Session Abstracts
Monday, July 26th, 2010
Monday 10:15-11:00am Welcome Keynote: Dr. Joycelyn Elders
Monday 11:00-12:30 and 1:45-3:00 Anita Tijerina Revilla, PhD and Surgeon: Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression Workshop
This workshop, scheduled in two parts, is presented by Anita Tijerina Revilla, PhD and Surgeon. The session will develop a
working analysis of systems of oppression, and provide an opportunity for participants to explore the ways that these systems
impact us as individuals and groups. Understanding the ways these systems work together to keep individuals and groups
divided can help us practice accountability socially and while working and organizing. We will focus specifically on the
relationship between sex worker status and race, class and gender not only personally, but as an institutionalized system with
endemic effects. For all those attending this session, remember that this is difficult work. We are all subject to both privileges
and oppressions, and discussion of them can be emotionally triggering. Please come with an open heart and the desire to
create change and progress together.
Monday 3:00pm to 4:30pm Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy
Monday 3:00-3:30 Crystal Jackson and Elizabeth Nanas: Academic Roundtable Welcome
As scholars, we engage in critical research that can help inform and influence public policy and public opinion. This
scholarship is complicated by political, economic, and social positions of researcher and subject. Power and influence are
critical concerns to both scholars and sex workers. Furthermore, scholars have specific material concerns regarding the ways
that we may or may not be supported as scholar-activists especially where tenure concerns arise. Another practical problem
emerges where scholars who are “outsiders” desire to be sex worker rights allies.
With these concerns in mind, we offer introductory and post-conference roundtables. These roundtables will
specifically focus on questions such as: What does an academic ally look like? How can we best engage in an activist
movement respectfully, thoughtfully, and with an eye toward social change? How has our research impacted policies at local,
state, or national levels? How can we best engage in social justice oriented research? How can we help activist movements
strategize and move forward?
The goals of this workshop are to:
1.
Discuss what it means to be an academic ally for a rights movement
2.
Educate each other on the use of research as a tool for social justice
3.
Name concrete ways our research can assist the sex workers’ rights movement
We strongly encourage all academic presenters to attend this workshop and to bring your questions, concerns, and
ideas to the table. We understand that some of us have a long history of activism and others are new to it. This roundtable is
open to all scholars and researchers attending this activist conference.
Monday 3:30-3:40 Emily van der Meulen, Elya Maria Durisin, Jessica Yee, and Kathryn Payne (Maggie’s): Sex Work
and Canadian Policy: From the Feds to small town Ontario
This panel will provide an overview of the ways in which federal and municipal policies in Canada affect people working in the
sex industry. Prostitution is not illegal in Canada, yet the legislation surrounding prostitution-related activities makes it difficult
to work safely and without breaking the law. Canadian sex workers and allies have critiqued federal and municipal sex industry
legislation for increasing violence and decreasing workplace safety. This panel will take a macro to micro look at
criminalization in Canada from the federal level, to the municipal, to the ways in which workers’ are negatively affected.
First, we will present a critique of the four key sections of the federal Criminal Code that prohibit common workrelated activities. Sex workers have identified that the federal Criminal Code increases vulnerability and violence. Specifically,
the bawdyhouse provisions of sections 210 and 211 along with the criminalization of communication in section 213 have direct
adverse consequences on sex workers’ workplace conditions. The procuring legislation of section 212 negatively impacts sex
workers’ relationships with significant others and workplace managers.
Next, we will discuss the overly strenuous and excessive licensing restrictions and bylaws geared towards indoor sex
work in some Canadian municipalities. Since about the 1970s, cities have increasingly created their own rules and regulations
in an attempt to de facto regulate the sale of sexual services. Those who support licensing argue that it will provide sex
workers with some of the social benefits of standard employment. In practice, however, licensing can present challenges to
understanding sex work as a legitimate form of labour.
Last, we will conclude the panel with a discussion of how the combination of the federal and municipal laws create a
policy quagmire in which sex workers receive the short end of the stick. Speaking from personal experiences about the impact
of massage, escort, and dancing licenses, the panellists will argue in favour of decriminalization and the cessation of
excessive licensing schemes. As sex workers and allies, academics and community members, we argue that Canadian
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
policies stigmatize the sex industry, discriminate against sex workers’ basic human and labour rights, obstruct sex work
organizing for improved employment standards, and have harmful and detrimental impacts on sex workers’ safety.
Track B- Activism
Monday 3:00-3:40 Maggie McLetchie and Allen Lichtenstein: Why Sex Worker Rights Matter: An ACLU Perspective
This presentation focuses on the rights of sex workers from a constitutional perspective. The ACLU of Nevada will explore
why the U.S. Constitution should provide sex workers and the sex industry fair treatment under the law, and it will share
organizational insights into how this campaign has been carried forward through legal and legislative action. The presentation
will also address basic rights that all people, including sex workers, should exercise when interacting with law enforcement.
Monday 3:50-4:30 Melissa Sontag and Rachel Grinstein: New York’s “No Condoms As Evidence” Bill: Exploring its
Rationale & Advocacy
Allowing condoms to be used as evidence of prostitution and related acts in New York State has had a detrimental impact on
sex workers’ health and human rights. The “No Condoms as Evidence” Bill, which, at the time of this writing, is in the Senate
and Assembly Codes committees, proposes to amend civil and criminal law. If passed, this bill will increase the ability of
working women and men to carry the tools needed to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV.
Our presentation will focus on this critical piece of legislation, delineating its meaning and purpose, as well as the process that
activists have undergone to get this bill written and supported. Part One of the presentation will focus on the bill itself, its public
health implications, and its limitations. Part Two will summarize the work that gave birth to the bill. Part Three will provide a
cross-city and cross-cultural comparison of the issue. Part Four will inform other activists how they can engage in similar
advocacy.
Part One: Presently, the law allows condoms to be used as evidence in civil and criminal proceedings for prostitution
and related offenses. According to various nonprofits that work with those in the sex industry, as well as workers themselves,
individuals are afraid of carrying even one condom for fear of arrest.
The detrimental public health impact of the status quo will be discussed. In 2007, the City of New York began a public health
campaign to distribute free condoms. Seizing condoms as evidence undermines this effort by the city to support public health
and further marginalizes those who are made vulnerable by criminalization, police abuse, and social stigmatization. Finally, the
limitations of the bill will be addressed. The bill is not likely to alter the rate of arrests and does not take away legal penalties
for engaging in delineated acts – what it will hopefully do is allow workers to feel safer about carrying condoms and allow a
freer exchange between outreach workers and clients. Further, police may still confiscate, puncture, and otherwise destroy
workers’ condoms.
Part Two: The next part of the presentation will discuss the political process which gave birth to the bill’s formulation
and viability. While the bill was created by legislators, activists from the Sex Workers Project (SWP) and other organizations
have become involved in generating awareness and support of the bill. The processes by which they have done this will be
discussed, including reaching out to allies, local schools, and public health groups to conduct research and to write memos of
support to legislators.
Part Three: This Part will include a cross-city and cross-cultural comparison of the issue. Similar political actions
related to condoms as evidence have taken place in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and in England. Relevant laws in other
municipalities may also be examined.
Part Four: The final part of the presentation will discuss the various steps other individuals and organizations can take
to encourage similar legislation to pass. This may include a list of resources to contact and a list of ways to perform outreach
and network with supporters.
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Monday 3:00-4:30 "If it happens in Vegas.. it's still illegal" Desiree Sex Worker Rights Public ART Action
PERFORMERS WANTED! Workshop and Planning Meeting w/ UNLV MFA Laurenn McCubbin and Las Vegas ACLU
lawyer Allen Lichtenstein
Track D- Business Development
Monday 3:00-3:40 Sarah Sloane: A Taste of Leather: Incorporating Kink into your Work
There’s no way around it – kink imagery sells, and sells big. But how can you leverage that appeal into your work when you
don’t feel confident or comfortable with it? Not to worry. Sarah Sloane, a veteran kinkster, will give you an introduction to the
sight, sound, and sensation of kink and how it can work into your work. We will discuss everything from the right attire (which
doesn’t have to cost a fortune), archetypes that you can use in your role play, common (and not so common) fetishes and
fantasies, and getting into the right frame of mind to carry it off with authenticity – and your own personal enjoyment!
Monday 3:40-4:30 JD Obenberger: Legal Issues in Escort Advertising - from the Mann Act to Copyright with Stops at
All Destinations In-between
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Veteran adult entertainment and escort defense attorney J. D. Obenberger will detail the legal advertising issues that confront
escorts, agencies, and publishers in a compelling and practical one-hour presentation. This seminar will cover issues common
to all advertising including copyright, trademark, and the rights of models and releases; It will also discuss the First
Amendment and the extent to which it and Section 230 of the Communications act may protect advertisers and publishers. Mr.
Obenberger will discuss the recent litigation in Chicago involving Craigslist and the Cook County Sheriff as an example of
government failure in trying to subvert freedom of expression.
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Monday 3:00-3:40 Reverend Pam Vessels: “Sex and Spirituality”
I am not a PHD in history or theology but have studied the issue of sex and spirituality and have prepared a presentation that
provides the background of various religious perspectives on sex and spirituality. The sex workers I know have given me keen
insights into their relationship with the creator and how that works in relationship with their personal and professional lives. I
will also be discussing the latest Asian emphasis on integrating the arts of Eastern medicine and spirituality in working with sex
workers in Thailand and Guam. It is my belief that Sex Workers are as a group are an amazing spiritual gathering that have
much to teach the clergy and mom and about how to enhance their relationships to the creator.
Monday 3:40-4:30 Brooke Johnson: Female Sex Workers: A Harm Reduction Strategy Plan
This presentation will give listeners an opportunity to understand the goals and strategy. We propose a three-pronged
intervention strategy of empowerment, education, and support aimed to address the needs the female sex workers and
improve their quality of life.
1) To provide strategies and tips to reduce violence and assault
2) To provide supportive services for sexual, reproductive, Gerald health and referrals for requested drug treatments
and other basic needs.
3) To provides education on STDs, HIV, sexual health, and condom negotiation with client.
We will focus on HIV testing, counseling, and care, as well as programs targeting safer drug use through Safety Counts
groups, outreach for needle exchange and safer drug paraphernalia, and referrals and support for drug treatment centers and
meeting. While past programs in different parts of the world have focused primarily on HIV prevention, our proposed agenda
for sex workers is based on a model of harm reduction that decreases the extensive and overlapping harms affecting this
population. The focus of this workshop will help female street-based and transient population sex workers that are prone to
prevalent poverty and drug-use, including crack cocaine, powdered cocaine, heroin, alcohol, and marijuana. We will try to
decrease harms related to heavy drug use, exposure to HIV and STDs, work-related discrimination, gender-related violence,
and mental health issues related to trauma and abuse.
Monday 5:00pm to 6:30 Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy
Monday 5:00-5:30 Cheryl Auger: Criminalization by another name
My presentation begins with a brief overview of Canada’s current laws and policies on sex work. These include federal laws
that prohibit most acts associated with selling sex through criminal sanctions and municipal by-laws that seek to regulate these
very same practices. I argue Canada’s contradictory and confusing sex work laws and policies contribute to violations of sex
workers’ human rights and harmful stereotypes that contribute to stigma against people in the sex trade. In addition, I suggest
that Canada’s laws and policies tend to reinforce racist and classist structures in Canadian society by targeting people who are
already marginalized because of race, class, gender, and mental and physical health conditions.
The second part of the presentation will consider how New Zealand’s model of decriminalization might be
implemented in the Canadian context. I suggest that New Zealand’s experience with decriminalization offers a number of
lessons for Canada, including the importance of including sex workers and sex workers’ organizations in the policy making
process and the importance of prioritizing sex workers’ health and safety in any attempts at policy reform. In addition, New
Zealand’s experience suggests that decriminalization in Canada could help to promote sex workers’ rights. Though New
Zealand’s model of decriminalization offers a number of lessons for Canada it is also important to note some of the
impediments to this type of policy reform, including Canada’s current conservative political leadership, the role some radical
feminists have played in determining the terms of debate, and Canada’s relationship and proximity to the United States.
Monday 5:30-6:00 Kathleen Bergquist: Victim(less) sex work: Unraveling the Conflation of Sex Work and Human
Trafficking
Since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protect Act (TVPA) a decade ago, increasing attention has been brought to what
is known as Modern Day Slavery. Under the TVPA “severe forms” of trafficking includes labor and sex work induced by force,
fraud, or coercion. Scholars and sex work activists/feminists have challenged the conflation of sex work with human trafficking
embedded in the TVPA and the U.S. Government’s 2002 policy stance that sex work is “inherently harmful and dehumanizing,
and fuels trafficking in persons.” This paper seeks not to argue whether sex work is victimless, but rather what role, if any, the
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
sex and/or adult entertainment industry/community should or could assume in addressing human trafficking within a human
rights framework.
Track B- Activism
Monday 5:00-5:40 William Takahashi: Disability and sex workers (Cross-listed with Track D)
Like all other clients, people with disabilities see sex workers for emotional warmth, pleasure and sensual gratification,
Disabled clients may be needing reassurance of their sensual worth, and help in finding ways to give pleasure to other people.
The disabled have the same desires and needs as everyone else. Erotic Dancers, Escorts, and other Adult Industry
Professionals can provide a service that can dramatically improve the lives of the disabled. Our presentation is intended to be
a guide to help adult industry professionals interact with people with disabilities in the best possible way. I will begin with a
brief discussion about how people with disabilities should be viewed by the adult industry. I will then provide correct
terminology and etiquette, which may be utilized with people who have different disabilities.
Our presentation then covers: The Art of Lap Dancing for disabled customers: During an interview with a dancer, she
said: “When I dance for a guy in a wheelchair, I ask him if he would like to move to a chair or couch. If he is able, we move. If
he needs to remain in his chair, I ask if he minds if I move the wheelchair foot pedals out of the way. Being a nurse, I am able
to do that quickly and efficiently. I ask if he minds if I sit in his lap. Then I dance normally. Even if he is paralyzed and can't feel
a thing, it's still visual, and he still gets to imagine what it feels like.”
Initial contact between escorts and disabled customers: One of the interesting dilemmas that happens for escorts,
and their potential clients who have a speech or hearing problem, is how does the client contact the escort? Normally, clients
would contact the worker by calling them on the phone, but what if the client cannot speak clearly? Or the client cannot hear
the person talking to him/her? There are various solutions to these issues. With the growing use of technology a person can
easily access email, instant messaging or text messaging as a form of initial limited contact; if the worker has a website then
he/she could indicate that disabled clients can email, instant message or text message with basic and/or very specific
information.
Our presentation covers correct sensual etiquette between escorts and disabled customers. We discuss specific
sensual positions that work best with different disabilities. This presentation concludes with a discussion of Spinal Cord Injury
and Sexuality, Catheters and Sexuality, and Ostomies.
Monday 5:00-5:40 Kelli Dorsey: Opportunities to Move Mountains: 2012 HIV/AIDS Conference and the US Antiprostitution Pledge
For the first time since 1990, the International HIV/AIDS Conference will be held in United States in 2012 in Washington, DC.
This poses an extraordinary opportunity for the national sex work organizing and advocacy community to challenge the antiprostitution pledge. The anti-prostitution pledge, a US policy that hurts the international sex work community, can only be
challenged by people in the US. This round table will bring together sex work organizers to discuss the opportunity presenting
itself in 2012 and how we should move forward in organizing to abolish this US policy that adversely affects policies
internationally.
Monday 5:50-6:30 Robin Head: CIA Corruption: Prostitution, Blackmail, and Political Corruption By CIA Agents of the
United States
My name is Robin Head, previous owner of Playboy Escorts in Houston, Texas. I was approached by various law enforcement
agencies, FBI, ATF, etc., who wanted me to abet them in entrapping "state and political officials" having sex so they could
extort, control and blackmail them- not to charge them with misdemeanor prostitution. At the same time, women at my service
were being tricked and trafficked overseas to Bangkok and called me collect from a jail in Vienna.
A madam from Alabama was found hanging in a federal jail cell in nearby Brazoria County. When I refused to abet in
the extortion, I was thrown in jail, no bond, a 'life' sentence filed on me, and then my son and family were harassed and
attacked endlessly in some kind of gang-like mafia-style.
I went to the FBI, but it was like reporting the devil to the witch; they said they would help me but only if I would help
them, again, to set up officials. They had no interest in the corruption aspect. Some very high profile names were involved,
people seen on TV news commentary.
Who are these agents with this monstrous agenda and what do they want? This is not a left/right wing thing it is a
most vicious entity in this country.
This country has become as fearful as any 3rd world country when it comes to reporting crime to officials, just exactly
like in Russia, Iraq, Africa, Mexico, etc., where it is the officials that are the perpetrators of the crimes, kidnapping, ransom,
drugs, and it is dangerous to report to them.
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Monday 5:00-6:30 Film Screenings
Track D- Business Development
Monday 5:00-5:40 Al: Keeping out of Harm's Way: Sex Work and the Law (Cross-listed with Track E)
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
This presentation will focus on the American laws that impact sex workers, especially escorts and others who are potentially
vulnerable to prostitution and related charges. It will review the basic elements of the laws, their state-by-state variations
(excepting the unique situation in Nevada), and the legal process and how to be prepared for it. Federal and immigration laws
pertaining to sex work will also be summarized. The presentation will include discussion of the implications and potential
consequences of particular circumstances common to prostitution cases, such as accepting credit card payments, maintaining
client lists and the wording used in internet and other advertisements. Finally, I will address some common or current sex
worker questions and concerns.
Monday 5:00-5:40 William Takahashi: Disability and sex workers (Cross-listed with Track B)
Monday 5:50-6:30 Amanda Brooks, Furry Girl, Brooke Magnanti, Alex Sotirov Panel: Safety for Sex Workers through
Personal Privacy: Digital and Real-World Techniques for Safeguarding Your Identity and Your Life (Cross-listed with
Track E)
From pornographer/web model Furry Girl: As someone who's a model and a small business owner, I'd like to point out the
potential identity breaches rooted in the United State's federal 2257 laws. I'm not a lawyer - so my focus is explaining from an
indie pornographer's sex worker's perspective how 2257 laws put everyone in a bad place and work to stifle free sexual
expression online.
From author and escort Amanda Brooks: Offline privacy and money management. I will offer simple, legal methods
of disassociating your real name/home address from your work name. It can also be important to keep your real name and
actual place of residence separate from one another. Learn which prepaid card can be used for registering domain names, do
business banking without opening a business account, and discreetly move your earnings across state and
international borders.
From author and former escort Dr Brooke Magnanti (aka Belle de Jour): My contribution will be focusing on
maintaining privacy in traditional media - how to publish anonymously, sign contracts, and give interviews without
compromising anonymity. It will discuss using limited liability companies to your advantage and managing profits to minimize
tax burden.
Professional hacker Alex Sotirov will be covering online/digital privacy, with a focus on how your activities can be
tracked online and what steps you can take to try and maintain as much anonymity as possible on the net.
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Monday 5:00-5:40 Al: Keeping out of Harm's Way (Cross-listed with Track D)
Monday 5:40-6:10 Sarah Sloane- Rebirthing Our Joy: Healthy and Happy Sex Lives for Sexual Trauma Survivors
Often, those of us who are survivors of sexual trauma of all types feel challenged in our expression of our sexuality. Between
the aftereffects of the trauma, the feelings of uncertainty, and the fears of doing something that will hurt us, we can get locked
into patterns of behavior that stifle our sexual selves, rather than enhance them. We welcome you to the safe space of this
workshop, along with partners and supporters of trauma survivors, to talk about techniques to enhance our sense of self, our
communication with lovers and play partners, our ability to stay centered and grounded, and to evaluate the potential land
mines and create action plans for handling issues as they come up in a conscious, loving, and esteem-building way. Please
note that this class is limited only to survivors of trauma and their partners / supporters, and that to protect safe space, the
doors will be closed to late attendees at ten minutes after the start of class.
Monday 5:50-6:30 Amanda Brooks, Furry Girl, Brooke Magnanti, Alex Sotirov Panel: Safety for Sex Workers through
Personal Privacy: Digital and Real-World Techniques for Safeguarding Your Identity and Your Life (cross-listed with
Track D)
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
10:15am-11:00am Breakfast Keynote: Deon Haywood and Women with a Vision, New Orleans
Tuesday 11:45am to 1:30 Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy
Tuesday 11:45-12:10 Vegan Vixen: Violence and Prostitution Policies: Comparing Legalized, Criminalized, and
Decriminalized Systems of Prostitution (cross-listed with Track B)
Whether prostitution should be criminalized, legalized, or decriminalized is a major topic of debate on a global level. At the
center of this debate is the issue of violence against sex workers in prostitution. Though violence is not the only issue
addressed in debates about the legal status of prostitution, proponents on different sides of the debate use the issue of
violence to argue for their positions. Comparing secondary data from studies of a legalized (U.K), decriminalized (New
Zealand), and criminalized system (Miami, Florida-U.S.A. ) system of prostitution, Vegan Vixen explored how the legal status
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
of prostitution affects levels of violence. The secondary data Vegan Vixen analyzed came from comparable quantitative
studies, in which sex workers reported whether they experienced violence in prostitution within specified time frames and if so,
the types of violence they experienced. Vegan Vixen will share her main findings as well as the limitations of this research.
She will address the public policy implications of her findings, gaps in existing research about violence against sex workers,
and suggest possibilities for future research about how the legal status of prostitution affects levels of violence.
Tuesday 12:35- 1:00 Tamara O’Doherty: Victimization in the off-street sex industry in Vancouver, BC
This presentation reports the author's findings from an academic research project that explored women’s experiences working
in off-street prostitution venues in Vancouver, BC. The victimization experienced by street-based sex workers has led many
people to conclude that prostitution is inherently dangerous. However, since street-based workers form the minority of sex
workers in Canada, it remains to be seen if their experiences can be generalized to other types of prostitution. Consequently,
this thesis examines whether female off-street sex workers face the same degree of victimization as female street-based sex
workers, and asks if the experience of prostitution always entails violence. The research contained two components: a) a
victimization survey examining interpersonal violence and other forms of victimization of off-street sex workers (n=39); and b)
in-depth interviews with ten off-street sex workers exploring their working conditions, safety, stereotypes of prostitution, and
law reform (n=10). While violence and exploitation do occur in the off-street industry, this study indicates that some women sell
sex without experiencing any violence.
Tuesday 1:00-1:30 Joelle Ryan: Violence against transgender sex workers: Dimensions of Oppression, Agency and
Resistance
We live in what bell hooks terms a “white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” These interlocking systems of domination function
to oppress and marginalize many groups in society, including people of color, women, the poor, transgender people and sex
workers. In this paper, I aim to examine the position of transgender sex workers with a particular focus on the ways in which
trans, sex-working bodies are treated by the media, by law enforcement, by dominant society and by members of supposedly
progressive social justice groups. Using an intersectional framework, I aim to examine how race, class, nation and transgender
collide in the lives of sex workers and their fight for dignity and civil rights.
In order to theorize the experiences of transgender sex workers, I will utilize Iris Young’s work on “the five faces of
oppression.” As she defines them, these five faces are: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and
violence. In order to theorize the position of trans sex workers in society, I will discuss the transgender sex worker vis-à-vis
these five concepts. I will focus particular attention on violence and how systemic use of violence against trans people and sex
workers furthers the systems of domination under patriarchy and how it functions to continually create and recreate hierarchies
of worth for human life and to collaborate with state-sanctioned institutions that oppress and degrade particular bodies that are
marked as “other.”
In addition to discussing oppression, this paper will discuss activism, agency, resistance and social change. In
academia, trans folks and sex workers are often theorized as victims of oppressive circumstances. While oppression is real,
this does not diminish the multiple ways that sex workers, transgender people and their allies have fought back against
pervasive discrimination and violence. (For instance, The Transgender Day of Remembrance and the International Day to End
Violence Against Sex Workers.) These events have raised awareness and called attention to systemic violence against trans
and sex working communities in the U.S. and internationally. However, depending on the individual event, they may not
operationalize an intersectional approach and develop alliances between diverse social justice movements. In particular, I will
offer a critique of segments of the mainstream transgender/GLBT movement, which have failed to address systemic racism
and classism, and have rendered sex workers invisible due to replicating dominant stigma, erotophobia and cultural taboo as
well as internalized oppression and notions of “good” trans subjectivities. I will proffer that GLBT movements have taken a “top
down” approach rather than a “Flood-Up” approach as developed by radical social justice organizing groups like FIERCE! In
New York City.
My goal with this paper is to provide a basic understanding of the ways in which trans sex workers are oppressed by
dominant society in order to highlight how this oppression is consistent with the perpetuation of white-supremacist capitalist
patriarchy. In addition, I would like to highlight how sex worker and trans communities have responded to violence, and how
they have sometimes faltered in this work. Finally, I would like to make some suggestions for strengthening our social justice
work through promoting intersectional and coalitional work, questioning movement priorities and breaking down culturally
imposed barriers to collective liberation.
Track B- Activism
Tuesday 11:45-12:10 Vegan Vixen: Violence and Prostitution Policies (cross-listed with Track A)
Tuesday 11:45-12:40 Kelli Dorsey: A Broader Look Policing: Connecting with other Movements
Women involved in sexual exchange are deeply affected by the nationwide trend of increased policing. Campaigns are
underway in San Francisco, New York and Washington DC to address the issues raised by increased policing within sex
working communities. However, we are not the only community suffering from the increased institutional hostility found both in
policy and practice. In Washington, DC and nationally, communities of color are disproportionately affected by the prison
industrial complex. The same increased penalties that are hurting sex workers in DC are also devastating youth of color, men
of color, transgender people of color, immigrant communities, and many other oppressed groups of people. People living at
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
the intersections of these communities face even more intense discrimination. In this common suffering, we must reach out
and find common ground and common demands for change. In building allied movements, we all become stronger. This
session will discuss what movements are ripe with potential for building allies and provide an opportunity to brainstorm on
effective approaches to bridging differences and building effective responses to policing.
Tuesday 12:45-1:30 Susan Miranda: Building Bridges Between the Professions: A conversation about working with
Sex
Prostitutes, Sex Workers, Dancers, Massage Therapists, Bodyworkers, Sexological Bodyworkers, Somatic Practitioners,
Healers, Nurses, Doctors, Healing Touch Practitioners, Partner Surrogates, Sexual Surrogates, Caregivers, Hospice Workers,
Sex Therapist, Life Coaches, Sex Coaches, Body Coaches, Somatic Coaches, Counselors, Tantra Facilitators, Sacred
Intimates:
Who uses touch and who does not? What kinds of touch get used by the above professionals? What do we all have in
common? How can we support our colleagues who do similar work to what we do? What are the politics involved? What do
we agree with and what do we disagree with that our colleagues do? How does our working together benefit us all? What
scares us about doing that?
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Tuesday 11:45-1:30 Kirk Read: All Level Performance Workshop- Your Body is the Mountain, Your Stories are the
Gold
It's widely accepted that sex workers have the best stories. How many times do our clients ask us questions, hoping we'll tell
our "Weirdest Client Ever" story or the "How I Started" story? Whether we realize it or not, over the years, we have practiced
telling these stories. We've learned what parts are funny to others, what parts are sad, what parts are confusing. Facilitated by
writer and performance artist Kirk Read, this workshop will be a fully interactive experience. We will unearth some of our sex
work stories and we'll work with them as raw materials for performing. We'll use different approaches: writing, sharing in pairs
and small groups. We'll practice using our bodies in storytelling through movement. This will be a space for all people, and any
sharing will be done on your terms. Even if you have no desire to perform, this workshop will help you think about crafting your
stories in daily life.
Track D- Business Development
Tuesday 11:45-12:40 Sarah Sloane and Marcus Panel: SMART Sex Work: Business Success in Under an Hour
It takes more than a nice pair of panties and a pretty smile to be successful (although that’s part of it). Think of this as your
very own personal toolbox of sorts to get you started on the right path to success! If you’re thinking about a career in the sex
industry it is important to start with a plan. Like any successful business venture you need a plan. A basic checklist of things
that should be in place prior to your entry or even things you can implement now to have a more sustainable a safe business.
This is for those new to the industry or even seasoned pros who need some direction.
Notable Tips and Tricks that will be covered:

Business skills to increase safety

Self-care and time management

Ensuring your privacy

Money management and budgeting

Taxes
Tuesday 12:45-1:30 Kimberlee Cline: Keeping It Real: Coming Out To Your Loved Ones About Sex Work
This workshop is for those who have or are considering coming out to their friends and family about being a sex worker. This
workshop is not a debate about whether to come out or not as much as a trouble-shooting workshop to help navigate the
coming out process, including evaluating risk. The information presented and provided will be based on my personal,
professional and academic experiences as somebody who is honest about being a sex worker with friends, family and
colleagues. Why make your own mistakes when you can learn from mine? This will include anecdotal statements and
interviews with friends and family members about how my coming out has affected them. We will pay special attention to
coming out strategies that include using our roles as activists, advocates and academic allies to initiate the coming out
process. Some of the aims of this workshop are to provide practical advice and confidence-building information for sex
workers and the people whom they need to come out to, identify the unique needs of sex workers who’ve come out and to
create a network of support for sex worker activists who’ve come out. I welcome participation and sharing from other sex
workers who have their own coming out stories and I hope that this workshop will feed into future projects for sex workers and
their loved ones.
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Tuesday 11:45am-12:15 Tina Wolf and Lorena Borjas-The Birth of ‘TransLatina’: An Assessment of Need Among
Undocumented Transgender Sex Workers
The authors will describe the difficulties in funding harm reduction programs specifically geared toward sex workers. Based on
their experiences at AIDS Center of Queens County, they will discuss both the struggles and successes that can come from
situating a transgender sex worker support group within an existing harm reduction-based program. They will explain the
existing programmatic funding, how the group was developed within this framework, and the ways in which both membership
and funding opportunities continue to expand one year later. Despite the achievements made, many basic needs among
undocumented Latina Transgender Sex Workers persist. Finally, the authors will introduce suggestions for systematic changes
that should be made to address these needs.
Tuesday 12:15-12:45 Silke Haller & Lyne Genereux: Beyond Harm Reduction: Integrating a Drug User’s Rights
Perspective into the Sex Worker’s Rights Movement
Many organizations and individuals working to improve the well-being of sex workers have recognized that in order to advance
our social and legal standing, we need to move beyond reducing the potential harms associated with sex work to promoting
and actualizing sex workers’ rights. However, when it comes to addressing the issue of substance use and the needs of
substance users, sex workers’ organizations typically limit themselves to a harm reduction philosophy and overlook the
importance of a users’ rights framework. In doing so, organizations can miss an opportunity to advance social justice for their
constituents who are also users. They also risk marginalizing substance-using sex workers within their own organizations by
inadvertently relegating them to the status of “service-user” over advocate/activist. A rights-based perspective would also help
overcome the common practice of non-using sex workers (including activists) validating sex work by disconnecting it from
substance use in a non-critical manner that typically serves to further stigmatize users. The proposed presentation will draw
parallels between the oppressions experienced by both sex workers and users and explore opportunities for shared or
integrated resistance and organizing.
Tuesday 12:45-1:15 S. Outlaw & E. Smith: Connecting for Sex Work Peer Education: A Combined Approach to
Working with Substance use in Different Sex Working
This workshop will: 1) provide training in the effect of the use of drugs (hallucinogens, heroin, PCP, crack cocaine) on HIV risk
in sex working communities. Participants will learn the form in which drugs are taken, what they do and how this affects sex
workers.
2) Illustrate the limits to focusing on drug use in isolation when dealing with sex work peer education for HIV prevention.
Participants will learn about intersecting and related factors such as the effect of stigma, the effect of violence (such as sexual
assault) and marginalization from peer support amongst groups such as young trans women.
3) Field workers such as health advocates and peer educators will learn a variety of concrete strategies for outreach to trans
and female sex working communities, including communities of color, that will implement the combined peer education
approach.
Format: This workshop will utilize grassroots education strategies that mix a variety of presentation formats. Each
presenter will provide an element of work. One will present an overview of drug use information, another will speak to stigma,
the effect of violence and marginalization. The workshop will also include interactive and creative elements.
Materials: Interactive exercises modified from the National Sex Worker Leadership training curriculum will engage
participants via creative interactions and trial program modeling. Participants will be able to design a combined outreach
program that addresses issues in their communities (all communities have specific features) and leave with a plan for change
to take back to their organizations.
2:00 to 2:45 Lunch Keynote: Kirk Read
Tuesday 3:00pm to 4:30pm Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy
Tuesday 3:00-3:25 Amanda Brooks: Police Treatment of Arrested Sex Workers and the law
Police are given the freedom to interpret and enforce prostitution laws as they see fit, which affects the daily lives of sex
workers more than the actual laws themselves. In the partially-legal countries of England, Singapore and Hong Kong
(technically not a country), and the fully-criminalized US, I will show that police treatment of arrested sex workers is not
reflective of prostitution laws but instead reflects local police culture, effectiveness of police oversight and general local attitude
toward sex workers themselves. The obvious solution to changing police treatment of arrested sex workers is more direct
outreach and education with local police as well as actively engaging local police oversight resources, regardless of the actual
laws regulating prostitution.
Tuesday 3:25-3:50 Christine Milrod: The Internet Hobbyist: Demographics and Sexual Behaviors of Male Clients of
Internet Sexual Service Providers
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
The purpose of this survey conducted during October 2009 was to examine the demographics, sexual behaviors and attitudes
toward sex work in a nationwide sample of men who locate and contract with non-transgendered female Internet Sexual
Service Providers (ISSP) through posting and reading reviews on The Erotic Review.com. Participants were solicited through
invitational messages posted on the regional and national discussion boards of the site. Over 550 men completed a 104-item
online questionnaire which identified demographic information, sexual preferences enacted with sex workers in general and
with ISSP in particular, as well as attitudes toward sex work and beliefs concerning sex workers. Results showed that
participants had a preference for ISSP who offer the girlfriend experience (GFE) over all other behaviors. Penile-vaginal coitus
with condom was the most preferred sex act with ISSP. There was a positive correlation between the degree of emotional
attachment to an ATF (all-time favorite) provider and additional money and/or material goods given to her beyond the
contracted fee for sexual services. There was also a weak but positive correlation between rape myth acceptance (RMA) and
preference for the GFE. The study contributes to the understanding of a rapidly emerging segment of men who use the
Internet to solicit independently operating indoor sex workers.
Tuesday 3:50-4:30 Rachel Schreiber: “Before Their Makers and Their Judges: Prostitutes and White Slaves in the
Political Cartoons of the Masses” (Cross-listed with track C)
This presentation looks at representations of prostitution from early twentieth century American print culture in order to
demonstrate that socialists, communists, and other radicals understood prostitution to signify the intersections of gender and
class inequities faced by working-class women. This position stands in stark contrast to the mainstream view, put forward
primarily by “Social Reformers,” who believed an increase in prostitution to be the downfall of female purity.
From about 1900 until U.S. entry into World War I, prostitution held a central symbolic place in the minds of
Americans, and various Progressives and Reformers set their sights on combating this social ill. The moral panic over
prostitution brought to the fore questions about the sexual double standard, women’s desire to achieve economic
independence via a living wage, and the ways in which women’s desire for increased geographic mobility challenged
bourgeois notions of ideal womanhood. Numerous representations of prostitution in films, fiction, legislation, and other sources
of this period depict the virtue of single women in the city as gravely imperiled. Historians have mostly assumed that this
simplistic view of prostitution held sway. But the visual culture of the radical press, in particular political cartoons published in
the socialist journal the Masses offer a different voice. These images demonstrate a backlash against this dominant position
and clearly present a point of view more sympathetic to single urban working-class women who turned to prostitution, and an
understanding that sexual mores were changing.
The Masses, a journal noted for the high quality of its visuals, included among its editors a number of the artists who
would go on to form the Ashcan School of American art, a movement whose innovative contribution was its focus on everyday
urban life. John Sloan in particular, an artist whose paintings, drawings, etchings and lithographs often focused on workingclass women and prostitutes, made a number of editorial cartoons on the subject of prostitution for the Masses. A close
reading of the cartoons in the Masses in comparison with other contemporary images reveals a nuanced perspective on
prostitution.
By the mid-1910s, the prostitute as symbol for fallen women could no longer maintain the central focus of a new
sexual era, try as the reform movement might to keep her image alive. The anxieties that single women living in the city raised
in the minds of those who attempted to continue ideals of bourgeois womanhood would no longer be sustained by the working
women themselves who were their objects of scrutiny. In the face of women’s insistence on their own sexual agency, the
plethora of cultural productions warning of the ills of prostitution and white slavery might then be read not as evidence of
prostitution’s predominance, but rather as evidence that raising its specter could no longer deter women from leading
independent sexual lives.
Track B- Activism
Tuesday 4:00-4:30 Gordon Nyabade: GO Fishnet Initiatives Towards Sex Workers In Kenya (Cross-listed with Track E)
Background: Over 2 million people depend on Lake Victoria through fisheries and fish-trade. HIV/AIDS prevalence around
Lake Victoria has reached an alarming rate as sex-workers actively participate in sex-money exchange on a daily basis.
Objectives: The paper therefore will explore the spread of HIV/AIDS which has resulted due to a number of socioeconomic issues: prostitution, the men and women who solicit them, and the seldom use of condoms and other
contraceptives. The study is based on the fact that fisherfolk are known to migrate in search of productive fishing grounds.
This nomadic way of life has positively and economically led the springing up of satellite towns around Lake Victoria. Others
include behavioral pattern and way of living based on cultures and traditions (such as wife inheritance) making the entire
society “high risk” for AIDS. Also a factor to consider is widest spread of AIDS through prostitution and the concerted efforts
being made to solve these problems by different stakeholders.
Methods: The secondary issues of the Lake Victoria fisherfolk communities’ economy- which has reached an
alarming rate, job security as a catalyst spread of AIDS, migration patterns, inadequate health care and homelessness.
Results: The population of fisherfolk among whom HIV/AIDs was first identified in epidemic form has until recently
been overlooked with the dire consequence that they have been left largely beyond the reach of prevention, treatment and
mitigation programmes. The reality is that HIV/AIDS is more than just a health problem; it is also a threat to sustainable rural
development. Need to have mobile beach banks, mobile healthcare facilities and radio programmes for Fisherfolks.
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Tuesday 3:00-4:30 Film Screenings
Tuesday 3:50-4:30 Rachel Schreiber: “Before Their Makers and Their Judges: Prostitutes and White Slaves in the
Political Cartoons of the Masses” (Cross-listed with track A)
Track D- Business Development
Tuesday 3:00-3:40 Erik Peterson Analytics, LLC: Personal Finance for Adult Industry Professionals
Personal Finance for Adult Industry Professionals will cover many topics including:
-Financial Planning and Budgeting
-Impacts of Lifestyle on Financial Independence
-Smart Spending
-Saving Strategies
-Uses & Pitfalls of Financial Services (banks, credit cards, etc)
-Spending on Large-Ticket Items (cars and homes)
-Appreciating Assets vs. Depreciating Assets
-Hidden Costs (taxes, fees & insurance)
-Common Sales Tricks
-Investing Strategies
-Setting Goals
-Active vs Passive Investing
-Asset Diversification (stocks vs bonds, international vs domestic)
-Fees and Returns
-Advisor Selection
-Common Pitfalls
Tuesday 3:50-4:30 Sarah Sloane: Burnt and Jaded: When the Passion Isn’t Passionate Anymore
We sometimes look up from our day-to-day lives and think “Wait – this used to feel good!” Our home lives (and loves) don’t
have the energy and “sizzle” that they used to, and we feel drained and uninspired – which then creeps over into our work
lives and affects us negatively there, too – and the spiral just keeps continuing. Is this an inevitable phase that we all go
through as sex workers? Is this why we don’t feel that “zing” when we want enjoy the pleasure that our bodies can give us? It
doesn’t have to be. Let’s explore the many reasons that we may be feeling less fulfilled in our sexuality than we used to be,
and let’s talk about the ways to bring the joy and fire back into what we do.
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Tuesday 3:00-3:30 Jessica Castellano and Karen Zorn: Needs Assessment of Sex Workers in Albuquerque: A
multidisciplinary Community Based Participatory Approach
Sex workers, who include female street-based prostitutes, escorts, erotic dancers as well as male and transgender sexworkers that exchange money for a sexual or erotic act, face numerous barriers to utilization of both mainstream and
specialized health care services. In addition, legal liability and social stigmatization have extensive repercussions on the
health and safety of sex workers. In Albuquerque, NM, the health care needs of sex workers and the health care structure that
would best serve this vulnerable population are poorly understood and have not been rigorously studied. Informal
investigations via interviews with area healthcare providers and outreach organizations suggest there is a large unmet need.
This research aims to establish a clear picture of the health care needs and suitable methods for delivery of service to this
specific population. It will follow the Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) model and establish a Community
Advisory Panel (CAP) made up sex workers, health care providers and representatives of outreach organizations. Members of
the CAP will be recruited through contacts and referrals from various health care professionals and outreach organizations.
The CAP will then design a survey instrument and strategy for a needs assessment. As the actual interviews are conducted in
the community, the CAP will interpret the survey results and develop a plan to meet those needs.
Tuesday 3:30-4:00 Fidel Figueroa: The Male Mystique
This presentation will identify and address the gaps in providing outreach, support and interventions to male sex workers. This
presentation will identify the different language and outreach strategies that are specific to the male sex workers. Traditional
interventions are usually targeted towards women and the msm population. These interventions are standard and have proven
their efficacy. In my own experience with working in the sex industry, I will address the gaps in the traditional model, and what
interventions have worked with this population. Male sex work, in a harm reduction model, is a new concept, the issue of
identifying who you have sex with is taboo. I hope to create a dialogue on individual experiences with outreach, clinical and
frontline staff. What are the barriers to providing and creating an effective intervention? Barriers found were: illegality of
prostitution, education, cultural competence, language, discrimination on race, religion, color, sex, gender …, police and public
health authorities, homeliness, desperation and poverty, drug addiction and lack of resources.
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Tuesday 4:00-4:30 Gordon Nyabade: Go Fishnet Initiatives Towards Sex Workers in Kenya (Cross-listed with Track B)
Tuesday 5:00pm to 6:30 Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy
Tuesday 5:00-5:30 Joyce Arthur: Violating sex workers (Cross-listed with Track E)
Prostitution is one of the most extensively regulated areas of female sexuality, and the legal approach to controlling the sex
industry is a frequent topic of global debate. In Canada, prostitution itself is legal, but nearly every action related to selling
sexual services is criminally prohibited. There is agreement across Canada that current criminal provisions are unsatisfactory;
the debate lies in determining how to best manage commercial sexual activity between adults. This presentation reviews the
history of Canadian legislation and enforcement around prostitution, with a focus on Vancouver, British Columbia. Drawing on
the work of several Canadian studies and reports, evidence is presented to identify ways that the criminal prohibition of
prostitution harms sex workers. Sex workers are entitled to the same legal protections and benefits as other citizens, but to
realize these essential human rights, consensual, adult prostitution must be removed from the realm of the criminal law. The
presentation will also discuss strategies of the sex worker community and its allies to decriminalize prostitution in Canada,
including two current court challenges that seek to overturn the laws as unconstitutional because they violate the human rights
of sex workers.
Tuesday 5:30-6:00 Jill McCracken: Violence and policy: What Street Sex Workers Can Teach Us about Language and
Change (Cross-listed with Track E)
This presentation aims to not only address governmental violence (police, military, and other government officials) that occurs
against sex workers, but that of civilian violence that goes unreported and/or is not prosecuted. Drawing on approximately 20
interviews with street workers and an additional 20 interviews with public figures (police officers, social service agents,
neighborhood association leaders, and activists), I offer specific examples of how this violence is understood while offering
suggestions for how we can reframe our language and our policy recommendations in order to enact concrete change.
My research is based on an ethnographic, interview study grounded in rhetorical analysis of the language used by my
participants in order to offer suggestions for how this language influences perspectives about street sex work and street sex
workers. I draw on Barry Brummett’s analysis in Rhetorical Dimensions of Popular Culture where he defines quotidian rhetoric
as:
“the public and personal meanings that affect everyday, even minute-to-minute public decisions. This level of rhetoric
is where decisions are guided that do not take the form of peak crises […] but do involve long-term concerns as well
as the momentary choices that people must make to get through the day. […] People are constantly surrounded by
signs that influence them, or signs that they use to influence others, in ongoing, mundane, and nonexigent yet
important ways” (41).
I draw on this concept in order to better illustrate how “ongoing, mundane, and nonexigent” conversations and attitudes can
influence people in extremely important ways—especially as they relate to attitudes about, performances of, and reactions to
violence. By better understanding these language choices and their influence on public perceptions and policy, we can work to
use different language, and thereby shift the focus of the conversations to better represent sex-worker experiences and enact
personal and policy changes.
Tuesday 6:00-6:30 Cheryl Radeloff: Having a seat at the table: Matching Health District’s Mission with Sex Worker
Needs (Cross-listed with Track E)
Since its inception in the 1960s, the Southern Nevada Health District has been actively involved in addressing sexually
transmitted communicable infections in our community. Southern Nevada, particularly Las Vegas (or as it is known as its
media bestowed title of “Sin City”), presents a unique legal, social, economic, as well as political context for public health
entities addressing the sexual health needs of its visitors and residents. Sex work, and prostitution in particular, is synonymous
with Las Vegas, yet barriers may exist that prevent sex workers from utilizing public health amenities. For example, Nevada
statutes and administrative code detail STD testing requirements for legal and non-legal workers. While the Southern Nevada
Health District collaborates with criminal justice entities in STD testing and treatment for at-risk and infected populations, the
mandated mission of public health is separate and distinct from that of law enforcement. Yet, public health may be perceived
as the “sex police”. In addition, sex workers may have experienced stigma from health professionals and may not disclose
personal and occupational risk to public health representatives. Public health organizations, as grant funded and bureaucratic
organizations, may face structural and contextual barriers that limit their ability to address sex workers’ specific needs. This
presentation will not only explore the mission and scope of public health efforts toward sexually transmitted disease in
Southern Nevada and specifically within this population, but also suggest areas for continued dialogue and innovation. Some
of the recommendations for addressing sex workers’ needs include the development of further educational and outreach
efforts, advocacy of changes to existing public policy regarding new and innovative STD screening techniques, and
encouraging sex worker involvement in public health community planning processes.
Track B- Activism
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Tuesday 5:00-5:40 Cristine Sardina: Wanted: 1 Criminal: Effective Grassroots Organizing for Disenfranchised
Populations
This workshop will be an interactive discussion on how to empower yourself in the face of politicized rejection,
disenfranchisement, and criminal status. The women of the Women’s ReEntry Network-WREN in Tucson, Arizona have used
effective grassroots organizing and mobilizing from the resistive stance of criminal since 2004. WREN has successfully
challenged systems of oppression that bring back the voices of the least heard but the most affected. WREN has worked
tirelessly to reform basic human rights in areas of labor, housing, criminal (in)justice reforms, collateral consequences, and
civil rights restorations for the women in and out of Arizona’s penal institutions.
Part I: How to be an Activist
1. Explanation of organizing from a depoliticized stance. 2. Necessary tools to advocate successfully 3. Networking- why is
this important? 4. A Force to be Reckoned With: Prepared readiness for political or social activism- how to become legitimized
or, “Please Don’t Dismiss Me”.
Part II: Interactive Participation with Conference Attendees
This last half of the presentation will include workshop attendees, breaking off in regional groups to discuss what changes
would be made if effective activism could be formed in their specified regions. 1. What changes would you like to see made in
your area? 2. What methods would you take to change ineffective systems of oppression? 3. Who would you involve to
legitimize your cause?
Tuesday 5:50-6:30 Judy Guerin and Dick Cunningham: Developing Effective Issue Advocacy Campaigns
• Building alliances with the kink community (BDSM, poly, swing, pagan, etc.) and legal/policy issues of common interest
• Developing effective issue advocacy campaigns (understanding self-interests and building coalitions, as well as how to
approach governmental decision makers and the pros and cons of various tactics—i.e. picketing, civil disobedience, etc.) We
would want someone very involved in the sex worker movement who has actively worked on a real campaign (such as Carol
Leigh, who we worked with on the San Francisco ballot initiative to decriminalize prostitution)
• Working to build stronger alliances amongst sex workers—dancers, porn workers, prostitutes, pro dommes and everyone
else
• How all of those other antiquated sex laws (other than prostitution laws) come into play and why sex workers should work to
get rid of all antiquated sex laws. This would include a recap of many of the antiquated sex laws throughout the U.S.
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Tuesday 5:00-6:30 Storytelling with Stephen Elliot
This writing workshop with Stephen Elliot will be gearing participants to focus on the written word and developing written
memoir pieces which will be shared at the open mic performance on Tuesday evening of the conference.
Track D- Business Development
Tuesday 5:00-5:40 Furry Girl: "Solo Girl": An Introduction to Operating Your Own Porn Site
A "solo girl" site is adult webmaster terminology for a site that features content primarily of one model/performer, and tends to
be focused on nudes, masturbation, and/or fetish content. Furry Girl has been operating her own solo girl site, FurryGirl.com,
since January of 2003, and has also expanded into running a small online store and three other niche porn sites. Unlike most
solo girl or amateur sites that purport to be run by the model they feature, but are actually run by the woman's
husband/boyfriend or a company, FurryGirl.com has been mostly solo adventure. Furry Girl will walk you through the basics of
why you might want to run a solo girl site, some legal and business issues to be aware of, privacy concerns, deciding on your
online niche/persona, needed equipment and computer gear, why you need to know how to run everything by yourself, content
production and editing- including shooting your own photos, building a navigable adult site, billing, promotion, viewer
interaction, managing an affiliate program, and networking with other adult webmasters. (Since she's not a man or a trans
person and doesn't have personal experience running queer/male/trans solo sites, the focus of Furry Girl's presentation and its
language is on women, but most of the information is applicable to other genders as well.)
Tuesday 5:50-6:30 Danielle dv8 & Vegan Vixen: Phone and Cam Sex for Profit! or Lights, Web Cam, Action!
Ever wanted to make money from the safety and security of your own home while still getting yourself off? This class is
designed to give you all the information you need to start your own business as a phone sex operator taught by an
experienced and successful sex worker. This class is invaluable and will save you a great deal of time and energy. How to get
started, branding, marketing, camera angles, lighting, toys, working with male/female/trans partners, techniques, and so much
more.
If you are a live Internet entertainer, considering doing webcam, or somebody who is just curious, then this is the
workshop for you! Vegan Vixen has been a webcam entertainer since 2002, and is thrilled to share insights she has gained
through her experience working for different webcam sites with various working conditions. She has experienced the ups and
downs of doing live webcam. The freedom to set her own rates and work her own schedule, respectful clients, creativity,
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
variety, and providing pleasure are what she likes most about being a webcam entertainer. Disrespectful clients, companies
and individuals who try to rip off entertainers and the technical problems that sometimes occur are what she likes least.
Live Internet is a vast, dynamic, and constantly evolving field. The workshop will address the following topics:
·
Creative webcam entertaining techniques
·
Working at home vs. working in a studio
·
Free chat vs. pay-per-view
·
Working independently vs. working for a company
·
Different types of webcam sites
·
Building a clientele
·
Price setting (per minute or per blocks of time)
·
Safety and privacy issues
·
Props
·
Doing webcam with or without audio
Tuesday 5:00-6:30 Lee Harington: On Their Knees: Tools for Professional Erotic Dominance
So you've decided that you want to be a professional dominant or dominatrix, what now? We will discuss the role of persona
development, what to offer, and how to decide upon issues like tribute and limits before meeting up with clients. Then we will
turn to the issue of negotiation, reading body language, setting the stage, making things memorable, and the types of sessions
out there that people enjoy and how they each tend to go... or how to make them your own. We will also take a serious look at
issues of getting your name out there, how to decide upon personal ethics in professional domination, keeping yourself sane in
this line of work, and the issue of sticking to our guns while retaining the interest of our adoring fans.
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Tuesday 5:00-5:30 Joyce Arthur: Violating Sex Workers (Cross-listed with Track A)
Tuesday 5:30-6:00 Jill McCracken:Violence and Policy (Cross-listed with Track A)
Tuesday 6:00-6:30 Cheryl Radeloff: Having a Seat at the Table (Cross-listed with Track A)
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
10:15-11:00am Breakfast Keynote: Norma Jean Almodovar
Wednesday 11:45am-1:30 Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy
Wednesday 11:45-12:00 Alexis M. Roth: Risk Negotiation During Transactional Sexual Exchanges (Cross-listed with
Track E)
Street-level commercial sex has been associated with increased risk of physical and sexual violence, acquisition of sexually
transmitted infections (STI), and arrest. Attention to the larger contexts of violence, drug use, and dependence on men for
economic survival that predict STI acquisition is critical. Understanding the factors that impact women’s ability to protect
themselves in transactional sexual encounters warrants further investigation especially in order to design effective STI
prevention and care programs. As part of a larger study, women who recently engaged in transactional sex were recruited
utilizing incentivized snowball sampling. Respondents completed STI testing and a face-to-face interview that included openended questions about protective health behaviors, including, “Tell me what you do to protect yourself when you are working.”
“What you do to protect your sexual health?” and “How easy is it to use condoms with tricks?” Interviews were audio recorded,
transcribed, and coded thematically. This sample included 25 participants aged 19-65 (median=37). Most women reported
intermittent condom use (especially with boyfriends, husbands or regulars) however a variety of other protective strategies
were utilized during street-level sex work. These included: visually assessing johns, avoiding men who are perceived as
dangerous, preselecting sex locations, carrying condoms, and avoiding ejaculate. Of the 25 women interviewed, 15 tested
positive for at least one STI. Interventions to increase sex worker safety may be improved by recognizing that women
engaging in transactional sex routinely utilize other risk-reduction techniques in addition to condom use. It is critical to
understand how self-protective behaviors are assigned monetary values during the transactional negotiation portion of these
interactions. The respondents in this sample were disproportionately infected with STI. The women were motivated to protect
themselves and wanted to use condoms but their ability to consistently negotiate condoms was low. Increased understanding
of other protective strategies will improve STI control efforts for this population by encouraging alternative methods for
promoting health and safety.
Wednesday 12:00-12:30 Tamara O’Doherty: Research with sex workers: Employing Collaborative, Action-Based
Research Methods
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
This presentation reports findings on the experience of conducting collaborative, action-based research with sex workers in
Vancouver, BC, Canada. The research, driven by a collaborative team of sex workers, demonstrates the diversity of
experiences for women involved in sex industry work and challenges assumptions about violence and victimization in the sex
industry. The author discusses the challenges and benefits of academic and community partnerships to produce ethicallycreated and accurate knowledge about sex industry work in Canada. The presentation discusses unintended and harmful
effects of certain forms of research and highlights strategies suggested by sex workers and critical researchers to work
collaboratively to address social justice and human rights. The author recently completed a research project exploring
women's victimization in the off-street sector of the sex industry in Canada.
Wednesday 1:00-1:30 Methodology discussion led by Elizabeth Nanas
Track B- Activism
Wednesday 11:45-12:25 Vegan Vixen: The U.S. Sex Workers’ Rights Movement: Past, Present, and Future
How did the U.S. sex workers’ rights movement begin? How has the movement changed and remained the same over time?
What have been the major successes and struggles of the movement? What direction is the movement headed in? This
presentation will address each of these question and more. Since the movement officially began in 1973 when Margo St.
James brought together sex workers to form “Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics” (COYOTE), various new leaders, organizations,
and issues have emerged. Though COYOTE is no longer an active sex workers’ rights organization, the movement continues
to preserve and grow, with a lot of geographical expansion occurring in the U.S. over the past few years and new activists
entering the movement.
We will begin with an activity in which participants will privately express our journeys to sex worker justice advocacy
through writing, drawing, or both. Then, we will have the option to share what we wrote with the group. As a group, we will
discuss the similarities and differences between our journeys to this movement, offering support to each other.
Wednesday 12:30-1:30 Penelope Saunders and Bhavana Nancherla: Building Membership of Local Organizations and
SWOP Chapters through Community Organizing: Findings, Presentation & Collective Brainstorming Session
Following the National Sex Worker Leadership Institute in October 2007, sex worker activists noticed that they were receiving
requests for information about community organizing in various areas across the country. Specifically, newly forming local
groups found that many new members, including both sex workers and allies, stopped coming to meetings after one or two
visits and did not get linked into the sex worker rights movement or actions. SWOP-USA could provide information about
campaigns, but there was a gap in resources containing information on how to build community in emerging local
organizations such as SWOP chapters. As a result, Best Practices Policy Project took up the task of speaking with organizers
across the US to create a basic guide to building local organizations through engaging membership, leadership development
and mentoring.
As these conversations began, sex worker activists across the country shared more than just tips for organizing;
SWOP chapter organizers shared stories of successful organizing, challenges and concerns in their local communities, and
questions which they wondered how other organizers answered and dealt with. Most of all, the process of creating a
community organizing guide revealed that many organizers wanted a means to converse with others in different parts of the
country in order to learn from each others' experiences.
This workshop will share the information we gained from our interviews and distribute the report developed by both
BPPP and SWOP USA. The workshop will also draw on the experiences of key local organizations that have confronted the
challenge of how to effectively build membership and community organize, allow groups to connect and brainstorm. This
workshop is for people who have begun to community organize or are planning to. We will also give some suggestions about
how to build social justice type local groups, too (ie diverse groups).
Beyond presenting the trends for local organizing documented in this guide, the purpose of this panel would be to
create space for dialogue on the many issues/challenges identified as part of the guide development process. This
conversation would be facilitated through group discussion, which could center around questions such as:
How can chapters support each others' development?
What would chapters want to know from each others' experiences?
Would it make sense for chapters to communicate on a regular basis? If so, what would be the best means for
facilitating this communication?
How would organizers present in this conversation like to continue this conversation or move forward with this
dialogue?
As a mix of both presentation and discussion, this panel would hopefully act as a stepping stone for creating networks
of support for SWOP activists across the country.
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Wednesday 11:45-12:30 Meeshee: Clicking with your Photographer: Journalizing Your Portfolio & Knowing Your
Rights (Cross-listed with Track D)
Track D- Business Development
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Wednesday 11:45-12:30 Meeshee: Clicking with your Photographer: Journalizing Your Portfolio & Knowing Your
Rights (Cross-listed with Track C)
Defining Your Persona- Persona: a person's perceived or evident personality, personal image or public role. Venezuela
boasts the highest number of international beauty awards: five Miss Worlds & four Miss Universes, among dozens of other
victories. How do these women do it? A Venezuelan beauty queen isn’t born perfect. She is groomed & cultivated to be her
best by attending streams of classes on movement, etiquette, skin care, posing for photographs & more. A photo session
begins one week before the actual shoot. The process starts with a phone consultation. The photographer accumulates as
much detail as possible. Following the consultation, the photographer designs a story board of sets & themes based upon the
client’s wardrobe & objective.
The Contract- The contract is emailed to the client before the phone consultation which the client is expected to review. If she
has any questions they should be addressed before the day of the shoot. On the day of the shoot, the photographer & c lient
review the contract with which she is already familiar. She receives an original, signed copy.
The Day of the Shoot- The photographer coaches her client on the best postures even demonstrating movements throughout
the shoot. Special attention is paid to wardrobe, accessories, nails, toes & personalized makeup & hair. In short, the
photographer & client have now completed the process of analyzing her persona & breaking it down into its most favorable
components. Now that her persona has been clearly defined, they are ready to create specific images that talk to the viewer
about who she is. There are no boundaries. Journalizing your persona involves accruing a well rounded portfolio of images
limited only by your imagination. The first 30 minutes of a photo session is dedicated to warm up. Now, the shoot is ready to
begin.
The Photo Session is Not Over…- Selecting final images can be a process with which the client needs assistance & she
should not be left hanging. The photo session continues as the photographer & client analyze, discuss & select the best
images.
Knowing Your Rights- Who owns the copyright to an image is a highly controversial issue & one that is surrounded by many
myths. The U.S. Library of Congress defines copyright quite clearly. The importance is what the copyright assigns. This is
where the client & photographer agree to the rights she has to her photos.
Building Success- In order to be successful, a woman whose product is herself must stay at the forefront of her industry,
especially now during this challenging economy. The secret to success is threefold: defining, exhibiting & maintaining your
persona. This process includes developing a variety of professional photos that scream, ‘wow!’ on a regular basis.
Professional images are vital to your success.
Wednesday 12:45-1:30 Sexquire.com: Money, Power, Danger and Deductions – legal and accounting issues for
everyone
Do you have a box of receipts that you drag with you at tax time? Have you heard about LLCs or corporations but aren’t sure
how they could help you? Would you like to protect your creations but aren’t sure how to make that happen? If you answered
yes to any of these questions, this seminar is for you. Many individuals who work alone (as independent contractors working
for someone else or true one-person operations) are unaware of the options available to them for incorporating or otherwise
formalizing their business. However, it is important to consider all of the legal and tax related issues and hazards before
choosing whether to incorporate or form some other entity. Find out what forming an entity might mean for your tax return,
including write-offs and what exactly can be included in business expenses. Also covered will be the unique needs of internetbased businesses, including the absolute necessity of terms of use (the rules of the road for your website), the importance of
knowing what sales tax rates may apply to your site and the goods or services sold there, and how to find and secure a credit
card processor (besides Paypal). We’ll also cover copyright and trademark issues related to websites, advertising and
personal service businesses – i.e. “the world beyond Twitter” and how to protect your business identity online and in print.
Finally, we’ll discuss the importance of having some form of accounting system that works for you, and how to use it to figure
out what is working for your business. Discussion will include the unique issues facing cash-based businesses, and tips for
dealing with the IRS.
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Wednesday 11:45-12:30 Alexis Roth: Risk Negotiation (Cross-listed with Track A)
Wednesday 11:45-1:30 Sephen Crowe: Men at Work: Building a National Movement of Male Sex Workers?
At the 2008 Desiree Alliance Conference, a panel entitled “Male Sex Workers: How to Organize, Support & Advocate for
Ourselves in the Movement” sparked a great deal of interest and dialogue that evolved into a national network/listserve known
as MenAtWork. This year, “MenAtWork: Building a National Movement of Male Sex Workers” will continue the dialogue and
look at how male-identified sex workers and their allies can build stronger alliances together and within our communities. This
roundtable discussion will look at how male sex workers fit into the greater sex worker rights movement, and how male sex
workers can better advocate for themselves and their cohort.
Wednesday 12:40-1:30 Sandy Guillaume & Ricardo Canales: Making Connections: Effective Outreach Strategies in
the Sex Worker Community
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Citiwide Harm Reduction is dedicated to reducing the adverse health, social and economic costs of drugs in New York City.
Since 2005, the STREET Program has strived to serve as a bridge for this underserved population and connect them to health
care services and other basic needs such as condoms, health literature, and harm reduction tools, while also providing case
management and advocacy to the sex workers. This presentation intends to describe the overall effectiveness of coupling
programs and research to engage hard to reach individuals such as sex workers. This presentation will also identify the
various strategies that the STREET Program utilizes to engage, and serve a hard to reach population and address their needs.
In conjunction with a New York City Department of Health/SAMHSA evaluation research study of our program’s impact, we
have been able to not only expand our outreach area to other Bronx neighborhoods and the Upper West Side of Harlem, but
also offer more harm reduction-based services for sex workers through the provision of incentives for participating in the
research. Because of this innovative pairing of research and service provision, we have successfully engaged more female,
male, and transgendered sex workers and their partners than would otherwise have been possible, by connecting them to
health and supportive services, allowing them to learn their HIV and hepatitis C status and connect to care.
Wednesday 3:00pm to 4:30 Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy: Examining
Criminalization, Legalization, Decriminalization
Wednesday 3:00-3:30 Crystal Jackson & Barb
Brents: Nevada’s legal brothels in historical
perspective
Nevada’s legal brothel industry can be a contentious
topic among sex worker rights advocates. The
industry is a highly regulated legalized model. It is
based in heteronormative and sexist ideologies (up
until this year, only women could work there and men
are allowed to work now only under the assumption of
female clientele; women’s bodies are tightly
controlled). Allegations of labor abuses and overall
concerns of splitting with the house are often enough
for some rights advocates to brush off the industry as
antithetical to the goals of the sex workers’ rights
movement.
This presentation is a critical analysis of the
history of prostitution in Nevada. How has the legal
brothel industry come to be? Once intertwined with
the mining industry, the venues and forms that the
sale of sex have taken in Nevada have changed over
time, becoming illegal today except in small, rural
counties. Understanding the history of Nevada’s
brothel industry helps understand how public
perception, businesses (like mining and gaming), and
rural community intersect. Drawing from over a
decade of ethnographic research, and in-depth
historical analysis of policy creation, newspaper
articles, and reports, we argue that understanding the
relationship between prostitution and tourism is
central to understanding the current manifestation of
the only legal sexual commerce in the United States.
The implications of Nevada’s history are relevant for
contemporary conversations about the pros and cons
of legal v. illegal work, pushes for decriminalization,
and the proliferation of sex trafficking discourse.
Wednesday 3:30-4:00 Meredith Ralston: Selling sex: Passionate debates
This paper will summarize the research I have been doing for my next feature-length documentary film that examines the
phenomena of SELLING SEX. Why, how, and where do people sell their bodies? And why, how and where do people buy? It’s
been called the world’s oldest profession for a reason: since the earliest recorded human history there have been accounts of
prostitution – Greek courtesans of 2500 B.C., Chinese concubines in the Ming dynasty, medieval European “harlots” and precolonial Asian second wives. Though the common denominator has historically been men’s desire for women’s bodies,
equality in the twenty-first century has meant that women are paying for sex, too.
The debates about prostitution are angry and passionate. The religious right speaks against prostitution for moral
reasons – it’s against family values; the feminist left is against it because they claim it’s a form of power, control and violence
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
against women. Libertarians and pro-sex feminists argue in favour of prostitution for reasons of liberty and equality – we
should celebrate our sexuality and all forms of it and not be such prudes. How to reconcile these very different points of view is
the focus of this research and film. Why do men and women want to buy sex from others? How do we create public policy that
will alleviate the violence and health issues of women and men working in the sex industry? How do we differentiate between
the choice issues and exploitation of the trafficked teen in Nepal with the independent call girl in Los Angeles? How does the
context of prostitution help us decide whether prostitution should be accepted and legalized, de-criminalized or abolished?
Should sex workers be regulated, licensed and taxed like any other employee? Are brothels and red light districts the answer
to our tough public policy questions? Selling Sex Globally examines the prostitution industry worldwide, with examples coming
from the trafficking of women from Nepal to India, streetwalkers in Halifax, brothel workers in Vancouver and Nevada, and
female sex tourists in the Gambia. The hope is that the viewer, regardless of their personal point of view, will come to see why
academics and activists advocate for de-criminalization of prostitution – whether just for the women (as in Sweden) or for all
involved (as in New Zealand) and how different contexts require very different policy responses.
Wednesday 4:00-4:30 Tamara Larter: More than a “whore:” A discourse analysis of the multiple murders of sex trade
workers in Edmonton, Canada, 2001-2008
Over 30 women linked with the sex trade in Edmonton, Canada have gone missing or been murdered in the past 25 years,
with nineteen of these occurring since the year 2001. In this study, I focus on the ways that Edmonton’s local newspapers
speak about, and (re)present these murders so as to unpack social values and practices relating to sexuality, race, gender,
and power. Drawing on Foucauldian and feminist standpoint theories, I argue that as newspapers report on the murders and
disappearances of sex trade workers, they are able to influence and shape the public’s (mis)understanding of the situation,
and, in turn, are shaped by already established social norms. My research findings show that the way local newspapers speak
about, and (re)present the murders of sex trade workers operates to deviantize these women, thereby minimizing the tragedy
of their disappearances and deaths. I argue that this deviantization is achieved in a combination of three ways; by framing s ex
trade workers as criminally, medically, and morally deviant. Discourses of criminal deviance place sex trade workers firmly on
the ‘wrong’ side of the law, therefore making them undeserving of police protection; medical deviance implies that only women
who are mentally ill in some way would take part in the sex trade, and, simultaneously, hyperbolizes the role of sex workers in
the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Finally, discourses of moral deviance place sex workers on the ‘wrong’ side of
morality and femininity, particularly in terms of dichotomies such as good/bad, pure/impure, clean/dirty, and virgin/whore.
Print media, specifically Edmonton-based newspapers, the Edmonton Sun and the Edmonton Journal, are my focus
for this discourse-based investigation. I also look to alternative discourses, such as those presented by sex worker
organizations and advocacy groups, to better understand the contested nature of such ‘knowledge’. By drawing on multiple
discursive venues, I find that while much of the newspaper content works to dehumanize sex trade workers, there is also a
discursive attempt to rehumanize the murdered women through the voices of family, friends, and advocates.
Track B- Activism
Wednesday 3:00-3:40 Kigongo Ali: Sex Work, Religion and Activism
Activism begins at infancy or is sparked off by a certain incident that touches the activist’s heart. When I witness activists cry
during conferences, workshops and other conventions, my heart immediately begins pounding, asking my brains what history
is behind this crying, what sufferings were encountered by the activist and when. I keep asking myself if it is worth the activism
within the person crying, and whether it carries more weight than what I experienced. Knowing each other’s activism history
creates harmony, and harmony creates strong networks which produce successes. Activism is not about speaking well, it
begins right from the bottom of the sea, if people were a sea. In this case activism begins from the bottom of your heart, only
then can Human rights Activists withstand all conditions that make them vulnerable to torture and religious fundermentalism.
Unlike other religions, Islam in Uganda has proved to be fatal against ‘sexworkers human rights’ activism. Within the Ahadith
and Qur-an, it is not permissible to indulge in adultery but again the Qur-an gives broad independence to everyone. For
example; it forbids attacking those who have not attacked you, and various verses have called on to the prophet to avail
people with rights to believe in their chosen paths.
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Wednesday 3:00-4:30 Anna Saini, Surgeon, and Mariko Passion: Using Art to Survive and Transgress Violence
(Cross-listed with Track E)
On December 17th 2009, SWOP-Arizona members used art and performance to commemorate the death of Marcia Powell
who was serving a 27month sentence for prostitution. She was killed by the prison industrial complex, dying of heat related
complications in an outdoor cell in Goodyear, Arizona. Surgeon will present word and images of SWOP-AZ memorial and talk
about how their chapter used art to transgress violence. The second part of the session we will share examples where we
reclaim spaces of violence - geographical, print, experiential and otherwise - and collectively transform these instances
through creative expression. Let's share methods of using artistic voice to heal, engage in knowledge production and create
beauty. Together we will leave the session with concrete ideas of how to translate the endemic violence in our community into
artistic productivity and empowerment.
Track D- Business Development
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Wednesday 3:00-3:40 Doug Bynon: A Tax Workshop for the Cash-Based Professional
Do you think the IRS doesn’t know about you? If you don’t declare your income, it’s a crime. Deductions are a difference of
opinion. Mainstream your financial life without exposing yourself to the risks of a close look by the IRS. Minimize your tax risk,
maximize your financial future through sound tax strategies. Structure your business and personal financial situation with
sound and proven analysis. In this informative and comfortable workshop, you will learn what works and what doesn’t when it
comes to taxes and cash flow. Evaluate your tax profile and where to place yourself to balance things so you are not
constantly looking over your shoulder, worrying about this aspect of your business life. Find out what to do if you have heard
from the IRS, or maybe worse, haven’t heard from them. Learn how to use an advisor to your advantage and negotiate on
your behalf through communication with the right people in the tax system. Don’t wait for an IRS intervention.
Wednesday 3:00-3:30
Wednesday 3:50-4:30 Lusty Day: Working it Down Under: How to Escort Successfully in Australia
Interested in working and holidaying in Australia? In some parts of Australia, sex work is decriminalized. Come to this
workshop to learn from a fellow traveler how to take advantage of the rare opportunity to escort legally and safely in this
beautiful and friendly country. Topics include: how to apply for visas to Australia; best practice tips for maximizing your fun and
funds in brothels, including how to score clients, charge for extras, and keep drama to a minimum; how to work within the law;
how to access health care for sex workers; managing and moving your income between countries, including income tax
restrictions; advertising guidelines in print and online publications; analysis of racism and transphobia in the Australian sex
industry and what it means for your business; negotiating big-money clients; how to turn your perhaps ordinary accent into
$$$; introduction to Australian sex worker organizations and cultural groups; doing self-care and dealing with homesickness
when traveling especially while working in the industry. While the workshop will focus on full service work in brothels as well as
independent GFE escorting, we will also discuss working in peep shows and massage parlours. Your questions and
experience welcome!
Wednesday 3:50-4:30 Allen Lichtenstein: Basic Issues in Contract Law for Sex Workers
Most people involved in various types of sex work will, at some point in their careers, be asked to sign some sort of contract.
For people who are unfamiliar with the often arcane, misleading and confusing language of these contracts, there is the
reasonable fear of inadvertently agreeing to something detrimental to the signer’s interest, or some provision that is
unenforceable as a matter of law. While this is true of any type of contract, sex work raises some particularly difficult issues.
While the best policy is clearly not to sign any contract without first contacting your own attorney. this presentation will look at
certain types of contracts involved in sex work from photographic models to master/slave contracts, in order to point out
certain “red flags” to look for.
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Wednesday 3:00-4:30 Anna Saini, Surgeon, and Mariko Passion: Using Art to Survive and Transgress Violence
(Cross-listed with Track C)
Wednesday 3:30-4:00 Jill McCracken: One Outreach/Harm Reduction Program and Its Impact on Street Sex Workers
This presentation aims to both critique and offer suggestions for best practices of harm reduction and outreach services based
on an in-depth analysis of one organization. Because this presentation is based on research that involved interviews with
people that participate in illegal behavior, the Institutional Review Board requires that my research site not be identified. It is
therefore necessary that I not reveal the name of this organization as well. My hope is that some of these organization’s
practices, as well as my analysis, critiques, and suggestions regarding outreach and harm reduction, can be applied to others’
experiences and organizations as well.
This outreach organization spanned an interesting crossroads that was grounded in social service agents, law
enforcement, and neighborhood association leaders. As someone who inhabited the roles of volunteer, employee, and
researcher during the thirty months I worked on my academic research, I gained valuable insight based on multiple
perspectives and discussion about this organization, their mission, their goals, and their day-to-day practices. In addition to my
own experiences, I also draw from approximately twenty interviews with street workers as well as a total of twenty interviews
with social service agents, police officers, activists, and neighborhood association leaders. My research is based on an
ethnographic, interview study grounded in rhetorical analysis of the language used by my participants in order to offer
suggestions for how this language influences perspectives about street sex work and street sex workers.
This presentation focuses on best practices of outreach and harm reduction based on the perspectives of those who
were closest to the program: 1) my interviews with social service agents who worked at this organization; 2) my interviews with
police officers and neighborhood association leaders about street sex work and this organization, 3) my interviews with street
workers about their experiences with this organization, and 4) my own experience volunteering and working with, as well as
researching, this organization. I then offer suggestions for how outreach programs such as this one might better understand
and reach their intended audience, as well as integrate their clients (street workers) and their clients’ expertise into their
outreach and harm reduction practices.
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Wednesday 4:00-4:30 Greg Scott & Erin Scott: Rediscovering and Reporting the 'Badness" of Violence: Lessons
Learned from a Grassroots Attempt to Create a "Bad Date List' Program for Street Level Women Sex Workers
In the course of providing harm reduction outreach services (e.g., sterile syringe exchange, HIV-STD testing and counseling,
condom distribution, etc.), the Chicago Recovery Alliance (CRA) recognized the overwhelming incidence of victimization—
particularly violence, psychological/emotional abuse, and financial injury—among street-level (i.e., “open circuit”) sex workers.
In an effort to reduce these instances of victimization and thereby assist sex working participants in achieving “any positive
change” as defined on their own terms, the presenters worked with CRA staff and the most affected participants to establish a
“Bad Dates List” program.
The BDL operates in conjunction with CRA's mobile outreach sites and serves as an “information hub” for women
performing “open circuit” sex work (primarily on the streets, “in the public way,” and in short-term occupancy motels). Each
week women who have experienced some form of harm while plying their trade report their encounters to BDL staff, who
reduce the accounts to brief typed reports which they later compile in a digest and circulate throughout the community on a
weekly basis (titled “Community Alert”). Ideally, women performing sex work in the area then read the weekly digests and
assimilate the information into their daily work lives as they continually attempt to determine the relative safety of each
prospective sex transaction.
In its 18-month existence the BDL has waxed and waned. Early on, volunteers came to appreciate one of the central
obstacles to success: The relative normalization (structural, organizational, and psychological) of street violence among sex
workers combines with the exigencies of drug addiction to produce a high level inertia among the women who ostensibly
would benefit the most from the program. Upon realizing the difficulty of attracting women to the outreach location, BDL
volunteers had to craft inventive methods for “incentivizing” women's participation in the program. In short, the problems with
the BDL lay not in convincing women to submit their reports of “bad dates,” but rather in helping victimized women to see their
injuries as legitimate and “report-worthy” and also in simply drawing them to the program site where they can give their
reports.
Various attempts to “publicize” the BDL and increase participation in it have achieved varying degrees of success. In
this presentation we focus on some of the key lessons learned from the BDL program in general and more specifically from the
latest BDL-enhancement initiative, the now one-year-old clothing and cosmetics exchange called RECOVERY RAGS (RR).
RR's participants are often not only dealing with the common risk-factors associated with sex work but are also facing
problems surrounding substance dependence/addiction and homelessness. The “life structure” of many participants
demanded that Recovery Rags develop new methods for program delivery. Many of the participants rarely enjoy reliable
access to proper shelter, clothing, and other basic necessities, much less the capacity to access or pay for medical care, legal
services, or other forms of assistance. In response to the expressed “needs and wants” of participants, Recovery Rags
distributes gently used clothing and new toiletries/make-up to any woman who comes to CRA's outreach site. Although the
going has been slow, we have compelling evidence that this approach is increasing the level of participation in the BDL. At the
same time, however, we also have found that there are many more needs that neither this program nor any other single
program can meet. In short, we have found that satisfying some of the immediate yet seemingly “superficial” wants and needs
(e.g., cosmetics, nicer clothing, skin care products, etc.) of women sex workers is essential to the successful implementation of
a program designed to achieve much more critical goals, in this case the preservation of health, wellbeing, and in some cases
life itself.
Wednesday 5:00pm to 6:30pm Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy: The Value of Sex Work
Wednesday 5:00-6:30 Megan Morgenson: The Value of Sex Work (Cross-listed with Track D)
A presentation including a brief historical perspective of sex work throughout history, leading up to current thoughts about what
value sex work has in current society from financial, emotional, psychological and physical perspectives. I will include my own
perspective as a sex worker for over 15 years as well as insights from others that have corresponded with me privately about
their own ideas of where they find value in sex work. In an attempt to show an understanding of the full spectrum of
experiences, a small section will also be included on the arguments made against sex work having any value in society, and in
some instances, arguments may be presented to refute some of those claims when appropriate.
Track B- Activism
Wednesday 5:00-6:30 Scarlett Lake: Film- "A Safer Sex Trade" with Q&A
A Safer Sex Trade is a documentary that explores the stigma of prostitution through the eyes of three women: a former
survival sex worker, a highly paid escort and an established Madam. They share their experiences while working in the City of
Vancouver, where Robert Pickton stands trial for the alleged murder of 26 women, most of whom were working in the sex
trade.
Scarlett is a highly successful madam with 30 years experience in the sex trade business; Simone is a high-class sex
worker who services wealthy clients in five Western Canadian cities; and Jennifer is a former drug addicted prostitute who now
works tirelessly to offer support to sex trade workers on the streets. These women have had different experiences in the sex
trade business, but they're united by one concern-the safety of women in their stigmatized industry.
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
The documentary premiered at the Whistler Film Festival and has since been purchased by every major institution of
higher learning, across Canada, for their libraries.
Production was completed in November of 2006 and the film enjoyed its world premiere to a packed theatre at the
Whistler International Film Festival December 2nd. The documentary had its world television premiere on CBC Newsworld’s,
The Lens, on January 23, 2007. Since then the film has been purchased by every major Canadian institution of higher learning
for their libraries.
A Safer Sex Trade is an original concept created by Carolyn Allain and co-written with David Ray, produced by their
independent film company Cheap and Dirty Productions.
Scarlett Lake will show a portion of the film and be available for discussion.
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Wednesday 5:00-6:30 Solo Performances Day 1
Track D- Business Development
Wednesday 5:00-6:30 Karrie, Marcus, Riley Nicole, Crysta Heart, Skytrinia Berkeley, Scarlet, and Erika: Developing a
screening policy that works for you; keeping you safe and ensuring your success! (Cross-listed with Track E)
This panel will discuss a variety of steps for developing a screening policy specifically designed for your business. By asking
yourself what kind of clients you want you will be guided to write a "script" that will gather information about your clients and
can be used for screening, assessing if they're the right fit as well as info on how effective your marketing is. By identifying
your market and understanding your client you will be better able to build a practice that you feel good about, that attracts the
kind of clients you want to work with and will help you build a safe and sustainable business.
Wednesday 5:00-6:30 Megan Morgenson: The Value of Sex Work (Cross-listed with Track A)
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Wednesday 5:00-5:30 Screening Panel (Cross-listed with Track D)
Wednesday 5:00-6:30 Juliet November and Lisa Marie Alatorre: Skill Share on community accountability /healing
/transformational approaches to violence against sex workers
Come together to talk in a radically different way about how we can stop, prevent and heal from violence against us without
relying on cops or prisons. The criminal legal system has never shown itself to be a friend to sex workers, especially more
marginalized workers (like the poor, those of colour, trans women, migrants, youth). So how can we find ways to deal with
violence ourselves? In this skill share I'm proposing we understand violence widely--that it's not just about physical violence
and it's not just about clients--but that we look at the spectrum of violence we face: like domestic violence with our partners,
social, spiritual, emotional and cultural violence of whore-hatred and state violence like arrest and incarceration--and the
intimate ways these intersect with other oppressions. This is a skill share not a workshop because I am not interested in
"teaching" so much as sharing the fierce wisdom of whores about healing, transformation, resilience and prevention.
Thursday, July 29th 2010
10:15am to 10:40am Breakfast Keynote: Robyn Few
Thursday 11:45 to 1:30 Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy: Teaching Reform and Best Practices
Thursday 11:45-12:20 Laura Kane and Adrienne Telford: An exercise in hypocrisy: Prostitution Laws in the Canadian
Context
This paper hopes to provoke and incite a questioning of existing models of civic responsibility and justice that underlie anti-sex
and misogynist policies. We aim to do this by providing a deconstruction of the notion of human rights and an analysis of who
is included in the discourse on rights. For example, if rights are fundamentally exclusive, then it is critical that spaces of
struggle must be fought for in order to maintain a porous border between grassroots struggles and the institutionalization of
said struggles. Our paper argues that social justice groups like Maggie’s and Sex Professionals of Canada (SPOC), offer
alternate standards of justice which can assist policy groups to be more inclusive of the specific struggles and realities of sex
workers.
Relative to the United States, Canada is considered a sexually open country. But a closer look at its laws reveals a
framework that is arguably hypocritical. This paper explores aspects of the Criminal Code (especially the prohibitions
under section 212 on living under the avails and section 210 on bawdy houses) and discusses how de-criminalization can help
to overcome problems within policies that marginalize and make precarious the work of sex professionals. Referring to the
constitutional challenge taking place in Vancouver, attorney Katrina Pace states that “What the case is actually about in the
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
long-term is the way that criminal laws that relate to adult prostitution violate the safety, and the liberty and the equality of sex
trade workers.” Citing the democratic vision, Pace makes clear that the law does not in all cases protect the interests of all
members of society, thus shattering any claim that we live in an equal society. If what is at stake, following Pace, is the
protection, freedom and equality of marginalized workers, then how does de-criminalization support these goals? The paper
explores some of the issues surrounding de-criminalization, making a distinction between real and perceived threats, arguing
that the latter must be challenged in order to recognize the autonomy of sex workers.
Thursday 12:25-1:00 Tracey Sagar: Back to basics? Sex workers’ civil liberties and human rights and the importance
of a ‘principled’ framework in the development of criminal law
This paper focuses on legal measures contained in Part 2 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009 which came into force on 1st
April 2010 in England and Wales. The measures aim to: rehabilitate sex workers, facilitate the prosecution of kerb crawlers;
reduce the demand for sex work and trafficking. With regard to this latter aim, specific attention is paid to the introduction of a
new strict liability offence ‘paying for sexual services of a prostitute who has been subject to exploitative conduct of a kind
likely to induce or encourage the provision of sexual services for which the payer has made or promised payment’. The paper
discusses the provisions in the context of the ongoing and increasing curtailment of civil and human rights for sex workers and
their clients in the UK. It argues that, in the face of political indifference, there is a need to return to a more principled legal
framework when developing criminal law. Furthermore, that it is essential researchers continue to challenge laws which
abandon criminal law protections and which deny individuals basic Human Rights; the need for empirical verification is
essential to any such challenge. Thus, importantly, this paper promotes the furtherance of a responsible research agenda
where researchers and sex workers continue to challenge the role of legislation whilst remaining firmly committed to securing
rights and liberties for sex workers.
Thursday 1:00-1:30 Vegan Vixen: Sex work, classrooms, and Text books: Teaching about Sex Work in Academia
(Cross-listed with Track B)
Having experience as a student and sex worker, Vegan Vixen has been very conscious of how sex work is portrayed in the
classroom and in textbooks. Though she has noticed some open-mindedness, she also has concerns about sex work being
taught and discussed in a very shallow way that does not dig beyond the surface or address how public policies affect sex
workers. At times, she has felt silenced and unable to speak out about sex work in the classroom due to such adverse
attitudes that are based largely on misperceptions and jumping to conclusions. Rather than pathologizing the whole field or
promoting an overly romanticized view of sex work, this presentation will address skills for teaching about sex work in a
holistic way that addresses the multiple realities that exist in this field, and how to teach about sex work on a deep level, rather
than relying mainly on stereotypes and overgeneralizations.
The presentation will address innovative techniques for teaching about sex work in academia, including class and
small group discussions; educational videos and DVD’s; selection reading materials; art; lectures; responding to challenging
questions and stereotypical comments about sex work; and community building with groups inside and outside of academia.
Vegan Vixen believes that a major purpose of education must be to expand our minds, and the way people teach and learn
about sex work plays an important role in this. Many sex workers are also students, and it is important that academia provide
a welcoming environment rather than a hostile one for sex workers. Educators and students play an important role in making
this a reality.
Track B- Activism
Thursday 11:45-1:15 HOOK Collective: Community Caucus Series – Connecting the Dots: exploring the impacts of
race, class, and privilege on the current state of the sex worker movement
Currently, the identity of “sex worker activist” is a label that largely brings to mind images of the empowered, white, privileged,
indoor sex worker. While these images do serve to promote a greater awareness of “sex work” as a positive, empowering
choice in contrast to the stigmas seen predominantly in mainstream society, the fact is that individuals who work in the sex
industry span the broad spectrum of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, bodies, privilege, and experience - and these
complexities often get pushed to the wayside amidst the urgent activism of simply pushing forth the most basic rights for sex
workers in the public eye.
This caucus series, led by community members and activists from various backgrounds, attempts to create safe
spaces for sex workers from all walks of life to more deeply explore the ways in which sex worker activism has been
influenced - and divided by - race, class, and experience, and strategize about how we can develop more solid, diverse
foundations of mindful, inclusive community support and accountability in relation to our own positions of privilege and poverty
in the world at large.
A brief survey will be distributed in days preceding the caucus to give conference/caucus attendees the chance to
voice their opinions on what issues they would like to see addressed during this caucus. Based on the information gathered
from these surveys, the caucus facilitators will have a better understanding on how to guide the caucus discussions.
There will be two caucuses happening simultaneously – a People Of Color Caucus, and a White People’s Caucus. In
these 2 break-out caucuses, individuals will have the chance to dialogue about things such as: their experiences in sex work,
political work, working/volunteering with organizations or non-profits, work that exists alongside or in collaboration with
individuals, groups and/or orgs, and more. What has worked for you? What obstacles have you encountered? What changes
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
would you like to see in the sex worker activist movement? How have issues of race, class, and privilege influenced your
personal, political, and work lives, and how have you addressed it? Do you even identify as a sex worker?
Following the break-out caucuses, the two groups will convene together to report back and dialogue about the issues
that were raised in the break-outs. Facilitated within a healing framework of anti-oppression principles, this Community
Caucus hopes to build greater connections and understanding between individuals from varying experiences and
backgrounds.
In sharing our experiences, successes, failures, frustrations, strategies, and desires for progress, we hope to create a
safe, supportive, healing space where sex workers and sex worker activists can begin talking more seriously as a community
about how these complexities influence the current state of the sex worker movement, and how we can effectively build the
bridges necessary to create a sex worker (activist) community that is more inclusive, inviting, and accessible to sex workers
from a diverse range of backgrounds.
Thursday 1:00-1:30 Vegan Vixen: Sex work, classrooms, and Text books (Cross-listed with Track A)
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Thursday 11:45-1:30 Taking Your Sex Worker Art on the Road and to the Next Level with Cameryn Moore, Laurenn
McCubbin, Kirk Read and Mariko Passion
Track D- Business Development
Thursday 11:45-12:45 Serpent and BeBeDoll: The Ethical Sex Worker (Cross-listed with Track E)
As sex workers, part of what drives us in this industry is being able to create a sex worker identity that best reflects our
personalities, likes, and dislikes and helps us create a lifestyle which helps us find peace within ourselves. Whether it be our
interpersonal relationships with clients or other workers, being an ethical sex worker means creating and cultivating a positive
experience for ourselves, our clients, and those in our communities. While many of us keep separate sex worker
"identities," what we should be doing is a reflection of what we ourselves actually enjoy in order to find comfort within our work
and our community. Sex workers need to discover what draws them to this type of work and how our attitudes and behavior
while we are in it reflects upon the industry as a whole. Based on the above, we intend to create a loose discussion about
identity and other ethical issues around sex work. This presentation will be conducted in a roundtable format, and participation
is encouraged by all attendees.
Thursday 12:40-1:30 Sinnamon Love: Parenting and Sex Work: Balancing Life, Family and Work (Cross-listed with
Track E)
This workshop is intended to assist active sex workers in maintaining the duality of their work and home lives. There is very
little research on children of sex workers in developed countries outside of street-walkers or brothel workers in the underdeveloped countries of India and Bangledesh. As many women in developed countries enter the sex industry voluntarily, there
is a need to create a dialogue in order to discuss parenting techniques, special needs or requirements in regards to child care,
education and health care in order to effectively parent and work in their chosen field.
As many women who enter the sex industry may not have solid familial ties, it becomes imperative that an effective
support system be set up to provide for their children. Including education, after school or night-time care while the sex worker
parent is working. It is important to teach the sex worker parent how to contend with a co-parent that may not agree with the
sex workers chosen profession or fighting with government run children’s services that might try remove the children from the
home in areas where some forms of sex work might be legal yet a morally questionable occupation. Also covered are work
proofing your home and explaining sex work as occupation in age appropriate terminology.
The session will include a formal presentation to ensure adequate basic information, self-assessment activities to
guide learners in reflection and small group interactive tasks to build understanding and skills.
Thursday 12:50-1:30 Jean Gray: Energetic Protection and Cleansing for Sex Workers
Sex workers, whether acknowledging this or not, conduct work of an intensely spiritual nature. Our energies and our auras are
constantly being touched, played and collided with. With these constant interactions we are sometimes left with energetic
residue. Many sex workers that continually suffer from stagnant or negative thoughts and anxiety may be able to follow this
back to the subtle energy. Energies, negative or not, periodically attach themselves to the subtle body; consequently,
individuals who work intimately with these energies must keep a strong practice of shielding and cleansing in order to thrive.
Taking exercises and small rituals that body workers, spirit workers, and healers have used for centuries to ensure their own
energetic health and the health of their clients, you’ll see how they can be used and adapted to counter the challenges of
intimate exchanges involved in all forms of sex work. This workshop will cover basics of energetic protection and renewal such
as grounding and shielding, as well as a few solutions to shed yourself of excess energies. As sex workers, we don’t have to
accept that we are constantly operating on low levels of energy because our clients and coworkers drain us. With self
awareness, and a few tools, we can ensure that we are as well taken care of spiritually as our clients are physically.
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Thursday 11:45-12:45 Serpent Libertine and BeBeDoll: The Ethical Sex Worker (Cross-listed with Track D)
Thursday 12:40-1:30 Sinnamon Love: Parenting and Sex Work: Balancing Life, Family and Work (Cross-listed with
Track D)
Thursday 1:45 Lunch Keynote: Nina Hartley
Thursday 3:00pm to 4:30pm Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy: Sex Work Shaken and Stirred
Thursday 3:30-3:50 Crystal Jackson and Elizabeth Nanas: Academic Roundtable Wrap-up
As scholars, we engage in critical research that can help inform and influence public policy and public opinion. This
scholarship is complicated by political, economic, and social positions of researcher and subject. Power and influence are
critical concerns to both scholars and sex workers. Furthermore, scholars have specific material concerns regarding the ways
that we may or may not be supported as scholar-activists especially where tenure concerns arise. Another practical problem
emerges where scholars who are “outsiders” desire to be sex worker rights allies.
With these concerns in mind, we offer introductory and post-conference roundtables. These roundtables will
specifically focus on questions such as: What does an academic ally look like? How can we best engage in an activist
movement respectfully, thoughtfully, and with an eye toward social change? How has our research impacted policies at local,
state, or national levels? How can we best engage in social justice oriented research? How can we help activist movements
strategize and move forward?
The goals of this workshop are to:
1.
Discuss what it means to be an academic ally for a rights movement
2.
Educate each other on the use of research as a tool for social justice
3.
Name concrete ways our research can assist the sex workers’ rights movement
We strongly encourage all academic presenters to attend this workshop and to bring your questions, concerns, and
ideas to the table. We understand that some of us have a long history of activism and others are new to it. This roundtable is
open to all scholars and researchers attending this activist conference.
Thursday 3:55-4:30 Carol Leigh: Sex Worker Media Library (Cross-listed with Track B and C)
Sex Worker artist Carol Leigh (AKA Scarlot Harlot) and the Center for Sex & Culture (CSC) are the new home of the CSC Sex
Worker Media Library. Created with the goal of preserving sex worker culture and discourse, funded by a grant from the
Creative Work Fund, the library features a pathfinder-based delivery system of digital materials documenting the stories,
artistic expressions, history, and legal and social positions of sex workers internationally. The library is located on-site at CSC
and available for viewing by application only. Project director Carol Leigh explains, "This resource is designed to assist
researchers, scholars and activists (including sex workers, of course) in their efforts to understand and support sex workers
rights and culture. This resource is sorely needed as we survive in a world of stigma, discrimination and criminalization."
Library categories include: art and performance documentation; political demonstrations, marches and street theater; festival
films by and about sex workers; interviews/oral histories of sex workers and allies; and documentation from conferences
around the world.
Track B- Activism
Thursday 3:00-3:40 HOOK Collective: Yet To Be Named- a zine completely created by participants at this
conference! (Cross-listed with Track C)
In conjunction, and following the Community Caucus, we will have a Writing Workshop where time will be allocated for
individuals to be given the chance to write and submit to ____. ___ is a zine that will be compiled, copied, and distributed
completely at the conference.
___ will be a political, creative forum where people can share their stories, experiences, ideas, politics, rants, raves,
ads, artwork, erotica, etc. Be sexy, be silly, or be pissed - just let it be real! This zine especially encourages those who may
be on the margins of the sex worker community to speak out and share their unique experiences! You can choose to remain
anonymous. ____will be a parting gift to conference attendees to take home and peruse, ruminate, and share with others at
their own pace, on their own time. It is our hope that digital version will be available online to view and print as well, sometime
after the conference.
The idea of ___ is to give sex workers the space and time to have our own voices be heard, and also to take home
tales of a variety of other community experiences that we may not always have access to, or understanding of. Because the
sex worker community is diverse and many – to the extent of where some who engage in “sex work” may not even identify
themselves with the sex worker community - it is our hope that this zine will inspire new dialogue, build stronger bridges, and
expand the understanding, and connections of ourselves to each other, all fighting for survival, safety, and support within the
sex industry!
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
A call-out for submissions and zine-making participation will be announced both before the conference, and at the
beginning of the conference. Individuals can write something fresh at the conference, or bring a prepared, printed work to
submit. Submissions must be turned in hard copy form, sized to fit on a 8”x5.75” or 8”x11” page. Deadline is 5pm on July 28.
Thursday 3:55-4:30 Carol Leigh : Sex Worker Media Library (Cross-listed with Track A and C)
Thursday 3:55-4:30 Jessica Yee: Indigenous Sex Work, Realities, and Rights (Cross-listed with Track E)
This highly interactive session will talk frankly about the history of Indigenous rights as they pertain to sexuality and sex work
and their exclusion from the mainstream sex work rights movement. Case studies discussing the realities of Indigenous sex
workers across the United States and Canada from current projects and initiatives will be shared from the perspective of a
young Indigenous sex worker, who is also the founder and Executive Director of the only Indigenous organization working in
the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health across North America that isn't solely disease-control focused and refuses
to just put a feather on something and call it "Aboriginal"; the Native Youth Sexual Health Network.
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Thursday 3:00-3:20 Jenny Price: Documenting contemporary sex work and culture
Documenting contemporary sex work and culture is a critical part of maintaining our society’s history. This photographic essay
portrays the lifestyles of sex workers – people who shape the industry. I am interested in educating others on the significance
of sex work in this industry by examining the complexity of human nature, desires, and the importance of sexualized identities
in our society today. My goal is to share individual’s story from their perspective. Trust and respect is very much part of my
creative process and shaping the work in a honest yet visually compelling light. This is a work-in-progress, as I am looking to
photograph notions that contribute to the vibrancy and complexity of this profession. Each person involved will preserve for
future generations the essence of early 21st century sex work.
Thursday 3:00-3:40 HOOK Collective: Yet To Be Named (Cross-listed with Track B)
Thursday 3:20-3:30 Modern Hooker Comic Strips
Thursday 3:30-3:50 Laurenn McCubbin: Speaking to Las Vegas in the Language of Las Vegas
Thursday 3:55-4:30 Carol Leigh: Sex worker Media Library (Cross-listed with Track A and B)
Thursday 4:10-4:30 Juba Kalamka
Track D- Business Development
Thursday 3:00-3:40 Liz and Telvi Roundtable: Your Girlfriend SUCKS! ...for Money!
Telvi and Liz have been in a committed lesbian relationship for over eight years. While Liz is an out sex worker and a sex
worker activist Telvi has a more main stream job. In this roundtable discussion the trials and tribulations of dating a sex worker
as well as being a sex worker in a relationship will be explored. They will be sharing skills that have worked for them
concerning but not limited to jealousy, compromise, understanding each other’s needs, communication, as well as respecting
each other’s limits and more. Telvi will speak of issues surrounding dating a sex worker and the stigma attached to it. Liz will
speak of the struggles of balancing work and personal intimacy as well as the challenge of living in the LGBT community and
being straight for pay. This roundtable encourages not only other sex workers with partners but also those who believe that
sex work and personal relationship are not compatible.
Thursday 3:50-4:30 Tracy Elise: Tantra & The Goddess: The Sex Church in the 21st Century
Can you imagine a church where nudity, free sexual expression and true personal power are celebrated? The ancient religions
of Tantra and Goddess worship rapidly expanding throughout the our country and the world. The United States was founded
by those who sought genuine religious freedom and true separation of church and state. Imagine and grab onto the power
promised by Tom, Ben and George, and discover the ancient religions of Tantra and Goddess (body) worship. If you are not
clear about how sex and religion can be practiced at the same time, join Tracy and practitioners of the temples in how sexual
energy can transform your life!
How useful would it be to explain Tantra in just one short conversation and demonstration? How do you get to 'union'
without getting too religious, abstract or ‘spiritual’? This modality is a wonderful exoteric teaching to help bridge your students
to the esoteric inner-work that occurs in private chambers. Magnetic Tantra is a Gateway modality, and can be felt with or
without clothing on, so be ready to play together and feel the power of your own magnetic powers with another person. These
same techniques were used to integrate successfully with the Seattle, Scottsdale and Phoenix police departments as well as
the FBI and IRS. You don't want to miss the fundamentals of safe sex work from a woman who has helped hundreds of
sensual body workers, escorts, and dancers transition to a life as a sacred intimate. Finally, give your gifts without fear; bring
your practice into total security and celebration. The Temples are hosting impromptu talks and demonstrations at our table
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
during the event, visit us during the Desiree Alliance OR call / write when the festivities expire. Namaste' (the divine light in me
recognizes the divine light in you).
School of 1 Admissions: 602.956.0651 ask for Wayne
Mystic Sisters Ordination: 480.772.6577 ask for Freya
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Thursday 3:30-4:00 Claire Kitui: Nature of Sex Work (Past and Present), Reasons for the Increase, Problems Faced in
Sex Work, Sex Work and the Law and Conclusion
Sex work is illegal in Uganda but studies have revealed wide prevalence of the practice in different parts of the country
especially in urban and semi urban centres. Sex work was mostly wide spread only in Kampala currently accounting for 50%
but has now spread to many other towns. Most sex workes are aged between 15-24 years. Children who are below 18 years
account for 24% of sex workers leading to a conclusion that the youth are the ones mostly involved in sex work. Many are
uneducated, though there is evidence of University students who meet their costs of study by working as sex workers. The
transnational networks or traffickers and pimps prey on women seeking employment and opportunities leading them into sex
work. Cases of trafficking of sex workers exist mainly on the Islands of Lake Victoria and there are currently no laws or policies
that address this issue.
Sex work is mostly associated with women and it takes the form of street walkers, housewives making money from
sex work, “Flying sex workers “working in different locations and migrant sex workers from Congo, Rwanda and Burundi and
HIV infected sex workers.
There is high use of drugs among sex workers which drugs mainly include Alcohol, marijuana and cocaine.
The growth of sex work has been blamed on the economic situation, domestic violence and deteriorated traditional values.
Sex work has been perceived to pose a threat to cultural values by the government, religious leaders and other activists. It is
also associated with the spread of HIV AND STIs.
The women’s movement had for a long time refused to incorporate sex workers into their own programs but because of our
continued dialogue and lobbying, sex workers programs were finally recognized and today many women activists are now
defending the rights of sex workers.
Reaching out to serve sex workers has not been effective as they live in fear of being arrested. Aside that, they are
vulnerable to diseases, human sacrifice, rape by both clients and the police, refusal of clients to pay the agreed money,
refusal to wear condoms, drugging by clients, one client becoming many, and stigmatization by health workers among others.
There is no clear law to criminalize sex work; however they are continually detained under the “Idle and Disorderly” penal
code. A new bill has recently been drafted which criminalizes sex workers as the main spreaders of HIV/AIDS. It clearly states
that once a sex worker is proven guilty as charged, they will be jailed for 3-5 years. Another extraordinary charge leveled
against sex workers is that of “Disturbing peace by using violent or scurrilous or abusive terms of reproach.”
With all these the patriarchal state attempts to control promiscuous women and their “deviant” sexual acts. It all
zeros down to the seller of sex (majority of women) and not to the clients (mainly men). I stand here before you today, calling
on each one of you to join our efforts to fight against this discrimination believing that there is power in powers and there are
no BAD WOMEN, JUST BAD LAWS.
Thursday 3:30-4:00 Bradley Hart (HookerBoyHealth.com): It’s a (Gay) Guy Thing; Queer Male Perspectives on Sex
Work
This panel discussion will focus on the experiences and perspectives of gay/bi men in sex work, including how more male sex
workers might be engaged in the movement for sex worker rights, and how achieve better inclusion of the concerns of queer
male sex workers in the discourse around gay men’s health.
Thursday 3:55-4:30 Jessica Yee: Indigenous Sex Work, Realities, and Rights (Cross-listed with Track E)
Thursday 4:00-4:30 Streetwise & Safe: Show Some SAS! A “know your rights” video by and for LGBTQ youth of color
who have experienced quality of life policing and policing of sex work
Streetwise & Safe (SAS) is a multi-pronged youth leadership development and organizing initiative involving LGBT youth of
color with life experience trading sex for money, housing, shelter, food, drugs, immigration status or other survival needs in
New York City. In this workshop, we would share the unique curriculum and "know your rights" materials we have shared and
developed with SAS participants, which are specific to experiences with policing of sex work and "quality of life" policing. We
will also discuss peer education and harm reduction strategies relating to gender and sexuality specific forms and contexts of
police misconduct and abuse, and brainstorm possibilities for nationally coordinated locally-based advocacy around
policing policies and practices which adversely impact queer youth in the sex trades.
Thursday 5:00pm to 6:30pm Sessions
Track A- Academic and Policy: Organizing: Challenges and Opportunities
Thursday 5:00-6:30 Penelope Saunders, Brenda Costley, and Peter Bailey: Voices not included: Challenging elements
of organizing around “sex work” (Cross-listed with Track B)
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
The sex worker rights movement has resurged in the United States since 2005 with the emergence of groups like the Desiree
Alliance, SWOP USA, SWOP Chapters and the growth and expansion of direct service providers working with different
communities of sex workers. However, organizing on a mass scale for sex workers' rights is still beginning, resources are
limited and inclusion of different communities only partial. The network of allied organizations using the term "sex work" is
attempting to move beyond exclusions of the past (ie that the movement for rights is lead primarily by relatively more
privileged, English speaking, women who adopt the term "sex worker" to describe themselves) by exploring social justice
frameworks, anti-racism, gender justice and more. But exploring these issues is difficult and discussions only just beginning.
This workshop/panel discussion intends to be part of these discussions. Presenters will speak about the ways in
which various issues which have not yet been fully expressed in the current re-emerging movement for rights. How can people
who identify as sex workers be allies to those people who engage in sex for the things they need but do not identify as sex
workers? What do people from highly marginalized communities (women drug users of color, young men of color, trans street
workers drug users and more) know and opine about current approaches of sex worker rights organizing? What can be
included as part of "sex worker rights organizing" and what can be/is being addressed elsewhere by harm reductionists,
communities of color, groups working to address street economies in general?
Thursday 5:00-6:30 Lee Harington: How Much an Hour? (Cross-listed with Track D)
Learn first hand what the wide variety of sex work in America looks like straight from the man (and woman) living it. My tale
takes you from the life of a fetish model and adult film actress, to that of a male pornographer and conceptual erotic artist. You
will journey from being an escort, to hiring them. Explore the adventure of being a high priced Dominatrix, then learn to find
erotic employment as a transgendered male while navigating the life of a full time sexuality educator. Having had my first
exposure to street sex work at the age of 14, to lecturing internationally on erotic authenticity, I have been part of or held
hands with most sides of the sex industry- and through my eyes, so can you.
Track B- Activism
Thursday 5:00-6:30 Penelope Saunders, Brenda Costley, and Peter Bailey: Voices not included: Challenging elements
of organizing around “sex work” (Cross-listed with Track A)
Track C- Art, Entertainment, and Media
Thursday 5:00-6:30 Solo Performance Day 2
Track D- Business Development
Thursday 5:00-6:30 Lee Harington: How Much an Hour? (Cross-listed with Track A)
Thursday 5:00-5:40 Panel w/ Bradley Hart: Tricks, Training and Transitions
This panel discussion will focus on the experiences and perspectives of older sex workers (40+). The discussion will explore
both the challenges and rewards of getting older in the various fields of adult entertainment and erotic services, including
various paths of transition both within the sex industry and transitioning out of the industry.
Thursday 5:50-6:30 Shawn Roop: Sessions that Heal: Sexual Healing with Pleasure
Explore the emerging sacred/spiritual sex work that is creating massive consciousness around union of the pleasure of the
body and the opening that welcomes in spirit, as clients transform while we hold grounded space for them to awaken as a
whole being. This work reaches men, women and couples, straight, bi or gay. There are times when you know your work
reaches people, and you see change. There are some of us who know this work is needed, magical and offers huge rewards.
Explore systems like Tantra and Taoism that offer sacred sexual wisdom and carry a long lineage of sacred prostitution.
Topics:
Understanding Tantra
Orgasmic wisdom
Sexual dysfunction dealt with ease
Finding God in bed
Uncovering unresolved emotions through sex
Healing PTS (Post Traumatic Syndrome) and returning military members
Creating sexual mastery
Working with expansive sexual energy
Track E- Harm Reduction and Outreach
Thursday 5:00-5:30 Higashi, Y., Kaname, Y., and Yagi, K.: Sexual Health Risks Faced by Female Sex Workers in Japan
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Background: Although Japan outlawed prostitution in 1956, the utilization of sex work is generally accepted and a wide range
of legal and illegal services can be found within the sex industry. The fastest growing sex industry is “Fashion/Delivery Health,”
but because coitus remains illegal and is not outwardly offered, condoms are typically not available for sex workers at work.
Methods: Snow-ball sampling was conducted from December 2009 to January 2010 and 151 Japanese female sex workers
were recruited from the “Fashion/Delivery Health” service from Tokyo and Yokohama. They completed a self-administered
questionnaire covering demographics and sex work practices.
Results: Among the respondents (N=151), the types of services currently provided include hand jobs (93.4%), deep kissing
(88.7%), fellatio (88.7%), ejaculation into the mouth (84.1%), “Sumata” (rubbing the client’s penis with their genitals without
penetration) (88.1%), licking scrotums (86.8%), and cunnilingus (86.8%). 72.8% indicated having contracted some type of
STIs in the past, and 31.8% believed that they have been infected with STIs through transactional sex. 58.9% did not use a
condom during their last sex service which included “Sumata” (44.7%), ejaculation into the mouth (43.3%), anal sex (2.1%),
and coitus (0.7%). The most common reasons for not using condoms were “type of service did not require a condom” (47.7%),
“prohibited by shop owner or manager” (11.2%), “affects client’s erection” (6.0%), and “could not turn down clients request”
(4.6%).
Discussion: Within the popular “Fashion/Delivery Health” industry, a wide range of sexual services are available and often
provided, yet the illegal status of coitus fosters an environment where condoms are viewed as less needed and are not
typically available. There is a need to increase safe sex work practices by encouraging business owners/managers to make
condoms available and altering clients’ and sex workers’ perspectives and behaviors relating to the use of condoms.
Thursday 5:30-6:00 Sarah Sloane: Making Safer Sex (and play) Sexier
How do you use a condom without it spoiling the mood? How the heck do you use a dental dam? What was she using that
saran wrap for? Does alcohol kill STD viruses off of sex toys? Really, how easy is it to transmit HPV? Want answers? Want a
safe place to ask those questions you thought might be too ’stupid’? Come on over for a fun tour of safer sex supplies and
differently creative ways of using them – including how to easily put a condom on without using your hands! You will also get
the most current information on how various diseases are transmitted and how easy they are to kill, so that you can make
thoughtful choices on how and where you play. Bring your open mind, your questions, and your creativity out to have fun with
us!
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Presenter Bios
Keynote Speakers (in order of appearance)
Dr. Joycelyn Elders: When she was sworn in as Surgeon General, Dr. M. Joycelyn Elders became the first African American and the
second woman to hold that post. As Surgeon General, Dr. Elders initiated programs to combat youth smoking and teen pregnancy and to
increase childhood immunizations. As a private citizen, she continues to lobby tirelessly for the health needs of the young, the poor and the
powerless. A pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Elders has a deep concern for the welfare of children. She believes that violence, sexually
transmitted diseases, poverty and substance abuse are the biggest threats to the health and wellness of our children. Dr. Elders has always
spoken from her heart on health care issues. She advocates public health over profits in health care reform, openness over censorship in sex
education, and rehabilitation over incarceration in the war against drugs. Her presentations on sexual health and education are both frank and
informative. In her lectures and in her book, Joycelyn Elders M.D.: From Sharecropper’s Daughter to Surgeon General of the United States, she
addresses the importance of good prenatal care, the future of healthcare reform, women’s health concerns, current treatments for HIV/AIDS,
and meeting the needs of older Americans.
Deon Haywood is the Executive Director of Women With A Vision, Inc. - a community- based grassroots organization of Black women
dedicated to providing HIV/AIDS and substance abuse prevention services and resources to communities of color to address indi vidual risk
behaviors and social vulnerabilities. Deon is a longtime activist in the city of New Orleans with a history of organizing low-income women of
color around Reproductive Health, Social Justice and Women's Rights issues. Deon serves as a board member of the Women's Health and
Justice Initiative Clinic, and represents WWAV, Inc. as a member of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Advocacy Project (SRHAP). As an
expert in outreach and community organizing Deon provides consultation to nonprofits across the US. Currently, she is spearhe ading No
Justice, a campaign to address the criminalization of sex workers, largely poor women of color with substance abuse issues, and the excessive
and inequitable punitive consequences of conviction under Louisiana's Crimes Against Nature laws. Deon gives freely of her time, serving as a
mentor to young lesbians of color, who often don't have role models who look like them. She also planned and executed the first ever health
conference for Lesbians of Color in New Orleans. She wants only to improve her community through problem-solving and ingenuity, and she
leaves an impression on everyone she meets.
Kirk Read
is the author of "How I Learned to Snap," a memoir about being out in a southern high school in the 80s. He lives in San
Francisco, where he cohosts two queer open mic series: Smack Dab and K'vetsh. He toured twice with the Sex Workers Art Show and curated
Formerly Known As, a festival of male sex worker performers and writers. He started Army of Lovers, which curates queer performance in San
Francisco. He worked at St. James Infirmary, SF's sex worker health clinic, as an HIV counselor and phlebomist.
Norma Jean Almodovar
has been a sex worker rights activist since 1982 when she left a 10 year career with the Los Angeles
Police Department to become a call girl. Her intent from the beginning was to point out the societal hypocrisy and apathy toward prostitution
that allowed police corruption to flourish. The book she began writing when she was still with the department ultimately cost her 7 years of her
life as she battled with the LAPD and the LA District attorney who tried to stop her from getting the book published. After spending 18 months in
prison with the Manson Family women, her book was finally published (Simon and Schuster 1994). She was an NGO delegate to the 1995
UN Women’s Conference in Beijing, China, and a speaker at the 1998 AIDS Conference in Geneva. She was co-chair and co-organizer for the
1997 International Conference on Prostitution (ICOP) with Cal State University Northridge. In 2000, she was the only sex worker invited to
participate in former US Surgeon General David Satcher’s Conference on Promoting Responsible Sexual Behavior (2000), and has been a
guest lecturer at many colleges and universities across the US, and has been interviewed well over 1,000 times on radio and television through
the past 28 years. She has been the executive director of COYOTE LA since 1982, and in 1997, she co-founded the International Sex Worker
Foundation for Art, Culture and Education (ISWFACE), of which she is still president.
Tim Barnett
was born and raised in the English Midlands (Rugby… yes, the place where the game started). Between school and
university he volunteered to undertake NGO research work, first in Northern Ireland (then in the midst of civil strife) and t hen Barbados. Then
he went to study Government for three years at the London School of Economics, volunteering with Quaker Work Camps in Turkey for a
summer while there. Since then there have been three themes to his work career – NGOs, politics and Rainbow. First he worked as a
community centre manager in Woolwich Dockyard, South East London; then as Manager of the Greenwich Volunteer Bureau. Between 198288 he was an elected Labour local government councillor in two London Boroughs while also following a career in the UK national voluntary
sector, as first Coordinator of the National Association of Volunteer Bureaux then the first employee of the Stonewall Group, dedicated to
achieving equality under the law for lesbians and gay men. Then he emigrated to New Zealand, where he became involved in the Labour Party,
and the AIDS Foundation. In 1993-96 he worked as Kaiwhakahaere/Coordinator of the Christchurch Community Law Centre, and in 1996 was
elected to the New Zealand Parliament as (Labour) Member for Christchurch Central, an urban and racially mixed seat. In opposition 1996-9 he
was housing and human rights spokesperson, then (in government from 1999) a Select Committee Chair and (from 2005) Senior Government
Whip. He voluntarily left Parliament in November 2008 and has had down time in Thailand and (with his elderly mother) in the UK. Now Tim is
at the World Aids Campaign, based in Cape Town, South Africa .
Robyn Few, a native of Kentucky, ran away from home at age thirteen and later became an exotic dancer. After marrying and having a
daughter in her twenties, she began to take college courses in the hopes of earning a degree in theater arts. She came to California in 1993 to
pursue theater and become an activist. Acting and activism not being the highest paying jobs, Few turned to prostitution to pay the bills in 1996.
She has worked tirelessly as an advocate and caregiver for medical marijuana and AIDS patients and has gained quite a reputation in the Bay
Area activist community as an effective lobbyist for the issue. In June of 2002, the FBI arrested Few under the direction of John Ashcroft. Using
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
the Patriot Act, Ashcroft was able to equate terrorism with prostitution and get additional funding for the very expensive
investigation. She was convicted on one federal count of conspiracy to promote prostitution and received six months house
arrest, which she finished serving in June 2004. Judge Marilyn Hall Patel allowed Few to continue her activism and
volunteer efforts while under house arrest. Dubbed the "patriotic prostitute," a campaign centered on the idea that
prostitution should be decriminalized to protect women from violence began in October 2003 with The Sex Workers
Outreach Project. SWOP is an outgrowth of the anger and frustration that Few feels as a result of her federal bust. "Until
prostitutes have equal protection under the law and equal rights as human beings, there is no justice." SWOP Australia is
the sister organization that the USA counterpart is modeled on, although the myriad of services that SWOP-AU provides
cannot actually be put in place until prostitution is decriminalized in the U.S. "Until prostitutes are no longer criminals why
would they come forward and allow themselves to become targets for law enforcement? Decriminalization is the beginning
of the solution; it's not the solution itself."
Nina Hartley was born on March 11, 1959 in Berkeley, California and she’s an adult film performer, director and sex teacher. Having
stripped her way through nursing school, she graduated from San Francisco University in 1985. She made her debut in adult films in 1984 as a
junior in the movie "Educating Nina" produced by Juliet Anderson. Since then she has been in over 400 adut movies. In Wendy McElroy's 1995
book "XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography," she recounted how she was arrested in 1993 in Las Vegas with another 10 adult film stars for
having a lesbian performance in front of an audience. Dabbling in mainstream film, she made a cameo appearance in the Canadian movie
"Bubbles Galore" in 1996 and starred in "Boogie Nights" in 1997. Nina and her husband of 20 years, Ernest Greene, work together on movies,
such as "The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women." In 2006 she published her first book "Nina Hartley's Guide to Total Sex". She continues
to be in demand for both film and educational appearances.
Presenters’ Bios (In alphabetical order by first name)
Adrienne Telford is a Toronto-based lawyer who practices in the area of labour, human rights and social justice law. She is particularly
interested in the intersection of law and social activism.
Al, of New York, has been providing legal assistance and interpreting services for sex workers in state and immigration cases across the
country for the last 5 years.
Alexander Sotirov is an independent security consultant with more than ten years of experience breaking into and securing computer
systems. He is a frequent presenter at international conferences and has published numerous papers on computer security and privacy.
Currently he is working as an independent security consultant in New York. During a break from his work, Alexander was featured in Violet
Blue's list of Top Ten Sexy Geeks of 2009
Alexis M. Roth is a doctoral student in the Health Behavior Program at Indiana University’s School of Health, Physical Education and
Recreation. She is also a Project Coordinator at the Center for Sexual Health Promotion (Bloomington, Indiana) and the Indiana University
School of Medicine (Indianapolis, Indiana). Roth’s research aspires to inform a new policy agenda aimed at decreasing social inequalities and
health disparities. She is particularly interested in women’s sexual health and the socio-contextual determinants that impact women’s health
decisions. Her current projects involve improving our understanding of how sexual activities are negotiated in dyadic relationships, especially
among heterosexual couples engaging in transactional or commercial sex. The goal of this research is to understand how women sex workers
conceptualize and negotiate occupational health hazards and to use this information to improve women’s sexual health by improving access to
preventive and clinical services.
Allen Lichtenstein, JD, PhD, is an attorney in Las Vegas, Nevada, emphasizing First Amendment and other constitutional law issues. He is
also the General Counsel of the ACLU of Nevada, and a member of the faculty of The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. Prior to
coming to Las Vegas in 1990, he was an Associate Professor and Deputy Chair of his Department at Brooklyn College. He was also on the
faculty of the University of New Mexico, SUNY at Buffalo and University of Georgia, and has also taught at the Greenspun Scho ol of
Communication at UNLV. Allen Lichtenstein has a Masters degree in Journalism from the University of Florida, a PhD in Communication from
Florida State University and a JD from the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.
Amanda Brooks, 34, has been a sex worker her whole adult life: stripper, escort, activist and author of The Internet Escort's Handbook
series. She's a member of SWOP-East and Desiree Alliance. You may have seen her on FOX or CNBC. Currently she's traveling the world
experiencing sex work in other cultures and legal climates.
Anita Tijerina Revilla is an assistant professor in Women's Studies at University of Nevada Las Vegas. She has taught both undergraduate
and graduate level courses in the department, including several core classes and WMST 473/673 Chicana/Latina Feminism and WMST
477/677 Critical Race Feminism. Her research focuses on student movements and social justice education, specifically in the areas of
Chicana/Latina, immigrant, feminist and Queer rights activism. She is the recipient of several teaching awards, including the William Morris
Teaching Award and UNLV Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award.
Anna Saini is a Brown womyn philosopher, sex worker and twin soul. She spent the first 19 years of her life living under the threat of murder.
Since then she has attained a B.A. in Political Science and a Masters in Public Policy and Administration. She has worked as a community
organizer on issues of equality in higher education, drug policy reform, prison abolition, wimmins abuse, police brutality and labor rights. She is
a survivor and, needless to say, an artist. Her work has appeared in Bitch Magazine, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Two-Bit Magazine, VOCES and,
most recently in the anthology Colored Girls - the inaugural publication of her independent publishing house, Hustler//Artist Productions. For
more information on her work as a writer, activist, model and photographer visit www.hustlerartistproductions.moonfruit.com. You can also find
her living, breathing, burning and documenting the struggle from Detroit, the city rising up from the ashes, at www.hersight.wordpress.com.
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Annabelle Xaah: Annabelle’s a proud, nerdy whore. She created AnnaKissed.net, a web resource on sex‐ positive feminism, and wrote a DIY
zine called “AnnaKissed Man‐ i‐ Fiesta.” She interned briefly as graphic designer for $pread and helped organize the NYC Anarchist Bookfair.
During the day, she’s a buttoned‐ up undergrad, studying neuroscience (hormones & sexuality), biological anthropology (evolution &
reproductive ecology), and political economy (informal markets of female labor). At night, she secretively cuts loose, dressed up in silly animal
costumes, at her Chinatown dungeon, or on stage as a singer/songwriter/aerialist, always making up new names, and promptly forgetting how
to spell them. Annabelle enjoys reading, cooking, playing music to houseplants (they don’t file noise complaints), riding her bicycle, and taking
macro photos of everything in suggestive angles. She’s terrible at saving her puta‐ income, and generally splurges it on spontaneous escapes
to couch‐ surf the world, or Ebay. She regrets the latter, and sometimes wishes she could auction her services. Annabelle thinks being a ho’s
awesome, and wants to meet others who feel the same! She wants to create a “Desiree’s List,” to monitor Craig’s List abuses, blacklist asshole
clients/employers, promote independent sex work, and continue the conversation after Las Vegas, web 2.0‐ style.
Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition, Inc. (AHRC) in Atlanta, GA has been a strong force as a prevention, intervention, and wellness
organization in the city Atlanta since, 1994. It is our mission to imporve the health and wellbeing of marginalized, high-risk individuals in the
community. AHRC provides education and tiered risk reduction programs to empower adults in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of
substance use, HIV/AIDS, STDs, Hepatitis and other infectious and communicable diseases.
Dr. Barb Brents is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Brents’ research uses a
political economy lens to study sex and gender in market culture. Her recent work uses the sex industry as a site to understa nd the
intersections of culture and economics -- including the construction of “market morality” in political debates around sexuality; the relation
between tourism, consumption and sexuality; the emotional and bodily labor of selling sex; and consuming sex. Dr. Brents and Crystal Jackson
are founding members of “Globalization, Sexuality and the City,” an interdisciplinary project and network at UNLV to encourage the production
and dissemination of research on the intersections of sexuality, culture and economics across the globe. Brents and Jackson, along with Dr.
Kate Hausbeck, recently published The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex, and Sin in the New American Heartland (Routledge, 2010), analyzing
Nevada’s legal brothels as a form of contemporary tourism.
Bebedoll is a sex worker from the Chicago area.
Bhavana Nancherla has been working on issues of gender and sexuality in the United States and India since 2004. She has worked with
New York City-based organizations such as Sakhi for South Asian Women (an anti-domestic violence organization), APICHA (Asian and Pacific
Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS), and in collaboration with the HIV Law Project. She is a member of the Sex Worker Outreach Project - NYC
chapter, and has volunteered with Best Practices Policy Project and the Desiree Alliance.
Bradley Hart joined the struggle for queer men’s health in 1988 volunteering for the AIDS Outreach Center in Fort Worth, Texas, and later as
a early member of ACT UP/Dallas. In the mid-1990s, he served as a grant monitor for the U.S. Conference of Mayors HIV Prevention Grants
Program in WashingtonDC, overseeing the implementation of roughly $1M in federal HIV prevention funds. In 2008, Bradley Hart joined the St.
James Infirmary community, leading a community advisory process focused on men in the porn industry. He later served as Development
Coordinator at St. James, and founded SJI’s ScartletMen.SF Project. Hart also advocates for sex work rights as Postulant Eden Asp, the Fruit
of Temptation, with the San Francisco Order of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Brenda Costley has worked in harm reduction with African American women drug users for more than 5 years. She is also a member of the
Desiree Alliance and has worked at a number of non-profit organizations.
Brooke Johnson is with the Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition.
Brooke Magnanti: Belle de Jour is the pen name of Dr Brooke Magnanti, who wrote the award-winning blog and five bestselling books about
her experiences working as a call girl in London. The books were later adapted into the Showtime hit Secret Diary of a Call Girl, starring Billie
Piper. She remained anonymous for 7 years before revealing her identity in November 2009. Brooke works in child health research and lives in
Bristol, England.
Cameryn Moore is a writer, comedian, sex educator, performer, and, oh yeah, a phone sex operator. She is touring her one-woman play,
Phone Whore, to 20+ cities around North America in the summer and fall of 2010; even more amazingly, she will attempt to hold down at least
25 hours of on-call shifts a week during that tour (do you know how hard it is to find homestay with a landline and privacy?). In her hometown of
Boston, Cameryn is the host of f*ckbucket, a monthly talk show and sex-trivia night at the Savant Project, and makes semi-regular appearances
at the Naked Comedy Showcase, the Comedy Studio, and Good Vibrations. She blogs about her work in both phone sex and "straight"
performance at http://www.camerynmoore.com. Under her legal name, Cameryn writes, directs, choreographs and produces size-diverse
dance and theater shows.
Carol Leigh has been a sex worker and activist since the late seventies. A poet and performance artist, she coined the term "sex worker" in
1979. Leigh founder of BAYSWAN (Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Project) is webmistress of Prostitutes Education Network and the
Trafficking Policy Research Project. She volunteered at the HIV Prevention Project (needle exchange) for several years and founded a street
outreach project in conjunction with the Coalition on Prostitution. As a founding member of ACT UP, she organized a campaign against
mandatory HIV testing of prostitutes. She was lead writer and organizer of the San Francisco Board of Supervisor's Task Force on Prostitution
representing San Francisco's Commission on the Status of Women. She served as a consultant for the development of the AIM For Human
Rights Trafficking Policy Impact Tool (Netherlands). She is a founding member of SWOP-USA, BAYSWAN and a long time COYOTE member.
Leigh founded and directs the San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival (sexworkerfest.com).
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Cheryl Auger is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Toronto in Canada. Her dissertation focuses on how Canada’s sex
work policies, policy debates and political discourses exclude people in the sex industry from full membership in Canadian society. She has a
wide variety of other interests, including fashion, knitting, photography, dance, and tantric sex.
Cheryl Radeloff is a Disease Investigation and Intervention Specialist II with the Southern Nevada Health District Office of HIV/AIDS/STD.
She is also an adjunct professor of Women’s Studies at the College of Southern Nevada. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2004. Her dissertation was entitled “Vectors, Polluters, and Murders: HIV Testing Policies toward
Prostitutes in Nevada”. Prior to joining the Southern Nevada Health District, she was an assistant professor of Women’s Studies at Minnesota
State University, Mankato. She has co-authored several book chapters, including a chapter on mandatory HIV testing and sex offenders.
Radeloff has written essays on safer sex, feminist pedagogy, and feminist methodology. She is currently in the process of co-authoring
Transform Yourself, Transform the World: Practical and Inspiring Guidance of What You Can Do with a Women’s Studies Degree for Routledge
Press. Besides facilitating a variety of educational programs for the SNHD Office of HIV/AIDS/STDs, such as Fundamentals of HIV, she helped
organize “Sex in the City with SNHD: A Public Health Perspective”, a one day program in January 2010 which featured Las Vegas community
perspectives for State University of New York, Potsdam students enrolled in a Public Health course. This is her second presentation for the
Desiree Alliance conference.
Christine Milrod, Ph.D., LMFT, ACS, is a certified sexologist, licensed psychotherapist and academic researcher specializing in the study of
male clients of sex workers, evolutionary psychology, existential counseling and transgender therapy. She is the resident pro bono
psychosexual counselor operating under the alias “Love Goddess” of The Erotic Highway, a discussion board on the website The Erotic
Review.com, where she answers questions concerning human sexuality, provider-hobbyist relations and client behavior on a daily basis. She
maintains a traditional psychotherapy practice in West Hollywood, California, and a worldwide sex-and-life coaching practice through VOIP on
the Internet. Her recent study of the demographics and behaviors of 584 male clients transacting for sexual services through The Erotic
Review.com was completed in November 2009.
Claire Kitui: I was born on 23 Sept 1988 in Uganda. I am the sixth born in a family of seven children. I attended Primary School at Shimoni
Demonstration School and completed my secondary education at Mt St. Mary’s College Namagunga and Taibah College, all located in
Uganda. I have studied a number of courses in leadership and trained in a number of human rights fields. I am a feminist who strongly believes
in the equality of all men and women and fights to do away with all forms of discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation, religion,
ethnicity and many others. I am currently working as the Spokesperson and Chairperson of Lady Mermaid’s Bureau which is a Non
Governmental Organization that advocates for the rights of sex workers in a Uganda. I am a member of the Uganda Feminist movement and
the Uganda Harmonized Rights Alliance which was formed early this year to bring an end to the human rights violations and create a safe
working environment in which sex workers can enjoy their rights as all citizens of Uganda .
Cristine Sardina is a Co-founder and Program Developer for the Women's Reentry Network-WREN, in Tucson Arizona. WREN is a
progressive reentry organization for women in and out of Arizona's penal systems, and provides a nationally recognized experiential approach
to reentry by women ex-felons for women (ex) felons. WREN is possibly the only organization run entirely by women ex-felons and its
membership is exclusive to this criteria. WREN is affiliated and collaborates with local, state, and national organizations w orking on the multicomplexities of carceral systems, including activism, legislation, and community issues. Cris is affiliated with Desiree Alliance Grant Writing
Team and has allied with several individuals and organizations working on oppressive systems of power. She has presented academic papers
on sex work and has been invited to speak at local and national conferences on incarceration issues. Cris holds a Bachelor's degree in
Women's Studies from the University of Arizona and a Master's degree in Social Justice from Prescott College. Cris is currently applying for the
PhD program at Prescott College in Sustainable Education with an emphasis on sex work movements. She has engaged in sex work and is
proactive on women's, labor, and human rights.
Crysta Heart has worked in a variety of areas of adult entertainment for 10+ years. She has been a human and animal rights advocate and
activist since 1987. Crysta became proactive in the sex worker rights movement after attending the first Desiree Alliance conference
and started SWOP-MI in 2006.
Crystal Jackson studies how inequalities related to gender and sexuality are reproduced and challenged within law, politics, and economy.
She specializes in the analysis of legal and illegal sexual commerce. Jackson has researched strip club laws, an annual profe ssional
conference for pornographers, and rural brothels. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the sociology department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Dr. Barb Brents and Crystal Jackson are founding members of “Globalization, Sexuality and the City,” an interdisciplinary project and network at
UNLV to encourage the production and dissemination of research on the intersections of sexuality, culture and economics across the
globe. Brents and Jackson, along with Dr. Kate Hausbeck, recently published The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex, and Sin in the New American
Heartland (Routledge, 2010), analyzing Nevada’s legal brothels as a form of contemporary tourism.
Danielle dv8 works is a Model, Escort, Actress & Holistic Wellness. Active in the BDSM/Leather community for fourteen years, Danielle is the
Matriarch of House dv8, Houston, TX - a Polyamorous, Spiritually Focused, BDSM family. She is a practicing Zen Buddhist but House dv8 is
all-denominational, pan-sexual and gender/sexual orientation bending. She started presenting in the lifestyle in 2007 but has been a public
speaker on various aspects of wellness for ten years. She is a certified personal trainer, kick-boxing, yoga, Pilates, and aerobics instructor and
practices homeopathy and energy medicine professionally.
Dick Cunningham, B.S., M.A., J.D., has advocated for over 30 years on issues of gender, race and sex. He has played a leading role in
landmark legal cases, including being the supervising attorney on the Supreme Court Case regarding women in military academies and the
initiating attorney for the lawsuit during the Vietnam War that resulted in equal media political coverage. He has served as chair of the boards of
both the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom Foundation (NCSF) and the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. He is senior international trade
partner at Steptoe & Johnson, LLP in Washington, D.C. Dick is currently advising on legal and policy aspects of the NCSF Consent Counts
initiative. Dick has extensive speaking experience and has presented at the World Trade Organization, the European Union, the American Bar
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Association, numerous universities and international trade meetings and conferences, the Leather Leadership Conference, Creating Change,
and numerous BDSM/poly/swing groups.
Doug Bynon has 25 years in tax related and direct tax advisory activities and graduate degrees in law, tax and finance. He specializes in
bringing non compliant taxpayers into the tax system without significant adverse financial effect. His firm, TaxRehab, provides representation
for audits, liens, levies, garnishments, settlements, installment plans, offers in compromise in addition to tax return preparation. Doug has
significant experience in business and entity planning as to structure and multiple forms of business entity, project and joi nt venture planning.
TaxRehab specializes in tax strategy and planning, entity planning, IRS negotiation, tax mainstreaming, mediation, delinquent year return
preparation, Pre-paid tax audit services. The firm has represented individuals and businesses in the hospitality, entertainment and several other
areas with an emphasis on the cash based professional.
www.TaxRehab.com
E. Smith: is a dedicated activist and has offered her insight at many panels in the DC area and beyond. She has worked at Different Avenues,
a Washington area agency that provides services to you and young adults, ages 12-30, who are homeless or living in insecure housing. Erika’s
optimism and courage has made her a role model at her agency and with the communities served by Different Avenues. Different Avenues
works with people who engage in street survival strategies, including sex for favors. Many of the organization’s clients are transgender, gay
lesbian or bisexual.
Elizabeth Nanas is a doctoral student and King-Chavez-Parks Future Faculty Fellow at Wayne State University. She is the 2009-2010 Dow
Chemical Hong Kong Fellow housed at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Elizabeth participated in undocumente d work
from the late 1980s to mid 1990s. She is on the board of Best Practices Policy Project and is actively involved with the Desiree Alliance. Her
research focuses on social networks of science and engineering communities in the cities of Detroit and Hong Kong. Her work extends and
builds on a program of ethnographic research to develop theories and empirical findings regarding knowledge production, circulation, and
authority within scientific communities.
Emily van der Meulen is with Maggie’s in Toronto.
Elya Maria Durisin is with Maggie’s in Toronto.
Emmanuelle “Manou” Joassaint is a member of SWOP-Boston and has been the Health Programs Manager for a drop in center for
GLBTQ youth (13-25) in Boston, Massachusetts since 2008. She has worked in the public health and counseling fields for approximately five
years. Check her out at http://reduceharm.wordpress.com/.
Erik Peterson is founder of Erik Peterson Analytics LLC, a Las Vegas-based corporate financial analysis firm. He also has 10 years of
experience as an employee of Fortune 500 companies working in many areas including Finance, Strategy, Business Development, Marketing,
Sales, Engineering and Manufacturing. In addition, Erik has worked as a consultant at a large, global management consulting firm in their
Boston and New York City offices. Erik earned a Master in Business Administration degree (with Honors) from the Harvard Business School.
His undergraduate degree is a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering (Summa Cum Laude).
Erika is a dedicated activist and has offered her insight at many panels in the DC area and beyond. She has worked at Different Avenues, a
Washington area agency that provides services to you and young adults, ages 12-30, who are homeless or living in insecure housing. Erika’s
optimism and courage has made her a role model at her agency and with the communities served by Different Avenues. Different Avenues
works with people who engage in street survival strategies, including sex for favors. Many of the organization’s clients are transgender, gay
lesbian or bisexual.
Erin Scott holds a Masters Degree in sociology from DePaul University and is the Director of Operations for Sawbuck Productions, Inc. In
addition, she is the co-founder and Director of Recovery Rags, a grassroots harm reduction organization dedicated to improving the health and
wellbeing of street-level sex workers struggling with drug dependence and addiction.
Fidel Figueroa is a 50 year old Puerto Rican man who has been HIV positive for 19 years. The author is currently a case manager and
counselor at Citiwide Harm Reduction and has been working with substance users and people infected and affected with HIV/AIDS for almost
eight years. He is a former male sex worker, and has been part of GLBT community for almost 15 years, directing and producing pageants,
special events, and planning benefits to raise funds for organizations, community clubs, and individuals for all causes. He has been working in
theater industry for almost seven years, and has participated and volunteered in Gay Pride events on several occasions.
Furry Girl is a tempestuous nerd who's been removing her clothing at "inappropriate" times since she was a toddler. She's a dropout who
traded in AP courses for wandering around the country before turning 18. After doing a shoot for a large adult company in 2002, Furry Girl
decided to open her own business. She now operates FurryGirl.com, EroticRed.com, VegPorn.com, TheSensualVegan.com, and
Cocksexual.com, and blogs at Feminisnt.com. In addition to running a small smut empire, she also enjoys international travel, vegan cooking,
the outdoors, reading nonfiction, sleeping with computer geeks, and her neurotic grey cat, Mr Mouse.
Gordon Nyabade is with the Go Fishnet Youth Project. Go Fishnet Youth Project is a Community Based Organization reaching out to
Commercial Sex-Workers, Girls at risk and gender inequality persons with sensitization and awareness programmes, advocacy and trainings
towards prostitutes, bar-maids and house maids under constant abuse and constraints.We are a Voice to the Voiceless valnurable groups of
sex-workers!Director,Gordon Nyabade:E-mail: gonyabade@yahoo.com
Greg Scott is the Director of Research for the Chicago Recovery Alliance, the single largest harm reduction-based syringe exchange program
in the United States. In addition, he is an associate professor of sociology and the Director of the Social Science Research Center at DePaul
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
University in Chicago. Finally, he is the Executive Director of Sawbuck Productions, Inc., an independent non-profit alternative audio and film
production company.
HOOK Collective: HOOK (Hustlers Out On Kapitalism) is a collective of sex workers and activists in the Bay Area from various race and class
backgrounds working on community-building projects. Through shared diverse experiences and desires for progress, we hope to create a safe,
supportive, healing space where individuals in the sex industry and activist circles can inspire new dialogue, build bridges, and expand the
understanding and connections of ourselves to each other, all fighting for survival, safety, and support within the sex industry, and beyond! We
meet once a week in San Francisco! If you are interested in more info about our meetings, please email us at HOOK.Collective@gmail.com
and put ‘Meetings’ in the header.
J. D. Obenberger is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School (J.D., 1979), the United States Army Judge Advocate General's
School (1979), and the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (1986). He often provides commentary in television and print media on issues
affecting online communications and has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, Wired, AVN Online, XBIZ, YNOT News,
Klixxx and numerous other publications, and has been a guest on The O'Reilly Factor. He is an active member of The First Amendment
Lawyer's Association and the Free Speech Coalition. He has handled a wide variety of criminal cases, ranging from obscenity t o conspiracy,
aggravated kidnapping, forgery and drug cases, both as a prosecutor and as defense counsel, at trial and on appeal, and in locations as
geographically diverse as Brownsville, Texas, Vicenza, Italy, and throughout Germany.
http://www.xxxlaw.net/
Jean Grey likes to consider herself a professional sensualist. She has been a C.M.T for seven years and a sex worker of different capacities
for three years. She has been experimenting with health and spirituality as long as she has been practicing body work. With a background in
BDSM and holistic healing; Jean works to bring back the sacred to her sex work. Jean is a pleasure seeker, but strives for a strong spiritual
connection to the pleasure she provides and receives. Currently, she is a regular at the Mustang Ranch, outside of Reno, Nevada.
Jenny Price earned both her B.F.A in photography and graphic design and M.F.A in photography, graphic design, and new media
technologies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She studied under and was mentored by numerous creative legends including John
Szarkowski, Tom Bamberger, Paul Shambroom, and Sandi Fellman. Jenny Price's current creative research examines the complexity of human
nature, desires, and importance of socially contextualized identities. Price exhibits internationally and is in numerous private collections. And
has been awarded national honors from Society for Photographic Education and Kodak, among other prestigious associations. Price speaks to
professional organizations, universities, and corporations on creative issues. Price has also worked professionally within the field of design for
over a decade for numerous clients dedicated to the arts and health & wellness. Solving creative challenges for clients and educating within the
realm of design -- work in an integrated fashion. Since 2002, Price has also taught design and new media technologies for the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and is a faculty member in the graphic design department with the Art Institute Pittsburgh - Online Division. Jenny currently
resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Jessica Castellano: No bio submitted.
Jessica Yee: 25 years old and Two Spirit from the Mohawk Nation, Jessica is the founder and Executive Director of the Native Youth Sexual
Health Network, the first and only organization of its kind in North America by and for Indigenous youth working within the full spectrum of
sexual and reproductive health throughout the continent. Jessica is currently serving as the first Chair of the National Aboriginal Youth Council
at the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network as well the International Indigenous HIV/AIDS Working Group, the first North American youth
representative at MenEngage International Alliance for Gender Equality, and the first Youth Outreach Board Member at NativeOUT - a USbased national Native American LGBTQ organization. She is a strong believer in the power of the youth voice and agency, and you can see her
writing on sites like the Racialicious, or pick up her recently released book "Sex Ed and Youth: Colonization, Communities of Colour, and
Sexuality" and look for her upcoming book in Winter 2011 "Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism: Feminist Education
Now - Youth, Activism, and Intersectionality". She is the 2009 recipient of the YWCA Young Woman of Distinction award, a 2009/2010 Role
Model for the National Aboriginal Health Organization, named one of 20 International Women's Health Heroes by Our Bodies/Our Blog and was
recently awarded the Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Youth Entrepreneur Award for her founding of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network. Contact
Jessica Yee at jyee@nativeyouthsexualhealth.com or visit our website at http://nativeyouthsexualhealth.com/
Jill McCracken is an educator, activist, and researcher. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, and
her research interests include the rhetoric of marginalized communities, in particular that of sex work/trafficking; public policy; gender studies;
reproductive technologies; civic engagement; and communication across the curriculum. She is currently working on an analysis of street sex
worker representations and their effects on sex workers and society, which reveals the power of everyday language and its inf luence on the
material conditions of street sex workers’ lives.
Joelle Ruby Ryan earned her Doctorate in American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University in 2009. She currently teaches
Women's Studies at the University of New Hampshire. Her research and activist interests include transgender/queer studies, film/media
studies, fat liberation, sex work and feminist theory. She is the author of Gender Quake: Poems and the producer of 3 autobiographical films.
She is a frequent speaker on social justice issues in classes, community groups and social service agencies. You can reach Joelle on the web
at www.joellerubyryan.com.
Joyce Arthur: I am a co-founder of FIRST, a sex worker advocacy organization in Vancouver (www.firstadvocates.org). I am an active
member of its organizing/planning committee, moderate the FIRST listserv, and do some of the media communications for FIRST. I'm a former
exotic dancer, and currently work as a writer. I'm also the founder and Coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, a national prochoice group in Canada.
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Juba Kalamka: Chicago native Juba Kalamka is most recognized for his work as co-founder and producer of the critically acclaimed
“homohop” group Deep Dickollective (D/DC), development of the micro-label Sugartruck Recordings and as curator of the PeaceOUT
Homohop Festival. Noted for his dialogues on the convergences and conflicts of race, identity, sexuality and class in popular culture, Kalamka
has written and illustrated articles for numerous magazines and journals, including Kitchen Sink, Colorlines, and Anything That Moves. Kalamka
received the 2005 Creating Change Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and was invited to perform at the 2006 D esiree
Alliance Closing Party. Featured in the Alex Hinton’s homohop documentary Pick Up The Mic, Kalamka also makes love to the camera in Good
Vibrations' G Marks the Spot and Joani Blank's Orgasm!: Faces of Ecstasy, among others. His second solo recording Ooogabooga Under
Fascism will be released in late 2010. Some of his recent writings appear in the Annie Oakley - edited anthology Working Sex (Seal Press,
2007) and Total Chaos: the Art and Aesthetics of Hip Hop (Basic Civitas Books, 2007). Lyrics by Kalamka and D/DC are included in the
forthcoming lyric compendium the Yale Anthology of Rap (Yale University Press, 2010).
Judy Guerin is a well-known activist, writer, speaker and educator on issues of sexual freedom and gender expression and has been
dedicated to activism on these issues for over 20 years. She is a long-time member of the BDSM/leather/fetish community and currently directs
the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom’s Consent Counts Project to decriminalize BDSM. She was one of the first women to start teaching
cross-dressing in the 1980’s and is a proud former pro domme. She has presented at numerous national and international conferences,
including the World Congress of Sexology, the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, The American Society of Sex Educators,
Counselors and Therapists, Creating Change, the International Foundation for Gender Education and the National Organization for Women and
has authored numerous articles on sexual freedom and gender expression. She is the former Executive Director of the National Coalition for
Sexual Freedom and a former board member of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation and GenderPAC. She is a former steering committee
member of the National Policy Roundtable of GLBT & HIV/AIDS groups and an advisor to the European Union on issues of sexual freedom,
gender expression and GLBT issues.
www.ncsfreedom.org
Juliet November: I am a white, queer, working-class, radical anti-racist and anti-capitalist Canadian/international sex worker. I have been
doing a wide range of sex work activism for about 5 years, previously with The Sex Professionals of Canada in Toronto but I've also worked
with Empower in Thailand and Scarlet Alliance in Australia. My desire to do this skill share comes out of my love for sex workers, our strength
and beauty, our independence and insight. I am interested in work that nourishes us individually and collectively, that brings us together to
solve our own problems and that makes us stronger and more resilient against the intersections of oppressions that whores face. I blog at
bornwhore.wordpress.com
Keva I Lee is a professional dominatrix, fetish model and performance artist. Previously, she worked as a counselor and advocate for sex
workers in the criminal justice system, until she decided to become a sex worker herself and never looked back. Keva I Lee first performed in
the Sex Workers Art Show 2008, dominating unsuspecting college students across the United States. Since then she has performed in Whorea-palooza, Sex Workers Fest 2009, Femina Potens and is one of the guest bloggers for the "We, Asian Sex Workers" blog
(www.weasiansexworkers.wordpress.com). Her writing and performance pieces are centered around her experiences as an Asian woman
working in the sex industry and the constant barrage of stereotypes that come with it.
Karrie: No bio submitted
Kathleen Bergquist: Dr. Bergquist is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She
completed her Masters in Social Work (Norfolk State University) and Ph.D. in Counselor Education (College of William and Mary) in Virginia.
She is also a licensed attorney, having completed her Juris Doctorate studies at the Boyd School of Law at UNLV. Dr. Bergquist’s area of
research is intercountry adoption, which has led her through her legal studies to examine the movement of children through force, fraud, and
coercion. This interest in human trafficking has intersected with her community-based work in the Asian Pacific American community in Las
Vegas as the co-director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) Las Vegas Chapter, and the conflation of sex work
and human trafficking in public policy and practice.
Kathryn Payne is with Maggie’s, Toronto.
Kelli Dorsey: No bio submitted.
Kigongo Ali helped to establish the Lady Mermaids Bureau in Kampala, Uganda. He is also an advisor with the Great Lakes Migrant
Sexworkers Project which responds to the needs of migrant sexworkers from the Africa Great Lakes region. The project aims to ensuring
appropriate responses to the health and social care needs of these migrant sex workers and to assist them get knowledge about the Ugandan
social and legal system, it aims to develop and disseminate multilingual health promotion materials, peer education and cultural mediation.
Arranging papers for immigration registration, guiding the refugee sexworkers through the process of application for legal stay either as a
refugee or gratis of stay, and teaching the women on human rights education. He is also aiding in the Development of a new sexworkers group
with more than 100 members in the slums of Kawempe Division in Kampala. The group’s name is ‘Empowered at Dusk’
Kimberlee Cline: I’ve been working in the sex industry since 2008. In 12 years I’ve had innumerable conversations with people about being a
sex worker. At times this came as a detriment to my employment, academic and my personal life. But more often I’ve experienced acceptance
and positivity and established lasting, trusting relationships with friends and family members. I’ve found that the easiest way to initiate these
conversations is through my studies and my activism. I’ve figured out a lot about what works and most importantly what doesn’t work.
Laura Kane is a feminist, sex worker, activist and has even dabbled in making experimental porn. Her academic work coincides with
advocating for sexual autonomy on ALL levels only on a minor note. Laura studies political theory and is interested in psychic and symbolic
configurations of power. She believes in the recognition and exploration of all and any expression of sexuality that we chose is right for us at
any given time.
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Laurenn McCubbin has been the Managing Editor for Shojo Beat magazine, the art director for Image Comics and the creative director for
Kitchen Sink magazine. She is currently teaching and attending Grad School at UNLV. Her illustration work has been featured e verywhere from
Boing Boing to The New York Times to On Our Backs, and is featured in Michelle Tea's book and Showtime series of "Rent Girl" She is
currently getting her MFA in Painting and Drawing from UNLV, and teaching part-time.
Leather Conrad is a sex worker that started first with stripping back in 1995 and since has been a male model, escort, investment banker,
filmmaker, actor, squater and now a pro dom for the past 2 years. He also co founded swop-nyc the new york city chapter of sex workers
outreach project and swank sex workers action new york, both groups being sex worker organizing and activism. Leather Conrad has spoken
and performed at various BDSM and activism venues usually on the subject of peer education, or sexworker rights. As a filmmaker and actor
He has made Independent films and stage productions on main stream subjects. This is the first performance work that Leather Conrad has
created since being out as a sexworker.
Lee Harrington is a passionate spiritual and erotic educator, gender radical eclectic artist and published author and editor on human sexuality
and spiritual experience. He is a nice guy with a disarmingly down to earth approach to the fact that we are each beautifully complex
ecosystems, and we deserve to examine the human experience from that lens. He's been traveling the globe (from Seattle to Sydney, Berlin to
Boston), teaching and talking about sexuality, psychology, faith, desire and more since 1995, and has no intention to stop any time soon. Along
the way he has been a brainy academic, a female adult film performer, a world class sexual explorer, an outspoken philosopher, and an award
winning author and artist. Check out the trouble he has been getting into, as well as his many books, audio classes, videos and more over at
www.PassionAndSoul.com.
Lisa Marie Alatorre: I am a queer, Chicana, hustling-class femme whose life has been impacted by the sex trade in many ways. I currently
work as the national campaign director for Critical Resistance, a national organization committed to ending society’s reliance on policing and
prisons as a response to social, economic, and political problems. I am also an adult ally and board member of the Young Women’s
Empowerment Project in Chicago, an organization that supports young women in the sex trade and street economies. As a sex worker/ally,
experiencing resistance and resilience has been both an act of politicization as well as survival. I believe that we must highlight and celebrate
the spectrum of responses to harms, or the threat of harm, experienced in our communities that do not rely on the police or criminal justice
systems.
Liz has been a sex worker since the age of 14. She joined SWOP-Tucson in 2006 and became more interested in sex worker activism after
attending the Leadership Institute in DC in 2007. From there she began taking on leadership roles within Desiree Alliance as well as SWOPUSA. She helped organize not only the 2008 Chicago conference but also the National Sex Worker Rights March on Dec. 17th in 2008.
Lorena Borjas engaged in street-based sex work for survival for twelve years. A Transgender Mexican woman and a former sex worker,
Lorena has personally faced discrimination on many fronts, but this has only made her resolve to help her communities stronger. Lorena now
works as a Peer in the Syringe Exchange Program at ACQC, distributing sterile syringes to people who use drugs and/or inject hormones. She
does a great deal of outreach in Jackson Heights, Queens, where there is a sizable transgender community, and she also takes a lead role in
facilitating “TransLatina” on Friday nights at ACQC. It is because of Lorena’s dedication and leadership that this support group was founded in
January, 2009.
Lusty Day: At 27 years whore age, Lusty Day is a lusty-hearted, sexually-skilled, smart-assed and love-ready anti-racist genderqueer sex
worker currently camped in Toronto, Canada. An occasional stand-up comic and writer, she has worked in three countries primarily as a GFE
escort. She was honoured to once be a Debby in the Australian group Debby Doesn't Do It For Free. You can find her at www.lustyday.com
and in her zine Whorelicious. Available for incalls and outcalls. Deep discounts and barter exchange for fellow workers!
Lyne Genereux has been engaged with Maggie’s for over ten years and currently serves on the Board of Directors. A current sex worker, she
has worked in prostitution for 21 years, with experience in escorting, incall work and erotic massage. Lyne has personal and professional
experience with substance use and is a strong advocate for users’ rights. She has been active in the harm reduction movement for the past ten
years, providing support, outreach, counselling and advocacy.
Maggie McLetchie joined the ACLU of Nevada in July of 2007. She came to the ACLU after five years in private practice as a commercial
litigator at Bingham McCutchen. Maggie graduated from UCLA’s School of Law and UCLA’s Program in Public Interest Law and Policy in 2002.
Maggie studied women’s history, including the history of criminalization of prostitution as an undergraduate, and studied the intersection of law
and gender in law school. At the ACLU, Maggie has litigated a number of cases, including First Amendment cases and a challenge to
proposed changes to Nevada’s sex offender laws. Maggie is also helping to work towards adding provisions prohibiting discrimination based on
gender identity and sex to Nevada’s public accommodations law.
Maggie’s is Canada’s oldest sex worker run organization. Our mission is to assist sex workers in our efforts to live and work with safety and
dignity. We are founded on the belief that in order to improve our circumstances, sex workers must control our own lives and destinies. This
panel is made up of members of the Maggie’s Board of Directors who are also researchers and academics.
Marcus: A bisexual switch. A polyamorous lover. A pretty adventurous man. Marcus lives in Washington, DC. He works full time as an escort
for men and women. He hosts All Male and Male/Female/Trans group sex parties several times each month. His blog “Welcome to The Fuck
House” was a Best Sex Blog finalist at the Erotic Awards in England. And he teaches about sex in a variety of places, from sex conferences to
accredited university classes. Marcus is an activist for sex worker rights, bisexual rights, and the sex-positive movement. I teach many other
sex classes in addition to getting into escorting and have been a contributing writer for Spread Magazine.
http://marcusteaches.blogspot.com and http://daveinfo.blogspot.com
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Mariko Passion, Educated Whore and Urban Geisha is a performance artist | activist | educator | whore revolutionary. She sings and rhymes
her experiences and reality over beats and produces auto-documentary videos. She educates the community and fights for social justice issues
related to sex workers rights in LA, across the U.S and the world.
Meeshee was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. In her teens, she attended live drawing classes in Venice Beach, mesmerized by the
physical grace and ease of the female models. Driven by adventure, Meeshee sold all that she owned and flew to Europe in her mid twenties.
She traveled throughout Europe, intrigued by the culture and its mélange of art, dance, cuisine and history. She wrote freelance articles for an
American newspaper in Prague while teaching aerobics. She combed through books, favoring author Anaїs Nin whose literature indulged in the
mysterious world of erotica. Migrating back to the States, she spent idle days in cafes writing short stories in Boston and waiting tables in a
local trattoria. In her thirties, she moved to Miami. Instinctively, she purchased a camera and some equipment. Models seemed the obvious
subject, driven by an urge to display their beauty. www.meesheephotography.com 11 years later, she now lives in Tampa Bay, Florida,
maintaining a balance between photography and public relations. Together with her husband and business partner, she enjoys cooking,
traveling, playing with their two cats and dog, socializing and searching for the perfect bottle of wine.
Megan Morgenson is an Ohio native that has worked in and out of sex work for over 17 years. She started in lingerie modeling, but has also
worked in a massage parlor, danced for bachelor parties, and worked outcall through agencies, as well as dabbling in BDSM and doing some
video work. She has worked independently as an escort and intimacy life coach on the internet since 2001. She is currently involved in
community activism in her home town to combat human trafficking, has helped start the non-profit organization Sex Workers for Choice, and is
co-founder of an escort education and empowerment group known as the OPC, or Original Pussy Cartel. Besides being a sex workers rights
activist, Megan is also a strong supporter of pro-choice reproductive health care and volunteers as an HIV tester and counselor in her free time,
including helping to initiate a "sex worker friendly" HIV testing clinic in her area.
Melissa Sontag Broudo has been involved in the sex workers’ rights movement for ten years. Her interest was sparked by a women’s history
class at Brown University and her personal/political commitment to sexual freedom. Her senior thesis dealt with discourses surrounding sex
work, specifically within the context of the AIDS epidemic. She went on to graduate with a joint JD/MPH degree at Georgetown University Law
Center and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. While at Georgetown Law, she put together a symposium on
prostitution and published an article entitled “Prostitution.” At Hopkins, her thesis focused on the impact of criminalizat ion on violence against
sex workers. Melissa’s primary involvement in the movement has been outside academia. She has interned for various harm reduction
organizations that address the needs of sex workers, including FROST’D (From Our Streets with Dignity), the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and
Different Avenues. She is currently a Consulting Attorney with the Sex Workers Project, where she represents clients primari ly on criminal
matters and engages in policy and activism. Melissa has been actively involved in SWOP-NYC and is a member of the PROS (Providers of
Resources to Sex Workers) Network. Melissa is also on the Board of Best Practices Policy Project.
Meredith Ralston: I am a professor of Women’s Studies and filmmaker. I have been doing research on prostitution since 1990 and have
written two books on the subject, with a particular focus on sex tourism in the Philippines. The most recent is Reluctant Bedfellows: Feminism,
Activism and Prostitution in the Philippines. I have also produced an award-winning film on the same subject Hope in Heaven, narrated by
Kiefer Sutherland. I am doing research for a follow-up film that will examine the prostitution industry world-wide and that will include segments
on all forms of prostitution. See abstract below as well as my websites: www.meredithralston.com and www.hopeinheavenfilm.com
Modern Hooker: My name in the sex worker rights community is Modern Hooker. I’m a founding member of SWOP-Tucson, past director
and co-director of the three day International Sex Worker Arts Festival (Tucson, 2003; 2004), past founder and director of the three day V-Day
Festival (Tucson; 2001; raised $13,000 for local domestic violence shelters); founder of the Sex Workers Virtual Community, a social site on
Ning.com; and founding member of the Drunken Word Poets (spoken word “house poets” for Club Congress, Tucson, 1998-2002).
Ofelia Del Corazon is a queer-ass, highfemme, mixed-race writer, performance artist, workshop presenter and organizer. She has been
active wtih SWOP LA and has been a driving force behind the LA arts collective Trans/Giving for over three years. Her alter ego "Mommy
Fiercest" is a blogger, twitter junkie and has MCed countless drag, burlesque and pride celebrations. Ofelia has worked as a Dial-A-Domme
phone sex operator, darling of the webcam and currently works as a proffessional dominatrix based out of Los Angeles. Learn more about her
and "Sex, Art and Culture for the Headonists in All of Us" at http://mommyfiercest.wordpress.com/
Penelope Saunders is the founder of the Best Practices Policy Project, a group that works to support the strengthening of organizations
working with sex workers in the United States. She is also a member of the Desiree Alliance and the SWOP USA board of Directors. She also
worked in direct service organizations with different communities for 15 years.
Peter Bailey is a member of SWOP NYC and has engaged in harm reduction work with men, women and trans people in different
communities in the New York City area.
Reverend Pam Vessels is a co founder of APLE, Arresting Prostitutes is Legal Exploitation and serves on the board of Harm Reduction
Hawaii. She is an outspoken advocate for the decriminalization of sex work and the rights of sex workers. She considers herself an example of
how one’s attitudes about sex work can change thanks to the many smart, articulate, loving, honest sex workers she knows all over the world.
Rachel Grinstein became interested in sex workers’ rights through the usual routes: feminism, sexual rights and freedoms, and personal
experience. Since an early introduction to the issues surrounding sex work, the fight for sexual freedoms and the rights of sex workers have
been prominent issues in both her academic life and her activist work. Her experiences at the University of Toronto enforced her feminist
beliefs, with extensive studies of human sexuality in the context of Sociology, Anthropology and Political Science. At the University of Toronto,
Rachel also had the opportunity to study HIV and harm reduction from a sociological perspective. While living in Toronto, she collaborated with
other local activists on various projects relating to sex workers’ rights. Her degree from the University of Toronto includes a major in Sociology,
and a double-minor in Sexual Diversity Studies and Psychology. She hopes to use this academic foundation as a starting point to facilitate
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
social and legal improvements for sex workers through activism, advocacy and research. She is currently an active member of SWOP-NYC
and SWANK, and is learning a great deal about effective activism and community involvement from both of these groups.
Rachel Schreiber is an artist and historian whose work focuses on gender, labor, and activism. Her visual work, which has included
photographs of women maquiladora workers in Mexico, garment sweatshop workers in New York City’s Chinatown, and farm laborers in
Northern California, has been exhibited internationally. Her article, “Before Their Makers and Their Judges: Prostitutes and White Slaves in the
Political Cartoons of the Masses” appeared in Feminist Studies in 2009, and her book, Gender, Activism, and a Little Magazine: the Modern
Figures of the Masses is forthcoming from Ashgate Publishing. Schreiber is Associate Professor and Director of Humanities & Sciences at the
California College of the Arts in Oakland, where she teaches public art, photography, theory and history, including a course titled “Prostitution:
Gender, Sexuality, Labor, and Politics.” A volunteer at the St. James Infirmary since the summer of 2008, Schreiber is currently conducting
research for a book on sex worker activism and the cultural politics of harm reduction methodologies as applied to sex worker care.
Ricardo Canales is a 32 year old Latino male, who has been living with HIV and Hepatitis C for over 9 years. Mr. Canales is a former
intravenous drug user who has dedicated his professional and personal career to empowering and educating current sex workers who use
syringes about safer injection practices, HIV prevention, and hepatitis education. Ricardo started his career at CitiWide Harm Reduction as a
peer in 2004 and has been full-time staff working in the STREET Program since its inception in 2005.
Riley Nicole: No bio submitted
Robin Head: My name is Robin Head, previous owner of Playboy Escorts in Houston, Texas. I was approached by various enforcement
agencies, FBI, ATF, etc. who wanted me to abet them in entrapping "State and political officials" having sex so they could extort, control and
blackmail them, not to charge them with misdemeanor prostitution. At the same time, women at my service were being tricked and trafficked
overseas to Bangkok and called me collect from a jail in Vienna.
S. Outlaw has been active in the sex workers community in the DC area for about 10 years. She has worked with HIPS, Different Avenues,
and SMAYL in the DC area as well as the LGBT coalition, dealing law reform around transgender issues. Her activism and work focuses on
organizing to address the violence and discrimination that sex workers face, that she has also faced. Her skills include self defense and selfprotection which she works to share with the community. She deeply enjoys giving back her life experience as a transgender woman who has
also been a sex worker and sharing those experiences with other sex workers in the community.
Sarah Sloane is an educator and writer on sexuality topics (including BDSM, alternative relationships, & queer/gender theory). Based in the
Washington, DC area, she travels throughout North America, presenting classes for stores, events, and professional audiences that focus on
personal joy & authenticity as much as on the “how to’s” of great sex, kink, & relationships. She also runs a consulting business for sex positive
professionals, dispensing coaching & professional support services to people in a supportive, enthusiastic environment.
http://www.sarahsloane.net
Sandy Guillaume is 38 year old African American woman, who has been living with HIV and Hepatitis B for over 12 years. She is the
Coordinator of Community Education at CitiWide Harm Reduction and is currently attending the College of New Rochelle. She plans to
graduate in May 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences. Ms. Guillaume has been a part of the LGBT community for over 21 years,
and serves the LGBT population by participating in fund raisers, pride events, and community health fairs. Ms. Guillaume has been a sex
worker ally since 1998, and continues to pursue ways to advocate for LGBT sex workers in the South Bronx and Harlem communities.
Scarlet: No bio submitted.
Scarlett Lake is a Madame, or escort service owner from Vancouver , Canada. A former long-time sex worker and entrepreneur, she has
been 'out' or open about what she does, professionally, with family, friends, and more recently to her community. Having been active with
various sex-related groups, and functions, as well as having been interviewed by newspapers, magazines, and been a guest on Various TV talk
shows, Scarlett has a public profile and speaks out about her work, and its merit. She also ran, recently, as a candidate in Canada's federal
election, for The Sex Party, for the West End riding of Vancouver, known to have a large LGBT population. Scarlett is best known, across
Canada for her CBC television documentary 'A Safer Sex Trade' which ran several times throughout 2007,while the trial of t he serial killer
Robert Picton was taking place in Vancouver. Mr. Picton's victims were all sex workers! Scarlett began, in the sex industry, at 23, as an exotic
dancer at a well-known Vancouver supper club. Her 'escorting' experience began at the same time, with a club employee introducing her to
patrons of the club. Now 57, Scarlett has been running her service successfully, and safely, from her home in Vancouver, for 30 years without
any legal interference.
Scout le Dove has over a decade of Ho-ing experience under their belt most of which has been as an independent escort, provider of pervy
persuasions and lap dancer. Other than sex worker rights activism, Scout is very interested in anti-oppression, social justice and being
radically Queer and DIY in their life path.
Serpent is a longtime sex worker and organizer with SWOP-Chicago and the Desiree Alliance.
Sexquire.com is a complete sex-positive business services company, providing legal, accounting, web design and other solutions for sexpositive businesses, organizations and individuals. Whether you work for someone else or on your own, you are running a business and
chances are you have at one time or another needed some professional assistance. But how to find a lawyer or accountant who not only
understands your work, but is also supportive of your values? Sexquire was formed to provide a one-stop shop for adult industry businesses
and professionals to find that perfect match.
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Shawn Roop of www.tantraquest.com has been offering Tantra sessions, events and classes for 11 years. He has support 1000’s of people
in exploring sex as a healing, empowering path to more joy, pleasure and connection. He is the creator the Certified Tantric Counselor program
helping over 60 women and men begin offering Tantra session with skill, compassion and respect. Shawn was part of the 2006 Desiree
Alliance Conference. Shawn Roop of San Diego has gained international acclaim as an expert on Tantra, relationship and personal growth.
Featured in media appearances on NBC, Fox, E!, The Travel Channel, USA and Playboy Radio, as well as many radio programs and print
articles, Shawn is proud to share his work with the intention to support empowerment, great relationship, healthy sex and spiritual growth.
Silke Haller is a Board Member at Maggie’s. She is a former sex worker with experience in escorting, porn and street work. She has personal
and professional experience with substance use, users’ rights and the harm reduction sector in Toronto, including street outreach, needle
exchange and coordinating a harm reduction program at a mental health agency. Currently she is the Coordinator of Volunteer/Harm Reduction
Services at Voices of Positive Women, an organization providing supports and advocacy for women living with HIV/AIDS. Silke was one of the
founding members of The Safer Crack Use Coalition and has extensive advocacy and education experience.
Sinnamon Love is an adult film star and fetish model with 17 years experience in the adult industry. Love began performing at the age of 19
while attending Santa Monica College. She later graduated from USC with a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing. She has appeared in numerous
men’s magazines, London GQ, Philadelphia Enquirer and over 250+ hardcore video titles, as well as talk shows including Jerry Springer,
Jenny Jones, The Tyra Banks Show. A columnist for adult magazines including Black Mystique and Hip-Hop Porn Magazine Fish ‘N Grits, her
column, Sex, Love and Hip Hop for top ranked Hip Hop website, http://HipHopDX.com debunked the stereotype of misogyny in the genre.
Formerly co-host of online talk shows Fetish at Night and Sex Spaz, she ‘s published in David Henry Sterry’s “Ho’s, Hookers, Call Girls and
Rent Boys,” (Soft Skull Press.) Sinnamon currently tours with The Punany Poets, http://punanypoets.com. When Love is not touring or
performing, she sustains her income as a stay at home mom by performing on webcam, running her website, http://sinnamonlove.com, and
offering phone sex and online Domination via http://niteflirt.com. She is the mother of 3 children and invites her fans and followers on social
media networking sites to come into her home weekly and watch her prepare gourmet meals via UStream.
Skytrinia Berkeley is both a sex worker and advocate located in Washington Metropolitan Area. Her focus is on utilizing a social justice
perspective to serve her community in building leaders for the future.
Stephen Crowe, a former Boston go-go boy/escort, has been working in the field of harm reduction for approximately 9 years. He ran PUMP
(Peers Using More Prevention), an outreach and support program for male sex workers, at Cambridge Cares about AIDS in Boston from 20032006. He has facilitated workshops all over the country on how to support male sex workers. Stephen moved to NYC in 2006 and soon began
running the Training Institute at the Harm Reduction Coalition. In 2008, Stephen began working as the Harm Reduction Coordinator at
FROST'D (Foundation for the Research of STDs), a program started by and for sex workers and IDUs. In 2009, he went back to sc hool to
pursue his Master’s in Social Work at the Columbia University School of Social Work, while still working full-time. He therefore tries to maintain
his sanity by DJing all over NYC.
Stephen Elliott is the author of seven books, most recently a memoir The Adderall Diaries. His work has been published in The New York
Times, Esquire, GQ, Best American Erotica, Best Sex Writing, and Best American Non-Required Reading.
Streetwise & Safe (SAS) is a multi-pronged youth leadership development and organizing initiative involving LGBT youth of color with life
experience trading sex for money, housing, shelter, food, drugs, immigration status or other survival needs in New York City.
Surgeon is a radical whore, performance artist, and parent based in Tucson, AZ. She has worked in the sex industry since 1999. She is also
an avid acroyogi, yoga teacher, chef, and writer. She has worked as an AR/AO trainer on and off for the last 10 years, and is particularly
interested in models of linked oppressions.
Susan Miranda has an M.A. in Human Development with an emphasis in women’s sexuality. She has studied experiential forms of body and
sexuality education including Body-Mind Centering™, and Ancient Hawaiian Bodywork or Lomi Lomi massage. She has also participated in the
Betty Dodson Bodysex workshop in New York City. Since 1989, Susan has taught seminars such as “Unlearning Homophobia, Biphobia and
Sexphobia” and on various sexual healing and sacred touch topics. In the past, she has worked as a Gynecological Teaching
Associate/Patient Instructor for the medical community, a Reproductive Health Counselor at a women’s health clinic and as a Caregiver for
people with AIDS. Susan has published articles on the body and sexuality in the Minnesota Women’s Press and in the anthology Our Choices,
Our Lives: Unapologetic Writings on Abortion [iUniverse, Inc., 2002].
www.susanmirandablog.blogspot.com
Tamara Larter is a Master of Arts candidate (sociology) from the University of Lethbridge, in Alberta, Canada. Her research interests focus on
gender, sexuality, power, and discourse analysis. A lifelong feminist, she is an avid proponent of the rights of women and children, participating
in numerous human rights demonstrations and letter-writing campaigns. She looks forward to pursuing her PhD in the future, and (hopefully)
finding some time to travel.
Tamara O'Doherty is currently working on her Ph.D. at Simon Fraser University. She is exploring victimization and the effects of criminal laws
relating to prostitution for male, female and transgender sex workers in Canada. Tamara has been working with sex industry wo rkers and their
support agencies in Vancouver, BC for the past nine years. She also teaches criminology courses for the University of the Fraser Valley and
Simon Fraser University.
Telvi is a chef and an ally to sex workers. Liz and Telvi have been in a committed relationship for over eight years. While Liz was not an active
sex worker when they met, Liz returned to the business shortly after. Telvi and Liz have had their share of ups and downs in their relationship
but through not only their undying love for one another but their sense of, compassion, and communication, as well as compromise and
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
understanding they have built a strong committed relationship. Facing not only the stigma of being/loving a sex worker, but also dealing with the
struggles of the lack of understanding from other lesbians in their community.
Tina Wolf is the Harm Reduction and Syringe Exchange Program Coordinator at the AIDS Center of Queens County (ACQC). Also currently a
doctoral student at the City University of New York Graduate Center, Tina has been working with HIV-positive and at-risk injection drug users in
New York City for seven years. Now responsible for three prevention programs that operate across Queens, she recognizes the need for
prevention outreach and services among sex workers as well, and has tried to integrate these services within the existing harm reduction
programming at ACQC
Tracey Sagar is a member of the Cardiff Sex Worker Forum which aims to improve the provision of health services for sex workers and to
develop strategies to keep sex workers safe. The empowerment of sex workers underpins the work of the forum. She is also a member of the
United Kingdom Network of Sex Worker Projects (UKNSWP). The aim of the network is to promote the health, safety, civil and human rights of
sex workers.
Tracy Elise is a Mystic Mother of three, Sacred Sex educator, Radical Tantrist and genuine hippie chick living in Sedona, AZ. As co-creator of
AdultDictionary.com Tracy immersed in a study of the vast spectrum of human sexual expression. Her Neo-Tantra practice draws from the
world’s most established spiritual lineages, including Christianity, Hinduism, Egyptian Tantra, Buddhism and Paganism. With over 4000 intimate
hours spent in temple transformation chambers, she is a guide with great compassion and insight for the soul's journey in a body and the
infinite subtle permutations possible in male/female play. Her Tantra Gateway is designed to open the minds and hearts of tho se locked in
limiting religious beliefs which equate sex with ‘sin’, and which seek to leave the sacred out of the equation. To learn more about Tracy’s
devotional practice as a High Priestess for the Great Mother Goddess, please visit: www.phoenixgoddesstemple.org
www.sedonatemple.com www.templeoftantra.org
Vegan Vixen has experience as a sex worker in different sectors, including legal Nevada brothels, webcam, and exotic dancing. Over the
years that she has been a sex worker, Vegan Vixen has experienced different sides of the sex industry-positive, negative, and mixed. A
negative experience she had as an exotic dancer led her to the sex workers’ justice movement. She is determined to advocate for the rights
and well-being of sex workers, and recognizes that multiple realities exist in the sex industry. She also had some positive experienc es as an
exotic dancer and continues to pole dance for fitness, which she finds to be a beautiful art form and great form of exercise! Though she came
to into the sex workers’ justice movement looking for a support system, she has since become actively involved in both online and in-person
forms of social and political advocacy.
Ms. Virilia Crush is an erotic photographer, professional dominant and single mother of a radical queer teenager. She runs a community
fetish studio called "LapSpace" in Toronto. Recently she has completed a sexual healing practitioners certificate and she continues to braid
s/m and healing into her work and personal life.
William Takahashi is a college graduate with a background in graphic arts and social work. He is disabled. His disability is Cerebral Palsy. He
decided to enter the adult entertainment industry three years ago because he saw a real need for education, understanding, and integration of
the disabled into the adult industry. William has written for Spread Magazine and has also written a resource guide called EN TERTAINERS
GUIDE TO DISABLED CUSTOMERS. He presented the content of this guide in a workshop at the 2008 Desiree Alliance Conference in
Chicago. In addition, he produces videos. His first video was shown at the 2009 Sex Worker Film Festival in San Francisco event:
Intersections: Krip Sex! Krip Sex Work! (An evening of film and discussion on interconnections, sex work and the Krip community) presented
by Desiree Alliance, ISWFACE, BAYSWAN and SWOP-USA. His work was featured on Playboy Radio's Nightcalls show hosted by Christy
Canyon in late June 2009. William splits his time between doing disability awareness training in the adult entertainment industry, and marketing
his videos, writing, and erotic art greeting cards to adult retail stores. He also enjoys being in front of a camera. William has worked with two
photographers, which involved adult wheelchair art content. William's websites include: http://www.adult-performer-resources.com,
http://www.ap-educators.com/
http://www.myspace.com/williamtakahashi
Desiree Alliance Presents:
“Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics”
July 25th through 30th, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada
Desiree Alliance is a Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit.