To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short

They Matter

Shes nuts, that’s clear. Not that shes a little off, she’s tinfoil hat wearing, frantic OCD and inconsistent in her writing style kinda nuts. I’ve gotten into a comment battle with her before. She will often pop up on any and every prostitution related story. Not in the story itself but in the comments. She says shes a former sex worker, she uses all the language the abolitionist use, shes anti sex worker who says she has seen prostitutes murdered before her and tells tales of pimps and hos that is the stuff of TV movies. She thinks were all trafficked victims and shes called activists “pimps” for fighting for the rights of sex workers. I don’t like her, she offends me in many ways. She offends me as a sex worker, she offends me as a free thinking women, she offends me as a human.

I however don’t think blackmailing her into shutting up by threatening to out her is in any way shape or form acceptable behavior. Which is happening right now by activists who are well known to the community and respected. I do not think her privacy should be violated because shes a pain in the ass, or obnoxious, or an abolitionist. Which is whats happening right now. She is being outed. Yes, her stories are wild and I’ve long thought they were either made up or wildly exaggerated. If you read her blog its riddled full of inconsistencies. But is that a reason to out her? Is her annoying habit of posting ad nauseum on any sex worker related story a reason to out her publicly (and her family) as a former prostitute? Which is happening right now.

We work under cover of pseudonyms, we do this to protect ourselves, because what we do isn’t legal but that’s not the only reason. Adult film work is legal and they to work under assumed names as well. Sex work legal or illegal  still has a very heavy stigma attached to it. We can be discriminated against, targeted and there are often many attempts to shame us for what we do. We ask that our privacy is respected by our clients, by our peers, by the media and when it isn’t there is a large outcry in the sex worker community. Lives can be ruined because someone is outed as a sex worker, families can be destroyed because someone is outed as a sex worker, people can also be put in real physical danger because they are outed.

So why are a couple of sex worker activist inflicting this on another person? A political opponent, an outspoken and often frantic poster on stories about prostitution? I don’t know why..but I know its WRONG.

It needs to be called out for what it is. Wrong. It makes us all look bad, it does not help our cause, it’s dangerous and mean and should not be tolerated. If we as sex workers want our privacy respected we must respect the privacy of others, even those opposed to us, even those that are outlandish, even those who disagree with us, even those on the fringes of reality.  This frantic bloggers arguments are easy to dispute, its not hard to expose her arguments as self serving and inaccurate on their face. But that’s what should be done. Her arguments should be disputed. She shouldn’t be outed or threatened to be outed or blackmailed into an apology because she’s annoying, or posts crazy comments on stories about prostitution or wildly  embellishes what she says her her own personal story as a prostitute. Even if it doesn’t ring true, which it doesn’t to my ears its not a valid reason to out her or to threaten to out her.

Its a slippery slope and the practice is dangerous. A  couple years back a person was outed for being a fake prostitute, the infamous fauxho scandal. A small group of people had basically figured out that this persona was really a man and had some information to back up but the information was un-confirmed, it was speculation and not fully formed we had pieces but not everything in black and white and we sat on the info for a long time because outing someone is a dangerous practice and you better be damn sure your info is 100% correct and accurate and you better be sure the person is dangerous not just annoying. Though the group of us were convinced we didn’t have enough proof  (yet) to do anything about it.  Someone in our group took it upon them self, acted alone and outed the fauxho. It wasn’t a decision made by anyone but the one person who did it. It was premature, I never was comfortable with how that whole thing went down. One person went rouge and outed someone.

Did that situation open the door for this one? Maybe it did, its possible. Who’s next on the being outed chopping block? I personally have had some angry and vocal  people disagree with my opinions have tried to threaten me into silence. My personal  information has had a bounty put on it. Websites dedicated to the exposing of little ole me because I am a big mouth, because I am out spoken, because I speak my truth as a sex worker. Plenty of people know my real name, details about my real life and could pony up for cash and prises in outing me. That shoe could drop, its been hanging over my head for years. Though as time goes by I fear the possibility less and less but you never get used to the threat of being outed.

If we as a community allow outing as a means to silence those opposed to us, to shut up people who disagree with us, even the annoying crazy acting ones then we will have to expect that it will in turn happen to us and we my friends have a LOT to lose. I would even go so far as to say we have more to lose. People can be put in danger, voices silenced out of fear of exposure. Is that what we want? I know its not what I want, its not what I fight for when I fight for sex worker rights.  These kinds of dirty trick tactics are not acceptable, it makes us look petty, mean and worst of all it makes it look like our arguments are invalid. Its wrong and it should stop now!

**I’m not linking to previous posts by other people because I wont contribute to this outing. The names don’t matter anyways.  My comments have been closed for a long time due to lots of spam but i will be opening comments up for a week on this so that people can discuss. Please keep it civil and on point. Any links to out anyone will be deleted.

**7/12- Ive been told there some issues with posting comments- I hope i’ve rectified the problem. If you find you still cant post a comment, please email me!

Who the fuck is providers voice

No Really, isten to the cat

It started  like this, i got an email on escorts.com from someone calling themselves “providers voice”. telling me not to use escorts.com.  Escorts.com was one of the companies owned by A-1 advertising and A-1 got raided recently. they also own HotMovies  among others no one really knows what the men in blue were looking for or which company they were going after but it was best to be real careful when booking off that site for a while.

I tried to look up providers voice, no history. I asked around, no one ever heard of them. The person mailing left a name i couldn’t find no info connected. No website, No profile No trace. Okay noted. Ignored.

Today i get an email to my email address unsolicited with no opt out and i sure as hell didn’t opt in. This one was waring “ladies” against giving their CC information to escorts.com who is now requiring it as an age verification mechanism. Yanno like CL, Back-page, Eros, City-vibe, That Mall, and pretty much any other legit business endeavor that caters to sex workers. Now some of those require even more to protect themselves legally. It appears to me in light of A-I advertising’s recent raid they are now putting a policy into play to shield them from the charge of “Underage” which is the route LE has taken up against so many when trying to bring down business support services to escorts, providers voice is waring people to not comply.

No complying will get your profile taken down. If you’ve ever been a Escorts.com VIP (like i have) well then they already have your info and you likely didn’t get the email  but because e.com is one of those sites that lets you put up a profile without being a VIP anyone can do it, now a CC will be required. Want the profile, then give them info. I know its scary with the recent busts but that’s a choice you will have to make for yourself, if you are comfortable with that or not.

What i am taking exception with is some entity no once can verify doling out advice to sex workers… AGAIN. Didn’t we jut go though this. Before you take any advice from anyone on the real business of sex work check them out. See that they are legit, vet them and then listen and use your critical thinking skills to see if what they are telling you makes sense to you. Though this group or person might be trying to do some good, they are already hading out bad advice they have  no website and their domain is less then one month old. They can be ANYONE. Would you take advice from a stranger on the street about escorting? Of course not, so why would you listen to an anonymous email? I know you dont when Nigerian banker tells you you’ve won a million dollars and all you need to do is give then 2k in a money order and your will be rich.

I’ve asked around, to long time women in the business those that do outreach and run and participate in safety sites,  NO one knows who this outfit is… i mean NO ONE.

In light of recent events both in MD,VA, DC, PA and in the blogosphere, you need to take a LONG HARD look at who is telling YOU whats safe and best to do.

I wrote back providers voice and i have yet to head from them, i may be waiting a very long time.

UPDATE: 11/16/20- Providers Voice got back to me and didn’t give me any information as to who they are. They clam to be a legal and political advocacy group HOWEVER their website went live today and they are trying to get ladies to sign up for some $99.00 program of theirs.

I’m still trying to find anyone who may have any idea who they are. I’ve asked around to advocates, activist, escorts, blacklist groups and so far no one has any idea. They showed up out of nowhere with no credentials of any kind. They are unwilling to provide anything that will show their legitimacy to members of the community (and numerous people have asked them who they are). They are operating completely anonymously.

No credentials, no transparency, trying to collect money.
Yeah good luck with that.

Deceitful pretenses

Let me tell you what i know...

There has been a rash “escort blogs” handing out bad advice. Self proclaimed insiders blogging anonymously, meaning they are not blogging under their “working names” so their inclusion into the business cant be verified. What can be verified though, is they are handing out bad advice to both clients and sex workers.

This kinda thing really irks me and i try to debunk the crap when confronted by it but it gets exhausting when i see smart people in the business just taking this crap on face value because it has the word “escort” or “sex worker” attached to it. Did the fauxho scandal of last year not teach us anything? I’m often amazed at how a group of people so in tune with their inner bullshit detector can be so gullible because someone puts “escort” on their blog title. I’m talking about both sides of the fence here just as many “hobbyists” are buying this ridiculous crap as sex workers are.

Pssssst... not real either

We all like a little fantasy and if some wannabe writer wants to write a blog pretending to be a hooker, ex hooker, madame, stripper or whore fucker then great, knock yourself out and tell your personal story…. but do not hand out advice on serious subjects! Fakes  holding themselves out as  experts and co-opting the real experiences of long time workers and long time users of sexual services  by dolling out advice,  is sure to get someone arrested, hurt or worse. Do NOT tell people how to pick the right escort, as if you KNOW when you don’t. Do NOT tell some girl how to avoid a bad client or the cops when your just making shit up. It’s so beyond irresponsible, it makes me see red. I wish i could do more then just call them out and hope that others with knowledge do the same thing. But that’s really all i can do.

It’s been almost year since the very scandalous fauxho controversy made its way though the escort community and shes still out there spewing her bullshit, to anyone who will listen. Still stealing content and using the photos if a very well known cam girl as her own, with not even enough shame to change her name. Yes I’m using the term “she” loosely because as we all know were not even sure if it’s a female, many think its a decidedly male voice that narrative speaks with.

friends don't let friends RT fakes

I see her re-tweeted in my twitter steam weekly… by sex workers that should know better. I do my part to give them the info to make an informed decision on wither they wish to lend their credibility to someone who is the worst kind of fraud perpetrated on a community but still i see her name come up. She’s not the only one, just the most prolific, the one that spends all her time on her fake persona. Likely sitting alone in the dark pounding away at the keyboard getting some kind of twisted satisfaction at all the trust it is betraying and being smugly satisfied with itself that its able to even after being confronted by the most respected of sex workers activists and writers and members if the community, across all facets of sex work, it keeps up the fraud. Even though if  you Google it’s name with the word “fake” you get academics detailing her plagiarism, sex workers  denouncing its authenticity,  its still out there pretending to be real, handing out bad advice and collecting detailed information on “potential clients” but yet … smart people who do have the Google just feed into it.

The Great Pretender

I don’t get it… is it lazy? lack of critical thinking skills? or is real sex worker voices just not salacious enough and people need a fake “cum dumpster”, “gang bang” advocate hooker/stripper out there to validate their Lifetime TV movie view of sex work? From the general population i might understand this but from sex workers themselves?

I am at a loss… and i am exhausted.