I have conversations with sex workers nearly everyday of my life. And I listen.
I hear differing points-of-view. I hear stories of women pimped into strip clubs, sold to strip clubs. I hear stories of women getting ahead financially and being empowered by sex work. I hear stories of women who cry before every shift. I hear stories of women being excited about going to work. I hear stories of women who cannot work without drinking or using drugs. I hear stories from women who say that sex work is fun. I hear success stories of women leaving the industry. I hear stories of disappointment when women have to return to sex work. I hear stories of trouble in relationships because of sex work, both because the spouse of the sex worker can’t handle it, and on the other side, because the sex worker cannot stand to be touched. I hear stories from women who love the flexibility, freedom and autonomy that sex work gives them.
Remember, this is from sex workers about their own experience, not people writing about sex workers, people who have never done sex work, or even academics.
Who do I believe?
I believe them all.
I believe that everyone’s experience of sex work is different. Put a unique individual into a unique situation, and his or her experience will be unique.
I believe that the deepest thing that sex workers need, that all humans need, is acceptance.
From Guest Blogger, and Friend of Star Light, Brooke:
A couple of weeks ago, a dancer who I barely know tried to hang herself. The pain of imagining her not in the world was overwhelming to me. I cried, sobbed, for at least 24 hours. When I saw her at work about a week later, I was in the bathroom. I waited until we were the only 2 people left in there and I spoke to her. You see, she is absolutely gorgeous. Black hair, crystal blue eyes, thin, exotic, 19 years young. I told her this. I went on to tell her how she took me back to a place where I had been so many times before. That endless black hole at the bottom of the earth. Under the heavy blanket of despair, smothering the very life out of me. It would be better, I knew it would, if the pain could just stop. No other way. No one would miss me, or even notice I was gone.
You see, I was diagnosed with severe chronic depression several years ago. I have self-medicated with alcohol and about as much cocaine as you would see in Scarface. Anything to numb myself. When that didn’t work, I tried overdosing several times with a plastic bag tied over my head, hanging myself, walking to a bridge to jump (only to be stopped by cops), slitting my wrists 50 times….DAMMIT!!!!! I just wouldn’t or couldn’t die!!! In between, I have tried anti-depressants and even ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) to make me not want to die. Finally, after 25 different medication trials, and 8 to 10 sessions of uni-lateral ECT, a light bulb went off in my brain. I wanted to live. I wanted to wake up in the morning. I wanted to have coffee. I wanted to read the paper. I wanted to get my nails done. I wanted to talk to people. Something finally worked after I had given up all hope of getting better!! I followed up with a a therapist who agreed to see me after office hours for a very small fee. (God bless her!) And for the first time in about 5 years, I realized what it would have been like for other people if I had killed myself…
I would have left my daughter with infinite amounts of pain, sorrow, and blaming herself. My friends would have gone over and over in their heads if there was something they could have done to help. People who barely knew me would have cried, and wondered the same thing. I would have escaped my own pain by transferring it to so many others, leaving them to deal with the repercussions and finality of my death.
As I heard the DJ calling me to the stage, I finished telling her that although I barely knew her, it wrecked my world to think of her gone. I told her to please come to me or someone for help if she ever felt that way again. Tears in her eyes, she actually hugged and apologized to me for what she had put me through. I kissed her cheek and ran to the stage. Anybody who thinks God doesn’t do some of the best work in strip clubs is sadly mistaken!!! You’ll never guess what my DJ played to me to dance to…
(from Sixx AM, “Life is Beautiful”)
There’s nothing like a funeral to make you feel alive
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes
And see that life is beautiful.
Will you swear on your life,
That no one will cry at my funeral?
I know some things that you don’t
I’ve done things that you won’t
There’s nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home
I was waiting for my hearse
What came next was so much worse
It took a funeral to make me feel alive
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes
And see that life is beautiful.
Will you swear on your life,
That no one will cry at my funeral?
Alive…
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes
And see that life is beautiful.
Will you swear on your life,
That no one will cry at my funeral?
……………………………………………
You are not alone. I have been to the depths of hell and back. Please reach out! Others WILL reach back!
I love Harm Reduction as a concept. Harm reduction is most commonly seen in condom and needle programs. Many people are critical of this concept, mostly because it seems as if you are “condoning the behavior.” But, you know, a person has to live in order to make different choices in their lives. You can’t make a different decision if you’re dead, can you? Therefore, using condoms (reducing the risk of STD’s) and clean needles (reducing the risk of getting HIV/AIDS and hepatitis) can perhaps leave you with the energy and health to make different decisions at a later date.
Star Light uses Harm Reduction principles. And the best list I have seen in a long time is Renegade Evolution’s list of harm reduction principles.
-Accepts, for better and for worse, that the sex industry is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.
-Understands the sex industry as a complex, multifaceted thing encompasses a vast range of activities, and acknowledges that some aspects of the sex industry are clearly more dangerous than others, and those working in the sex industry may have vastly different needs.
-Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who are involved in the sex industry and bases those provisions around the wants and needs of the sex worker/ prostituted person.
-Ensures that sex workers/ prostituted people and those with a history in the sex industry have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.
-Affirms sex workers/prostituted people themselves as the primary agents in setting the course of their lives, and seeks to empower them to share information, support strategies and resources which meet their actual needs.
-Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, education, abuse and other social inequalities affect both people’s vulnerability to harm and capacity for independent operation.
-Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real potential harm and danger associated with the sex industry.
-Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the choices and agency of those involved with the sex industry.
This is the thinking behind the implementation of the Exotic Dancer, M.B.A. Making more money brings the dancers more agency, more opportunities, more success. And living a life with more agency, more opportunities and more success will foster even more agency, more opportunities and more success!
We care about the lives of exotic dancers. We want to help make their lives better. The Exotic Dancer, M.B.A. does make their lives better.
Renegade Evolution. A brilliant, beautiful and ballsy (I had to say that because it’s alliterated, okay?) woman.
She’s writing a series of articles at Feministe, and I really, really want to repost them here so I can be sure that you, dear readers, read them. However, linking to them is better. Then she gets the traffic. So get your butt over there and read them, puh-lease.
Star Light’s Board of Directors concluded their meeting yesterday afternoon. Anyone who knows me, knows how much I really don’t like long meetings. Scheduled to end at 5:30, we finished about 4:00, which made me very happy.
We got a lot accomplished.
Following the Desiree Alliance’s conference in Chicago, I came home thinking about what seem to be the three biggest challenges of sex work: isolation, stigmatization, and economic disenfranchisement (what is the opposite of empowerment?). Star Light’s commitment is to fight these three challenges, by providing opportunities for sex workers to build community, by speaking up and out for sex workers who cannot, because of legal and societal restraints, always speak for themselves, and by providing educational and economic opportunities to sex workers.
The most important thing that I needed out of the Board meeting was a sense that the Board was behind the vision that I cast for the next five years. That vision includes two new staff people, continuing the Exotic Dancer, M.B.A., hosting sex worker retreats, a mentoring program, a secure on-line community for sex workers, and implementation of a sort-of case management program for folks in need. I’m psyched about all of that.
We had some interesting discussions. One of the major discussions was regarding a Board member Code of Ethics and Conduct. Privacy is such an important part of sex work, and Star Light is committed to preserving that right of all of its Board members.
We also, for the first time since I started Star Light seven years ago, have a strong understanding of who we need to add to the Board. We have committed to adding several Board members over the next year, and those members have to include expertise regarding sex work—an attorney, an accountant, an IT/New Media expert, and, most importantly, more sex workers.
It’s an exciting time at Star Light. I believe in what we do, because I believe in the amazing sex workers we serve. I am honored to work with such great people serving such a great population!
A lot of times I can complain (let’s face it, bitch) about the complexities of the work that I do. Sex work has a lot of complexities: the diversity of the work, the variations of reasons that women choose sex work, the divergence of economic opportunities, the list could go on and on. And sometimes I do go on and on about it.
But it is days like today that remind me of the really simple truth.
Sex workers need friends, allies, and people who care.
Just like everyone else, sex workers deal with loss: a man loses his mother, a woman takes her own life, a beloved dog dies. In these moments of pain that we all share, it’s never good to be alone.
Can’t we make sure that sex workers aren’t alone? Will you join me in breathing a prayer, having a kind thought, holding in the light, whatever it is that you do, for the sex workers who are in pain?
I am sitting here getting ready for a Board meeting for Star Light. I want to take all the lessons I’ve learned from sex work bloggers and from the Desiree Alliance’s conference, Pulling Back the Sheets, back to my Board, as a much needed guide for our work.
Will you please answer these questions, and pass them on to anyone who you think would like a voice in our work? If you have a blog where you would like to post the questions, please feel free, and please feel free to send folks my email address (or publish it) to answer them. You can email me the answers or post them in the comments.
For those of you who don’t know, Star Light shares unconditional love and friendship with women who are exotic dancers so they will not forget they are also loved and valued by God. We help them build supportive communities and find resources for successful living.
1) What do you think are the most pressing issues for people in sex work? In what way could Star Light help meet those needs?
2) Our Mission Statement says, “build supportive communities and find resources for successful living.” What would a supportive community feel like to you? What are some resources you can identify that would make you more successful in your goals?
3) What response do you expect to get, given your work, from people who are from “the Church?” How would you like for that to change?
4) How do you, today, get your spiritual needs met? Do you feel like this is a need for you? Can you imagine a place where you might feel free to get those needs met? What would be some ways that those needs could get met?
5) What would you recommend that Star Light’s Board read in order to understand your experience? Shorter is better, and blog posts would be great. I’d like to compile a little reading list for them, so please point me to one of your posts (or one of you favorite blogger’s posts) that best explains your life and work.
All answers and respondees will be given complete anonymity (unless, of course, you post your answers on the blog!). My real purpose is to find guiding principles for Star Light.
Thank you so much for answering these! I can’t tell you how grateful I am for all the experiences I had at the Desiree Alliance, and for this amazing community of folks in sex work.
So, I can’t decide what to post on next. There’s too many thoughts running through my head. So I thought I’d just list out all the things I have to post about, and decide later.
One person said, at the conference, “I know I’ll get arrested sooner or later. My biggest hope is that I don’t have to have sex with the cop before he arrests me.” What does this say about our legal system?A wonderful blogger, Grace, who posts here, gave me a beautiful award. And an amazing compliment. She wrote:
Star Light Ministries. Among strippers I know, the mere mention of a “Christian outreach organization targeting exotic dancers” is enough to make us shit and run. The last thing I want when I’m naked and tired is to be judged by a fully clothed person waving a heavy-looking book. Lia Scholl of Star Light Ministries is a whole different breed, however. Her ministry emphasizes understanding and acceptance of exotic dancers as they are, an approach that demands at least as much change and growth from missionaries as it does from the natives Her post on “How to Pray for Women Who Are Exotic Dancers” is how I’d like to be prayed for by anyone who is thataway inclined. In fact, if you want to celebrate my birthday with me, maybe you could make a donation here to support her outreach efforts.
OMG, I’m so honored. In the words of the Oscar winning Sally Fields, “You like me! You really like me!” I’ll be passing the award on… just let me get through the list!
Then I want to write a post on the absence of non-experiential sex worker allies at the Desiree Alliance. I’m struck by two things: the ones that were there were amazing, including Rene Ross from Nova Scotia, and that some of the complaints about allies were really valid. For every Captain Save-A-Ho who tries to work with sex workers, I say, please, please be careful about your language about who the people in sex work are. Every time you use the phrase, “sexually abused as children” you TAKE AWAY their agency. Sure, it’s a great way to get donors to give to your cause, but it also says, “It’s not a choice!” It makes sex workers seem incapable of making their own decisions, of determining their future. And if you think they cannot determine their own future, you haven’t talked to enough of them!Then I want to write about an idea I have for a sex work alumni association. Wouldn’t that be cool? So, you made the transition out of sex work, help some of those who are ready to transition out. Be a mentor. Teach your lessons. Own up to your past, and be a voice!Then I want to write a post about Early to Bed, an adult toy store in Chicago that I visited. That post will be entitled, “I thought it would be bigger.”Then I’d like to write a post about all the amazing people I met. I know I’ve already mentioned a few of them, but I’d like for you, my dear readers, to know them and to love them like I do.
All in good time. It was, as I said, a wonderful conference. It was chocked full of educational experiences, opportunities for me to get rid of some of my prejudices, and just utterly mind-blowing.
I’ve had two days of the Desiree Alliance conference, Pulling Back the Sheets: Sex, Work and Social Justice. It has been remarkable, exhausting, and difficult. Some of the break out sessions have been trivial, some of them have been life and ministry changing. I’m still wading through all the information, and hope to bring some of it back to this blog.
During one session, we got into small groups, broken into somewhat random categories. I ended up in a group called “Spiritual Sex Workers.” Well, I am spiritual…
The most significant questioning of this group to me was when we answered, “What would you like our allies to know?” Here are the answers:
Sex work is a personal decision, and shouldn’t be judged.
It’s not necessary to have been a sex worker to be supportive.
You can’t change anyone’s mind.
We can raise consciousness by combining our energies.
We are torn within ourselves, but non-judgment helps us to not be so torn.
There are a lot of differences and diversity in sex work.
Some of the work we do can be legitimate ways of healing, including, but not limited to physical therapy, healing emotional trauma.
The work we do can be full of beauty.
Spirituality is not the same thing as religion.
Over and over again, the message was clear: if you want to support a person who is a sex worker, don’t judge.
There’s one other thing. Amber Rhea, a blogger who is a Star Light reader was supposed to be at the conference today. I looked all over for her. I came in this evening and read her blog and found that she had to leave early because her father died. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.
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