Episode 3 features a story by Izzy Oneiric, “Pebbles, the Tripping Stripper,” as performed by Melissa Gira Grant. The story was recorded during the Coworkers and Co-conspirators live event on July 1, 2010.

Poet and performance artist Izzy Oneiric‘s writing has appeared under various names in nearly twenty print and online publications such as $pread, Exquisite Corpse, Wheelhouse Magazine, Opium, and Burdock. For several years she was Poetry Editor for other magazine. She has lived and performed all over the country and has been a stripper, fetish model, and gay porn clerk. She holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies and an MFA in Poetry. She currently lives and teaches in Chicago.

Melissa Gira Grant is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor of the forthcoming anthology Coming And Crying. She and Izzy were once coworkers at a strip club.

Live events and podcast are hosted by Audacia Ray. The audio in this episode was recorded and edited by David Beasley, podcast bumper music by The Mercy Studio Project.

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This month’s blog carnival leads up to the August 5th Red Umbrella Diaries live event at Happy Ending, which stars Veronica Vera, Lauren Wissot, Chelsea G. Summers, E.V. Fleurima (aka Ckiara Rose), and Michael Pollack – plus one of the stories in the carnival!

Read stories by Sarah Sloane, Widow Centauri, plus 17 bits of advice for newbies, from seasoned pros like Georgina Spelvin.

Since the opening plenary for the International AIDS Conference (IAC) on Sunday, July 18th, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) has been a vocal and visible presence at the conference. NSWP members have challenged both policy makers and funding agencies to break with the status quo, which perpetuates institutional violence and violation of sex worker’s human rights that lead to a higher rates of HIV infection and death.

On Tuesday, July 20th, NSWP organized sex workers and allies to disrupt a speech by United States Global AIDS Coordinator Dr. Eric Goosby to demand justice for sex workers harmed by PEPFAR’s discriminatory anti-prostitution loyalty oath.

Download the NSWP press release about the protest, a one page English PDF, here.

Here are some reports from NSWP activists who were there:

“On Tuesday, July 20 sex workers’ rights activists marched through the IAC conference centre to protest the PEPFAR Anti Prostitution Pledge at a session at which was to be a presenter. Eric Goosby cancelled his speech to avoid the sex workers and instead held a press conference in the media centre. Sex worker activists followed him there, where we loudly accused him of murdering sex workers and preventing the crucial funding for sex workers. Everyone was upset and challenging him to be responsible and support human rights for all. I sat on the table with my red umbrella and screamed that he was a murderer, and everyone was chanting “SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!!” He tried to escape and fell from his chair, and then he was helped to his feet by security and escorted out. The media stayed in the room and sex workers were venting their issues of concern. For example, in Uganda the only funding is for rehabilitation and there is NO money for condoms. In Kenya there is no funding for necessary sex worker support services, only rehabilitation. All who receive money from USAID’s PEPFAR fund have to sign an anti-prostitution loyalty oath. We left chanting, “sex workers united will never be defeated!!! PEPFAR kills sex workers!!!”

–Cheryl Overs, Paulo Longo Research Institute, Asia and the Pacific Region

Watch a video of the protest, featuring some of the sex workers’ chants and an impassioned speech from Kyomya Macklean, of the Ugandan sex worker group WONETHA.

“Highlights for me: sex worker activist Thierry Schaffauser sat in Goosby’s lap and after we chased him out of the press conference room, sex workers from around the world took over the microphones and held their own press conference while the whole world was watching and declared that we will follow Goosby to every presentation he makes until he answers for the crimes of PEPFAR’s anti-prostitution pledge.”

–Will Rockwell, Global Network of Sex Work Projects, North America Region

“The protesters toured the Center for Media, carrying red umbrellas and placards with slogans. One of the interviewees was the prostitute [Kyomya] Macklean, Uganda: “We want respect, recognition, social inclusion, and dialogue with our political leaders. And we can’t do all this without funding. ”

After a few minutes, everyone was ushered out of the Center for Media, but continued to move through the wide corridors of the Convention Center, moving in the direction of the Global Village. The group celebrated the impact of the action at the booth of the Global Network of Sex Work (NSWP), which promoted the protest.

Sex workers from around the world demand that the U.S. funds to fight AIDS, via USAID’s PEPFAR program, do not discriminate. It is essential to support sex worker organizations in order to strengthen HIV prevention.”

–Flavio Lenz, Davida, Latin America Region

Editor’s note: Flavio’s statement is based on a rough translation using the Google translate tool. Click here for the original version in Portuguese.

Four years ago in 2006, at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, NSWP member Melissa Ditmore and journalist Erin Siegal collected footage and interviews for a short film on PEPFAR and how it harms sex workers – not much has changed. Watch the thirteen minute film, Taking the Pledge, below.

I’m still hashing out some of the details with the podcast feed for iTunes, so if you have any weird problems with it, please do let me know so I can troubleshoot and fix it!

And now, for the upcoming live event!

Organized by Programs for Research and Outreach (PRO) as part of the exhibition “Museum as Hub: In and Out of Context REDUX,” this event shifts between elements of a seminar, performance, screening, lecture, discussion, spoken-word event, conversation, and encounter. Those involved include Ayreen Anastas, Emily Forman, Dara Greenwald, Jesal Kapadia, Rene Gabri, Benj Gerdes, Karen Hakobian, and Harout Simonian, along with their collaborators and guests. The event migrates around issues such as immigration and work, political suppression and political prisoners, homelessness and housing, sex and transgender politics, and issues of political agency, autonomy, and education in contemporary New York.

Specific contributions include the following:

Dara Greenwald explores questions concerning political repression in New York by looking at the activity of militant care as expressed through writing, visiting, and advocating for political prisoners. Through discussions on the links between the repression of today with the repression of the movements of the ’60s and ’70s, Greenwald examines its influence on current feelings of fear surrounding political speech and action.

Karen Hakobian and Harout Simonian attempt to challenge the boundaries of revolution and the revolutionary, both as process and as practice of/on a collective and individual level. What does it mean making revolution for oneself, being that revolution, changing the world inside and outside of oneself, taking that responsibility of the change and the changer? What comes after it? For this they have invited Ignacio Rivera, transgender activist and sex educator; Peppermint, famous drag queen; Audacia Ray, sex worker and activist; and Edgar Rivera, anthropologist at Columbia University.

Jesal Kapadia has together with her students Amin Hussain and Nitasha Dhillon developed a project based on the topic of translation, migration, and immigrant workers’ rights in New York City.

Benj Gerdes’s presentation addresses questions of immigration in light of the Lower East Side’s history and present anti-immigration legislation. Emily Forman attempts to gather together and discuss her work with saving the Starlight Lounge and her collaboration with Picture the Homeless.

Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri invite a series of guests to intervene between each session and involve the public in narrating and thinking through our present.

For the next event, which takes place on August 5, the theme is Well Seasoned: Stories of Pros with Some Experiences Under Their Belts. Here’s a little something to get you started thinking:

Most people in the sex trade remember what it felt like to step into a dungeon, peep booth, dimly lit stage, brothel, client’s hotel room, or car for the first time. But what happens after the shine of being the new girl wears off, after the young hustler can’t pretend he’s never done this before?

Send me a piece that is up to 700 words long, and I’ll pick my favorite to read at the event – and of course then I’ll put the recording in the new Red Umbrella Diaries audio podcast. Your piece can be previously published on your own blog or elsewhere, or you can conceal your identity and email me a piece that you can’t put your name on. The themes can be interpreted all kinds of different ways, I love to see creativity. Send your links or text to stories@redumbrellaproject.com by July 15th.

World Cup mania has struck worldwide, and along with the stories about team victories and groups of fans gathering cheer on their home teams, are stories about the economic effect the World Cup has on South Africa. Countries host sporting events on the scale of the World Cup and the Olympics for a number of reasons, but attracting tourists and boosting local economies is certainly a big motivator.

Despite all the positives to report on, the media loves a downside–and for huge sporting events, the downside is human trafficking, which the United Nations defines as:

“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”

Mainstream media outlets have been reporting that 40,000 women have been trafficked into South African brothels for the World Cup. That’s a pretty horrifying statistic – except that there simply aren’t any good citations that confirm it.

Matthew Greennall wrote a great blog post that deconstructs the 40,000 figure and links to several articles that have used this “statistic” but can’t corroborate it; Global Voices likewise has a post flagging this problematic bit of reporting. Laura Agustín, author of the book Sex At the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets, and the Rescue Industry, points out that in 2006 the same 40,000 number was reported with regards to the World Cup in Germany (where prostitution is legal). Her post also highlights some of the important parts of a very in-depth academic article from Globalization and Health, Sex work and the 2010 FIFA World Cup: time for public health imperatives to prevail.

To be fair, there is some critique of the World Cup trafficking scare happening in mainstream media – for example, this month Yahoo! Sports ran piece called “Debunking the World Cup’s Biggest Myth” and the Wall Street Journal published an article called “Suspect Estimates of Trafficking at the World Cup”– but the voices of South Africans, and particularly people who work in the sex industry, were entirely absent from the articles. It’s a shame, because people in South Africa certainly have quite a bit to say on the subject.

The South African grassroots organization Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Task Force (SWEAT) has recently launched an online resource about their push to decriminalize sex work in South Africa.  In addition to useful resources about myths and facts, and why people should support decriminalization, the website features the perspectives of sex workers themselves and critique of the reports on trafficking and the World Cup. SWEAT is careful to make the distinction between trafficking (which involves coercion or explicit force) and sex work (which, like many jobs, is often undertaken because of the circumstances of a person’s life), while many news reports present these situations as interchangeable. SWEAT supports anti-trafficking initiatives while also supporting sex workers’ rights to a livelihood without violence or discrimination. Their work also focuses on the examining the realities of HIV transmission among the sex working population.

South African Researchers Marlise Richter and Tamlyn Monson wrote up a Human Trafficking and Migration issue brief on the subject, in which they write:

… there is no evidence to support claims that trafficking is already a significant problem in the Southern African region. Furthermore, there is no evidence to support the expectation that a large sporting event such as the 2010 Soccer World Cup is likely to increase human trafficking levels. The claim that trafficking is linked to large-scale sporting events is based, implicitly or explicitly, on the belief that events which attract large numbers of tourists – especially male tourists – increase the demand for paid sex. This supposedly increased demand is then assumed to be filled through women (and children) trafficked for sex.

Germany’s experiences during the 2006 Soccer World Cup contradict claims that trafficking volumes will rise during the 2010 event in South Africa. Before the 2006 Soccer World Cup, media reports and NGOs claimed that 40,000 women and children would be trafficked into Germany. Yet, in research conducted after the 2006 World Cup, researchers found evidence of only five cases of trafficking.

Trafficking is a very serious topic, but it’s important to recognize the differences between trafficking and sex work, without doing so, we do a disservice to both victims of trafficking and sex workers. It’s great that the World Cup has brought attention to these issues, but we need to make sure we’re doing it in the right way, and that the voices of those who are affected are included in the solutions.

Hosted by Audacia Ray
Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
Thursday, July 1. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10
21 and up – FREE

15% of the bar tab supports PROS Network (Providers and Resources Offering Services to sex workers)

Starring:

Damien Luxe is a multi-media performer and artist who has worked in DIY/indie print, web, theater and audio production for over 10 years. She has performed all over Canada and the US, has two self-published music albums out, and from 2006-2009 she Art Directed the award-winning $pread Magazine. Currently, she is the Co-Head Madam of the NYC Femme Family, Co-Creative Director of the H[art] Collective, is completing a DIY MFA, and is touring work that honors feminine hero/ines.

Christina Cicchelli has spent five years as a sex worker with experience in a myriad of industries, including phone sex and professional domination. As a Mistress, she has worked in several NYC dungeons and also visited clients on an independent basis. As a phone sex operator, she maintained a large amount of callers who enjoyed her guidance, creativity and experienced in fetish and role-play.

Christina is best known for her career as a porn actress. Under the non de plume, Simone Valentino, Christina has performed in a handful of sexy films. She received an AVN nomination for Best Actress for her role in Afrodite Superstar and won “Best New Starlet” at the Feminist Porn Awards in 2008 for her role in Audacia Ray’s The Bi Apple.

Christina is $pread Magazine’s “Media Whore” Columnist and her work is also featured on Betty Dodson’s website, Dodsonandross.com. She currently resides in New York City where she is hunched over her laptop spinning erotic conspiracy theories and sexual speculative fiction.

Poet and performance artist Izzy Oneiric‘s writing has appeared under various names in nearly twenty print and online publications such as $pread, Exquisite Corpse, Wheelhouse Magazine, Opium, and Burdock. For several years she was Poetry Editor for other magazine. She has lived and performed all over the country and has been a stripper, fetish model, and gay porn clerk. She holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies and an MFA in Poetry. She currently lives and teaches in Chicago.

Rope Boi is the founding member of a household of queer, kinky women and bois in the Boston area.  She strives to live critically and to forge new arrangements of sexuality and relationality.  She is a student and an educator.  She will be presenting at TES Fest in Piscataway, New Jersey, on July 2-5, 2010.

Busty Kitten is a theatrical know-it-all, muse and artiste, and feminist barstool philosopher. She co-produces and co-hosts The Giddy Multitude Vaudeville Co, a monthly cabaret of circus, music, dance, comedy, and burlesque. www.giddymultitude.com. Her work explores issues of sex and sexuality, body image, and constructed identies of femininity. She holds a BA from UC Santa Cruz and will be pursuing an MA in Applied Theatre at CUNY in the fall. She can be seen burlesque dancing at the usual venues around NYC and proudly earning her sweat equity at WOW Cafe Theatre.

The PROS Network (Providers and Resources Offering Services to sex workers) is a coalition of sex workers, organizers, direct service providers, advocates, and media makers. We exist to collaborate on programs and campaigns around sex work-related issues in the New York metropolitan area. We work with people of all genders who, by choice, circumstance, or coercion, engage in sexual activities for money, food, shelter, clothing, drugs, or other survival needs. Grounded in principles of social justice and human rights, the PROS Network embraces a non-judgmental, harm reduction approach. Check them out on Facebook.

This is a video keynote speech I produced to be shown at the LOVER magazine conversation on sex work in Utrecht, Holland on June 23, 2010. Though the bulk of the conversation at the event is about local prostitution law, I was asked to provide a rights-based perspective to get the conversation started.

Thanks to Marije Janssen (website in Dutch) for the invitation. Hopefully next time I’ll be delivering my speech in person.

Transcript:
The sex industry is complex and contains many different worker experiences, from extreme violation of human rights to middle class employment, and many experiences in between. This means not just that it’s hard to talk and write about, but that it’s really difficult to make effective policies that protect the people who work in the industry from exploitation and other potential harms while not encroaching on their livelihood and bodily autonomy. People who work in the sex industry do so by choice, circumstance, or coercion – and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish among these situations. It is vital that we as policy makers, advocates, managers of programs at non-governmental organizations, and members of civil society — including people who work in the sex industry and people who patronize the sex industry – ensure sex worker rights and access to health and social services.

I am a former sex worker and a current sex worker rights advocate. I work with local sex worker communities in my hometown, New York City, to create visibility and awareness of the stigma and discrimination that sex workers face. I also do information and communications technology development and technical assistance for grassroots groups through my work with the International Women’s Health Coalition and the Global Network of Sex Work projects. As the co-founder of the Sex Work Awareness project, I lead media training workshops for sex workers who are seeking to do media advocacy work and improve their ability to interface with mainstream media. I host a monthly public storytelling series, the Red Umbrella Diaries, where sex workers tell stories about their lives. I am committed to putting sex workers at the center of conversations about our welfare.

To improve the lives of all people in the sex industry, including women, men, and transgender women, we need to have a vision of what the ideal would be. And even though it seems like a somewhat fantastical and out of reach exercise, I think it’s important to dream of a better future for sex workers. Ideal conditions for sex workers would recognize and protect their human rights and dignity. For me, a positive future for sex workers would have two different dimensions: economic justice and bodily autonomy. In a better world, people would be able to freely choose how they make a living and with whom they choose to share their sexual selves.

Throughout the world, wage inequalities between men and women are firmly entrenched. Women make less money than men in all industries except for the sex industry. Whether women are in the sex industry because of the coercive acts of men who know what women’s market value is or because of the economic circumstances of their lives, many will not have the option to leave the business unless there are viable jobs that pay as well or better than sex work. The fault of this situation does not lie with the sex industry(!), but rather with the greater structures of sexism and valuing of women’s erotic labor over other forms of work. It is a problem that needs to be fixed on a grand scale and cannot be solved by eradicating the sex industry.

Throughout the world, women are robbed of their bodily autonomy through rape, early and forced marriage, inability to access safe abortion, and intimate partner violence – to name a few. Although some advocates regard sex work as violence against women, it is the culture at large that is harming women, and perpetuates violence against all women, especially those who are transgender, poor, or vulnerable to abuse. To view the work itself as harm is a narrow vision.

It is only with economic justice and bodily autonomy for all people, including men and transgender women, that a better reality for sex workers can be attained. So my charge to you, and to people working to improve the living conditions of sex workers around the world, is to consider the (much needed) steps that will take us closer to this distant but hopefully not impossible dream.

Last fall, when I took a trip to India, visited with SANGRAM in Sangli district and shot a lot of video, I got to see the beginnings of a video project that was giving people in the community the skills to produce their own films. The Community Video Unit (CVU) is a project run by Video Volunteers over the course of eighteen months, and 10 people in Sangli were just starting to learn how to operate a camera, see a good shot, and edit their own footage.

SANGRAM is a nationally and internationally rights-based organization in India’s Maharashtra State working towards halting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India through assisting sex workers, rural women and girls, and other marginalized groups to mobilize and secure their rights and access to health services. They do this not only through advocacy at the local, national and international levels, but by empowering local communities to make change for themselves. One of the ways they are making this change is by documenting the experiences of people in their communities.

The above video, “The Reason I Left School,” is the group’s first effort. The video focuses on the struggles of the children of sex workers in Sangli to get an education and stay in school when faced with ridicule and discrimination. It’s especially interesting to hear the perspectives of adult children of sex workers as they talk about their experiences and how their thoughts on school, and their mothers, have changed as they have become adults. The plight of the children of sex workers in India has gotten plenty of attention over the years, but there are frequently overtones of moral judgment in the pieces. It’s refreshing to hear directly from the children themselves, in a piece of media that is self-produced. Seeing the difficult challenges they have faced through their eyes is important in and of itself, and essential to gaining a better understanding of the economic and social circumstances their communities face.

The Sex Workers Project (SWP) worked closely with Assembly Member Richard Gottfried to draft and introduce the bill in April 2009, which is also sponsored by Senator Thomas Duane. Supporters include the New York City Bar Association, the New York Anti-Trafficking Network, and Sex Workers Action New York.

The new legislation empowers survivors of trafficking by allowing them to move on with their lives, and function in society without the stigma of past exploitation. Survivors have a better chance of escaping re-victimization or further coercion when they do not have criminal records that often prevent them from obtaining work, getting stable housing, and adjusting their immigration status.

Who does this affect?

Over the past eight years the Sex Workers Project (SWP), a legal advocacy and services organization housed by the Urban Justice Center, has given legal assistance to many people who are in the sex industry by choice, circumstance, or coercion. As they assisted survivors of trafficking in accessing their rights and attaining safety, security, and a better future, it became clear that there was a need for a legal remedy that would allow survivors to move forward with their lives.

One client, “Carmen,” was trafficked from Mexico, and was beaten, abused and forced to do prostitution. She was arrested over 10 times during this nightmare, but her fear of the police made it impossible to inform law enforcement that she was being exploited by a third party. “Stacey” is a United States citizen who was trafficked into prostitution as a teen when she ran from an abusive home. She recovered with help from service providers, but has had trouble getting a job because of her prostitution conviction. As a result of the passage of the vacating prostitution convictions legislation, Carmen will no longer be blocked from immigration status because of her prostitution record, and Stacey will no longer have to inform potential employers of her record.

Why is this good?

People who are coerced into the sex industry and are then convicted of prostitution are handed a raw deal. In addition to being survivors of abuse and coercion, they saddled with lifelong stigma by the criminal justice system. With a prostitution conviction on their records, survivors of sex trafficking have a difficult time moving forward. This is not justice; it is harmful to survivors and can lead to re-victimization if they are unable to secure legal status in the United States and in the workforce.

The passage of this bill has shown us that it is possible for sex workers rights advocates to have their say, and that there are state legislators who will listen to our concerns. This gives us hope for changing a system that so often institutionalizes violence and discrimination against sex workers.

What’s next and what can I do about it?

If you live in New York State, this is a really great opportunity to make your Assembly and Senate representatives’ acquaintance. Send your representatives a letter (feel free to use the sample text below or write your own).

• Find out who your Assembly member and Senator are here. Call or write to them to express your thanks!

• To make it even easier, we’ve set up a form you can submit. Sign a “Thank you” petition on Change.org – which will automatically be sent to your representatives –  here.

There is, of course, more work to be done. There is another bill making its way through the legislature right now that, if passed, will stop police and prosecutors from using possession of condoms as evidence that people are engaging or intending to engage in prostitution. Right now in New York people who are profiled as prostitutes, very often trans women, often have their condoms confiscated as evidence of prostitution. In addition to thanking your representatives, you should urge them to support New York State Bill A10893/S01289A.

Sample letter:

Dear ______ ,

Thank you for voting in favor of New York State Bill A7670/S04429, which enables survivors of human trafficking to vacate their convictions for prostitution-related offenses.

I live in your district and I support the human rights of people who are in the sex industry by choice, circumstance, or coercion. The reasons a woman, transgender woman, man, or transgender man may enter and continue to be in the sex industry are complex and are often tied to economic instability and inequalities faced by women and LGBT people.

As you know, an advocate’s work is never done. Currently, bills A10893/S01289A are making their way through the legislature. If passed, this bill will stop police and prosecutors from using possession of condoms as evidence that people are engaging or intending to engage in prostitution. This practice affects public health initiatives promoting condom use and distributing condoms to at-risk populations. Please support this bill and remove the fear of carrying condoms among our most vulnerable populations.

Sincerely,

NAME

Address

I’m not a New Yorker. How can I advocate against harmful policies in my state?

Ask most people about government and they tend to talk about their federal representatives, the White House, or maybe their Mayor. But the state government may have the most significant impacts on our daily lives, particularly in the realm of criminal justice. Although the process from bill to law varies widely state to state, there are some common strategies sex worker advocates can take.

• Familiarize yourself with the current laws that affect sex workers.
  • Criminal Law– find out what crimes sex workers are arrested and convicted for – it could include prostitution, solicitation, loitering, or others. Talk to sex workers in your community who have been arrested and ask them about their experiences with the law.
  • Civil Law – find out if sex workers can be evicted from their homes, denied custody of their children, or lose their jobs.
  • Exotic dancers, pro-dommes, porn actors, and others – Find out if there are laws that discriminate against these workers.
  • Ask a friendly lawyer for help!
• Look for current bills that make changes to these laws – for better or worse. Try a search on your state’s legislative webpage for key words like “prostitution.”
• Make allies – research local organizations that may be allied with your goals. Try LGBT orgs, public health orgs, harm reduction orgs, civil rights orgs. These organizations may have legislative advocacy staff that can help you get oriented.
• Develop your platform. Think small – look for concrete objectives that can be accomplished with adjustments to the law. Any of these New York bills could be used as “model legislation” to make similar changes in your state. Your platform may include opposing bad bills that increase penalties for sex work.
• Research your local representatives. Identify potential allies and opposition to sex workers rights.
• Write, call, and meet with your legislator once you have a clear ask (“I would like to ask for your support on bill XXXXX” or “I have an idea for a piece of legislation that would accomplish…”). Assume they know nothing about sex work and may be surprised to hear from a sex worker/ally constituent.
• Register to vote, and vote in local elections!