Audacia Ray's Blog, page 41
November 11, 2011
Brooklyn: Kensington/Windsor Terrace Neighbors Launch K9WaTch to Create Safer Community In Response to Ongoing Sexual Assaults in Our Neighborhood
On Saturday, November 12, 2011 from 5 to 7 pm, Kensington/Windsor Terrace (KWT) neighbors and their dogs will gather at Brooklyn Commune (601 Greenwood Avenue, at Prospect Avenue) to launch K9WaTch, the Kensington/Windsor Terrace Canine Watch. K9WaTch volunteers and their dogs, identified by brightly colored bandanas, will monitor the neighborhood streets in the evenings in an effort to regain safety and security in our neighborhood. K9WaTch was formed as a volunteer collective in October 2011 in response to assaults, attempted assaults, and muggings in the KWT area of Brooklyn. After weeks of planning and recruiting more than twenty volunteers and their canine partners, the K9WaTch program starts this weekend. K9WaTch volunteers will offer a nightly presence in the neighborhood. The launch event includes volunteers and their dogs and will provide photo and interview opportunities.
"I appreciate the feeling of community here and the work that people are doing in our neighborhood organizations. So when I heard that women were being attacked, it seemed only natural to participate in trying to make us all safer," says Joy Rich, an organizer for K9WaTch who has been a KWT resident for twenty-four years, as well as a member of KARMABrooklyn's Resident Advisory Board and its blogger since its founding in 2009.
A group of concerned neighbors met up after connecting on our neighborhood email list, and decided to join forces to make our neighborhood safer by forming K9WaTch. Dog owners and non-dog-owners alike will don brightly colored bandanas and create increased neighborly presence at subway stops and on dark streets in the evenings. Our presence as a caring neighborhood collective discourages crime by creating awareness and promoting watchfulness in our community.
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This is a thing that I've been organizing with some neighbors. and we're launching tomorrow.
November 9, 2011
"This past month, I got the opportunity to go to London for Sex Worker Open University, a nearly..."
This past month, I got the opportunity to go to London for Sex Worker Open University, a nearly weeklong event organized by a collective and held in the Arcola Theatre complex in Hackney. There were many sessions every day, an interesting blend of skill shares by and for sex workers, and presentations about policy and activism work. The event ran from Wednesday, October 12 through Sunday, October 16– you can see the full program here and feel envious – and on the Friday, we had an evening of conversation among activists from all over the world.
During the activist conversation, we heard from the German group HYDRA, which just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. Some sex workers who work in Germany reported that there isn't much of an activism scene there because sex work is fully decriminalized, so although there's certainly stigma and violence that affects workers there, they don't feel a huge urgency in fighting for their rights. SWASH, a Japanese group that was founded in 1995, talked about the community based research they have been doing about migrant workers in the sex industry. They also talked about an interesting loophole in their law, which specifies that vaginal intercourse is illegal, so everyone offers oral, anal, and manual services to get around the law. A Danish sex worker talked about how exhausted she is trying to deal with all the crappy laws and bad attitudes about sex work in Denmark. Brothel prostitution is legal in Denmark, but it's heavily regulated. She talked pretty gleefully about a campaign sex workers did during the Copenhagen climate change summit a few years ago, though. The conference distributed cards discouraging visitors from buying sex (because it's "unsustainable") and the local sex workers offered discounts to anyone who brought them one of the flyers. A woman from Turkey talked about the complex ways in which sex work and trans women's rights are entangled. In Turkey there are licensed brothels, but getting licensed is a humiliating process and isn't usually open to trans women. She said that in the trans women's organization she works in, all the women are sex workers, but there's a lot of stigma associated with that so they don't always talk about it. They're pretty focused on anti-violence work instead of the pursuit of sex worker rights. She said, "Right now the trans women's movement is struggling to convince people not to kill us! It's a long way from there to the conversation about rights."
- Report From 2011′s Sex Worker Open University, by Audacia Ray
November 8, 2011
On display right now at the New York Public Library.
On display right now at the New York Public Library.
November 4, 2011
I didn't cry when I got my yellow fever vaccine today, so...
I didn't cry when I got my yellow fever vaccine today, so I got a brightly colored band aid and a lollipop.
(going to Cameroun in two weeks to document a female condom distribution program)
(via TIME Magazine's Best Pictures of the Week, October 28...
(via TIME Magazine's Best Pictures of the Week, October 28 - November 4 - LightBox)
Mexican sex workers did a march this week for Day of the Dead, to memorialize murdered colleagues.
November 1, 2011
Review: Orianna Small's book Girlvert
Girlvert by Oriana Small
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A really intense, raw account of Orianna's adventures in porn that is as hardcore as it gets. There is a lot of human ugliness in this book, and its not all from porn, a lot of it involves romantic relationships. As someone who appreciates the grotesque, especially when it comes to sex and sadness, I really enjoyed this book. The ending, with her and Dave Naz's love story, is a bit rushed, but a solid perusal of her blog will fill in the details about what's happened since they met.
One major thing to dislike, though, was the constant hating on prostitutes and their assumed motivations for working in the sex industry. Disrespecting other sex workers for their decisions and line of work is not a good look.
View all my reviews
October 27, 2011
"Complicated issues require sophisticated solutions, not PR flurries."
-
Village Voice Media Responds to Clergy - New York News - Runnin' Scared
AMEN TO THIS.
October 25, 2011
(via November 3 – Demand Side)
RED UMBRELLA DIARIES
November 3 -...
(via November 3 – Demand Side)
RED UMBRELLA DIARIES
November 3 - Demand Side
Hosted by Audacia Ray
Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10
21 and up – FREE
15% of the bar tab supports media training for sex workers
Amber Dawn is an interdisciplinary based in Vancouver, Canada. She is the author of the Lambda Award-winning novel Sub Rosa (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010), editor of Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2008) and co-editor of With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005). Currently, she is the Director of Programming for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.
In 1986 in Albuquerque, Nancy Ava Miller started one of the first S&M support groups, PEP—People Exchanging Power. Later, she traveled the land, creating other PEP organizations in DC, Tucson, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, and St. Louis. Remember: this was pre World Wide Web and communion among kinksters was difficult back then! In addition, Nancy holds a Master's in Education from University of Maryland plus she taught public school in the Washington, DC area for ten years. She is a former professional writer/photographer, now the author of the award-winning Pervert: Notes from the Sexual Underground, an anthology, almanac, album, memoir, and history of her life in the sex biz, with over 101 mostly never before published photographs. She is a certified clinical hypnotherapist to boot, and today remains active in her cherished BDSM community while still leading PEP, which continues its support and love for perverts everywhere
October 24, 2011
Poster campaign against racist halloween costumes
There's more:
[Image: A young Arab man holding up a photograph of a white person offensively dressed in stereotyped "Sheik" clothing with a pretend bomb duct taped to their chest, holding a plastic cup and smiling. The text says: We're a culture, not a costume. This is not who I am and this is not okay.]
[Image: A young East Asian woman decent holding up a photograph of a white person dressed offensively and appropriatively in an over-the-top Geisha costume, with their hands pressed together in a prayer-like motion and an exaggerated pouty lip look on their face. The text says: We're a culture, not a costume. This is not who I am and this is not okay.]
[Image: A young Latino man holding up a picture of a white person offensively and appropriatively dressed in a costume wearing a sombrero, a colorful poncho with an exaggerated long handlebar mustache and a stuffed costume donkey on the front, making it look as if they are riding the donkey while smiling. The text says: We're a culture, not a costume. This is not who I am and this is not okay.]
Students Teaching About Racism in Society is a Student Org at Ohio University.
This is fucking great.
October 22, 2011
Never thought I'd be this pleased to receive a...
Never thought I'd be this pleased to receive a "participant" medal, but… I am. This morning I ran my first 10K race, finished in an hour and eighteen minutes, with energy to spare at the end. Last year I would've laughed if you told me I'd be excited about running, and capable of this distance. Next spring my goal is a half marathon.
