how my personal choices affect everyone else who isn’t me

I should have Storified this but didn’t because I only have so much time and energy.

A question was posed on Twitter about not seeing guys of a certain race. I gave a flip, but honest answer, about why I no longer see Indian clients (even though Indians aren’t actually a race, they’re an ethnicity). And I don’t. I made that decision a year ago, after months of soul-searching and debate.

All of that debate was with two friends who would hear about my complaints after each and every appointment with Indian guys and they would pose the obvious solution: “Stop seeing Indian clients.” I would argue back with all the arguments I got on Twitter, plus my worry about it affecting my finances.

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uptown thief

Finally, a book that features sex workers as main characters, not as main victims or main outcasts! The reviewers talk about the amazing revelation that sex workers are real people, thanks to this story. The author thanks $pread Magazine, the St. James Infirmary, Bay Area SWOP, and The Harm Reduction Coalition and Training Institute in her long list of acknowledgements. Uptown Thief by Aya de Leon is the first in a series featuring the sex workers introduced in this story.

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help an activist

My longtime friend Jill Brenneman is in dire need of financial help due a terminal medical condition. I’ve mentioned Jill on here now and again. She was part of SWOP-East and has an unusual history. Part of that history can be read at Sex Workers Without Borders, part of that over at Bound, not Gagged and part of it over at Maggie McNeill’s blog.

Jill has made the incredible journey from sex trafficking victim, to anti-prostitution activist, to sex worker rights activist. She is responsible for bringing many sex workers into activism (including me). She’s a living example of the harm our current laws cause to both trafficking victims and sex workers. She’s had a long speaking career, engaging and challenging her audiences, often opening minds.

Now she is slowly dying and needs our help. Her needs are simple but necessary. We’ve started a fundraising campaign for her at Indiegogo. Anything you can contribute helps. Any way you can pass this along to others helps. Anything that can be done to ease her suffering helps. The fund-raising goal is modest and if we can exceed it, so much the better. It goes to making what’s rest of her life that much easier.

In her own words, below, she fully explains her medical condition. There is no cure. Though she has Medicare, they take every opportunity to deny her coverage and she has co-pays for all of her health care, which is extensive right now. Obviously, she cannot work in any capacity. She can barely stand up and walk.

I’ve been watching her degrade since April and in mid-May she received her terminal diagnosis. I’ve done what I can to help her but I’m one person and live far from her. Thank you in advance for helping my friend.

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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.

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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