LETTER TO AVN

Dear AVN:

I wanted to bring your attention to the petition against the Cupcake Girls. https://www.change.org/p/the-cupcake-girls-portland-stop-stigmatizing-sex-workers/u/7808020

There seems to be some problems associated with them. First of all, they're spreading "mis-information" by stating that "strippers aren't able to find jobs outside of stripping if they have a prostitution conviction on their record". That's just not true. Not only have we been placing women in jobs with prostitution convictions in both Las Vegas and Portland for years now, if you walk into any employment agency in Vegas they have a list of employers who will hire you with a record of some kind - along with a very very short list of those who won't.  

Essentially the only crimes where you can't find work in Nevada pretty much is if you have a violence charge or a fraud charge. Anything else - I've seen people with drug running charges hired for jobs in Nevada. They can't claim "ignorance" because one of their own volunteers is working at a job with a record - so they do know better. The question is why then if they know this to be false - why all the grandstanding with the legislature?

Well it's a great way to go stomping into a strip club demanding money from the owners, the dancers, and even the bartenders who are in there working for a living. The problem is when they go in offering "make-overs" at these clubs, and at the AVN - well now they're cutting into people's legit jobs. How? When we have women who quit the sex industry - many of them of course are comfortable in the clubs and they become hair dressers and make-up artists.  

For years now our members have gone into the clubs and to get new clients they offer free make-overs, samples of make-up, free visits to their salon, etc. Including free make-overs for the AVN. Then by showing off their work at the club and the AVN - that's how they also get referrals and new clients. So when Joy comes sweeping in with her cupcakes, free make-overs, and also throwing around that "she knows the Speaker of the Assembly" well then our members are finding they're being cut out of chances for them to get work outside of the industry and that's just not cool when the stated mission of her program is to help get women out of the sex industry.

But does she? She claims she offers "job training" at her bakery. Name me one stripper that if you show them the kitchen in a bakery and say "I'll teach you to make cup-cakes" isn't going to laugh in their face. If she's making such great money at it - then why is she in a strip club at night hustling tips off the customers and the dancers?

She is "offering free dental work" through Operation Hope - not her group. Only I looked into the work through "Operation Hope" and you have to be indigent. I don't know one stripper in Vegas who is driving a 2014-15 car, living in a $300,000 house that's going to qualify for free dental work as an indigent. As for the dental work Christy Mack got - she was too nice to say it but her work fell out the day after she got it! That by the way wasn't organized through either Hookers for Jesus or Cupcake Girls.  

Their Chief Fiscal Officer also happens to run Congo Justice who is also the head of the Nigerian Association who runs around Vegas falsely telling people he's a doctor while he propositions them as prostitutes! I know because when I met him he thought I was still a working girl and proceeded to proposition me accordingly!

In the words of Gypsy Rose Lee "you got to have a gimmick" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFRSawe33sA and Joy doesn't even have a house which Annie had to get after the IRS came in threatening people with arrest after they raised $1,000,000 for a house that didn't exist. Now after all that money they're still trying to get a TV in the house? Come on guys - religion is one of the biggest cons there is. I don't mean God - I mean religion.

I wouldn't mind if these women were doing something constructive like passing out free home HIV kits, or taking the list from us of employers who are hiring ex-strippers, in fact there's a Time Share company right now hiring sales presenters at $25 an hour plus commission. A few of our members have been getting jobs over there. Jobs where no one asked for any ID either until they saw they were staying on.

Look this "Sally" came in crying she needed money because she "couldn't work without an ID" and wanted a fund raiser like the CG put together for Kamylla - which I would like to add NO ONE put a site up bashing us until Domina Elle, who was working with the Cupcake Girl to raise money for Kamylla came onto the scene.  

Since no one could understand why they should donate for what we were doing for free - they had to set up this imaginary site that somehow because I'm "crazy" that our group in Texas isn't functional. What a slap in the face to our Houston group! Which by the way - I've gone to DMV with school, health, shot and/or insurance records and got members ID cards so "Sally" is full of it.

Look guys - this is a hustle. A hustle that right now is actually harming womens' chances at leaving the industry. We talked to woman yesterday who said she had really believed that you couldn't get a job when you were a stripper with a prostitution conviction. We had to straighter her out - but we don't have the kind of money and manpower these women have to go out to every club at night and straighten this out. We don't ask for tips in clubs - for us that's a relapse. We all know hustling isn't about sex for money - it's about the hustle. One that appears to be getting out of hand.

Not one of these fund raisers has produced one person out of sex work. You can google Brenda Myers-Powell or Kathleen Mitchell and see our work. We have testimonials at www.leavingtheliferadio.com. Reputable reporters like Bob Herbert and John Quinones have validated our work. Professor Sharon Oselin studied our work for 10 years and wrote highly of us in "Leaving Prostitution". We get men and women out of the sex industry and we don't hold fund raisers! Please stop this - please put an end to these people who seem to think money is what it takes to get someone out of the sex industry. As you can see by that petition - it's also insulting.

I was one of the people who helped to bring the ACLU v. Catholic Bishops lawsuit. I've been following the Catholics for a while and I can assure you that they have adopted the sex industry as their new fund raising campaign like starving children, or putting water in villages, or the single mother homes they used to have that they've turned into "safe houses" now that are also getting exposed like Mercy Ministries. We warned you with them also when they shut us out something was fishy with them also - just as "8 Minutes". I mean how many cons like Samoly Mam, Chong Kim, Ben Hilliar, have to come down the pike who are not utilizing the 12 step group model before people begin to see that those are the cons? You as an industry have the power to educate the public that these people have just found a new hustle - put an end to it please.

We asked you last year to donate us a booth so we could hand out recovery information on not just us, but also on alcoholism, drugs, and HIV/AIDS information, as well as sex addiction, gambling addiction (which Larry Ashby has proven to be a problem in working girls right now), and you shut us down. That's caring about your community. Providing them with information on where to go if they're having a problem with a pimp - that's caring about your community.  

But you bring in these women who are insulting to the industry and on top of it - they're cutting those of us who have retired and who now make our living off of doing hair and make-up off active working girls by giving them a total leg up by letting them have a suite and coming in to do free make-overs on site?

Are you a part of this? If you're not - then you explain why you're promoting them like this but not us? Even casinos have Gamblers Anonymous brochures sitting on the counter. This isn't right guys!

Jody Williams
www.sexworkersanonymous.com
(702) 468-4529

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