Audacia Ray's Blog, page 40

"Advocates went to the Senate this morning and we have heard that negotiations on the appropriations..."

"Advocates went to the Senate this morning and we have heard that negotiations on the appropriations bill, including riders like syringe exchange, are taking place at the highest levels. Syringe exchange may be in danger. We need to get calls to the offices below. Please take a minute to make some calls ASAP while there is still time!! Please make 4 calls (in this order) TODAY to the President, Senate Majority Leader Reid, Senator negotiators and leadership from your state, and Speaker Pelosi."

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Save Syringe Exchange Today!

Click through for instructions and sample scripts for these phone calls!

It's official, like it says above:Sex Work Awareness...

It's official, like it says above:

Sex Work Awareness (SWA), which was founded by four $pread magazine staffers in 2008, has evolved over the past few years. After co-founder Audacia Ray began producing the monthly storytelling series Red Umbrella Diaries, SWA's board decided that these separate projects had a lot in common. And so, SWA has evolved into the Red Umbrella Project (RedUP).

The Red Umbrella Project will continue SWA's programming: the Speak Up! Media Training as well as our New York State Legislative Advocacy Workshop. Additionally, RedUP produces the Red Umbrella Diaries live story series, a podcast, storytelling trainings, and campaigns like Protect, Don't Prosecute. In 2012, we plan to continue to expand our programming. 

I'm excited about this new evolution, and hard at work with my Board of Directors to make RedUP a real, professional, non-profit with plans and programs and hopefully funding, too. 

I spent some hours this weekend revamping the Red Umbrella Project email newsletter template and streamlining all the things. Also, if you haven't seen, the Red Umbrella Project has its own (almost finished) website, and the Red Umbrella Diaries has a site all its own too.

Sometimes doing admin work for my projects is kind of meditative. Or at least I have to tell myself that to get it done. Someday I'll hopefully be able to have an assistant again, or I'll have funds for RedUP to hire someone. And don't say "get an intern!" - I love volunteers but think that its important to pay people, especially for admin work, which is a skill worth paying for. 

"Just sit with it. Feel all the things you're feeling."

Good advice given to me by a good friend, about getting through the next week, which will include a memorial service for the victims of the Long Island serial killer on the beach where they were found (Tuesday), testifying at a city council hearing about a shitty piece of newly proposed legislation (Wednesday), producing NYC's International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (Saturday).

2011 has been a rough year. People I know died. People I didn't know but who shared a profession with me were discovered as decomposed bodies on a beach on Long Island. I watched friends suffer both physical and emotional pain. I suffered some emotional pain myself, plus created some in others.

I want to numb it out. But it will, in the long run, serve me better to sit with it, feel all the things, and be present for the pain. So, here we go.

"If you were given the power to unilaterally redesign the U.S. approach to prostitution, what would..."

"If you were given the power to unilaterally redesign the U.S. approach to prostitution, what would you change? My view is to differentiate street prostitution and indoor prostitution. I talk about the two-track policy in the book as one option in the U.S. Street prostitution would remain a criminal offense because of the social problems associated with it, but there would be much more resources put into trying to rehabilitate people working on the street. Track two would be de facto decriminalization: You stop enforcing the law against indoor workers, which means law enforcement doesn't go out of its way to stage stings unless there's some other evidence of a trafficking problem."

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It's time to legalize prostitution - Sex Work - Salon.com

I understand that Ronald Weitzer is being strategic by pitting indoor and outdoor prostitution against each other, but NO. Indoor and outdoor sex work are certainly different and require different approaches, but outdoor sex work won't be eradicated by indoor sex work becoming decriminalized. Continuing to criminalize outdoor workers as a form of negative reinforcement just isn't helping anyone. And neither, by the way, will the bright idea to criminalize clients - because the guys who get arrested are usually poor men of color.

I am a million times wary of the way Weitzer is encouraging a sex work class war.

harmreduction:Have you seen the resources on Hook.com?From...

harmreduction:

Have you seen the resources on Hook.com?

From their site:

HOOK began in 1998 as a grassroots non-profit all-volunteer publication created by, for, and about men in the sex industry.

HOOK's introduction followed a short history of male sexwork activism that set the groundwork for this multimedia program, which would include printed 'zines, the Internet publication, workshops, live appearances and special events.
        

The program's focus on resources and peer-to-peer education was inspired from other harm reduction models, but the adjustments reflect HOOK's unique qualities as a safe space for male sexworkers, their clients, and health and human service-providers who support them.

Today, HOOK has over two dozen volunteers throughout the United States reaching thousands of individuals each month.

I'm proud to know HOOK's founder, highly recommend them and the work they're doing. So good to see the project up and running again (and the pretty design!)

"We need to accept that maybe the thing we've been fighting for our whole lives isn't as important as..."

"We need to accept that maybe the thing we've been fighting for our whole lives isn't as important as another thing that is hurting someone else."

- White Feminists: It's Time to Put Up Or Shut Up on Race « Radically Queer

[ad copy reads: You have your HIV under control. Now, on to...

[ad copy reads: You have your HIV under control. Now, on to HIV-related excess belly fat.] 

Saw this ad in a subway station in Chelsea (for non-NYCers: a Manhattan neighborhood known for upscale gay male culture). Obviously the best way to make money off of HIV meds is by gunning directly for rich cis dude's vanity. And the lack of access to prevention and treatment is still so huge, but yet for some people the concern is about belly fat?

Something to think / get pissed off about on World AIDS Day.

Organon: To all those men who don't think the rape jokes are a problem:

Organon: To all those men who don't think the rape jokes are a problem::

oforganon:

If one in twenty guys (or more) is a real and true rapist, and you have any amount of social activity with other guys like yourself, then it is almost a statistical certainty that one time hanging out with friends and their friends, playing Halo with a bunch of guys online, in a WoW guild, in a pick-up game of basketball, at a bar, or elsewhere, you were talking to a rapist. Not your fault. You can't tell a rapist apart any better than anyone else can. It's not like they announce themselves.  

 But, here's the thing. It's very likely that in some of these interactions with these guys, at some point or another, someone told a rape joke. You, decent guy that you are, understood that they didn't mean it, and it was just a joke. And so you laughed. 

…

That rapist who was in the group with you, that rapist thought that you were on his side. That rapistknew that you were a rapist like him. And he felt validated, and he felt he was among his comrades. 

(December 1 – High and Dry)Tonight, Red Umbrella Diaries at...

(December 1 – High and Dry)

Tonight, Red Umbrella Diaries at Happy Ending in NYC.

On December 17, International Day to End Violence Against Sex...

On December 17, International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers Marks One Year Since Bodies Discovered on Gilgo Beach

In December 2010, the bodies of four women, later identified as Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes were discovered on Gilgo Beach in Long Island, after the family of missing woman Shannan Gilbert insisted on a police investigation of her disappearance. The cases remain unsolved, and since December the remains of another six people have been discovered in the area. The Suffolk County Police Department, which is responsible for the investigation, believes that it is likely that there are multiple local killers who are preying on people who sell sexual services.

On December 17, 2011 people in the sex trade and the people who love and support us will gather at Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan from 2 to 4 pm to hold a vigil for the victims of the Long Island killers and the many other people killed every year because they trade sex and are vulnerable to violence. The event will feature community activist speakers, a candle lighting, and a reading of the names of people in the sex trade who have been murdered this year.

The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers was first organized nearly a decade ago by sex workers in San Francisco to memorialize the people murdered by serial killer Gary Ridgway. Ridgway captured the attitude that cultivates violence towards sex workers: "I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught." At the event, we create a space that challenges this assumption by demonstrating that we have a caring community.

WHEN: Saturday, December 17, 2011 from 2 to 4 pm

WHERE: Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan, 164 West 100th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. 1, 2, or 3 train to 96th Street. New York City.

WHO: Organized by sex worker support and advocacy groups the Red Umbrella Project and the Sex Workers Outreach Project New York. Attendees will be people currently or formerly involved in the sex trades and our friends, family, allies, and those concerned for our health and safety.