up of women, men, LGBTQI persons, transgender persons, herm-identity, Other, hetero, etc., and many of our members are from (non)working class low and middle income backgrounds.

Desiree Alliance is committed to bring diversity that aims to provide safe spaces for the most marginalized to the least marginalized sex worker, providing education, networking, and alliance-building opportunities regardless of socio-economic status, color, sexuality, sexual identity, culture, class, race, religion, physical or mental capabilities, gender, gender identities, age, size, political beliefs, or immigrant status.

Based on our limited funding capacities, Desiree Alliance provides a number of scholarships to people from groups that have often been marginalized from organizing for sex worker rights. We invite diverse sex workers to apply including people of color, immigrants, gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans-people, differently- abled/disabled people, senior citizens and others to apply. Visit http://www.desireealliance.org/conference/logistics.htm#scholar

Call for Proposals for individual tracks for the conference are available  at: http://www.desireealliance.org/conference/CFP.htm
Please begin the registration process for the Conference ASAP!

Deadlines
Early Registration Deadline: Nov. 15th thru February 15th, 2013    $150.00
Regular Registration Deadline: February 15th thru April 15th, 2013  $200.00
Late Registration Deadline: April 15th thru July 7th, 2013     $250.00
Please see additional information at:
http://www.desireealliance.org/conference/Registration.htm

Registration Instructions
Please send an introductory email to desiree2013@desireealliance.org with “Introduction for Registration” as the subject and include the following:

Name:
You may use any name or pronoun that you identify with when applying for the conference and while attending. (However, if you receive a scholarship we will ask for the name that is on your ID if we need to book transportation)

Email:

Contact phone number (including best time to call):

How you found out about the conference:

Why you would like to come:

If you are a student (this will enable you to register as a student to get a student discount. If you say you are a student, you must attach a scanned copy of your current student ID with your email to get the discount code):

If you plan to present:

Registration fees for the conference include: Attendance at any or all of the workshops, presentations and sessions; name badge and registration packet;  one continental breakfast or snack daily. (Please note that the conference location will not be disclosed until registration is complete – please make your hotel reservation ASAP as rooms will go fast!)

Registration fees do not include: Transportation (however the hotel provides complimentary airport shuttle); lodging; lunches or dinners; Fundraiser After Party (you will have the option of purchasing a ticket during registration); dinners, souvenirs, extra-curricular activities or personal expenses.

Contacts:

General Inquiries: desiree2013@desireealliance.org

Program Advertising / Tabling / Vending:
http://www.desireealliance.org/conference/tabling.htm#Program_Advertising

Media Team:
http://www.desireealliance.org/conference/mediateamapplication.htm

Volunteer: email volunteer@desireealliance.org for information and to sign up to assist with Pre-conference or conference needs.

Sincerely,

Cris Sardina and Sharmus Outlaw
director@desireealliance.org

Sex Work Policy, the blog

by Cheryl Overs.

Over the last few months I have been reading and writing about sex work and law. I have had the chance to comment on several excellent papers as they are being written and had some wonderful opportunities to work with skilled and knowledgeable activists in human rights, the women’s movement, HIV and sexual and reproductive health.  I have also had some great opportunities to learn from sex workers and hear the conversations that are taking place within the movement.

Of course there is plenty to say about so many aspects of sex work and law globally.  Much of it is being said by far more articulate people than me andthe PLRI website is dedicated to making that information accessible.  http://www.plri.org. Here I want to mention two issues that strike me as high priorities.

1.      A BIG MESS  : Sex workers have almost no say in research  and…

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Prop 35, Youth, Sex Trade and Sex Trafficking-Interview with Alexandra Lutnick, Researcher

Visit Prop 35, Youth, Sex Trade and Sex Trafficking-Interview with Alexandra Lutnick, Researcher  at Indybay to read this interview written in conjunction with SWOP/Bay Area. It’s important to get the word out about Prop 35! Please share the info on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Thanks SWOP, for your support and work to let people know about this dangerous initiative!

In Memoriam: Robyn Few

Until prostitutes have equal protection under the law and equal rights as human beings, there is no justice.  –  Robyn Few

Last Thursday, sex workers all over the world were saddened to hear of the death (after a long battle with cancer) of the charismatic and tireless Robyn Few, founder of the Sex Workers Outreach Project USA.  When the day finally arrives on which sex work is recognized in the majority of the world as work like any other, hers will be one of the names remembered as instrumental in achieving it.

Robyn L. Spears was born in Paducah, Kentucky, on October 7^th, 1958, to Virginia Owen Spears; she had an older brother and a younger sister and lived in the small community of Lone Oak, Kentucky.  She attended Lone Oak Elementary and Lone Oak Middle School, but dropped out and ran away from home either during or after her 8^th grade year, when she was 13 years old.  The causes of her leaving are not clear, but whatever they were she later reconciled with her mother and in fact died while visiting at her home.  Like so many runaways she soon turned to survival sex work, and though she later received vocational training to be a materials tester for concrete and tried a few “straight” jobs such as drafting, she was never satisfied with these and became a stripper soon after turning 18.  As she says in the video below (recorded in Chicago in July of 2008), “I loved it so much; it was so empowering to be able to get up on the stage…I came alive, and for me being paid to dance and to show my body [that] I was so proud of anyway…it was just an amazing experience.”

After stripping for a while she started working in a massage parlor, then later escort services and a clandestine brothel; in her late 20s she married one of her clients and had a daughter, but after her divorce in 1993 (after which she retained her married name, Few) she moved to California and began to take college classes with the intent of earning a degree in theater.  She became interested in marijuana and AIDS activism, but the bills had to be paid so she returned to escorting in 1996 and soon became a madam.  Like so many of us, she never told anybody about her sex work; her activism was directed toward other causes until fate decreed otherwise.

The events of September 11^th, 2001 engendered a heightened climate of paranoia, and the enactment of the PATRIOT Act soon made an unprecedented level of funding available to any government agency which could make even a remote claim to “fighting terrorism”.  And though then-Attorney General Ashcroft had been strongly rebuked by Congress for devoting more FBI agents to the “Canal Street Brothel” case in New Orleans than to counterterrorist operations, he had learned his lesson and justified later whore persecutions with flimsy “anti-terrorism” excuses.  Robyn’s agency was accused of having “terrorist suspects” as clients and she was arrested in June of 2002,  then convicted of “conspiracy to promote prostitution” and sentenced to six months house arrest (during which the trial judge allowed her to continue her activism).  After her arrest, she was angry to discover that both neighbors and supposedly “enlightened” activists treated her differently once they knew she had been a prostitute; she threw herself even harder into medical marijuana activism, but began to think about how people’s ignorant attitudes and the oppressive anti-sex work laws could be changed.

Her inspiration came a year after her arrest, in the form of the US Supreme Court decision Lawrence vs. Texas:  Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out in his dissenting opinion that “state laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult  incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery,  fornication, bestiality, and obscenity  are likewise sustainable only in light of [the overturned Bowers vs. Hardwick decision’s] validation of laws based on moral choices,” and though the other justices tried to pretend otherwise Robyn knew that Scalia was correct, and that the court had opened a door for sex workers’ rights.  So after a Berkeley, California high-school teacher named Shannon Williams was arrested for prostitution in August, Robyn gathered a group of sex workers to protest outside the courthouse at Williams’ arraignment in September.  Unfortunately (but understandably), Williams wanted the whole mess to go away as soon as possible and so had no desire to become the “poster child” for prostitutes’ rights.  Robyn of course backed down, but the fire had been lit; with the help of her partner Michael Foley and sex worker Stacy Swimme (whom she had met earlier that year at a medical marijuana protest), she founded SWOP-USA the following month.

The organization was modeled on SWOP Australia, and Rachel Wotton (who now specializes in sex work with the disabled) was instrumental in securing permission for the American group to use the name and helping to set things up.  Within a few weeks the new organization was contacted by Dr. Annie Sprinkle for assistance in arranging the very first Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers, and for the next year Robyn worked furiously to contact politicians and get the attention of the media so as to let them know that sex workers were not going to quietly accept persecution any more, and were mobilizing like those in many other parts of the world to demand our rights.  But after the failure of “Proposition Q”, a ballot measure she wrote which would have established de facto decriminalization in Berkeley, Robyn and SWOP settled in for the long haul and committed themselves to the slow, arduous task of reversing centuries of stigma and decades of oppressive legislation.

Shortly after the two shorter videos were recorded at the International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harms in Warsaw, Poland (May of 2007), Robyn was diagnosed with cancer; she continued to work tirelessly for the cause all through her chemotherapy, and though the disease appeared to have gone into remission in January of 2010 it returned by July of 2011, and this time proved terminal.  She died on September 13^th, 2012 while visiting her mother, and there will be a memorial service on what would have been her 54^th birthday (October 7^th, 2012) at the Milner and Orr Funeral Home in Lone Oak .  I never had the pleasure of meeting Robyn, but as you can see from the personal accounts on her website and the many expressions of grief all over the internet, those who did speak without exception of her warmth, her strength, her good humor, her courage and her plain human decency.  And though it’s an oft-used phrase, there is no other which sums up the way everyone in the sex worker rights community feels about her passing:  she will be sorely missed.

 

(Cross-posted from The Honest Courtesan.  I am indebted to the Sin City Alternative Professionals’ Association (formerly SWOP-LV) for information and links, and also to a group of Robyn’s school friends from Lone Oak, who contacted me Sunday morning and filled in a number of vital details I could not find anywhere else.  If anyone reading this can correct an error or omission, please email me with the info.)

Prop 35 — California

Posted on behalf of Maxine Doogan:
Our group’s ballot argument was picked to represent the no on California
Proposition 35. It will be printed in the voter information guide.
If prop 35 passes in our state, you can bet this bait and switch ballot
measure brought to us by the same old extremist who’s real goal is to
exterminate the sex industry at any cost.

Prop 35 uses the same old junk science to target our intimate, domestic
and economic relationship to now be called traffickers and have to
register as sex offenders with 70% of the fines going to the anti
prostitution non profits who now call themselves trafficked victims. The
other 30% goes to the cops. These failed policies of ballot box budgeting
has bankrupted our state.

Apparently, the California State Attorney Generals office has a report on
human trafficking that is being compiled via working groups with 100
people from law enforcement, state social service providers and non
profits. http://oag.ca.gov/human-trafficking

So why didn’t the proponents wait for the report before they paid 1.6
million dollars to bring this overreaching salacious ballot measure
before the voters?

Lots of these kinds of questions have to asked and answered in the public
sphere.

Your help is needed now! Inform your selves and speak out about the many
way prop 35 will further criminalize our industry, target the innocent and
completely erode any opportunities to help victims because it relies on
their failed practice of alienating the community most effected by their
abusive practices.
Stop prop 35

Join Us in Washington DC-July 24th March to End AIDS (and support sex worker rights!); July 21st-27th International AIDS Conference

Sex Workers at IAC 2012

July 2012, Washington DC* (Read below US border laws prohibiting entry of sex workers and drug users!) Read and sign the: Call To Action, a joint declaration, demanding the end to criminalization of commercial sex, and demanding that the U.S. enable sex workers to access safe and healthy working environments and non-judgmental services. Join the March We Can End AIDS on July 24th, Tuesday at Noon in DC! See calendar of week’s events here IAC 2012 – Kolkata: Sex Worker Freedom Festival Below are some of the crucial issues that confront us regarding sex workers and others in the context of HIV. Please read these and understand how imperialistic U.S. policies are adversely impacting people around the world. *Denied visa by US, sex workers to hold parallel meet at Kolkata *2012 AIDS Conference: Criminalized Groups Need Not Apply PEPFAR’s Violations of the Right to Health of Sex Workers Medication Costs-Survival Only for The Wealthy-Obama’s Global Health Policy Undercuts Reform At Home July 9, 2012-Groundbreaking report released by the Global Commission on HIV and the Law specifically recommends the decriminalization of sex work (download pdf).

Help me Get to DC! Final PUSH for community LOVE and support of Sex Worker Music and Art

So maybe it won’t be a marching band, perhaps it will just be a pianist. So far, it isn’t even enough to cover the trip for me to get to DC! I need you, supportive community member, ally, fellow sex worker to CONTRIBUTE TODAY!! There are big jars of lube cream, some of my art, a dildo, even a wide and slick BUTT PLUG that you could get as a premium! WOWO!

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE INDIE GOGO CAMPAIGN http://bit.ly/NncBFu

Johanna Elby saw my earlier post and contributed as a result of my efforts! Thank you UNIVERSE! thank you Bound not Gagged! And now it’s YOUR TURN TO MATCH Johanna’s $20 contrbution! I know there is someone else out there reading this today that can help…

Yesterday I did the WHORRIFIC lemonade stand for the first time. It was fun. It’s a lot of work to do a lemonade stand. I gave it the immigrant try! But I didn’t make as much as they do doing it…so DONATE using the link above!

Please Help With My Sex Worker Music DREAMS this summer!!

Are you going to be in Washington DC for the International AIDS conference in July?? I am! Check out this video and help me make my big thinking no limit WHORE REVOLUTIONARY dreams this summer. I have 24 days to raise money for my goal. Every element is about spreading sex worker activism through MUSIC. I am getting ready for a big show in Santa Monica with Madison Young and Nina Hartley on July 20th. Even after I have done activism in LA for the last 6 years, I still feel like the city barely knows what sex worker rights culture (and it is a culture everywhere else but here) IS. Help me change that! If you believe that that is worth $7 PLEASE DONATE! Click on the link below to get to the indiegogo campaign. Every donation HELPS! Thank you so much!

Policy that Keeps Prostitutes From Carrying and Using Condoms. From First Person

I wanted to post a reply to the thread but for some reason I’m not getting an option to do that.  So.  I’m starting a new thread.

Geniuses that endorse this policy………  I’m putting it in first person so you can try to put a human face to a blanket policy.  I”m a sex worker.  That’s my job.   I need more than one condom with me because one condom doesn’t always work.  And while  a client stopped with multiple condoms will just be James Bond scoring with babes or considered an evolved man for using condoms.  I’m female.  If I do it than I’m a criminal.

So let’s do a bit of Sex Work for Dummies.  Pun intended.

Since I’m female and will risk arrest.  You leave me with two choices.  Take a legal risk or take a fatal risk.  Because………  If the first condom breaks as a sex worker I’m screwed.  And in a way that I don’t to become pregnant.  Because……  Without the back up condoms it becomes unprotected.  Unprotected sex risks pregnancy.  pregnancy isn’t the deal for either the client or the provider.  I don’t want to become pregnant by a client.  I can hear the geniuses.  “The don’t be a hooker”.  I’m an escort for a reason.  So save it.  I don’t want to become pregnant from a client.  I also don’t want to catch a disease from him.  Since I’m the sex worker it’s up to me to provide the condoms.  And beyond that I don’t want to trust my health or a pregnancy risk to a client.  Let’s face it.  Anyone who has been an escort for some time learns that many clients have no idea how to bathe.  They don’t know that the little towel, wash cloth, is for scrubbing to be clean.  They don’t know that standing in the shower and letting the water drain by their feet isn’t cleaning their feet.  Given this fact.  I don’t want to trust my safety or my pregnancy risk to them.  Thus I need condoms.  Otherwise, when I get pregnant, I will abort a child.  Because I’m not having a child with a client.  Nor does he want me to.  I prefer not to have an abortion if I don’t have to.

Since I am an escort.  Since it’s my body.  Since I’m doing it out of need.  Since I’m adult woman.  I”m grown up enough to make my own choices.  I choose to not be pregnant and not have a disease.  Geniuses who pass these laws.  Does this make sense?

You’ll say it fights trafficking to do this.  Umm.  How?  Trafficking victims don’t get pregnant or diseases?  Oh, well, if the escort can’t use a condom she’ll go become an accountant or manage a retail store……….  Umm,… No.  Not real world.

Actually geniuses who endorse this legislation.  Here’s the actual deal.  You’re clueless.  You don’t know what you are talking about.  Maybe you’re well intentioned.  Maybe you’re just a jerk.  Either way you are uniformed.   You are legislators.  As such you can pass laws.  You can keep prostitution illegal.  Nothing we can do about that.  But don’t put our safety on the line to make it easier for the police to make an arrest.  If you want police to arrest for prostitution than them earn it by proving prostitution rather than using a condom as cheap shot on the arrest goal.  Because that kills us.  And since most who write these puritanical laws tend to be pro life.  Here is reality.  If we get pregnant by a client.  We are going to very likely abort the child.  Even if you outlaw that.  If you are so pro life than don’t force scenarios that ensure an abortion.  If you don’t want unborn babies to be killed.  Then don’t create a dynamic in which they are created when they aren’t desired.  Maybe you don’t like this.  Maybe it’s distasteful.  Maybe you want to throw your cliché rhetoric.  But this real world.  It is how life really works.

You would know this if you asked us…………

Lazy law enforcement empowered by clueless puritanical legislators.  Gee.  That sounds like a great path for social change to me………  Pathetic.

The Policy That Keeps Prostitutes From Carrying and Using Condoms

Julie Turkewitz is a New York-based freelance journalist. She spent two years writing about AIDS and homelessness for Housing Works. Her work has appeared in The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and elsewhere.

 

New York isn’t the only place where cops can use condom possession to justify arrest, but sex worker advocates there are pushing a new bill.

 

…Condom possession in itself is not illegal in New York, nor in any other state. Rather, the fact that condoms can be used in court as evidence of prostitution means that police will sometimes confiscate condoms, interrogate those carrying several, and use them as part of the basis for arrest. A law like the one in New York would clarify that possession is permitted, quelling fears among those who want to use them. “If there is no way an item will ever be used as evidence, then there’s no excuse to ever take it or put it in an arrest sheet,” said Baskin….

 

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE IN THE ATLANTIC HERE

 

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs

The prostitute is the scapegoat for everyone’s sins, and few people care whether she is justly treated or not.  Good people have spent thousands of pounds in efforts to reform her, poets have written about her, essayists and orators have made her the subject of some of their most striking rhetoric; perhaps no class of people has been so much abused, and alternatively sentimentalized over as prostitutes have been but one thing they have never yet had, and that is simple legal justice.  –  Alison Neilans

Today is International Sex Workers’ Rights Day, which started in 2001 as a huge sex worker festival (with an estimated 25,000 attendees) organized in Calcutta by the Indian sex worker rights group Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee.  Prohibitionist groups tried to pressure the government to revoke their permit, but DMSC prevailed and the following year decided to celebrate their victory by establishing the event as an annual one.  As I wrote in my column of one year ago today,

Perhaps its Asian origin has slowed the day’s “catching on” in Europe and the Americas, but in the light of the current trafficking hysteria and the growing problem of American “rescue” organizations in Asia, I think it’s time to remedy that.  Whores and regular readers of this column are acutely aware of the paternalistic attitude taken toward prostitutes by governments, soi-disant feminists and many others, and it’s no secret that many Westerners still have very colonial, “white man’s burden” ideas about Asia; imagine then the incredible paternalism to which Asian sex workers are subjected by American busybodies!  I therefore think it’s a FANTASTIC idea to popularize a sex worker rights day which began in India; its very existence is a repudiation of much of the propaganda which trafficking fetishists foist upon the ignorant public.

As I’ve written in the past, American cultural imperialism in Asia is still very much a fact; despite our loathsome record on civil rights the US State Department presumes to judge other countries on their response to so-called “human trafficking”, based on secret criteria which obviously include classifying all foreign sex workers in a given country as “trafficked persons”.  The annual “Trafficking in Persons Report” results in cuts in foreign aid to countries which don’t suppress their prostitutes brutally enough to please their American overlords, and therefore provokes mass arrests and mass deportations in the countries so targeted.  Nor are these operations instigated only by governments; wealthy NGOs, enabled by money from big corporations looking for a tax dodge, from empty-headed celebrities in search of good publicity, and from clueless Americans desperate to “do something”, invade Asian countries and abduct prostitutes, forcing them into “rehabilitation”  which consists largely of imprisonment under inhumane conditions and brainwashing them to perform menial labor for grueling 72-hour weeks at one-tenth of their former income.  When the women escape from “rescue centers” or protest, they are said to be suffering from “Stockholm Syndrome” and their children are abducted and given away.

Nor is this sort of violence restricted to Asia; local US police agencies, often financed by wealthy prohibitionists like Swanee Hunt, routinely use prostitution as an excuse for mass arrests, robbery and grotesque intimidation tactics:

Tania Ouaknine is convinced the police are watching her.  She’s not paranoid — it says as much on the red sign painted along the side on the hulking armored truck that’s been parked in front of her eight-room Parisian Motel for several days:  “Warning:  You are under video surveillance”…From the front bumper of the menacing vehicle, another sign taunts:  “Whatcha gonna do when we come for you?”…[it’s loaded with] surveillance equipment…and [decorated]…with [Fort Lauderdale, Florida] police emblems…[which they] leave…parked in front of trouble spots…”They say I am running a whorehouse,” said the 60-year-old innkeeper…[who has] been the subject of an undercover operation targeting prostitution starting in September.  Ouaknine was arrested on Oct. 28 on three counts of renting rooms to prostitutes for $20 an hour…She says she’s doing nothing illegal.  “They’ve tried everything to shut me down and have failed,” she said.  “Now they bring this truck to intimidate me and my customers.”  Some neighbors surrounding the Parisian Motel say the truck is another form of constant police harassment.  On a recent afternoon, Leo Cooper watched as two undercover…[cops molested] a group of men gathered at the corner.  Within minutes, one of the men ran away.  A second man was charged with loitering.  “This is what happens here every day.  We can’t sit outside without being harassed,” said Cooper…

This is why sex worker rights should concern everyone, even those who aren’t prostitutes, don’t know any prostitutes, have never hired a prostitute and don’t give a damn about the human rights of strangers:  prostitution, especially as it’s viewed through the lens of “human trafficking” mythology and “end demand” propaganda, is simply the latest excuse employed by governments in their campaign to control everything and everyone.  The 2005 re-authorization of the so-called “Violence Against Women Act”…

…permitted the collection and indefinite retention of DNA from, as the Center for Constitutional Rights understood at the time, “anyone arrested for any crime whether or not they are convicted, any non-U.S. citizen detained or stopped by federal authorities for any reason, and everyone in federal prison.”

Using this, Swanee Hunt (through her “Demand Abolition” organization) is now pushing for collection and retention of DNA from every man cops can accuse of patronizing a sex worker…which given the low standards of “suspicion” favored by police, means essentially any male found by cops in certain neighborhoods or in the company of a woman to whom he isn’t married.  While fanaticism-blinded neofeminists cheer, the war on “violence against women” (and by extension prostitution, which is defined as exactly that by neofeminists) is used to justify the same kind of egregious civil rights violations as those resulting from the “wars” on drugs and terrorism.

I think I can safely speak for virtually all sex workers when I say that we don’t want to be passive tools used by governments and NGOs as the excuse for tyranny; we simply want to be left alone to live our lives like anyone else, with the same rights, privileges, duties and legal protections as people in every other profession.  We are not children, moral imbeciles or victims (except of governments, cops and NGOs), and we do not require “rescue”, “rehabilitation” or special laws to “protect” us from our clients, boyfriends, employers or families to a greater degree than other citizens.  And we certainly don’t need others to speak for us no matter how much they insist we do.  Almost a year ago, Elena Jeffreys published an article entitled “It’s Time to Fund Sex Worker NGOs” and I wholeheartedly agree; furthermore, I would argue that it’s long past time to defund “rescue” organizations and all the others who presume to speak for sex workers while excluding us from the discussion.  How can someone who hates a given group and opposes everything its members want be considered a valid representative of that group?  It would be like allowing MADD and Carrie Nation’s Anti-Saloon League to represent distilleries and bar owners.  The very idea is absurd; yet that’s exactly what governments do, even in some countries where our trade isn’t criminal.  Millions of people claim to care about the welfare of prostitutes, yet contribute to groups who advocate that we be marginalized, criminalized, censored, hounded, persecuted, registered, confined, stripped of our rights, robbed of our livelihoods and enslaved…all because they don’t like what we do for a living.  It’s a lot like contributing to the KKK because you claim to be concerned about minorities.

If you actually care about the rights of women, or want to look like you do; if you’re opposed to imperialism and police brutality; if you support the right of people to earn a living in the jobs of their choice, and to organize for better work conditions; or even if you just want to protect yourself from yet another head of the ever-growing hydra of government surveillance, you should consider supporting the cause of sex worker rights.  Fight prohibitionist propaganda, speak out for decriminalization, contribute to sex worker organizations, vote against candidates who espouse prohibitionist rhetoric, and oppose local efforts to increase criminal penalties against whores and/or our clients.  And if anyone asks why you care, please feel free to quote from this essay or just hand them a copy.  Sex worker rights are human rights, and laws or procedures that harm sex workers harm everyone.

(Cross-posted from The Honest Courtesan)

Friday the Thirteenth

A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.  –  P.J. O’Rourke

Today is the third Friday the Thirteenth since I’ve been writing The Honest Courtesan, and there will be three such days this year (today, April 13^th and July 13^th); as it so happens, three is the maximum number of such days in any given year, though each year has at least one.  In my very first column on the subject (Friday, August 13^th, 2010) I explained how the superstition arose and why even superstitious whores should consider it lucky for us rather than unlucky:

Given the origin of beliefs about Friday the 13^th…even the superstitious whore has nothing to worry about…since Friday is the day sacred to our patron goddess, and 13 the most feminine of numbers, Friday the 13^th should be good luck for whores even if it really were bad luck for Christian men.  Now, I’m not really superstitious; I don’t believe that a day can bring either good luck or bad.  But considering that the reasons for fear of this day are so closely related to the reasons our profession is maligned and suppressed, perhaps whores and those who support our rights should make every Friday the Thirteenth a day to speak out in favor of full decriminalization and an end to the institutionalized persecution of prostitutes.

Nine months later (on Friday, May 13^th, 2011) I explained why it’s especially important for my readers who aren’t sex workers to speak out:

A number of advocates are working to respond to the lies, propaganda and misinformation wherever we find them, but…we’re often accused of distorting facts to make ourselves look good, and no matter how assiduously we work to present a balanced view this is a natural and credible accusation against anyone who advocates for some issue which directly concerns her.  That’s why allies are so important; it’s much harder for the prohibitionists to shout down people who don’t have a dog in the fight, but merely support prostitutes’ rights on moral grounds.  Every Friday the Thirteenth I will ask my readers, especially those of you who aren’t yourselves sex workers, to speak up for us in some way; talk about the issue with someone who will listen, make a post on a discussion board, comment on a news story which spreads disinformation, or even just post a link to this column.  If you aren’t confident in your ability to debate, even a simple phrase like “I think adult women should have the right to decide why and with whom they want to have sex” or “everyone has the right to equal protection under the law” might have a tiny but important impact on those who overhear.  Because in the final analysis, they’re the ones we have to convince; rational people already support some type of prostitution-law reform and fanatics cannot be convinced by argument because their minds are already made up, but the silent majority – the fence-sitters and swing-voters, the ones who answer “unsure” or “no comment” on polls – are the ones who can and must be made to understand that we are not intrinsically different from other women and deserve the same freedoms and protections that non-harlots take for granted.

Last time around I also offered a synopsis of prohibitionist victories since the last such day, but since I already offered a similar list just two weeks ago I think that would be inexcusably repetitious.  And though there are several other days dedicated to fighting for sex worker rights (namely International Sex Workers’ Rights Day on March 3^rd,  International Whores’ Day on June 2^nd and International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers on December 17^th), human rights are not something to be discussed only once a year; even six occasions to speak out on the subject are not enough.  For me and many others, every day is Friday the Thirteenth, and so it must remain until people wake up and understand that no collective, “authority” or government has the right to tell women what we can and cannot do with our own bodies.

(Cross-posted from The Honest Courtesan)

International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers Event in Raleigh-Durham Chapel Hill

Thank you to the NC Harm Reduction Coalition and many others for making this happen. Sex Workers Without Borders is thrilled to be part of this important event in the Triangle. International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, 2011
What: A discussion with special guest Jill Brenneman- child sex-trafficking survivor (and later, consenting adult sex worker), sexual assault crisis counselor, & advocate for harm reduction & sex work decriminalization with Sex Workers Without Borders

When: Saturday, December 17th, 2011 from 5-7 PM

Where: Internationalist Books & Community Center, 405 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Who

http://www.facebook.com/events/253967284662740/

http://sexworkerswithoutborders.org/category/swwb-events/

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-owh_aRRO92I/TuJJskxY2QI/AAAAAAAAAIc/0hrtvMys8Ak/s1600/umbrella-2_vectorized.jpg

Melissa Farley sends someone to the Naked Anthropologist to rant

I am keeping up with the tendency to change language again, so that what people were calling prostitution and then trafficking now becomes, increasingly, slavery. The other day I critiqued a review of a film set in a 19th-century Paris brothel and wondered if there may be a desire for slavery to come back. Melissa Farley seems to have sent someone to rant at me just there, but perhaps the post was chosen at random. I wonder if anyone from here would like to reply to the commenter, who is called Stella Marr? Her comment includes

Ms. Agustin, you describe yourself as a feminist. I feel compelled to tell you how horrifying it is to me to read work like yours. Because, perhaps unintentionally, you are pumping for the pimps and massive organized criminal and economic interests that sexually exploit women.

You are making women like me invisible.

I can take care of myself regarding such accusations, but there is a lot more there to reply to: a real Farleyesque assortment, and as if I speak for all feminists and she for all sex workers.

She also quotes from an angry anti-prostitution book I was forced to reply to because the publisher did not fact-check and allowed many errors to be published: Note to anti-prostitutionists: Sex worker movements are nothing to sneer at. There is a long translation from the Swedish original, so perhaps that book is slated to be published in English, in which case the publisher had better do that fact-checking!

–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers: December 17

This annual event is coming up again, with activities in various parts of the U.S. along with Capetown, South Africa; London, England; Montreal, Quebec Canada; and Phnom Penh, Cambodia: http://www.facebook.com/#!/aphunter/posts/10150586436448852 . The purpose is to support the safey and well-being of sex workers, and promote anti-violence policies, attitudes, and practices as well as build community, remember sex workers whose lives have been lost due to hatred and violence, express our voices, and listen.
Here’s a link to the redesigned and updated Dec. 17 website: http://www.swopusa.org/dec17/ . Please keep checking it, as there will likely be more updates and information added.

Where are the abolitionists to banish Craigslist help wanted ads

Since the abolitionists feel eliminating advertising venues is the only way to prevent a tiny percentage of crime. Why are they not calling for Craigslist to ban all help wanted advertising to avoid murder?  If the logic they use is so sound than one would think they would be calling for ending all employment ads to prevent this kind of crime.  Except they wouldn’t want that in this case because it would seem stupid (because the logic is stupid) and would affect them.  But when it is sex workers they have no problem implementing absurd thought processes that affect us.Terrible crime but one would never consider ending help wanted ads.  Yet, for our work they immediately jump to that point and a majority seem to flow with that idea as logical.  Perhaps this analogy will make sense?  http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-11-23/craigslist-killings-ohio/51376280/1?loc=interstitialskip