Grind the Vote events are being held from Sin City to the Windy City, the Capital to the Big Apple.

This summer, $pread Magazine and affiliated groups are organizing the sex worker electorate into a political force to “Grind the Vote!” See: Grind the Vote for dates and venues in Chicago, Las Vegas, D.C., and New York.

On Thursday July 3, $pread Magazine, in conjunction with SWANK (Sex Workers
Action New York) and SWOP-NYC (Sex Workers Outreach Project), is proud to be
hosting a burlesque bash and voter registration event, Grind The Vote, at The
Slipper Room on New York’s Lower East Side, featuring Pookie Patootie, La John
Joseph, Nasty Canasta, Bastard Keith, AuroraBoobRealis of Brown Girls Burlesque,
Jezebel Express, Boobie Von Trapp, Rubie Fizz, Runaround Sue, and Madame
Rosebud, among others.

For Grind the Vote NYC, $pread has produced fact sheets summarizing some of the
most pressing political issues affecting the diverse sex worker community, from
immigration and labor rights, to health care and reproductive justice, and will
be providing voter registration forms at the event.

WHEN: Thursday July 3rd, Doors @ 8pm, Show @ 9pm
WHERE: The Slipper Room, 167 Orchard Street, New York, NY
COST: $5 suggested donation
MORE INFO: www.spreadmagazine.org/grindthevote/

The number one perk of my job, I would say, is that I choose my own hours, but coming in at a close second is the rampant availability of sex work off highways, near airports, and a well-placed ecort ad away from resorts.

Then again, is it a vacation if you’re getting paid to put out?

It depends on the “paid” qualifying the “vacation.” A client might provide an all-expenses-paid package to Berlin or a discreet, weekly allowance on your bedroom nightstand, but there’s a world of difference between the arranged approaches and the independence of a travelling show.

Like the congés payés of French fame, my summer times have ushered in days of relaxation and holiday feeling along with financial security through sex work. Even as, being a citizen of the United States, I have to finance my vacation, health care, and education, the job I do provides some flexibility. In work and travel in summers past, for instance, I’ve worked a penthouse off the Seine or nestled my way into an aid-worker’s, and activist’s, sheets in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It’s been a charmed, hard-whorin’, life.

Plus, the on-the-go model provides the added advantage of having no permanent clients, and so a fuller and freer amount of free time to do my own thing between work and play. I prefer this approach, or none at all. In the end, however, it’s not always clear which moment is work and which strictly pleasure.

The confusion of work and play has unfortunate side-effects, when trips and tricks become “just work,” a label that hurts some friends and clients. Then again, it would fail to phase some others. And what about working while on vacation with sex worker-supportive romantic partners? I’m going to go with “no” on this one.

But be sure they pick up the tab.

The latest Ace in my proverbial F*%$ Deck is shaping up in pornography. I’m set to launch a fusionist “Domestic Porn” site for queer-like clientèle in which the coming pornotopia blasts that last, doddering fortress of heterosexual monogamy - the Home.

The Domestic takeover, I’m hoping, will also host open source content in the vein of porno pioneers like Sharing is Sexy, allowing queers and furniture f*%$ers from all over the Earth to contribute content. The mainstay, though, will be the more-often hardcore subscription portion to make sure all models, directors, producers, photographers, and webmistresses get a living wage. I’ve got all sorts of people interested and once I get das Kapital the site is sure to speed up its content release, with seXXXy: home repair, nude baking, bike f*%$ing, planting, reading, as well as floor scrubbing and sadomasochistic panty-drawer-sneaking, among other Things.

In the meantime, I just want to spread the word of need for proposals in either paid (by subscriptions) or unpaid (open source) production from models, producers, etc. of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, genders, class backgrounds, and abilities to Home-o Porno! I should add: I especially want “professionals” to join in.

I was hosted recently by Michel Martin on “Tell Me More,” a program on National Public Radio. Juhu Thukral from the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center and Annie Lobert, the founder of Hookers for Jesus also participated. The segment is titled Behind Closed Doors: The Reality of Prostitution, a bit gimmicky, it’s true, but, hey, it’s not like they needed my opinion…

I had several problems with the interview. I had long, drawn-out series of conversations with the NPR folks about “legal” issues surrounding my use of a pseudonym, and, in the end, they decided to broadcast that I was going solely by William because I was “in fear of arrest.” The most disturbing point being that NPR failed to credit the organization I was representing, Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK). This went down as both the Sex Workers Project and Hookers for Jesus were represented in a strong way. I guess sex workers currently working in the business are too busy in the alleyways shooting up, so how could they be organized, right? I tried to make up for it by referencing SWANK quite a few times.

The next bits are mostly my fault: I compared the reproductive right of abortion in poor economic circumstances, which I called a “choice among limited choices,” to the “choice” of doing sex work. Not the happiest of comparisons.

I also wasn’t clear enough when I mentioned the move between the “getting by” model, which I said involved trading sex casually for food and shelter out of bars and clubs, to the “professional” model. Michel Martin took that to mean I was an always street working kid, which isn’t accurate, and I didn’t get edited in for correcting her as I would have liked to. I was in seriously strained economic circumstances after moving out at 15-ish, it’s true, but being a well-educated Irish kid, I didn’t have as much trouble as I could have, and the fact that it was sex work to sleep with someone for a bed, a dinner, a raise at work, or a ride to Paris didn’t enter my mind back then.

So, you win some you lose some. Overall, I don’t think it was too bad for a first-timer on radio, and I learned a lot from Annie L. and Juhu besides.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRESS RELEASE
Workers Action New York (SWANK), swank@riseup.net
Sex Workers Outreach Project - New York City (SWOP-NYC), swop.nyc@gmail.com
Prostitutes of New York (PONY), pony@panix.com
Desiree Alliance, info@DesireeAlliance.org

The Pink Scare: Ms. Palfrey and Sex Panic

New York, NY - The activists at Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK), Sex Workers Outreach Project New York (SWOP-NYC), Prostitutes of New York (PONY) and the nationally-based Desiree Alliance are saddened that Deborah Jeane Palfrey, also known as the D.C. Madam, passed away on May 1st in an apparent suicide. We - prostitutes, strippers, pro-dommes, porn stars, sex experts, and allies - extend our sympathies to all of those hurt by this most recent chapter of the “Pink Scare,” in which oppressive legislation and social stigma partner to generate hysteria around what, for us, can prove to be simply a decent way to make a living.

The circumstances surrounding Ms. Palfrey’s death suggest that Americans reconsider the current state and federal policies that govern sex work, as well as the stigmatization and sensational treatment of those who participate in this industry.  From New York to California, daily reports of Pink Scare-fueled police busts, e-stings and raids, even at legal venues like strip clubs and dungeons, have reached a fever pitch. These oppressive patterns regularly marginalize and terrorize our communities, with barely a headline to show for the mass arrests. In contrast, coverage of high-profile cases include yellow journalism exposés published at the expense of sex workers’ privacy, dignity and livelihood. In an interview with Lori Price, it was Ms. Palfrey who said, “Without question in my mind, escort and adult service businesses. . . are being used as the new
weapon of choice in American politics.”  The public figures implicated in this type of case often receive little more than a slap on the wrist and a second chance from a forgiving public.  Ironically, among the exposed we regularly find the very same lawmakers and other insiders who claim to protect people from vice through moralizing legislation. Former State Department official Randall L. Tobias was a Palfrey patron, though he
implemented the abstinence earmark in programs such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and, with it, the “Anti-Prostitution Pledge” that has resulted in diminished funding for sex
worker-run organizations. Annually, our government spends millions in taxpayer money to apprehend and prosecute participants in the sex trade, while more effective policies like harm reduction-based approaches,
including the multiplication of living wage alternatives, are dramatically under-utilized.

In both the highly-publicized scandals and under-documented daily struggles, many sex workers now face financial ruin, emotional hardship and social opprobrium at the hands of the Pink Scare simply because their
work, though it takes place between consenting adults, may be illegal and, to some, may be offensive.  In two instances associated with Palfrey’s case, Ms. Palfrey and her former employee, Ms. Britton, oppressive laws and stigma cost the implicated their very lives. Why did Ms. Palfrey die? In response to this question, an activist with the International Union of Sex Workers wrote, “Whether she died by her own hand or her suicide is a cover for murder, she has been killed by the state.” Given the highly political nature of these events, SWANK, SWOP-NYC, PONY and the Desiree Alliance call for an independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding Ms. Palfrey’s untimely death. Furthermore, we, as activists and advocates, would like to stress in this instance that the criminalization of sex workers and our labor only drives us further
underground, making us and our dependents more vulnerable to client and police violence, and even death, as we are further isolated. The unfortunate events of the D.C. scandal bring many of these broader issues
into sharper focus. It is high time that we challenge the morals and laws that harm so many, so deeply, with so few gains and so many lives destroyed.

In the support section of Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK) this week I brought up that awkward and embarassing fact: I’ve been stiffed by clients.

“But we had such a splendid time,” says the CEO, “how could you want to get paid for it?”

If I say x an hour, one john is bound to read it retail. And if I write it “by hour” or “per,” the client finds some excuse. Then I have the “choice” to either dispute it, collect some collateral and risk losing the paycheck, or take the payment and run. I know, I know. I’m supposed to collect upfront, but playing tax collector isn’t how all clients get hooked, folks. They are just “helping me out” (packing the cash in an envelope and stuffing their hands in their pockets like they just stole a f$#!ing cookie).

The suprising thing to hear from SWANK was that I’m not alone. It doesn’t matter how practiced you think you are, apparently, it happens. I don’t know what I’d do without other workers. Join Prostitutes Anonymous? I think not. I’m no addict. I just get paid, even if, every now and then, I happen to get shorted.

It isn’t just second-rate poets. The publication of academic work on prostitution is an industry in itself, an obscenely wealthy competitor of the ”sex sector.” In the 1800s, people read about the “diseased body” of the prostitute in works by William Acton and Havelock Ellis. These days, the New York Times and other periodicals lap up the advice of “prostitution experts” such as Ronald Weitzer. 

The following is taken from an enlightening article ”Do ‘High-Class’ Prostitutes Escape the Law?” from Cleveland.com:

Prostitution expert Ronald Weitzer of George Washington University says the way existing laws [against street prostitution] are enforced works just fine.

He advocates a tough stance on the streets because “street prostitution victimizes host communities and leaves the prostitutes themselves open to victimization.”

So . . . the street worker is a parasite and should be treated as such. Is that right, Ronald? While, the expert continues, the ”de facto decriminalization” of indoor work would lessen the strain on law enforcement and allow boys, after all, to be boys. This, of course, is his solution.

Maybe I’m being too hard on Ronald, though. The focus on “de facto decriminalization” is central to sex worker rights-talk, too. The same articles showcasing “experts” pull quotes from managers, call-girls, and escorts who, at least as quoted, share the same racist and classist biases in favor of decriminalization, which would do little to decriminalize “loitering” and public nuisance laws specific to street work.

This kind of talk excludes low-wage workers and street workers, who are disproportionately, but not entirely, women of color, men who have sex with men, and transwomen. The fact that Ronald Weitzer and sex workers activists might agree on paper is a wake-up call to us involved in sex worker rights. The fight against police violence, the struggle for affordable housing, and the work toward economic justice should be at the top of our list of shared priorities, not separate and unequal concerns, and some of the first of our soundbytes. That and outing “experts” like Weitzer.

There are around 100,000 arrests for prostitution in the U.S. each year. The numbers, however, are shifting as vice cops take to the Internet. The crackdown on Craigslist advertisement seems to correspond to a rise in police usage and rate of arrests, and the site itself collaborates using phone “authentication” and serious checks on the accounts of providers.

* The above image was taken from CBS.com

The spokesperson of Craigslist.com tells it like it is, “as is evident from news reports around the country, Craigslist actually makes it easier for police departments to conduct sting operations against prostitution rings. If you’re a prostitute or a potential john, you’re taking a big risk putting a listing on Craigslist, because we cooperate actively with police departments.’’

In a quick search of a news cache, I found randomized arrests in the past two months made through Craigslist in Philadelphia, Fayetteville, Jacksonville, Saint Paul, Jefferson City, Ogden, Concord, Poughkeepsie, Santa Cruz, Escondido, Mobile, Queens, Manhattan, Rockford, Knoxville, Nashville, Louisville, Laurel, Salem, Milwaukee, Omaha, and Des Moines.

Out of these cases I speed tallied 126 sex workers and 74 johns, which places sex workers at a 3:2 risk of arrest against their employers. The listed arrests largely posed “women” as sex workers and “men” as johns, although we can’t be sure how many working men and transwomen were lost in the government shuffle.

It does seem, however, that women-born women are the main targets of Craigslist e-stings. All in all, sex workers advertising on Craigslist, and their employers, would do well to watch out.

I dashed out of the Big Apple on some back pay this past week and headed to the Smoky Mountains (I’ve been looking to femme up a photo shoot in Appalachia, as I’m gearing up to release a porno experiment sometime in July).

So there I am, all snug in my pantyhose and ready for a quick, solo-porno shoot. Then this red-headed teenager pops around the nearest tree trunk and stops dead to stare wide-eyed at the silk bunching around my pantied crotch . . . yes, that’s a penis, dear, and it’s excited.

His parents follow on his heels, so I’m left exposed in the brush, and everyone pretends like it’s just another day in the park. So much for my dreams of becoming an Appalachian porno star. In any case, I waited till the kid and his parents ambled off down the rapids before I shot some half-photos of myself and busted a load on the nearest Oak trunk. I thought of the redhead, too, that little shit. I’m not sick, you know, just vindictive.

I’ll just cut to the chase. Of all the ties in his closet, why the stripes? I would’ve gotten on the Amtrak back to New York, 3.5 “diamonds” or no.

But for real, f#$k that guy for his busts and, more importantly, best of luck to the now-infamous Kristen, also known as Ashley Dupré.