yay for spontaneity

Housatonic River, Connecticut.

So internet, last time we spoke I was making a spontaneous trip to Vegas for the Desiree Alliance Conference. It was fucking awesome! The best spontaneous decision ever! Here is a list of the presentations I attended:

Incorporating Kink into your Work – Sarah Sloane
Safety For Sex Workers Through Personal Privacy – Belle De Jour, Amanda Brooks, Furry Girl, Alex Soritov
Smart Sex Work: Business Success in Under an Hour
Keeping it Real: Coming Out to Your Loved Ones About Sex Work – Mariko Passion and Kimberlee Cline
Personal Finance for Adult Industry Professionals
Solo Girl: An Introduction to Operating Your Own Porn Site – Furry Girl
Phone and Cam Sex for Profit – Danielle dv8
The U.S. Sex Workers’ Rights Movement: Past, Present, Future – Vegan Vixen
Building Membership of Local Organizations through Community – Penny Saunders
Working it Down Under – Lusty Day
Developing a Screening Policy
Energetic Protection and Cleansing for Sex Workers – Jean Grey

Check out the Desiree Alliancewebsite for more info on the conference and presenters.

There were tons of interesting presentations to go to and I had a hard time deciding which ones to attend. In addition to all of that amazing-ness, there were some kickass key note speakers: Dr. Jocelyn Elders, Deon Haywood and Women with a Vision, Kirk Read, Norma Jean Almodovar, Tim Barnett, Nina Hartley, Robyn Few…(I’ll add some links to videos and probably more names later).

If you read this blog, you’re probably not stupid and most likely support sex worker rights.

Some of the stories that I heard that week were insanely aggravating, inspiring and motivating.

Charlene is my age. She lives in New Orleans. In New Orleans they have this law that if a woman is arrested as a prostitute she has to register as a sex offender. Charlene is a registered sex offender due to a prostitution arrest. She is trying to put her life back together and all she wants to do is go to school or get a job. But sex offenders are not allowed to do either. What the fuck is she supposed to do? Charlene has been on the streets since she was 13 due to a heroin addiction and used sex work to support her habit. She is clean now and cannot get a job or go to school. What other choices are they trying to give her?

Condoms are allowed to be used as evidence if you are arrested as a prostitute. They’ve even used VASELINE as evidence.

NHI = No Humans Involved. That is the police code for when a prostitute is murdered. Because we’re subhumans…?

So, if you ever need a reason to support us, just think about that and think about me.

Other Sex Workers and Sex Work Activists: I am interested in organizing and being active around these issues somewhere locally, wherever I end up after the trail. If you’re interested too drop me a line. Possible locations include: Australia, the Midwest, South Florida, San Francisco…anywhere really I guess?

Part of me thinks that I owe South Florida another chance. I know, I know. But seriously, I’ve been there a long time so I’m familiar with the area and we have a major sex industry scene that (in my experience) lacked community. Lake Worth had a pretty cool activist scene going on and I just think that if I could convince those anarchist bastards that sex work is really subversive and cool then they could apply they’re already awesome knowledge in organizing to those issues and yanno…make magick happen?

However, I have also considered volunteering in another place with a more developed sex worker activism scene in order to learn about organizing and community building.

Um…and here’s another quesrtion: if I was coming to your school to speak, what would you want to know?

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