Small communities grow great through harmony, great ones fall to pieces through discord. – Gaius Sallustius Crispus
Organizing sex workers is like trying to herd cats, yet somehow they manage quite well in Asia (and to a slightly lesser extent in Africa and South America). I think it’s largely due to the fact that whores in those places recognize the seriousness of the situation, and are willing to put their petty squabbles aside to pull together against the real enemy. In Europe (especially the UK) that’s not so true, and in the US not at all (though Canada seems to do better); white Westerners seem to be either oblivious to the danger we’re in, or else unable to understand the concept of prioritization, or else unwilling to admit that their personal hurt feelings are less important by several orders of magnitude than the cause to which they claim to be committed. I say “claim” because every movement has its dilettantes, those who join for much the same reasons as others might join a social club; others clearly have other agendas (such as Marxism or feminism) which command their primary loyalty. Indeed, someone recently said it seemed to her that a good fraction of sex worker rights activists might even be prohibitionists had circumstances not led to their taking up sex work before politics; I can’t say I disagree with that assessment.
Because of this, the movement in the West is regularly troubled by personal animosities which interfere with the important work we’re trying to do. The mildest cases, which are also the most common, are those in which one activist dislikes another for reasons that have more to do with a personality clash or a difference of opinion than anything else: Activist A decides she doesn’t like B for what B has said or written rather than anything B actually did to her, and so A blocks B on Twitter, says nasty things about her to others in private, and refuses to acknowledge her work, no matter how good it is for the movement. It’s grade-school stuff, really; there are certainly some activists I don’t get along with, but when they do noteworthy work I call attention to it just as I would if we were friends. The cause we both support is more important than my (or anyone else’s) personal feelings.
And then there are those who take direct offense at something else has said; C says something ill-considered or stupid, D is upset by it and rather than settling the matter privately she mouths off about it on social media for all to see. In the most extreme cases this can turn into a large and ugly brouhaha complete with the taking of sides and staggering amounts of energy completely wasted on unproductive infighting rather than responding to the plentiful attacks on sex workers in the mainstream media. Sometimes the person on the receiving end doesn’t actually do anything to draw such wrath; it’s just that E is bigoted against some group to which F belongs, and will therefore bad-mouth him every time he speaks up. Or, G insists on ideological purity, and will attack anyone who wanders from the party line; neither E nor G has any regard whatsoever for the damage this causes the movement, and if confronted will pontificate about her feelings rather than have a substantive discussion about her actions.
Of course, there are cases in which the breach between the two parties is neither petty nor remediable; this is especially true when their relationship was personal rather than professional. And though some divorces are amicable, others are anything but; if the parties to an acrimonious dispute care to take their private war public, all Hell breaks loose. People take sides, “he said/she said” exchanges are hurled back and forth, and precious time and energy drains away while Eris laughs. When such a thing happens, it is absolutely paramount that dedicated, mature activists refuse to take sides no matter how much pressure one or both of the parties exerts; though their struggle is certainly important to the combatants, it cannot be to anyone else who is not directly involved. As I once wrote, “an advocate…is working not for herself but for generations yet unborn”; it is therefore both foolish and irresponsible to allow oneself to be distracted from a vital mission by personal and transitory strife, no matter how important those directly involved believe it to be.
Reblogged this on Pycraftsworld’s Weblog.
*claps enthusiastically*
Oh Eris, you Magnificent Bastard.
Sallust might have been thinking of Dunbar’s Number, where 150 is a practical maximum for social cohesion.
And, whatever happened to the idea that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”?
I so appreciate the honesty found throughout your blogs. Herding cats indeed! I am not of the Abolistionist movement – nor have I decided on how I feel about legalization but I am inspired by your call to at least do something to make the world a safer place for sex workers. This is important stuff!
Nice dragonfly avatar! Mind if I use it from time to time?
Not at all. Please enjoy.
Thanks for the essay, Maggie! I ponder this a lot, as I am always in the thick of organizing.
I am not so sure about better relations in other parts of the world.
I would look at circumstances around the world in regard to the number of allies and sex workers in the organization and the power structure in relationship to that. I would love to see research on this.
I also wonder what are the most productive forms of decision making. Some groups I have worked with seem more collective and others seem to be primarily lead by a person or small group. I also look at other movements with which I have been involved and see dynamics similar to the ones you mention.
I don’t participate in the online arguments, so I have no idea, but generally I have a policy of not taking sides…it also takes something special not to expect others to take sides. That’s a struggle…but mostly I feel that unless I research a situation extremely well, I can’t take sides…and that kind of research is much too time consuming. I always hope my friends understand.
When someone seriously breaches MY OWN boundaries in some ways in this movement (very rare), I have not been able to address it in a way I have found to be productive, so it’s one of the issues on my list.
Generally, it seems that we are similar to other movements, but, that said, I think our movement should lead the way and come up with ideas, structures and a process for working these things out. Again, research might be helpful.
YES! Thank you. The elephant in the room. So true. Sadly. Good job to bring this issue forth. There is SO MUCH whore drama in our sex worker rights movement, (a movement I have been a part of since 1975)– decriminalizing prostitution is so important to keep trans people (especially), women and men safe, not to mention happier. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, however, I’m quite certain that there are a number of undercover people, sex workers/madams/etc. who are entrenched in the movement to keep it divided and full of whore drama. The government after all is making so much money off of whores. (Forget “big brother”, how about “big pimp?”)It behoves them to keep it criminalized–like pot is/was. Its only SEX folks!!! Its only SEX. Its touch, love, seeing, feeling, being there for someone. Its human. This said, whores that band together, are safer, and happier, and have the most awesome communities. With a rich, creative, joyous culture. So if you are a sex worker, join a group and enjoy! Love each other. Let’s try harder to get along. SO many people depend on that.
This is why you continue to be an inspiration to me and so many others, Annie! You, Carol Leigh, and Norma Jean Almodovar are the reasons I became an activist in the first place.
Good post which broaches the issue of organization – maybe, considering the increasing number of escort bloggers and visibility of both profession and clients, it’s time to create some umbrella organization to work towards legalization and better protections. Unless there already is one. But maybe your friend Ken White might be able to suggest some legal avenues to pursue in that regard – I had sort of thought that something along the line of NOW – National Organization of Women – or the SCA – Secular Coalition for America – might be a reasonable model to consider; one doesn’t necessarily have to get everyone on board with a set of principles at the outset, only build something to “rally the troops” – “build it and they will come”.
As for a name, maybe something along the line of “National Association for the Rights of Prostitutes, Brothel Owners and Clients”, particularly since you’ve emphasized that the latter are an important part of the process, and because it seems that many of the latter are more broadly supportive of the profession. For instance, while this study and survey of some 1000 “Johns” (preliminary report here) was done in Canada, you might note in particular that it was funded and supported by an impressive and quite credible list of organizations. In addition, a media release notes that:
Something that I expect is no less true in the U.S. than it is in Canada.
As for your concerns about “herding cats” and “personal animosities”, that seems to be something that tends to be true of other groups as well as attested to by the various rivalries and animosities in religion and politics. But there at least there tends to be some common vision to motivate coherent efforts, something which that organization might provide or engender. As the Bible puts it, “where there is no vision the people perish”.
The difficulty with forming associations for sex workers is keeping the 50-year-old man-hating angry lesbians out of ’em. Admit some people into your org who are good at organizing and can deal with the law, and before you know it your beloved association will be advocating the Swedish model.
I mean, look – I’m sure SWOP does some great work. But according to this:
http://www.swop.org.au/sites/default/files/9livesCoverText.pdf p9,
being ‘made to feel dirty and ashamed afterwards’ is *violence*.
This sort of definition creep is the game they play, eventually defining purchasing sex services *at* *all* as a form of sexual violence. And there you go.
Well, I can certainly appreciate that people can wind up hijacking organizations for purposes other than what were their creator’s original objectives and intentions – the U.S. based Center for Inquiry for example. But one would think that it might help to specify articles of incorporation that explicitly laid out the general principles that the organization would be bound by and that couldn’t be changed short of going through an un-incorporation process. Sort of a “we hold these truths to be self-evident” preamble that acknowledges the rights and responsibilities of all parties – direct and indirect – to the processes.
But I think it important to note that while prostitution is more or less legal in Canada and Australia, that seems to be largely not the case in the U.S. Which seems to suggest if not dictate that some central organization of sorts is required to promote and lobby for changes in both laws and attitudes.
As for “50-year-old man-hating angry lesbians”, I think it is also important to note that “feminists” come in many different flavours: some have their heads screwed-on right; others have their heads up their arses. Though it is somewhat problematic that one can’t always tell which are which, and many seem to disagree on the appropriate classification in every case.
And, apropos of “feminist” perspectives or involvement in the issue, while I haven’t read all of that SWOP document you linked to, I kind of get the impression that you might be misinterpreting that characterization of “made to feel dirty and ashamed afterwards” as “violence”. While I’ll concede that one of the definitions of the word – “physical force exerted …” – might justify your interpretation, another one – “abusive or unjust exercise of power” – may also be applicable. Seems to me that far too many people – both clients and not – are rather too abusive of prostitutes, and across a rather wide and problematic spectrum; did you know that the per-capita incidence of murder of prostitutes is 7 times more than the next largest (male taxicab drivers)? A reflection of a general or too common attitude, I think, that prostitutes are the lowest of the low and can be abused with impunity, that they are universal scapegoats – seem to recollect a documentary on the “Green River Killer”, Gary Ridgway, where he said that he thought he was doing society a favour by killing prostitutes. An attitude that one might reasonably lay no small amount of blame for on the doorstep of society itself.
So I can’t entirely fault the involvement of all “feminists” on the issue, although I think many of them – notably the “believe the victim” variety – aren’t being particularly realistic.
Well, I don’t know what the murder statistics are like in Australia, which is where SWOP is based. There’s a conflation – are the murders caused by prostitution in itself, or are they caused by the lifestyle that the illegality of prostitution forces people into? Is the per-captia murder rate for prostitutes greatly different to that of drug traffickers, who are also pushed into a lifestyle of criminality by prohibition?
My quote was not a mischaracterisation, it was from page 9. I even mentioned what page it was from – you needn’t read the whole thing. The SWOP publication specifically equates being “made” to have bad feelings – *afterward*, no less – with violence.
Do I really need to spell out that feeling ashamed to guilty about something that you have done is not the same thing as someone being violent to you? Apparently so, because SWOP doesn’t get it. What’s the agenda? Seeing how feminists argue in other space, we can easily guess.
Think the reason hookers “band” together in third world countries is the way they live – which is a lot more “communal” than the way hookers live in the U.S. and U.K.
I remember many of the chicks in the Philippines had their names “stenciled” on their panties. This was because they all lived in a house with many other hookers and they threw all their laundry together when they did it. Didn’t bother me – as a Sailor, I had my name stenciled on all my underwear too.
The girls come from, usually, pretty large families and they’re used to living a very Spartan lifestyle – so living like this is natural to them.
Plus – it’s necessary. There’s a lot of danger to doing sex work independently in a third world country. Additionally, they’re locked into the “lower caste” and disrespected by almost everyone else – so they gravitate toward each other.
You don’t have this kind of situation in developed countries – we tend to all be very independent.
The fact that the family unit is still the core of their societies – completely necessary for survival is key to this kind of living – where people rely on each other.
One day the U.S. will be a third world country – and the family unit will take hold here again – as it used to be. I laugh at people who declare the death of the family – or anyone who disparages them.
They are short-sighted naive people.
Yeah, I think the individualist vs collectivist cultural orientation is important to mention.
I saw what you did there, in that last paragraph. Tip o’ the hat.
Maggie, I wonder if class systems plays into this as well. Some of the societies you mention have much more rigid social castes than we do. So it might be more likely that a whore would identify herself of being of that group than in the US, where it might be something a woman does for a few years but doesn’t really think of herself as being part of.
I am not so sure if internal political relationships are so much smoother around the world, and I have a feeling a real study on this would be valuable. There can be lots of assumptions and ‘hearsay’ in these cases. That said, for my own ‘hearsay,’ we had some official visitors from DMSC in India several years ago and I specifically asked them about their ‘secrets’ to getting along. I shared our local struggles and wondered if they could give guidance. (Of course, again hearsay, and who is to say how I remember or interpreted it) They explained that their organization is more like running a whole community, and they provide so many services, with the implication being, as I interpreted it, that the breadth and utility of the organization supported the cooperation.
I’ve watched some of the survival shows on TV. Not that silly “reality” thing where they vote each other off an island, but things where somebody goes out into the woods or the savannah or whatever and survives for a couple of weeks. And I think, “Why is it so hard for these supposed experts to feed themselves and such? There are entire tribes who live in these environments and survive just fine for a lot longer than three weeks… like for generations.” But then I realized, “It’s because it’s an entire tribe. A hundred and fifty people doing what one or two or five people could never do alone, or at least can’t do very well for very long.”