Nothing Scarier Than A Black Trans Woman With A Degree: An Interview With Monica Jones

Monica Jones this February. (Photo via the Support Monica Jones Facebook, courtesy of Monica Jones)

In May 2013, sex worker and trans rights activist and Arizona State University social work student Monica Jones was charged with “manifestation of prostitution” in Phoenix after accepting a ride from an undercover cop.  Her arrest ignited a firestorm of protest against Project ROSE, a prostitution arrest diversion program run by the ASU School of Social Work and the Phoenix… Continue reading Nothing Scarier Than A Black Trans Woman With A Degree: An Interview With Monica Jones

Gore and Psychic Wounds: Nicole Witte Solomon on Horror, Phone Sex, and Film

Manini Gupta as Al nursing a phone sex related headache in Small Talk. (Still from Small Talk, courtesy of Nicole Witte Solomon)

Nicole Witte Solomon and I have kept up with each other online for a while, dating back to the era when she was a young phone sex operator/film student, just beginning to pitch her clever writing on topics ranging from vegan cooking to feminism in pop culture to a variety of venues. As the years… Continue reading Gore and Psychic Wounds: Nicole Witte Solomon on Horror, Phone Sex, and Film

Support Hos: American Horror Story: Freak Show

Angela Bassett as Desiree Dupree, American Horror Story: Freak Show's intersex sex worker (Screenshot from American Horror Story )

Adapted from a g-chat between Caty Simon and Maggie Mcmuffin: American Horror Story: Freak Show draws on the traditional connection between perfomativity and sex work. Acting has always been connected with prostitution, since before the Jacobean era to very recently. And by connecting performance in a freak show with sex work, the show is pathologizing… Continue reading Support Hos: American Horror Story: Freak Show

Moving Through Archetypes: Juniper Fleming and Reclamation and (Dis)Atonement

Juniper Fleming's "Judith" in Reclamation and (Dis)Atonement. (Via Fleming's site)

I interviewed sex worker artist Juniper Fleming on her collaborative photo series with other sex workers, Reclamation and (Dis)Atonement. Your project consists of remaking iconic Western art works, creating photographic reproductions in which you replace the main figures in the paintings with sex workers. What does depicting sex workers in these roles achieve? As sex… Continue reading Moving Through Archetypes: Juniper Fleming and Reclamation and (Dis)Atonement

Remembering Stone Butch Blues’ Pledge To Sex Workers

Stone Butch Blues, the 2004 Alyson Books edition.

Trans/queer writer and socialist hero Leslie Feinberg died last week. The event rekindled my memories of squatting on the floor of Barnes and Nobles at the age of 17, reading the work zie’s1 most known for, Stone Butch Blues, a bildungsroman set in the lesbian working class bar scene during the Stonewall era. I was… Continue reading Remembering Stone Butch Blues’ Pledge To Sex Workers