It's a Basic Human Right, right? Sex Workers Speakeasy

When I first started thinking about this project, I wasn't entirely clear about where my primary motivation was coming from. Was it personal healing, was it global politics, was it health and safety, workers rights, human rights or feminism? Was it appealing to my creative arts background?

Starting up the Indiegogo appeal to get myself to Las Vegas for the Desiree Alliance Conference in July of this year, the project emerged organically from that same appeal. With the help of an old friend, I made a short clip, my mouth, my words, speaking about why I needed crowd funding help to get to Vegas to present at this amazing conference, now integrating the full-circle journey I'd undertaken to go from delegate at ICOP sixteen years previously, to presenter at #DALV13 (the Desiree Alliance Twitter hashtag adopted for the duration of the event).

On arriving in Las Vegas, it soon became clear to me that the week ahead was likely to be a full one, in every possible way. It's not possible to listen to people's stories, hear about their lives and livelihoods, share motivational and inspirational workshops, and to engage with the current political and social key issues and remain unmoved.

My project, 'Sex Workers Speakeasy', was launched there - its primary intention to give sex workers a voice (a theme that has run through my life) allowing us to speak for ourselves, and to ensure that our diverse experience of the work is heard, recognised and respected. It took courage to launch my appeal, for in doing so I took the decision to out myself and to make public some aspects of my private life. Many cannot.

Whilst at the conference, a conversation with the very prolific blogger and truly engaging woman that is Maggie McNeil opened the door for me into why I do what I do. It's about social justice. Both Maggie and I share a very strong sense of social justice, and speaking for myself here, I know it's something I've carried through with me for most of my adult life and no doubt a fair bit of my childhood too. I remember being little and just knowing when something felt really wrong despite being told sometimes by the 'grown-ups' that 'that's the way it is' - for me, there would inevitably be a "why is that the way is?" retort. Every time.

So, in coming to this seedling of an idea, as I started connecting with contributors, as I heard their stories, I was left in no doubt that it had to happen. It's the thing I can give back to all I've ever been given by those who have inspired me, who light the way, to the brave and courageous activists who have changed things through sheer determination, a whole lot of courage and more than a fair bit of 'chutzpah'.

This contribution by Bella of the Rhode Island chapter of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) reminds me of the 'why'. Sex workers are dying as a result of being denied basic human and workers rights and as a result prejudice and stigma. In Scotland (UK) right now, brothels and saunas are being shut in what I can only see as a sadly regressive move. Those employees don't just stop selling sex, they simply get driven onto the streets or further underground where safety is even more eroded. And why? To satisfy someone else's view of what is 'moral' or not.

Help us to change things. Speak out! Stop allowing slut shaming. Challenge the language and please....above all, listen to the voices of those who know.

This post is dedicated to the lives, families and friends of Petite Jasmine and Dora Oezer who were both murdered in the last two months. May your spirits rest in peace and may your legacies create change.

Sex Work as a Feminist Statement

Happy Beltane everyone! I've been away from the blog the last couple of months setting up my new healing centre, focussing on developing my client practice and how to integrate that with my other health and wellbeing work. Those who know me, know I'm an ardent juicing proponent, and I'm slowly moving towards a more raw food diet. All of these aspects of my life have been flying around needing my attention, hence a slow trickle through the blog. I've also been giving more talks on sex work, its relationship to feminism and sexuality in general, which I really enjoy. For me it's a crucial part of spreading the word about sex work, of taking the real voices of sex workers further into the community and going some way to shattering judgment and prejudice.

I've never professed to be an academic. I've never claimed to be an expert on anything. In fact, it's fair to say that I have a tendency to mistrusting anything or anyone who presents themselves as being somehow more able to express an opinion on something based upon pure theory as opposed to life skills or experience, and a great suspicion of anyone laying claim to the mantle 'guru'. In my time as a drug publications researcher and support worker, coming across many drug workers with absolutely no experience of what it really feels like to live under the omnipresent shadow of addiction, I came to understand very clearly that it's important to listen to the voices of those who know how it feels to live something. If you want to know how it feels to live with addiction, ask an addict. If you want to know how it feels to run a marathon, ask a long distance runner. If you want to know how it feels to build a shopping mall, ask a construction worker, and if you want to know what it feels like to sell sex, ask a sex worker. That would be logical right? That would make sense wouldn't it? So why are sex workers so consistently and routinely omitted from any serious debate and discussion around health, social and law reform that directly impacts them? Why are they so deliberately ignored, and told they are deluded if they dare to suggest they not only choose their work but have opinions on it?

Explain it to me would you.

Most objections I hear seem to come from the basic premise "but no woman would ever choose to do that would she" and here I find the concept of choice really quite fascinating. Of course we may well choose to engage in sex for money, why not? Why do we still get so stuck on the idea that something that can be immensely pleasurable can at the same time make us some money? Why is it okay to trade our time, skills, expertise in other areas, but not our bodies, and who gets to decide that morals, which are generally entirely subjective, suddenly hold court over our capacity to make a self determined good living. Note the key words there "self" and "determined". We're not talking about coercion, non consensual or trafficking here, we're talking about free will, about independent agency and the right that all people have to say YES to things as much as they have the right to say NO. So why is it still so damn tricky to speak out and say "I choose to earn a living exchanging sex for money." Is that so different from the other ways we may trade sex and our bodies for progress, favours, approval, security, things of value etc etc?

I recently came across a job description. The job title was 'Awesomeness Arranger' and was followed by an equally vacuous, extremely patronising and quite frankly outrageously sexist job description which included things like "a masters degree in making people smile", and "a degree in bubliness" as preferred qualifications. It also offered 'totally rad badges' as perks, and stated that 'girls' must not make duck faces, engage in unnecessary high pitched laughter or have bangs or small pet dogs. You get the jist.

By contract, I read this job description:
High hourly rate, flexible scheduling, a sexually safe work environment with carefully chosen and monitored staff. High standards of customer behaviour, a safe place to discover your sexuality and a supportive working environment.

The first was for a burrito chain, the second for a well know and highly regarded strip club, the first of its kind to become unionised by the women and men who who worked there with the support of those who ran the place. Which would you choose?

No job is ever all good, most are a mix of good days, bad days, dull days, frustrating days and inspiring days. Some more leaning toward the bad end, some the good, but the point is that it's important to focus upon working conditions just like any other job. We need to be focussing on what makes a job safe and healthy, and how can we operate within the law as far as is possible in accordance with the individual laws of each country and/or state.

"Prostitution is not a monolith. Each woman experiences the profession differently."

Again, just like any other job. Imagine this: I dislike the international trade in sweat shop labour, how it serves large conglomerates at the expense of real humanitarian consideration. Would I try to ban clothes? No! I'd look at improving the conditions, pay rates, breaks, work environment of those producing the clothes. We all need income, and as the song goes 'it's not what you do it's the way that you do it, that's what gets results'! Sex workers are still consistently ignored. As a marginalised group, can you imagine any other marginalised group being as constructively excluded from any debate around how to make things better for that group without consultation? Again - no.

And as Gail Pheterson puts it so well "the stigmatisation of prostitution and sex work underlies the social control of women"- I am most inclined to agree. My body, my choice.

My one plea if you're reading this; keep your heart open, your mind open and keep listening, and maybe slowly we will see change for the positive in this profession. Sex is the final frontier, it's where our fears, shame, anxiety, guilt and judgment can all find a cosy nesting place if we let them. So let's not let them any longer. Speak out and be heard. Listen and reflect, and above all have fun and stay safe.

Sex Workers Speakeasy

Hello and welcome back! Today's post sees me launching my appeal to go to the Desiree Alliance Conference in Las Vegas Nevada, July 2013.

I wish to raise funds to get there to deliver a paper entitled 'Sex Workers Speakeasy', which will focus on how we, as current and former sex workers can represent ourselves in the media, arts and via powerful modern platforms such as social networking sites and crowd funding websites such as the Indiegogo one. Crowd funding offers us the opportunity to really put our money where our hearts, values and passions lie. We can donate to any project, person or cause that we endorse, thus ensuring that our worlds really DO reflect our personal values insofar as we can directly contribute to making things happen that we believe are important to better our world. I hope that you feel desiring of contributing to my personal Indiegogo campaign, which is linked to a longer term film project giving voices to the real experiences of those involved in the sex industry or sexuality work in general. Thanks and stay safe and stay sexy!

In Memory of Robyn Few

please take a moment to listen to this interview by the incredible activist Robyn Few, who sadly died yesterday (13/9/2012). A real loss to the world of sex work activism, Robyn gave of her life to stand up and truly be who she is in the world, facing prejudice, bigotry, stigma and all that being open about being a sex worker can bring. I truly admire her perspective and her courage. Listen to her frank words about sex work prejudice and why she was so committed to doing what she did. It will touch your heart and deepen your understanding...I hope!

The words in the tribute below are Kirk Read's, though I could speak them in the same way. For me the key sentence is "look around your life and see what you can do to improve life for sex workers" which could apply to any campaign for civil liberty for freedom and the right to choose what we do with our bodies/lives where adult consent is key. The part of the interview on speaking your truth is really important (around 7 mins in). As you may have guessed, this stuff is hugely important to me. Here follows the words of Kirk -

"Robyn Few was a deeply great American who passed away today. She was a soulful, rootsy activist who founded the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) and helped organize the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (in December). She was active in the medical marijuana movement and had a wildly infectious laugh. She never turned into a policy wonk and she never sold out her ideals for the promise of "working within the system." She was a street level outreach activist who believed that all people could be leaders. She inspired legions. Look around your life and see what you can do to improve life for sex workers. If you live in California, vote NO on Prop 35, which sounds like it protects children when in actuality it is a right wing panic-driven measure which victimizes sex workers and many other classes of people. Reject the Moral Panic. Celebrate Robyn Few, one of our best ever. Hers was a life lived generously. We are lucky that we can point to her as an ancestor. Thank you so much, Robyn!"