Star Light Ministries

Yeah, even after all these years, sometimes I still get that question.

Here’s LaLibertine’s interpretation, which is nearly the best I’ve seen. Quantifiable? Maybe not. But real? Absolutely.

Star Light Ministries:
I have to do a special shoutout to Lia here. Starlight Ministries is not specifically a sex worker rights organization dedicated to changing legislation. However, it does aim to help destigmatize sex work. Starlight Ministries is a Christian organization (yes, I know!) that primarily works with exotic dancers but all sex workers are genuinely welcomed with open arms. There is no patronizing or condescending here. No, “Well, God would love you if only you got out of sex work!” It’s more, “God loves you” period. Let’s face it, for many sex workers, that little statement would make ALL the difference in the world. I won’t lie, I do not like the Christian Church at all for many reasons. However, Lia and her ministry practice what that whole “Love thy neighbor as thyself” thing is supposed to be. Truly.

LaLibertine has written one of the best posts I’ve seen about the Sex Worker Movement. And yeah, it is a movement. If you really want to understand, go read it. Please, go read it.

The real thing we should be talking about is this:

Why are women still making less money than men?

Why do women still have primary responsibility (including financial) for children?

Why is childcare so expensive and unavailable?

Why are women’s voices disregarded in the political discussions?

Why are there so few women in senior positions in commerce and in politics?

Why do women still have so few choices?

Why is society still having conversations about what women can do and what they can’t?

Why are women still targets of violence?

Why are women still at the bottom of the economic rung?

There’s a story in the Bible, Genesis 38, about a woman named Tamar. She marries a son of Judah, who willfully does not get her pregnant. You have to remember that in Ancient Hebrew culture, women were nothing without children, especially boys. Her husband dies. Her father-in-law, Judah, marries her to his second son, as was the tradition.

She marries the second son, but he, too, willfully withholds pregnancy from her. He dies. Technically, Tamar should be given in marriage to Judah’s third son, but she is not.

She dresses as a sex worker, and Judah pays her a visit. He doesn’t pay her, but gives her his staff and seal (the equivalence of his ID and credit card), and promises to send her pay to her. When he sends the payment, she is nowhere to be found, but is pregnant.

Months later, Tamar is dragged in front of Judah as a whore. He is all set to have her stoned. She says, “The father of my children owns this staff and seal.” Judah sees that it’s his own. He says, “She is more righteous than I,” indicating that he has not done right by Tamar. He has not given her opportunities, has not taken care of his financial and familial responsibility to her.

If society is not willing to give women their due, not willing to give them opportunities, education, childcare, and all the things necessary to be successful, then who are we to judge those who take advantage of sex work to provide these things for themselves?

What does it really mean when a person asks, “Isn’t it true that most people in sex work have been sexually abused?”

I’ve posted on this before, but it is the most annoying question I get in my professional life.

There’s a supposition in that statement that one distinct event affects our life decisions. That statement is, at best, a narrow way of looking at our life choices. Ask anyone why they chose their life’s work. “Teacher, why did you choose to be a teacher?” She may answer, “Well, I chose teaching because I wanted to spend more time with my children (one event, having children, determined career choice).” But the teacher will inevitably answer further, “and I really love the way children’s eyes light up when they get a concept. And I really want to make a difference in the world. Plus, I had a great teacher in the 3rd grade, who really challenged me and changed my life.”

See? Our career choices are not determined by one event in our lives. That first example could even be based in a hurtful, bad event. I imagine that one teacher could respond, “I had a really terrible teacher in the 3rd grade who left me feeling degraded and humiliated. I thought I could do better than her.” Hence, a teacher is redeeming a bad experience through offering a better experience.

And yes, that teacher could make their career choice and not understand ALL the aspects of her choice. The memory of the 3rd grade teacher may not reappear until much later, when the teacher has an epiphany, “Oh! I’m doing this because of my 3rd grade teacher (whether a good experience or bad).”

All of our decisions come out of our experience, whether good or bad.

I chose to work with sex workers because of my determination that the church had it wrong when it came to sex workers, and really, the church has it wrong when you’re dealing with anyone who is perceived to be “outside the norm.” I also chose to work with sex workers because I was really sick of feeling marginalized by the men where I went to seminary, which didn’t become clear to me until much later. And working with sex workers has helped me work through that anger (again, redemption), to understanding and acceptance. I chose working with sex workers for other reasons, too. I like to control my own work. I like building relationships with people. I totally dig the women I’ve met—their strength, their beauty, their passion. I’ve met some of the most brilliant people. I’m convinced that Jesus would do this same sort of work, he would look at the people I work with and say, “Ya’ll are my friends.” (Of course, Jesus would say ya’ll.)

I’ve met sex workers who were sexually abused, and their career choice helped redeem those bad things that happened to them. For one friend who was abused by a teen kid up the street, stripping gave HER the option of WHEN to take her clothes off. Stripping gave her back control of her body. But really, it wasn’t the only reason she was there. She was there to make money, to have flexible hours, to have fun. There’s no ONE reason why she stripped.

But there’s a deeper assumption in that original question, “Isn’t it true that most people in sex work have been sexually abused?” There’s a judgment about sex work, that sex work is evil. Sex work isn’t evil. It’s work. It’s hard work, too. Sure, there are downsides to it, but really, who doesn’t have downsides in their work? If it was all fun, they wouldn’t call it work, they’d call it play.

The energy that is sucked up by our judging one another could be so much better expended by taking care of one another, learning from one another, listening to one another, and well, loving one another.

The Ex-Courtesan in Transition wrote this yesterday, and I really like it:

I wish all these powerful, intelligent, articulate women would funnel all their passion into action, rather than egotistical sqabbling. I keep wondering what could be accomplished if all that angry, negative angry was transmuted into positive, creative energy, then acted upon in ways that benefitted women and the world in tangible ways.

Amen, and amen.

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.

Lia

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.

More soon. Gotta rest. And eat. And recover.

How many times have I heard it since I’ve been doing this work? At least thousands. How many times have I heard it in the last week? Several. It’s my least favorite phrase when sex work comes up: “The women in sex work have been abused as children.”

Come on. You’ve heard it, too. It’s like the mantra of ministries working with women in the sex industry. “Poor little women have been sexually abused.”

Argh!

You know, I haven’t polled all the women in sex work. I don’t know if all of them have been sexually abused. I have heard statistics that of women in the United States, 3 out of 5 of them have been sexually abused. And, by the way, 1 out of 6 boys. But what does this prove? That people who have been sexually abused go straight to sex work? Nope.

Do you understand what seeing all the women in sex work as victims does? Well, let me tell you. It victimizes them. It takes away from them the idea that they are fully formed people capable of making their own choices. It removes agency. Is that your intended outcome? Nope.

I wish I could poll everybody in the world and ask them a few questions. Has sex ever been used as a weapon or an instrument of power against you? Have you ever been manipulated in order to get sex? Has anyone ever used your body and then tossed you to the side? Would anyone (male or female) be able to answer these questions with a “No”? Nope.

Sex can be used to overpower, manipulate, degrade, and abuse people.

Sex can also be used to equalize, share, uplift and celebrate people.

Sex can be about power. Or sex can be about mutuality.

Stop calling sex workers VICTIMS. Yes, I know, it makes raising money for your cause more difficult, if they aren’t seen as victims. Stop seeing sex workers as other. Reach into your own memory, when sex has been used against you, when sex hasn’t been about mutuality, but has instead been about something else. And when you do, perhaps you will see that sex workers are no different than you.

Reach into yourself and find the phrase that is the most liberating of all…

“We are not different.”

Here is a poem from the book Working Sex: Sex Workers Write About a Changing Industry, edited by Annie Oakley.

degrade

degradation
is not trading sex for money
but it is exchange
of social security number for food
degradation
is not stripping away minidress
but it is not having curtain
covering me in a public shower
degradation
is not faking orgasms on the phone
but it is faking compliance
with the court order
degradation
is not even being raped on the street
but it is the doctor asking me
“why does it bother you if you fuck
strangers anyway?”

~Emi Koyama

It reminds me, once again, of the pressing need to make our world a more just place for all people.

A friend sent me this and I thought it was funny.

You know her as the DC Madam. You’ve heard about her in the news, about the escort service she ran in Washington, D.C., and about her conviction on April 15th of money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes, and racketeering. On May 1, she committed suicide at her mother’s home in Florida, still pending sentencing.

The internet has been abuzz with speculation and conspiracy theories, mostly because Ms. Palfrey announced on a radio show months ago that she wouldn’t commit suicide. And many bloggers have commented on the disparity between Ms. Palfrey’s conviction and the fact that her “johns” have faced very few consequences.

I’m not much of one to take part in conspiracy theories. I am not really sure how I feel about prostitution, whether it should be legalized, decriminalized, or even whether the sex workers or the johns should be held responsible. It seems to me that all of the “solutions” to prostitution are uneven and unwieldy, at best, and downright unjust at worst.

What I do know is this: I am saddened by the death of Deborah Jeane Palfrey. She wrote in her suicide note to her sister, “You must comprehend there was no way out, I.E. ‘exit strategy,’ for me other than the one I have chosen here.” It really makes me sad that Ms. Palfrey was so hopeless.

In my prayers, I am remembering Ms. Palfrey’s family.

Rest in peace, Deborah Jeane.

I am a Godmother. And I have two of the cutest Goddaughters in the world. I received a report from their mother just this week, about the oldest one, who we’ll call Bright Star, who is nearly 8 years old:

I had a lingerie shower for a cousin. One of the gifts she received was a pair of red patent leather platform sandals with 5-inch heels. Bright Star was awed by the shoes and, of course, needed to try them on immediately!

She was able to dance around and jump in them. Amazing! She asked where you would wear such shoes to which her cousin readily answered “Pole Dancing.” Then the cousin explained what pole dancing is. Bright Star was intrigued by this, and I am sure was considering this as a future career choice (she could be a ballet dancer, a tap dancer, a jazz dancer, or a pole dancer!). Her cousin then told Bright Star that she would have to dance on a stage using the pole, wearing the shoes, but only in her underwear.

Bright Star asked, “Why?” When her cousin told her because if you do this men will stick dollar bills in your panties, Bright Star quickly informed us, “Girls who do that should get WAY more than dollars and should be able to carry a large purse on stage to hold the money in instead of their panties which could never hold enough!”

Mom continued, “You’d would have so been proud!”

I am proud. And she’s right. Women who are exotic dancers should get WAY more dollars than they can carry in their panties!

And on that note, please be sure to keep an eye out here this week for Star Light’s Big Announcement. We’ll be talking about how women who are exotic dancers CAN get WAY more dollars!