Imagine my surprise this morning, during breakfast at Radial, when I saw an article in Creative Loafing(!) about the under-21 stripping ordinance.* Imagine my downright shock when I read the article and discovered that it was not sensationalistic, full of stupid jokes and bad puns, dripping with value judgments, or any of the other countless traits that too often characterize mainstream media coverage of anything related to sex work.
I would’ve liked to hear more from Danielle Barbee and other dancers. But since the article focused on the lawsuit, the plaintiffs probably couldn’t (or, were wise not to) speak to the press directly.
The article also made me feel frustrated and a little angry at the lack of a cohesive sex workers’ rights movement in Atlanta. Those of us who were at Charis on Dec. 17th should be “plugged in” to the same support network as Barbee et al. Caitlin set up a listserv but so far I’m the only one who’s emailed anything to it… my hopes for a bad-ass march through midtown this December are fading, unfortunately.
But more on that another time. Ahem.
Memo to MSM (and especially to Andisheh): it is possible to write a straightforward article about sex work issues. You have no excuse for fucking up so badly 99.9% of the time.
* The ordinance was mentioned during our Dec. 17th event, but I hadn’t heard anything about its status since then.
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