I’d say this year’s Desiree Alliance Conference was the biggest one yet, with big name keynotes, 4 full days and 5 “tracks” of presentations, a decent hotel in Vegas to stay at, and over 250 attendees. Much bigger than our Chicago conference a few years back, which had more of a DIY vibe goin’on. The planning process for this took the better part of the year so I think we had a lot of time to think things through and plan them accordingly. The event kicked off with a keynote from former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who detailed the “5 C’s of leadership”- clarity, competence, control, confidence, and something else I forget, but I encourage you to click the link to watch her whole speech. She is by far the biggest name we’ve had speak at one of our conferences and she vowed to defend the cause of sex worker rights as a human rights issue, but I still think she skirted around the issue when Amanda Brooks asked her if she’d be willing to take our message to the media. Either way, it was brave of her to come.

Truth be told, some of the lesser known keynote speakers were my favorites, that of Deon Haywood of Women With A Vision, and escort and performer Kirk Read. Deon’s organization does harm reduction work in the New Orleans area and she talked about LA’s “Crimes Against Nature” law that requires prostitutes to register as sex offenders. Talk about fucked up. Every time I think about the battles we are going through in Illinois…they’re nothing compared to what these women have to go through in Louisiana. Her stories really painted a portrait of the challenges of doing harm reduction work in a post-Katrina New Orleans.

The most entertaining keynote however, was Kirk’s. I remember seeing him at the Sex Workers Art Show several years back, where he did a performance piece called “white cotton panties”, in which he spun this story of a client who wanted him to wear a specific kind of underwear. It was the performance I remember most vividly from that show and I was excited to finally meet the man, who  I think is a storytelling *genius.* His speech had the room in hysterics, as he labeled himself a “full service” escort and told the tale of him getting out of jury duty by announcing in a courtroom full of people that he was a prostitute who had police officers as clients. It was pure gold. Kirk was definitely one of my favorite people I met during my stay in Vegas and it’s been cool to exchange Facebook messages with him over the past weeks. he’s one of those community members whose work you admire from afar and then feel so privileged when you can actually refer to them as a friend.

Unfortunately, most of my time during the conference was spent rushing around, videotaping presentations, and being stressed out in general. I retreated to my hotel room one night in tears, only to emerge to a pool party that I felt entirely out-of-place at and then on to a street-action in front of the Venetian hotel which I’d wanted to enjoy more, but hadn’t been quite in the mood for. That day, my co-presenter had announced she might not be able to make in in town for our presentation the next day and I’d spent all day disappointed and worried about how I was going to re-work what we had planned to do. She did make it in, though, and the next day we led our “Ethical Sex Worker” round-table discussion, which was productive and well-received. We talked about a range of issues, but mostly dealing with how we feel about ourselves, our clients and our peers within the industry. One woman came up to me afterwards and said it was her favorite panel she’d attended at the conference (who was that??? please contact me because I didn’t get your name.) Another woman came up to my co-presenter later, saying “that was just what she needed to hear” after finding out another escort from back home had committed suicide that day. It was pretty emotional. It’s stuff like that that reinforces why we need to be doing this work.

In the end, things worked themselves out, but I’m sad that I spent most of the conference running around like a madwoman and didn’t get to meet or talk to as many people as I would’ve liked. Next time around, I’m scaling back on my duties at the conference and am not going to get as wrapped up in the organizing process as I have been. We had thought we’d put on a wonderful conference that inspired a lot of new faces to get involved, but as soon as we all returned home, the shitstorm started. Somebody on the media team was yelling at me for posting the videos online (this was always our intention), another person accused me (and others) of speaking to her so harshly that she was brought to tears, an incident I don’t recall at all and am still not sure ever happened. And, worst of all, I had people in Chicago calling me out for not having a response letter prepared about the End Demand bill that’s sitting on the Governor’s desk. There was no escape from the post-conference shitstorm of whining, criticism, and drama. One complete nutjob even made a YouTube video about the Conference host hotel saying it was “racist, sexist, and thieving,” an experience nobody else had there (and no, I’m not gonna link to it.) I lost a lot of sympathy and respect for a lot of people in the past few weeks, some of which I had previously looked up to as leaders in the movement. I’ve reached my limit as to what I’m willing to put up with and am tired of apologizing to people.

I did have some good times in Vegas- riding the NY NY rollercoaster twice, doing all the rides at the Stratosphere, and seeing the Beatles “Love” Cirque de Soleil show at the Mirage were some of the highlights. I went to that crappy “world’s largest gift shop” and only bought a postcard. It also seems like we have a lot of new faces in the movement that want start organizing all over the country, so hopefully they won’t read this blog. I can’t comment on too many of the other presentations, but I’d say there were definitely some really well put-together and fascinating ones. I got to have dinner with “Belle De Jour” and drink a bacon martini, which I later traded in for some “ass juice.” Good times.

The last few weeks since returning have been hell. I’ve been doing to majority of work on this End Demand situation and a meeting with the Governor’s office a few days ago went rather poorly for reasons I won’t discuss. Work has been rather slow, I barely have time to work out resulting in weight gain, and I basically feel like shit.

But you know, I’ll keep on doing what I’m doing. That’s just me.

Here’s a link to all the Conference Keynotes. if you have some time, they’re worth watching.

I was honored to be one of the chosen participants in the Speak Up! Media Training in NYC last month held by the amazing folks at Sex Work Awareness. the two-day intensive training for sex workers looking to gain more knowledge about various aspects of media. We went over such subjects as podcasting, documentary filmmaking, storytelling, crafting a message, dealing with journalists, building campaign strategies, and honing our interviewing skills. Really, really useful material and an amazing opportunity to meet some other cool activists from around the country. Unfortunately, I became ill with a horrible bronchitis that took me three weeks to shake and drained my energy halfway through the training. Even so, New York was a blast and my girls Bebe and Paige came along with me to raise some hell. Had an adventure each night and did a lot of sightseeing, including visiting the Museum of Sex, two doors down from our hotel. I highly recommend visiting the next time you are in New York. Also attended the Pleasure Salon, which was so, so amazing! Really got me thinking about ways to re-invent and re-invigorate the Chicago event, which is seriously lacking in energy and attendance as of late. Thinking perhaps a change of venue might be in order, but we don’t have anything here nearly as cool as the Happy Ending Lounge, a former massage parlor turned bar. Waah!

I returned home thinking another trip to Springfield would be imminent, but HB6195 failed to pick up a Senate sponsor for a few weeks, keeping us on pins and needles as to what to do next. We started a conversation thread about the potential impact of the bill on one of the local message boards and the local provider/hobbyist community blew up like bomb in Times Square. Guys were calling me on the phone asking what they should say to their local Senators, others were just assuming the bill had already passed, potentially making them felons, and even more were scared to voice opposition at all because they didn’t want their names attached to er, well, being opposed to such legislation. Providers were warning others to stop talking about the bill altogether in fear that guys would stop using the services of escorts altogether. Whoa people! It’s important to not let your enemies win before they’ve actually “won.” Panic in the streets is exactly the result legislators and the bill’s advocates want to see. I’m a big advocate for informing people about what’s happening in the stage where they can actually put up a fight against something and not after all is said and done and there’s nothing that can be done. Others seem to feel differently. I’ll leave it at that.

In the end, the result was unexpectedly positive. The president of the Illinois Senate picked up sponsorship on HB6195 with the intention to “shell” the bill, or strip it of its language after another section of the bill was added to a similar bill (part of the “End Demand” campaign) concerning juvenile prostitution. The language concerning raising penalties for patronizing adult prostitutes was removed…for now. While there’s no guarantee that another form of the bill won’t return at a later session (the Illinois assembly is on vacation until November), the bill is basically dead for the time being. Whoo! An actual victory of some sorts. Can’t say we had much to do with it, but it was a great learning process for us and we gained a lot of great allies while organizing against it. And probably some enemies.

Speaking of enemies, it seems SWOP-Chicago has been rejected from the Gay Pride Parade again for reasons that have been undefined to us. Three years ago kittenINFINITE made an attempt to get us in but was rejected by the old-school misogynist organizer who proclaimed, “I have a legal right to reject you from the parade.” This year I had one conversation where he said “he’d get back to me” after consulting the organizers of other Pride parades and he has since ignored all phone calls and emails requesting an answer from him. Seems this time he doesn’t want to have that conversation. I say we wage war on this fucker. Last year I watched the garbage man, Sheriff Dart, McDonald’s and a whole host of other non-gay participants march the seemingly endless parade while the sex workers, a largely queer population, gets rejected?

Ok, let me cool down now.

Well summer’s almost here and I’m damn determined to spend my June birthday jumping out of an airplane skydiving. Anybody care to join me?

I’ve spoken about the “End Demand” campaign here before, the one that proposes to mock the Swedish model of prostitution by increasing penalties for pimps and johns and decriminalizes prostitution. The first stone in this campaign was cast a few weeks ago with the introduction of Illinois HB 6195 which increases penalties for solicitation of a sexual act, soliciting for a prostitute, soliciting for a juvenile prostitute, patronizing a prostitute, patronizing a juvenile prostitute, and pimping by one class. Most significantly, it increases the penalty for patronizing a prostitute to a felony. Now most people may say, “hey, it’s about time they start cracking down on johns as much as they do the workers”, but there’s already laws on the books for that. They’re enforced in a very biased manner with the female prostitutes usually ending up with the bulk of arrests and convictions. It is my understanding that this campaign wants to stop that. Which is great. However, coming down harshly on clients/johns/hobbyists/ whatever you call them and giving them a felony on their first (non-violent) offense could lead to potentially very damaging results for a lot of people. There’s a big difference between a misdemeanor and a felony and with a felony conviction a person could lose their job, professional licensing or bonding, and face jail time or a hefty fine, which looks to be what most of the convicted first-timers will likely face. That’s not to mention how much prosecuting felony convictions will cost the state. But all this is neither here nor there. It’s like arguing for/against the death penalty. Does it prevent violent crime? No. Rather it’s about letting the punishment fit the crime. Does this punishment fit this crime? In the majority of cases, no. It will also NOT end the demand for prostitution.

This bill’s been moving a lot faster than we expected, which is the point of these bills…to get them passed before anybody knows they’re even being read. I was keeping tabs on it, though, and reached out to some other organizations in support of opposing it. An amazing ally of SWOP’s hooked us up with another totally rad all with  the Tamms Year Ten Project and she suggested we go to Springfield for the hearing this past Monday if we wanted to have any success in fighting the bill. So last Saturday night I rounded up the troops and spent all day Sunday preparing our pitch statements and cheat sheets for the Representatives on the Criminal Law Committee (they need sheets handed to them to tell them exactly what the bill is all about and why you’re against it.) Monday morning we all packed into my car and made the 3 1/2 hour drive to Springfield, a sad, boring tip that really shows you that the state of Illinois has very little to offer outside Chicago. And no, I’m not interested in driving to see what the other half of the state has to offer either. Springfield’s nothing to write home about either.  I imagine it’s hard for these legislators to talk about “the great state of Illinois” when they’re standing in a capital city that could only be compared to a ghost town that hadn’t been updated since the 70′s. Even finding a place to eat was a challenge and we had to choose between a Bennigan’s (remember those?) and an Italian joint that had no windows. We chose the Bennigan’s.

But I digress. We arrived a tad early and were forced to do the rounds at all the Representative’s offices, but most were in transit or already in session. We did catch Representative Golar (D-Chicago) in her office and she agreed to speak with us, which we later found out was because she had thought we were from another Chicago organization called SWOP that does some pretty amazing work on Chicago’s south side. Either way, she was gracious and we engaged in a really productive conversation with her in which she expressed her concerns over prostitution in her neighborhood, yet she seemed to insist that the pimps/johns were “sexual deviants” and the women were all victims. In her district (which includes some of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in Chicago), there is no doubt a lot of truth to this. We tried to get her to see this as an enforcement issue, in which the most highly marginalized neighborhoods being targeted for arrests and more and more people losing jobs and unable to move forward. She even thanked us, as advocates, for doing the work we did because most of the Reps. “have no idea what half these bills are about” until people come forth and tell them what their position is. She also noted that her email box was full of emails telling her to “oppose HB 6195″ and none telling her to vote yes. It seemed like we had her on our side. For at least a little while.

We then made attempts to page the other committee members out of session, but none of our requests were successful, for reasons we can only guess at. Rep. Golar later came up to us as we were waiting and announced that she had received information that made her change her position on the bill. Specifically, she cited CAASE’s study on Johns in which Johns were asked “what would make you stop using the services of prostitutes?” and they replied “harsher penalties.” It should also be noted in that same study that “87% of the men thought that women should be able to choose prostitution just like any other job.” I sure didn’t hear any of these people talking about that. Rep. Golar encouraged us to pull up some statistics about pimp and john arrests in Chicago, as well as statistics from other countries and use them in our testimony at the hearing. Despite the fact that she didn’t side with us, I’d say she’s a very nice lady who seems genuinely concerned about her constituency.

The only other Rep. were were able to lobby before the hearing was Rep. Annazette Collins from Chicago, who was also very friendly when approached refereed to it as “the pimp bill” which seemed to be what the nickname for this one was. She even jokingly asked “are you with the pimps?” But of all the Reps, she “got it” and immediately said she was opposed to most bills that raised penalties.

At the hearing, the bill was read right after another bill that had been introduced to raise penalties for those involved in juvenile pimping, which passed unanimously 6-0. Obviously, this would be a hard sell. One thing I noticed is that most bills go uncontested in hearing and most are green-lighted through with very little thought process of the legislators involved. If an actual person isn’t there to contest a proposed bill, they assume everybody is for it. When the reading of HB6195 came up, I got up to speak on behalf of the opposition. Three of us had signed up to speak, but they only made time for one person so I read our pitch sheet with the concerns about the costs of enforcing such penalties, what communities would be targeted, the potential loss of licensing for professionals, as well as announcing that “sex workers are opposed to this legislation.” Some groans and laughs could be heard and when the floor was opened for questions and discussion, one republican Rep. said “pardon me, but if I found out my doctor was using the services of prostitutes, I would want him to lose his license.” Another Republican Rep. said, “this may sound very old white man of me (har, yeah), but what is this about military and people losing jobs, licences, etc?” (look, I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something like that) Only Rep. Collins actually raised legitimate concerns about why men use prostitutes and asked about legalized prostitution in the US, specifically in Nevada.  In the end the bill passed the hearing, 6-1, with Collins being the only opposing vote.

Another point to be noted about this bill is that it raises the vehicle impoundment fine for those arrested for said crimes to $1000, with “$500 of the fee shall be deposited in the Violent Crime Victims Assistance Fund and shall be used by the Department of Human Services to make grants to non-governmental organizations for services provided to prostituted persons, persons encountered in the course of investigating any of the described violations, and victims of human trafficking.” It’s pretty obvious that what’s happening here is the organizations that introduced the bill are looking to gain some financial benefit from this. So now, who’s pimping who?

The trip may not have been a success on our part, but it was important for us to be there and show opposition and at least introduce these people to our organization, which they seemed curious about. They especially wanted to know if we provided services for people to get out of the sex trade and I’m sure if we did, we’d be able to get some of that grant money they’ll be raising left and right. Or not.

The Bill passed the House yesterday with a vote of 93-0. It moves to the Senate where the process starts all over again. The only thing I can encourage people to do is speak out against this and meet with your local state Senators if you’re an Illinois native. Springfield, we’ll be back…

My friend David, who accompanied us on this trip, also wrote an excellent blog on this. Says everything better than I could have.

Which of the Busted Prostitutes Is A Man?: On NBC’s “Dude Looks Like A Lady” Edition of Mug Shots

Filed by: Yasmin Nair

March 15, 2010 7:00 PM

I came across this accidentally while following Alex Blaze’s Twitter/Facebook status update about a man being tasered for the ghastly crime of hiding out in Macy’s. Apparently, the police were so intimidated by him that they were compelled to use their tasers to “subdue” him.⁽¹⁾

As I read this post, proof that we have gone completely overboard with our relentless brutalisation of people for even the most petty crimes, my eyes alighted upon this.

It’s a series of mug shots of people arrested for prostitution. The caption to the sequence states:

Cook County Sheriffs busted up a prostitution ring this week. In all 13 women and 1 man were arrested in the sting. 9 had mug shots. See if you can pick out the cross-dresser before reading the captions.

I’m appalled on so many levels that I’m not sure where to begin. These mug shot sequences are popular on the web, and encourage our increasing tendency to take pleasure in the public downfalls of others. We are led to believe that publicly exposing the alleged crimes of people around us is somehow useful and a way to reduce “crime.” I use the word “crime” in quotation marks because, as you might have gathered by now, I don’t consider sex work a crime and I think it’s high time we stop criminalising it in this shame-inducing way.

Here’s a brief background-
The day originated in 2001 when over 25,000 sex workers gathered in India for a sex worker festival. The organizers, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a Calcutta based group whose membership consists of somewhere upwards of 50,000 sex workers and members of their communities. Sex worker groups across the world have subsequently celebrated 3 March as International Sex Workers’ Rights Day.

Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee: “We felt strongly that that we should have a day what need to be observed by the sex workers community globally. Keeping in view the large mobilization of all types of global sex workers [Female,Male,Transgender], we proposed to observe 3rd March as THE SEX WORKERS RIGHTS DAY.

It’s a great reminder of how well-organized many of the sex worker advocacy groups are around the world and how here in the US, we are struggling every day. I know we try hard, but I will say that it’s such a difficult fight here in the states. I couldn’t even imagine being able to get 25,000 sex workers to come together for one event here (unless maybe it was happening on Facebook). Perhaps we have “US privilege” and people think that everything is just fine and dandy here, but we are living under some of the strictest laws against  prostitution here. Not to mention the most negative attitudes towards sex work.

I became active in sex worker advocacy and organizing about 3 years ago when I attended a party, in honor of International Sex Worker Rights Day, and started talking to the two fabulous ladies that founded the SWOP-Chicago chapter, kittenINFINITE and Betty Devoe. I’d been an activist for quite some time, but hadn’t done anything in regards to sex worker rights at that point, even though I’d desperately wanted to. I guess I wasn’t googling to right organizations otherwise I would have found a world of resources, many of the available on my links sidebar. Still, in relation to how many years I’ve actually been a sex worker, 3 years isn’t very long. I’d had a longstanding desire to improve the conditions for myself and others working in the industry, but didn’t have the proper knowledge or support to do it. It’s been a pretty amazing ride over the past three years and I definitely think we’ve made a lot of progress, at least here in Chicago, but every day I think about how we can really take this to another level, how we can really get the public opinion to change (ever so gradually), and what more I myself can do as an activist. Then I realize I can’t do everything…and I shouldn’t try.

It’s been tough for me in the past year in terms of putting myself out there as a leader in this movement, having to make controversial decisions, knowing that people judge my words and actions. I’m only one voice here and don’t claim to speak for anyone else. I’m a big believer in encouraging people to take a stand and speak for themselves. I know it’s difficult for many sex workers, but it’s what I believe is the cornerstone of what this whole sex worker rights/advocacy movement is all about. Real change doesn’t begin with an organization, a rally, or groups. It starts with the individual. I think the only way real change can occur is when we, as individuals, change the way we view ourselves, the industry we work in, and how others perceive us.

You don’t need to be an activist to create real change. Your words, your actions, your attitude can all contribute to the progression of our movement. All I’ve done is the past three years was to try to be a positive example. it’s still a work in progress. But it’s all that I would encourage others to do as well.

This seems to be a touchy subject in the sex work world…and why shouldn’t it be? Anyone who works in a cash-only profession is tempted to ignore Uncle Sam at this time of year, but as I always tell people “the IRS doesn’t care what you do, they want your money.” That includes drug dealers and other illicit types, too! Of all the gripes about prostitution, the “prostitutes don’t pay their taxes, this is why we should legalize it,” seems to be the one of the most common. Just look at the commentary (most of it uninformed) following this article about a prostitution bust this week. One outraged commented said, “Just like other criminal activity such as theft and drug trafficking no taxes were paid on this income or service so ALL OF US are victims! ALL OF US pay taxes so criminals can get off scott free.” Oh pipe down, tank. I would say 75% of my sex worker friends pay taxes and are pretty diligent about staying “legal” as they understand that repercussions are way more serious than anything “Joe vice cop” could do do their lives. Such professions as “life coach” (a popular one), “adult entertainer”, “model”, and “professional muse” are often used as aliases. Still don’t believe me? A few weeks ago, the subject of our bi-monthly SWOP meeting was “Money 101: Finance For Sex Workers” and it was one of our most well-attended meetings in the past year. Most of the workers admitted to paying taxes, while one new attendee showed up looking for advice on what to do after working her first year “off the record.” The response to the meeting was actually so-positive that I suggested we offer again at this time next year.

This past Wednesday I presented at a Human Sexuality class at Northwestern University and of the half dozen questions I was asked after the presentation, one was about how sex workers pay their taxes. I defended my peers in the industry saying most paid, my co-presenter fessed up and said he didn’t. And it’s true. A lot of sex workers don’t pay taxes. A lot of people in other industries don’t pay them either. I have a cab driver friend who ‘s told me he hasn’t paid taxes in over twenty years. It’s tough to keep track of all that cash coming in and if you’re not depositing it in a bank account, it makes sense that someone wouldn’t see the need to file. But if you’re a sex worker who wants to make a major purchase someday such as a car or a house, you damn well better be sure to paying something to the government or you’re gonna be SOL. Still, even meeting with an accountant can be a daunting task as they ask you questions about your work purchases and ask for check stubs to show proof of income. For most workers, even an invasion such this is a bit frightening. And that’s not even the worst part.

If you’re an independent worker, there’s a pretty good chance you’re gonna owe a chunk of change once all the paperwork is filled out and knowing the habits of sex workers like I do, most people don’t have that money saved up. They don’t know how much they should be saving, when they should be paying, what they should be paying, or basically anything. If sex workers were better educated on financial matters and had access to sex worker friendly accountants such as the Tax Domme, perhaps many of them wouldn’t be burying their heads in the sand come April 15.I’m not saying everybody’s willing to pay, but most are just scared. Scared of owing more than they have, scared of being audited, scared of going to jail after not paying for several years. So I think the general gripe that people have about prostitutes and such not paying their taxes is just another bullshit excuse to get angry about all the money we’re making that they’re not. More of us would pay if we got more respect, yo!

As for me, I’m actually not putting everything off until April 15 this year and it feels good! Well, not really, but…

Several years back, my buddy David and I would hang out at a bar where the classic star Seka was working and she would reminisce about working on films with Jamie and how he was her favorite male performer to work with. He kept a basic website with just an email address on it and I decided to write him about a few years back regarding  a porn film festival I was contemplating putting together here. A few days later, while sitting in traffic on the Kennedy Expressway, I received a call on my cell. The voice said “Hi, it’s Jamie Gillis,” and I promptly responded with a “omg, you’re kidding, no way, etc.” He mocked me a bit and I laughed, and then…my phone battery died. It was comically embarrassing. It took almost a month of phone tag for me to actually get him on the phone again and the conversation was briefer than I had hoped, but he suggested I get back in contact with him if I was able to organize the event. Alas, money and venue concerns became an issue and it never came to fruition. Still, the thought of meeting Jamie or even possibly having sex with Jamie crossed my mind a few times. What a trip that would have been.

A few months ago, my friends and I watched the infamous film from the 70′s, Water Power, in which he plays an enema bandit who stalks women and forces enemas on them. It’s pure Gillis…full of fetish, but erotically charged and so “out there” that is becomes an instant classic. You could imagine dirty old men sneaking into sleazy theaters to watch this disgusting film, but Gillis is in top form. He plays the character straight through the whole film, a man obsessed, until the final horrifying scene, which, based on most reports of his voracious sexual appetite, he probably enjoyed thoroughly. He was a dirty old man, but one of the most classy of those.

The Republicans are secretly thanking you, fucker

Now, this Scott Lee Cohen guy does seem like a grade-A douchebag, but part of me kinda believes him when he says he didn’t know his girlfriend was a “prostitute.” She probably wasn’t, but you also have to realize a lot of us keep secrets, even from loved ones and family. She probably was giving “straight massages”, as he thought, at the Spa but every so often if a client came in and offered the right amount of money, he would get a happy ending. It happens all the time. Suburban cops, who have nothing better to do with their time, thought it would be a fun to set up a sting on said massage spa and trick some cute girl into agreeing to give him a hand job with his regular massage. As bad as that situation was for her, I’m sure she never thought that 5 years later her ex-boyfriend would be running for political office and she’d have to re-live this hell all over again, with the media digging for details of her personal life, even though she’s not running for office herself or even still dating this guy. Apparently she’s still employed at the same spa (in a different location) and now she’s got nosy Tribune reporters showing up at her workplace trying to make appointments with her to see if they can get a “happy ending” too. Her livelihood and income is probably now at serious risk, as well as any future employment opportunites. And let’s remember here, she was originally the victim in this case.

I don’t know this woman involved in the scandal but I can imagine that she had friends  and family that had no idea of her life or her arrest and now it’s front page news for the world to see. It scares the hell out of me because this very well could be myself or one of my industry friends in the exact same situation. One of our ex-clients or ex-boyfriends decides to run for office or has a high profile job and next thing you know, it’s us being thrown into the spotlight even though we did nothing to put ourselves there. How do you move forward when you’ve been disrespected by the media in this way? Remember Ashley DuPre, the escort is the Elliot Spitzer scandal? She’s now writing for the NY Post, one of the many media outlets that disrespected her during that scandal. Not exactly the wisest career moved in my opinion, but I’m sure she figured if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

While members of the Illinois Democratic party are pressuring Cohen to step down, perhaps some good might come out of this scandal. Perhaps people will come to the realization that A) sex workers are everywhere and let’s get over the “oh my God, that’s awful!” fucking hysteria surrounding this type of work, B) Just because someone agreed to give an undercover cop a hand job at a spa once doesn’t mean she is a “prostitute.” It means she was set up, and lastly C) People should be outraged that their tax dollars are being spent on undercover “prostitution” stings at massage spas. Really people…isn’t this what the news outlets should be reporting on? The fact that precious Illinois tax dollars are being wasted on what hardly amounts to a crime? But no, now the focus has shifted away from Cohen, who’s done things much worse that what this woman did and on her, just so they can throw around words like “hooker” and “prostitute” instead of “domestic abuser” and  “tax cheat” in the name of selling papers.

There really is no happy ending here, for anyone involved. Cohen will hopefully resign, the scandal will blow over in a week or so, but this woman’s reputation has been damaged forever. And you can sure as shit guarantee that come November we’re going to have a Republican elected governor of Illinois.

Postscript- Cohen did resign as the Lt. Governor nominee on 2/7 during Super Bowl half time at a bar with his family on Chicago’s north side. Yes, that’s how we do things here in Chicago, at bars.