Being Amber Rhea

Today Rusty and I are celebrating our 3rd anniversary. And if it weren’t for blogs, I think the likelihood of our paths crossing would’ve been much lower.

So here’s a retrospective…

December 8, 2004: Rusty’s first comment on my blog, wherein he expresses his affinity for PHP. I had found and started reading his blog sometime in the month of November. I don’t remember exactly how I originally found it, but I think it might’ve been through David’s blog. I remember being intrigued and perplexed by all the driveway photos.

March 9, 2005: We met IRL for the first time, at a blogger trivia get-together at Central City Tavern. I also met IRL that night: Thomas, Nikki, Jen, Shannon, Tony, Joseph.

April 22, 2005: Blogger bowling. It was a small crowd (just me, Rusty, Jen, and Joeventures) and I was taking the opportunity to size him up, as they say. I even thought about asking if he wanted to come home with me that night, but due to boring logistical issues (and, yeah, nerves), I decided not to. I knew by that point that I definitely wanted to do him, though.

April 26, 2005: I seized the opportunity to drop some innuendo that could, in the event of disinterest on Rusty’s part, be written off as simply a garden-variety sophomoric joke. I asked for several friends’ interpretations of his response (it seems like he was probably doing the same thing as me; gotta have plausible deniability!) and after getting unanimous opinions that this was, indeed, what you kids call “flirting,” I took the sexual innuendo to email.

April 27, 2005: It just so happened that Rusty had sent me a one-line email regarding the new version of Mac OS X, so I didn’t even need a pretense for emailing him - I just replied.

April 27, 2005 - May 5, 2005: We exchanged a series of emails fraught with business metaphors to refer to fucking. It was pretty funny and entertaining until it reached the point where I started to get annoyed and wondered when we were going to fuck already. There was also a four-day gap where he didn’t respond and I started to wonder if he wasn’t interested after all. He blamed it on working 40 hours a week and getting behind on email. Or was it nerves?

Sometime during the weekend of May 1 (sort of tangent): I was visiting Dacia in New York, and I told her about how there was this “local blogger dude” that I really wanted to fuck, and I was trying to make it happen. After I got back home she sent me an email that concluded with, “Good luck with Rusty!”

May 7, 2005 (tangent): The Great Blogswap of 2005 (a.k.a. the “blorgy”) was set to commence the week of May 9, and there were jokes via email about swapping more than blogs. Little did the rest of ‘em know that would be true for Rusty and me! (He drew my blog.)

May 8, 2005: I finally got impatient with the innuendo and said this in an email to Rusty: “Re: interview scheduling, etc.: I love me some good innuendo as much as the next guy, but it’s about time to close the deal. I can provide references… -oh shit that’s more innuendo. Never mind.” He replied: “I agree about there only being so much innuendo before something has to be done one way or the other. If you’re serious, tomorrow night would actually be a good time since I get off work at 6:15 and don’t have to be in the next day ’til 2. Or Friday night, since I’m off Friday and Saturday. If you’re not, I won’t think lesser of you for it.” And I replied to that: “Of course I’m serious. What do you think I am, some kind of asshole? Tomorrow night eh? That’s fine by me, although we could make it interesting by saying Wednesday after trivia. Or wtf, both! Right? Right.”

May 9, 2008: Monday morning I emailed him directions to my apartment. We’d already exchanged cell phone numbers. At 7:09 p.m. I still hadn’t heard from him and I sent an email saying: “Ok dude I know you’re there, you’re commenting on blogs at the same time as me. What’s your deal? Maybe you are too wrapped up in bestbuysux.org.” Then he went on IM and we chatted for a while, about all kinds of things (including the first day of the Blogswap), until finally at 7:50 I said: “are you coming down here or what?”

evilwilly1: haha, sure
evilwilly1: I need to wash the retail stink off first though
AmberATL30309: gah…
AmberATL30309: now are we clear on what this is or do we need to lay some ground rules
evilwilly1: I’m all about some ground rules… your thoughts?
AmberATL30309: uh, no drama. that’s pretty much it.
evilwilly1: works for me, no strings attached
AmberATL30309: fabulous. i was starting to lose my faith in ATL men.
AmberATL30309: and I’m assuming we’re not repeating this to our blog buddies
evilwilly1: nah
AmberATL30309: i’ll have to tell you about the gay virgin sometime
AmberATL30309: anyway what we have here is a “FWB” situation
evilwilly1: kickass, exactly what I’m looking for
AmberATL30309: excellent

After Rusty and I had been fucking for a few weeks, Sara Beth joked that we were going to fall in love, and she was going to speak at our wedding and recount the dirty details of how it all started. At the time, I scoffed at her; but hey, she was totally right!

And the rest is history. :)

• We know we’re going to go out to dinner tomorrow for our anniversary, now we just need to decide where. (Nowhere snooty!) #
• @kimberleecline - All your world traveling wears me out vicariously! #
• @reginalynn - Good luck! #
• @jenbrock - LOL, you live in "a suburban home in Vinings" (but with a prestigious Atlanta address!) #
• @tiffanybbrown - Thanks for the suggestion! @jenbrock - Had office xmas party there in 2004, it was pretty awesome, w/ fire dancers. #
• My BlogLines is SO backed up #
• @kimberleecline - It’s based on the last 2 digits of your SSN. Since mine are 98, I’ll see my check sometime in the next decade. #
• Will have to call apt. office tomorrow, our AC might be messed up. But at least they’re not *crazy* like at the old place. #
• At work. Need to talk to boss about something, but she’s in a meeting. Antsy. #
• Coworker just said "hot water heater." A personal pet peeve. #
• @Rootietoot - Congrats! That is awesome! #
• Trying not to fuck shit up #
• @sarawara’s tweet made me want a manicure #
• @DeviousMuse - Heh, well I’ve still only ever had 4 total, so I don’t know if that counts as "hooked"! #

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Has RSS caused blog comments to dramatically decline? Is it an effect of one’s blog getting more popular? Is it random?

None of those answers make much sense to me, but I and several of my friends (Dacia, Rusty, Jen, Duane… just to name a few) have noticed that we don’t get nearly as many comments as we used to.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Quality is way more important than quantity. The “great post!” comments are certainly nice, but if those are the only comments, well, something is lacking. And I certainly don’t want assholish or outright trollish comments. I mean why do you think I banned valeko, Andisheh, and a few other repeat offenders?

Interesting conversation is what we all want, right? And shit, people, that’s not unique to blogs. That’s life.

And yeah, unfortunately, sometimes when there’s been a lot of conversation on a post I’ve written, it happened to coincide with a very busy time in my off-blog life, so that I simply wasn’t able to sit down and write in-depth replies. Other times, I admit, the flurry of conversation has been a little over-stimulating, and I’ve been content to sit back and enjoy it vicariously - and I don’t mean that in a negative way; what I mean is, I like listening to smart, interesting people talk!

So I hope you all will comment more. I know that lots of smart, interesting people read my blog (flattery will get me everywhere!), and we have lots of good conversations elsewhere (even if they’re getting kind of fragmented, with things like Twitter and Tumblr) - so yeah I guess I’m being selfish and saying, I want some good conversation here!

I don’t want flaming, or stupidity, or trolling… but good conversation. Like hanging out at a (non-smokey, not too loud) bar, except you don’t have to leave your house or spend money. (Unless you want to!)

(I am resisting the urge to create a “navel-gazing” tag to use with this post. Frankly I’m sick of my own self-deprecation. As Fred Stoeker would say, “It stops here!”)

• Aiken Area Progressive: The fallout from Palfrey’s death could be severe
  (tags: palfrey sad sexwork government)
• Radical Vixen » Blog Archive » R.I.P. Deborah Jeane Palfrey
  “I’m stunned, I’m upset, I’m saddened. But I just don’t buy it. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like but I can’t believe she killed herself. When I interviewed her I heard such strength in her voice. She was a tough woman, a true fighter.”
  (tags: palfrey suicide death suspicious sad sexwork government law)
• Deborah Jeane Palfrey Tribute | Free online memorial community | Create a Tribute and share your memories - Respectance
  Online memorial to Deboarh Jeane Palfrey. Via Sex in the Public Square.
  (tags: palfrey memorial)
• A Goodbye to Deborah Jeane Palfrey | Sex In The Public Square
  “In the eye of the media, Palfrey’s death was regarded almost without a blasé fascination, as if the urge for a woman who transgressed to hang herself in her mother’s shed was as natural and unavoidable as birds migrating.”
  (tags: palfrey sexwork society stigma law sad death)
• No shoes in the house
  Birds and naked ladies! (Via Mistress Maeve and Boinkology)
  (tags: porn adult birds photos)
• Sexplanations: The Sexist Business Of Sex Writing (jezebel.com)
  “I hate when people say that I fuck so much because I have a low self-esteem, or that I’m lonely, or that I just want attention. In fact, in my first ever post on my personal blog, I stated that the only void I’m trying to fill is the one between my legs.”
  (tags: sex sexuality writing blogging assholes bullshit sexism women doublestandard life stereotypes)
• The Jaded Hippy: 3rd Carnival Thoughts and Suggestions
  Call for submissions to the Third Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy.
  (tags: carnival feminism sexpositive)
• WordPress Upgrade Preparation Checklist : The Blog Herald
  (tags: wordpress tips)
• $pread Blog » Grand Theft Auto Pileup
  “we’d be remiss if a space for sex worker voices stayed silent while other bloggers debated the repercussions of virtually soliciting and killing prostitutes.”
  (tags: sexwork videogames stereotypes prostitution violence society)

• Via @ellie_lumpesse… read this, all: http://junkbuzzed.com/?p=153 #
• @jenbrock - Why did you Twitter a license plate number? #
• Still haven’t had time to finish my other Palfrey post… argh #
• Didn’t get time to register for Desiree Alliance conference last night; doing it now #
• Ack, the $168 flight to Chicago I *thought* I found? Human error… that’s if I stayed a full week. :\ #
• @rustytanton received his Sharper Image Gift Card from the govt. I’ll get mine sometime in the next decade (SSN ends w/ 98). #
• Damn, girl we really wanted to hire got a full-time offer somewhere else. :\ It’s hard to find people who are sane. #
• @idealist - Heh, well I probably can’t convey in 140 chars that there are diff. types of "sane" and crazy" - some good, some bad #
• Stomach ache :( #
• @gvonk - You just made me have to look it up #
• I seriously hate Javascript so much #
• Also, I fucking hate BCBS! #
• Still have a stomach ache… hope it goes away, I have Cardio Pole at 6:30 #
• Trying to finish a rambly blog post #
• Long rambly blog post is up. Hasn’t been proofread. You’ve been warned. #
• @ellie_lumpesse - I hope that doesn’t include Mostly ITP! ;) #

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Via Melissa (I would never read Gawker Media blogs if it weren’t for her!), powerful words from someone called Slut Machine, on Jezebel:

I’m pissed. It’s an anger that’s been on a slow boil that’s beginning to bubble over, and at this point, there’s no putting a lid on it. I’ve been writing about sex on a pretty public platform for some time now, at first anonymously, and then under my real name. I’ve had to endure ignorant assumptions and cheap shots made about my looks, my weight, my vagina, my tits, my sexual health, my mental health, my morality, my character — and all for what? Being honest? For liking sex? I’ve poured my guts out all over my keyboard, and I’m well aware that that invites criticism, particularly on the internet, where people think they can say whatever the fuck they please — in the most offensive manner possible that they would never employ in real life — with impunity because they’re protected behind a shroud of anonymity. It’s frustrating. And lemme tell you, I am so sick of people telling me, “You write about sex and personal issues. You have to accept that people will sling insults.” Fuck. That. Shit. I don’t have to accept it. I refuse to accept it. Mostly because I know that this wouldn’t happen if I were a man.

Rock on, lady! I can relate. (Today’s understatement.)

And yeah, this is related to the last post because it’s yet another manifestation of the sexual double standard and bullshit sexism in our society. (I kind of hate whenever I type “in our society,” because it reminds me of freshman year of college when my friend Kira and I used to hang out in Washington Square Park between classes with this very disaffected emo guy who was in a punk band, and one time Kira and I went to see them play and their music was all screaming commentary, and one song was just repeating “society” and “brutality” over and over, and Kira said, “I can’t listen to songs with the word ’society’ in them.” But really, there’s no other way to put it that I can think of.)

From Chris Hall at Sex in the Public Square (be sure to read the full post). Chris is a wonderful writer.

The real tragedy of [Palfrey’s] death, from where I’m standing, is not anything extraordinary about her story, but how common and familiar it is, to the point of being cliché. If the story of Deborah Jean Palfrey had been laid out in a novel or play or screenplay, I would be angry at having my time wasted by a writer who was unable or unwilling to rise above cheap hackery that was old and worn out in the days of the Victorian penny dreadfuls. But Palfrey was a real person, and it makes me sick and angry to think how often the lives of people who should live peaceful, untroubled lives are forced into old patterns.

When I heard that Palfrey had hung herself, one of the first things that I thought of was the story of Ida Craddock. Craddock was a freethinker and feminist who wrote several sexual education manuals and pamphlets in the late 19th century. She was hounded and pursued for over a decade by the moralists of the day, in particular the infamous Anthony Comstock. In 1902, she was finally convicted for sending obscene materials through the mail and sentenced to five years in prison. Craddock was 45 years old at the time of her conviction and didn’t think that she could survive her sentence; the night before she was supposed to report for incarceration, she slit her wrists. Comstock showed no signs of regretting her suicide; in fact, he commonly bragged that he had driven as many as 15 people to suicide in his crusade for public morality.

One hundred and six years later, I want Ida Craddock’s story to seem quaint and old-fashioned, like an aged relic of less enlightened times. But Deborah Jean Palfrey is dead, hung from the neck by a nylon rope; her former employee, Brandy Britton, went the same way. David Vitter is still in the Senate. So it goes.

In the eye of the media, Palfrey’s death was regarded almost without a blasé fascination, as if the urge for a woman who transgressed to hang herself in her mother’s shed was as natural and unavoidable as birds migrating. And it seems unbelievable that one hundred and six years after Ida Craddock, we have to work so hard to justify not only the course that she chose to make for her life, but that we also have to fight to make others see that her death was a stupid waste, and not the inevitable end to a badly-written melodrama.

What we do, all the blogging and writing and organizing sometimes can seem futile, especially with stories like Palfrey’s. The one thing that we can be grateful for, in a somewhat grim way, is that Palfrey had to do more than merely write about sex before she was hounded and shamed into her grave. That, at least, is something that we’ve accomplished in the one hundred years since Ida Craddock opened her veins with a straight razor. But it’s not enough.

And I’m crying, again.

Yeah, I’ve mentioned before that I can be pretty emotional, and cry at inopportune times. But this week, I think it’s appropriate.

• Junkbuzzed: sex, lies, and .jpgs - A Parity of Madams and Whores
  Just, wow. (Via Ellie.)
  (tags: poetry palfrey death sad media society)
• Misogyny costs you 50% « Donna Darko
  “The problem with blogs and media not talking about sexism is we can’t solve this problem and get people to vote until bloggers and MSM face up to the sexism in this election.”
  (tags: sexism politics feminism media MSM bloggers blogs)
• [The Pro Circuit] Prostitution and Paranoia | Blowfish Blog
  “If Palfrey was murdered because she ‘knew too much,’ it’s a shocking crime. But if she killed herself, it’s still a crime—albeit a crime of a system that outlaws, persecutes and prosecutes sex workers while the same men that make those laws patronize them.”
  (tags: sexwork palfrey sad death society law)
• Mac OSX Software for CD Labels, PDF Editing, Text Expansion and Faxing
  (tags: mac software osx productivity)
• Blanton’s and Ashton’s: DC Madam Alleged Suicide Shows the Untrustworthiness of CNN Reporting
  “I am left wondering who put that article together really and why it came out so strongly in favor of suicide as an explanation of Palfrey’s death.”
  (tags: suicide death palfrey media msm)
• Sex Work, Trafficking: Understanding the Difference | Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org
  “Even those who mean well sometimes confuse the human rights abuse of trafficking in persons with the human occupation of prostitution, or sex work. It’s understandable because of the history of the two fields, but it creates rather than solves problems.”
  (tags: trafficking sexwork reference)

It’s been almost a week since the untimely death of Deborah Jeane Palfrey. In my second post on the topic, written on Friday, I lamented the lack of coverage of this tragedy on big feminist blogs. Being an eternal optimist (often to a fault, I know), I gave Feministe and Feministing the benefit of the doubt, saying that hopefully they would post more about it soon - because as I well know, when you’re juggling a full-time job and other personal responsibilities along with blogging, it can be a challenge to find time to sit down and write a substantive post.

However, the weekend has come and gone, and this week is half over, and still… nothing new on Feministe. Feministing hardly ever loads for me anymore beyond the header, but a quick view of the source in IE (it won’t even show me the source in Firefox; it’s hung up on some script, apparently) shows nothing new.

I’ll briefly hop over to some other feminist-leaning blogs that I don’t frequent as often and see if they have anything…
Read the full post »

Reposting this press release from Bound, Not Gagged until I have time to finish the other Palfrey post (not to mention the “why feminism needs to focus on women” post) that have been in draft mode for several days now.

—

New York, NY - The activists at Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK), Sex Workers Outreach Project New York (SWOP-NYC), Prostitutes of New York (PONY) and the nationally-based Desiree Alliance are saddened that Deborah Jeane Palfrey, also known as the D.C. Madam, passed away on May 1st in an apparent suicide. We - prostitutes, strippers, pro-dommes, porn stars, sex experts, and allies - extend our sympathies to all of those hurt by this most recent chapter of the “Pink Scare,” in which oppressive legislation and social stigma partner to generate hysteria around what, for us, can prove to be simply a decent way to make a living.

The circumstances surrounding Ms. Palfrey’s death suggest that Americans reconsider the current state and federal policies that govern sex work, as well as the stigmatization and sensational treatment of those who participate in this industry. From New York to California, daily reports of Pink Scare-fueled police busts, e-stings and raids, even at legal venues like strip clubs and dungeons, have reached a fever pitch. These oppressive patterns regularly marginalize and terrorize our communities, with barely a headline to show for the mass arrests. In contrast, coverage of high-profile cases include yellow journalism exposés published at the expense of sex workers’ privacy, dignity and livelihood. In an interview with Lori Price, it was Ms. Palfrey who said, “Without question in my mind, escort and adult service businesses. . . are being used as the new weapon of choice in American politics.” The public figures implicated in this type of case often receive little more than a slap on the wrist and a second chance from a forgiving public. Ironically, among the exposed we regularly find the very same lawmakers and other insiders who claim to protect people from vice through moralizing legislation. Former State Department official Randall L. Tobias was a Palfrey patron, though he implemented the abstinence earmark in programs such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and, with it, the “Anti-Prostitution Pledge” that has resulted in diminished funding for sex worker-run organizations. Annually, our government spends millions in taxpayer money to apprehend and prosecute participants in the sex trade, while more effective policies like harm reduction-based approaches, including the multiplication of living wage alternatives, are dramatically under-utilized.

In both the highly-publicized scandals and under-documented daily struggles, many sex workers now face financial ruin, emotional hardship and social opprobrium at the hands of the Pink Scare simply because their work, though it takes place between consenting adults, may be illegal and, to some, may be offensive. In two instances associated with Palfrey’s case, Ms. Palfrey and her former employee, Ms. Britton, oppressive laws and stigma cost the implicated their very lives. Why did Ms. Palfrey die? In response to this question, an activist with the International Union of Sex Workers wrote, “Whether she died by her own hand or her suicide is a cover for murder, she has been killed by the state.” Given the highly political nature of these events, SWANK, SWOP-NYC, PONY and the Desiree Alliance call for an independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding Ms. Palfrey’s untimely death. Furthermore, we, as activists and advocates, would like to stress in this instance that the criminalization of sex workers and our labor only drives us further underground, making us and our dependents more vulnerable to client and police violence, and even death, as we are further isolated. The unfortunate events of the D.C. scandal bring many of these broader issues into sharper focus. It is high time that we challenge the morals and laws that harm so many, so deeply, with so few gains and so many lives destroyed.

• I was so tired and worn out from Saturday, that I didn’t do very well in class tonight, and I gashed my leg w/ my show. :\ #
• @audaciaray - OMG!! Are you alright?? #
• (show=shoe, from 2 tweets ago) #
• Twitter ppl who follow me but who I don’t follow: stop w/ the creepy comments about my avatar. SERIOUSLY. #
• Sipping juice, waking up. Sore. Thinking our birds are so cute. #
• No, I am not in the least bit interested in one anyone at Gawker Media says/thinks about anyone else at Gawker Media. #
• Have to go see the psychiatrist at 12:30, better not forget again or she’ll freak out again. This will be my LAST appt. w/ her. #
• @funkybrownchick - Oh you’re the creepiest! ;) #
• Thanks @absurdities for the card; you are so fucking cool, too. :) (And I love seeing that in your nice, script handwriting.) #
• Girl from my pole dancing class got hired at a strip club and is so excited… and I’m excited for her! Yay! #
• @sambearpoet - We eat out fairly often but at the same rotation of places. But, expensive food isn’t celebratory to me, it’s annoying. #
• @audaciaray - You are handling this way better than I would, that’s for sure. Hope you are feeling ok. #
• Vibrator at Walgreen’s, courtesy of @debrisblanche: http://tinyurl.com/6s4j5z #
• Heading to Dunwoody for psych appt. #
• @reginalynn & @eternal42 - your tweets are like a game of telephone #
• Back from psych appt., she goaded me into coming back in July, but at least that’s 2 months away #
• @furrygirl - Yeah, I remember @MistressMaeve writing about finding them at Rite-Aid! #
• @ellie_lumpesse - Yeah, we def. know who we’ll be buying a house from! #
• Short nap, then dinner at the new(ish) Mexican place in Decatur, then DA conf. registration #

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• [Greta Christina] The Joy of Theoretical Non-Monogamy | Blowfish Blog
  “When you’re monogamous, every single person you’re even moderately attracted to seems like Shangri-La, a lost city of infinite erotic promise, with genitals made of divine light and chocolate ice cream that would transform your life…”
  (tags: relationships sex monogamy aweosme)
• Another Call for Feminst/Sex Worker Solidarity (Please, pretty please?) « Bound, Not Gagged
  “We all agree that we want to stop violence against women. But sex workers are still not treated as equals by many feminists. This is undermining both feminists and sex workers.”
  (tags: feminism sexwork stigma hypocrisy)

…and it’s on clearance!

(Texted to me from Miss Debris Blanche.)

• @viviane212 - I’ve heard of ppl having problems w/ that, but I don’t use the WP img upload feature, so I can’t be of much help there. #
• @jenbrock - Yeah, but just like the one I made on @duanemoody’s Wii, it looks like a boy. Boooo. (And who is Richard?) #
• @jenbrock - OH CRAP I see who Richard is. :P #
• Waiting for the dryer cycle to finish so I can put the finches’ seed guard back on and put them to bed #
• I might schedule a blog post for the future so I don’t have 3 right in a row #
• Crap, I hit "publish" and forgot to schedule it. Oh well, three posts in a row it is. #
• @raquelita - Thanks! I just need to find one w/ short hair so it’ll actually be accurate. ;) #
• Cake for breakfast #
• Annoyed by presumptuous blog commenters #
• Got lots of work this week, but looking fwd to it! #
• Why does Dreamweaver FTP suck so badly when the rest of it is really good? #
• @absurdities - But are they your "Democrat shoes?" #
• @audaciaray - Exciting!! #
• @absurdities - Aha! They’re your feminazi shoes! #
• CD and two books from Amazon arrived #
• Dropping a chunk of money toward paying down my credit card #
• Pole dancing has made me actually like Nelly Furtado’s music #
• Fighting back tears again :( http://tinyurl.com/6hozql #
• About to head home, figure out what I’m having for dinner, and then go to pole class #
• I’ll probably eat dinner at Willy’s, ya know, in honor of Cinco de Mayo #
• Bad traffic. Hope i have time to stop and eat! :p #
• annoyed and hungry :( surely this isn’t all for stupid cinco de mayo? #

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• deborah jeane palfrey, the whore stigma, and the systematic silencing of sex workers. « feminist rising.
  “The United States is guilty of systematic structural violence which silences sex workers and disempowers women and female sexuality to the point of death.”
  (tags: feminism sexwork death palfrey america stereotypes stigma society sad silencing)
• The Pink Scare: Of Ms. Palfrey and Sex Panic « Bound, Not Gagged
  “The circumstances surrounding Ms. Palfrey’s death suggest that Americans reconsider the current state and federal policies that govern sex work, as well as the stigmatization and sensational treatment of those who participate in this industry.”
  (tags: palfrey pressrelease sexwork death sad america politics work government law stigma)
• Shakesville: Take My Arm, My Love
  “However, I doubt that most straight, cisgendered people think about, or notice, how frequently they touch their partner in public in ways that are not necessarily ’sexual’ (in addition to kissing, cuddling, and the odd bum-squeeze)”
  (tags: bigotry homophobia relationships gender privilege)

All I have time for today are blockquote posts, but here’s another one everyone should read, from Elizabeth at Sex in the Public Square:

I no longer think that the exposing of clients is going to be the source of any great reduction in the stigma attached to sex work. Why? Because they always apologize.

They apologize by admitting their “sins” a la David Vitter or they apologize and resign their posts, a la Eliot Spitzer, but they always apologize, and by doing so they reinforce the impression that consciously and explicitly exchanging sex for money is wrong, and they reinforce the stigma. In fact they often refer to that stigma when they include in their apologies their regret for bringing shame on their families.

Note that they do not apologize for any mistreatment of the workers. They apologize for being clients in the first place.

So my new call on Labor Day is a call to the clients and not a call to the workers. Clients of the sex workers of the world: stand up for the people whose work you are paying for. Treat those workers respectfully and protect their safety and don’t apologize for paying for their services.

Yes, you may have much to apologize for:

Apologize if you have actively worked to keep the services you pay for criminalized.

Apologize if you have said insulting, demeaning or paternalistic things about sex workers.

Apologize if you have contributed to the shaming of sex workers.

Apologize if you have jeopardized the health of a sex worker.

Apologize if you have committed violence against a sex worker.

And by all means apologize if you have lied to your partner about sex you are having with other people.

But for being a client of a sex worker?

Please, no more apologies. We can’t afford them.

Straight privilege… this is it.

Very moving post up at Shakesville, written by Portly Dyke:

I doubt that most straight, cisgendered people think about, or notice, how frequently they touch their partner in public in ways that are not necessarily “sexual” (in addition to kissing, cuddling, and the odd bum-squeeze) — ie. holding hands, walking with an arm around the waist, smoothing the other’s hair back out of their eyes — nor do I think that most straight, cisgendered people are probably aware of the fact that when I touch my partner in public, it’s nearly always a considered act.

I don’t obsess about this — as in — it doesn’t eat up my days and nights — and I’m probably about as “out” as a queer can be in this country — but every single time I take my partner’s hand on the street, or toss my arm over her shoulder or around her waist, hug her goodbye or hello, I do a little, tiny “security sweep”.

I notice who is around, and where I am, and what the energy feels like — before I touch her in public. It’s a tiny amount of attention, most often, but it’s there.

I just noticed recently that in an unknown situation that seems “sort of” safe, (like walking in a crowded mall) I’m more likely to curl her arm through mine than to hold her hand — which may seem counter-intuitive, since arm-in-arm actually affords much closer body contact — but after I thought about this, I realized that walking “arm-in-arm” is something that I see straight girl-friends do more often than holding hands (after they’re 12, anyway). In considering this choice, I also realized that in many situations, I’m happy to give any possible bigots in an uncertain setting the option of assuming that we’re just a couple of straight girls.

Which sorta sucks.

I recognize this as the internalized homophobia that it is, but I can’t deny that it’s present in me. The fact is, that I stop, look, and listen before I demonstrate physical affection toward my beloved in nearly every public setting that is not clearly “queer safe”.

A must-read.

(Yes, I’m aware I’m speaking in sentence fragments today.)

• Extremely sore and creaky today thanks to yesterday’s Jiggle It class. Looking fwd to resting today and having delicious dinner later. #
• Lunch @ Brickstore Pub #
• Had lunch, bought a few cute things for pole dancing at Junkman’s Daughter, now home and coding. #
• CSS for new version of podcast site is ~99% done. Only a few small bugs/tweaks remain. We’re aiming to launch next weekend. #
• @kimberleecline - Rock on w/ your interns! (Maybe one day Sex 2.0 will have some.) And hope you get on your flight soon. :\ #
• @kimberleecline - Also, I am really looking fwd to the conference. The session descriptions look great. #
• @viviane212 - I prefer Lijit (and not just because @tarable gave me a cool shirt at BlogHer!) #
• Procrastinating on upgrading my blog to WP 2.5 - even tho the upgrade to the Sex 2.0 blog was painless. #

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This post has been in draft mode for at least a month now. I always thought I’d flesh it out into something less stream-of-consciousness/”bad emo poetry.” Then I went and wrote a long-ass comment on Apostate’s blog, and it reminded me of this as-yet-unfinished post. So, first I’ll give you the initial free-writing version that I fantasized about turning into a coherent narrative, but never did:

—

There’s always part of me that’s bugged about the fact that I never tried sex work
(I know the past tense makes it sound like it’s not a possibility in the future…)

But when I think about it, I wouldn’t make a good escort - I’m too introverted and socially awkward. Good escorts have to have the skill of putting people at ease. If anything, I tend to make people nervous. Or in my attempt to put them at ease I’d make *myself* nervous.
I hate small talk, and I suck at it

I do love sex, though

Stripping - same thing - I’m an exhibitionist, so that aspect (along w/ the money, duh) always appealed to me. And now I can pole dance something fierce. It’s the lapdances that would bug me. The “hustling.” It’s an awful lot like cold calling - something that absolutely petrifies me.

So what would I realistically like to do?
I want to have beautiful, creative photos taken of me

I thought of running my own porn site but the maintenance, up-keep, and trying to always come up w/ new creative content seemed too daunting

PSO? Hell no… I hate talking on the phone!

I think maybe I’d like porn the best

But in some way I feel like a fraud for never doing any type of sex work

—

(Does this fact of my life make me a shitty/creepy ally? I wonder that, sometimes. I know I’m probably just being paranoid and over-thinking things, as I’m wont to do.)

And here’s the comment I left on Apostate’s:

For going on ten years now I’ve wanted to try some form of sex work, but so far have been too chicken to actually go through with it. I absolutely LOVE pole dancing, so now the original things that made me afraid to try stripping - not being able to dance, not being able to walk in heels - aren’t issues anymore, but I realized there are other, more basic issues such as 1) strip clubs are usually smoky, and cigarette smoke REALLY bothers me; 2) I hate approaching people or being “outgoing,” and that’s what you have to do to get lap dances; 3) speaking of lap dances, they would annoy me for the same reason waiting tables annoys me: the asshole customers.

i think I would be good at having sex for money, but it would have to be JUST that. I don’t have the time, patience, or poker face* to keep up the pretense of “escorting” - basically, I have no desire (and no ability, really) to pretend like I give a shit about some guy or want to be his arm candy, let’s just get down to business and give me the money, no GFE bullshit. I also couldn’t do the full body sensual massage thing because that would be hell on my muscles, and again, let’s just get down to business already.

After much thought and consideration I think porn is where I could be the most successful and get the most enjoyment out of it. But so far I’ve been too lazy to actively pursue anything. (It doesn’t hurt that I also happen to love my current job, so it’s not like I have a strong motivation.)

* Borrowed that terminology from Dacia. It’s apt.

Talk about your Bingo card of arguments! Seriously, if I see “selling their bodies” one more time - and from a feminist, at that! - I am going to lose my damn mind.

Other Bingo-worthy words and phrases in this comment:

• empowering
• collection of holes and body parts Ed. note: ick! Bonus point for use of unnecessarily porny language.
• cash in on it
• post-feminist
• sex-as-a-commodity
• Sorry, but…
• early sexualization

As I said on the Feministe thread from whence this comment came:

And I guess I’m one of those old-fashioned feminists that doesn’t think a woman’s entire self-worth is wrapped up in what she does sexually. The phrase “selling her body” is *extremely* patriarchal and reduces sex workers to one aspect of their being: their sexual behavior. Sex workers are *not* selling their bodies - they are offering a service. Sorry but I thought that feminism didn’t subscribe to the belief that a woman engaging in sex with a man constitutes a transfer of ownership.

I do, however, need a “Stamp of Approval” or “OK!” stamp, because the last three sentences of that comment do not fail. I have no Photoshop skills to speak of, though (aside from putting one layer on top of another to make the above image, and the like) so that’ll have to wait until Rusty feels motivated to create more graphics for my amusement.

He is, apparently, now a regular blogger at Feministe.

This is the first of two loosely-related posts about my thoughts on the current state of the feminist blogosphere - both in general terms, and wrt specific blogs/situations. In the past few months there have been more than a few things that have left a bad taste in my mouth, and I’ve been struggling to put my feelings into words (and also just plain did not have time for a while, as Sex 2.0 was looming on the horizon). Fortunately, Octogalore, Donna Darko, and Apostate have been kicking ass in that area.

But for now, back to Thomas at Feministe.

I don’t subscribe to the Feministe RSS feed, so I read it sporadically - most often when someone whose blog I do subscribe to links to a post there. So a few days ago I was skimming the front page of Feministe and noticing the byline “Thomas” an awful lot. I wondered why the hell a dude was suddenly the most prolific blogger on a feminist blog - and, as I read his posts, pretty much all of them made me squirm.

I mentioned before how I was thoroughly unpleased with his throwaway paragraph, peppered heavily with paternalism, about Deborah Jeane Palfrey. And then came this, which signaled the cue to end any feeling of obligation to “give him a chance” or whatever.

Super, super creepy post. The paternalism, the othering, the “white knight” feel of it all, the talk of jerking off to her hot writing and oh isn’t it awful that she was raped in the same paragraph… FAIL.

And then someone came along and thanked him for all the writing he’s been doing about sex workers! What?? So when a man posts about female sex workers on a feminist blog, it’s just the cat’s meow… never mind all the blogs of actual sex workers that are out there, and almost never linked by Feministe or other prominent feminist blogs! (Gotta keep that filter up, right? Us, them… never the twain shall meet?)

Would people be okay with a white person as the main blogger on an anti-racist site? I think not. So why is it okay in this case?

Update: This post has been sitting half-written in draft mode for almost two days, and in the meantime I commented on the Feministe thread and apparently that comment got more people talking, and Thomas has apologized and said he will think about the criticism. So, good. Here’s hoping he’s for real.

• Its Like The State Entering Our Bedrooms And Minds (from Sunday Herald)
  “I claim no simple cause and effect link here, but merely note the parallels. A relaxed attitude to porn, progressive sexual politics, and tolerance of others - even those who like a bit of rough now and again - frequently go together.”
  (tags: porn sex sexuality world news law government assholes)