Being Amber Rhea

In the past two days, the media has been increasingly clamoring to talk to sex workers and sex workers’ rights activists (who are often one in the same). Late last night there was an influx of media requests, but I had to go to sleep.

Take a gander at some of the requests Dacia received, for example.

A sampling from my inbox and phone queries today:

From Fox News:
“I am trying to find someone to explain how credit card payments work with escort services. Specifically, how do you make sure the name of the escort service does not show up on a credit card bill. If anyone can explain that I would be very grateful.”

“Good Morning America is looking for anyone who has ever worked in high-end prostitution as a madam or sex worker for their coverage of the Gov. Spitzer scandal. Their preference is def someone along the lines of Heidi Fleiss (have interviewed tons of times and don’t want to call on again).”

From an Italian news channel:
“I need a prostitute to describe what it is like to meet with men, how she selects them, what they do in the meeting.”

And this:
“We need someone familiar with the political, social, legal and economic issues that affect sex workers to comment on this story. Someone who advocates for sex workers is preferred.”

Oh wait, I made that last one up. Because it doesn’t exist.

Ren received similar requests.

I thought maybe it might be an opportunity to bring some light to issues such as sex workers rights and the hypocrisy shown by fellows like Spitzer. However, that is not what the media is interested in. That’s not what they want. They want to know how one goes about hiring a “high-end” escort, how prevelant is it, what goes on, do the working girls care if the men are married? What else do they spend money on when with the woman? They want the scandal, the titilation, the naughty little thrill….but nothing too dirty. Nothing about the women on the streets. They don’t want to hear about the truly unseemly side of the biz. They want to hear about the men…the rich and powerful men who spend the money on “high-end” girls. They want to hear how the men will fly in to see a girl, or fly her in, spends thousands on her and on the dinners and events and everything else. They want to know how he likes it. Sure enough, men do this sort of thing. I’ve been paid 2000$ to spend an evening with a New Jersey business man at a boxing match then do a strip show for him. No actual sex involved. He bought an expensive dinner and a bottle of Dom to go with it, and tipped me an extra 600$. Why? Because he could, and in this case, he did not even have to worry about the actual act of sex for money. This is one such story in my experience, and one such story in the countless experiences of women like me. And that’s the stories the media wants. They don’t care how we feel about legalization, or rights, or men like Spitzer building careers and policy on us, let alone about the women working on the streets. Those politics and dirty tales don’t sell.

Last June, at the Atlanta Press Club panel on new media, several audience members, but in particular Susan Capeluto(sp?) from Georgia Public Broadcasting, were practically jumping out of their seats talking about how bloggers lack “credibility” and “journalistic integrity” and are (this was the real “WTF” moment) obsessed with Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan.

Wait, what?

Have these people turned on any national TV news program lately?

Fox News has “The Daily Britney,” for fuck’s sake. CNN and MSNBC cover Britney, Lindsey, and other celebrities’ antics like it’s going out of style.

Are there blogs that cover this stuff? Sure. There are blogs that cover pretty much anything you can think of. But saying “bloggers” when what you really mean is Perez Hilton, Pink Is The New Blog, and Gawker is like simply saying “television” to refer to cable news channels.

I hear these lines, as if rehearsed, again and again from mainstream media folks and I just have to wonder what planet they’re on.

Mainstream media, are you willing to actually LISTEN and become worthy of the adjectives you say bloggers don’t deserve but you do?

So, media folk, show us your stuff. Spend more time on our needs and wishes in the media- portray us honestly and not just sensationally, take us seriously when we speak, and we’ll be much more willing to talk to you.

(link)

In growing numbers, there are sex workers and allies of sex workers who have a critical and political take on how our bodies and our labor are legislated. Not to mention, we are well aware of and constantly struggling with the ways our stories and our work are grossly exploited by the mainstream media in an attempt to get a juicy story. You want to talk about exploitation of women, media? Look at your own goddamn questions, the exposure you ask us to engage in, the personal questions you want us to answer. Look at the sexy container you put us in, all sultry bad girl secret story, no room for brains with the boobs. We don’t want to tell you our naughty secrets. What’s in it for us? You won’t give us the space and air time to talk about issues that matter to us, we won’t give you the dirt.

Sex workers aren’t represented in the media because the media does not create space for us to talk intelligently about the issues that face us. Like I said in my post last night, we are being cast into roles, roles that are nearly impossible to break. We’re afraid of being abused and manhandled by a media that has no interest in our well being, only in our cunts and the details of how we got to be so bad.

Mainstream media, if you’re so concerned about the exploitation of sex workers - stop perpetuating the exploitation with your own tools.

(link)