December 17th - International Day to End Violence against sex workers

Recently, 5 sex workers are murdered in Ipswich in England, but the murderer is not yet arrested. This ripper killer media frenzy is driving me – and most of the whore activists I know mad. So many aspects about it are sickening – the way journalists are almost frothing at the mouth (because whore murder victims make a case so much sexier than ‘soccer mom’ murder victims - the focus on 'the victims' - sexy pictures, descriptions of their physical characteristics, showing images of the crack pipes in one of the deceased's home....

The unsaid assumption that sex work is an inherently violent job, that if you choose sex work, you'll be lucky to survive the first week.... maybe you even deserve it....The complete lack of analysis as to the overwhelming affects of marginalisation and stigma, that presents sex workers to those who will be violent criminals (as well as the rest of the population) as sub-human, the impact of criminalisation, which reduces sex workers likelihood of reporting crimes against them, the risks of disclosure, which means sex workers will often not disclose about their sex work to their loved ones, so people don't know where they are when at work....

Often attitudes expressed by media sources and the police contribute to a culture that sees violence against sex workers as almost acceptable. During the investigation of the Yorkshire ripper, a senior West Yorkshire detective notoriously made a direct appeal to the killer, pointing out that he was now killing "innocent girls" and therefore "in urgent need of medical attention". The inference is clear - as long as he stuck to killing sex workers, he wasn't quite so much of a psycho...

In my now almost 17 years of sex work, encompassing private, brothel, opportunistic, escort and street-based sex work, I have honestly never experienced a clear case of violence from a client - however I've experienced the dehumanising attitudes of police and media, and the horrific attitudes of anti-sex work feminists who refuse to differentiate between sex work and rape - contributing to a culture that believes sex workers can't say no, that rape of a sex worker is more like 'unpaid overtime'. For those of us who care about social justice, for those of us that care about sex workers rights, for those of us who wish to see an end to violence against sex workers, these attitudes need to be challenged, sex work needs to be decriminalised in every country and police and media construction of sex workers as less-than human, as 'asking for it' needs to end.

To mark International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers, here is a statement from the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective.

Debby Doesn't Do It For Free Update

The Debbys performed our HoHoHo Whore Variety Show last Sunday, and I'm at a stage now where I can speak about it with any degree of persective. I'll briefly speak about the show itself, but I'd also like to reflect on some of my choices in relation to performance.

Most of the Debbys are involved with several other whore activist activities - plus sex work on top of all of that, plus our recent loss impacted on all of us, so the decision to do a variety show - involving the fabulously funny and sex positive Sex and Glita from Gurlesque, the very sexy, political and supportive Kitty Minge and out/proud/glam Team Princess - as guest artists was a profoundly good decision.

The night started of with a rousing sex worker Christmas carol, followed by a beautifully silly, tasteless and highly political Steve Irwin inspired piece *crikey!* Much thanks to Kooky Divine for the opportunity to be a bloodsucking sexual health nurse and wear my vinyl nursie uniform, vampire fangs and carry a bottle of Dettol. Kitty Minge followed with much flashing and sex worker relevent stand up. Debby Desiderata did a gorgeous dance piece including (in loving memory of Drag Debby) some fire. Team Princess explored the whore stigma and crucifixion.

After the break, we showed a DVD of Drag Debbys final performance, then Mr Big Pants and Ms Big Wig did another cynical piece about politicians then Ginger Snapps did a fan dance with dollars, Debby Jett performed I Love Hocking My Hole, Sex and Glita did The Telephone Man (Sex looks uncannily like some of my early street work clients for this piece - a bit disturbing, really) and the finally piece, involving Decriminalise Debby, Disorganised Debby and myself was Don't W.H.I.S.P.E.R., SHOUT!

We've previously done Don't W.H.I.S.P.E.R, SHOUT! for Gurlesque and personally, it's a really difficult piece for me to perform. I have many moments during rehersals and the actual performing of asking myself why I get people to do such terrible things to me on stage. How much I'm struggling with it is apparent for some of the audience - I've had two people who identify as subs at different times comment to me after seeing it that I'm definately not a sub.

I guess my approach to performing is a similar one to my general community education approach - get people to make a connection and identify with me in some way, so it's easier for them to 'experience' my experiences, and to see the world through my eyes for a short period of time. Most of my performance ideas are layered with theory, so getting people to make an emotional connection, and/or throwing some sexiness into the mix is a powerful way of encouraging an audience to hang in there for the ride. Embodying the whore (rather than being one of many flesh and blood whores) for people, then acting out experiences of oppression/ disenfranchisment/silencing/stigma/being the archetype for patriarchy/ sex negative feminists to play with when exploring their sexual neurosis - is a major function of my performance work. I hope that by embodying the archetype - by putting a face, brain and opinion to the nameless, faceless other, it allows the audience to explore what we do as a culture with that archetype (and the human beings that embody it). And if I'm obviously experiencing discomfort, I think that fits in perfectly.

Because I'm really wanting to connect emotionally with an audience and to present something with layers of sex radicalism/ critique of patriarchal religion/ queer theory - plus a bit of cultural studies thrown in to the mix, my performative style is often a tricky one. I'll often put my body through an ordeal, flirt with Catholic energy and offer myself as the not-so-virgin sacrifice. The discomfort and confusion that creates for some audience members is important. Confusion is often a powerful place from which growth and learning can come.

Some feedback from some sex worker audience members who know and like me is interesting - it is hard for them to see these things being done to me. I just know I need to do this. I need to comment on a culture that comments on me and my choices. I need to take for myself the right of reply. It is a healthier choice than sitting in my own anger and frustration.

I also love being very, very femme and very, very strong - even when I'm 'subbing' in some way or recieving penetration or sensation play, I like to use my voice, body language and point of view to express agency, autonomy, power. I like to offer alternatives to strict binaries. I love to queer the popular perception of femme. The overwhelming majority of the femmes I know are articulate, powerful and very political people. How the hell the opposite characteristics emerged as the femme stereotype, I'll never know. After all, it takes a powerful, grounded character to navagate life in stillettos.

I wanted to say thank you to the Debbys audience. Gorgeous, intellegent people who are willing to engage with bad karaoke, politics, cunts, drag, and whatever else occurs to us to present you with. In listening to the voices of whores you do more than the politicians, bureaucrats, academic feminists, mainstream media and often AIDS Councils.

You've come a long way baby

I love contradictions. I truly enjoy life’s paradoxes. They keep my mind nimble and open doors to the wonders of the universe and the self. I’ve worked harder and had more responsibility over the last 6 months than ever before.

Since September, I’ve organised a training session involving people from around the country, then a national conference, then promoted and performed in a Debby Doesn’t Do It For Free show, as well as sex working and getting out and about, socialising and participating in community like never before.

In the past if I’d attempted half of this workload, I’d have had to pull out, probably had a nervous breakdown and retired to a darkened room for 6 months.

Right now I’m utterly exhausted, pretty damn broke as even though I’ve been sex working regularly, it’s been hard to focus and have the right energy to get much work, and have had a persistent flu for three weeks. The effects of Kenn’s passing are still quite present for me. Almost every day I’ll get a little teary without even knowing why at the time. The pressure build up from a huge workload has left me a wee bit wobbly and effected my decision making in some areas. I’ve gotten myself involved in weird random flirtations, when I don’t really have the time, energy or inclination for sex. I haven’t always been considerate of or communicated well with women around this stuff.

But this is where the paradox lies – I’m feeling both really drained, but also giddy with joy. I’m so fucking proud of myself for what I have achieved in this time. I’m so pleased that even with my wobbliness and occasional lack of strictly ethical treatment of flirtations and sexual partners; I’ve behaved more ethically towards myself than in recent history. I’ve maintained my single status – I’ve avoided getting involved in doomed relationships with women who are needy but unable to reciprocate my love and support. I’ve proven to myself I’m able to meet huge personal goals. I think this increased strength and independence – along with the ever-present femme nurturing energy (hello June Cleaver) has been part of my increased appeal. My busyness has meant through-the-roof stress levels, skipping meals, sleep deprivation and smoking like a steam train yet in some ways I’m taking better care of myself than ever. My self-valuing continues to skyrocket – so I’m nobody’s doormat.

Losing a friend, colleague and community member has left and aching sadness, coming closely after another personal disappointment – yet I also feel outrageously happy – with myself and my life. Broke, in debt and unable to indulge my shoe habit, yet so very wealthy with my years harvest.

I guess that I’ve always know that life is really hard stuff, and that most of the really worthwhile things are really hard fought for. My self awareness and mental health have been things I’ve pursued with utter single-mindedness and discipline. It really has been like stripping skin away from bones, then regrowing new layers to get here. If I was less prepared for ruthless honesty, really taking a harsh look at bad patterns and sitting with my own shame at some of my behaviour, I never would have come through to this place.

I’ve been accused of thinking too much, pursuing complexity for the sake of it, of being too much of a busy brained analytical nerd. But let me state categorically that the self awareness and resulting psychological/ behavioural shifts have been worth it. Of course, the alternative could be continuing to beat my head against the same brick wall, and then turning around to blame the wall.

I’m feeling like I’m entering the next phase of my life and I’m tingling with excitement at the prospect of brand new adventures. I can guarantee that there will be new battles and stresses and hangovers from old challenges. But there is also so much confidence in my skills and strength to tackle whatever comes my way.

Swimming laps in the queerphabet soup

For many, many years I identified as bisexual. Actually for a decent chunk of that time, my personal sexual identity was pansexual – pan being all encompassing. Having had a range of partners including trans and intersex people, I acknowledge that there are certainly more than two sexes, and probably a different gender expression if not identity for each person on the planet.

So while I generally (publicly, politically) called myself bisexual (so many people struggle conceptually with the broadness of bisexuality, let alone moving even further away from binary thinking); I really embraced pansexuality. I loved the largeness of the word. All encompassing; wide open spaces; don’t fence me in. As a pagan, *Pan is one of my all time favourite poster gods. Half-animal, all musky smelling and feral. Earthy, goaty and sexual. A leering, queering trickster deity. Silly looking with little horns, cloven hooves and little fluffy tail. Yet to those of us who honour the wild gods of the earth, and the body’s intelligence – he is all wisdom and nobility.

Over a long time – years and years, my attraction for bio guys was on the wane. So was my comfort with heterosexuality. My one significant relationship with a str8 man was fraught with a fundamental lack of compatibility. Although an anarcho activist boy, how could he a str8 white able bodied man get my experience of marginalisation – and how my whore activism, and queer community space nurtured me (and why I insisted on wearing queer tshirts on our dates).

I was never ever comfortable with passing for str8. I never wanted, or knew what to do with heterosexual privilege. It pissed me off that my parents were ready to embrace any guy I was with– no matter how casual – as my life partner, and any woman, no matter how much she made my heart sing, as just a good friend. I still hate the stereotype of bi women always prioritising their relationships with male partners - that was never my practice, or the practice of the other bi community attached women I knew. I recognise that for some het community attached bi women, there is little incentive to honour the women in your life, I'd like to see that as being more about the heterosexism and general misogyny in our culture, that takes some personal awareness and internal work to move beyond.

So for a long time I was narrowing my partner choices to women, gender queers and bi guys who I could put in lingerie and fuck their arses. This worked for a while, but then many of the bi guys I was fucking were so very into their own cocks, so penis in vagina sex became The Main Event. All the other fun, creative, sexy things people can do together were sidelined. While I’m not averse to being fucked, it’s certainly not my most favourite dish on the menu.

Then – of course there is politics. The grooviest, most progressive boys I was playing with were still too far from being comparable to the gorgeous, smart feminist women in my life. Unfortunately the pro-feminist men’s movement seems just as tiny and lacking in influence as it did 10 years ago, while the other men’s movement is full of intimidating black shirts and seething resentment towards women.

The acknowledgement that bio men were no longer part of my erotic world was a sad one for me. My sexuality was no longer the neat reflection of my coalitionist politics, my instinct for inclusion. The tiny but sex positive bi community had always been so much cooler about my sex work, about my trans partners, about the dresses and heels. I also would like to believe that men will one day be better at understanding the impacts of sexism and refusing to participate in it; but who has the time to wait for that fine day? So it took me a damn long time to stop mourning my loss and to be comfortable identifying as a dyke, even now I usually add some words – femme dyke, queer dyke, dyke whore.

I now really like being a part of the shift in the dyke community – away from lesbian separatism. Away from policing our own behaviour. Towards a more diverse community. Towards sex positivity. Along with lesbianism, my attraction towards butch women has increased. While I make more sense in dyke spaces if I’m with a butch – I look less like a str8 girl who’s lost her way – my interest in butches isn’t around anchoring an identity, or around fitting in, or safety. It’s more about my life long passion for gender queers. I’ve always loved and appreciated the bravery exhibited by people who look uncompromisingly queer. Who are never going to pass as str8.There is a certain way butches communicate, inhabit their bodies and spaces that makes me weak at the knees. I never feel like I can even explain this quality, let alone understand it – as how I live in the world is quite, quite different. I don’t get much homophobia as I walk through the world; I get constant unwanted sexual attention from men instead. Obviously, I’ve capitalised on that by doing sex work – but who can say what is harder to live with – the invisibility and sleaze experienced by femmes, or the homophobia experienced by butches?

In many ways, I'm a very unstereotype femme. I didn't date butches at all up until relatively recently, partly because there isn't much of a butch-femme scene in Lil old Adelaide when I was growing up - and also, as a bi whore, the experiences of marginalisation I had felt within the lesbian community meant that up until the last 4 years or so, I wasn't dating dykes at all. It was safer and easier to stick to other bi whores (usually also femmes) than risk the impact of stigma up close. And as someone with a strong femme identity since my late teens, but without the expectation that femme means I must date a certain way, I don't feel like I have to be dating or fucking anyone at all to validate my queerness, or to justify my presence in the community. I know in every cell of my body that I'm queer as fuck.

My journey continues, swimming my way through queer waters. I’ve always tried to tell the truth about my life and feelings – and that means embracing change and growth. I hate that my life experience might somehow add to the pervasive notion of bisexuality as a phase one goes through, however I have always felt that the goddess meant me to walk a certain path – and that my path so far seems to be a fluid one.

*For further ideas about the personality of Pan, and his importance, I recommend Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

Sick of being Sick

Well, the Debbys are performing on Sunday, and I've been struggling with flu since before Gurlesque. I notice at one time in history, 'depression after influenza' was used as a common explanation for suicides during inquests. It now makes perfect sense to me. I spent Monday working day shift at a brothel (this inevitably means Dr Phil, Oprah and Bold and the Beautiful). The combination of flu and menstruation meant that I was weeping my way through Oprah. Then off to a rehearsal Monday evening. Crawled around the place looking miserable in a Santa hat, looking for quiet corners to learn lines while chaos was occurring around me.

Somehow misery in a Santa hat is more effective than bare-headed misery. I even had Debby Desiderata giving me a massage. As it was, under different circumstances I would have flipped her, and massaged her. Instead, my flu seems to have left me rather passive, so I just proposed. I'm panicking and hoping my voice is strong and effective for Sunday night. I'm performing the last piece of the night, and I'd like it to work.

My Apologies: A June Cleaver moment

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

CAKE:1 c. butter, softened2 c. granulated sugar2 eggs1 1/2 c. flour1 1/2 tsp. baking powder1/2 tsp. salt1 c. sour cream1/2 tsp. vanilla extractTOPPING:1 c. pecans, chopped2 tbsp. granulated sugar1 tsp. ground cinnamonGLAZE:1/4 c. butter1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chipsPreheat oven to 350 degrees. FOR CAKE: cream butter and sugar in a large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs, beating until smooth. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, blending well. Gently fold in sour cream and vanilla.FOR TOPPING: Combine all ingredients in small bowl. For glaze, melt butter and chocolate chips in small saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons topping in bottom of greased and floured 9 inch tube pan. Spoon 1/2 of cake batter into pan. Sprinkle 4 tablespoons topping over batter and drizzle 1/2 cup glaze over topping. Spoon remaining batter into pan and sprinkle with remaining topping. Reserve remaining glaze. Bake 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool at least 10 minutes in pan. Turn onto serving plate. Drizzle remaining glaze over top of slightly warm cake.NOTES: As with every cake I have made lately, this one calls for a tube pan. I used a 13x9 lasagna-type pan with stellar results. You should check the cake for doneness at about 50 minutes if you use a flat pan. I used walnuts instead of pecans, since that is what I had available. When I ran out of vanilla I added in some lemon zest. Tasty.

Fight the Right

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Originally uploaded by whoretic.

Many exciting things on the internet. Some of my current favourites include this site for Ladies Against Women, a parody of the anti-feminist women of the Reagan era - almost as terrifying as the surrended wives movement and Ladies against Feminism. However, I want several Ladies Against Women badges, such as Born to Clean and Close your Eyes and Do your Duty.

I'm also a fan of http://godhatesshrimp.com/ that looks at one of the other insane abominations from Leviticus other than the thou shalt not fuck person with similar bits to you section.

With the scary rise in the religious right in Australia, I'm interested in performance protest as a creative way of being heard. I love the idea of using creative performance protest against the scary rise of right wing christianity in Australia. I want to picket along with a group of loopy christians holding a placard saying god hates shrimp. The only thing freaking me out about Ladies Against Women is that I think they look great, rather than silly..... It's a femme thing.