Archive for the 'intellectual freedom' Category

Sex Worker Literati

Published on December 4, 2009 in blogs, D/s, dom, drunk, intellectual freedom, musings, sex, sex work, sex work awareness and Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Even when I’m not having sex, I’m often listening to stories about sex, talking about sex, or reading about sex. Last night I went to Sex Worker Literati in Manhattan, hosted by Audacia Ray and David Henry Sterry. If you live near NYC you really should go. I had a wonderful time.
I met up with Diva and Tess beforehand for some inexpensive food picked up at the cheap dumpling place down the street. ($3 for dinner and I didn’t even finish it!) and brought to one of their usual bars for drinks with dinner. I got to meet Lucy Vonne for the second time and overall had a wonderful bit of hanging out with everyone. Later on, Twisted Monk showed up, and I got to meet him this time whereas I had only seen him at the sex blogger calendar party. I felt kinda left out though, as I was the only one there without a smart phone/touch screen. I’ve always been really behind with my cell phones. It was only 1 or 2 years ago that I finally got a phone with a camera in it. Yup, call me the cell phone luddite. I’m lusting after an iPhone right about now, but not sure on my librarian salary if I can afford the monthly data charge. I got to hear from Diva about some new and exciting plans she and Tess have. (Of course, I will keep schtum about these until they unveil their ideas. But they’re good ideas as always.)

Twisted Monk is nice, funny, sexy and cute. Damn. No wonder the man can make a living as a pro Dom. (He talked about this for his part of the readings last night.) Of course, his main claim to fame is his popular bondage rope company.

The readings were funny, enlightening and made me really think about why I support sex worker rights. We’re fed stereotypes by the media, but people aren’t stereotypes – they’re people. Sex workers are multi-dimensional human beings, regardless of what you think about the “morality” of sex work. I am happy and proud to have known a variety of sex workers in my life – they’ve been intelligent, (and often quite educated), nice and fun people to be around. When I first had the pleasure of meeting Audacia Ray she was doing sex work and working on her master’s degree. (I was working on my master’s degree at the time too, and wishing I had the cojones and business acumen to get into sex work. It would have paid much, much better than my part-time paraprofessional library jobs alone. But yes, there was the whole illegality thing to consider.) Heck, a while back I realized that MasterDoc and I getting paid to do our bdsm shows makes us sex workers. While we are among the privileged ones, (not all sex workers are middle to upper-middle-class and college educated) I still think the point must be made that sex workers are human beings, and as such they should not be treated like so much trash left out on the street. (It might even be helpful to remember that sex worker clients are human beings as well. And as all the political/religious sex “scandals” have shown, they are often people you already know.)

Making prostitution illegal has never stopped prostitution from going on. The only thing it really manages to do is make prostitutes more vulnerable. They become easy targets for the dregs of society as they can’t exactly go to the police when they’ve been blackmailed, assaulted, raped, and possibly someone has tried to kill them. I think the whole illegality of prostitution is rooted in sexism, homophobia and transphobia – after all, most sex workers are women, men who sell themselves to men, and transgender people. They are part of groups of people already marginalized by society and already vulnerable. If heterosexual men could make a living by selling their sexual favors, do you think that prostitution would be illegal? It’s just an opinion, but I don’t.

While I’m not a libertarian, I think I tend to like them since they’re usually quite supportive of all sex work being legal. (I’m kinda politically unaffiliated, having come from an extreme left/liberal ideology and was once fond of socialism (not anymore) and anarchy (still to a certain extent).)

So while having a fab time last night I was tweeting up a storm. As always, tweeting from my luddite’s phone is one-sided. After tweeting about the joys of chocolate martinis I received a text from MasterDoc saying, “not TOO much booze babe.” Darn. I had planned on one more drink, but I got a soda instead. It was cute when I told Monk about this as he tried to help me think of a loophole, “What if someone else bought you a drink?” Nothing like a Dom trying to help you circumvent your Dom. Hee hee. I said no, he would still be unhappy if I drank too much.

Now on the outside, it looks like I simply submitted to MasterDoc and did as he wished. But in my head went a whole thought process:

“Aw man! I wanted another drink! How much is too much alcohol? I’m not feeling all that drunk. Could I justify one more drink as not being too much? I think MasterDoc would be unhappy with me having four martinis in one night though. And I could never lie to him. Damn. Ok, I won’t have another.” It’s a struggle. In the end, however, I thought MasterDoc’s point of view was right. I was perfectly happy that I didn’t go for one more drink. He was watching out for me. Granted, one more drink probably wouldn’t have made a HUGE difference, but I really did not need another.

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Coming up is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers on December 17th. Please, let’s promote the idea of sexual freedom for all and safety for ALL workers. And to support the work of Sex Work Awareness, please buy a NYC Sex Blogger Calendar (there’s a special offer there for the month of December from Audacia Ray).

Sex Work and Stigma

Published on May 6, 2009 in intellectual freedom, library, sex work awareness and venting. 0 Comments

I wish someone would take away my computer when I’m premenstrual/depressed. I got all sorts of cranky this morning – and when it comes down to it it was hormonal. Do you ever find yourself acting awful, being contrary for the sake of being contrary, and somehow you can’t stop yourself doing it even as you look on in horror? This morning, despite being glad that the NYC sex bloggers are doing another calendar to promote Sex Work Awareness (something I fully get behind) I got picky and decided to throw a hissy because I don’t see any fat chicks in the calendar. Was this fair? No. It turns out the women who are in the calendar asked to be and will gladly be showing their faces in support of Sex Work Awareness – fat girls were more than welcome to join their ranks. It got me thinking, would I show my face? I don’t have a problem showing my fat body, but I worry that my job could be in jeopardy for doing something like posing for a calendar that supports sex workers. My union would probably support my right to do what I want in my private time but would that be enough? How secure is my civil service position? It’s something that I’d like to do, but of course worry about the repercussions.

A few years back a librarian in Washington was fired for being a dominatrix in her spare time (and posting for clients on the internet). She wasn’t doing anything illegal but her sexuality was suddenly made conversation material in her town and she was fired. (Not to mention shamed by some of her community. Not to mention this was reported nationwide in librarian publications.) Would doing a cheesecake photo for a Sex Work Awareness fundraiser have the same effect? If I were to participate, my face would be associated with my blog pseudonym, and it would be linked to this blog, where I’ve talked about things like doing sex work myself (i.e., the shows MasterDoc and I sometimes do) – nothing illegal, I don’t put illegal things on my blog, but enough that people could freak out and decide to take away my job like that librarian in Washington. My rebellious side wants to go do it, because after all I have the right to do it – but the last thing I need to do is lose my job – and so I haven’t said I’d like to pose. (With the recession my library is suffering deep budget cuts like so many across the country. I don’t need to serve them my head on the chopping block.) I wish we lived in a place and time where doing something like backing sex work awareness wouldn’t possibly lead to losing your job. Has such a time and place ever existed? We like to think we’re so free, but really we’re not. If we’re truly free then people should be able to make a living doing sex work if they so choose. But the stigma is obvious when you think about how bad the stigma can be for simply supporting sex workers and their rights. (I understand that it’s possible for me to be outed as the writer of this blog, but I do my best to maintain plausible deniability when I write here. It’s a risk I take.)

So I won’t step forward to be a model (though I really wish I could, I want to be a part of this), but I will talk about Sex Work Awareness here and promote what they do. Sex workers are human beings – a concept we need to promote to the public at large. Here’s a wonderful PSA that came out of their first session of their Speak Up media training workshop.

Banned Books Week

Published on October 2, 2007 in banned books week and intellectual freedom. 0 Comments

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” – Noam Chomsky

I’m going to take a little break from sex blogging here, because this week is one of my favorite weeks in library-land – Banned Books Week. Every year, libraries and booksellers try to bring to light the fact that even in our “free” country people still try to tell others what they can and can’t read. From the ALA website:

“Banned Books Week (BBW) celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.”

If we let a small group of “concerned citizens” decide what we and our children can or can’t read, then we’re just steps away from this sort of censorship. Too many books are challenged every year because some adult thinks that no child should be able to read a book they object to (Harry Potter, anyone?) The only people who have a right to dictate what children read are their own parents.

The most challenged book of the year is “And Tango Makes Three“, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, an adorable picture book about two male penguins in the Central Park Zoo who paired up and then, when given an abandoned egg to nest with, hatched the egg and raised it as their own. This is a true story, about penguins, not people. And yet people are afraid it promotes a “homosexual agenda.” This book was challenged in a library near where I live, and I live in a pretty liberal area of the country. Book challenges can happen anywhere, and come from both the right and the left mind you – people can seek to challenge a book because the views expressed are no longer “politically correct,” however these challenges often ignore the historical significance of books that are somewhat outdated in views (i.e., the portrayal of Native Americans in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series) and miss the fact that discussion with children about the change of views in society yield much more intelligent and thoughtful young people.

I recommend you check out the list of books that have been most frequently challenged, take one of them, read it and decide for yourself if the censors are doing anyone a favor by trying to ban the books. I find it interesting that usually the books people seek to ban are high quality books, frequently ones on school reading lists. I guess no one really cares if a book is so poorly written no one would bother reading it. Should a quality piece of literature go unread just because some of the content is challenging? I don’t think so, and I hope that anyone who agrees with me will keep an eye out for book challenges in their community and speak up in favor of intellectual freedom for all.