Audacia Ray's Blog, page 52

"In 2000, at the age of 23, after surviving years of violence and exploitation, Lloyd founded Girls..."

"In 2000, at the age of 23, after surviving years of violence and exploitation, Lloyd founded Girls Education & Mentoring Services (GEMS), an NGO that advocates for sexually exploited girls. Girls Like Us offers a vivid account of Lloyd's journey from abused to acclaimed, weaving the personal with the professional for a bold look at an issue which has, for too long, been sidelined. Yet her memoir seems to cloud, and in some ways even undermine, the issue of sexual exploitation rather than illuminate it. Lloyd seeks to clear a space for new voices, especially those of young women who have been sexually exploited and silenced. Yet with her own impressionable story and public persona, Lloyd takes up much of the air."

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Jessica Mack, in a good critique of Rachel Lloyd's memoir at Alternet (via melissa)

I am reading this book now, and will write about it soon.

Martian Summer: Robot Arms, Cowboy Spacemen, and My 90 Days with the Phoenix Mars Mission by Andrew...

Martian Summer: Robot Arms, Cowboy Spacemen, and My 90 Days with the Phoenix Mars Mission by Andrew Kessler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really loved the whole robots-on-Mars part of the book, which was a lot of it. Though I understood the purpose of the humorous writing style (this is some heavy, confusing shit), I wasn't too into it. I guess I'm just kind of a nerd. I take my Mars science and acronyms seriously.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

flowerewflah:slutwalk chicago

flowerewflah:

slutwalk chicago

"And every single oppression we face is a part of the whorephobic, anti-sex, abelist, anti-drug use,..."

"

And every single oppression we face is a part of the whorephobic, anti-sex, abelist, anti-drug use, racist, sexist, trans-phobic, species-ist, size-ist, colonialist, English-speaking, war-mongering society that we live in. But there is one extreme oppression that we face that cannot be attributed to the military industrial complex - the oppression that anti-sex work feminisms have fraught upon our workplaces.

Namely anti-sex work feminists have chosen to campaign against our workplaces, lobby for the criminalisation of sex workers and our clients, applaud the closure of services that support us, rally to imprison the migrants among us, stigmatise every aspect of our work, discredit our political organising, undermine our demands, belittle our leadership and pathologise us through unethical and harmful research.

"

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Elena Jefferys Scarlet Alliance President

(via m1nou)

I was present when this speech was given - it was amazing & powerful!

(via clownyprincess)

adailyriot:adailyriot:constantrage:"Cultural appropriation...

adailyriot:

adailyriot:

constantrage:

"Cultural appropriation is the adoption or theft of icons, rituals, aesthetic standards, and behavior from one culture or subculture by another. It generally is applied when the subject culture is a minority culture or somehow subordinate in social, political, economic, or military status to the appropriating culture. This "appropriation" often occurs without any real understanding of why the original culture took part in these activities or the meanings behind these activities, often converting culturally significant artifacts, practices, and beliefs into "meaningless" pop-culture or giving them a significance that is completely different/less nuanced than they would originally have had."

Click through to read the whole thing!

hell yeah! I'm so glad you made this. that workshop yesterday was awesome!

important, please read.

StripperArmy: Write For the Stripper Army

StripperArmy: Write For the Stripper Army:

stripperarmy:

We want to write a Manifesta by strippers everywhere who impress us with their fearless occupations of marginalized spaces, subversive lifestyles, radical relationships, and anti authoritarian ways. A guide for those in the club who have felt trapped in survival mode, overburdened, and…

Adapt or die.

Adapt or die.

"In all honesty, I don't dislike the movie Pretty Woman. I think that the movie does an okay..."

"

In all honesty, I don't dislike the movie Pretty Woman. I think that the movie does an okay job portraying escorts as having agency. There were moments where I felt like her portrayal was authentic in some ways, at least by Hollywood standards. However, I think its unspoken truths are just as telling as its script. Ironically authentic was her class mobility and the ease at which she passed in white, upper-class social situations. Her cute little quirks garner some shocked looks, but mostly are seen as spunky. With the exception of a couple of scenes, (her first experience in an upscale clothing store….my girlfriend suggested that if she had been black or Latina, they would have likely called the police on her) she certainly doesn't experience the intense scorn and hate that are common responses sex workers who aren't the white, able, cis-gendered woman. Besides a few scenes which are meant to shock the audience by reminding them that Vivian is still, in fact, a "hooker," the entire movie is based on the promise of her ability to transcend her place in society- that of a sex worker. She is a white woman, after all, and therefore deserves the life of a princess and fairytale ending.

The movie itself doesn't seem like it should attract so much of my scorn, I suppose, but when compared with other movies, which focus on sex workers, or at least use us as characters or props, I feel like this movie becomes important. It sets a standard for whose story is told and how. Of the movies I have seen that set the white sex worker as a woman with agency, and who audiences are expected to empathize with, the established pattern is to use sex workers of color (especially trans) as mere props, jokes, and examples of bad women.

"

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Womanist Musings: Sex Work in the Media: What if the Star of "Pretty Woman" Was a Woman of Color?

I highly recommend that you read Eva Rivera's posts on sex work at Woman Musings.

"Prostitution is legal in France, but soliciting customers is not. It always has been a difficult..."

"

Prostitution is legal in France, but soliciting customers is not. It always has been a difficult distinction to make in practice, and [on June 2, 1975] the angry prostitutes of Lyon decided that the police were trampling on their rights. As part of Interior Minister Michel Poniatowski's general crackdown on vice, local police had been regularly pulling in Lyon's lovelies and fining them $40 for "conduct tending to provoke debauchery." In protest, some 200 prostitutes from the Lyon area camped with sleeping bags in the 15th century St.-Nizier church and announced that they would continue to occupy the premises until police were ordered to ease the pressure.

The group demanded support from Françoise Giroud, State Secretary for Women's Affairs, and even from President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Recalling Giscard's campaign promise to be "President of all the French," the hookers noted logically that he was "thus President of the prostitutes." "Why should we be considered marginal members of society?" demanded Ulla, a comely mid-20s blonde who was declared spokesperson for the group. The ladies got more support from a friendly Lyon public, in the form of free food and drink, than from the government. State Secretary Giroud referred the problem to the Minister of the Interior. "Prostitution is a masculine phenomenon," she remarked in passing the buck. Father Antonin Béal, the parish priest, offered perhaps the most resourceful response to St.-Nizier's unlikely occupation forces. Timidly presenting himself in front of his captive audience, he delivered a sermonette on the redemption of Mary Magdalen.

The homily did not work. At week's end, in fact, the prostitutes' strike spread to other cities. Emulating their sisters in Lyon, an estimated 200 girls gathered at a chapel in an office development in central Paris. A church in Marseilles was occupied by another 200 unhappy hookers. In the Riviera resorts of Cannes and Nice a number of prostitutes stayed away from their customary sidewalk beats.

"

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The World: The Unhappy Hookers - TIME

Twenty-six years ago today, sex workers began a week-long occupation of Saint-Nizier church in Lyon, France. The above article about the protest ran in TIME magazine.

Today, June 2 is International Sex Workers Day - a day to celebrate resistance.

"The cops are a big obstacle to Citiwide's outreach work. Rosas described how cops frequently..."

"The cops are a big obstacle to Citiwide's outreach work. Rosas described how cops frequently followed women after they stopped at the van and arrested them. Many times, cops would use the very condoms sex workers obtained from Canales and Rosas as evidence of their intent to solicit. As the night progressed, four separate arrests occurred within sight of the van. Two took place immediately after sex workers accessed services from Citiwide"

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Shocking: Sex Workers Are Being Prosecuted for Carrying Condoms | | AlterNet

This is a decent piece about harm reduction and outreach, and the fucked up practices of the NYPD - they proll around outreach vans and arrest people who utilize their services. Way to promote safety and health among vulnerable street populations.

Also, its an inaccurate title - condoms are being used as evidence of prostitution, not the same thing as being prosecuted for carrying condoms. Also important to note that condoms are used to profile people as prostitutes, no matter what they were up to at the time.