SerpentLibertine

Sex Worker, Activist, Antagonistic Sympathizer

It’s been a crazy week for me here and today I just finished the 10 Day Master Cleanse, which I’m sure many of you have heard about via the various publicity it gets. I’d heard all about it, too and had many friends that had tried it over the years but I never, ever thought that I’d be able to go 10 days living on lemon juice and maple syrup. Guess what? I survived. Me, a total foodaholic who could never imagine even going one day without solid food. I can tell you this…it starts out pretty rough, but after day two or so you stop craving food and start to feel pretty good, more energized, and totally focused on finishing the cleanse. It’s rough…not being able to go out drink, and party with friends, but after years of toxifying my body with junk, I’m getting a new start. I dropped five pounds and feel ready to stop poisoning my body with junk foods that make me look and feel like crap. But no, I’m not going to stop drinking or smoking. I will, however, try to never eat crappy fast food ever again. I am not stopping at the McDonald’s drive-thru for anyone. Taco Bell, maybe, but not McDonald’s.

Last week I also obtained my yellow belt in Hapkido, a martial art I started practicing a few months ago. For martial arts aficionados, yes I know this is pretty low, but hey, it’s a start. I honestly didn’t think I could do it because I hadn’t had that much time to prepare and was pretty nervous, but they passed me despite my making a few errors. I tested in the “slow learner” category. I’ve wanted to learn martial arts for awhile now and it’s a pretty big confidence builder, but I will say I’m pretty timid at my level right now. I’m shy with the vocalizations and my kicks and punches are pretty shitty, but I imagine I’ll have to get it together if I want to keep testing for new belts. I do lack discipline in my life and this is a way to get it back. Maybe.

As a sex worker, I think it’s important that we set goals for ourselves. These two things may seem minor, but they were both decisions I had be mulling around for awhile and had lacked the motivation to follow through with until I finally convinced myself that I needed to do them for the betterment of my life. It’s very easy to get caught up in the whole “work lifestyle” of seeing clients in this line of work that you tend to ignore the fact that you may not be doing anything else with your life that makes you happy, or that will better prepare you for the future. Setting goals, whether they be long or short term, helps us gain more structure in our lives, which can oftentimes be so random and full of procrastination and uncertainty. Let’s face it…many sex workers have a lot of free time on their hands and spending it in front of the TV or feeling sorry about yourself just doesn’t get you anywhere.

I used to be a heavy pot smoker. Every day, several times a day I’d smoke up, gorge myself on food, and waste away in front of my TV waiting for my phone to ring. I worked primarily for escort agencies at this time, working the graveyard shift late at night. It was a really lonely time in my life and save for a few of my pot-smoking buddies, I had very little contact with people in the outside world. Sometimes I’d be too paranoid or baked to take the calls that came in, and I gained a lot of weight from getting the munchies all the time. During this time period, some pretty awful things happened to me, including getting evicted, getting arrested, and getting kicked out of numerous apartments because of my failure to pay rent. It wasn’t until i realized that I needed to get my life in order and stop waiting for things to happen and start making them happen.

I went back to college to finish my degree and stopped smoking pot, almost immediately upon registering for college. Much like the Master Cleanse, I don’t think I could do it. I had been a serious smoker for over five years and didn’t think I could phase it out of my life. I did. I also graduated from college a few years back and started working in a profession that I try to incorporate into my sex worker/activist life, but not really one that promises steady work. It was my choice to pursue something I loved rather than something that was “safe” and that, essentially, is how I live my life. I’m not interested in doing things that make me unhappy anymore. I’m interested in finding ways that I can improve my life, improve other people’s lives, and setting new goals for myself. Get rid of the things that make you unhappy, even if it is sex work itself, and find a new way to re-invent yourself. It’s the very least we can do to stay sane in this industry.

I have some other exciting goals and plans in store for this year, the first of which is the new monthly “Pleasure Salon” that I’m co-hosting with my new friend Clarisse Thorn, curator of the Sex-Positive Film Festival that’s been running at Hull House. This will be a monthly meet and greet, starting Tuesday April 7, for the various sex-positive communities in Chicago to come together in a casual setting and will be hosted at Villains Bar, near downtown. I’m working on a video for the awesome Leather Archives and Museum, on Chicago’s north side and hopefully finishing up some more videos for RLDC (help!). My other new friend Paige has asked me to write a column for her new website, Chicago-Independent-provider-network.com, which should be up in a month or so and I’m re-inventing my work personality to do something fun with clients that I’ve been wanting to do for quite sometime.

And then, of course, there’s that cute boy who’s been sexting me…

A Prostitution scandal? In Chicago? You know I just had to grab my camera and the RedLightChicago crew and get the lowdown on this! Red Wednesday and I hit the streets and asked this random sampling of Chicagoans what they really think about Tom Dart’s lawsuit against Craigslist-

Why must I be woken up today, on the the eve of our huge party, and be told that you, Tom Dart, Sheriff of Cook County, is suing Craigslist for being the largest source of prostitutuion?

Why Tom Dart, has your office spent over $100,000 in the past year arresting prostitutes off of just Craigslist when the state of Illinois is in a billion dollar deficit? Isn’t there a better way to spend taxpayer money than having your officers sit at a computer looking at ads on the “erotic services” section when there are much more pressing crimes that are happening on the streets of Cook County?

Why Tom Dart, aren’t you more concerned with the 22,005 unsolved burglaries, 12,424 unsolved aggravated assaults, 71 unsolved murders, 12,535 unsolved robberies, 104,226 unresolved property crimes, and 13,475 unresolved motor vehicle thefts that happened in 2007 in Chicago alone? (no 2008 stats yet)

Why, Tom Dart, do you say “I want to do something that matters in helping these women,” but then continue to arrest “these women” (never men, of course) as if that’s any way to help someone. Arresting “these women” makes their lives much more complicated and mostly likely sends them back into sex work to pay their legal bills.

Why, Tom Dart, do you think that you’re ever going to be able to recoup that $100,000 from a website that generates very little revenue in the first place? Similar lawsuits as yours have proven to be unsuccessful, as likely will this one. Instead this is a high-profile (every news channel and paper, c’mon!) way for you to flaunt yourself on TV and push forward your political agenda, which seems to be what you’re all about?

Why, Tom Dart, do you think that you will ever, ever, ever, ever, ever be able to stop prostitution, in Cook County or elsewhere? There are other places to advertise, other ways for clients and providers to contact each other, other ways of getting around you that you will never be able to do anything about? You will never be able to put an end to the sex industry, nor will anyone else. So, please, spend our money elsewhere. Like fighting violent crime. The crime that none of us like.

Yes, it is our official holiday here in sex worker-land and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate that to come to our party this Friday! Yes, here’s your official chance to stalk me, if you want…and please bring some cash, as this is a benefit.

On Saturday I was invited to be a panelist at a student activist conference at University of Chicago that featured three other panelists from various social justice organizations and an audience of mostly students, some or mostly all involved in some sort of activist organization. Bill Ayers, famous for his 1960′s anti-war group, The Weather Underground, was the keynote speaker. I was really excited and nervous about this opportunity at first, but really pleased with the fact that I could introduce our agenda to a group of radical young students, many of whom could be potential allies to SWOP.

Despite all the flak he got during the Obama campaign, Ayers was was friendly and passionate about his message for activist, which is “teaching is part of what you should be doing.” I was a little upset when I saw Ayers, with an incredulous look on his face , mouth the words “sex work?” when the other activist panel topics were being introduced, but after listening to him speak, I realized that Ayers would completely understand our movement and what we’re fighting for…and against.

He mentioned that as activists we need to see ourselves as organizers and be willing to do things like going door to door to speak with people who disagree with you. While I’m not sure I’m ready to do that, I understand what he’s getting at and obviously defending sex worker’s rights mean having to deal with a lot of people who disagree with us and what we are doing. Such as this one.

Several things he said struck a chord with me, but perhaps the best advice was “if you’re going to be an organizer, you’re going to be a teacher.” As a teacher himself, he’s a great advocate of teaching and education and kept stressing the importance of us all being teachers, whether or not we call ourselves one or not. I suppose I forgot, as many people forget, that my role as an activist, or even just as a sex worker, is really to educate people. Even for those sex workers who aren’t involved in some sort of organization, but are just blogging on the web, we are constantly educating people about our lives, out thoughts, our opinions, and who we really are. This is so important for us, especially in our industry where so many of us are misunderstood, misrepresented, stereotyped, and just plain never given the chance to speak. Learn to listen, he said, and learn to speak with those you listen to. How many activists actually do this? Speak to people, instead of at people. It’s easy to get carried away when you’re passionate about a certain issue, but learning to hear what others have to say is an invaluable skill.

“Do one thing beyond what you are doing.”

I think it’s so easy to get stuck in that rut of saying, “I’m not really doing anything that’s making a difference” and I feel that way almost every day. Am I really doing something that’s helping people or am I just doing this to make myself feel better? Can I be extending my efforts more, beyond what i am doing now, and how will it help others? I’ve always felt like a lazy activist because I’m not as eloquent a writer as others are, that I’m not an expert on grant writing or academic studies, or that I don’t travel to all the conferences and meet activists from all over the world. Does it make me less capable or organizing on a local scale? Sometimes I feel it does. I can’t quote statistics and I always feel I need to do more, but I also feel like I’m doing too much. However, I get angry when others do nothing or very little.

“How do you choose where you spend your energy?”

Good question…how do we choose? I feel like there’s so much that needs to be worked on, so much that we need to do in Chicago, but I also feel a lack of resources and mostly, people. How can I try to help such a large group of people, who may or may not want my help, when I am only one person? I focus my energy on the things I know I can do, and perhaps the things I think are most needed, but are they effective? In some ways, yes, others, no.

Ayers talked about how different activist movements are connected to each other, specifically how the feminist movement and disability rights movements were connected to the anti-war movement. Later he talked about “Milk” and the gay rights movement, calling Harvey Milk an “angry pilgrim” who kept getting back up again and again after getting defeated. I wish I could have spoken to him about how our movement ties into the GLBT and feminist movements, and how we face the same issues of shame, coming out/being closeted, being discriminated against, and being blamed for the violence that is perpetrated against us. Ayers left, though, right after his speech was over and I was left inspired, but hoping for more of a discussion on some of what he had said.

During the panel I was, believe it or not, seated between a priest and a lawyer (there’s a bad joke in there somewhere), as well as with a woman who ran an art center for children in low income communities. Each had interesting things to say about what kind of work they did regarding social justice, but I actually found the priest, who fought on behalf of immigrant’s rights, had some of the most interesting things to say. Both of us work on behalf of people who potentially face arrest, harassment by the police, and discrimination issues and one of the best points he made was when he said “social justice occurs when victims take on leadership.” How true this is. Later on during the breakout discussions with the students I spoke to a high school student about how people are usually inspired to become activists because of some tragedy or traumatic experience in their life. She agreed with me and made several references to friends she had that had been abused that were now working with social justice organizations.

So where does all this leave me? Realizing that my goal as an activist is really to teach, to inform people about what they don’t know, but also to inspire others to get active. That second part is the hardest thing to do. Maybe that’s my biggest fault as an activist…I assume everyone else should be or wants to be one as well. Why aren’t they here, getting angry? Possibly they haven’t suffered that tragedy yet and I hope they never will, but is that really what it takes?

“Get up again, and keep getting up. That’s where you go as an acitivst.”