Dogs & Dollars
Kat says, “Good dog!” Now he’s probably headed to the bank, the groomer, the overpriced boutique pet store, and the park.
Sex workers, send us your pictures of your dogs and dollars or cats and stacks at info@titsandsass.com
What’s Your “Real” Name?
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.
We Want You!
Are you a current or former sex worker who loves Tits and Sass, but stumped on ways to contribute? We are always interested in anything pertaining to sex work in the news and/or in popular culture. If that’s too broad for you, we have a few suggestions. We are looking for pro/con pieces on the following topics. (Remember $pread magazine’s “Positions” column?) Tell us how you feel about:
- Pole dance classes for children
- Google + accounts for work identities
- Disclosure of STD status to clients
- Laws regarding condom use in porn
- Stripper labor law (employee vs. IC status)
Here are some broader themes we’re interested in exploring (as long as they are topical):
- Ethics (See: No Photos, Please!, Can You Trust Your Sex Worker?, But What About the Wives?)
- Stalkers, boundaries, and precautions for safety and privacy (especially regarding the internet and technology)
- Sugardaddy/Sugarbaby relationships, dating sites, and media coverage
- Finances: marketing, branding, re-branding, side hustles
- Tools of the trade/product reviews (For example, we aren’t interested in hearing that you love your new Pleasers so much as we want to know about the custom orthopedic inserts that make your back feel better.)
- Comedy and sex work
- Race
- Mythbusters: stupid client questions, misconceptions, bunk statistics
- Interviews with your interesting colleagues (preferably in-person, but chat or email can work)
- Recession sex work (See: Antonia Crane’s awesome series on The Rumpus)
- What is sex work? Do you represent a gray area?
- What’s the difference between certain art and pornography?
We also have an extensive list of movies, TV shows, documentaries and books that haven’t been reviewed. You can even write about a zine, a short story, an article, a podcast, a web series, a music video, or a study. Don’t have the time or inclination to write? Consider making a video blog (vlog), as we would love to start featuring vlogs on the site regularly. We also like our sex worker infographics if you have a trend you’ve been tracking. Work somewhere interesting? Tell us about convention season, what happens when Congress goes on vacation, or silly/antiquated local laws. And of course, there’s always Stripper Music Monday or letting your baller status animal companions do the talking. Remember, you can remain anonymous if you really want to blast your local hobbyist board or make confessions. Send your submissions and ideas to info at titsandsass dot com.
The Week in Links: August 12
Melissa Petro (once deemed “hooker teacher” by the New York Post) responds to the Post‘s Wednesday headline.
Wendy Babcock, Toronto-based sex work activist and law student, passed away on Tuesday.
There are only five days left to donate to the SWAAY Epic Step billboard.
Irish sex workers rights organization Turn Off the Blue Light recently claimed victory in a dispute with Google. The group had paid for an advertisement with Google AdWords, but found that, beginning in May, people looking for their site through the search engine were instead diverted to anti-sex work campaign websites.
A patron at the Pretty Woman Lounge, a Detroit strip club, shot and killed a club employee after being denied admission.
Even though she turned down an offer from Vivid to appear in an adult movie, apparently most Americans still think Pippa Middleton is a porn star.
Three American pole dancers and one Argentinean took home top honors at the International Pole dancing Competition last weekend in Denver.
Lee Grace Dougherty and her two brothers, who allegedly shot a cop in Florida and robbed a bank in Georgia, were caught Wednesday morning in Colorado. Since Dougherty worked as a stripper in Cocoa Beach, some clever writers at the New York Post (perhaps the same ones who wrote the “stox” headline above?) were sure to make up puns about her “rack” in reporting the story.
Former Escort Refreshingly Less Calculating Than Former Housewife
I doubt anyone who reads this site needs my condensed Wikipedia version of who exactly Ashley Dupre is, but here it goes: After her outing as Eliot Spitzer’s—one time! Though every media outlet started calling her his “favorite”—escort, she became a national joke for her music aspirations. Because everyone knows prostitutes can’t sing, or whatever. And no internet post about her was complete without a slew of comments making rude remarks about her asking price with relation to her looks. (Once again, civilians are complete dunces when it comes to the sex industry. Is there some national ranking system of attractive women that should cap rates of escorts? It was New York pre-recession, Dummies. Any twenty-something girl with decent teeth who wasn’t asking $1,000/hour was missing the opportunity of a lifetime.)
All of that didn’t stop certain jackasses from claiming that Ashley’s forced outing made her “a big winner,” as though the only reason she was escorting in the first place was in the hope of getting famous for having sex with a married governor. Even Barbara Walters had the audacity to imply that having her life ruined was worth it since she got an advice column in the NY Post. You figured us out, Media! All prostitutes are secretly dying to be nationally outed in a political scandal, which can only make our miserable lives better than they already are. What gave it away, the fact that we work under our full legal names and offer discounts to public figures?
So now Ashley is back in the public eye, sort of, if being on VH1 counts. She’s one of the semi-recognizable people on “Famous Food,” a show that claims to be about completely unqualified folks competing to join a restaurant group formed by two former reality TV stars. More accurately, it’s a show “about” people yelling at each other and coming up with bad ideas while they sit in an ugly room around a coffee stained conference table. It’s pretty hard to watch, but Ashley Dupre is the only element keeping it from being impossible to watch.