Audacia Ray's Blog, page 43
October 1, 2011
SlutWalk NYC Speech
Here's what I said this afternoon:
Like many people who lay claim to the word feminist, I am a white cisgender woman. I am also a sexual assault survivor, and I am a former sex worker, and so I want to complicate a few things for you.
I stand here with a great degree of ambivalence, because the work that needs to be done to make feminism do good is huge and complex, because I'm glad that we are getting together and having these conversations, but also because I know that these conversations have only come to a head bc a cop used the word slut and white cisgender women were pissed off about it. I want to charge women like me with the task of being better activists and allies - and that means listening, and sometimes it means shutting up, or responding to criticism by rerouting projects completely.
I exist at the nexus of several different kinds of privilege, but as a sex worker I quickly became aware that many institutions I previously thought existed to help me - like public health care providers and the police- were actually quite terrifying and had a lot of power to make my life harder and more miserable.
Now I know that it is important to speak up, to get loud and resist the many oppressions that face us. But I also know it is as important to listen and make way for many voices. Claiming solidarity means not just showing up and showing outrage when people like you are negatively affected, but showing up when people who are not like you need solidarity.
It means showing up for the October 22 Coalition against police brutality, it means showing up at the Trans Day of Remembrance on November 20, it means showing up at the Intl Day to end violence against sex workers on Dec 17, and it means closely examining and resisting public policies that may make your life better at the expense of others.
September 28, 2011
Embarrassing Sex Worker Activism
Dear sex worker activists: the Obama administration cannot make this happen. The criminal code is codified at a state level.
If you want to "decriminalize" aka chip away at the legal system that does harm in our lives, start researching the laws in place in your state and city that do this harm. There are lots of local laws that discriminate against sex workers and people profiled as sex workers. Like the fact that condoms can be used as evidence of prostitution, or that until it was defeated this summer, people profiled as sex workers (esp trans women of color) in Louisiana were being put on the sex offender registry.
Safe Slope: An Open Letter to the NYPD (72nd and 78th Precincts) about Their Responses to Sexual Assaults
September 28, 2011
We are a grassroots group of women and men called Safe Slope, and our work is focused on providing community-based responses to violence. Safe Slope formed in Brooklyn in August 2011 to respond to multiple sexual assaults that occurred in Park Slope and several surrounding…
Critique of the increased police presence in response to the recent sexual assaults in Brooklyn. Worth reading the whole thing.
housingworksbookstore:
Mike Edison (of High Times magazine,...
Mike Edison (of High Times magazine, Screw, Hustler, Penthouse, and author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go) hosts his Fourth Annual Banned Books Party celebrating Banned Books Week and illuminating America's sordid past of banning and challenging great books. Guests this year include Richard Nash (creator of Cursor, publisher at Red Lemonade, Utne Reader's one of Fifty Visionaries Changing Your World, Mashable.com #1 Twitter User Changing the Shape of Publishing) and Melissa Petro (a New School MFA, freelance writer, and former sex worker who worked three years as a public school teacher in the South Bronx), who will talk about censorship in our daily lives. Comedy writer Todd Hanson (The Onion), author Rachel Shukert (Everything Here Is Going to Be Great), and author and bookseller Alex Dawson (Raconteur Books) will read their favorite banned books with a live soundtrack provided by the Interstellar Rendezvous All-Star Band. All this plus another round of the legendary "Name That Banned Book" contest — come on down for some state-sponsored fear and fabulous prizes! RSVP to this event on Facebook » (via Banned Books Week Party with Mike Edison, Richard Nash, Melissa Petro and Live Music - Event - Housing Works)
September 27, 2011
Watched this tonight. Whoa.
Watched this tonight. Whoa.
September 24, 2011
Wow. One of the best books I've read this year. Told in...
Wow. One of the best books I've read this year. Told in the first person, the book is the story of a large animal vet in the northeast. We go with him on his calls and get a peek into the relationships between people and animals, plus his relationship with his wife and three kids. That sounds half boring when I write it, but it so isn't. The characters are all so well written. I cried at least twice while reading the book, and that's pretty unusual for me.
I initially thought I'd tire of the form (paragraphs starting call/action/thoughts on the drive home, etc), but it just works. The writing is so spare and does so much in tiny paragraphs. I'll say it again: wow.
(via Goodreads | Audacia Ray (Brooklyn, NY)'s review of The Call: A Novel)
September 22, 2011
Struggling To Be Heard: I am not Troy Davis.
On the one hand I think it's interesting and hopeful that white people (because POC don't need another lesson) are personally identifying with the horrific injustice of Mr. Davis' case, and that they are mobilizing. That they are recognizing…
"I became a writer to deal with the complexities of my life. If I'd had the emotional and mental..."
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Debra Dickerson, "Ethics in Personal Writing," Telling True Stories (via rkb)
THIS.
September 21, 2011
About the word whorephobia, I personally know Audacia Ray (the original source of the post) and she is a sex worker herself, doing community organizing with sex workers in New York city as well. I believe she reclaimed the word because of her activist w
The context does matter because I was about to go off lol. It's different if she was a sex worker before and I suppose she can use it. The reclamation of that word when used like a weapon against an occupation probably makes sense. I just don't think I could use that to describe the mistreatment of sex workers. The word whore pisses me off in general. Thanks, that does help. *runs off to look up Audacia Ray*
I'm a former sex worker, and have been out of the business a while. The word "whore" is generally cringeworthy to me (especially when used as a weapon against sex workers as it so often is), but I do occasionally use it as part of the word "whorephobia," as in this post title. Probably its too flippant a usage, but it is used frequently by the sex worker rights movement internationally (that said, folks in the international movement also use the word "transgender" as a noun, so that probably isn't the best measuring stick).
About the word whorephobia, I personally know Audacia Ray (the original source of the post) and she is a sex worker herself, doing community organizing with sex workers in New York city as well. I believe she reclaimed the word because of her activist w
The context does matter because I was about to go off lol. It's different if she was a sex worker before and I suppose she can use it. The reclamation of that word when used like a weapon against an occupation probably makes sense. I just don't think I could use that to describe the mistreatment of sex workers. The word whore pisses me off in general. Thanks, that does help. *runs off to look up Audacia Ray*
I'm a former sex worker, and have been out of the business a while. The word "whore" is generally cringeworthy to me (especially when used as a weapon against sex workers as it so often is), but I do occasionally use it as part of the word "whorephobia," as in this post title. Probably its too flippant a usage, but it is used frequently by the sex worker rights movement internationally (that said, folks in the international movement also use the word "transgender" as a noun, so that probably isn't the best measuring stick).
