Archive for the 'sex work awareness' Category

Sex Work Awareness Fundraiser

Published on February 13, 2011 in Feminism, sex work, sex work awareness and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

A week ago Friday I met up with Blondie at a fundraiser supporting Sex Work Awareness and their media training for sex workers program. It was hosted by the lovely Tess and Diva of Tied Up Events.

I not only went because so many of my friends were going to be there, but also because I believe in the cause. For me, sex worker rights are intricately tied into women’s and gay rights. Let me explain.

Sex work is looked down upon and devalued. Much work that’s done predominantly by women (or women and gay men) is devalued. “Women’s professions” typically get paid less than a similar male counterpart. I know this well because I’m in a profession that’s dominated by women and has a fair number of gay men in it – librarianship.

“(sex workers) are viewed as less than human – all because they accept money for doing something that’s an integral part of human life.”

“Well,” you may say, “librarianship is legal whereas sex work is not.” Personally I think sex work should be legal. By keeping it illegal, the most dangerous aspects of the work are perpetuated. If a sex worker is assaulted by a client, they have no recourse. Sex workers are often targets for killers because it’s thought they won’t be missed. They’re viewed as less than human – all because they accept money for doing something that’s an integral part of human life. If a sex worker is screwed over by a client they have no recourse. They have to do all their soliciting and sex work in the shadows for fear of arrest, and by keeping sex work in the shadows the shadier sorts will take advantage of sex workers.

Women and gay men are often viewed as less than human by our culture to begin with. This is, quite frankly, abhorrent. I am a human being. I deserve safety while I pursue my happiness here in the United States. My brother, a gay man, deserves safety as well. And women and gay men who do sex work deserve their safety too. I don’t care if you don’t approve of what they do. Considering the vast amounts of safety given to the corporate elite who screw us all over far more than any sex worker could ever manage to do, why can’t we extend basic human decency to people who commit “victimless crimes”?

I have known several sex workers (probably more than several) over the years. They have done work ranging from phone sex, to hand jobs, from whoring, to porn, to webcam. The work they have done has not made them any less human, or any less the fabulous friends they’ve been to me. The idea that their rights are not equally protected pisses me off to no end. If any one of them turned up dead from some deranged murderer, the impact would be felt by many, many people. The world would have lost someone valuable. Without religion telling us that any sex other than “hetero, married, missionary position and for procreation” is wrong, would we ever think that? Humans are sexual creatures. If one can make money providing sexual relief to someone, why is that wrong? I’m not talking about the small portion of people who are coerced or forced into sex work, I’m talking about the large number of sex workers who choose their work.

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).

Par-tay (with the Sex Bloggers)

Published on November 7, 2009 in blog, blogs, sex work awareness, slut, snark, Uncategorized and Vienna sausages. 5 Comments

Wow. The NY Sex Blogger Calendar party was packed! (Have you gotten your calendar yet? I got mine!) I got to meet a load of people – probably too many to list. I’ve given shout outs to many on twitter. I know I forgot a few people, and I apologize. I hate to leave anyone out! Diva and Tess did a fabulous job putting this party together. I’m happy to say I helped out a bit with raffle tickets and the raffle table. However, I didn’t win a single thing in the raffle. *sigh* There was a lot of stuff I’d wanted too (Njoy Eleven, For Your Nymphomation Rolling Toy Trunk, Lelo Gigi – I will keep praying to the gods of sex toys for these things). Hopefully a lot of money was raised for Sex Work Awareness. I have to remind myself that my raffle tickets were purchased to support a good cause.

It was really neat to know so many people this year – I didn’t know nearly as many last year when I went to the party. It’s much more fun when you know people, and a few people introduced themselves to me after seeing my name tag and my “I’m a librarian, bitch!” button. There were plenty of friendly people I chatted briefly with who I didn’t know (and didn’t know me). I ran into two people (just two!) who I’ve had sex with – one man and one woman. I suppose since MasterDoc was there that makes it three people I’ve slept with who attended the party. You’d think in a room full of sluts I’d have had more!

I looked great if I do say so myself. I wore a black dress that’s draped in the front (so that my breasts really stand out) and I put the leather bondage waist cincher I bought at Floating World over it. Rowr. Much more comfortable than I thought it might be. I was smart and wore flats. My new heels would have looked wonderful, but knowing how I felt about them the weekend before, I would have been miserable in those things. I went for cleavage not only because it’s an asset I like to play up, but also because I knew there would be lots of other cleavage to compete with. My one sartorial complaint? Fishnet stockings turn into toe bondage in short order. My poor toes were tangled all night.

The only minor blip was that I saw the douchenozzle who sexually assaulted me in 2005. It was the first time since the assault that I’ve seen him and I feared for years how I would react. But you know, I didn’t feel much of anything. Perhaps some glee that the bastard has lost A LOT of hair (particularly obvious when seen from above in the loft area, I mean, the man is balding.). But the feared reactions: either anxiety, depression, fear or unbridled rage that propels me to strangle the dickhead did not happen. Hallelujah! It’s like a big bugaboo in my anxiety closet has been eliminated. It’s been another step in healing and moving on. Anyway, in honor of my wonderfully neutral reaction to seeing him, here’s the (humorous) song I thought of when I spotted him. (It’s the title that’s most apropos.)

MasterDoc was there with me and despite both of us not being fond of crowds we had a decent time. (It helped that mid-party we left and got food at the dumpling place down the block.) Unfortunately I left without saying good bye to people. But my blogger pals, please know I was thrilled to meet you! I got to have Butchtastic Kyle‘s face smooshed into my boobs, and great hugs from Roxy, Bad Bad Girl, Dangerous Lilly. Roxy and Kyle were all over each other as you would expect. Mina Meow looked fab in a tux with corset early in the evening and a dress later. Her girlfriend A Secret Freak was there as well. (Writing this up makes me realize how out of date my blog roll is compared to the blogs in my reader. I will fix this soon.) I only wish that every sex blogger I know could have been there for me to meet.

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As an aside, MasterDoc asked me not to post the bits I put into the Wishing Box. He pointed out that that might be construed as topping from the bottom if expectations are put on what I put in there. It’s ongoing that I will put ideas in the box, and as the Dom he will decide when, where and if we do them. (And to be honest, I’m happy with it being that way.)

This afternoon when I woke up from my nap he got me. As I walked into the living room he picked up the box and said, “Let’s pick one from the box. Let’s see, what did we get? Oh yes, ‘please use the Vienna sausages.’”

Doh! He’s a sadistic man. He rigged the box, as I definitely did NOT put that in there. We laughed pretty hard. The chicken Vienna sausages sit on the living room table as a threat, but for now, he’s not done anything with them. (And I’m too well behaved a sub to hide them.)

Wishing Box #1

Published on November 6, 2009 in anal, anxiety, bdsm, bondage, D/s, kink, nipple clamps, random thoughts, restraints, sex, sex work awareness and wishing box. 3 Comments

I put 5 items into the Wishing Box the other day, and it seems like MasterDoc read them after I had gone to bed last night. Rowr. I wonder if this will turn into a case of “be careful what you wish for!”

- I’d like some more play with nipple clamps

- I want to be hypnotized to not clench my (vaginal) muscles as I come – to still be able to come but not clench

-I’d like to be made to wear a butt plug around the house and maybe out too

- I’d like to wear my wrist and ankle cuffs sometimes and be bound by them

-I’d like to be gagged on your cock sometimes

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Tonight is the New York Sex Blogger Calendar Party! Whoo hoo! I’ve been waiting months for this. I’m feeling awfully socially awkward and anxious the past day or so, hopefully I will manage to move past that at the party tonight and get to enjoy meeting so many other bloggers. I have a good idea about who is going to be there, but certainly leave me a comment if I may not know you’ll be there. MasterDoc and I will both be around.

When MasterDoc wakes up I need to work out how we’re getting there (car? subway?), and are we bringing the sybian (the attachments are on loan and this would necessitate us getting them before the party)?

It’s so hard being shy. I’m excited and looking forward to the party but I’m also feeling anxious. I’m definitely in a homebody phase just now.

In The Flesh

Published on June 19, 2009 in bisexuality, blogs, dating, lesbian, poly, sex toys, sex work awareness and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Last night I went out to In The Flesh again, and met up with Diva and Tess. I hadn’t seen Michelle in a while so I invited her along as well. We met for dumplings (cheapest dinner I have ever gotten in NYC) and drinks beforehand. At dinner I also got to meet another model for the forthcoming NYC Sex Blogger Calendar. Diva was all abuzz with planning the calendar release party on November 6th. I can’t wait. Should be even more fun this year since I know a couple of people in it better.

At In The Flesh, I again experienced what a small world it is. (At least in the realm of sex-positive people.) I’ve mentioned my friend S. here a few times, she also dates MasterDoc, and I’ve met her daughters a couple of times. Well her eldest daughter was there last night and she didn’t remember me so I tentatively said hello and reminded her that we met. No sooner had that happened when the woman she was with said, “I think I know you too. We went on a couple of dates a while ago.” Yup, indeed this woman was a librarian I had a couple of dates with a while back. Small world indeed. (I won’t even go into how I made the piss-poor choice of going on the second date with this woman despite being sick at the time. Yeah, enthusiasm only counts when you’re not infectious. Needless to say that was our last date.)

The readings were sexy and sometimes funny. It was LGBT night so it was a pretty appropriate night for me to bring along a woman I’m dating (Michelle). Yet again I was lame, and I only gave her a quick kiss as we said goodbye on the subway later on. I get particularly awkward with kissing women in public. I need to get over that.

There were many giveaways at the readings, and I won a book of gay erotica. It’s a pity that I’m not much for gay erotica or porn (I prefer lesbian or kink). I do enjoy watching two men together, in person, but not so much in porn. It’s strange, I know. After the party, while I used the restroom, a guy came looking for me – i.e., the winner of the gay porn book – and Michelle told him I was in the restroom. So after I came out, washed my hands, and rounded the corner, I ran into this guy. He was a really sweet gay man who was interested in that book I had won because it was about surfer boys, and his boyfriend is a surfer. He asked if I’d trade it for something. “Sure,” I said, “You have something to trade?” Sure enough, this guy had a big bag filled with sex toys and whatnot, including a couple of vibrators from Babeland still in the packaging. I gladly traded him the book for an Orchid G in aqua. (You know you’re too immersed in the world of sex toys when you spot a vibrator and immediately know the name of it!) I probably would have just given him the book even if he didn’t have anything I was interested in trading for. Hey, I’m a librarian, I like putting people together with books that are right for them.

My purse wasn’t that big last night, so I ended up taking my new vibrator on the subway with me – unwrapped (well still in packaging, but it was a clear bag). I kinda hid it against my umbrella, but I also found it really funny that I was riding the subway with an exposed vibrator. Somehow that fits my life. I got home to MasterDoc with some funny stories to share. All in all, it was a good night.

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.