Audacia Ray's Blog, page 66

Public Bodies: Fox News, Sex Worker/Teachers, and Privilege

Tonight, I did a segment on Fox 5 News New York, with host Ernie Anastos and guests Councilman Fernando Cabrera and attorney Arthur Aidala, to talk about Melissa Petro, an elementary school art and writing teacher in the Bronx who was outed this week as having a past as a stripper and a prostitute. Melissa is an acquaintance who I see out and about, and who performed at Sex Worker Literati last fall (watch her read her story about stripping in Mexico), which she preludes with talking a bit about being a teacher.

But when I say that she was "outed," that's not really the whole story. The NY Post broke the story on Monday with an "exclusive" – air quotes because the story is basically that someone found Melissa on the internet, the NY Post sent a photographer to stalk her, and it became a story. So it's not especially exclusive if the info is already public, nor was she outed, since she's been writing about her experiences in the sex industry for several years and in her writing has acknowledged the risk of outness. Read her Huffington Post piece about Craigslist and her Rumpus piece about being Not Safe for Work (as a teacher).

As I've written about before, I turn down a lot of media because I don't have the time or energy, or I think it will be traumatic for me or unhelpful for the movement. In fact, I turned down a request from Fox News on Monday. I accepted the invite today because I just felt like I should pay it forward. I would want my colleagues to step up for me in the media spotlight if it were ever necessary. Furthermore, the way that Melissa is being lambasted by the media is wholly unreasonable, and the what about the children?! and OMG hookers!! discourse on the whole event is ridiculous. Tonight, I was prepared to defend Melissa and speak my kind of sense about the value of what she did. Which I know doesn't mesh with the Fox Newsspeak, but that's part of the fun.

Here's the clip:

I walked out of the studio feeling good, but also thinking a lot about my privilege and the ways I wield it, and the complexities of race and class that are playing out in this situation. I am very much like Melissa (which is a big part of the reason I felt like I should do some media on this). I have big heaps of privilege: white, cis, middle class, educated privilege which allows me to not only make choices about the kind of work I do for a living, but also has enabled me to make a choice to be out and (sometimes) proud. My experience of sex work was definitely about money, but it wasn't for survival. I could have found other ways.

I think its valuable to use my privilege in this way, to go on television and argue my point of view, even though I don't harbor any illusions of it making big change. It also makes me feel the gulf between my privilege and the legions of other sex workers who cannot be out, whose work and lives are shrouded in the self-preservationist need to be secretive, whose economic circumstances make sex work their best option. Furthermore, the situation with Melissa Petro makes me think about the gulf between her and her students and their families – her (and my) upwardly mobile creative white conventional flaunting ladyness and what Councilman Cabrera establishes as good working class Black and Latino people who have morals.

Although I think that what is happening right now in these conversations about sex work, morals, and what's becoming conduct is useful and important, I also know that it is dangerous. When middle class sex workers like me or Melissa Petro make our lives an example of how to destigmatize sex work, open up the conversation, and be whole people who are also sex workers, we also wield our privilege in a problematic way. When we say "Hi, I'm a good friendly teacher/girl next door/upstanding citizen," unless we say so explicitly, we are also setting ourselves apart from people in the sex trade who are not those things. While middle class sex workers gain acceptance, the gulf widens, and many many other people continue being the victims of violence at both individual and institutional levels. It's important not to reinforce these hierarchies, but there are so many rewards for doing so. As the sex worker rights movement, we must learn to move everyone forward, not sacrifice those whose stories aren't salable or don't quite fit or make people uncomfortable.

Red Umbrella Diaries October 7: Healing Touch

Hosted by Audacia Ray

Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City

Thursday, October 7. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10

21 and up – FREE

15% of the bar proceeds benefits the Sex Workers Project

Starring: Tobi Hill-Meyer, Ducky Doolittle, Laura G. Duncan, Alithea Howes, and Sarah Sloane.

Tobi Hill-Meyer is just about your average multiracial, pansexual, transracially inseminated queerspawn, genderqueer, transdyke, colonized mestiza, pornographer, activist, writer.

Having been less than thrilled with both her own experience in mainstream porn and the amount of representation trans women have in queer and feminist porn, she directing and produced Doing it Ourselves: The Trans Women Porn Project, winning the Emerging Filmmaker award from the Feminist Porn Awards in the process.

With more than two decades working in the field of sexuality, Ducky Doolittle graduated from behind the peepshow glass to the front of the class. Today she is a celebrated Sex Educator and the author of "Sex with the Lights On: 200 Illuminating Sex Questions Answered" Ducky is also a certified Sexual Assault & Violence Intervention Counselor. Harvard University has cited her as their "favorite, most informative and hilarious" sex educators ever to grace their campus. MTV said, "Who do you want to talk about sexuality with? Ducky DooLittle. She knows it all!" Ducky is the President of Love U Parties, a healthy-for-the-body sex toy company.

Laura G. Duncan is a sexual health researcher, educator and writer currently living in Brooklyn. Her research deals with issues of sexuality within medicine, focusing on health literacy and accessibility among underserved populations. She has taught sex education at a high school, health non-profit and medical school and she currently works as an abortion doula with The Doula Project. She also performs a multimedia research presentation on teledildonics and sexual robotics in venues around New York City.

Alithea Howes takes her clothes off in bars and teaches people how to be kinky. She has been performing burlesque since 2005 and stunning audiences with her creative twists on the art of burlesque. After becoming a professional dominatrix in 2006 she began teaching classes on the art of kink and has taught for TES, DSF, and GD2 among others. She is also a writer, a storyteller and an artist. Find her on facebook, fetlife (under the name Coraline) or look her up at www.marycyn.com

Sarah Sloane travels the US & Canada as a sex, relationship, and kink educator, sowing her wild oats (and selling sex toys) along the way. She speaks to thousands of people each year, and gets a total buzz from watching the "aha!" moments that happen to attendees during and after classes. She's also a grudgingly prolific writer (with regular columns on Fearless Press and on other websites), activist, and sex-positive business coach & consultant. Her current adjectives include queer, butch-ish, curmudgeony, left-wing, and unapologetic introvert.

The Sex Workers Project provides legal services and legal training, and engages in documentation and policy advocacy, for sex workers. Using a harm reduction and human rights model, we protect the rights and safety of sex workers who by choice, circumstance, or coercion remain in the industry.

Band Aids, Saving Face, and Endangering Sex Workers: The Craigslist Saga

Craigslist's self-censorship of its adult services ads will do nothing to end sex trafficking, though it might make it a little more challenging to post adult ads on the site. As a former Craigslist sex worker myself, I know that not all commercial sex interactions are sex slavery. In fact, many transactions facilitated by the Internet involve independent sex workers who have greater control over their working conditions than they would without access to online advertising.

Prostitution–and today's Internet iteration of the business–is a perennially popular issue for politicians to crack down on because elected officials get the opportunity to speak up for supposedly voiceless and exploited people (13 of the 17 attorneys general making the fuss right now are up for re-election this year). However, people in the sex industry are not voiceless, and we must be consulted when policies that directly affect our safety and well-being are under consideration. There are many different kinds of work experiences in the sex industry, and targeting a single website as a means of combating sex trafficking is not only highly ineffective, but puts people who are not coerced into sex work at risk.

There are thousands of both illegally and legally working sex workers – prostitutes, dominatrices, body workers, exotic dancers, webcam performers, and many others – who utilize websites like Craigslist to advertise their services in an independent capacity. The Internet has now made it more possible than ever for individual sex workers to take control of their businesses instead of relying on agencies, pimps, gentleman's clubs, and brothels, which are frequently the sources and sites of grievously exploitative labor practices that include but are not limited to trafficking. Individuals who work indoors and advertise online, as I did, are safer than street workers because we frequently rely on online networks to screen clients, maintain bad date lists, and share information about best practices for health and safety. Removing online spaces for this community building, which often starts with advertising, drives independent workers underground and forces them to rely on groups that do not have their best interests at heart.

The attorneys general are right to combat sex trafficking. Coerced labor and coerced sex are clear evils. However, ending sex trafficking takes careful strategy, and what the Federal and State governments are doing to combat trafficking is not working. The federal Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (link starts auto-download of PDF) has resulted in just over 400 sex trafficking convictions in the last decade, and very few survivors of sex trafficking are receiving aid from state and federal agencies. Furthermore, sex trafficking is over-represented in media coverage of human trafficking. The International Labour Organization estimates that for every person trafficked into prostitution, nine people are trafficked into forced labor situations that include agricultural work, domestic labor, and many others. Furthermore, though public debate conflates sex trafficking and sex work, they are not the same thing. The 10th Edition of the Trafficking in Persons Report released by the Department of State in June clearly states that, "prostitution by willing adults is not human trafficking regardless of whether it is legalized, decriminalized, or criminalized."

Until it censored adult services, Craigslist was exploring ways to better combat trafficking and exploitative labor practices within the sex industry, and was discussing best practices for this with Craigslist. Losing this avenue for advertising also means that law enforcement officials and social services that strive to improve the health and well-being of people in the sex industry are less able to identify and do outreach to such persons.

It's true that many forms of sex work are criminalized, but prohibition is not an effective means of halting a practice, especially an income-generating one. Instead of shutting down Craigslist, the attorneys general should engage in conversations with people who work in the sex industry about how to identify sex trafficking and differentiate it from sex work. Instead of arresting individual trafficking survivors or consenting sex workers, we must support individuals who do not want to be in the sex industry in securing safe housing, accessing health services including mental health and addiction treatment when needed, and obtaining the education and training needed to find jobs that pay a living wage that is comparable to or better than earnings in the sex industry.

Band Aids, Saving Face, and Endangering Sex Workers: The Craigslist Dilemma

Craigslist's self-censorship of its adult services ads will do nothing to end sex trafficking, though it might make it a little more challenging to post adult ads on the site. As a former Craigslist sex worker myself, I know that not all commercial sex interactions are sex slavery. In fact, many transactions facilitated by the Internet involve independent sex workers who have greater control over their working conditions than they would without access to online advertising.

Prostitution–and t...

Red Umbrella Diaries Blog Carnival: Demand Side

This month's blog carnival leads up to the September 2nd Demand Side live event at Happy Ending, starring Caveh Zahedi, Daniel Lukes, Emma Lee, Puma Perl & Big Mike – and one of the stories below.For the blog carnival, I've got a bunch of pieces that look at the demand side from a few different angles: stories from patrons of the sex industry, stories by sex workers about patrons of the sex industry, and policy and activism pieces.
Stories by Johns

Two Girls in SoHo, by Bête de Nuit

A...

$pread is Dead, Long Live $pread

On Sunday, $preadsters past and present gathered at my apartment in Brooklyn for a serious conversation about the future of the magazine. After several hours of lively debate, and some misty eyes, we decided that the best thing to do is to discontinue the publication of $pread magazine. It's a sad and heavy thing, but unfortunately the only way things can go at this point.

Six years ago, in the late summer of 2004, I was forwarded a call for submissions for a sex worker magazine in the works. ...

Red Umbrella Diaries – Recent Podcasts

I've been releasing a new episode of the Red Umbrella Diaries podcast every Sunday, but have fallen behind on cross-posting them here. So! Here are the last four episodes. You can subscribe via the podcast RSS feed or via iTunes.

Episode 7

features a story by Busty Kitten, "Ode to My Fellow Dancers." The story was recorded during the Coworkers and Co-conspirators live event on July 1, 2010.

Busty...

Red Umbrella Diaries September 2 – Demand Side

Hosted by Audacia Ray

Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City

Thursday, September 2. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10

21 and up – FREE

Starring:

Caveh Zahedi received a B.A. in Philosophy at Yale University and an M.F.A. in Film Production at the UCLA School of Film and Television. His feature-length films include A Little Stiff (1991), I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore (1994), In The Bathtub of the World (2001), and I Am A Sex Addict (2005).

Nothing About Us Without Us: The Shared Goals of the Harm Reduction and Sex Worker Rights Movements

The above video and supplementary documents are designed to spark discussion and create inspiration for looking at the ways that peer-led groups providing support and services to sex workers in their communities can collaborate with harm reduction agencies. The materials were developed by a group of sex workers and allies during the Speak Up! media training, the second annual workshop by Sex Work Awareness.

We were motivated to produce this project because we know that the sex work and harm...

Red Umbrella Diaries: New Podcast Ep and Blog Carnival

Episode 3 features a story by Izzy Oneiric, "Pebbles, the Tripping Stripper," as performed by Melissa Gira Grant. The story was recorded during the Coworkers and Co-conspirators live event on July 1, 2010.

Poet and performance artist Izzy Oneiric's writing has appeared under various names in nearly twenty print and online publications such as $pread, Exquisite Corpse, Wheelhouse Magazine, Opium, and Burdock. For several years she was Poetry Editor for other magazine. She has lived and...