Guest blogging

Whoa.

So I'm going to be doing a guest blogging stint on Feministe. I'm excited about writing for such a bigger audience than my little blog attracts, but I've also been struggling with a bit of writer's block recently.

Give me ideas! What would you like to see me write about, readers? The more specific the better!

Blog suggestion... sorta.... and Scarlet Alliance on Twitter.

It's not so much a blog suggestion as a Blog-To-Be suggestion. The The Stripey Socks Brigade doesn't have much on it yet, but we're hoping to fix that soon.

Shades of Blue starts off on making me happy with her take on the Sheila Jeffreys/accessories shenanigans going on around here over the last week. Tek then rounds it out with a great piece on living the feminist life and working in IT.

Go read!

Also, if you're a Twitter user, Scarlet Alliance, Australian Sex Workers Association now has a Twitter account. Follow it for media updates and tweets on other matters relevant to Australian sex workers and our supporters.

EDITED: Because I apparently can't read the bylines on one of my own blogs. Sorry, Tek!

Blogger fucking up comments?

Is anyone else unable to approve or reject comments on Blogger? It's been non-functional all day for me, from multiple browsers on multiple computers.

"I do not believe that standing up for the rights of a sister to speak without being attacked, is an attack"

And neither do I.

Allecto has declared she will not publish any more of my comments on her thread about my Sheila Jeffreys bag post. Her choice, of course. I have posted one more comment, which she has every right not to publish, but I'll stick it here:

Her final comment:

Yes, you are right. I should have called it woman-hatred rather than ridiculousness. No, I do not believe that standing up for the rights of a sister to speak without being attacked, is an attack.

Sheila does not speak on behalf of, or for, women in prostitution. Rebecca made it clear in her comment that she speaks for herself. Sheila speaks as a woman against the sex industry, which is an industry that ALL women have a stake in bringing to an end. From everything that I’ve read, from the conversations that I’ve had, from the speeches that I’ve heard, Sheila Jeffreys is a woman who cares deeply about the rights of women being harmed in the sex industry. She is one of the few women who has the courage to say that women’s bodies are not for sale and that message benefits all women. She believes that women have a fundamental right not to be prostituted, not to be bought by men like so much meat, not to have their Selves defined as ‘whore’, or reduced to ‘cunt’. It does not surprise me that there are many women who are not able to respect the integrity of their Selfhood, the integrity of their bodies, when so much around us tells us that we are ‘cunt’ that we are ‘whore’. It does not surprise me that there are many women who are unable to hear what feminists like Sheila have to say when being against prostitution is called “sex-negative”. When women who are bought by men as sex call themselves ’sex workers’. As if there is any logic in that. As if sex is a job. It is saddening but not surprising.

Anyway, I think we’ve both had our say. I am not interested in continuing this conversation.

And mine:

I am a sex worker. I respect the integrity of my body. Those two statements are not in opposition to each other.

I would appreciate it if you would publish one more comment, as I thought I had said this here but had actually said it in the comment thread at my own blog: I do believe that Sheila Jeffreys genuinely believes she has the best interests of women (or at least some of them) at heart.

And I'd just thanked everyone for being civil to me...

To run through it quickly:

• I certainly believe that every woman has the right not to be prostituted. I just also believe that person has the right to set the terms of any sexual contact they have, including exchanging sexual contact for money, favours, goods or services. Moreover, I believe fervently that every person has the right to not be criminalised or discriminated against because of the terms they set for consensual sexual behaviour.


• I, and many other sex workers, have a great deal of respect for the integrity of our selves. This is not compromised by engaging in sex work, or in any other kind of consensual sexual behaviour.


• I, and many other sex workers, have a great deal of respect for the integrity of our bodies. This is also not compromised by engaging in sex work, or in any other kind of consensual sexual behaviour.


• I have not said, and do not believe, that being against sex work makes one "sex negative". The fact that some people who are against sex work ARE sex negative does not change this. Correlation, maybe, not causation.


• I can hear just fine what Sheila Jeffreys has to say. I disagree with it.


• There's not much I can say to "as if sex is a job". Clearly sex can be a job (or more accurately, jobs can involve sex) because as sex workers have been saying for quite some time now, sex work is work. If people choose to continue refusing to let us define our own lives and label ourselves with our terms, there isn't really much to be added. I think there's a certain level of woman-hatred in refusing to let women define themselves and their lives because their experiences don't mesh with your politics.

For clarification. And I'm out.

Call to activism: Disability parking permit criteria to change

CALL TO ACTIVISM - Many people with disabilities to be excluded from accessible parking under proposed scheme

If you're Australian, please follow that link, read Lauredhel's post, and write the appropriate emails and letters. It's really important. A whole bunch of people who are reliant on their disability parking permits are about to be excluded from the new national criteria. This would certainly have left me without a permit in the two years I needed one, and it will affect a lot of people who have physical disabilities and fit the current criteria.c

International Whore's Day, by Fuck Politeness.

While it seems a little odd to be bouncing back and forth the links to each other's blogs, Fuck Politeness has a fantastic post on International Whore's Day from an ally's perspective. Go read.

Sheila Jeffreys and accessories, again.

As brought to my attention by Anthony in comments and Caroline here, it seems that certain segments of the feminist blogosphere have objected to my post on the "Sheila Ain't My Sister" bags that were jumped on by Aussie sex workers at an Australian sex workers event last year, and my comments on Jeffreys herself. Thanks for the heads up, guys, I had no idea!

I believe Allecto started here, referring to my post as "ridiculousness" and objecting to the "silencing" of Sheila Jeffreys. I'm not quite sure what silencing she's referring to, as I certainly haven't made any attempts to shut Jeffreys down. I, and many other Aussie sex workers, would like it if she'd leave us alone and go back to speaking on behalf of people who actually want her to speak on their behalf, but I am sadly very aware of the fact that my only tactic of "relying on logic and human decency to convince her" is doomed to fail. Still, there's nothing else in my arsenal. I can't silence anyone.

In comments on that thread, v says this:

Sheila is my sister.

Did i missed hexys coronation? The one where she became the official spokesperson of all sex workers everywhere?

No? I didnt think so.

... which I found as surprising as the "silencing" accusation. Unlike Jeffreys, I haven't attempted to speak on behalf of all sex workers everywhere. If you re-read my post, you'll see I was reporting on an event, and on my observation of the excitement surrounding that bag from a group of mostly women, all of whom were sex workers. I'm certainly not surprised that this has been completely ignored by Allecto and the others who have jumped aboard, but it angers me. I'm fucking sick of sex workers being considered the least important voices in discussions about sex workers, and especially in discussions about sex workers that inform policy. Therein lies my objection to Sheila Jeffreys work on sex work.

The comment I left at Allecto's reads thus:

Hi, all. Just got pointed over here by another blogger. Didn’t realise this was going on.

I’m quite genuinely glad you’ve all gained so much from Jeffrey’s writings, and feel a bond of sisterhood with her. Seriously.

But Australian sex workers have demonstrated that we don’t. And my post, in this context, wasn’t about you lot, or about any other group of women or feminists. It was about Australian sex workers, and our anger at Jeffreys’ attempts to speak for us and inform policy that actively hurts us.

I have no objection to your show of solidarity, save for that it seems to have missed the point of the “ridiculousness” it claims to respond to.

... and I stand by that. Those who have discussed the matter with me (or, ya know, bothered to read this blog) know that my stance on feminism is that it must represent all women, and that there must be a space within it for women of all types. I don't generally buy into the "doin feminism rong" memes that fly around this online world of ours.

However, just as women must be the primary voices in feminism and women's issues, sex workers must be the primary voices in sex workers rights, and in sex worker issues and legislation. It's as simple as that. If you're promoting the words of a non-sex worker whose work is constantly objected to by sex workers across this country (indeed, around the world) over the words and preferences of those actual sex workers, then yes, you are doing it wrong.

The Anti Porn Feminists blog has gotten involved in the party, and I found Jennifer Drew's comment quite telling:

Nothing new about demonising yet another radical feminist simply because she dares to speak the truth and challenge pseudo feminists and the sex industry. For centuries women who have dared to speak the truth and challenge male supremacy have been demonised.

Remember the witch hunts – because this too was all about men and their supporters using claims that certain women and girls were witches in order to steal their few possessions, property or simply just to silence them.

Another point of view would be that because Sheila Jeffreys is widely respected – yes widely respected not disrespected – this threatens male supremacists and their followers.

Sheila Jeffreys has experienced these attacks before as did Kate Millett and not of course not forgetting the late Andrea Dworkin. Catherine MacKinnon too has been subjected to virulent women-hating attacks, but male supremacists and their supporters were not able to silence them. Additionally, there are many, many radical feminists who are routinely subjected to vicious misogynistic attacks and the reason is always because women who dare to speak the truth threaten male supremacists.

Which is why there continues to be a war on women and sustained attempts to silence our voices. Control is never 100% total because the oppressed can never be totally silenced, as soon as one voice is silenced another one appears. So the war continues.

My response to that:

Jennifer Drew: It’s really not about men, the majority of the sex workers at that sex worker only conference were women. Why do you perceive sex workers distancing themselves from someone who claims to represent them but does not to be an “attack”?

And that really sums it up. The constant refrain in these posts of "support of male supremacy", "anti-womanhood" and the "demonising" of Jeffreys once more highlights that these people simply cannot see sex workers standing up for our rights and ourselves as an inherently feminist action, as an act of rebellion by women against people who ignore our protests when they speak for us. We are again erased, presented as pawns of heterosexual men when the reality is that few if any had anything to do with the event in question, or with the construction of those bags. Sex workers expressing their views and claiming to be the authority on our own lives and occupations? Nah. Instead we're referred to as a "pro-prostitution lobby" and "supporters of male supremacy". Fucking disgusting.

Witchy, at least has the decency to acknowledge us as feminist women. It's sad that that's the only positive I can find in all of this, but thanks.

I'll summarise this post in two simple sentences: Saying "She doesn't speak for us" is not slander, or a "personal attack", or "mental violence", or anything else. If you're convinced those words ARE slanderous, then I think you need to look at why you think this woman's credibility depends on her being seen as such an authoritative voice that she SHOULD speak on behalf of a group of people she doesn't belong to.

EDITED TO ADD: And... whoa. Seems I missed one.

Sheila Jeffreys is my hero, at The Longest War.

I'm going to quote this one in its entirety. It's just too offensive to NOT quote.

Found this online today in the category of so-called sex-positive feminist women (aka sex workers and the faux sexually liberated) misusing Professor Sheila Jeffreys as their target in fighting against others who are true feminists opposed to men sexually exploiting women (image of "Sheila ain't my sister" bag)

Just like peace at any price, sex at any price cannot be good. In the longest war, pitting one group of women against another has been an effective divide-and-conquer strategy, aided by much media manipulation. The anti-Sheila blogger indicates that she keeps adjusting her medication (which would necessarily affect her consciousness). Psych-drugs and shrinks as a weapon of mass deception against women in man’s longest war, yes, oh, yes, but that would be another post.

The contrasting, true-to-freedom image is this one posted by Allecto at Gorgon Poisons (image of "Sheila is my sister" graphic)

Sex on men’s terms, devastating to women because there’s a real (if undeclared) war going on. To end man’s war against womankind may take men not just doing laundry and ending non-sexual violence, but practicing celibacy as a commitment to not exploiting women. Real celibacy, not what Catholic priests pretend to do. Unless men wise up and take better action, Mother Nature might just wipe men out and leave women with procreative parthenogenesis. Life will go on, with or without men.

I’m proposing celibacy for bi and het-sex men (any men born as men interested in sexual relations with women) as the ground of being to expand male consciousness as a pathway toward real peace. Celibacy for this group of people would mean that no woman would be sexually exploited by any xy-chromosome humanoid while a lasting peace is sought through heightened awareness for all. Peace at any price? No. But peace may come if we can see the chronic global misogyny without denial, and break free from male-dominant global culture. Sheila Jeffreys is my hero.

Jeebus. Where to start? The standard "faux feminists vs REALLY TRUE feminists" false binary is taken to a new level when the author flatly states that "sex workers" as a class fit into "so called feminists", and are of course presented as actively opposed to the REALLY TRUE feminists. I, the "anti-Sheila blogger", have accusations of false consciousness levelled at me again, this time because I take psychiatric medication. Nice little touch, that, minimising someone's words because of their disability.

That's some extremely messed up shit. Uh, those who object to my original post and want to claim sisterhood with Sheila Jeffreys? Can you please take this one as well?

Epic stupid slightly lessened in NT

Hooray! NT Mothers Against Mandatory Reporting, and the medical/legal fraternities succeed in getting the NT government to back down slightly on the under age sex legislation!

I tried to blog on just how shit those legal changes were, but my brain just couldn't cope. I ended up flailing and typing shit like "HOW CAN IT NOT BE INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS HOW SHIT AND STUPID THIS IS??" which, while an accurate assessment, is not exactly deep and thoughtful blogging.

International Whore's Day Red Umbrella March, June 2nd

Wanna hear a really lovely story?

June 2nd, 1975. Lyon, France. A bunch of sex workers occupied a church in an act of protest against discrimination and failure by police to investigate or prosecute crimes against them. The cops responded by threatening to take their children away if they did not vacate the church.

Once this threat was uttered, the situation changed dramatically. Non sex working women from the town were shocked from their complacency, and joined the sex workers in the church, rendering the police unable to tell who was and wasn't a sex worker. Bit of an "I am Spartacus" moment, that.

International Whore's Day is held every June 2nd, to commemorate this action. It is considered to be one of the formative moments of what we now know as the sex worker's rights movement. This year, Scarlet Alliance is holding a Red Umbrella protest march.

Sex workers at the Sydney demonstration will be wearing red and carrying red umbrellas in solidarity with sex workers around the world & to fight discrimination.

Meet Outside Parliament House, Sydney
Wear Red, Bring a Red Umbrella
THIS Tuesday 2nd June, 12:30pm

Sex workers are demanding protection under anti-discrimination and equal opportunity laws in response to unfair bias from financial institutions, lenders, Local Councils and in advertising. Supporters are invited to join us.

Come along and join us in the spirit of that first demonstration. It's a lot harder to discriminate against sex workers when supporters stand up against stigma with us.

I'm trying to get a few hours off work that day, but I may not be able to. I'd feel a lot better if I knew I'd sent a few supportive bodies along :)

Happy Reconciliation Week! Have a land grab.

Just when you thought the Australian Federal Government couldn't get any more contemptuous of Indigenous Australians and our rights, wants and needs, this comes along:

Jenny Macklin, Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister, announced that compulsory acquisitions of Alice Springs town camps. The act itself is enraging but unsurprising, as the Northern Territory Intervention has been understood by Indigenous people to be a land grab since its early days, but the timing is particularly despicable.

The announcement was made yesterday... on the first day of Reconciliation Week.

What a kick in the guts for those who have believed this government's promises about Reconciliation to be genuine.

Firefly has a round up of links on the issue.

In other "great start to Reconciliation week" news, Mackline also announced that compulsory income management for Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory will not be at odds with the re-instated Racial Discrimination Act. For those who are unaware, the Intervention was only possible because the RDA was suspended for a period of time. Now that it's being reinstated, the government's position is that income management has been "helpful" to Indigenous people, and hence does not conflict with the RDA.

I would submit that this is a pretty big indicator the RDA itself needs to be amended.

ETA: Protest on June 20th, the two year anniversary of the Northern Territory Intervention.