suzyhooker

Suzy Hooker

Suzy Hooker is the collective byline for any T&S contributor who wishes to remain anonymous for a particular post.

Sex Worker/Social Worker: An Ethics Roundtable

by suzyhooker on April 21, 2014 · 2 comments

via soulkreations on Etsy

Monica Jones was both a student in and a target of the Arizona State School of Social Work when she was arrested in a sweep that was part of Project ROSE, the prostitution diversion program that’s a partnership between the school and the Phoenix PD. We asked sex workers who, like Monica, are students in or graduates of social work programs, to talk with moderator Tara Burns about the ethical and professional intersections of sex work and social work. The participants are:

Serpent: I’m a longtime sex worker, an active board member of SWOP-Chicago and one of the people behind AIT Research, a research project on trafficking in the sex trade. I’m also currently enrolled in a MSW program in Chicago. Find my websites at sexpros.net, redlightdistrictchicago.com, and AdultIndustryTruth.com, and my tweets at @redlightchicago and @AITResearch.

Katie: I have been a dancer for about 18 months, and I recently entered and withdrew from a Masters of Counseling in Marriage, Couples, & Family Therapy program. I currently work full time as a domestic violence advocate and work with our local sex worker outreach coalition. I write at sexualityreclaimed.com.

Cyan: I danced and also did the more private variety of sex work from age 21 to age 27 in Los Angeles and in Vegas. Now I am in my second year of a Masters in Clinical Counseling program. I’m currently too busy with school, work, and single parenting to write in it very much lately, but I have a blog called snapshots of a spiral path.

Annie: I have been involved off and on in sex work for about the last seven years, mostly escorting, some massage. I’m currently in a Social Work Ph.D program, and finished my MSW in 2010. I also work as the program coordinator for an LGBTQ IPV program. Before starting my Ph.D program, I coordinated a harm reduction program for folks working on the street. Right now, I’m doing a lot of education with a colleague, to various organizations and university programs, on students working in the sex industry. Annie is one of my working names.

Tara: I’ve done all kinds of sex work off and on for well over a decade, and I recently had a brush with an MSW program. I blog at ecowhore.com.

What is/was your experience with a social work/counseling program? Did they know you were a sex worker? [READ MORE]

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The Week In Links—April 18

by suzyhooker on April 18, 2014 · 2 comments

in The Week in Links

Celebrated trans author and ex-sex worker Janet Mock shows her support for Monica Jones. (Photo via the Telegraph)

Dr. Brooke Magnanti adds her voice to the chorus of people who are outraged and horrified by Project ROSE and the way the U.S. treats its sex workers. Reason also posted a feature on Monica Jones’ case (citing Tits and Sass’ interview with her!) focusing on the vague “manifestation of prostitution” law used to trump up charges against her. The Advocate, Think Progress, Ms. Magazine, and Policymic also all ran sympathetic coverage of Jones’ guilty verdict for “walking while trans.”

During a trip to speak at the University of Montana about sex trafficking, prostitution abolitionist Melissa Farley visited two of the clubs that our own Bubbles called home for three years. Here’s a primer on the problems with Farley.

More proof for a position we like to call “pimpin’ ain’t accurate”: a new study, comprising the largest data set ever collected on U.S. underaged sex workers, demonstrated that only a small minority of them were introduced to the industry by pimps: “We argue that the narrative of pimp trickery and coercion distorts reality in three ways. First, it overestimates the role of pimps in street sex markets; second, it overemphasizes the impact of the initial recruitment stage on subsequent practices; and third, it masks or simplifies the difficult and complex choices and contingencies faced by minors who sell sex.”

Oh noes! The scary, scary prostitutes could be working with your children.

More stings, more client arrests.

An NGO based in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, Renewed Initiative against Diseases and Poverty (RENAGAIDS), challenged the recent raids, arrests and detention of sex workers in the city. Many workers were arrested and detained for twelve hours or more without food or access to a phone call.

Can anyone verify this story via the NY Post? Apparently, escorts are using Airbnb in lieu of hotel rooms.

Belle Knox: “People assume that my support for sex workers and porn is somehow invalidated because I chose to do porn for the money rather than for love.” Yup.

[READ MORE]

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Stacks & Cats

by suzyhooker on April 16, 2014 · 0 comments

in Furballs & Funds

My name is Skyler Grey. I’m a pro domme and fetish model and huge fan of your site. Here is my “stacks and cash” photo from today’s domme sessions. My fat cat’s name is Sebastian.

Sex workers, send us your pictures of your dogs and dollars or cats and stacks at info@titsandsass.com

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The Week In Links—April 11

by suzyhooker on April 11, 2014 · 0 comments

in The Week in Links, Uncategorized

Monica Jones addresses a crowd of her supporters before her court date today: “Because you walk a certain way, because you look a certain way they can arrest you for manifestation…We will not tolerate the profiling of trans women of color.” (Photo via SWOP-Phoenix’s twitter account)

Monica Jones’ latest court date is today. Jones, an Arizona State University student, was targeted for arrest after she attended a SWOP-Phoenix protest against an oppressive diversion program, Project ROSE, backed by her own social work program. She was set up on charges of “manifesting prostitution”, but the ACLU constitutionally challenged her case at her last court date on March 14th. Check out SWOP-Phoenix’s twitter feed throughout the day to follow events, and view this Tits and Sass interview with Monica, as well as this interview with SWOP Phoenix activist Jaclyn Moskal-Dairman, to get more background on her case. Read up on more positive social work interventions with student sex workers in this piece we posted earlier this afternoon. UPDATE: At 4:30 PM, SWOP-Phoenix tweeted, “Judge unjustly rules Monica guilty. The fight for trans and sex worker rights continues.” Monica stated, “I’m facing 30 days in jail, this shows how unjust the justice system is. Because I was out there walking…The only thing that needs to be changed is the system. If they come for me in the morning they’re coming for you in at night…As an African American and as a woman, the justice system has failed me.”

The Somaly Mam Foundation has launched an independent investigation into claims that Mam lied abouut sex trafficking. Allegations that Mam lied about her own experiences and coached others to lie about theirs have dogged the Foundation for a couple of years.

Ruth Jacobs on the All-Party Parliamentary Group’s report on sex work entitled “Shifting the Burden”: the Swedish model is a failure, the Merseyside model is not, criminalizing client will not prevent human trafficking. She draws from from her own experiences: “Women in the sex trade who are injecting drug users are the worst hit by their sex purchase ban. No harm reduction (condoms, lubrication etc.) for sex workers or drug users (needle exchanges) is provided in Sweden as it is erroneously believed to encourage sex work and drug use. That was me, an intravenous drug user who sold sex, and I am the same person I was back then and I am the same as other women selling sex and shooting up their drugs, and I will fight for those women. They matter to me, and they should matter to every person who cares about human rights and every person who claims they want to end violence against women. And if you don’t care about the women in the sex trade like me who shoot up drugs, if you care at all about human rights and are against violence against women, then you should be against the Swedish model, which is violence against women.” [READ MORE]

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