Last week was so incredibly busy I’m amazed I was able to keep up with everything I had to do. I knew at the beginning that it would be busy work-wise because I had a solid schedule of appointments, but I had no way of knowing that on Wednesday the pigs would barge into the lives of Seattle sex workers, uprooting one of our major advertising venues and shitting all over our reputations to the press. Of course, the excuse was “sex trafficking”; Korean sex workers in the area were denied agency, claimed to be “trafficked”, and a number of their clients, bookers and other associates were arrested. Naturally, nobody has seen any of these supposed “victims” or been allowed to talk to them, but the sheriff of King County nonetheless felt qualified to say that the members of SWOP were “delusional” for saying that advertising boards help us to build communities and screen clients. Because obviously, his magical swine-o-vision allows him to see into our lives despite the fact that he was too afraid to allow us into his press conference. But whatever he hoped to achieve by this ham-fisted attempt to shut us up was a failure; by Wednesday night, over 12 hours before his press conference, I had already appeared on not one but TWO local news broadcasts to give our viewpoint, and the sheriff and other officials were flustered and annoyed by several reporters asking them about us and our concerns. Furthermore, when the conference let out we were waiting, and most of the reporters got statements from us (as I detailed in Friday’s column). We’ve had several emergency meetings since Wednesday (the first mere hours after the seizure, ’cause we don’t work 9-5, y’all) and plenty more conversations via email and text; I think I’ve received as many text messages in the past week as I would in a typical month. As a kind of side-effect of all this, I’m even more out now than I was before; on Saturday my pedicurist told me, “I saw you on TV!” But while I’ve been hailed as a badass in my community for saying “I am a prostitute” on TV while standing in a courthouse full of cops, the truth is that I’m really just plain stubborn. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a bunch of morally-retarded thugs tell me how to conduct my life or what motivations for sex I’m allowed to have, and I’ll be thrice-damned if I sit by and let credulous ignoramuses slander my sisters and endanger all our livelihoods. I may not be able to win against the colossal machine of prohibition, but by Aphrodite I’m going to go down fighting. And even if they crush me, I’m not going to suffer in silence.
Diary #289
January 12, 2016 by Maggie McNeill
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Well done, Maggie! I don’t have to say ‘Keep fighting.’ since i know you will.
Wow, that’s great! I’ve got my fingers crossed for you but I have a feeling you won’t need it. As they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Thanks for helping to open the shades!
Reblogged this on SaneSurvivor.
You’re going to be all right, Maggie.
You’re a fighter.
Be well.
Excellent. I think we see a bit of history in the making.
Indeed. In fact, Pardon the biblical comparison, but you went into the heart of the lion’s den and came out unscathed. It would seem fate has chosen you. I feel once again like suggesting there might be more than a few people here who would be glad to trade off a daily post here if we knew your time and energy were being put towards turning this into the first of several major victories for sex workers of all kinds.
I feel bad for those guys in ‘the league’ that were just caught up in something that spun out of control. The review board in my location is very much like TRB & there’s a group of guys with their own club very much like ‘the league’. They don’t import woman or keep them against their will. They invite woman to Meet and Greets to have fun and for both escorts and clients to make connections. I’ve been to a few M&G’s at local establishments. I’m not sure I’ll be going to any more of those and that’s just kinda sad.
As soon as a heard the news about TRB, I thought to myself that they’d made a mistake going after Seattle. This is nothing like the defeat they thought it would be.
You guys are awesome, and have every ounce of my sincere admiration and support.
Courage is irresistible and contagious.
“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
If there are really trafficked women (against their will), I congratulate the sheriff and everyone who helped freeing them. But consenting adults are a completely different thing, so making user names/IDs of TRB consenting adults public is a strong privacy violation, and contradicts:
http://mynorthwest.com/11/2797919/Seattle-sex-workers-Were-not-all-victims
“The notion that there is the free consenting exchange in commerce, if those really exist, then Prosecutor Dan Satterberg and I are not interested in them,” he said. “They have nothing to fear from us. In fact, our only interest in women engaged in the trade, in the life, is that they be offered ways out.”
Are you old enough to remember the early days of the war on drugs? We were told it was to “protect” people and “rescue” poor, victimized “junkies” from the clutches of evil “pushers” and “kingpins”. A trillion dollars and millions of destroyed lives later, who’s mostly rotting in prison to show for it?
As far as I understand this, this US-driven insanity has been going on for about a century now. We were shown advertisements from around 1910 or so in school for Cocaine and Heroine and, according to the teacher, the only reason this was made illegal after a few years was strong US pressure.
The only reason for this “war” I can see is a deep-set misanthropy by its perpetrators, possibly these are people that want to curb all fun and escapism except where sanctioned by their screwed up religious or quasi-religious beliefs.
Sure, people being addicted to something unhealthy is tragic, but there is zero evidence that I am aware of that making drugs illegal has had any positive effect at all, and legal substances like alcohol, sugar and nicotine seem to be doing vastly more damage anyways. There is tons of evidence that harm amplification, as practiced by the US government here, makes things much, much worse. This whole campaign is utterly evil.
Of course, there was also coverage like this, about “survivors of sex work”:
http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/2016/01/08/advocates-praise-unprecedented-sex-trafficking-arrests/78453880/
I’ve got to say, “survivors” like the one interviewed I have little sympathy for. She makes no claim whatsoever that she was coerced into sex work, but just hated doing it. Which to my way of thinking means she wasn’t cut out for that line of work (many, even most, people aren’t, no shame in that) and should move on. But instead, she’s invested in the idea that she’s some sort of “victim” and that her customers should be arrested for actions she willingly solicited.
And as for that male feminist dweeb from OPS who thinks he’s “helping” women via criminalization and forced rehabilitation – ugh, the very opposite of sympathy for such pernicious busybodies with no personal stake in the issue at all.
I concur with you on this “survivor”. No true trafficking victim is so naïve as to think shutting down a single advertising venue would make any difference whatsoever.
That stance makes about as much sense as somebody flipping burgers demanding that all customers be incarcerated for promoting slave labor. This whole self-applied “survivor” badge is an attempt to manipulate the onlookers, nothing more.
Sure, there are a lot of jobs that many people are not cut out for. But there usually is a choice. The only way this person is a “victim” is maybe that she is a victim of capitalism. But then most people qualify and she is not in any way in a special position. This is an entirely different problem, namely that a lot of the increase of productivity of the last 100 years or so has not made it to most people. I should also point out that disrespecting your customers is utterly retarded as a frame of mind for a small business owner.
Matthew 21 “[…] the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you”
Fuck yes Maggie sorry your being outed more I will so keep you and all the local girls in mind. Let us know what we can do to help if anything and please stay strong and keep fighting because I do know it’s not going to be in vain.
Sucks your going through this though.