At last month's Desiree Alliance conference, I recommended a talk called "Privacy Is Dead- Get Over It", by private investigator Steve Rambam.  He has been giving versions of this talk for years, and this latest version was given at The Next HOPE in New York City in July 2010.  It's not at all geared towards a sex worker audience, nor is it about how to avoid stalkers and other pests that sex workers face, but it's an excellent general introduction to how our "private" lives are anything but.

While Rambam's personal politics are of a conservative bent, he seems to take delight in shattering any lingering illusions of the paranoid and privacy-conscious, spelling out how our lives are all being tracked by private investigators, telecommunications companies, and non-governmental databases.  This is the talk I try to get people to watch if they're curious about the idea of personal privacy in the digital age, and they tend to come away horrified.

Unlike a lot of material out there on the privacy topic, Rambam's talk is not about how The Government spies on us, it's about how corporations spy on us- and how we, as individuals, are the ones who help them do so.  When a friend of mine got out of prison, I asked him if they had him on an ankle monitor.  He held up his smart phone and said, "No, but I got me on this!"  Personally, I pay AT&T $143 a month to track my whereabouts at all times.  This is why I hate it when silly little lefties say stuff like "Orwell was right" or "We're living in Orwellian times now".  No, no we're not.  Orwell was wrong, Ray Bradbury was right.  We The People will not be oppressed by force and coercion and frightening big brothers, we will gleefully and willingly give up any and all personal liberties in the name of gaining shiny amusements.  Oh hey, did you hear the a iPhone is coming out?  Let's go wait in line all day!

This year's talk focuses heavily on how Google catalogs everything about you in order to sell you things, and just how much data we are all hemorrhaging every time we do anything online, make a phone call, or even just carry our mobile phones around with us.  (News to me was Google's upcoming plans to be an electric utility that uses smart grid technology.  This means they'll know what you're doing with your appliances and light switches, down to when you open your refrigerator door.  I wonder if a Hitachi Magic Wand gives off some sort of unique power-draining signature in the outlet in your bedroom?  Ceiling cat is watching you masturbate!)

Jacob Appelbaum, another speaker from The Next HOPE conference who I mentioned last month, touched upon Google in a recent Rolling Stone piece: "It's not just the state.  If it wanted to, Google could overthrow any country in the world.  Google has enough dirt to destroy every marriage in America. [...] At some point people are going to realize that Google has everything on everyone.  Most of all, they can see what questions you're asking, in real time.  Quite literally, they can read your mind."

To download this 3-hour video via legal torrent firesharing, click here for the torrent for part one, and here for part two.  If you're not familiar with using torrents, I also uploaded a copy of the video to my site- but use the torrent option if you can.  To download the entire video from me in .mp4 format (488mb), click here.  If your computer's video player can't play .mp4 videos, I recommend trying out VLC, which plays everything and is available for any operating system.

[The title for this post is a quote from Lee Harrington, from the amazing relationship roundtable titled "Your Girlfriend SUCKS!... for Money!"  The context of his quote was among commentary on those of us with the overlapping traits of being sex workers, kinksters, and polyamorous/non-monogamous.]

It's no secret that my spring was really shitty.  I had two bad splits from people I was involved with, and wasn't feeling motivated to do much of anything besides sleep.  My summer, however has been amazing: filled with travel, good friends, excellent food, partying, sex, and seeing inspiring people fighting for various issues.  If I was a low-IQ midwesterner, I'd label the season "chicken soup for the soul", but since I'm a city-dwelling vegan rationalist, I prefer "come shots for the sapient."

At the end of July, I spent 10 days in Las Vegas - which is the most loathesome place in the entire world - and ended up loving pretty much every moment of it.  I was there primarily for the Desiree Alliance conference, but as coincidence would have it, the 2010 whorecon overlapped precisely with a couple of nerd conventions that I've attended in the past.  I don't think I'll ever have more people I love occupying the same city at the same time.

Thank you so much to the Desiree Alliance conference organizers, volunteers, speakers, and attendees for carving out a wonderful place to be in Las Vegas for a week.  I liked that an over-arching theme in so many presentations (I was mainly interested in the business tract, mind you) was the importance of working independently, and how empowering it is to be calling your own shots.  I couldn't agree more.

One of the things I want to praise is the conference's expectations form, which all presenters and attendees were required to read and sign at registration.  This policy was apparently based on an agreement from Dark Odyssey, at the suggestion of Sarah Sloane.  It's a kick-ass statement on the rights and responsibilities of participants at a sex-positive event, so I'm quoting it in full.  (Same list of expectations for attendees as for presenters/volunteers, just different titles for each form.)  Readers know that I've long had a huge bee in my bonnet about people/conferences not being real allies to sex workers.  Consider this a starting point for making your events safe spaces for sex workers.

Our Expectations of Presenters and Volunteers:

Our presenters and volunteers are the public face of Desiree Alliance, and we ask that all presenters and volunteers agree to support the following ideals during their time at the conference:

A) As a presenter or volunteer, you are in a position of trust regarding attendees' identities & levels of privacy. In order to protect all attendees, we ask that you:

-Respect that some attendees have separate identities for separate parts of their lives; do not disclose personal information about them without their express permission.

-Do not share with people outside of the Desiree Alliance conference any information about who is and is not in attendance.

-Identify them at the conference with the name that is on their badge, even if you know them by another name.

B) You understand and agree to practice the principles of Desiree Alliance including diversity, respect, tolerance, acceptance, openness, and non-judgmental support. You understand and agree to not make any assumptions as to the sexual orientation, partner choice, physical ability, race, spiritual affiliation or belief, class, kink or sex work interests of any attendee.

C)  You understand and agree to practice a gender neutral policy. Desiree Alliance is committed to being a safe, inclusive, welcoming, and positive space for people of all genders. We ask that you do not make any assumptions about someone's gender identity, genital configuration, or the pronouns they prefer. Please respect everyone's self-identification. If you are unsure about how someone would like to be referred to, please just ask them.

D) You will take your role as presenter or volunteer seriously and professionally. Know that you are a representative of Desiree Alliance. You will not use your position to practice or promote classist, sexist, racist, homophobic, or other kinds of bigoted behavior. You will abide by the rules of the conference which include local laws and hotel policies.

I was involved in a couple of presentations, both of which seemed to be quite well-received.

The first was one I did was titled "Solo girl: An introduction to operating your own porn site".  I was nervous about being able to condense all the material I wanted to cover into a 40-minute time slot, but amazingly, I did so, with 4 minutes to spare.  I skipped out on all the personal storytelling, and went at things point-by-point, hitting the most useful and practical advice I could think of for aspiring indie pornographers.  I will not be posting my slides or notes for this presentation online.  It remains my opinion that if you're serious about starting a business, you can be serious enough to travel to an industry conference for your new chosen profession.

The second was a panel I did with Amanda Brooks, Dr Brooke Magnanti (Belle de Jour), and Alex Sotirov, titled "Safety for Sex Workers Through Personal Privacy: Digital and Real-World Techniques For Safeguarding Your Identity and Your Life".  I believe that a recording of this panel will be made available soon, and I'll post that once it appears.  Brooke and Alex are also planning to expand a bit on the material they covered at the conference, and I'll post their notes here.  (Not sure if Amanda plans on posting her materials on her own blog, but she highly recommended the book "How To Be Invisible" by JJ Luna.)  I'll also post a separate entry covering my portion of the panel.  This topic could have easily been a half-day workshop, but I think the four of us did a kick-ass job of narrowing things down to the most important basics that every sex worker needs to know.

To get a feel for what else went on at the conference, see the schedule here.  Personally, my favorites were Dr Joycelyn Elders' keynote, Kimberlee Cline and Mariko Passion's talk on coming out to friends and family, Kirk Read's keynote (watch video), Serpent Libertine and Bebe's ethical sex worker discussion, Nina Hartley's keynote (watch video), and the roundtable on sex workers and relationships.

I especially liked the relationship discussion because it's a subject that's been extra-present in my life this year, and it's good to be amongst other people who've experienced similar issues at some point or another.  I had been with a primary partner/dominant I was in love with, but no matter how happy I was at any given moment, there was always an unspoken expiration date on our relationship.  What he was really looking for for a girl who restrains her kink to the bedroom, her weirdness to an annual trip to Burning Man, and was, overall, a person with a non-embarrassing occupation with whom he could have a litter of children in the suburbs and share a mostly heteronormative life.  That is not now, or ever will be me.

The transgressions I've made against traditional society (as a sterilized, clamorous, out-and-proud sex working pervert) aren't things that most people can deal with.  They're not piercings you can remove, tattoos you can cover, funny-colored hair you can dye back to normal, or the occasional tab of acid you can plausibly deny ever having taken.  They're not surface-level personality quirks purchased from Hot Topic - they're the things that define the core of who I am as a human being.  Through the experiences with my main ex, along with having another guy ditch me solely on the grounds of my being a sex worker, I've been coming to realize how deeply and permanently totally fucking aberrant I am in the eyes of society, and that I need to work even more diligently at repelling mates who aren't okay with who I am.  (I already knew I was weird, and tried my best to warn people of that, but I'm apparently not working fervently enough at this task.)

My contribution to the relationship discussion was pointing out that those of us who are sexually different in some way or another are basically in two camps when it comes to finding mates.  You can try to gently ease people in - such as another person's suggestion that one start out by telling a partner that they used to be a dancer and see how the they react, and then consider telling them the whole truth from there.  This has never been my strategy, because it means hiding who I am by default, and the whole dynamic seems designed to put sex workers on the defensive about the lies and omitted truths upon which they founded their relationships.  It's too sneaky and dishonest for me.  My strategy is one I flatly referred to as the scare 'em away plan.  I am upfront with anyone I consider dating or hooking up with- I want them to run away, as soon as humanly possible, if they know they aren't going to be okay with me making a living taking my clothes off for strangers.  I don't want to build a sexual and romantic relationship with someone - pulling a bait and switch, essentially - and tell them the truth only after they've gotten attached to me.  Such a dynamic seems doomed to fail and hurt all parties, although it does work out for some sex workers.

And anyway, why would I want to fuck someone who might be anti-sex worker?  A few years ago I had a brief tryst with a guy whom I later learned to be a homophobe, and I felt so icky that someone like that got to have his dick in my mouth.  I can't imagine wanting to set myself up for such potentially disgusting and hurtful discoveries every single time I got involved with anyone.  I don't want to fuck or love people who might despise me if they actually knew the truth about me.  So yes, please- let them run screaming, because I'd be running away screaming, too.

Dating/mating as a sex worker isn't easy.  I wish we could have a weekend retreat or unconference on this subject, open to sex workers and their partners.  I wonder if there would be many takers for such a thing if I tried to cat-herd people into doing that at some time in the future?

I'm still on the road this week, but I wanted to post a quick "I'm still alive" in the wake of the amazing Desiree Alliance conference last week.  I'll have a proper blog post on the conference shortly, but I thought I'd share a few photos in the mean time.

Myself and Larry Flynt's gold wheelchair at The Erotic Heritage Museum:

My self-modified guest badge to attend an event at Blackhat, a hacker conference going on at the same time as whorecon:

The day after our conference, Kimberlee Cline suggested that we go to Lake Mead so her dog, Stella, could get some exercise.  Thus began an afternoon of jokes involving wet bitches and hot whores.  Here's Elizabeth from Detroit, Kimberlee, and myself, photographed by Don:

On the way back from the lake, I spotted a Walmart-sized megachurch and insisted we pull off the highway for a photo op.  Here's Kimberlee in the hat and me in the red dress:

We're less than a month away from the 2010 Desiree Alliance conference, which takes place in Las Vegas from July 25th to 30th, so it's high time for me to tell you why you ought to be attending.  If you're a sex worker, curious about getting into sex work, or a genuine ally, it's the event of the year for you to learn new things and network with you kind.  I haven't been before, (the last one was in 2008), but it event seems to garner much praise all-around.

I've not attended many sex worker-specific events in the past, just the 2008 march in Washington DC and the 2009 Sex Worker Fest in San Francisco.  While I've been a sex worker for 8 years, I've mostly just lurked online and kept an eye on what other people are up to.  In the last couple of years, though, I've been aiming to "get out more", both in terms of actual events, and blogging about sex worker issues.  (I used to spend a lot of time debating anti-porn feminists in public and semi-private online forums, but I'm done with wasting my energy on that stupidity.)

At this year's Desiree Alliance conference, I'll be presenting twice, once on my own, and once in a group.  Here are descriptions:

"Solo girl": An introduction to operating your own porn site

A "solo girl" site is adult webmaster terminology for a site that features content primarily of one model/performer, and tends to be focused on nudes, masturbation, and/or fetish content.  Furry Girl has been operating her own solo girl site, FurryGirl.com, since January of 2003, and has also expanded into running a small online store and three other niche porn sites.  Unlike most solo girl or amateur sites that purport to be run by the model they feature, but are actually run by the woman's husband/boyfriend or a company, FurryGirl.com has been mostly solo adventure.  Furry Girl will walk you through the basics of why you might want to run a solo girl site, some legal and business issues to be aware of, privacy concerns, deciding on your online niche/persona, needed equipment and computer gear, why you need to know how to run everything by yourself, content production and editing- including shooting your own photos, building a navigable adult site, billing, promotion, viewer interaction, managing an affiliate program, and networking with other adult webmasters.  (Since she's not a man or a trans person and doesn't have personal experience running queer/male/trans solo sites, the focus of Furry Girl's presentation and its language is on women, but most of the information is applicable to other genders as well.)

Everyone who's always asking me how to start your own porn site - here's your chance to get an introduction to the topic!  I'm probably not going be posting my presentation online afterwards.  I'm wary of setting myself up as a porn advisor because I've already met a ton of unsure time-wasters who want me to hand-hold them through the long process, and those who get pissy at me because I'm not telling them what they want to hear when they ask for my opinion.  I'd rather set the standard that if you're interested in starting a real business, you can trouble yourself to attend a conference for your new chosen profession.  That's really not a huge barrier to entry - it shows that someone is serious, and not just flirting with an titillating concept.

And the panel, which will be the last of the day to allow more room for Q&A:

Safety for Sex Workers Through Personal Privacy: Digital and Real-World Techniques For Safeguarding Your Identity and Your Life

From pornographer/web model Furry Girl: As someone who's a model and a small business owner, I'd like to point out the potential identity breaches rooted in the United State's federal 2257 laws.  I'm not a lawyer - so my focus is explaining from an indie pornographer's sex worker's perspective how 2257 laws put everyone in a bad place and work to stifle free sexual expression online.

From author and escort Amanda Brooks:  Offline privacy and money management.  I will offer simple, legal methods of disassociating your real name/home address from your work name.  It can also be important to keep your real name and actual place of residence separate from one another.  Learn which prepaid card can be used for registering domain names, do business banking without opening a business account, and discreetly move your earnings across state and international borders.

From author and former escort Dr Brooke Magnanti (aka Belle de Jour):  My contribution will be focussing on maintaining privacy in traditional media - how to publish anonymously, sign contracts, and give interviews without compromising anonymity.  It will discuss using limited liability companies to your advantage and managing profits to minimise tax burden.

Professional hacker (and official sexy geek) Alex Sotirov will be covering online/digital privacy, with a focus on how your activities can be tracked online and what steps you can take to try and maintain as much anonymity as possible on the net.

To see what else is in store for attendees, check out the Desiree Alliance schedule.

If you're going to be attending, drop me a comment so I can get excited about hanging out with you.  Also, if you're a sex worker, I'd love to know your questions on either my porn talk or the privacy panel - there might be something I'm missing that I can incorporate into either presentation.  Both talks will be filled-to-the-brim with information, but it's nice to check in with my readers and see what you'd most want to hear on either topic.

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