Posted on by Miss Brook$

saving fish from drowning

With apologies to Amy Tan.

I’ve never read her book, but I remember the title catching my eye a bookstore. It sums up sex trafficking hysteria perfectly. Amy says the title is derived from the practice of Myanmar fishermen who “scoop up the fish and bring them to shore. They say they are saving the fish from drowning. Unfortunately… the fish do not recover. This kind of magical thinking or hypocrisy or mystical attitude or sheer stupidity is a fair metaphor for the entire book.”

Or it could be a metaphor for a highly-funded rescue industry hellbent on saving someone, damnit!

saving molli from tweeting

The independent London escort Molli Devadasi has been around for a while. She hit Twitter gold by co-starting a hashtag campaign questioning the rescue industry by questioning their assumptions about sex work and sex workers, you may have seen it appear in my Twitter stream: #NotYourRescueProject.

While sex workers with blogs and Twitter are considered “privileged” and not worth listening to, apparently Molli was too successful. She was dragged from her London home, held, and questioned for two days by police before finally being released. They thought she was being trafficked because she was questioning trafficking hysteria, promoting sex worker rights, and discussing her personal choices. That makes sense. They were going to save a fish from drowning and they had a nice, shiny fish with Molli. (Let’s nevermind the time and money spent tracking her down and interrogating her when real victims of actual crimes might have needed police help.)

Molli has been terrorized for no reason other than expressing her opinions and experiences as a sex worker in a country where she was legally working. They took her money, laptop and phone so they can search for her “pimp.”

Need I point out that taking a sex worker’s money means she is going to have to earn more, very quickly? If you’re in an abolitionist frame of mind, this is the opposite of the correct move to make.

twitter safety for working activists

If you’re a sex worker and you know you’re going to Tweet as an activist, consider making a separate activist account and link it to something other than your sex work site (or blog). I have no idea what Molli’s security was like but they tracked her down either via her Twitter account or via her escort domain registration info (or maybe her escort phone number if it was public and registered in her name). Those are some determined rescuers.

Molli’s unfortunate case shows it’s vital to keep the activism and sex work apart. She got a modified version of what sex workers in the US could expect. Since we’re considered criminals before we’re considered victims, Molli in the US would have had her house stormed in the middle of the night, she would have been arrested, searched, interrogated even more harshly/detained even longer, and likely have lost any money in bank accounts and many of her possessions (like a car or house). She might still be in jail. If she had a pet, it might have been shot. If you think this scenario is far-fetched, this has happened many times to innocent people incorrectly suspected of being involved with drugs. A suspected prostitute involved in sex trafficking wouldn’t fare much better.

Congress has made it clear it’s about to go after Twitter and the sex workers on Twitter. Keep your business Twitter account tied to your business, your activist persona on its own. Speaking of which, if you’re truly concerned, use proxies to sign into Twitter. Or buy a “burner” phone and just use that to access your Twitter accounts. Even better if you can Tweet via a Google Voice number that’s tied to a burner phone (I have no idea if you can — feel free to enlighten me). Just like dressing up when it’s cold, it’s all about layers.

Posted on by Miss Brook$

reactions v

getting paid on time

One thing sex workers have going for us is that we get paid on time. Smart ones get paid upfront (this is standard for most, but not all, of the world). While I’ve often compared mentally freelance writing work with sex work, they’re only now catching up to the pay-upon-completion model. Not the same as pay-upfront, more like pay-as-you-go but for a legal occupation, it’s a huge step forward.

make an authentic logo

Too funny! Hipster logos!

speaking of authentic

Yes, that guy I mentioned in the first section did indeed make another one of his damned “authentic” posts. I cursed at the monitor for subjecting me to it, then unsubscribed. I’ve added a couple new non-sex-work blog subscriptions and am much happier. Thank you, non-authentic bloggers, for writing more of what I like reading.

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Posted on by Miss Brook$

the silence-quest of mikey and stale horse

Day of Silence by Bryan

“Day of Silence” by Bryan, is licensed under CC BY 2.0

I really didn’t think I was going to have to flail away on this topic again, but it seems I must. Michael (Mike) Meisenbach has hired John Brewington (an Arizona-licensed PI) to track down and harass anyone who has supported Shannon.

I received notices of ICANN violations on 12/30/13, seems someone took issue with the public contact info I have for several domains of mine (the info has been updated). Not to mention they managed to crash the server of one of my sites, something my web host was not happy with. Fortunately, I can now provide my host with more information on who caused the crash, along with a link to a court document which details these as the preferred harassment tactics of Brewington. But I’ve no doubt the harassment will go further after this posting. If nothing else, I have two confirmed, very loyal blog-readers.

Anyone who has written about Shannon being violently attacked by Michael (Mike) Meisenbach should keep reading. Mikey and John Brewington want to out you and cause you harm.

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Posted on by Miss Brook$

dec 17 — violence

“360 International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers 2010” by Steve Rhodes, is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Today is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, started SWOP-USA. Violence against sex workers takes many forms, such as the legal violence of criminalization or the stigma that gets sex workers killed. There’s also media violence, amply demonstrated by the recent raids in Soho (London) that has angered the sex work community. There is violence some sex workers experience while working, which is always aided by the stigma of criminalization (criminalization empowers violent criminals, it doesn’t protect anyone).

The worst violence is when sex workers are killed because they’re sex workers. Books and movies are filled with serial killers who “practice” on sex workers because they know no one cares. For once, fiction is reflecting reality perfectly. This is why the IDEVASW exists. This is why every year there are names to be read and remembered.

There are events scheduled, but they’re few and far between. Sex workers exist everywhere on the planet, but sex work organizations do not (for a lot of reasons). If you want to Tweet about it, common hashtags are: #Dec17 #IDEVASW #EndVASW #sexwork #solidarity. I wish I knew of an online compendium of essays for Dec 17; pretty much everyone who has a blog is using it, so start with your favorite bloggers. For many of us, it’s the only way we have of making public acknowledgment of today.

One wonders what attorney Jan Schlichtmann would have to say about the value of a sex worker’s life. Though I guess there isn’t any real reason to wonder.

It’s like this. A dead plaintiff is rarely worth as much as a living, severely-maimed plaintiff. However, if it’s a long slow agonizing death, as opposed to a quick drowning or car wreck, the value can rise considerably. A dead adult in his 20s is generally worth less than one who is middle aged. A dead woman less than a dead man. A single adult less than one who’s married. Black less than white. Poor less than rich. The perfect victim is a white male professional, 40 years old, at the height of his earning power, struck down in his prime. And the most imperfect? Well, in the calculus of personal injury law, a dead child is worth the least of all.

One victory happened last week. California has ruled to allow sex workers access to the victims of violence compensation fund. At least in the state of California, sex workers are acknowledged to be human and vulnerable to violence regardless of the circumstance of the violence. Sex workers are acknowledged to have some sort of value as people. That’s a huge step forward, considering that the LAPD used to tag dead sex workers’ case files with N.H.I. (No Human Involved).

There’s not a sex worker in the world who sees violence or death as part of the job description.