Hey fine folks!

I’m teaching Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop TOMORROW, and I would love to see you sweet you there if you are a current or former sex worker. More info below!

xox & happy Spring!
Gina

SEX WORKERS’ WRITING WORKSHOP
* Saturday, May 11th (usually 2nd Saturday of Every Month), 2-4pm. (Next SWWW: June 8th.)
* Center for Sex & Culture, 1349 Mission Street @ 10th Street, San Francisco. CSC is close to both Civic Center BART & Van Ness MUNI, and accessible by the 9-San Bruno, 12-Folsom, 14-Mission, 19-Polk, 47-Van Ness, & 49-Mission/Van Ness MUNI bus lines, among others.
* Sliding scale $10-$20. (More if you can, less if you can’t, nobody turned away — if you’re broke you should still come write with us!)
* Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries.

This is a writing workshop for current and former sex workers to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths.

Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop is all-genders. We define the term “sex worker” broadly, as people who have exchanged erotic labor for money/food/shelter, including but not limited to:

+Street and Survival Sex Workers
+Escorts and Personal Companions
+Sensual Massage and Sensual Body Work Providers
+BDSM workers; pro-dom/mes, subs, and switches
+Adult Film Actors; Porn Models and Performers; Nude Models; Cam Girls and Boys
+Exotic Dancers; Strippers; and Peep Show Workers
+Phone Sex Operators
+And many other Sex Workers and Adult Entertainers!
(If we’re forgetting your area of the industry in this definition, tell us!)

** Email questions, volunteer inquiries, etc, to Gina at queershoulder@gmail.com.

** Disability accessibility info in detail here.

** Speaking of accessibility: While we can’t 100% guarantee a scent-free space, we ask that all attendees please refrain from wearing scented products to ensure that workshop members with chemical sensitivities can attend.

mistressouch:

Dear Pro-Dommes:

If you spend a great deal of time and energy being mad at other ladies for doing things you don’t do, you are in the wrong line of work.

Read More

HEYYYYY HOS (and friends)!

After several months of awful fibro flares pretty much every weekend I’ve been supposed to teach, Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop (and me!) triumphantly return/s to the  Center for Sex and Culture tomorrow from 2-4pm. Come write up a storm with us! :) Details below!

Also, remember to save Thursday, June 27th to attend Girl Talk’s big 5 year anniversary (!!!) show. More details about that coming out soon…

Love & happy Spring,
Gina

—-

SEX WORKERS’ WRITING WORKSHOP
* Saturday, April 13th (usually 2nd Saturday of Every Month), 2-4pm. (Next SWWW: May 11th.)
* Center for Sex & Culture, 1349 Mission Street @ 10th Street, San Francisco. CSC is close to both Civic Center BART & Van Ness MUNI, and accessible by the 9-San Bruno, 12-Folsom, 14-Mission, 47-Van Ness, & 49-Mission/Van Ness MUNI bus lines, among others.
* Sliding scale $10-$20. (More if you can, less if you can’t, nobody turned away — if you’re broke you should still come write with us!)
* Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries.

This is a writing workshop for current and former sex workers to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths.

Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop is all-genders. We define the term “sex worker” broadly, as people who have exchanged erotic labor for money/food/shelter, including but not limited to:

+Street and Survival Sex Workers
+Escorts and Personal Companions
+Sensual Massage and Sensual Body Work Providers
+BDSM workers; pro-dom/mes, subs, and switches
+Adult Film Actors; Porn Models and Performers; Nude Models; Cam Girls and Boys
+Exotic Dancers; Strippers; and Peep Show Workers
+Phone Sex Operators
+And many other Sex Workers and Adult Entertainers!
(If we’re forgetting your area of the industry in this definition, tell us!)

Oh, fuck. This is beyond scary. Does anyone have any more information than this (esp. any descriptions of the suspected killer)? All I’ve seen about this thus far is this tumblr post.

And thank you, SWOP, for spreading the word and getting this out there.

swopbay:

To Oakland residents, especially those who are SW’s - -

We have received confirmation from sources that there is a serial killer preying upon the female street populous including, but not limited to street based sex workers.

PLEASE take precautions - more than usual.

Those who we have spoken to today have said that the area of 14th and East Oakland as well as ‘the track’ can be problematic areas, now more than ever.

While there is some conflicting information circulating, there is a real cause for concern.

Use common sense and take extra precautions. Avoid texting and using your cell phone when walking, make eye contact with those you see in case you need to provide an ID of someone of suspicion.

Be safe. We love you.

fritzvonfuckup:

xbiancastonex:

Was this your first time attending the Feminist Porn Awards?

Yes this was my first time.

What did you think of the Feminist Porn Awards?

I have mixed feelings but overall it was a positive event. I think it’s important for queers and women to create spaces where we give each other recognition for our work and contributions because most of society does not and our labor and creativity is rendered invisible (thus making easier to exploit). However, the politics of celebrity culture sometimes mean people in the world of feminist porn and women made entertainment are given more credit than they deserve for originality or as beacons of social justice ethics.

Can you elaborate on this statement: “As a director, I think arrogance and ego are more dangerous limits to creativity than naming one’s porn feminist.”
The statement was a response to Nica Noelle’s critique of assigning the term “Feminist” to pornography.

I share similar sentiments with Noelle in the complexities of doing such, however, I think she is doing her learning very publicly and very defensively about these complexities. Especially in regards to articulating the experiences and politics of full-service escorts who also work as adult performers, which Noelle very publicly has come out and said she is against. Her advocacy of policies that are harmful to sex workers is “misguided, dangerous, and wrong”, in the words of Gayle Rubin, and this is why I think arrogance and ego are far more dangerous to people such as me in the industry rather than feminist identification which isn’t materially dangerous to workers like sentiments Noelle has been promoting about criminilized sex workers . If porn producers act on Noelle’s public outcry of escorts working in porn, the people most drastically effected will be trans women performers, who have higher proportions of doing off camera sex work than other genders, a group of people who Noelle relies on to shoot content for her TS site. I’m not sure how a producer can realistically keep escorts out of porn other than not hiring those who are out like myself. I think this sentiment Noelle has been publicizing is setting the stage for dangerous regulation policies in porn at a time when the industry is really vulnerable to state intervention that will harm sex workers even more. If Noelle really did want to see Measure B terminated she would build solidarity with privileged escorts in the porn industry like myself who have mixed incomes and do not rely 100% on porn money to survive because we are the workers in the industry who can afford to stand up and say something without fear if we will ever be booked again because we have other work. It’s time the porn industry realize that full service escorts are a huge part of the industry on all levels. Out escort and performer Arabelle Raphael in the Measure B panel from this weekend’s conference (the one Noelle was supposed to speak on but ditched), estimated in her experience she believes that half or more of porn performers in the industry today are actively working as escorts or provide some form of transactional sex off camera. The reality is we don’t have the research, and most people are not out in porn because of stigma and economic consequences, but HIV rates of performers is lower than civilian rates, and all people with many sex partners, sex workers or not, have the capacity to spread STI’s. We need better health services for sex workers who do porn not more stigma and volunteer industry policing. This is why I felt Noelle needed to be confronted and I was sad more organizers of the conference did not do so publicly.

What do you think feminists can do to be inclusive of sex workers and sex workers’ rights? Is this something you feel was missing at this year’s FPAs?

Organizers should screen panelists better for who they ask to speak as community leaders on subjects they may not actually be prepared to educate people on. Organizers should provide stipends to speakers who are actual sex workers to attend the conference and educate attendees. They should provide scholarships so other sex workers can better attend. They should host an autonomous active sex worker’s only workshop where we can meet and collectively articulate the changes and reparations we want to see happen in our industry from bosses and those in power. They should invite local sex worker rights groups to do workshops and educate feminist porn consumers about our experiences. The Feminist Porn organizers have resources they should be sharing with sex worker rights groups that advocate for harm reduction. Just providing a platform to speak on isn’t enough. They should use their privileges of having social value and being seen as legitimate and extend this to the sex worker rights communities to have real solidarity.

Anything else to add?
Yes. So much.
Next year I want to see more workshops that are skill share and teach people the technical skills of producing content and making entertainment, plus business skills workshops and even education on collective organizing and worker and legal rights. We need to start developing our survival skills as feminists and queers making pornography and doing sex work in the adult entertainment industry.

Bolding mine

This is fantastic.

So I re-posted the SF Weekly article about Kink.com with a one-line comment, and then I wrote more commentary, and I wanted to make sure those comments didn’t lost in the re-blog shuffle.

I’ve personally heard a LOT of horror stories from other sex workers about working for kink.com. I’m glad these folks are so bravely speaking out. This is a long time coming.

And this doesn’t get mentioned in the article, but I feel like it bears saying here: I have personally always thought that it is ridiculous that kink.com is held up as some kind of awesome ethical paragon of what the porn industry can be when a) so many stories are out there about models being treated badly, and b) their size diversity, racial diversity, and treatment and fetishization of trans models (esp. trans women models) all, frankly, REALLY SUCK!

I say this as someone who has been in the sex industry for about a decade, and who has mostly worked in porn (never “full time” or as my main bread & butter, for the record — “making it” as a fat porn star is very, very hard, and most porn workers I know, fat or not, also do other kinds of work, whether in the sex industry or elsewhere).

I have personally posed for some ridiculous sites to make a buck over the years. I want to make it clear here that I pretty much never blame porn models for posing for cheezy or fetishize-y or offensive/distasteful or whatever else kindsa sites. As an old friend jokes “we are in the business of being dirty, after all!” More importantly, we are doing what we need to do to make a living.

That said: As a queer feminist and a fat person who works in porn, I really value having a) available work options at all (like, take a look, there are no fat people on any kink.com site — NONE), and b) work where I can be as close to my actual sexual self as possible, and not just cast in some chaser’s ridiculous Fat Girl Fantasy (as is the case with regards to a lot of the work that is available for plus-size porn models).

I want better options, basically, and Kink.com has never been one of the better options, for me or for many others. I’m glad this is finally getting talked about.