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I consider my sex work an extension of my healthy lifestyle.

When a person is dedicated to an inner-strength-growing lifestyle, and then she discovers sex work, her personal provision of that service is likely to be health-imparting. Her personal approach to sex work is likely to be both empowering for her, and a wonderful experience for her clients.

A sex worker in the healthy lifestyle understands that prostitution, practiced with safe sex measures, is natural and healthy relief of stress, provided for a fee. It can even be spiritual. “Donations” can actually be seen as “tithes.” Sex stands as the one true way to relieve stress and loneliness with NO toxins, NO side-effects, NO hangovers or chemical addiction: just the simple, beautiful sense of peace that comes with Nature’s best release.

So why is this healthy and natural act illegal when provided as a service? Unspeakably horrible “relievers” of stress are both legal and obscenely profitable (ex.: tobacco). Many other legal agents of relief are questionable at best (ex.: antidepressants, alcoholic beverages).

And as usual, the wisdom of the matriarchy strongly objects. And the matriarchs in the trenches get arrested or otherwise violated.

I will die with my voice raised in protest. Even on my deathbed, I will scream these truths. Think I’m just being dramatic? No way.

I want everything to go back to normal…and by normal I mean less of us getting arrested. The Craigslist busts are legendary by now, and I know more about it than I want to.

If there’s no more Craigslist Erotic Services section, then the clients will go back to looking for us at all the places they used to…and that’s where we’ll go back to advertising….remember those places, like the Boston Phoenix? Escorts.com? A lot less of us were getting busted through those.

Of course, that’s my ONLY cause for being glad about escorts getting ousted from Craigslist. The “reason”  for the ousting is ridiculous…because of the killer in Boston? We all know that’s just an excuse. (They haven’t ousted jogging paths or coed colleges, right?  But more female joggers and female college students have gotten murdered than all the harmed escorts in the world put together).  Nah…the real reason is, we’re just hated. By people who don’t understand us. By people who ought to appreciate us….even the soccer moms.

I totally agree that street prostitution is degrading and causes victimization of pros. I feel the same way about any kind of pimping, in any venue, unless the management is extremely benevolent and caring toward workers, which is rare.

Melissa Farley and her ilk and anyone who agrees with her needs to realize that ending prostititution is not the answer…helping the workers get off the street, decriminalized and PROTECTED is the answer.

I’ve worked as an independent “escort”,  and I’ve written two books about the lifestyle, and in those books I make it clear that I don’t like third party management, which is exactly what a madam (or pimp or agent) is doing. I feel that such management steals authority and personal power from the actual sex worker.
However, with that said, I want to make the point right here that Palfrey has been a victim of a system that prohibits women from engaging in the one, true solid profession that women will always dominate, one that self-respecting sex workers will always draw great power from. That such a profession is disallowed is true oppression of women, and this is something that even the feminists miserably fail to grasp.
Whether Palfrey offed herself or was murdered, the truth is prohibition killed her. All of us involved in prostitution die a little bit each day, because of prohibition and oppression.
Palfrey was forced to dare (commit a crime) and she was also forced to hide (launder money) in a woman-oppressive system. And now she’s dead.
The fault is everyone’s.

Aphrodite Phoenix

I got arrested once. The cops wanted names from me.  I gave them nothing.  I was already so outraged about my own arrest, there was no way I’d give them ANY more than the satisfaction they already had from nabbing me.

Fact: in most states, prostitution is a misdemeanor. That rarely means any jail time.  Just a fine.  Fact: in most states, pimping or pandering is a felony. A pimp, agent or madam IS looking at jail time. So the pimp, agent or madam is very highly motivated to turn in clients’ names in order to avoid jail, but the individual sex worker is not.

That’s just one more reason for my opposition to third-party management.

What a sickening disappointment!!!!! All she did was the same-old same-old: she interviewed the most accessible prostitutes in the country, the streetwalkers and brothel workers, so OF COURSE she saw mostly just the downside of the work, the pitiful junkies and women who are pimped or managed. OF COURSE such women aren’t happy, so OF COURSE Sawyer portrayed something seamy, sad, degrading, and ambivalent at best….WHY did she only speak to ONE courtesan???? WHY did she NOT go to www.independentescort.com, and approach the women there, or seek out the sex workers’ union that’s proliferating??? WHY THE SAME-OLD SAME-OLD???

ANYONE can go into the street and talk to the women out there. They’re so demoralized, they’ll talk to anyone…they hardly even care if they get arrested. And the Nevada brothel girls are easy to talk to because where they are it’s legal.

You call that INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING, Diane??? You call that DIGGING for the WHOLE TRUTH???

Shame on you.

Here’s a new addition to the intro to (the soon-to-be reprinted) Book Two, entitled Forward: A Sex Worker’s Lament. I composed it this morning:     

     But for now, it’s just another drab morning, just another day of clamorous finger-pointing, just another klatch of blogs full of ire. Two days ago Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York, got caught patronizing an “escort.” People are enraged, calling for his resignation, and feeling sorry for his wife and teen-aged daughters.

     Well, it seems to me that if “escort” sex work were legal, there wouldn’t be much of a scandal. No one would have snooped on the governor’s digression, and few people would have cared. And if Spitzer himself weren’t so duplicitous, posing as a moralist and talking down prostitution, then once again, who would have cared? It’s hypocrisy that’s burying Spitzer, far more than the act itself.

      What will it take to make America see that it’s not the “escort service” that’s wrong, but the big deal that’s made of it? Maybe Spitzer’s wife is “standing by her man” because she understands this.

      It’s true that this man’s phony stance is appalling. It’s mildly redolent of those priests who preach abstinence, and are raping little boys out back. But the outcry with regard to the service Spitzer needed is making me want to yawn.     

     Catch them all and there goes the government.  

                                                         ******************************

     The world-famous prostitutes rights activist and author of Cop to Callgirl, Norma Jean Almodovar, emailed with me

today about the Spitzer scandal. She gave me permission to copy her email here:

I’ve been doing interviews nonstop since the scandal broke. And amazingly, I said the
same thing about the politicians and catching them all… I phrased it:

If all the politicians who had ever frequented a prostitute were forced to resign,

there would be no one left to run the government!

We can only hope that this dude is prosecuted for HIS crimes against
prostitutes- that he prosecuted them with such zeal and enthusiasm. May
he get whatever he dished out to the victims of his morality crusade!

It will be interesting to see who are the other clients of this
“Prostitution ring” were- if they get exposed by the government…

Best,
Norma Jean

Download this as a file
 

*2007 International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers** *

December 17th 2007 marks the 5th Annual International Day to End Violence
Against Sex Workers. This event calls attention to hate crimes committed
against sex workers.  Originally conceived by the Sex Workers Outreach
Project as a memorial and vigil for the victims of the Green River murders
in Seattle Washington, International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers
empowers workers, clients, and our supporters to come together to organize
against criminalization, discrimination and to remember victims of violence.

*At 11:30 am on Monday, December 17th, 2007 *on the steps of San Francisco
City Hall, the Erotic Service Providers Union Sex Workers will join the Sex
Workers Outreach Project and Supervisor Jake McGoldrick’s press conference
to raise awareness about the violence committed against this unprotected
workforce.

Following this public speak out, ESPU will hold a public vigil at *3pm on
Monday, December 17th, 2007 *at Bancroft and Telegraph in Berkeley,
California to call attention to a recent incident of violence against a sex
worker while attending a UC Berkeley event hosted by the Ethics Department
that depicted sexually violent graphic images of sex workers as normal.

We will be asking the universities to host forums to ensure that students
and teachers have access to facts from actual sex industry workers and our
supporters about what forced labor actually looks like in the sex industry.
All Erotic Laborers must be supported in accessing our own agency to report
theft, assault, battery, rape, coercion and murder. Existing laws that
criminalize prostitution and immigration as well as other forms of
regulations of erotic labor prevent workers from reporting violence.   Please
join us by calling attention to hate crimes against sex workers, namely
prostitutes.

“By demanding the end to anti-prostitution laws and regulations, we will end
the stigma, discrimination and violence against us and the stigma against
our clients”, says Starchild.   The Erotic Service Providers Union demands
that all workers and clients, female and male alike, have the ability to
negotiate for our labor and work conditions irregardless of our legal
status, country of origin, or government documentation.

Hey Jamie, thanks for posting. It was very interesting to see what you have to say. If you ever read my books you’ll see that I’m extremely opposed to third party management. I believe in ONLY independently working. I’m sorry to hear that the managers of the Nevada brothels can be pimpish… but I’m not surprised. On the other hand, though, do you think it’s right for people like Melissa Farley to be trying to TOTALLY END prostitution?? Why aren’t they trying to HELP US ESCAPE the pimps instead???