EVERY HO I KNOW SAYS SO is a response to the total lack of accessible online resources for people looking for advice on how to be a good date or lover or partner to a sex worker. We want to support our lovers to continue unlearning the internalized stigma against sex workers, especially in intimate relationships. We think that sex workers themselves have valuable advice and direction to give to people who get into intimate relationships with us. This is the direct message we want to give to our lovers: “We hope that this video is useful to you in your journey to becoming a sex worker-positive and supportive lover and person in the community!!! By continuing to work on your attitudes about our work and educating yourself, you are showing us that you care. We love you!”
sex work
Location: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome St, NYC (Pink awning says “Xie He Health”)
Cost: 21 and up – FREE
STARRING Veronica Vera, Lauren Wissot, Chelsea G Summers, Michael Pollack, and E.V. Fleurima, aka Ckiara Rose
Hosted by Audacia Ray
…
15% of the bar tab supports PROS Network (Providers and Resources Offering Services to sex workers)
Performer details:
Veronica Vera’s multi-faceted career began with several years on Wall Street. Then she decided to earn an honest living as a sex journalist, porn star, erotic model, prostitutes’ rights activist. Her collaborations with artists include Robert Mapplethorpe. Veronica testified in Washington for freedom of expression. In 1992 she created the world’s first crossdressing academy, Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls and wrote the book of the same name. Her second book is Miss Vera’s Crossdress for Success. She continues to offer classes in higher heeled education at her NY academy and college campuses, fields offers from reality show producers and works on her memoir.
Lauren Wissot is a NYC-based, award-winning filmmaker and freelance film and theater critic whose work can be regularly read at “Filmmaker” magazine, Slant Magazine and Theater Online among other publications. Her erotic memoir Under My Master’s Wings, about her time spent as the personal slave to a gay-for-pay-stripper/porn star, is available from Random House sub-imprint Nexus Books. Currently, she’s looking for film and writing opportunities in Amsterdam since she plans to relocate to the city this fall. Please visit her blog www.beyondthegreendoor.blogspot.com.
In order to fund her Ph.D. habit, Chelsea G. Summers worked most of the go-go ’90s as a stripper. Later, she found herself uninspired to write her doctoral dissertation and thus she began writing her award-winning blog, pretty dumb things, in March 2005. Since then, Chelsea’s work has appeared in magazines like GQ and Penthouse and in multiple anthologies. She has been interviewed by the legendary Susie Bright for her Audible.com show “In Bed With Susie Bright,” and her work has been featured in fine online publications such as Filthy Gorgeous Things.com. Chelsea is currently working on any number of projects, when she isn’t suffering from paralyzing crises of confidence. Chelsea lives and sometimes writes in glamorous New York City.
Michael Pollack grew up in Huntington, Long Island and graduated from Huntington High School in 1964, and got his BA from Syracuse University in 1968. While attending Syracuse he was the business manager for the “unofficial alternative” school newspaper, The Promethean. Their largest advertiser was the Civic Follies Burlesque and hence he started my involvement with porn. After graduation Michael stayed in Syracuse and while managing the Civic, attended the forming of the Adult Film Association in Kansas City in 1969. He spent the 1970’s in porn; the 1980’s in the video business; and for the last 20 years he has been selling foreign language books to schools.
E.V. Fleurima, aka Ckiara Rose, is of French Haitian paternal heritage and Miskitu/Nicargauan and Sudanese maternal heritage. She is the author of Ckiara Song of Men Slaves, a poetic biography that tells the story of her life as a sensual dominant and sacred whore. http://ckiararose.com/
The PROS Network (Providers and Resources Offering Services to sex workers) is a coalition of sex workers, organizers, direct service providers, advocates, and media makers. We exist to collaborate on programs and campaigns around sex work-related issues in the New York metropolitan area. We work with people of all genders who, by choice, circumstance, or coercion, engage in sexual activities for money, food, shelter, clothing, drugs, or other survival needs. Grounded in principles of social justice and human rights, the PROS Network embraces a non-judgmental, harm reduction approach. Check them out on Facebook.
More info: http://www.redumbrellaproject.com/august-5-well-seasoned/
Canadian journalist Victor Malarek’s book The Johns: Sex for Sale and the Men Who Buy It is a distinctive contribution to the ongoing conversation about sex work. While we tend to focus on the women who work in the sex trade (as Malarek himself did in his earlier book, The Natashas), here he trains his lens on the men who patronize prostitutes, arguing vehemently — and occasionally convincingly — that the demand side of the transaction is really the problem.
This argument is premised on an “unwavering realization†Malarek has proudly come to: “prostitution — all prostitution — is not about choice.†Researching his previous book seems to have clued him in to the hypocrisy of the whole situation: the fact that sex workers are stigmatized and demeaned, while the men who seek out their services literally get off easy. It’s a reasonable, and entirely welcome, point. But to make it, Malarek rests on easy assumptions, particularly about the women involved in the sex trade, who he uniformly portrays as victims. He makes his case with a sensationalist zeal that is often moralizing, sometimes condescending, and nearly always guided — and defeated — by sweeping generalizations. I wonder, though, if a decidedly mainstream takedown of men’s sexual privilege could really have gone any other way. (Perhaps tellingly, male sex workers are all but absent from these pages.)
Link
[via Melissa Gira]
This is a collaborative press release – please distribute and repost widely!
Contact:
Dylan Wolfe – Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK), swank@riseup.net
Will Rockwell – $pread Magazine, will@spreadmagazine.org
Audacia Ray – Sex Work Awareness (SWA), aray@sexworkawareness.org
Susan Blake – Prostitutes of New York (PONY), pony@panix.com
Michael Bottoms – Sex Workers Outreach Project – New York City (SWOP-NYC), info@swop-nyc.org
With Craigslist’s recent announcement that its Erotic Services category will be discontinued within the week, hundreds of thousands of erotic service providers will become more vulnerable to dangerous predators. Eliminating erotic listings as Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and others propose will only drive us further underground.
Policing the masseuses, phone workers, pro-dominants, and escorts using Craigslist fails to protect those of us who are coerced into the sex industry. Preventing the use of Craigslist advertisements also eliminates the advantage of screening clients online, which makes for a safer work experience by filtering out potentially dangerous individuals. Furthermore, keeping us offline hinders police investigations of violent crime. In the Boston murder of Julissa Brisman, it was online tracking that enabled the police to identify the suspect. One has to wonder: are the Attorneys General examining the evidence or simply enforcing their moral values?
“Removing the erotic services category from Craigslist does not help prevent violence against escorts and other sex workers. It only pushes me and people like me out of the places where advertising is available,†said Jessica Bloom, a sex worker from Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK). In the face of increasing criminalization, we insist upon respect. As mothers, daughters, brothers, and members of your community, we claim that sex work is real work, work that we are entitled to conduct in safety. As such, we must be accorded the human right of full protection under the law.
###
**EDIT** an addendum. I just typed this up in response to a Facebook friend asking what he could do to help. Here are some suggestions:
You can totally help, mostly by speaking up and jumping into the fray!
Legislation about consensual adult sex work (not trafficking, coercion, or child prostitution) mostly happens on the state level – since you’re in NY, you can find your assembly person here: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/ – write to him or her and tell them how you feel about the risks created and perpetuated by continued criminalizing of sex work and cracking down on advertising
Write letters to the editor of newspapers that publish misguided pieces about how the elimination of craigslist erotic services will “help†women
Comment on blog posts and online articles (if you’ve got the stomach for it!)
And check out the very excellent and thorough reports on research done by the Sex Workers Project to arm yourself with statistics
March 10, 2009 – The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom NCSF is a proud member of the Stop the Arrests Coalition. Spokesperson Susan Wright has participated in organizing meetings and spoke out atthe Sheridan Square Rally on February 21st, 2009, against the false arrests of gay men and professional Dominatrices for prostitution.
There is good news from a meeting on March 6th with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly pledging to curb the stings against gay men see articles below. NCSF is continuing to press for a cessation of arrests of professional Dominatrices, and has written to Commissioner Kelly to ask for a meeting about the NYPD’s change in policy after 14 years of legal operation, which has resulted in a number of arrests of Dominatrices and owners of BDSM houses since Fall 2007.
NCSF opposes the prosecution of pro-dominants under prostitution laws. Consenting adults engaging in safe, sane, consensual SM, fetishes, and cross-dressing services do not pose legitimate health or safety issues for local communities. What these adults agree to do in private is no one else’s business.
Members of the Stop the Arrests Coalition include: Queer Justice League, Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, Sex Workers Outreach Project, Urban Justice League’s Sex Worker Project, and FIERCE New York.
More. . . .
[via Miss Calico]
by Tracy Quan, The Daily Beast
“I’ve seen it before,” says Linda, “during the tech bust in 2002. Women who thought they would always make a decent living in the tech sector lost their jobs.” They came looking to Linda’s industry for freelance work, and now it’s happening again: professional women whose cubicle-bound careers have been downsized are entering Linda’s corner of the “gig economy” — a corner that involves whips, ropes, and occasionally, nipple clamps.
With staff jobs evaporating and former nine-to-fivers cobbling together incomes through scattered side projects, freelancing as a dominatrix — or “pro-domme,” as industry types prefer to call it — has become a plausible gig option. As a former call girl, I know plenty of people in the industry, and I recently spoke to several who have started doing kink work to supplement their incomes. (I’ve changed their names to protect their privacy.) They agree: The sector is poised for expansion as more unemployed and underemployed women begin looking for extra cash.
More . . ..
On a recent Wednesday evening, Robert was with a client in Greenwich Village. It was a first-timer who’d called him a few days earlier to arrange a meeting at a bar on 9th Street so they could speak face-to-face before closing the deal he’d proposed earlier.
When Robert arrived, the man, in his mid-60s and, Robert said, “handsome and fit for his age,†was sipping a martini; Robert ordered a glass of pinot noir. After their drinks were done, he went back to the guy’s apartment, had sex with him and became $360 richer.
“I like it when clients ask me to meet them out somewhere first,†said Robert the following night, when he stopped for coffee at a Bedford Avenue cafe en route to some art openings on the Lower East Side. (He agreed to speak with The Observer on the condition we’d use a pseudonym.) He was wearing tight Uniqlo jeans tucked into Army-issue boots and a vintage plaid button-down fastened to his chest by skinny Marc Jacobs suspenders. “It gives me a chance to be charming,†he continued. “Build up their desire. Get them to want me.â€
Robert sounded like a professional letting you in on a bit of strategy. Still, he doesn’t seem like what they call a “pro†on Law & Order. At least if you saw him on the street, you’d probably think he looked like any other hip 23-year-old who moved to Williamsburg because it was cooler than whatever suburb had spawned him. But he is—to use an old British expression that’s currently the preferred terminology for some men who work this job—a rent boy, selling his companionship, sexual or otherwise, for a hefty hourly fee. He’s been escorting more or less full time for about half a year now, making as much as $3,000 a week. Before that he worked in an Apple Store for around $15 an hour.
“I never thought I’d be doing this,†he said, “but it just sort of worked out that it’s actually a lot of fun!â€
It’s one of the oldest stories in this city, of course. For many of us in post-Ashley Dupre New York, the word “escort†conjures images of decadent trysts between beautiful women and influential politicians or other members of high society.
Much quieter, and a much smaller sector of the prostitution economy, are the men who fill the same role: charging high rates (though usually not as high as Ms. Dupre) to meet with rich clients, without having to work the streets.
More. . .k
Call for Submissions: Whore Lover (working title)
Deadline: March 4th 2009
Compiled/Edited by Sadie Lune
Whore Lover: Lovers and Partners of Sex Workers Speak
An anthology of non-fiction essays written by the non-paying partners (queer-trans-straight) of sex workers about their experiences and feelings regarding their unique position in the marketplace of love.
From casual dates, to long term relationships, to going down in flames, Whore Lover will explore the personal narratives of people attracted, intimate and in love with those who work in the sex industry. Present and former lovers and partners of sex workers are encouraged to submit. Whore Lover is looking to represent the stories of a multiplicity of people: people of color, trans, queer, gay, straight, of all ages. Partners in all areas of the sex industry will be featured.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
*Day to day negotiations
*My partner and I turned each other out
* I was a trick and then became a lover
*Loving a Sex Work Celebrity
*My partner’s job turns me on
* My partner’s work inspired me to be a sex work client
* I’m a sex worker and I only date other sex workers
*How I deal with family and friends around my partner’s work
*How I’ve dealt (or not) with my own ego around my partner’s sex work
*My partner switched jobs within the industry and how that worked for us
* My partner’s sex work is a secret from everyone (including me?)
*I broke up with my partner because of sex work
People who have dated/loved/married all variety of sex workers including but not limited to: porn actors, strippers, FBSM/sensual massage providers, street-based workers, tantra providers, erotic body workers, sexual surrogates, escorts, fetish workers, phone-sex workers, pro-Dominants and pro-submissives, are welcome to submit.
A limited number of interviews are possible to those who are interested in having their voices heard but feel more comfortable talking than writing. First-time writers definitely welcome. No poetry, please.
Pseudonyms or anonymous submissions are fine and will be honored.
Pieces should be between 1000-7000 words.
Please submit via email attachment (pdf or doc file) to: partnersanthology AT gmail dot com
[via Bound Not Gagged]
In August 2004, NATALIE McLENNAN was working for and dating now-convicted pimp Jason Itzler when he auditioned and recruited a 19-year-old named Ashley Dupre into his high-end prostitution ring, New York Confidential. In her forthcoming book, “The Price: My Rise and Fall as Natalia, New York’s #1 Escort,” McLennan recalls how she befriended and groomed Ashley – a New Jersey girl with dreams of being the next Mariah Carey – into one of the city’s hottest call girls. In this excerpt, McLennan reveals Dupre’s sex- and drug-fueled days and nights – raking in piles of cash, dancing in clubs and sidling up to celebrities – before she ended up in bed with Gov. Eliot Spitzer and became famous the wrong way.
Link
So, I’ve been getting mail. Maybe you’ve been inspired by Belle de Jour/Secret Diary of a Call Girl, or maybe it’s the media surrounding the Ashley/Spitzer spectacle, or maybe it’s Radar’s recent “Secrets of a Hipster Hooker.†You want to be an upscale escort.
I’m not going to encourage it and I’m not going to discourage it, and I’m pretty sure it’s a crime if I tell you how to do it. But if you’re going to do it, here’s some advice:
1. Know what you’re getting into. There’s a good chance that it’s harder than you think, so it’s best to go in knowing as much as you can.
2. Don’t drink and don’t do drugs. You need to keep your senses sharp, so stay away from any sort of intoxicant during a gig, and don’t develop a habit on your own time.
3. Don’t allow payment to validate, or invalidate, your sense of self-worth. It’s just a transaction for your time. Your sense of self-worth needs to come from another area of your life.
(more. . . ).
A British take on the world’s oldest profession.
. . .when a number of high-profile memoirs have turned out to be, to some degree or in their entirety, not what they professed to be. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find them in the Ho section of my local Barnes & Noble (the subtitle of the American edition, earnest and accurate, is “Diary of an Unlikely Call Girlâ€), so I’ve seen only the Telegraph columns and short passages from the books. The writing I have come across seems not just fictional but false; there’s a lazy archness to the tone, a superficial intelligence, and a mere pose of thoughtfulness—all of which may be intentional, part of the joke. The diaries aren’t trying for greatness; they’re trying to make the cash register ring, and that they have done.
. . .Issues of authenticity fade away, however, when it comes to the TV series, because it’s not at pains to sell itself as the real deal. You don’t have to believe that the story comes from a true-life prostitute, just that the character you’re watching is believable.
. . .It’s not that much fun to watch an actress who, except for the occasional times when she lets loose one of her charmingly loud second-soprano laughs, seems always to be asking more of us than she’s giving, but “Secret Diary of a Call Girl†does get better as it goes along, although it doesn’t greatly distinguish itself from most other shows you’ve seen about young single women in the big city.
Link
~Desiree Alliance Presents~
In partnership with BAYSWAN, Sex Workers Outreach Project-USA, SWANK, H.I.P.S. Different Avenues, COYOTE, Best Practices Policy Project, $pread Magazine, St. James Infirmary, Harm Reduction Coalition, PONY, SWOP-Chicago, SWOP-Las Vegas, SWOP-Los Angeles, SWOP- Northern California, SWOP-Arizona, SWOP-Portland, & SWOP-EAST
“Pulling Back the Sheets: Sex, Work and Social Justiceâ€
July 16-20, 2008 Chicago, IL
REGISTER NOW!
The Desiree Alliance is a diverse, volunteer-based, sex worker-led network of organizations, communities and individuals across the US working in harm reduction, direct services, political advocacy and health services for sex workers. We provide leadership development and create space for sex workers and supporters to come together to advocate for human, labor and civil rights for all workers in the sex industry.
This convergence will create space for dialogue between hundreds of sex workers and their allies to share their personal experience and skills, identify workers’ most pressing needs, share training and networking skills for developing solutions, and to collaborate on strategies for social and political change on local, state, national and international levels.
Some of the scheduled workshops include:
* “Safety for Sex Workers Through personal Privacy – Legal and relatively simple ways for working and living out of harms wayâ€
* “Tantra: How it can uplift the plight and struggle of sex workers and clienteleâ€
* “Self marketing and self branding: How to run a profitable (and more safe) sex worker businessâ€
* “Safety 411″
* “Falling Through All the Cracks: Young adult transgender sex workersâ€
* “Challenging Discrimination Among Sex Workers: Reconstructing ‘sex work’â€
* “Bad Date Line: How to start, run + maintain a dam good projectâ€
* “Sex Workers Against Rapeâ€
* “Sex Workers Rights and Direct Services in Urban Los Angelesâ€
* “Adult Entertainer’s Guide to Disabled Customers – 2008 Editionâ€
* “We, Asian Sex Workersâ€
Conference registration fees are $150 if you register by June 10th, and $200 if you register between June 10th and July 10th. All participants must register no later than July 10th. Fees include registration materials, admission to the opening reception, breakfast and lunch Thur-Sat, admission to the after party on Sat and brunch on Sunday. To register for the conference visitour site and submit theregistrant screening form. After you submit this form, a registration packet and payment information will be sent to you.
For more information on registration scholarships, contact: Liz Copl at hdfemme AT gmail DOT com. If you have registration questions please contact: tara AT birl DOT org.
The Desiree Alliance is a diverse, volunteer-based, sex worker-led network of organizations, communities and individuals across the US working in harm reduction, direct services, political advocacy and health services for sex workers. We provide leadership development and create space for sex workers and supporters to come together to advocate for human, labor and civil rights for all workers in the sex industry.
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
In this week’s column (“San Francisco escorts: No ordinary johns“) violet blue interviews sex worker Karly Kirschner on San Francisco’s unique market:
They are less obsessed with orgasm than men who, in other parts of the world, cussed at themselves or me if they came too quickly or not at all. Often they are with me to have a good time, not to prove themselves. They are eager to have their asses played with. They are less likely to smoke. They are generally more informed and supportive of sex workers’ rights issues and more willing to talk openly and objectively about sex work. They know and use the term “sex work.” They are less likely to be homophobic and more open with their sexual curiosity about other men. They are more likely to bring their girlfriend, wife or other favorite sex worker with them. They are less likely to speak ill of their wives. Some of them call or write me on holidays and my birthday. And of course, they, like everyone in this great city, are generally better looking.
Sex Work 101 was inspired by conversations that happened during the Women, Action and the Media 2008 conference held in Cambridge, MA from March 28-30, 2008.
I gave a talk at WAM called Sex Workers and Media Representation (click to see notes for the workshop), and questions during and after the talk made me realize that many people are curious about the sex industry and want to support sex workers in their struggle for rights, but they have no idea where to start. This site is an attempt to fill that gap in public education in an approachable, easy to understand, and engaging way – it’s also the first public education project from Sex Work Awareness, a new non-profit in NYC founded by four $pread staff members. Sex Work 101 is meant to add to public knowledge about sex work and to encourage discussion about the issues sex workers face.
Participate in Sex Work 101! I’m looking for questions non-sex working people want answered and their perceptions of/thoughts about the industry, as well as posts from sex workers who want to share stories about their work (a day in the life, how I got into the industry, reposts from personal blogs, etc)
The official email for the site is ask[at]sexwork101.com but people can also email me at dacia[at]wakingvixen.com. I’d also love to hear from people who want to help with the site – writing posts, answering questions, etc.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Elizabeth Wood
Email: elizabeth (at) sexinthepublicsquare (dot) org
Co-founder, SexInThePublicSquare.org
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Nassau Community College
Sex In The Public Square Presents:
Sex Work, Trafficking, and Human Rights: A Public Forum
New York, February 20, 2008 – Ten prominent sex worker advocates, writers, researchers will be publicly discussing the issues of sex work and trafficking from a human rights and harm reduction perspective, February 25 – March 3, on SexInThePublicSquare.org. The week-long online conversation will conclude with a summary statement on March 3, International Sex Worker Rights Day.
Sex work and trafficking are two issues that must be discussed as distinct yet intersecting, and we’ve invited some of the smartest sex worker advocates we know to help sort out the complexities. “This forum is not about debating whether or not we should be using a harm reduction and human rights approach instead of the more mainstream abolitionist and prohibitionist approach to sex work,” explains Elizabeth Wood, co-founder of Sex In The Public Square and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nassau Community College. “Instead our goal is to create a space for nuanced exploration of the human rights and harm reduction approach so that we can use it more persuasively.”
Wood explains: “The human rights and harm reduction approach seeks to reduce the dangers that sex workers face and to stop human rights abuses involved in the movement of labor across borders, a movement which occurs in the service of so many industries. We want people to be able to learn about this perspective, and to develop and refine it, without having to dilute that conversation by debating the legitimacy of sex work.”
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