SWOP - SEATTLE LETTER

Yes you're right. http://www.seattleweekly.com/home/956882-129/prostitution-bill-gets-green-light-showing We as EX sex workers are being left out of this conversation as well and told WE "don't exist". Well we do. The USA database of members for Sex Workers Anonymous is 190,000. The subscribers to our blog is over 59,000. We have meetings all over the USA, in Canada, five other countries, and three jails. SWA is the oldest and largest program of ex-sex workers in the world.

We have more members than SWOP so where is our voice in this piece? Mary - we contacted you directly asking to be included in this conversation that we started 30 years ago and you asked us to "leave you alone". You have ignored us, blocked us, shut us out, and then tried to pretend we don't exist.

EVERYTHING that you're complaining is being done to you as an active sex worker. Well guess what Mary? One of these days' it's highly likely you might decide to leave active sex work - but that does not mean you aren't going to be branded and be a sex worker for life. You might get sick, get old, break a leg, get pregnant, married, run for politics, win the lottery - who knows what - but you might quit one day before you die. That doesn't not mean that then some active sex worker in Seattle gets to then be a smart ass and tell you to piss off and pretend like you don't exist after you've been involved in this same movement for THIRTY YEARS NOW.

You don't like us out here on your home page talking about this subject? Well it's not like we didn't reach out to you directly and privately first - only to have you act like we don't exist for one thing nor that we don't have the right to be heard that what you did to the women on that list in the press was wrong in our opinion. If I had a cop and a reporter show me a list of ads on that site where people had just been arrested and ask me "is this your ad" frankly I'd like the option to say "I have no idea what that is" and "someone must be playing a joke on me".

YOU do not have the right to say for those women that you know they are sex workers, that you know they placed those ads, and give the cops "probable cause" to run out and get more warrants. Warrents where they might not arrest anyone - but instead come and take away everything they own like was done to me in 1984 and then tell me "prove you bought it legitimately" when most of the items they took was bought for me as gifts. Bought by men I couldn't exactly go back and get receipts from. Meaning I lost everything I owned because an angry pimp dropped a phone call one me and pointed at me.

Those women might have clients or pimps who don't want to risk exposure. You by fingering them might have endangered them now from someone worrying about them being named. Paranoia and drugs is a very real reality in this world, and in any field frankly. Especially one where people may be involved in illegal acts. I did not see you pick up a phone and call every one of those women you circled on that list and ask them "is it okay with you if I circle your name, say that's you, and identify you as a sex worker"?

Sex Workers Outreach that I've known since the day it was founded was about doing outreach into the sex worker community to see who needed help. Not standing up with a cop and the press and saying "oh yes I know them and she's this" or "that". You did not give them time to consult their attorney's, nor to consult even their family for the possible ramifications to them now of what you just did. You Mary SHUT THEM OUT and then said whatever the hell you wanted just as you're doing with us and it's not right. We live with being sex workers every day no matter whether in or out. I found a news article about a woman who was fired for a nude photo taken of her over 17 YEARS AGO - so this work can come up and bite you at any time. Which is why we have members who connect into our program and you know why?

Because when I quit sex work I had young little snot nose sex workers who didn't know jack shit about how the industry really is because they're relatively new at it and they have been kept isolated so they thought everyone's life was like their life suddenly turn on me simply because I needed to retire in order to avoid going to prison for 8 years for violating my probation. That was it. I simply wanted to stay cool during my probation and honestly I thought I'd go back after my probation was up. But everyone in the industry except Margo St James was such a shit to me now I no longer was "partying" with them - but I started asking myself why would I want to go back and be around those assholes?

But it didn't mean I could fit with "normie's" either. Not after living through what I did at www.hightechmadam.com So I created SWA to bring together others who had also retired for social support and these men and women are awesome. Besides, if you know anything about us Mary - you'd know most of us go in and out of the business all the time.

Airforce Annie quit for 2 years when Bernie Madoff ran off with her money. Atter 2 years she went back into the industry. According to her blog she went back because she "didn't fit in the other world". Well if she'd been able to know about our members, of which we have a lot living in Nevada, then she would have been in a great crowd. She might not even have gone back to work for Dennis. Which I'm sure is why he won't put our flyer up in the ranch. Oh no that's right - he said he won't because "he puts too much money into his recruiting to just let us walk away". Doesn't sound like letting us make our own choices to me.

Most of us like Annie go back. Some raise their kids and go back after 20 years. Look at Annie Sprinkle's - she's gone in and out a few times.

If this is just a job, and not a cult, then simply because someone changes careers you don't turn on them and shut them out and disrespect them. To do that, makes you a cult. It makes you a cult that is trying to keep people from leaving. So if you want to say sex work is a job and should be treated like one then DAMN IT TREAT IT LIKE IT'S A JOB. Meaning just because I have another job right now than sex work doesn't, and shouldn't, change my relationships with a community I'm always going to be a part of.

Unless however what you're doing is trying to scare people into worrying they will lose their friends if they do change careers which in and of itself is "coercion" Mary. Meaning YOU might be the one guilty of "coercion" for the women on that list by threatening to remove your social support, and threatening to treat them like you're treating us.

Let me ask you something when a white bigot KKK member would see an African American sitting down at the diner ordering some food in the white section and all of his buddies were yelling "throw them out of here" - would YOU have been brave enough to go sit down next to that person and have coffee with them? Or would you have been afraid to? Because that is a form of coercion. Which if you are subjecting the women on that list with the idea you will attack them for speaking to us - in the same manner as I'm suggesting that was done by the KKK to exert social control without one gun - then YOU are the one COERCING them - not a pimp. There are many different forms of coercion to try and keep someone an active sex worker and threatening to attack them if they speak to a group of ex-sex workers right then and there IS COERCION Mary!!!

Think about it. Are you going to tell me that other Seattle Sex Workers can call us up, come check out a meeting, grab some coffee with our local Seattle members, and think for themselves what they want to do, who they want to hang with, what way they want to make money, etc. - while you yourself are blocking us, shunning us, telling us to "get lost" and acting like we don't exist? Really?

No Mary I propose those women are the victim of coercion and the coercer is YOU.

That's not freedom. That's not this industry is just a job. That's not "including us in decisions about us" either.

Give us a call if you don't like people shoving you around and telling you what to do and who to talk to or how to make your money. www.sexworkersanonymous.com



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