Because the barriers preventing sex workers from being heard are already high enough.
Writers have professional training in one arena, sex workers have professional training in another arena. Sex workers aren’t always equipped with the skillset to pitch to traditional editors. TAS functions as the middle ground, bridging that gap.
Traditional publications interested in publishing sex workers have frequently leaned towards the salacious (and only quite recently has that started to shift). TAS is a space for covering the everyday minutiae of our work.
Because sex workers are also often members of other marginalized communities that are also systematically denied agency and disbelieved as common practice.
Victims of rape, victims of police violence, positive workers, the working poor, intravenous and street drug users, trans identities, street workers, black bodies, and “no human involved”s are all members of the greater sex worker community.
Because, until recently, the smell test hasn’t failed us.
We regularly reject pitches from contributors that sound fishy. The outing of “faux ho” Alexa DiCarlo is an example of what a sex worker that doesn’t pass the test looks like. Lily Fury was able to embed herself because 99% of her life added up. She was indeed a street worker, an escort, and a heroin user, just as she wrote, with a sex worker community pedigree going back to the Suicide Girls. She has bylines in a variety of publications and, until then, she had verifiably positive rapport with many sex working activists and writers. She worked hard on her digital blackface. By the time we first interacted with her invented personas, they too had many sex workers who vouched for them. We, until recently, had a positive working relationship with her and no reason not to trust her.
Because we don’t want to be the gatekeeper of who is or isn’t allowed into sex worker spaces.
That’s why we don’t ask for “reciepts,” a video chat, or verification from a second party. That kind of monitoring could create a slippery slope in which those with the most social capital oversee who can access our spaces.
Because we don’t want to know your legal or professional identity.
As it states in our General Submission Guidelines, we actively encourage our writers to use a pseudonym. Sex workers mask their identities for a variety of reasons—mainly that the social penalties for being outed are high.
We, of course, will protect the privacy of our writer’s identities as best we can, but the less we know about your legal or professional personas, the less information we will have to submit should we be subpoenaed or audited.
It is with great pride and pleasure that we announce Kate Zen and Josephine have joined the Tits and Sass editorial team! Kate will be our news editor while Josephine will be focusing on television and film reviews. With more hands on deck, we can bring you more posts. Plus, they’re awesome, and just generally fun to have around.
Speaking of expanding our breadth, how about sending us a pitch or submission if you haven’t done so already? The more voices we feature on the site, the more relevant we are, and without relevancy we die inside.
strippers from the south to weigh in on local conventions
submissions for what will hopefully be our most monster group post of all time, “The Most Shocking Thing(s) A Client Ever Told Me.” You’re not limited to narrowing it down to only one!
current event pieces for Kate: What do you think of New York’s new prostitution and trafficking courts? Equality Now’s campaign to keep sex work criminalized? Possible criminalization/adoption of the Swedish End Demand model in France? The exclusion of Kenyan gay sex workers from that country’s HIV treatment agenda?
good old fashioned comedy. How about a satirical take on a first person report from Sweatpants Boner Man? Or a parody of a TER review?
first person brothel experiences, in the United States and abroad.
what you’re looking for. You can always email us questions for Dear Tits and Sass, or drop us a note with topic ideas. Tell us what you need to read about and we will do our best to oblige.
We’d also like to take this opportunity to publicly affirm our commitment to showcasing diverse viewpoints and striving for inclusivity. Sex workers are already left out of so much, including public discussions about our own lives, and we don’t want to replicate that exclusion here in any way. Please know we are going to work hard to have the site reflect the variety of people who come to the sex trade in terms of skin color, gender identities, national identities, and sexual identities. You can help by continuing to hold us accountable and encouraging every sex worker you know to contribute. Those who don’t feel like writing a full post on their own can submit images, conduct interviews, or participate in roundtables. If you’re willing to share it, we will figure out a way to include your perspective.
Our email address is still info at titsandsass dot com. Let’s get started.