Changes in red

Dear RC,

Why are the anti-sexist, anti-captalist NYC Radical Cheerleaders promoting pimps and helping organized criminals commit their sex trafficking crimes?

Is it because the folks at $pread Magazine lied to you about their magazine being "The only magazine in the U.S. by, for, and about people who work in the sex industry" and some of you believed them?

I volunteer with the [withheld for confidentiality] in Portland, OR, which is one of not one, not two, but three nonprofit agencies solely dedicated to helping survivors of the massive sex industry in this smallish city of 1.5 million. Portland is also home to not one, not two, but three sex industry magazines, the most popular being multi-strip club owner Frank Faillace's 10-year old magazine Exotica. I spoke with a veteran vice cop recently and he told me never once in all his years has he investigated a strip club or massage parlour that wasn't a front for prostitution.

You can read a disturbingly accurate portrayal of the purpose of sex industry publications like $pread from former Exotica editor/writer Jim Goad in the NY Press. nypress.com/15/52,,,/feature.cfm

It's appropriate this "new" advertising effort by the inherently exploitive sex industry should be called $pread, because for some time now I have been using the term "spread'emist" to refer to people who support the normalization of women being men's whores. If fucking men for money really worked as a strategy to get women to the top, there would be a helluva lot more prostituted women at the top and a lot less coming through our doors.

Sweden is a great place, very sexually liberal and openminded, and after a nearly 30-year experiment with legalized prostitution during which the most comprehensive data on prostitution ever recorded was produced, the Swedish parliment decided sexual capitalism is intrinsically harmful and incompatible with true democracy. I highly recommend the following article (originally in Swedish) by Swedish journalist Maria-Pia Boëthius:

The end of prostitution in Sweden?
www.sweden.se/.../Article..2295.aspx

I'm writing to you because I admire the Radical Cheerleaders very much and was saddened to see well-intentioned women unwittingly enabling the abuse of others. The US Dept. of Justice 2003 statistics place the average age on entry into American prostitution at 13 years old, numerous studies have demonstrated on average 90% of prostitutes are pimped, and the rates of sex abuse, drug addictions and homelessness for this population is unfailingly over 50%. More info at www.prostitutionresearch.com

The sex industry has been legalized in several countries, including some counties in Nevada, and the burning question to me is: If there were studies done from these legalization attempts actually proving they meet their proposed goals of harm reduction, disease reduction, woman-empowerment, and reduction of violence and trauma, why wouldn't the sex industry millionairres and governments that promote their taxable "businesses" shout this happy news out all over the world? They don't because they can't, because all the research shows legalization actually exacerbates all the worst aspects of prostitution while increasing the sex industry overall. In Australia, legalized Victoria has the country's highest number of child prostitutes and incidences of domestic violence, while gonnorhea rates have doubled since legalization.

Please, please do more investigations into this subject before again agreeing to donate your talents to sexual capitalists, female or male, trading in women's and children's flesh for profit. As I believe kidneys should only be donated and not sold else poverty-stricken people be exploited, so too do I believe sex should not be economically coerced from our most vulnerable neighbors.

Thank you for reading

 

Dear $pread,

Why are the anti-sexist, anti-captalist NYC Radical Cheerleaders promoting pimps and helping organized criminals commit their sex trafficking crimes? Is it because you folks at $pread Magazine lied to them about their magazine being "The only magazine in the U.S. by, for, and about people who work in the sex industry"? Portland, where I live, is home to not one, not two, but three sex industry magazines, the most popular being multi-strip club owner Frank Faillace's 10-year-old magazine, Exotica. You can read a disturbingly accurate portrayal of the purpose of sex industry publications like $pread from former Exotica editor.writer Jim Goad in the NY Press: nypress.com/15/52,,,/feature.cfm

It's appropriate this 'new' advertising effort by the inherently exploitive sex industry should be called $pread, because for some time now I have been using the term "spread'emist" to refer to people who support the normalization of women being men's whores. I volunteer with a Portland-based nonprofit agency , which is one of three agencies devoted to helping survivors of the massive sex industry in this smallish city of 1.5 million. If fucking men for money really worked as a strategy to get women to the top, there would be a helluva lot more prostituted women at the top and a lot less coming through the doors of our organization.

I'm writing this letter because I admire the Radical Cheerleaders very much and was saddened to see well-intentioned women unwittingly enabling the abuse of others. I spoke with a veteran vice cop recently and he told me never once in all his years has he investigated a strip club or massage parlour that wasn't a front for prostitution. The US Dept. of Justice 2003 statistics place the average age on entry into American prostitution at 13 years old and numerous studies have demonstrated that, on average, 90% of prostitutes are pimped. The rates of sex abuse, drug addiction and homelessness for this population is unfailingly over 50%. More info at www.prostitutionresearch.com

The sex industry has been legalized in several countries, but all research shows legalization actually exacerbates the worst aspects the worst aspects of prostitution while increasing the sex industry overall. In Australia, legalized Victoria has the country's highest number of child prostitutes and incidences of domestic violence, while gonnorhea rates have doubled since legalization. After a nearly 30-year experiment with legalized prostitution, during which the most comprehensive data on prostitution ever recorded was produced, the Swedish parliment decided sexual capitalism is intrinsically harmful and incompatible with true democracy.

I very much hope that the Radical Cheerleaders will do more investigations into this subject before again agreeing to donate their talents to sexual capitalists, female or male, trading in women's and children's flesh for profit. As I believe kindeys should only be donated and not sold else poverty-stricken people be exploited, so too do I believe sex should not be economically coerced from our most vulnerable neighbors.

Thank you for reading.

Cindy

From "Mary Christmas",

I just wanted to reply to your letter to the NYC radical cheerleaders. I co-founded the NYC squad in 1999 because I have been a feminist organizer and activist for most of my life. I am also a sex worker, as are many of the radical cheerleaders. Doing sex work has enabled me to fight right-wing terrorism of abortion clinics, organize against street harassment, be an artist and musician, work with queer justice groups, and do part-time outreach to street-based sex workers who desperately needed condoms, counseling, clean needles, etc. Now, it allows me the time to be an editor and publisher, WITHOUT PAY, of a publication that we hope will give much-needed visibility to people whose problems with discrimination go unaddressed all of the time. You did manage to offend a few cheerleaders with your letter, but we won't hold it against you.

Actually, I found it very inspiring. These perceptions that people have about trafficking, white slavery, "organized criminals," and our very morality are simply wrong. They are the reason that we chose to start $pread- an independant feminist magazine edited and staffed entirely by women volunteers who have experience working in the sex trade. Hopefully we who have been silenced by the judgements of total strangers for far too long, will finally wield a tool with which to speak back to people who think they know what other people should do with their bodies and consensual sex.

I understand that for many sex workers, it is not simple. There are many who are trading sex work because of complicated, violent or unpleasant situations, and many are underage. I know this because I've been out on those streets with those trannies and girls and young boys. But your views are so full of leaning moralities that your whole arguement crumbles. What in the world gave you the idea that $pread "trades in women and children's flesh for profit?" To be honest, your letter was so crazy that I was tempted to just ignore it- but it concerns me that you are mingling with sex workers at your volunteer job. Do you think it's possible that you might unfairly impose your own issues about sexuality and choice onto people who are already dealing with enough bullshit? I hope that you will look at our website and also read the magazine when it is released in March so that you will no longer be so completely and utterly misinformed.

By the way, Jim Goad is a fucking asshole. Please don't insult my intelligence with the idea that we would even talk to the guy who produced Answer Me's "rape issue." And I read the article you linked in your letter- which turned out to be a string of insults toward women who trade in sex. As if that was revolutionary in a world wherein Whore is the deepest insult most people can think up. Thanks again for the letter, we encourage you to write more!

 

From the Editors

You seem to have misunderstood $pread and what it stands for. Our aim is not to promote or profit off the sex industry but to provide a much needed forum for people whose problems with discrimination go unaddressed all of the time. Innacurate and judgemental perceptions about 'prostituted women', such as those displayed by your letter, are part of the reason we chose to start $pread - an independant feminist magazine edited and staffed entirely by women volunteers most of who have experience working in the sex trade. Hopefully those of us who have been silenced by the judgements of total strangers for far too long, will finally wield a tool with which to speak back to people who think they know what other people should do with their bodies and what decisions we should make consensual sex.

We understand that for many sex workers, it is not simple. There are many who are trading sex work because of complicated, violent or unpleasant situations, and many are underage. However, that is hardly a reason to argue that the voices of these people should not be heard. Your point of view strikes us as moralistic and condescending and it concerns us that you are mingling with sex workers at your volunteer job. Do you think it's possible that you might unfairly impose your own issues about sexuality and choice onto people who already have enough to deal with?

The statistics you mention seem misleading. Our first issue contains several articles and news reports about the affects of criminalizing sex workers by people who have experience working in the sex industry in various parts of the world. We hope you will take the time to read what they have to say.

By the way, Jim Goad is an asshole. We feel insulted that you would equate us to the guy who produced Answer Me's 'rape issue.' We read the article you linked in your letter, which turned out to be a string of insults towards women who trade in sex. As if that were revolutionary in a world in which 'whore' is the deepest insult most people can think up. Thanks for writing.

 

 

Dear Mary,

All the information in my letter is true and I have sources to back them up. I have been researching sexual capitalism for years, have attended many conferences, and have written several published articles on the subject.

That the average age of entry into prostitution in the USA is 13 is a fact, as is the vast majority of prostituted women being sexually abused in their childhood and most prostitutes having pimps. I have never seen a credible study that has proven otherwise, so if you are aware of evidence refuting what I have presented to you, please pass it along to me.

>Doing sex work has enabled me to...

Money has enabled all this, not sex work. You did not 'choose' sex work in the broadest sense of the word because he who pays the piper picks the tune and the large sums of money offered to entice you to prostituting flows from men who decided your role in society according to their greater income and leisure activity 'needs'.

Sex is fun, and it feels good, and it's widely available to anyone who treats others kindly with respect and asks. Do you know the old joke about how men don't pay prostitutes for sex, they pay for the prostitute to get quickly lost after he comes? The results of studies on john school participants shows they're quite aware they are taking advantage of women's and children's vulnerabilities (study results at www.angelfire.com/mn/fjc/learningpacket.html)

I question sexual capitalism's effects on women, all women. I see the results of prostitution around the world and legal or not, it does not benefit women as a class of people. The Canadian study showing sex workers have a mortality rate 40 times that of non-sex working women confirms what many people already know, that in a disposable society when women are reduced into things-of-sex, they become disposable people.

I'll accept any evidence disproving links between trafficking and sexual slavery and between organized crime and prostitution. I have not mentioned morality and I make no claims to sexual morality, only to ending the severe physical and metal abuses of sexual capitalism. There is a tremendous amount of violence and trauma in sex work and I'm working from the only prostitution harm reduction model that has had any effect in stemming the flow of broken bodies, the 1999 Swedish law.

There are three nonprofits in my town helping survivors of the sex industry, more if you count the Salvation Army, P:ear youth outreach program, and homeless shelters that assist prostituted people. Your suggestion that all of us (and 80% of Swedish citizens) are wrong about the inherent harms of sex work and are brainwashing hundreds of happy, healthy sex workers into coming to our safe houses and programs because we are sexually repressed people with nothing better to do with our feminist time is irrational.

> Hopefully we who have been silenced by the judgements of total strangers

Jim Goad was a sex industry insider, and he's not the first man to turn away from the easy money selling commercialized female sexuality, though you're right he's an asshole. Second, like with war veterans, the most well known prostitution abolishionists are themselves survivors of the sex industry, Andrea Dworkin, Norma Hotaling, Kelly Holsopple, Anne Bissell, etc.

>it's possible that you might unfairly impose >your own issues about sexuality and choice >onto people who are already dealing with >enough bullshit?

That's exactly how I think of $pread, capitalists willing to whitewash the extremely abusive nature of prostitution at the expense of the lives of these most marginalized of victims for the sake of personal profit. You probably think the hundreds of researchers around the globe who came to negative results are all biased and didn't care to find all the happy hookers. There are an estimated 40 million prostituted people worldwide with thousands of researchers collecting information and if the wealthy men who stand to benefit the most can't produce proof the legalization has provided any benefits whatsoever to prostituted women in Australia, The Netherlands, Germany, etc. then that only confirms what evidence there is.

The sexually liberal Democratic Socialists in Sweden came to the conclusion of the inherent harms of prostitution after 30 years of trying to make it work, and if no one else has had success reducing trafficking, street prostitution, and most importantly, men's demand for bodies like the success Sweden has had with the 1999 law, that speaks volumes.

>which turned out to be a string of insults toward women

Please point out where you see any insult to prostituted people in that article, because I am very familiar with it and do not see anything but compassion for the incredible amount of shit prostituted women deal with and the finger pointed squarely at the men who feel its okay to mistreat female human beings sexually.

Well, we talked about this at our last editorial meeting. We'd like to run your letter and would like to write a response to it. But it would be myself writing a response similar to the one I have already written to you. If you are looking for a response from the cheerleaders as a whole, I have two suggestions. One, write to them again and see if they respond.

Two, they can't really respond "as a group" because some of them are involved with sex work while some are not, and I'm sure that they all have different personal opinions on the subject.

We are truly interested in running your letter for the same reasons you are- to represent the opinions that you have and that we know many, many people share with you. Part of our objective as a magazine is to speak to those kinds of views, and what better way to do so than directly in response to one letter? It's up to you. If not, I'm sure we'll get a bunch of letters like yours in the future.

Thanks,
Mary

Dear Mary,

Truly, I was hoping for an evidenced response from anyone.

>Part of our objective as a magazine is to speak to those kinds of views

If you can't achieve this goal speaking with me in private, how can you expect to do it in a magazine? I don't mean to pick on you specifically, Mary, but theoretics fail to substitute for collected data and it's crucial to be able to examine the data.

For a long time, most of my life, I supported the legalization of prostitution, before I knew much about it and after I became a feminist. Then I lost some people very dear to me, and I learned, and the more I learned the more I changed my mind about some things, then some things more, then one day...I couldn't go back.

Without a sincere, fact-based response to the concerns I raised, I'm afraid I can't allow you to use my writing.