Being Amber Rhea

God forbid, you can’t normalize and legitimize icky prostitution that I have such a personal moral problem with, because then…

-oh wait. Because then, stuff like this might not happen.

Well then.

As Kim said at Ren’s…

Popular opinion: Hooker murders are icky, grisly, and wrong, because, well, murder is wrong but … well, thank goodness it was “just” a whore. No big whoop, right? And, well, that’s what she gets, you know? I mean, that’s just part of the risks of being a skanky ho.

This has me so pissed off right now. What the hell is wrong with people?

This “Well, thank goodness just a _____ died and not, like, a real normal, GOOD person” attitude strikes a real sore spot with me.

ETA: Oh, and also… don’t bother reading the comments on the Bastard Logic thread. Trust me.

My feelings on the bit of it I (regrettably) skimmed echo what GallingGalla said at The Curvature:

The comment thread on the bastard.logic story made me sick. A bunch of men (and especially one guy) making every excuse in the book for why the “sentence” was justified — probably enough to create a “hating on sex workers” bingo card.

Speaking of The Curvature, thanks to Cara for also posting about this on Feministe.

I am loving these posters from LACAAW:

Have a look at all of ‘em.

[Via Bound, Not Gagged]

The bad (awful, horrible, heart-wrenching) news it that on December 10, blogger and sex worker Razor Mick was stabbed six times and left for dead in a dumpster.

The good news (well, good given the situation) is that as of December 28, Razor Mick has been moved out of the ICU, and it’s looking like she’s going to make a full physical recovery.

It seems crass to remark on the closeness of this attack to the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, but the proximity of the dates did enter my mind as my stomach lurched.

Please keep Razor Mick in your thoughts, prayers, or whatever other goodwill-invoking mechanisms you prefer. Feel free to stop by her blog to leave some words of support, as her friends are passing all supportive messages along to her.

[Via Ren]

Duly noted: the AJC will print “drinking game material for bloggers” tripe like this in their Opinion section, but they won’t print that fresh! new! (gag) content they claim to crave so badly. Anyway, I thought today would be an appropriate day to repost the op-ed I wrote several months ago. Here it is:

Shaming tactics not effective against prostitution

Currently, the Atlanta Police Department’s Web site includes mug shots of women convicted of prostitution and escorting without a permit (”City adviser: ‘Johns’ get too little scrutiny,” Metro, May 21). This tactic is dangerous and ignorant.

Sex workers are disproportionately the victims of violent crime, especially rape and sexual assault. The concept of shame perpetuates the widespread view of sex workers as disposable. Further, the illegality of their profession prevents sex workers from reporting violence perpetrated against them.

How does posting their mug shots benefit women arrested for prostitution? Even if we assume that a woman may be successfully “shamed” out of sex work by having her photo posted, she is still an open target for potential harm by anyone who sees her photo, since the mug shots remain on the Web site for 3 to 6 months.

The current debate, however, does not address the dangers of women’s mug shots being publicly displayed, nor does it advocate for the photos’ removal. Instead, the conversation is centered on the question of why there aren’t any photos of johns on the Web site.

Some cities have adapted a tactic of “shaming” johns by posting their photos online, on television, or on billboards. Stephanie Davis, the mayor’s policy adviser on women’s issues, believes this would be a good solution in Atlanta. But will it work?

In 2005, Oakland, California launched a campaign called Operation Shame, with the same goal as that which Davis suggests for Atlanta. The Oakland campaign displayed johns’ photos on 10 by 22 feet billboards.

After eight months, the billboards disappeared amid protests from constitutional rights activists. The prostitution rate in Oakland did not fluctuate.

Proponents of “end demand” programs claim that these campaigns reduce prostitution without harm to sex workers, deterring men from purchasing sexual services. According to Norma Hotaling of SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation), the developer of San Francisco’s John School program, 98% of men going through the program were “rehabilitated.” However, a 2002 study published in the Canadian Journal of Criminology found that such programs have little or no long-term deterrent effect.

In many cases, these programs exemplify misplaced good intentions fraught with paternalism. In the late 1990s, Vancouver stopped arresting street prostitutes and began focusing on johns. The rationale behind the change was that the johns were predators, and the prostitutes were victims. But Andrew Sorfleet, a sex worker and founder of SWAV (Sex Workers’ Alliance of Vancouver), disagrees. He points out that the real predators are men who pretend to be clients in order to rape, beat, or rob sex workers, and adds that the campaign was motivated by “the misconception that sex workers need to be ‘rescued’ - with or without our consent.”

Besides, the idea that shame will discourage a non-desirable behavior isn’t realistic. This is the fundamental flaw behind Davis’s proposal. She believes that posting johns’ photos online “would contribute to the shame that any man who buys sex should feel.”

Adults paying for sexual services from other adults should not be a crime. As the Oakland example shows, shaming does not deter people from paying for or accepting payment for sex. It just makes people stealthier and drives activity further underground, thereby elevating the risk to all involved.

The double standard is at work here - the concept that women who sell sexual services are worthy of public contempt, but the men who pay for those services are not. Davis seeks to address this inequity, but her motivations are based on an assumption that any participation in the sex industry - whether as client or service provider - is contemptible.

In all of this, though, there is one very important set of voices that is missing: the voices of actual sex workers. Policy advisers, APD officials, and op-ed writers can talk ad infinitum about what should or shouldn’t happen. But the people we most need to hear from are the ones whom these policies actually affect on a day to day basis.

Teresa Carr Deni was retained.

FYI, the Philadelphia Bar Association recommended against her retention.

On Ren’s site, commenter Katie wondered if a lot of people just voted “yes” straight down the ballot. It seems like a plausible explanation, at least for some of the votes. But whatever the reason, it doesn’t make the results any less discouraging. In fact, apathy may be more discouraging than malice.

And then, there’s this.

On the surface, it looks like a good article in support of the sexual assault victim and outraged at Judge Deni’s retention. And overall, it is, and the more of this kind of support that gets published in the mainstream media, the better; I’m certainly not going to totally castigate something if people are making an effort. Still, this part chafed:

The victim spoke intelligently and with deep love for her mother and daughter.

She no longer advertises on Craigslist.

“If I’m going to struggle, I’m going to struggle, but I don’t want to be in a position like that where I have to be begging for my life,” she said.

What the fuck???

Why does it make any difference whether or not she still advertises on Craigslist?? Are we supposed to feel sympathy for her on the condition that she’s a repentant hooker? Would all the other points about her situation outlined in the article be somehow less true if she were still advertising on Craigslist??

And, “[t]he victim spoke intelligently and with deep love for her mother and daughter”??? WHY is that in there? I guess we’re supposed to be blown away by this hooker with a heart of gold, AND brains, too!

The article would have been just fine, thanks, without those two sentences! Talk about a slap in the face!

And I hate that the victim seems to be partially blaming herself in the last sentence. And that she now chooses to “struggle,” because as a sex worker, she didn’t have the basic protections offered by most other professions, even though sex work would allow her to earn more money to support her family. I don’t think that part should have been taken out of the article, since it was a quote from the victim. When I say that I hate that part, I don’t mean it in a way like “oh it’s making her look bad” or something. What I mean is, I hate that we live in a world where we’re supposed to be all sanctimonious and nod our heads like, “Yes, yes, now she knows better, she’s learned a lesson, she can go get a respectable job that pays minimum wage where she has to work long hours and not spend any time with her kid… not that that’ll stop us from giving her hell about being a single mother and GOD FORBID she try to collect a welfare check or get childcare or medical care for her family… and if her kid gets in trouble it’s HER fault for not being at home…”

ARGH!!!!

Update: Forgot to say when I initially wrote the post - Look at how the first two sentences in the part I quoted are juxtaposed. They’re positioned as an if/then situation. Or more like, one directly led to the other. “She’s intelligent and loves her family, therefore she no longer advertises on Craigslist.” Because clearly no intelligent woman who loves her family would do THAT.

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.

Don’t forget to go to Bound, Not Gagged at 5:00 p.m. EST today to join in the conversation and support of the sexual assault victim whose case was reduced to “theft of services” by Judge Teresa Carr Deni. And if the spirit moves, write your own blog post on the subject, too! Sex workers are people just like everyone else, and this kind of bullshit MUST stop. Please spread the word!!

Who: Sex workers, allies and supporters
What: Live blog action
Why: To oust Judge Teresa Carr Deni in PA
When: Monday, November 5th, 2007 - 5pm Eastern / 2pm Pacific
Where: http://www.BoundNotGagged.com

Calling all sex workers and supporters! On Monday November 5th the Desiree Alliance will host a virtual rally to stand in solidarity with the sexual assault victim in PA whose case was reduced to ‘theft of services’ by Judge Teresa Carr Deni. We support the efforts of local activists in Philadelphia to raise voter awareness about Judge Deni and to encourage voters to vote ‘No’ to retain her in Tuesday’s elections. Please join us by sharing a personal story, reflections, art/poetry or any other messages/images that you feel are important or relevant. New contributors are welcome at the blog! If you’re not already an author at Bound, Not Gagged and you’d like to be, send an email to: BoundNotGagged@gmail.com.

We encourage contributors to make a post either over the weekend or before 5pm Eastern on Monday, then join us at the blog on Monday at 5pm to comment on other people’s posts, add more content, ask/answer questions, etc. Thank you for supporting our efforts to raise awareness about violence against sex workers! If you have any questions, please contact stacey@desireealliance.org.

—

More information at Bound, Not Gagged. Please forward far and wide, and please participate!!

[Seriously, possible trigger here.]

Excuse me? No charges will be filed. On this.

…But yeah, feminism is quaint and unnecessary. There’s no such thing as a “rape culture,” why do those hairy feminazis keep making up such stupid terms?

A couple days ago, I wrote an op-ed in response to this AJC article. Since I haven’t heard back from them and it’s almost Friday, I’m guessing they’re not going to run it. So, I’ll just post it here.

Note: if you feel like there are points and angles I didn’t address - you’re right. That’s what sucks about having to stay within a certain word count. In order to get it under 700 words, I had to cut out an entire section about economic need, for example.

—

Shaming tactics not effective against prostitution

Currently, the Atlanta Police Department’s Web site includes mug shots of women convicted of prostitution and escorting without a permit (”City adviser: ‘Johns’ get too little scrutiny,” Metro, May 21). This tactic is dangerous and ignorant.

Sex workers are disproportionately the victims of violent crime, especially rape and sexual assault. The concept of shame perpetuates the widespread view of sex workers as disposable. Further, the illegality of their profession prevents sex workers from reporting violence perpetrated against them.

How does posting their mug shots benefit women arrested for prostitution? Even if we assume that a woman may be successfully “shamed” out of sex work by having her photo posted, she is still an open target for potential harm by anyone who sees her photo, since the mug shots remain on the Web site for 3 to 6 months.

The current debate, however, does not address the dangers of women’s mug shots being publicly displayed, nor does it advocate for the photos’ removal. Instead, the conversation is centered on the question of why there aren’t any photos of johns on the Web site.

Some cities have adapted a tactic of “shaming” johns by posting their photos online, on television, or on billboards. Stephanie Davis, the mayor’s policy adviser on women’s issues, believes this would be a good solution in Atlanta. But will it work?

In 2005, Oakland, California launched a campaign called Operation Shame, with the same goal as that which Davis suggests for Atlanta. The Oakland campaign displayed johns’ photos on 10 by 22 feet billboards.

After eight months, the billboards disappeared amid protests from constitutional rights activists. The prostitution rate in Oakland did not fluctuate.

Proponents of “end demand” programs claim that these campaigns reduce prostitution without harm to sex workers, deterring men from purchasing sexual services. According to Norma Hotaling of SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation), the developer of San Francisco’s John School program, 98% of men going through the program were “rehabilitated.” However, a 2002 study published in the Canadian Journal of Criminology found that such programs have little or no long-term deterrent effect.

In many cases, these programs exemplify misplaced good intentions fraught with paternalism. In the late 1990s, Vancouver stopped arresting street prostitutes and began focusing on johns. The rationale behind the change was that the johns were predators, and the prostitutes were victims. But Andrew Sorfleet, a sex worker and founder of SWAV (Sex Workers’ Alliance of Vancouver), disagrees. He points out that the real predators are men who pretend to be clients in order to rape, beat, or rob sex workers, and adds that the campaign was motivated by “the misconception that sex workers need to be ‘rescued’ - with or without our consent.”

Besides, the idea that shame will discourage a non-desirable behavior isn’t realistic. This is the fundamental flaw behind Davis’s proposal. She believes that posting johns’ photos online “would contribute to the shame that any man who buys sex should feel.”

Adults paying for sexual services from other adults should not be a crime. As the Oakland example shows, shaming does not deter people from paying for or accepting payment for sex. It just makes people stealthier and drives activity further underground, thereby elevating the risk to all involved.

The double standard is at work here - the concept that women who sell sexual services are worthy of public contempt, but the men who pay for those services are not. Davis seeks to address this inequity, but her motivations are based on an assumption that any participation in the sex industry - whether as client or service provider - is contemptible.

In all of this, though, there is one very important set of voices that is missing: the voices of actual sex workers. Policy advisers, APD officials, and op-ed writers can talk ad infinitum about what should or shouldn’t happen. But the people we most need to hear from are the ones whom these policies actually affect on a day to day basis.

Hence:

It’s funny that sex routinely marks the distinction between human and inhuman statuses according to the hegemonic discourse, a trend we see repeated within pretty much every duke rape thread that has ever existed, wherein stripping will almost instantly be conflated with prostitution, and this will magically make her testimony untrustworthy if not down right inscrutable and jewishly moneygrubbing via pixies or mind control ray firing anonymous bloggers. I keep expecting her to magically be accused of having a big nose and owning a bank, the racist clichés are just so fucking cliché in this case.

But that’s all merely a means to the end of getting across the core point that whores aren’t raped of course.

Well how could they? They once had sex with someone! They can’t say no after that, that’s cheating!

Of course cultfem rhetoric about sex work hoves a similar tact - except in that case such workers aren’t allowed to give consent, and because consenting to sex is the most horrible thing that can ever happen to a woman, it is automatically upgraded from “teh icky” (which covers rape, serious physical abuse and all that menial shit) to Uberhyperfnordensquirtenoppreshein! That strange german compound word that refers to anything that is totally, like, worse than the holocaust man!

And of course this belief that sex workers are inhuman and have no rights to consent nor to say no is why sex workers are killed so disproportionately just going about their business, why they’re abused and shat upon and considered targets by every patriarch and paternalist from the johns and preachers who pay their bills to the businessmen, self declared defenders of the public moralities and over through the police forces, all of whom exploit them in one way or another, and because of this social dialogue that makes sex workers into the lowest of the low, they all know that it’s acceptable to treat sex workers like that.

Via Ren. And timely to this bullshit.

Holy shit.

I just got an email from Matthew Cardinale, editor of Atlanta Progressive News (and, incidentally, one of our first Mostly ITP interviewees). He was fucking stabbed while walking in Midtown. And the attendant at the Exxon station that he ran into afterward, asking for help, ignored him and refused to call 911, even though he was bleeding from the abdomen due to a 4-cm deep wound.

I’m reprinting the email in full; you can also read the story on APN’s web site.

APN Editor Recovers from Stabbing in Atlanta’s Midtown

By Matthew Cardinale, News Editor, Atlanta Progressive News (May 19, 2007)

(APN) ATLANTA - APN News Editor released the following statement today:

Dear APN Friends and Readers,

I am writing to share with you a tragic incident which occurred this Tuesday.

I was stabbed in an attempted robbery only two blocks from my house in Midtown, Atlanta, as I was walking to the Exxon gas station on the corner of Monroe Drive and Ponce de Leon Avenue.

I’m okay now as far as we know, and recovering from the wound. I stopped bleeding Wednesday night finally, and was able to take small steps at the John Edwards dinner on Thursday.

It is important to share what happened not only as it relates to my experience and recovery, but so people understand the violent dangers which abound in Midtown.

I now believe there is an unspoken crime wave in my area of Midtown, one the powers that be in the City do not want you to know about. Rep. Thomas says she believes the wave is City-wide.

I was walking to the store down Monroe Drive, as two young Black men came toward me, looking kind of rough the way they were walking.

Both of the men were about 21 years of age I would guess. What was also suspicious was they were on opposite sides of the street, although it was clear they were walking together. They were walking at the same pace. One was wearing a white t-shirt.

I tried to walk around the guy on my side of the street. He blocked me by going left when I went left, towards the street. I then went right and he mumbled something.

“What?”

“Give me your wallet,” he said as he seemed about to grab me and attack me. At this moment I looked and the other guy was now coming across the street to gang up on me.

“No!” I shouted, running into the street. There were no cars.

The young man on my side of the street then reached as if to try to grab me. I didn’t see a weapon. But at that point he apparently stabbed me in right side of my abdomen. They didn’t get the wallet.

I ran to the Exxon gas station. “I’ve been stabbed! Please call 911!”

The Exxon attendant ignores me and continues to help the lady in front of me.

“Are you going to call 911?”

“You can use the payphone outside.”

“Why can’t you call?”

“Our phone doesn’t work.” Yeah right.

So then I went running across the street-bleeding out of my abdomen-to the other gas station in order to get help.

The police came shortly followed by ambulance.

I have not followed up with the police yet to see if they found the perpetrators, but I doubt they did. They asked me what clothing they were wearing but all I could remember was the white t-shirt.

At Grady, they did an x-ray and found no problem. Decided not to do a Cat Scan. They looked inside the wound-which was horrible-and couldn’t see all the way down but said what they saw looked okay. They cleaned the wound.

They asked me to stay for 24 hours for observation but, hating hospitals, I replied I would observe myself, thank you.

Susan Keith, APN Board Member, and our friend, Tim Wood, came to the hospital.

I have been on pain medication and just resting a lot as the wound heels.

OBSERVATIONS

My first observation is that the stabbing had nothing to do with the attempted robbery.

In other words, it should’ve been clear that he was not going to get the wallet at that point, so stabbing me did not help him with his goal to get money (if that was his goal).

Thus, the preferred theory about this-that they were trying to get money for crack-is insufficient.

I believe, and many people have also suggested, I would’ve been stabbed even if I gave him the wallet probably. Rep. Thomas said she believes it’s part of a new culture of street violence where it’s not just enough to rob somebody, but the goal is to hurt another person.

My second observation is, you can’t assume you’re safe because you’re in a safer part of a mixed neighborhood. People can cross over into the other side by walking.

I urge people to use extreme caution. Stay away from borderline areas at night, particularly alone on foot. If something looks suspicious, please turn the other way and run. (Relatedly, don’t wear sandals.) I thought I had learned this lesson in New Orleans a few years ago, but when I moved here, I didn’t think Atlanta was like this. I’m certain now Atlanta’s worse.

I was worried even though I felt suspicious about these young men, that maybe I was wrong and I would hurt their feelings if I turn and ran. But here’s an idea, maybe I could’ve pretended to have gotten a really important phone call or something and then ran.

Also, as I’ve spoken with my neighbors about this, it turns out there are a lot more stories of attempted robberies and car breaks ins that I don’t even know about. And I live on a nice residential street. So, there’s more violence out there than many Atlantans might think, and only by having dialogue will we understand the nature of this problem.

My third observation is, Exxon needs to be held accountable. This is a community store. The fact they wouldn’t call 911 for me, when I got robbed on the way to their store, is an absolute collapse of the compassion one human being is supposed to have for another human being.

I may call a community protest of this Exxon store. Stay tuned for details.

My fourth observation, when I went to Grady the ER people said, “You’re lucky you’re a big guy.”

The wound was 4 centimeters deep.

Therefore, if I hadn’t put on some weight recently, I might have had serious organ damage from this wound.

Not exercising for a few months probably saved my life!

(Now that’s deep. No pun intended.)

Obviously, we’re still not sure if there was maybe a little organ damage they couldn’t see. But so far it’s been like 4 days with no strange signs.

I’m also a bit worried if maybe they stabbed someone with HIV before stabbing me, so I’ll be getting tested in a few months.

Atlanta Progressive News will continue. The news will not be stopped, although I hope our readers will understand if the publication of new stories slows a bit for the next week or so.

It’s obviously difficult to understand why a person would do something like this to another person. I wonder if it was mis-placed rage. I wonder if these young men were angry about poverty and inequality, about a messed up world where it seems there’s nothing you can do to change it.

Why can’t all this rage be channeled into something positive? Into voting and community organizing?

The guy who stabbed me doesn’t know, obviously, about any of that. What do we do about people in our society who seem so lost they’ve resorted to nonchalantly hurting people, cultivating a gangster image, at the risk of murdering another person?

Let’s spread the word about this and hold the proper people accountable. There are probably countless incidents like this that have been swept under the rug, and that cannot continue to happen.

Well, apparently Atlanta is the 3rd most dangerous city in the country. To be fair, though, if St. Louis had reported all of its crimes, Atlanta would have only been 4th.