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Posts Tagged ‘activism’

Whores’ Day 2023

Posted in Holidays, Perception, Philosophy, Words, tagged , , , , , on June 2, 2023| 2 Comments »

Today is International Whores’ Day.  It is not “Sex Worker Day”; that is March 3rd.  Today is a day to shamelessly celebrate our shameless history, not a day for sanitized words or concepts; it is a day to fight society’s attempts (via law and police violence) to sanitize the wilder, unrulier, more chthonic aspects of sex.  This is a day for sexual outlaws, not well-behaved “workers”; it is a day to celebrate the triumphs of criminalized human beings against a society that would rather we didn’t exist.  It is a day to oppose censorship, not to engage in self-censorship; a day to honor a means of survival that predates laws and governments by eons; and a day to celebrate a power which will always defeat even the most pernicious attempts to domesticate it.

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Maytweets

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »

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The First Tweets of Spring

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, Music, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2023| 5 Comments »

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Links #664

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Put your hands behind your…fucking back.  –  “Officer” Paul Arrowood

This week’s video features Topol, who passed away earlier this month, playing the part he was born to play.  The links above it were provided by Stephen Lemons; Franklin Harris and Jesse Walker; Marc Randazza; Cop Crisis (x3); and Angela Keaton, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Dimensions of Support

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , on March 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »

It’s always been difficult for me to ask for what I need, even from close friends; exactly why this should be the case in a person who has absolutely no problem speaking her mind in any other way is a conundrum I’ve never been able to adequately explain even to myself, much less anyone else.  But it’s something my friends have long noticed and lovingly chided me for, to very little avail.  Now, I’ve never had a problem asking for payment for services; the issue only arises when there’s no direct quid pro quo.  That’s why appeals for financial support from my readers are always difficult for me to write, and always seem awkward to my eyes when I read them.  So when several of y’all responded to last month’s “Inner Circle” by subscribing at my new $10 per week and $25 per week levels, it was both satisfying and validating on several levels.  The more obvious one is, of course, the economic dimension; things have been a bit tight since autumn, and with tax time coming up (much more painfully than usual thanks to a 50% increase in my property taxes) it was quite a relief for more to come in just in time, not to mention helping soothe my anxiety about the rest of the year.  But there’s another dimension, too; such a positive, concrete response to my request helps to quiet that part of my brain which generates formless, unidentifiable anxieties about asking, and thereby makes it less scary to do it again in the future.  So to my new subscribers, thank you for supporting me in two very important ways.  And to those who haven’t joined yet: won’t you please consider adding your contributions to the team of generous folks who make my work possible and my life just a little bit easier?

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Sex Worker Rights Day 2023

Posted in Holidays, tagged , on March 3, 2023| Leave a Comment »


Happy Sex Worker Rights Day to all my sisters and brothers, and our supporters.  Here’s a linked list of everything I’ve written for the occasion.

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Big Fish, Little Fish

Posted in Biography, Q & A, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , on February 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

How do you deal with the legal prohibition of sex work?  I don’t mean practically, but rather psychologically; don’t you fear that someday you might be caught and sent to prison?

I’ve never much been one to “borrow trouble”, as we say where I’m from; in other words, I try not to worry about what might conceivably happen, instead of what is likely to happen.  What this means from a practical standpoint in this context is, I have always taken sensible precautions against being entrapped by the police, but I never lay awake at night worrying about it because the truth is, if a powerful government really and truly wants to harm any individual, it will do so regardless of precautions.  However, such governments tend to employ such extraordinary means against much “bigger fish” than ordinary sex workers making very ordinary amounts of money and filing taxes every year as the State demands.  This is not to say that the police don’t target ordinary sex workers, because they obviously do; however, they’re generally looking for big numbers of people whom they can easily trick with lies and then inflict criminal records upon.  They don’t really want people who can fight back, so they tend to tailor their schemes to entrapping the poor and marginalized rather than people who might have lawyers.  I was once caught in such a trap, in October 2005, and though it was an extremely unpleasant experience it was over pretty quickly and in the end I felt more angry than anything else.  Still, the experience gave me even more empathy for people who did not have access to the resources I had, and it’s one of the life-experiences that fuels my activism: I am trying, in my own small way, to work for a world in which nobody has to endure that, especially not the people for whom a prostitution arrest means very serious and life-changing consequences rather than a temporary scare and inconvenience.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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Inner Circle

Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged , on February 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »

After I published “I Couldn’t Do It Without You” last month, a couple of readers asked how they could make larger recurring donations.  As it turns out, both of these readers were already long-time donors who have repeatedly demonstrated their generosity for years, and both already carry on correspondence with me in various ways.  But it occurred to me that in general, most of my readers have only my email, blog, and Twitter as points of contact; that’s just fine for most folks, and as I check my email frequently it’s certainly not an inadequate means.  But there’s a certain immediacy and a kind of quasi-intimacy that comes with texting, so I’ve decided to add two higher subscription levels in the zone between reader and client; both of these come with texting privileges.  NO, I don’t mean sexting; that would be much more expensive even if I were offering it, which I’m not because I’m not any good at it.  Now, it would feel strange and even creepy to me to set some frequency or number of texts a week, and I honestly don’t think I have to; my patrons, both readers and clients, have never made a habit of trying my patience or pushing my boundaries, and I hardly think it likely y’all are going to start now.  So the only real difference between these two is, which one can you afford?  Maybe I should have some strict delineation, but that’s over the line into salesmanship and, as I’ve pointed out before, I’m not really comfortable with that.  I’ve made it this far without paywalls and bribery, and I’m too old to start using those tactics now even if I wanted to, which I don’t.  At all.

Anyhow, the two new levels are $10 per week and $25 per week (converted into monthly sums of $45 and $110 respectively so you’re not getting pinged every damned week).  Those are PayPal links, and there’s nothing wrong with going that route if it works for you; however, I find Zelle a lot more trustworthy and it doesn’t take a percentage of your donation.  The only catches are: 1) Not every bank is part of the network, and I don’t believe it’s international; and 2) The only way to do a recurring Zelle payment is to set it up from your end, using my email address (maggiemcneill@earthlink.net).  Of course, if you’re setting it up yourself you needn’t use those specific amounts; as long as you’re donating at least $31/month (the long-established “$1 a day” subscription level), I’ll be happy to text with you (and yes, that definitely applies to those of you already at that level; just email for my contact number).  If you want to tease me a bit you could even make it some weird arbitrary number just to irritate my OCD.  And if you’re affluent enough and think my work is important enough to go another price step higher; email me and we’ll discuss an arrangement with regular (conversation and advice) phone calls.

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Tweets from the Darkside

Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2023| 2 Comments »

 

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Friday, January 13th, 2023

Posted in Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , on January 13, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Regular readers know that every Friday the Thirteenth, I ask those who aren’t sex workers to stand up for us.  If you’re one of them, you already know the sorts of things I’m going to say; if you aren’t, you can simply go back and read the essay for the August 2021 occurence, which contained quotes and links for every occurence of this particular day and date combination.  And if you value all the work I’ve done fighting for sex workers over the past 14 years, a concrete sign of that (via continuing subscription or one-time donation) would not only be deeply appreciated, but also provide vital resources for the continuance of that work.

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