Sex worker culture is alive, well, and self-documenting. I’m proud to be a part of this thing we call a movement. In the next week and change there are some totally awesome events happening, expressions of sex workers and the media we’re making. Two here in NYC, one in San Francisco:
SCREENING: “In Our Own Image: Sex Worker Produced Media & The Story of $pread Magazine” 2009, Mandona Productions, 20 minutes
Wed. May 27th @ 7pm
Bluestockings Books, 172 Allen St. (btw Stanton & Rivington) in NY
$5 suggested donation benefits Sex Worker Empowerment Project.
What happens when sex workers become not just the subjects of media gaze, but reporters and publishers of sex trade news? This documentary short looks at $pread Magazine, an example of sex worker-made media, and discusses its aim to change the way media itself approaches sex work. Followed by a panel/discussion on sex worker rights media, movements and legislation.
Panelists:
Andrea Ritchie, esq.: Civil Rights attorney and Director, Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center
Louise Cheung: current Photo Editor of $pread magazine, involved with the magazine for the past 2 1/2 years.
Ignacio Rivera: Queer, gender-shifting, Trans- Entity, Black Boricua performance artist, activist, sex educator and sex worker. Ignacio is founder of Poly Patao Productions and founding board member of Queers for Economic Justice.
Join us at the 6th Annual Conference: HOPE to ACTION
Saturday, May 30, 2009
9am-6pm: Hunter College, 68th St & Lexington Ave
Tables are still available – reserve yours today.
Registration is now open — save cash, register early!
Sex Work Awareness co-founder Audacia Ray will be joined by Speak Up alumna Megan Andelloux and $pread editor Monica Shores in a panel called “Sex Workers, Resistance, and the Media” Our panel is from 10:30 am-noon.
Here is the panel description:
Sex workers are frequently maligned and misrepresented in the mainstream media, where stories are most often about scandals, busts, violence, health and safety risks, exploitation, legislation, and moral judgment. This panel of present and former sex workers who are activists and media makers will address the ways we are represented in mainstream media and what sex workers and their allies can do to challenge and remake the way we are perceived. We will present media projects created by sex workers and discuss challenges encountered in the process of distribution and building an audience for our work. The workshop will conclude with making a short PSA video about how sex workers and allies can work together.
Panelists:
Audacia Ray is a media maker and activist who is passionate about sexual rights, and is the author of Naked on the Internet. Audacia is a former sex worker who was an editor at $pread magazine and co-founded the advocacy and support organization Sex Work Awareness. Dacia has been writing her personal blog, Waking Vixen, since 2004.
Megan Andelloux works as a board certified sexual educator , sexual rights activist and author in the book: We Got Issues! She is the founder of a Sexual Resource Center, located in Providence, RI where she hosts workshops, speakers, and activist events related to sex positive issues.
Monica Shores is Managing Editor of and frequent contributor to $pread magazine. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Nerve.com, The Rumpus, DCist, Popmatters, Alternet, and Make/shift magazine. She also pens a bimonthly column for CarnalNation on sex worker rights.
The Sex Work Awareness PSA “I Am a Sex Worker” is screening in San Francisco at the Sex Worker Film and Art Festival. It’s screening at the Roxie on June 6th at 2 pm with a bunch of other great films. The Roxie is at 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Vel Bekomme (You’re Welcome)
Director/Writer: Carl Eugen Johannessen; Producer: Elin Sander; DOP: Erlend Haarr Eriksson
US Premiere! Short, tender and humorous narrative about a family of Russian immigrants, and how a mother will do what she has to do to feed the family! (Norway, 10 min-2008)
Courtney Trouble in The Burnout
Director/Producers: Carol Leigh AKA Scarlot Harlot, Courtney Trouble
In this video, a ‘day in Courtney’s life’ parallels her journey from phone sex to sexual representation/pornography as well as her political journey, interwoven with sex worker demonstrations, clips and photos from sex worker organizations. This music video reflects a personal and local story, and a political story. Many sex workers find a common voice in Courtney Trouble’s frustration, pride and defiance.
“How soon I got over, waiting alone at home for the telephone. Why do you care…you can’t see me…don’t wanna know me at all but I know you wanna get off.”
Trouble’s frustration evolves into a recognition of her mission to ‘seize the means of production.’
“It’s just like anything else, it’s just a job, but we’ve got the guts to profit off our own skin. They won’t acknowledge us until we own enough to control it. They won’t respect us until we give them no other choice.” (US, 4:30- 2008)
Flipping the Lens: A Look at $pread Magazine
Producer: Sex Workers Empowerment Project (SWEP); Lisa Davis, Kirby, Andrea Ritchie, Will Rockwell, Tania Torres
The mainstream media’s tendency is to gravitate towards sensationalism when covering the sex trade, while simultaneously denying the voices of sex workers themselves. News stories that allow only for victim-criminal portrayals of sex workers help enforce and perpetuate damaging stereotypes. What happens when sex workers become not just the subjects of media gaze, but the authors, reporters, and publishers of sex trade news? This documentary short takes a look at $pread Magazine, one example of sex worker-made media, and discusses its aim to change the way that media itself approaches sex work. (US, 8 min.-2009)
History
Director:Sarah Stolar; Co-produced by GiGi Gatewood
History is an emotional, whirlwind story about the psychological traumas and spiritual triumphs of one girl. Through and experimental mix of digital video, 16mm, and Super 8 film, the images move you through memory and reality, real life and artifice. Arrays of miniature rooms perceptually change the environment and are reminiscent of childhood dollhouses, a time of lost innocence. The story begins in her adolescent years, follows her through the loss of a marriage, isolation, the downward spiral of drug addiction, sexual empowerment and promiscuousness, a battle with mental insanity and suicide, and her ultimate spiritual confrontation – the Devil versus God. At last, she finds serenity and begins to pick up the pieces to start anew, only to realize her life is like a never-ending story in a movie. History premiered at the Reel Venus International Film Festival in New York City in 2004. (US, 5:03 2005)
Whore Power
Director: Robert Johanssen
A super 8 silent about discovering graffiti in an alleyway, orginally part of Mayworks – a festival of working people and/in the arts. (Canada, 3 min-1999)
x + y
Artist: Joseph Kaminski, Kaminski Art Inc.
Videos of painter & sculptor Joseph Kaminski plus X Tube videos of my porn performance persona, Mark Tatman. In presenting these videos together for the first time, I aim to illustrate that male sex workers are multi-dimensional with talents and lives beyond being sex objects. Conversely, I’m happy to show that an artist, amateur musician and simple dog lover is a sensual being, and can express himself through erotic performance. I’m as proud of my contribution to the world of adult entertainment as I am of my painting, sculpture and piano playing. These are all equally valid and rich dimensions of my personality, and in an ideal world, would coexist without negative stigma. (US, 8:09-2009)
Sorry Your Grandma Was Mugged, But I Was Busy Arresting A Hooker
Director: Carol Leigh aka Scarlot Harlot
This is a short video about the trial of Starchild, the ‘Million Dollar Male Escort,’ presents a unique approach to street theater documentation with this protest by Sex Worker Outreach Project-USA starring Robyn Few, Scarlot Harlot, Dee Dee Russell, Peter Keyes and Vanessa Nelson. In the midst of a budget crisis which has caused clogging and early closure of Fremont and Alameda courts,the District Attorney of Alameda chose to prosecute an expensive (million dollar???) case against a famous San Francisco male escort. (US, 6 min. 2008)
I am a Sex Worker
Producer: Sex Work Awareness
New York-based advocacy organization recently implemented its first day-long Speak Up media training workshop, which took place at the Harm Reduction Coalition in mid-April. At the end of the day, the workshop participants made a public service announcement video. Go to http://sexworkawareness.org to learn more about SWA’s media advocacy and public education initiatives. (US, 1 min-2009)
The Face of God
Director: Peter Pizzi; Starring: Ben McCoy
Upon sight of a charming young man, one tranny has a vision of heaven. Walking about littered streets our tragic heroine, Ben McCoy comes face-to-face with illusions and fantasies of grandeur. In an alley this boy-who-looks-like-a-girl spirals through spirituality, narcissism, capitalist consumerist longings and happily getting married; all while dancing before some hot stud. Whether the male voyeur was a student of international law, or just some hot trade – this love is blinding and binding…? The climax leaves her pondering… Was he the face of god or just another frat boy? (US, 7 min-2007)
Sadie Lune at Moma
Writer/Performer: Sadie Lune; Video by Carol Leigh
Sadie Lune presents this first person performance piece “I WANT YOU,” which won 1st Place at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on September 11, 2008. San Francisco artist, Tony Labat invited San Franciscans to participate in this live art event based on the iconic “I Want You” poster. Labat offered one minute at the museum to “seize the voice of authority, to make demands of the public, and to be the finger-pointing Uncle Sam.” Contest winners will be plastered over the city in on posters during election week. Sadie says, I Want You to Vote Yes on Prop K. (US, 1:37-2008)
Sexworkers Do Harm Reduction II
Director: PJ Starr
What is the harm in sex work? Sex workers and allies explain that criminalization and wrong-headed policy approaches are the problem. Sex work is positive, its the policy framework that causes harm. What is „harm reduction‰ for sex workers then? Health services, needle exchange, distribution of condoms, along with fighting against the laws that oppress sex worker communities. These interviews were recorded in May 2008 at the International Harm Reduction Conference in Barcelona Spain. (US, 6 min.-2008)
