Sex injuries

09Feb10

The other day, I was masturbating with a new toy (the Rabbit– awesome!) and when I stood up, I managed to walk sideways into my door frame out of sheer post-orgasmic inability to function. I bruised the hell out of my head, right above my ear. It’s where the muscle that controls your jaw is covered in hair. Now, whenever I chew, it hurts. Some might say it’s god’s divine punishment for sinfully pleasuring myself.

Whatever sex is or isn’t, acting as though sex isn’t something super hilarious and kind of baffling is a bit short-sighted. (I mean, why the fuck do we care so much about sex to the point of full-blown hysteria?) We’re all had sex injuries. Like the time I asked my then-regular partner to cum on my face (yes, I asked him; yes, I liked the submissive aspects of it; no, I’m not still into it) and he managed to get ejaculate in my fucking eye. That shit burns. For hours.

What’s your best sex injury story? Did you break the bed, the penis, or the lamp?


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How sex work made me realize my white privilege.

05Feb10

A pro-life group has started a campaign to compare Black children to snow leopards. No, really. Black babies are an endangered species, apparently, thanks to abortion. It would be ludicrous for me to try to argue that it’s not an objective fact that women of color are over-represented in abortion statistics. It is pretty fucking ludicrous to make the argument that abortion providers like Planned Parenthood target women of color because they’re racist motherfuckers (first issue I am not discussing: was Margaret Sanger a eugenicist? because she did align with those campaigns). It’s pretty clear to me that these statistics have more to do with the historical disenfranchisement of people of color. I also don’t feel like going into how obnoxious I find individualized choice argument, whether they be about abortion, sex work, or the number of kids the Duggars have. We are all members of society.

I bring up this example because it led to a conversation about racism in America. And how completely baffled and appalled I am on behalf of white people everywhere. (Seriously, white people, you guys, listen to me on this one: get a fucking grip on your privilege.) This conversation was on the heels of another one I had recently in which the other people compared the existence of white privilege to conspiracy theories. I’m really fucking sorry you can’t find a job, white dude, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the systematic abuse and disenfranchisement of people of color.

I’m white. And it’s been pretty difficult for me to finally come to a point in my life where I recognize my privilege without being defensive about it. And you want to know what helped? Sex work.

I had in my head that race was over and blah blah blah when I first started. And it’s real easy to think that before getting a job in a strip club. In no clearer way can you see the Othering of women of color than when there’s an unofficial policy that only a few women of color can be working at a time as the “exotic” beauties. It could be, of course, the types of clubs I’ve worked in. Higher end, gentleman’s clubs, gown clubs.

It’s also apparent around me in the porn world, where interracial porn is a niche market, and in the escorting world, where most indoor workers are white and most street workers are women of color. (Which could, of course, be due to the interrelated nature of race and class.) It’s apparent now in the pro-domme world. White women are the norm; women of color are “exotic.”

I’ve even realized recently that my ability to move up in social class is tied to my race. White people aren’t burdened with the same stereotypes and assumptions that people of color are. My income isn’t questioned by my bank. I’m not (so far) harassed by the police.

It’s just so baffling to me how much white people around me refuse to see racism. That is privilege, of course, the privilege to not see. That’s not to say I’m perfect or that I’ve figured it all out. I’m still working on how to make my white privilege mean something, to contribute something to the anti-racist goals of the sex workers rights movement. And I think challenging the racist criminal justice system is a good goal. What do you think?


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Rapeability, harm, and “listening” to men who buy sex

20Jan10

Oh, this shit. Again. Here, too. And here. I want to be fair and nice and kind about this, so feel free to read the original study. In fact, I want you to. You should read stuff for yourself and make your own mind up about it.

That said, since this is my blog, I’ll go ahead and tell you what I think, gentle readers. I think it’s a thinly veiled attempt to create facts to support Swedish model legislation in the UK. If you visit the website, it’s full of such facts about how prostitution is not a choice and women are abused and so on and so forth about how prostitution is a harm in and of itself. So this study is all about making the men who buy sex look like monsters so that the laws can be passed.

A couple of thoughts. Firstly, as a sex worker, as much as I like my clients and hope they like me, the idea that somehow what I do for a living should depend entirely on whether or not they think I’m “rapeable” or not is fucking laughable. I care less about if my clients think I’m “rapeable” and more about why they think that and what would happen if one of them raped me. Sex workers are “rapeable” because the law turns a blind eye on violence against us because we’re criminals. Clients know this, so they know they can get away with violence. Look at the Green River Killer! And other murderers of sex workers! Maybe if public conversation shifted away from whether or not it’s a “choice” and whether or not clients think we’re “rapeable” and to the actual, material, and physical harms we face.

Secondly, this whole thing about prostitution being a system of harm in and of itself is just so fucking. I have no words. I’ve read all about it. I understand the basis for the argument. I do not agree. I think the variety and intersectionality of sex work refutes this idea. How can you account for such a variety of experiences, so clearly based on gender, race, sexuality, class, education, and so on, by saying it’s the job? It just makes no sense.

The harm is not sex work. The harm is not being able to leave sex work. The harm is not having other options than sex work. The harm is a criminal justice system that hangs sex workers out to dry. The harm is a criminal justice system that supports the idea for clients that they can abuse sex workers.


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DC Prostitution-Free Zone and condoms

12Jan10

Several blogs have been covering the “breaking” story about DC’s PFZ and how three or more condoms are evidence for a prostitution arrest. While I’m glad to see a conversation starting about the horrible things some cops do in order to arrest suspected prostitutes, I’d also like to point out that sex workers and our allies have been talking about this for a while. (The law is kind of really most of what we talk about.) For example, Melissa Gira Grant wrote about DC’s PFZ for the inauguration on Bound, Not Gagged. A year ago.

Okay, I’ll be honest. I’m a little too overwhelmed by the vast wastelands of the internets to hunt down the origins of this recent interest in DC’s PFZ. It seems to be this RH Reality Check blog. Out of a lengthy, well-written article about the problems of police harassment of street workers, there’s this sentence:

Anecdotal evidence suggests that having three or more condoms is considered a proxy for being a sex worker.

And somehow, it seems, this sentence is the shot heard ’round the (blogging) world.

Why am I concerned about the spin this story is getting? Well, because the focus is more, it seems, on this anecdotal evidence (which is not uncommon or limited to DC) than on the general atmosphere of police brutality against sex workers based on prostitution laws.

Some of the outcry I’ve seen is conversation about how carrying three or more condoms is just standard for a lot of women. Here’s the thing: unless you look like a cop’s stereotype of a prostitute and you are hanging out where street work is known to happen, you’re not the target. Hell, I am a sex worker, and I’m not the target, either. Street workers, who are generally women of color, are the targets.

This is a ridiculous standard. But in general, the issue is how laws are applied by the police against street workers, not which specific instances merit blogging. I’m not going to stop carrying condoms because I know I’m much less of a target, as a white, middle class, indoor worker. But that’s because, in general, I’m less of a target.

Here’s how the prostitution arrest system works, from one whore to the blogosphere: the police go after the low-hanging fruit who are most likely to not fight the charges. Condoms are not enough to take to court if you go to court on a prostitution charge. But an arrest is enough to scare or coerce a person who can’t afford to fight back into copping to a charge.

If you are a worker (or anyone) worried about arrest for prostitution, I encourage you to make an arrest plan using an emergency response worksheet.  Know what to do if arrested.


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On marketing your appearance.

08Jan10

One the things I find most challenging about sex work is the marketing thing. I’ve been on the job market before and did the whole resume writing workshop circuit. I understand that finding any job is about marketing yourself correctly. In sex work, it’s kind of challenging for me.

Most of the sex work I’ve done in the past has involved no marketing. Being independent involves a whole new world of marketing. I’ve not generally convinced on a day to day basis that I am a particularly attractive kind of gal. It’s a hold-over from the eating disorder. As much as I’d like to tap dance and sing the virtues of recovery, that shit ain’t going to happen, gents. I’ve been told I’m attractive and on a good day, I can recognize I’ve got the assets (pun intended) that are deemed attractive by our society. But it’s a disconnect. It’s not really about me, anymore than one of my appendages is me. So to write an ad or describe myself to a potential client, I feel odd. I feel like I’m a fraud.

What I do is mostly about talent, reputation, style. But to pretend like the physical appearance doesn’t matter is fairly blind to the marketplace for erotic services. I’m fine describing my work history and talents in that regard. Just this appearance description. I don’t know. Photos, photos, photos, sure, but to the enterprising whore who doesn’t want to post her face all over the internet description is king.

This sounds like poor little rich girl, I know. It’s one area where I’m pretty fucking aware of privilege. Being “pretty” has opened doors for me and it’s pretty much entirely unearned (except for the gym time I log, which is mostly about getting some muscles because god knows I have none). I know if I wasn’t attractive, I’d be out of work. But the whole idea of marketing it is just so fucking strange to me! Mostly because it is unearned. Sure, make-up, manicures, hair styling. But it’s easier for me to talk about my years of experience because learning how to play pierce is something I did, whereas being attractive is just whatever.

Whine, whine, whine. Shut the fuck up, Jane.


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Faux hos

29Dec09

By now, most people even slightly in touch with sex worker issues have seen this article, which has basically ignited a shitstorm.

I wish I had the emotional and mental capacity right now to articulate how I feel. About Alexa, about faux hos, about blogging. But I don’t. I find the whole thing to be moving faster than my tiny brain can wrap itself around and getting fairly ugly.

There is something very palpably awful about a fake blog detailing a stereotyped image of sex work. On the other hand, I’ve seen and experienced sex workers within the community being called out or ignored because their experiences don’t fit the bill of what activists are trying to “sell” as the image of sex work.

I’m going to stop pretending like I have anything intelligent and thought-through to say about this topic. Other than: it exhausts me.


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Trafficking v. sex work, again

22Dec09

Check out this post over at Feministe about the trafficking of Native American women. (Warning: it’s pretty fucking upsetting.) The original article says some pretty troubling things that make me, as a sex worker, really fucking angry, both at so-called “advocates” and at the people who are abusing and ignoring the abuse of Native women.

“If it was a bunch of white, blonde hair, blue-eyed girls, believe me, there would be an end to this,” said Vednita Carter, executive director of Breaking Free, a St. Paul-based nonprofit serving women involved in prostitution.

I think this is dead, dead on. And it’s what pisses me off the most. All women are exploited under sexism, sure, but women of color have been especially and uniquely exploited by White dominance. The shit that white men have done to women of color in the name of what? “civilizing the natives” (aka stealing their land and colonizing them) is deserving of a special hell.

Then, the article makes a point that is what really gets me. As a sex worker, it really pisses me off.

Although the legal system treats prostitution and trafficking differently, the report often uses the terms interchangeably, as many advocates believe that prostitution can never be considered fully consensual. The prostituted woman is the true victim of the crime, they argue.

“There’s a general acceptance that prostitution is a lifestyle choice, when it’s actually a federal crime against women,” Koepplinger said.

Let’s start with the idea that the law treats trafficking and prostitution differently. In theory, they do. I’ve read enough of the actual written code. In practice, I call bullshit on that statement. The law sees everyone as a criminal. If you look at some of the fall-out from Operation Cross Country, it’s pretty clear that this effort to rescue victims of trafficking was more interested in arresting workers. Underage people were arrested.

If you look at the work of the Sex Workers Project and others, it’s arrest first, ask questions later (maybe). The law in practice lumps everyone together, regardless of how they ended up selling or trading sex.

Now let’s move onto the idea that advocates want to use sex work and sex trafficking interchangeably because no one can truly consent to sex work. Oh man, no fucking way! Thanks for clearing that one up for me.

I’ve said for a long time that there are degrees of privilege and consent. I don’t think anyone ever completely truly enters sex work as a choice because one’s position of privilege (or lack thereof) shapes the experience. I suppose a cis-gendered straight wealthy white man who works for himself, then maybe, just maybe. I have a huge, huge problem with the idea that you can be a sex worker just and only because you like sex or whatever. It’s not black and white. There are not The Privileged and The Exploited. There’s a whole lot of variation.

So maybe, just maybe, instead of treating everyone like a criminal or like a victim, you could look at the degree of privilege and exploitation that shapes the experience. Painting someone like me and someone like a trafficked Native woman the same because we both sell sex is really, really insulting to the experiences of the trafficked woman.

And it’s incredibly damaging to trafficked women. Instead of going after what drives the sexual exploitation of women, they go after the simplistic “drive” for trafficking: demand. I think an educational campaign targeted at men who purchase sex might help. Might. But I think the more important question is how to we address the legacy of colonialism, as well as racism, poverty, the exoticization of women of color, addiction, and the myriad of other issues creating barriers for these women.

I just get really, really angry about the conflation of sex work and sex trafficking, and not because I don’t want to be painted as a victim. I think it distracts from the horrific problem that is the exploitation and coercion of trafficking.

It’s really just way more complicated than “oh, you poor victims of the patriarchy” or “shut up, you privileged white girls”. So can we please stop arguing about who is which of those and talk about the nuances?


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International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

17Dec09

This is today, December 17th. This is how I became an activist, having already experienced harm in the industry, but I knew that I was lucky over what happened to me, compared to the many sex workers who are beaten, raped, or killed. Dec. 17th was started by Dr. Annie Sprinkle after the Green River Killer was sentenced. He admitted that he went after sex workers because they were easy targets and no one would look for them.

We had two several killings close to home this year: Milwaukee and Cleveland. Reports by the Sex Workers Project show that large numbers (46% and 80%) of indoor and outdoor workers face violence. I think that regardless of where you stand on the exploitation/empowerment debate (I personally think sex work is either purely), you can agree that no one deserves this. It’s not an occupational hazard.

These high percentages are the physical proof that stigma and shame kill. Whether you’re calling us “whores” or “victims,” until we can live free of being fucking prey for serial killers and violent people, we will never truly be free.


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Class, class, and more class.

14Dec09

I saw a post about this new book on Feministe. At first, I thought, oh, how cool. I identified with the book because of my economic background and the dream I have about my education.

But then I thought about it more, and I don’t. The primary breadwinner in my family was self-employed (the secondary held a good old-fashioned blue collar kind of job). I am self-employed. And as I’ve been rethinking class, I realize I’m in the same class as I was growing up. Only I have more economic freedom and disposable income. (This primary breadwinner was essentially unemployed for long stretches at a time. While I was in high school, this person’s “company” made zero dollars. Whenever I eat cabbage now, I think about the fear of my parents’ house being repossessed. We ate a lot of cabbage then.)

Whenever people (and by people, I probably mean bloggers) talk about class, they very rarely define what they mean by class. Is it the amount of money you earn? Your education? I’m kind of (okay, really) Marxist about this. And this piece I read (fuck, I wish I could remember the name!) talked all about how class should be defined as the relationship to the means of production. This broke class down into seven major classes. The self-employed being the most tenuous of them all. On one hand, you can have people like the breadwinner growing up, who was independently employed, but went through periods of relative unemployment (without the benefit of being able to receive unemployment), to people like me, who are comfortable enough, to people like the so-called “high class callgirls” who supposedly make thousands of dollars a call.

Which I think then is grounds for better talking about how class functions in sex work. People like me are often ripped apart by abolitionists because we’re “privileged”. Now, I think if anything, moving to become independent was for me, a class move. For the first (god, how long have I been a whore?) four years of my tenure in sex work, I worked for someone else. Either an agency, a strip club, or “freelanced” with various entertainment groups. While I had say over my working conditions, I didn’t have nearly as much as I do now. No one else was making a profit off of me.

So, I think there should be a more sensitive definition of what we’re talking about when we’re talking about class and sex work. I mean, I’ve heard some people say that your body is your means of production, but I kind of feel that’s what Marx would say about any worker. But anyone who has been a sex worker or knows one can tell you that you don’t just need a body to be a sex worker. You need a space to do your work in (the in-call, the dungeon, the out-call, the strip club), you need a system of screening clients, you need the actual supplies (do you need platform heels, condoms, or whips and restraints?), and of course, client management skills. All but the last one you can either own or have provided to you by your employer. Yeah, company-owned heels are generally unheard of, and most workers have to supply their own condoms. But the first two really make a difference in how your experience of sex work shapes up.

When I worked for a strip club and an agency, I owned neither the space or the system of screening clients. Someone else owned (and profited off of both). So while I was guaranteed a somewhat steady stream of clients, or at least a time and a place to show up and make money, I lost a substantial portion of my income to the owner. That’s why I became independent: I want to control my space and my clients. And I’m lucky enough to have the privilege to do that.

But that’s kind of the issue with dialogues about sex work: everyone is so fucking hung up on the sex part and they forget the work part.

This is a class-based debate, I believe, about workers’ rights. And I think it’s just, if not more, important to talk about than the kind of money you make. Because seriously, the vast majority of us aren’t high-rollers. I wish I could be that kind of worker, but I can’t. (Honestly, being a former self-injurer with a lot of visible scars in places most people don’t look at has a lot to do with that. So yeah, I’m not as privileged as you’d think.)


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Adventures in sex work

05Dec09

I just received one of those awesome spam/scam emails to my work email about a $2,500,000 business proposition, asking for my address and occupation. Part of me wants to write back, “Hello, Mr So-and-So, I’m a sex worker. Is this business deal in regard to having me piss on you, or are you more into toe-sucking?”


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