In February, I conducted what I believe to be the first usability-type survey ever done for web sites promoting sex worker issues.  I did this survey because I wanted to look at sex workers' rights web sites through fresh eyes, and to hear from all sorts of people what they think sex workers' rights activists in the USA are doing right, and what they're failing to communicate or provide.  This is a two-part blog post to try and make the information not look so frighteningly long, and this is the shorter of the two.  This subject probably isn't interesting to my more casual readers, but if you're involved in sex workers' rights activism or want to become involved, it's a good read.

My survey involved 64 participants, 50 percent of whom considered themselves average people who knew little or nothing about sex work.  34 percent identified as allies, clients, or people who already followed sex workers' rights issues.  The remaining 16 percent were current and former sex workers.  I was happy that half of my survey participants gave me outsider views, and the other half shared more informed opinions on the issues.  I found my respondents through Twitter, my blog, and emailing a few friends. Most respondents were Americans, with some Australians, Brits, Canadians, and Europeans thrown in.

My biggest surprise with this part?  A high number expected sex workers' rights web sites to include a state-by-state breakdown of exact laws and information about where it's best to be what type of sex worker, and which areas are known for being easier for (illegal) work.  It hadn't crossed my mind to do something like that, and I'm not even sure how to research such a thing, or how to stay within the bounds of state and federal statutes against advising people on how to commit crimes.  (I personally wouldn't feel comfortable publishing, "_____ is known for not enforcing their laws against solicitation, so go work there!")

Here are the response summaries to my three starter questions.  Many answers were similar, so I paraphrased/combined into single list items for easier reading.

What would you like to know about sex workers' rights issues, especially in the USA? (This question was for the "civilian" participants, not sex workers.)

- How is "sex work" defined?
- How are people supposed to change the laws?
- Information on how people can support the cause, publicly and anonymously.
- Timely hot topics and action alerts.
- Explanation of obstacles and what sex workers are fighting against.
- How much money is wasted enforcing anti-sex worker laws?
- Is there anything to protect sex workers from bad clients or bad employers?
- Who are the leading figures in the movement?
- Resources for clients, such as how can clients try to avoid being arrested.
- A history of sex work and activism and landmark legal cases.
- Personal stories about how people get into sex work.
- A breakdown of legal rights and issues by industry.
- Voting guides, a track record of statements made by politicians about sex work.
- Issues that affect queer and trans sex workers.
- What sort of public education is going on?
- What are the current campaigns and key legal battles in different areas?
- What do academics say about sex work?
- When are upcoming events?
- Information about how to stop sex trafficking.
- What laws actually protect sex workers and when has the government sided with sex workers?
- When and where are sex workers unionized? How can there be more sex worker unions?
- Is there any employer-sponsored healthcare for sex workers?
- How do do the laws affect different genders differently?
- Are there and reliable statistics that show how big the industry really is?

What do you feel like are leading misconceptions about sex work?

- Sex workers are addicted to drugs.
- Sex workers are the victims of sexual abuse and violence.
- Sex workers have been brainwashed or oppressed, and have no agency or free will.
- Sex workers are only doing the job because they are poor and desperate.
- Sex workers are dumb.
- Sex workers are perpetual victims.
- Sex work itself is a form of rape and abuse.
- Sex work is dangerous, shady, and spread diseases.
- Sex workers need saving or curing.
- Sex work is not really work.
- Sex workers have no morals or ethics and are generally bad people.
- Sex workers who are killed, raped, robbed, or assaulted were "asking for it."
- Sex worker means prostitute.
- Sex workers are sluts who will have sex with anyone.
- The gender dynamic of sex work is inherently females being hurt by males.
- Sex workers have low self-esteem and want attention and validation.
- If you try one kind of sex work, it will function as a "gateway drug" to all types of sex work.
- Sex workers enter the industry at a very young age or as runaway teens.
- Sex work can't be done independently; sex workers are controlled by the mafia and pimps.
- Sex workers are trafficked, tricked, coerced, or forced into it by others.
- There are only two types of sex workers: drug-addicted street workers and high-end "happy hookers" that serve the wealthy/famous.
- Sex workers had bad childhoods and bad parents.
- Sex workers aren't "real", and are totally different from other people.
- Sex workers harm women, the community, and set back women's rights.
- Sex workers hate men, and their jobs.
- Sex workers love their jobs and feel empowered/liberated by it.
- Sex workers fit the image of young, thin, and gorgeous; they conform to rigid gender stereotypes.
- Sex workers have mental or emotional problems, and are damaged human beings.
- Sex workers cannot have healthy (unpaid) sexual or romantic relationships.
- Sex worker are lazy and make tons of money.
- Supporting sex workers' rights means you don't care about trafficking or violence.
- Sex workers break up marriages.
- Only women do sex work.
- More privileged sex workers deserve more consideration; "higher class" workers are acceptable, street-based workers are not.
- Sex workers are all trying to escape their jobs.
- Sex work is only a temporary job option, no one does it for long.
- Sex workers are trafficked foreign sex slaves; sex workers are poor foreigners.

What information would you expect to find on a web site about sex workers' rights activism and news?

- Updates on new and pending legislation/policy/NGO statements that affect sex workers.
- Harm reduction guides.
- A clearly-stated mission and information about what the group does.
- Upcoming events and projects.
- Links to relevant academic works.
- Why people should care about sex workers.
- A history of sex workers' rights campaigning, discussion/critique of successes and failures.
- Information based on reality rather than intellectual theories.
- Context framing news so new readers can understand why it's important.
- News about arrests of sex workers.
- Profiles of successful sex workers.
- Ability to find other groups by region.
- Links to other human rights groups.
- Materials that make sex workers appear normal and sympathetic, not weird.
- Video and audio content.
- Blacklists and information on bad clients.
- How people put sex workers out of business through over-regulation.
- Information about sex workers that's not framed in a sexy/titillating way to grab attention.
- How to help people who have really been victimized or want to leave sex work.
- An "about us" that explains who runs the site and their experience level with sex work.
- An email list for site updates and new campaigns.
- Understandable breakdown of why decriminalization is better than legalization.
- Resources for sex workers to find friendly healthcare, financial, and legal services.
- Information on the laws that relate to sex work and how to change them.
- Easy, basic content for people who are totally new to sex work issues.
- Information on how to get involved in sex work; employment advice; business tips for sex workers.
- First-person stories and blogs from sex workers; material that humanized sex workers.
- Printable posters and fliers for people to distribute.
- Legal advice for sex workers, your rights in the event of arrest, information on jail/prison (reform).
- Not too much depressing/bad news and articles about murdered sex workers.
- A private spaces for sex workers to talk to each other and build community and get support.
- News that relates to sex work, including immigration, labor, and reproductive healthcare issues.
- Information about government and police crackdowns and abuse of sex workers.
- Mainstream news articles, good and bad.
- Statements from public figures and well-known supporters of sex workers' rights.
- International news and how things are going in other countries.
- Debunking of myths around sex work.
- How allies can help, both financially and otherwise.
- A breakdown of laws state-by-state, including where it's best to be a sex worker.
- Information for queer sex workers.

The cool thing about these questions alone is that they show how much work there is to be done.  I'm not taking on all of these items for SWAAY, but it would be great to see more people doing more of them.  I'll be posting part two of the survey next, which gets into reviews of specific web sites.

"Sex worker" has become a chic identity in urban feministy sex-positive communities, so it's no wonder that some people desperately want to be able to add that label to their own bio.  Doing so is badass, it's liberated, it's sexy, it will help make you internet famous, it's... totally fucking irritating.

Earlier this month, I wrote about my definition of "sex work" and why the term does not apply to everyone in the sex industry at large, or everyone who enjoys sex as a hobby.  To repeat myself, "sex work is exchanging one's own sexual labor or performance for compensation."  This means it doesn't include people like sex advice columnists, strip club owners, or dildo store clerks.  Those people are missing the whole "their own sexual labor" thing.  But, let's not forget the wannabes who are missing the whole work half of sex work.

I've apparently pissed off a sex blogger by not allowing contributions from non- sex workers for SWAAY's section of short personal stories from sex workers.  She sent in a submission about why she enjoys sex blogging, and I politely declined and told her the call-out for submissions is for sex workers only.

I've had arguments with sex bloggers about this topic before, and I know I'll have it many times in the future.  What confounds me is how some sex bloggers just can't wrap their heads around the difference between being a slut and being a whore.  There is a distinction between posting free sexy photos of yourself because it arouses you, and posing for sexy photos to make money.  One is a hobby done for personal arousal and satisfaction, the other is a job done regardless of whether the worker finds it sexually fulfilling.  It's like saying that you consider yourself a prostitute because you like having one-night stands.

I've never met a person without a sex-positive web persona who thinks that their unpaid sexual escapades qualify them as sex workers.  Do they think that doing something sexual on the internet is what defines sex work?  What is it about getting off on web-based exhibitionism that inspires non- sex workers to identify as a sex worker?  I don't understand.

Why does this rattle me so much?  Because being a sex worker means dealing with some serious social stigmas that can impact your life is big ways, and to degrees that non-professional sluts won't experience.  On the extreme end of things, if you get a cross-section of sex workers together, you'll find someone who has been raped or assaulted by a police officer.  I've never once heard a sex blogger report that this is an issue in their community.  Sex workers flat-out have more stigma and (risk of) illegality around our lives and work.  Even relatively privileged sex workers like myself deal with problems like finding a place to live when your income isn't (well-) documented, rejection by friends and family, being verbally attacked by feminists and personally blamed for rape and sexism as a whole, weighing bad laws versus your own personal safety, and the endless hassles and heartbreaks of dating as a sex worker.  It's everything a slut experiences, but greatly multiplied, often complicated by fear of prosecution.

On Twitter, a sex shop owner replied to my rants about sex bloggers:

clmng the name sex worker in solidarity & in rec of lvls of sex wrk is good. But priv people mkng assumptions & demands is icky.

Huh?  It's good to falsely claim "sex worker" in "solidarity" with us?  Please, do show me where sex workers are begging the general public to adopt the title "sex worker" in order to make life better for us.  Did black liberation groups of the 60s and 70s call for white people to put on blackface makeup in order to make lives better for black people?  Is the queer rights movement insisting that things will only get better if more straight people pretend to be queer?  Oh, wait, none of that nonsense has never happened.  Lying and claiming to be a part of an oppressed group won't fix that group's problems.

Here we have an example of someone who thinks they're being an awesome ally to sex workers, but are actually just imposing their own ideas of what sex workers should do in contrary to what sex workers are asking of them.  Paternalism like this is never pretty, it's no different from the paternalism of anti- sex worker activists and "rescuers," and it's certainly not "solidarity."  I've ranted about bad, bossy behavior from "allies" before, and I will continue to stand against non- sex workers insisting that they know better sex workers about what we should be doing.  It's not providing useful suggestions as a part of a sex worker -initiated conversation, it's deciding on your own that you're in the best position to figure out how we should go forward.

Claiming marginalizations that you have never experienced is offensive, whether you're claiming them because you incorrectly believe you're a part of a "cool" oppressed group, or whether you think that pretending to be marginalized is an act of political change.  This is one of the problems with the "hipsterization of sex work" that I've written about before - sex work can get turned into just another transgressive thing to add to one's list of (mock) transgressions against social norms.

This style of temporarily cloaking yourself in other people's realities reminds me of the countless people I've met who romanticize being poor, but as it turns out, come from money and have never experienced real poverty.  While it's not perfectly analogous to the wannabe sex worker crowd, it's the same irksome problem of people flagrantly ignoring/denying their privileges, and even thinking that doing so is helping and standing with the oppressed.  It isn't.  If you want to help sex workers and be a good ally, please start by listening to us, not by pretending to be one of us.

 

I was thinking about the stigma, shame, and illegality around the clients of sex workers, and it reminded me that I've never blogged about a policy of mine.  I'm mostly an online, from-a-distance ho, and I wonder if many face-to-face sex workers give much thought to whether they would side with the police or with their client if they were ever arrested.  Here's my own honor code story.

He was my first offline client, and a politically-connected person.  This wasn't long after the Elliot Spitzer scandal, and I suppose that if I were him, I'd be feeling damned nervous.  Before even taking my strapon out of my shoulder bag, I felt the need to explain what I saw as an important sex worker/client "courtesy" I wanted to establish.

"I want you to know that if arrest or prosecution ever stems from our time together, I would never testify against you.  I don't agree with what 'Kristin' did to her employers and Governor Spitzer.  If people agree to do something together, it's unethical for one of them to later help the state destroy the other.  I understand my right to remain silent and I take it seriously."

My guy just sort of gave me a bemused look.  I'm guessing he had never been with a sex worker who came with an anti-snitching disclaimer.

In the case of sex work that could be construed as illegal, I've always seen clients as literal and figurative "partners in crime" where our joint opposition is the meddling of the government.  It's disappointing to imagine either a sex worker or client blaming the other in an attempt to win a reduced sentence from the state.  (In "Kristin's" case, she was rewarded with immunity for her own illegal acts in exchange for being a witness for the government.)  Do any other sex workers establish whether or not they would betray their clients/associates to help the government's campaign against sex work?  I've never seen discussion of this issue before, but maybe I'm reading the wrong blogs.

This is the third of three call-outs I'm posting this week for participation in SWAAY.  Also see my requests for tips for our clients on how to be respectful and ethical customers and for personal stories from sex workers.

Since including the voices of lots of different sex workers is an important part of swaay.org for me, here's another request for your involvement.  Sure, any one person could write a section on how to be a good ally, but as often as possible, I want to show that sex workers are not a monolith.

Today, I'm looking for people who want to explain what it means to be a good ally.

Update: please visit the submissions page on SWAAY.org

This is the second of three call-outs I'm posting this week for participation in SWAAY.  Also see my requests for tips for our clients on how to be respectful and ethical customers and advice on how to be a good ally to sex workers.

Alongside being reviled, sex workers are also mysterious, fascinating creatures, living just-outside-of-polite-society in a way that's seen as both repugnant and titillating.  People love barraging us with questions in search of juicy, dramatic stories and heartbreak: How do your parents feel about this?  Are you able to have a boyfriend?  Were you raped and molested as a child, and if so, can you recount the tale for my horror?

That sort of feeding frenzy isn't my cup of tea, but there's no denying the public's interest in who we are and why we're sex workers.  Since the overall goal of my new project is to humanize and educate, one component I'd like to include are short personal stories from all sorts of sex workers about our lives and what we think of our work.  The point of these personal stories is to humanize you, let you explain your decisions, and tell people what you want them to understand about your work and life.

Update: please visit the submissions page on SWAAY.org

Edit to add:  This is open to sex workers only.  "Sex worker" does not include sex bloggers who derive personal satisfaction/sexual arousal from unpaid online exhibitionism.  I love sex blogs, but sex blogging is not sex work.

I'm launching SWAAY soon, and now that I've decided which directions to be pulling in and how, I need to flesh out the site with the right sort of content to make it awesome.  This is my first of three call-outs for participation. Also see my requests for personal stories from sex workers, advice on how to be a good ally to sex workers, and sex workers' rights links and resources.

It's easier to disregard web sites with perfectly good arguments and politics where you know the author only as a fake name and an avatar of cleavage or a high heel.  (That's why I have a photo of my face at the top right corner of my blog, despite having a silly work name.  I'm not just a faceless internet text generator, I'm a person!)  I want to include lots of little personal stories and tidbits throughout the site, coupled with small photos of your lovely faces to drive home that you're a person, too.

I believe that one of the failings of the American sex workers' rights movement is its general non-interest in building bridges with or including outreach for clients and customers.  When clients come up in sex workers' web sites and blogs, it tends to be as a punch line or tale of irritation or danger.  They are often painted poorly, as lonely freaks or (comically) weird dudes that don't understand boundaries.

So, what's being done do encourage clients to behave better?  Where's the outreach to explain the social etiquette of patronizing sex workers?  Surely, this is not something taught to people growing up.  There's no point where your mom takes you aside at puberty and tells you about where babies come from, and that if you ever visit a prostitute, you should be freshly showered and discreet when arriving at her incall.

I can tell you that there are a lot of customers out there who do care about purchasing ethical sex and sexual entertainments.  They don't want to buy porn from a company that mistreats performers.  They don't want to end up supporting a violent pimp or seeing an escort who hates her job and feels harmed by it.  Where's the recognition of these people, and the interest in cultivating more ethical consumers in the sex industry?

One of the sections on swaay.org will be for clients and customers, with tips on how to be a respectful purchaser of the services of sex workers.  Want to be a part of that?

Update: please visit the submissions page on SWAAY.org

Happy two year blogoversary to me!  It feels like it's been much longer.

As I did last year, here's a list of my most popular/controversial/commented-upon blog posts from the last year.  (I was going to make it top ten, but there was a tie, so it's eleven.)

* The feminist left versus Julian Assange: how a fanatical belief in every sex crime allegation hurts everyone [November 2010]
* My experience mocking TSA security theater at Seatac as a nearly-naked enfant terrible [November 2010]
* My call for a "working" class uprising against inaccessible discourse and the over-representation of dabblers [January 2011]
* I burn bridges, because baby - who needs a bridge when you can swim? [May 2010]
* The battle against paternalism: an ode to the oft-neglected option of tubal ligation [October 2010]
* Loving my enemy and ineffective activism: "ally" commentary surrounding the Stop Porn Culture conference [June 2010]
* How are we branding sex workers' rights in the US? (Let's focus more on *worker*, less on *sex*!) [April 2011]
* "The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal": a dystopian solution to insecurities [January 2011]
* Legalization versus decriminalization: why the healthcare analogy is misapplied [January 2011]
* Vigilantism and 'crushing bastards': in praise of anger, hatred, and taking joy in the smiting of one's enemies [November 2010]
* Sex worker representation: what is the role of public storytelling? [February 2011]

What's coming up as I enter my third year of blogging and having a more visible internet presence outside of just being naked?

I'm still procrastinating on completing a book proposal, though I have at least decided on the sample chapter to lead with: how feminism has done nothing but hurt the sex workers' rights movement.  I also put off launching my sex workers' rights web site by a month (moved from May 1 to June 1), but that will be online shortly at SWAAY.org.  (Fundraiser tee shirts and stickers were orders this week!  Yay!)

With both the book project and the activist/outreach project, I face the exact same challenge.  I could write well over a book worth of material with my thoughts on sexuality, sexual politics, and sex work.  I also have tons of ideas for amazing things I'd like to see happening in the sex workers' rights scene in the US.  It's not like I'm at a loss for ideas or directions in which I could go, or subjects I could write about, or projects I could start.  My biggest challenge, as I try to maintain a healthy balance between work, political interests, and my private/friend/sex/social life, is how to limit my scope and keep things on my plate manageable.  I don't want to run myself ragged trying to do it all, I'd like to inspire other people to pick ideas up and run with them.  Hopefully, with your help, I'll be able to do just that in the coming year.

I'm late to mentioning the recent murders of sex workers in Long Island.  Honestly, sometimes I just don't have the spare emotional bandwidth to write about profoundly depressing things.

Audacia Ray sums up the Long Island situation on The Red Umbrella Project with a call to action that has been circulating widely in the last couple of weeks, which I'm re-posting here as a reminder/signal booster:

In the week leading up to December 17, 2010 – the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers – the remains of four women who were killed while doing sex work were discovered on a beach in Long Island. Over the past two weeks, the remains of six more bodies have been found in the same area. Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer has requested that anyone involved in the sex industry who may have information about the disappearance of colleagues come forward and share this information with the police. But there remains a rather large barrier: prostitution is criminalized, and sex workers have no guarantee that we will be protected from prosecution if we step forward. Therefore, we are calling for amnesty for all prostitution related offenses in Suffolk County until the killer is apprehended.

If you are a sex worker or an ally of sex workers, please contact the office of the Suffolk County Police Commissioner and District Attorney and make this request. The Police Commissioner has been speaking publicly about this issue, but the DA has the ultimate authority to grant amnesty. We especially need people who live in the New York City / Long Island area, especially Suffolk county, to make calls and send emails. In your request, you can feel free to personalize with information about your experiences or feelings about these cases.

Here is a sample letter, which can be emailed to SCPDINFO@suffolkcountyny.gov and infoda@suffolkcountyny.gov:

Dear Commissioner Dormer and District Attorney Spota,

I am a sex worker / ally to sex workers who lives in Suffolk County / the greater New York City area and I am writing to express concerns my community has about the lack of protection police are offering to sex workers. During this time of extreme anxiety following the discovery of the remains of at least 10 people, it is important for you to extend goodwill to our community.

We appreciate that you have invited sex workers to come forward with information that may help in the investigation of these crimes, but we are requesting that you formally establish amnesty for prostitution related offenses until the killer has been apprehended. Declaring amnesty would go a long way in demonstrating that the police are serious about prioritizing the lives of sex workers.

Sincerely,
NAME
Organizational affiliation (if any)
Email
City/state/zip code

Sample phone script - you can call (631) 852-2677 (SCPD) and (631) 852 – 2575 (DA’s Homicide Bureau):

Hello, I am a sex worker / ally to sex workers who lives in Suffolk County / the greater New York City area. I am calling to request that DA Spota formally establish amnesty for prostitution related offenses until the serial killer is apprehended. If the police motto is to protect and serve, you must work harder to extend this to sex workers.

The precedent: In 2006, when the “Suffolk Strangler” case was developing in Ipswich, England, the police department responded positively for a demand for amnesty put forth by the English Collective of Prostitutes. While the homicide investigations were underway, British police didn’t arrest sex workers. Here is a piece about the request, and a follow up piece in which Assistant Chief Constable Jacqui Cheer is quoted saying, “The welfare of the prostitutes working in Suffolk is my priority at this time.” Let’s put pressure on the nearer Suffolk county to respond similarly.

[Edited to add: I sent my own email after posting this, incorporating a suggestion from Sequoia Redd: asking for the amnesty for both sex workers and their clients.]

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