Being Amber Rhea

…that Ren gave me an awesome shirt at Sex 2.0?

Some of you may even recognize the graphic from your own sidebars!

Today Rusty and I are celebrating our 3rd anniversary. And if it weren’t for blogs, I think the likelihood of our paths crossing would’ve been much lower.

So here’s a retrospective…

December 8, 2004: Rusty’s first comment on my blog, wherein he expresses his affinity for PHP. I had found and started reading his blog sometime in the month of November. I don’t remember exactly how I originally found it, but I think it might’ve been through David’s blog. I remember being intrigued and perplexed by all the driveway photos.

March 9, 2005: We met IRL for the first time, at a blogger trivia get-together at Central City Tavern. I also met IRL that night: Thomas, Nikki, Jen, Shannon, Tony, Joseph.

April 22, 2005: Blogger bowling. It was a small crowd (just me, Rusty, Jen, and Joeventures) and I was taking the opportunity to size him up, as they say. I even thought about asking if he wanted to come home with me that night, but due to boring logistical issues (and, yeah, nerves), I decided not to. I knew by that point that I definitely wanted to do him, though.

April 26, 2005: I seized the opportunity to drop some innuendo that could, in the event of disinterest on Rusty’s part, be written off as simply a garden-variety sophomoric joke. I asked for several friends’ interpretations of his response (it seems like he was probably doing the same thing as me; gotta have plausible deniability!) and after getting unanimous opinions that this was, indeed, what you kids call “flirting,” I took the sexual innuendo to email.

April 27, 2005: It just so happened that Rusty had sent me a one-line email regarding the new version of Mac OS X, so I didn’t even need a pretense for emailing him - I just replied.

April 27, 2005 - May 5, 2005: We exchanged a series of emails fraught with business metaphors to refer to fucking. It was pretty funny and entertaining until it reached the point where I started to get annoyed and wondered when we were going to fuck already. There was also a four-day gap where he didn’t respond and I started to wonder if he wasn’t interested after all. He blamed it on working 40 hours a week and getting behind on email. Or was it nerves?

Sometime during the weekend of May 1 (sort of tangential): I was visiting Dacia in New York, and I told her about how there was this “local blogger dude” that I really wanted to fuck, and I was trying to make it happen. After I got back home she sent me an email that concluded with, “Good luck with Rusty!”

May 7, 2005 (tangential): The Great Blogswap of 2005 (a.k.a. the “blorgy”) was set to commence the week of May 9, and there were jokes via email about swapping more than blogs. Little did the rest of ‘em know that would be true for Rusty and me! (He drew my blog.)

May 8, 2005: I finally got impatient with the innuendo and said this in an email to Rusty: “Re: interview scheduling, etc.: I love me some good innuendo as much as the next guy, but it’s about time to close the deal. I can provide references… -oh shit that’s more innuendo. Never mind.” He replied: “I agree about there only being so much innuendo before something has to be done one way or the other. If you’re serious, tomorrow night would actually be a good time since I get off work at 6:15 and don’t have to be in the next day ’til 2. Or Friday night, since I’m off Friday and Saturday. If you’re not, I won’t think lesser of you for it.” And I replied to that: “Of course I’m serious. What do you think I am, some kind of asshole? Tomorrow night eh? That’s fine by me, although we could make it interesting by saying Wednesday after trivia. Or wtf, both! Right? Right.”

May 9, 2008: Monday morning I emailed him directions to my apartment. We’d already exchanged cell phone numbers. At 7:09 p.m. I still hadn’t heard from him and I sent an email saying: “Ok dude I know you’re there, you’re commenting on blogs at the same time as me. What’s your deal? Maybe you are too wrapped up in bestbuysux.org.” Then he went on IM and we chatted for a while, about all kinds of things (including the first day of the Blogswap), until finally at 7:50 I said: “are you coming down here or what?”

evilwilly1: haha, sure
evilwilly1: I need to wash the retail stink off first though
AmberATL30309: gah…
AmberATL30309: now are we clear on what this is or do we need to lay some ground rules
evilwilly1: I’m all about some ground rules… your thoughts?
AmberATL30309: uh, no drama. that’s pretty much it.
evilwilly1: works for me, no strings attached
AmberATL30309: fabulous. i was starting to lose my faith in ATL men.
AmberATL30309: and I’m assuming we’re not repeating this to our blog buddies
evilwilly1: nah
AmberATL30309: i’ll have to tell you about the gay virgin sometime
AmberATL30309: anyway what we have here is a “FWB” situation
evilwilly1: kickass, exactly what I’m looking for
AmberATL30309: excellent

After Rusty and I had been fucking for a few weeks, Sara Beth joked that we were going to fall in love, and she was going to speak at our wedding and recount the dirty details of how it all started. At the time, I scoffed at her; but hey, she was totally right!

And the rest is history. :)

Via Melissa (I would never read Gawker Media blogs if it weren’t for her!), powerful words from someone called Slut Machine, on Jezebel:

I’m pissed. It’s an anger that’s been on a slow boil that’s beginning to bubble over, and at this point, there’s no putting a lid on it. I’ve been writing about sex on a pretty public platform for some time now, at first anonymously, and then under my real name. I’ve had to endure ignorant assumptions and cheap shots made about my looks, my weight, my vagina, my tits, my sexual health, my mental health, my morality, my character — and all for what? Being honest? For liking sex? I’ve poured my guts out all over my keyboard, and I’m well aware that that invites criticism, particularly on the internet, where people think they can say whatever the fuck they please — in the most offensive manner possible that they would never employ in real life — with impunity because they’re protected behind a shroud of anonymity. It’s frustrating. And lemme tell you, I am so sick of people telling me, “You write about sex and personal issues. You have to accept that people will sling insults.” Fuck. That. Shit. I don’t have to accept it. I refuse to accept it. Mostly because I know that this wouldn’t happen if I were a man.

Rock on, lady! I can relate. (Today’s understatement.)

And yeah, this is related to the last post because it’s yet another manifestation of the sexual double standard and bullshit sexism in our society. (I kind of hate whenever I type “in our society,” because it reminds me of freshman year of college when my friend Kira and I used to hang out in Washington Square Park between classes with this very disaffected emo guy who was in a punk band, and one time Kira and I went to see them play and their music was all screaming commentary, and one song was just repeating “society” and “brutality” over and over, and Kira said, “I can’t listen to songs with the word ’society’ in them.” But really, there’s no other way to put it that I can think of.)

Later this month, Rusty and I are going to Balticon. Yay! I’m looking forward to seeing Jenny (either at the con or just within Baltimore), hanging out with Regina Lynn, and being on some panels about sex, tech, and other related stuff. One of the panels I’m going to be on is called “Don’t Be That Guy: Advice From the Women of New Media.”

Serendipitously, Ren recently had a “don’t be that guy” open thread on her blog. It’s full of good stuff, including a damn perfect object lesson of someone being that guy. (I like and respect Ernest, but seriously, again with the “I believe in gender equality” line? Please. I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that!) And then today, I came upon synecdochic’s post entitled Don’t Be That Guy, which is all about being a feminist ally.

Guys, read it and learn, especially if you consider yourself progressive, feminist-identified, not a troglodyte, etc. Here’s an excerpt:

If you consider yourself an ally, and you wind up doing or saying something that gets a really strong negative reaction, and you see one of your friends saying something along the lines of “it’s okay, he’s one of the good guys, it’s not like that”, that should be a warning sign that it’s time to immediately apologize. A real apology, not an “I’m sorry if you were offended” — because that kind of language isn’t an apology at all. You clearly did offend someone, or else the dogpile wouldn’t have happened. “I’m sorry that I offended you, and I’d like to make sure I understand why, so it doesn’t happen again; what I’m getting is that it was such-and-such, and I’m sorry I did that, and if that wasn’t it, I’d like to listen to anything else you have to say…”

If you hear a guy who says “I’m a feminist”, but who behaves in ways that trip women’s creepdar, call him on it. It is a very sad fact that nine times out of ten, people with privilege, who are exercising that privilege in a way that makes other people feel uncomfortable, will not hear the fact that they are making other people uncomfortable until it’s pointed out to them by someone with the same privilege. They literally will not process what people are saying. It happens all the time, and it is so subtle and pervasive that people don’t see it even when someone calls them on it. You can, however, use this for good in terms of pulling another guy aside and saying: dude, you’re being a creep. The sad fact is, that guy is way more likely to listen to you.

Read the whole post, seriously.

It’s like I was saying to Rusty earlier today… one thing that bugs the shit out of me is when guys try to ingratiate themselves with feminists but clearly have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about, and then when someone calls them on sexist/assholish behavior, they get all petulant and sulk away with their tail between their legs, or trot out the old tried-and-true “YOU’RE the sexist one!” trope.

I think I’ll have plenty to talk about at Balticon!

Update: Check out this object lesson, as if on cue!

Sex in the Public Square has put out the call for a sex-positive wiki.

One of the things that made this seem like such a good idea to me was the surge of media coverage in the wake of the Spitzer scandal, and especially the Diane Sawyer 20/20 special, which repeatedly seemed to make a deliberate effort to snatch bullshit from the maw of truth.

We really do have an incredible collection of fiercely intelligent, independent people in what can loosely (VERY loosely) be called the sex-positive community. We have everything from dedicated activists working at clubs and agencies to scholars like Elizabeth, and I think that putting all those brains together to build a resource devoted to providing information about the intersections of sex and culture could produce a helluva powerful and valuable site.

The question I usually get when pitching this idea at people is, “What about Wikipedia?” Wikipedia is a great resource. If the rest of the web was as useful as Wikipedia, I’d probably spend the other 10% of my life plugged into the internet as well. The Sexology and Sexuality Project on Wikipedia, among others, deserves praise for their work. But Wikipedia itself isn’t specifically focused on sexuality, and a focus can be invaluable in attaining depth of insight into a topic. Also, Wikipedia is, by definition, open to just about any damn fool with a computer and an attitude. Most of the truly obvious lunatics get combed out by the collective efforts of the saner majority, but in working on volatile subjects like sex work or pornography, there are often polarized factions trying to get their viewpoint into the article. The Talk section of the Wikipedia pornography article has a lot of long arguments over the nature and appropriateness of various approaches to the subject. In short, it takes an effort just to be able to get to the starting line for sex-poz people. One of the benefits of having our own wiki would be that we’re already at a comfortable starting point, where we can begin with the assumption, for instance, that sex work can be a legitimate occupation. Then from that point, we can move on to our our own internecine battles. We don’t have to waste time explaining why prostitution and trafficking aren’t necessarily the same thing.

(emphasis mine)

Read more here.

It is definitely time for this. Please contact Elizabeth and Chris if you would like to get involved! The more people/ideas/perspectives/knowledge, the better!

In addition to all its other benefits, think this is a wonderful opportunity to foster more of a sense of cohesion among what is and has been a very loosely-defined community.

And I agree that Wikipedia is not the place for this project. Unfortunately until sex-positivity makes more inroads into mainstream society (which is what projects like this can help accomplish!) we really do need a space where we know we won’t be inundated with BS.

Sex 2.0 was last weekend, and I think people are finally starting to come down from the post-orgasmic bliss state that characterized last week’s tweets, blog posts, emails, etc. (On a less pleasant note, I have yet to shake this case of con crud.)

A few days ago, I posted a big round-up of what other people had to say about the conference; but I have yet to post my reactions. So here are a few.

First of all, simply the fact that all of last week seemed like a post-orgasmic bliss-like state - and Twitter was a downright lovefest - is testament to Sex 2.0’s huge success. I had hoped for it to be successful, bring people together, foster community, blah blah blah… but it really did all that and more in a way that exceeded my wildest dreams. I am so pleased!

The only complaint I heard was that there were too many interesting sessions going on at once! I lost count of the number of people who told me they wished it had been two days.

Dacia and I were talking about how one thing that was unique about Sex 2.0 was that people seemed to be more interested in actually talking and interacting face-to-face, rather than obsessively documenting the event via liveblogging, photos, Twitter, etc. Don’t get me wrong, all of those things were going on; but it definitely was a different vibe than any other social media-related conference I’ve been to. People were so interested and engaged in the discussions, that they couldn’t be bothered to stop and pick up their iPhones. And to me that’s what it’s all about! Social media should foster the social, after all.

Also - and this might seem paradoxical to the last point, but it’s really not - instead of just talking about the various social media tools available, people were actually using the tools to create original content and do cool things. Whether it was showing people how social media can help sex workers form an online community for real-world activism, or role-playing the ups and downs of being internet famous (I’m still annoyed with myself for not going to Melissa’s session), this conference was about doing and not just being meta. Several people were inspired to create new blogs or other social media projects last weekend, and I look forward to seeing how they develop.

Overall, I believe it was the combination of strong content, the energy of the people there, and the comfort of being in a judgment-free space that created Sex 2.0’s unique heights of awesomeness. There are already plans in the works for next year; I love to see this excitement! The consensus seems to be that it will be in DC next year. Sounds good to me… I’ll see y’all there!

…a.k.a., the One True Wrap-up Post To Rule Them All.

Live-blogging

• Ellie Lumpesse
• Funky Brown Chick
• Viviane’s Sex Carnival

A sampling of wrap-up posts

• village voice sex naked city - Sex 2.0 Brings the Internet’s Sex Nerds to Atlanta - Dacia’s Sex 2.0 video on Naked City TV
• Sex Trade: Sex conference brings bloggers together to Twitter about getting laid - Melissa’s wrap-up on Valleywag
• Renegade Evolution: Sex 2.0, the Awesome & the Suck - Ren’s truly comprehensive wrap-up of Sex 2.0! (”The Suck” refers to her being stuck in the airport.)
• Radical Georgia Moderate » Sex 2.0 exceeded my expectations - Rusty’s wrap-up post.

Many more Sex 2.0-related blog posts are saved in my del.icio.us, and I’ll be updating with more as I find them.

I’ll also be checking Technorati periodically. If you write something Sex 2.0-related, please remember to tag it “sex20″ so it’ll get picked up by Technorati!

Other links

• Outline of Audacia Ray’s keynote
• Sex 2.0 “sex commons” forum on Sex in the Public Square, where participants in Elizabeth’s session (or anyone, really!) can continue the discussion begun at the conference.

People who were Twittering at Sex 2.0

• amberlrhea
• audaciaray
• cunningminx
• debrisblanche
• elizabethSITPS
• ellie_lumpesse
• eternal42
• funkybrownchick
• furrygirl
• inaradeluna
• Jennagain
• jbrotherlove
• kimberleecline
• melissagira
• misstreah
• MistressMaeve
• museumfreak
• peacetara
• playwithmatch
• raquelita
• reginalynn
• rustytanton
• SakuraSarashi
• SFEley
• Starre
• subnouveau
• tiffanybbrown
• tmoenk
• viviane212

All tweets from people who used the #sex20 hashtag are at http://twemes.com/sex20.

I took screenshots of some of my favorite tweets. (I certainly missed some, because there were over 1,000 tweets, y’all.)

More screenshots here.

Photographic evidence

Of course, there is a Sex 2.0 Flickr group. Currently it’s invite-only, to keep away prying/creepy eyes. If you want to join so you can add photos, there’s a “request invitation” link (or something like that, I don’t know what the exact text is) that you can click, and I’ll add you.

—

Thanks to everyone who came to Sex 2.0 and made it a truly amazing event!! The only complaints I’ve heard about it were that there were too many awesome sessions going on at once so it was hard to decide where to go, so I consider that a success!

There’s already energy for doing it again next year… how about in Washginton, DC this time? That seems to be the growing consensus. (Maeve, I would totally be down with Burlington, VT too, if you can find a venue!)

Thanks again, y’all. It was a wonderful weekend.

[Cross-posted on the Sex 2.0 blog, natch]

I first read this amazing, powerful, inspirational post by Jill Brenneman a few weeks ago, but I rediscovered it this morning while combing through my feed reader.

It’s hard to find a portion to quote, because the it’s imperative that you read it in its entirety. Here is an excerpt, but please, read the whole thing.

But we are fighting for social justice, we are fighting against oppression, we are fighting for human, civil and labor rights for reasons and those are often being missed by the media or the messages are being hijacked by the prohibitionists and their misguided conflagrations and stereotypes. Prohibitionist researchers who were never sex workers and know little about them other than their 2 hour interviews with loaded questions slanted for desired results. I’ve been to the big prohibitionist conferences and the biggest topics tend to be the number of stars of the hotel rating, how disappointing the eggs were at the continental breakfast or that their hotel suites had bad color schemes. I’ve been to their conferences and been given the list of prohibited words, phrases and ideologies that will be stricken from the record if used and/or lead to expulsion from the conference. These are some of the reasons I left that movement in 2002. I’ve never seen that kind of garbage at sex worker rights meetings conferences, events, even if those same events are nothing more than a meeting at an unheated, poorly lit space that some other org is letting us borrow, with no meal service other than what we bring for ourselves, but we are there because we are working on issues, social change and fighting oppression. Not because we are being funded by the USDOJ to stay in Washington DC Hotels after having to suffer the “indignity” of flying in coach because the Government wouldn’t agree to pay first class as some of the suffering prohibitionists did in 2002.

I’ve never known a more passionate, tolerant, empathetic, and authentic group of people than I have met in the sex worker rights movement. There is a great amount of humanity in our movement. Let’s make sure media sees that. Yes I suffered in the sex industry and as a child. But I want to choose my own path, my own career choices, and determine the propriety of my own experiences not have them reframed as some prohibitionist based projects would do for me. We don’t need to be rescued, we need fucking rights and the people who best know this are the sex workers themselves, not the politicians, not the researchers, not the media.

What is Sex 2.0?

Sex 2.0 will focus on the intersection of social media, feminism, and sexuality. How is social media enabling people to learn, grow, and connect sexually? How is sexual expression tied to social activism? Does the concept of transparency online offer new opportunities or present new roadblocks — or both? These questions, and many more, will be addressed within a safe, welcoming, sex-positive space.

Respecting the confidentiality and protecting the identities of participants who wish to maintain a degree of anonymity will be a top priority at Sex 2.0.

When? April 12, 2008
Where? 1763~A Deviant Place of Decadence, 1763 Montreal Circle, Tucker, Ga., 30084
How much? $50.

REGISTRATION IS MANDATORY. We will not be taking any walk-up registrations at the door.

At Sex 2.0, everyone is a participant rather than a passive attendee. This is YOUR event!

Ahem. I had every intention of writing a WAM wrap-up post while it was still fresh in my mind, but then I had a little, er, fender-bender, and subsequently freaked out.

But as you’ve probably gathered by now, WAM was awesome. I had a blast, and it was energizing, inspiring, and fun (except for the Saturday night party, which brought back lots of bad middle school memories; but, I also met the super-cool Lisa Jervis and Debbie Rasmussen that night, so there was some good to the night).

I’ve been to a lot of conferences, but I can say with confidence that this was the best conference I’ve been to yet. Helen Thomas was introduced (appropriately) as “the patron saint of not shutting up,” and her keynote was wonderful. The sessions I went to were great. They were chock full of good, thoughtful discussion and useful, practical information. (True, I didn’t find the talking to editors session particularly useful, but hopefully there are people who did.)

Dacia’s session in particular was amazing. An entire hour and a half of conversation about sex work and the media, without devolving into the same old pro/anti bullshit. It was a smart move on Dacia’s part to lay out some ground rules at the beginning of the session; I think that’s a big part of what made the session actually productive. And, a cool new project that’s already got a lot of interest came out of it: Sex Work 101 (as mentioned here).

I am in awe of Jaclyn Friedman for making such an awesome event happen (and I told her so, in very effusive terms). I’m looking forward to next year!

All my live-blogging can be found here. Did I mention that Cover It Live rocks?

People I met:

• Joanne McNeil
• Sarah Jenny Bleviss
• Axon Damien Luxe
• Octogalore
• Apostate
• Hugo Schwyzer
• Debbie Rasmussen from Bitch Magazine
• Lisa Jervis from Bitch Magazine
• Jill from Feministe - I got the impression that Jill didn’t want to talk to me… we met at the Sunday brunch buffet and it seemed like she was faking a smile… but I could be wrong (stranger things have happened). Anyway, I was happy to meet her, and hopefully the feeling was mutual!
• Roy MacKenzie
• Tough Like a Creampuff
• Jaclyn Friedman

And, of course, a few photos:

More here.

See ya next year, WAM!

Two more posts about Sex 2.0 went up yesterday…

From Fleshbot:

Because we can never have enough opportunities to get together with like-minded geeks online experts and talk about sex, several members of the Fleshbot Collective are considering a trip to Atlanta later this month for Sex 2.0, a one day conference focusing on the “intersection of social media, feminism, and sexuality” which is also quite possibly the only event of its kind in the world to be held in a 10,000 square foot, fully equipped dungeon. Plus, we hear there are lots of Waffle Houses in Atlanta. Mmm, Waffle House.

Heh. Yes, for all who are interested, there can indeed be a Sunday Morning Waffle House Excursion.

And from Metblogs Atlanta:

Unless you’ve been trapped on a deserted island for the past decade or so, the intersection of sex and technology is very prominent. The past five years or so have only built upon that with the popularity of social networks. Orkut, Friendster, MySpace, Facebook…social media is changing the landscape of how we interact. Moreover, we’re also seeing the real-life implications of showing your sexuality online, such as former Arlington, OR mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist and her MySpace photos which cost her job.

Until now, there hasn’t been a real chance to discuss how social media, sexuality and the world today all work with each other! That is, until Sex 2.0.

Thanks, Jonno and Karsh!

Re-posting from Dacia’s blog…

Sex Work 101 was inspired by conversations that happened during the Women, Action and the Media 2008 conference held in Cambridge, MA from March 28-30, 2008.

I gave a talk at WAM called Sex Workers and Media Representation (click to see notes for the workshop), and questions during and after the talk made me realize that many people are curious about the sex industry and want to support sex workers in their struggle for rights, but they have no idea where to start. This site is an attempt to fill that gap in public education in an approachable, easy to understand, and engaging way - it’s also the first public education project from Sex Work Awareness, a new non-profit in NYC founded by four $pread staff members. Sex Work 101 is meant to add to public knowledge about sex work and to encourage discussion about the issues sex workers face.

Participate in Sex Work 101! I’m looking for questions non-sex working people want answered and their perceptions of/thoughts about the industry, as well as posts from sex workers who want to share stories about their work (a day in the life, how I got into the industry, reposts from personal blogs, etc)

The official email for the site is ask[at]sexwork101.com but people can also email me at dacia[at]wakingvixen.com. I’d also love to hear from people who want to help with the site - writing posts, answering questions, etc.

Please get involved by asking questions and/or spreading the word about this project!

The first edition of the Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy is now up at Uncool, and it is amazing! Lina has set the bar very high indeed (and I wouldn’t have it any other way). Check it out!

The next edition will be held at Labyrinth Walk on April 21.

I’ll be hosting the carnival in June… more on that when the time draws nearer.

I arrived here in Boston (for WAM!2008) a few hours ago, and am chilling in the hotel room, trying to catch up on email, and waiting for Dacia to arrive. I’ll try to do as much blogging as possible this weekend - I still need to blog about last night’s APC panel, although you can already see some of my commentary in my tweets - but for now, I just want to link to Regina Lynn’s latest Sex Drive column in Wired. She interviewed me, Dacia, and Melissa. Here’s an excerpt:

“Lots of people were at South by Southwest [when the Spitzer story broke] and didn’t have time to check e-mail every five minutes,” says Amber Rhea, organizer of the upcoming Sex 2.0 conference in Atlanta. “It didn’t matter. They used Twitter, text messaging — they did interviews with hardly any advance notice.”

Rhea says that for the first time, there’s a critical mass of people putting forth a concerted effort to make sure the media can’t ignore sex workers. Building on a foundation built by former sex workers of the past 30 or so years, many of whom went public with books, articles and speaking engagements after they retired, modern sex workers have the message — and the means to get it out.

Mobile connectivity makes it possible to channel the collective wisdom of a broad, geographically diverse group directly to a smaller number of public faces, almost instantly. Sex workers across the country could share their thoughts on the subject without outing themselves, while those who could put their real names and faces forward in the media could speak with a strong peer-support network.

Be sure to read the whole thing!

I keep quoting people who say the stuff I struggle to put into words, but can’t get quite right. So, here we go… Melissa nails it again:

On the abuse issue, I try to reframe it around either:

1) 1 in 6 women in their lifetimes are survivors of sexual abuse or assault, and clearly not all of them become sex workers.

2) We never ask how often women in other helping/service professions do that work as part of their being survivors. The number of rape crisis counselors and educators I have worked with who are survivors is HUGE, for example. In a way, that makes sense. In another, it can be very damaging.

As a culture right now everyone’s so quick to pin adult sexual behavior (and sex work as part of that) on some childhood trauma. “What MADE you that way?” is one of the only questions people who don’t understand human sexual variation and the sex industry ask. It’s part of the discourse of sex right now, and it’s infuriating as a sex worker *and* a survivor . It’s about context, though. When it comes to something like The View, I don’t know how I’d talk about sex work and sexual abuse and not have everything I said manipulated. There can be solid reasons to be strategic about discussing abuse, but I hate feeling like we “can’t” because we’d somehow damage the movement.

Many thanks to the fabulous Condomania for giving us a discount on these *official* Sex 2.0 condoms. We appreciate the support!

Rusty says I should make a video demonstrating how to turn a Sex 2.0 condom into a Sex 2.0 dental dam. I agree, because the last thing I would want is for Sex 2.0 to be perceived as phallocentric or heteronormative. So tomorrow maybe we’ll fire up the video camera.

Local folks, if you want some condoms to distribute around town, just let me know. We have a limited supply, and I definitely want to take some to Aphrodite’s Toybox and have plenty left over for the day of the conference; but if there’s a club or something that you think would be appropriate for promotion via condom, just let me know!

BNG keeps crankin’ out the good stuff. As such, I keep giving them a crap-ton of pingbacks.

Most recently, there’s this post from existentialhedonist, entitled The media, gender, and representation:

I think the media’s obsession with Kristen’s childhood ties directly into the prohibitionists’ habit of using the term “girls” when referring to sex workers who are between 18 and 28. It seems to be a form of infantilizing women when they exercise their sexual and economic autonomy. It reminds me of the Swedish model, and it makes me want to wretch.

How about talking about her strength in overcoming a challenging youth to grow up and land a job that paid her for one hour more than most of her critics will see in a month? How about talking about her strength in the face of this onslaught of media attention and scrutiny? How she hasn’t cowered off into some corner- how she has kept her myspace page up, and how so many of the comments there are full of love and support in the face of this?

Kristen deserves to be seen for the amazing and strong woman she is. The obsession with her childhood is simply a cheap ploy to diminish the inherent fortitude of a person who faces challenges head on and rises above and beyond to become a creative entrepreneur beholden to nobody but herself. This is the hallmark of successful sex workers everywhere, and something that must be quashed by society lest more of us become such entrepreneurs.

I think it is important for the media and people like Farley to portray us as broken and weak people. It is ironic that some of them actually do this in the name of “feminism.” The truth is that the “abused girl” thing has to be played up to create a smokescreen to hide the reality: sex workers like Kristen don’t need you or anyone else to validate them. That is power. And that is dangerous.

Check it out.

Interestingly (or not), a lot of regular “media critic” sites have been deafeningly silent on this whole thing.

Via Bound, Not Gagged

From Kerry Howley, senior editor at Reason magazine:

Everyone seems to assume that legalizing sex work will reinforce all sorts of ugly cultural phenomena women struggle against all the time. Writes one commenter at Feministing, “I’m politically liberal, openly feminist, and opposed to sex work precisely” because of “patriarchy” and “heterosexuality issues.”

I find this incoherent precisely because I share all the poster’s intuitions about problematic cultural norms. Of course sexism restricts autonomy in all sorts of ways that deserve consideration when discussing the prevalence of prostitution or the choice to enter sex work. Of course it’s deplorable that sexually adventurous young women are constantly told they are “degrading themselves” by seeking out various experiences, that every bit of enjoyment eats away at some secret store of purity. This whole tradition–the idea that women need be preserved in glass so as not to “ruin” themselves, lest they diminish their sexual value by “giving it away”–restricts the lived autonomy of women in ways I can’t even begin to articulate. None of the slut-shaming makes sense unless you assume women live to give themselves to men in their purest possible form.

If you find all of these cultural pathologies unfortunate, what is the public policy you should prefer? It seems to me that it is not the policy that deems it a crime against the American people to open your legs. Anti-prostitution laws add a layer of legal sanction to all of our worst intuitions about the treatment of sexually independent women; they strengthen and validate the idea that women who bed men with any frequency are sick, marginal, pariahs.

I used to keep a “secret blog,” whose existence was revealed to only a handful of people, wherein I gave everyone pseudonyms and wrote about exciting things like the gory details of my sex life, and boring things like the gory details of job interviews.

The last time I posted to that blog was November 2006. It served its purpose when I needed it. I haven’t deleted it, because who knows, maybe sometime in the future I’ll need it again. But I was going back and looking at some of the old posts, and realizing that they do chronicle a very significant time in my life. This one in particular, I just thought was so sweet that I wanted to post it here.

Fair warning: if you’re going to be weirded out by X-rated language explicitly describing acts of fornication by people you know (read: me and Rusty), and/or if you’re my mom, don’t read below the cut. If either of those descriptions apply to you and you choose to read anyway, well, your reaction is your responsibility, not mine. Don’t act weird.
Read the full post »

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Elizabeth Wood
Phone: provided upon request
Email: elizabeth (at) sexinthepublicsquare (dot) org
Co-founder, SexInThePublicSquare.org
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Nassau Community College

Sex In The Public Square Presents:
Sex Work, Trafficking, and Human Rights: A Public Forum

New York, February 20, 2008 — Ten prominent sex worker advocates, writers, researchers will be publicly discussing the issues of sex work and trafficking from a human rights and harm reduction perspective, February 25 - March 3, on SexInThePublicSquare.org. The week-long online conversation will conclude with a summary statement on March 3, International Sex Worker Rights Day.

Sex work and trafficking are two issues that must be discussed as distinct yet intersecting, and we’ve invited some of the smartest sex worker advocates we know to help sort out the complexities. “This forum is not about debating whether or not we should be using a harm reduction and human rights approach instead of the more mainstream abolitionist and prohibitionist approach to sex work,” explains Elizabeth Wood, co-founder of Sex In The Public Square and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nassau Community College. “Instead our goal is to create a space for nuanced exploration of the human rights and harm reduction approach so that we can use it more persuasively.”

Wood explains: “The human rights and harm reduction approach seeks to reduce the dangers that sex workers face and to stop human rights abuses involved in the movement of labor across borders, a movement which occurs in the service of so many industries. We want people to be able to learn about this perspective, and to develop and refine it, without having to dilute that conversation by debating the legitimacy of sex work.”

Questions and themes include:

Defining our terms: Is the way that we define “porn” clear? “Prostitution”? “Sex work” in general? What happens when we say “porn” and mean all sexually explicit imagery made for the purpose of generating arousal and others hear “porn” as indicating just the “bad stuff” while reserving “erotica” for everything they find acceptable? When we say sex work is it clear what kinds of jobs we’re including?

Understanding our differences: How do inequalities of race, class and gender affect the sex worker rights movement? Are we effective in organizing across those differences?

Identifying common ground: What are the areas of agreement between the abolitionist/prohibitionist perspective and the human rights/harm reduction perspective? For example, we all agree that forced labor is wrong. We all agree that nonconsensual sex is wrong. Is it a helpful strategic move to by highlighting our areas of agreement and then demonstrating why a harm reduction/human rights perspective is better suited to addressing those shared concerns, or are we better served by distancing ourselves from the abolition/prohibition-oriented thinkers?

Evaluating research: What do we think of the actual research generated by prominent abolitionist/prohibitionist scholars like Melissa Farley, Gail Dines, and Robert Jensen? Can we comment on the methods they use to generate the data on which they base their analysis, and then can we comment on the logic of their conclusions based on the data they have?

Framing the issues: What are our biggest frustrations with the way that the human rights/harm reduction perspective is characterized by the abolitionist/prohibitionist folks? How can we effectively respond to or reframe this misrepresentations? What happens when “I oppose human trafficking” becomes a political shield that deflects focus away from issues of migration, labor and human rights?

Exploring broader economic questions: How does the demand for cheap labor undermine human rights-based solutions to exploitation in all industries, including the sex industry?

Confirmed participants include:

• Melissa Gira is a co-founder of the sex worker blog Bound, Not Gagged, the editor of Sexerati.com, and reports on sex for Gawker Media’s Valleywag.
• Chris Hall is co-founder of Sex In The Public Square and also writes the blog Literate Perversions.
• Kerwin Kay has written about the history and present of male street prostitution, and about the politics of sex trafficking. He has been active in the sex workers rights movement for some 10 years. He also edited the anthology Male Lust: Pleasure, Power and Transformation (Haworth Press, 2000) and is finishing a Ph.D. in American Studies at NYU.
• Anthony Kennerson blogs on race, class, gender, politics and culture at SmackDog Chronicles, and is a regular contributor to the Blog for Pro-Porn Activism.
• Antonia Levy co-chaired the international “Sex Work Matters: Beyond Divides” conference in 2006 and the 2nd Annual Feminist Pedagogy Conference in 2007. She teaches at Brooklyn College, Queens College, and is finishing her Ph.D. at the Graduate Center at CUNY.
• Audacia Ray is the author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing In On Internet Sexploration (Seal Press, 2007), and the writer/producer/director of The Bi Apple. She blogs at WakingVixen.com hosts and edits Live Girl Review and was longtime executive editor of $pread Magazine.
• Amber Rhea is a sex worker advocate, blogger, and organizer of the Sex 2.0 conference on feminism, sexuality and social media, and co-founder of the Georgia Podcast Network. Her blog is Being Amber Rhea.
• Ren is a sex worker advocate, a stripper, Internet porn performer, swinger, gonzo fan, BDSM tourist, blogger, history buff, feminist expatriate who blogs at Renegade Evolution. She is a founder of the Blog for Pro-Porn Activism and a contributor to Bound, Not Gagged and Sex Workers Outreach Project - East.
• Stacey Swimme has worked in the sex industry for 10 years. She is a vocal sex worker advocate and is a founding member of Desiree Alliance and Sex Workers Outreach Project USA.
• Elizabeth Wood is co-founder of Sex In The Public Square, and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nassau Community College. She has written about gender, power and interaction in strip clubs, about labor organization at the Lusty Lady Theater, and she blogs regularly about sex and society.

To read or participate in the forum log on to http://sexinthepublicsquare.org

For more information contact Elizabeth Wood at elizabeth (at) sexinthepublicsquare (dot) org.

This is an updated video, a follow-up to the one I posted yesterday. Watch it!

[Via Pro-Porn Activism]