Five Reasons Sex Workers in the US Should Care About the International AIDS Conference

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January 19, 2012

1. Because this is the first time in more than 20 years that the U.S. has hosted the event. The IAC will take place in Washington, DC from July 22 to 27. The conference will feature both formal meetings and presentations (with a registration fee) and a Global Village with cultural and activist events (free admission). Interested in pitching an abstract for the conference or a cultural event for the Global Village? Learn more here. The main deadline for abstracts is February 15.

2. Because although Obama lifted travel restrictions against HIV positive people in 2009, there are still travel bans against sex workers and drug users. This means that people who have sold sex or used drugs, even if doing so is legal where they live, are not allowed to enter the United States.

3.Because the sex workers who won’t be allowed into the U.S. are counting on us to make some noise in DC. There will be an international gathering of sex workers happening at a hub conference in India, and we’ll be able to connect with them digitally before and during the conference to share resources and strategies.

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Annie Sprinkle and the Founding of December 17th

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Natalie

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December 17, 2011

Sex work activist Annie Sprinkle was the mind behind the original International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. After the conviction of “Green River Killer” Gary Ridgway, Sprinkle and activists from SWOP decided that a holiday was necessary to commemorate people in our community who have been the victims of violence, and to draw the public’s attention to the danger of working without legal protection and under harsh societal stigma.

Eight years later, the holiday is unfortunately as poignant as ever, as the Long Island serial killer has been occupying headlines for the past year. Annie spoke with me about the origins of December 17th, and the most memorable moments in her several decades of activism.

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Shannan Gilbert’s Remains Found on Long Island

By

Bubbles

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December 15, 2011

Shannan-Gilbert — www.findshannangilbert.com

It’s been a year since police in New York discovered the remains of four women on Long Island. All were believed to be the victims of a serial killer, and all worked as prostitutes. The search that unearthed them began when Shannan Gilbert’s family reported her as missing. Their persistence in pressuring area police led to the ongoing searches which have turned up ten bodies since last December, none of them Gilbert. That changed Tuesday, when police found her belongings near skeletal remains on Long Island. Unexpectedly, given the fate of the other women, they theorize that Gilbert was not a victim of the serial killer, but instead may have drowned.

No arrests have been made and no solid leads to the identity of the killer/s have emerged. In an article about profiling serial killers, the New York Times puts forth the disturbing idea that the killer works in law enforcement. While no other information has been released that supports that theory, it highlights how sex workers are made more vulnerable because of the legal prohibitions on their work. The police are seen as a threat, not as protection. Other sex workers may not come forward with information for fear of legal reprisal, leading to this request made by the Red Umbrella Project last December for amnesty. It’s sadly obvious that had the victims all been young college coeds rather than women working in an illegal profession, the media attention and public pressure to solve the case would be increased tenfold. There’s attention, of course, and even a TV special, but there’s not outrage.

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Quote of the Week

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suzyhooker

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November 20, 2011

[I]n a culture trashy with raunch yet clenched with righteousness, the sex worker persists and insists. She is lamented by some feminists, lauded by others, lectured by religious groups, legislated by governments; monitored by health services, spurned by mortgage brokers, envied or condemned by friends, invited to write memoirs by publishers, assisted by outreach services; must live under one name and work by another. The main part of this list is in passive voice, for this is how people often see the prostitute: a passive dupe. […]

This a crux of the matter: who speaks? Who knows? Is a sex worker herself the best arbiter of whether or not she is degraded, or is judgement better offered forensically from afar?

Kate Holden on Sex Work and Feminism

Report From 2011’s Sex Worker Open University

By

Audacia Ray

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November 9, 2011

I’ve been a sex worker rights activist for going on a decade now, and I’ve lived in New York all that time. My focus in the early years was very local, meaning that I was concerned with what was happening in my own life and the lives of the people I worked with and cared about. I wanted us to stay safe, get rich, and not deal with douchebag clients – you know, all the dreams a girl could have. When I got involved with $pread magazine and became an editor in 2005, I started to pay more attention to what was happening outside of my little bubble. Being responsible for the news section of the magazine meant that I started to learn more about what was happening in sex worker communities not just across the country, but also across the world.

Over the last few years, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work more closely with sex worker rights activists globally, and I gotta say that it’s kind of blown my mind. In the fall of 2009 I spent a week in rural India, a few hours south of Mumbai, with SANGRAM and the sex workers at VAMP. We collaborated on a video about sex worker organizing in India, and it gave me immense respect for the work these activists have been doing. In India, there are sex worker unions, and hundreds of sex workers show up at events and rallies. They are loud, and they are a unified community struggling hard for their rights and getting some traction. During one conversation I had with an older woman about the differences in our activism, she said, “In America, you have everything. You have cameras. You use the internet. But you aren’t fighting the government together the way we are. You need to come together and collectivize. It’s the only way.” It really resonated with me. In a place where sex workers have to walk to one well that serves the neighborhood to get water for their huts, their community is infinitely stronger than ours, probably because there’s less obsession with individuality.

Since that fall, I’ve been seeking out other opportunities to learn more about the global situation of sex workers. This past month, I got the opportunity to go to London for Sex Worker Open University, a nearly weeklong event organized by a collective and held in the Arcola Theatre complex in Hackney. There were many sessions every day, an interesting blend of skill shares by and for sex workers, and presentations about policy and activism work. The event ran from Wednesday, October 12 through Sunday, October 16– you can see the full program here and feel envious – and on the Friday, we had an evening of conversation among activists from all over the world.

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