Being Amber Rhea

So, this.

Stupid Comcast has the worst timing. My cable was out all last night, meaning I couldn’t participate in the virtual rally about which I had helped spread the word. Dammit.

Today, there’s a lot of catching up to do. Lots of good blog posts to read; the folks who participated last night kicked some serious ass. You can find a lot of the posts via Technorati; and of course, the epicenter of the action was Bound, Not Gagged. I’ll be waiting to hear the results of the election in Pennsylvania today, to see if Judge Teresa Carr Deni still has her job.

Speaking of jobs…

In the blog posts I’ve had time to read (and there are many more I haven’t, yet), some people are expressing shock that this happened.

Really?

I’m sorry, but how can you be shocked? Outraged, yes. Fired up and motivated to take action, absolutely. Disgusted with the abject injustice of it, of course.

But shocked?

This is nothing new. Sex workers are treated like shit in our society. And so, rape isn’t rape, depending on what your job is.

I’ll be honest - this is why I never became a sex worker. I considered it, with varying degrees of seriousness, for many years. But ultimately, what stopped me from taking the definitive step and actually doing it was fear. Fear of harm at the hands of a client, partly; but to a much greater degree, fear of harm (mental, physical, emotional) by law enforcement, the judicial system, and society at large.

This has been a pattern throughout my life, in many situations. Fear stops me cold in my tracks, while other people move forward. This isn’t always a bad thing. For example, fear kept me from doing a lot of the stuff my peers did in middle school and high school, like sneaking out of the house. In retrospect that was a wise decision, and it certainly didn’t leave me with long-term negative consequences; if anything, the opposite is true. But the point is, this is a pattern I’ve recognized. And when the paralyzing fear is having negative effects - stopping me from fully realizing a goal or a part of my being - I’ve tried in recent years to push through it. Pole dancing is the biggest example of me being successful at this, and there are many other, “smaller” examples, some of which are known only to me.

As far as pursuing sex work as a job, though, I never was able to push through the fear. I guess it’s that part of my brain that just won’t stop being pragmatic, or… something. Maybe that’s not the best word. I don’t know. Anyway, a fairly loud part of my mind kept telling me that while it’s good to push through fear and not let it define my life, there’s a difference between confronting the fear of being laughed at by my peers, and confronting the fear of being thrown in jail, brutalized, and denied justice.

And so I have immense respect for people who do sex work even in the face of all the odds stacked against sex workers.

I urge everyone to check out Bound, Not Gagged. And speak up. As inspiring as these voices in the blogosphere have been, there has also been a deafening silence from the rest of the blogosphere, not to mention the mainstream media. As far as I’ve seen, the so-called “A-List” progressive political blogs haven’t touched it.

I’ll close with words of wisdom from Octogalore:

It may be tempting for those of us who are not prostitutes to sit this one out. After all, this isn’t about us, right?

Wrong.

If it is not rape to be forced to have sex, at gunpoint, after refusing, just because you’d previous agreed to have unforced sex for money, then who is next?

Maybe they’ll come for those who agree to have sex with a friend of the guy who rapes them? That’s not rape, it’s identity switching.

Or those who agreed to have sex in the past and then are forced to do so at a later point? That’s not rape, it’s time discrepancy.

Or those of us who are or have been strippers? We were willing to do sex-related stuff for money, so this isn’t rape it’s just forced inflation of services.

What if we at one point had sex with a boyfriend as a fun way to settle a bet? Then we ARE prostitutes and it’s back to theft of services.

What if we can be demonstrated to have sex with our husbands in exchange for material security? Then there’s no spousal rape.

What if we are deemed to be dressed too slutty? Then we can be argued to have been willing to exchange sex for money, and cannot be raped.

Per wiki, rape is “where one individual forces another to have sexual intercourse against that person’s will.” This kind of decision says that prostitutes aren’t, in fact, people. Their consent or lack thereof is meaningless.

And guess what? If they aren’t, then we may not be either. This is about all of us.