This is why none of the sex workers I know trust or support Salvation Army.
Feminist Whore has taken the time to go down the rabbit hole to examine some of the groups and actions supported by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore’s anti-trafficking efforts, and what she uncovers is stomach turning beyond belief. This video is required viewing for anyone who wants to claim any knowledge about sex trafficking and the responses it inspires. But here are some highlights:
Google is becoming like that irritating customer who thinks he’s so clever for figuring out that stripper probably really isn’t named Fantasia, what with asking people, “No, really, what’s your real name?” Welcome to our world, online handle users! Choosing a work name is one of the first things nearly every sex worker does when entering the business. My name isn’t really Bubbles, Kat’s driver’s license says something else, and Charlotte wasn’t given that name at birth. We all have different reasons for using other identities online from the frivolous (to bitch about work without trouble) to the very serious (malevolent stalkers).
One of our own contributors, chelsea g. summers, has battled with serious online harassment. She’s “come out” under her real name as part of a project that hopes to demonstrate the importance of pseudonyms, the My Name Is Me site, that uses personal stories to illustrate the importance of retaining control over what name you use online.
That site/project came about in response to the (admittedly spotty) enforcement of the use of “real names” on Google Plus. One of the reasons Twitter is my favorite social network is how it allows users freedom to present themselves as they wish. Facebook and Google Plus require more constant vigilance about your privacy settings and who you friend. Maintaining a presence on those sites while protecting your privacy requires a constant battle with ever-changing visibility settings and name requirements.
My Name Is Me has a dedicated category for sex workers. Artist Molly Crabapple describes how she started using her name while working as a nude model, and unlike Janice, chooses to only identify herself that way today, as should be her decision to make. We’re willing to make a deal: You don’t ask us what our real names are, and we’ll put up with the occasional troll, sock puppet, or middle-aged man posing as an escort blogger in order to keep whatever degree of privacy, safety, and anonymity we can still maintain online.
L. Synn Stern has been doing outreach work since the 1980’s. As an ex-sex worker and ex-injection drug user, she has a unique perspective on her work and the lives of her clients. She is now a certified R.N. and works as Health Services Coordinator at the Washington Heights Corner Project, a community space in Washington Heights that provides syringe exchange, counseling, and various support groups among other services. She also helps run the weekly women’s group there. I took some time to talk to her about her past doing sex work, her passion for outreach, and how she was rebirthed into the woman she is today.
What was your experience being homeless for much of your youth in NYC?
I spent a lot of time as one of the hidden homeless; the couch surfer, the office dweller, the sleeper in locker rooms, exploiting the rich, unpoliced resources of college campuses. I spent more time than that frankly homeless; out on the street with nowhere to to stash my blankets and nowhere to wash. NYC is a cruel place for those in need of a public toilet, and the more homeless one looks, the harder they are to find. Although it took me a while to figure out, as long as college was in session, I was able to keep myself together by sleeping in unused campus spaces or befriending legitimate students, eating in their cafeterias (or getting students to steal food for me) and bathing in gym buildings and the like. I lived several relatively undisturbed years in the dance building of a campus under construction. I had my own set of lockers, unlimited access to showers. Fantastic. Between semesters I ran the gamut of out-on-the-street homeless, to sleeping on trains, to living in abandoned buildings, squats, emergency rooms, and tricks’ houses. The usual thing.
How did you get involved in the sex industry? What was it like working then in comparison to how it is now?
I remember sitting in a bar once, very underage, during school hours, and the guy next to me said, “Penny for your thoughts.” I scoffed. Then he said, “Twenty bucks for your thoughts,” and it was that simple. Before that I had not realized that there was any value to what I’d been giving away.
And for the first dozen paid encounters, I felt like Queen Feminist. I felt like I’d invented it. I could not have been prouder. Of course, I was out there a long time, vulnerable, incautious and young enough to experience at lot of pain and shame as well…
The biggest difference between then and now is technology. Cars were bigger and child safety locks had not yet been invented, and there was no such thing as a cell phone, an ATM, or Craigslist. Some changes have been for the better, some for the worse.
Ten years ago, the remains of four sex workers — Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes and Amber Lynn Overstreet Costello — were found close to Gilgo Beach, near Long Island, New York. The bodies were unearthed after a frantic 911 call from another worker: Shannan Gilbert spent 21 minutes telling a dispatcher a man was trying to kill her, then she disappeared. It became evident that a serial killer was targeting area sex workers he met on Craigslist, so the Suffolk County police commissioner asked the community for help. In response, the local SWOP demanded amnesty for sex workers, a request the police department scoffed at. The case featured multiple suspects — including a former Suffolk County police chief — and remains ongoing.
That case, which came to be known as the Long Island Serial Killer case as it expanded to 10 victims, demonstrated how the internet revolutionized sex work, taking it online and out of the shadows without the help of pimps and traffickers. The public, however, interpreted the case differently; Craigslist made sex-for-money easy and accessible — and dangerous, it was surmised. The notion that the police department had erred couldn’t compete against the lurid narrative of sex workers naively meeting their killers online. Robert Kolker, who wrote a book on the subject, told TAS in 2013 that he was certain that the case might have unfolded differently if the women weren’t sex workers, or “a different class of people” as he put it. Either way, Craigslist’s Adult ads section shuttered soon after, marking the beginning of the end of the internet as a safe haven.
Today is Dec. 17, the annual day we rally to end violence against sex workers, and the last such day in this decade. The environmental changes sex workers have endured are too many to list but, in the day’s spirit of reflection and rememberance, we’re certain it’s paramount to revisit the challenges we’ve faced and the hard work we’ve endured.
