CatsMTL

Haze of thoughts

Haze of thoughts

Céleste

Choosing to work in this industry brought me first and foremost a job. I could finally work less hours and earn a lot more. In this scene that is shamed and a bit apart from the rest of this reality, some thoughts came to me throughout my experiences. Sometimes it’s teachings I remembered or new perspectives that opened up. So here are thoughts I wrote down during these last few years.

Jesse Dekel

Hope is partly radical openness. 

While trying to keep on living in this rotting world, I search for meaning and hope everywhere. Some glimpses are offered to me in the details of life and in my loved ones. 

I have come to believe that a feeling of hope can emerge from radical openness to the world and others around us. If we can decenter ourselves from what we are experiencing in the moment, it can bring more connection in between others. The lifelong journey of letting go of our biases can only do good to us and to others. Being open to receive anything the other brings without judgment can ease some of the loneliness we all feel. Hope doesn’t have to be total to be there. It can be seen in the thin light of the possibility of continuing or the chaining to continuity. Openness can show us that nothing is over and everything can still happen. 

The best and worst of humanity is intertwined in these spaces.

Like everywhere we look, we can find duality in our human world and imagination. In this industry where clients can fulfill their fantasies and their needs of connection and intimacy, I met the most incredible people. These colleagues were glowing effortlessly. Their passion, curiosity, movements and sensitivity were so strong that I couldn’t look past them. They inspired me to know myself more. They taught me more about empathy and holding space than anywhere else. There is also the worst kind of people in these spaces. Abusers that have no concern for others. People so disconnected that they make no sense to me. Their frivolous concerns for money, appearances, social norms and their ego separates them from others as well as shapes their interpersonal relationships. Men will trust other men for the sole reason that they have had successful financial dealings with each other. They protect their own. They feed their dark emotions so much that it consumes them. it’s easier to stay aligned with these feelings rather than accept another being with their own set views. It was always fascinating and unbearable to me to witness and to be part of a small world governed by money, addictions and heteronormativity in which intimacy and deep connections can bloom anyways. 

X-Rated collage Adore Goldman
Collage: Adore Goldman

Protect your heart.

With learning to be there for yourself, comes finding ways to protect your heart. Anything can take the form of bringing you some ease if you wish it to. Maybe the first way that you found  to protect your heart was dissociating. Leaving this reality to access some peace far away. To be somewhere else can bring you so much, it can help you survive. I got lost in my hiding spot and I feel that what can help save you is coming back to yourself. Be the closest you can to you. Know what soothes you, what helps you go on.

With love,

Céleste

CatsMTL

From Red Light to Quartier des Spectacles

From Red Light to Quartier des spectacles

Cultural and creative industries, sex work, and gentrification

Interview by Maxime Durocher and Adore Goldman, Translated by Hannah Azar Strauss

AM Trépanier is an artist-researcher, editor, and cultural worker. Across their practice, they explore the particularities of different media, technologies, and actions to (re)mediate the discourse around a given situation. Their artistic practices take the form of publications, video, conversation, websites, and exhibitions. In their work, they pay close attention to the tactics used by marginalized communities and alternative publics to build new kinds of spaces, gain access to information, and appropriate various technical tools.

AM collaborated with the Sex Work Autonomous Committee (SWAC) as part of the project dans le souffle de c., which explores the processes of urban gentrification resulting in the re-purposing of a site dedicated to sex work into an imposing hub of artistic and cultural dissemination: the 2-22. We asked them to tell us more about their process and the discoveries of the research.

Adore Goldman (AG) and Maxime Durocher (MD): How did you become interested in the history of the 2-22?

AM Trépanier (AM): In the fall of 2021, I was invited to participate in a group exhibition reflecting from a critical perspective on the notion of value, beyond its definition by the market economy. The curators wanted to create a space that could present various postures taken by artists towards the institution of the economy. 

As a starting point for the project, I did some generic research on the history of the place where the exhibition is located: VOX, a center for the research and dissemination of contemporary images, is housed in a cultural complex called the 2-22, located at the corner of Saint-Laurent and Sainte-Catherine. While delving into the history of the 2-22, built by the Société de développement Angus (SDA) and inaugurated in 2012, I came across an image of the building that had preceded it there, just by walking around on Google Street View and observing the evolution of the street corner over time.

I was struck by the contrast. Before its demolition, the building on the corner was home to various small businesses right up until 2008, counting among them Studio XXX, an erotic cabaret that offered services like a peep-show and private booths for XXX movies and full contact dances. Basically, the building was primarily dedicated to the sex industry. 

What immediately and organically came to mind was a desire to know what had caused such a transformation of the intersection. What forces had come into play to bring about this change in the neighbourhood, and who were the main actors in this transformation? What positions did these actors – the arts institutions, the media, the municipality, the real estate developers, the community groups, the state – occupy in the history of this “revitalization” of the neighborhood? And who benefits from this change?

Eugene Harberer, «Montreal.Forgaty & Bros. Wholesale and Retail Shoe Factory and Shop, Corner St. Catherine and St. Lawrence main Streets, 1875», Pièce 1979, Canadian Illustrated News 1869-1883, https://tinyurl.com/usineforgaty

AG-MD: When you did your research, what did you discover about the consultation process in terms of the transformation of this area? Were there stakeholders who were for or against the demolition and the new project? How did this process unfold?

AM: All I found in the City of Montreal’s Archives about the demolition of the old building was a resolution passed in 2006 at the City Council to expropriate (with compensation) the tenants of the building of which Studio XXX was a part. There was apparently no publication consultation on the demolition.

However, since the initial project of the 2-22 proposed the construction of a building exceeding the height limit allowed by the Urban Plan of the City of Montreal, there had to be a public consultation in order to get the necessary authorization before proceeding. It was at this time that the different interests of the people and organizations implicated could be identified. The various stakeholders were very divided.

In general, arts and culture organizations, especially those involved in the project and who would gain access to the property through the 2-22, were absolutely supportive of its development. It would provide security, access to a work and dissemination space almost impossible to find otherwise. This is a real issue in the arts and culture community, there’s no denying it. Access to space is very difficult to find for artists and distributors, who have not been spared by the rent increases related to gentrification. So having a permanent venue in the middle of the Quartier des spectacles was very attractive for organizations like VOX. 

On the other hand, heritage and community organizations were less enthusiastic about the project. Heritage organizations were concerned that the SDA’s projects would not integrate well with the historical character of the neighbourhood, especially the sister project of the 2-22, the Quadrilatère Saint-Laurent [today known as Square St-Laurent]. This second component notably threatened to do away with Café Cléopâtre, but they resisted and refused to be expropriated. The case made its way to court.1

Many community organizations opposed the project or voiced reservations – because there is important nuance to this: organizations recognized that there was some value in the project, but they also saw risks, primarily for neighbourhood residents. Several organizations, like Stella2, wrote a brief to express their concerns.3

 Essentially, what they proposed was to be a key stakeholder in the project, to be local actors in the building project of the 2-22, to have a say, to participate in the development of the project, to be consulted. They extended a hand to the project developers, but it was not well received.

Stella had been on the Main for eight years and so knew the neighbourhood very well. What’s more, they had been among the many people and organizations who had to relocate due to poor building conditions. They recognized that it was a neighbourhood that needed care, love, money, and development, but not in the way proposed by the SDA, the company executing the 2-22 project. 

Another thing that I learned reading the brief from Stella was that during the time that they were located on Saint-Laurent Boulevard, they had a display window and organized exhibitions, mainly about sex work and the history of the Red Light district. 

This highlights an important question when we’re talking about cultural policy: what is defined as belonging to the cultural sector, and what kind of practices are given visibility? For example, material related to sex work, like the window exhibitions presented by Stella, would not so easily be found on the walls of the 2-22 because the “guardians of culture” have judged it immoral. This is evidenced by the bylaws of the building. They are not welcome in exhibition spaces, in spaces of cultural diffusion, because for some, these forms of expressions are taboo. But with the choice to avoid offence, we push them to the margins. It’s curious because historically, sex work and the arts have had an intimate relationship. 

What I found also such a shame about this whole process is that by displacing the communities that live in a place, you really break the link between those communities and their sites of work, you disrupt their legacy by pushing them completely out of the center, out of touch with their history. This prevents the ongoing transmission of the place-based histories of these communities of practice. The conversations with SWAC made this very clear. It’s really hard to cultivate the collective memory of a place, of a community’s culture, when the connections are so fractured on so many levels by gentrification.

Another interesting thing about the brief produced by Stella is that they had compiled a list of negative impacts already observed in the area since its rezoning, even before the 2-22 project was presented to the public. During the period when the gentrification process was in its early stages, as the Quartier des spectacles was first being constructed, they did a field study which showed that not only were sex workers (SWers) already being displaced to other areas, but at the time there were increasing police inspections, constant police presence in the area, and an increasing number of fines being given to “undesirables”. This resulted, as with the demolition of Studio XXX, in job loss, the loss of SWers networks, and an erasure of their collective memory in the neighbourhood. This was a very live issue even before the 2-22 came along. 

Wikipedia. (s.d.). Terrain vacant du 2-22 en 2008, récupéré de https://tinyurl.com/terrainvacant

AG: In the new project, did you find rationale for the need to revitalize the area?

AM: On their website, the SDA uses a number of catchphrases and images to introduce their projects, and one term that comes up a lot is “revitalize,” in this case to “revitalize through culture”.4 It really gives expression to the phenomenon that I have been investigating while working on this project. What it says is that the neighbourhood was “dead” and they needed to revive it by replacing the local culture with a different, more controlled and profitable one. 

MD: They saw it as dead, but it certainly wasn’t. There was activity, but they didn’t acknowledge it. 

AM: Yes exactly. Often they were invisibilized or illicit activities, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. Actually, in an interview, Gérald Tremblay, the mayor of the City of Montreal at the time of the construction of the 2-22, said that he was sick of seeing boarded up buildings. There’s this desire to make the area profitable at all costs, but not to provide access to housing, to health clinics or things that could really serve the population. You can’t just make art spaces, offices, entertainment and consumer spaces; to allow people to really inhabit a place, to live well, you have to diversify its activities. 

Collage: Adore Goldman

AG-MD: As part of your process, you conducted an interview with several SWers, including activists with SWAC. What emerged from this about the relationship between gentrification and sex work?

AM: I think that question is best answered by the collective itself. So I’ll share some of the highlights.

What stood out to me the most in the conversation was that gentrification as a phenomenon is not just about space. It starts with the displacement of communities, yes, but the effects go beyond that. Particularly for SWers, there are the psychological and relational impacts, since displacement affects their ability to offer mutual support. 

What’s so impressive is that despite this, SWers find ways to rebuild their connections, to develop new ways to support each other, to be there for each other, and to share the resources they need to do their work. I think that’s really what SWAC is all about. 

Something else that often came up in the conversation, is that the more that spaces dedicated to sex work are destroyed, the more isolated SWers find themselves, everybody working alone. This makes solidarity and collective struggle more difficult, but can’t stop it completely; efforts always persist! 

These displacements also underline the importance of common spaces, connected to shared professional activities. We can see that it’s in these spaces where exchange and sharing is possible that bonds can develop that transform the spaces into sanctuaries. 

A critical issue is that so long as sex work remains a criminalized activity, there is a limit to the safety that sex workers can find in their places of work. They make their own safety, showing incredible resilience despite the ever-increasing urban transformation that hinders their search for security. 

What also came up during the exchange is that in Quartier des spectacles, there is a vicious and ironic process of relocating working communities and then taking advantage of their language, their symbols, their tools of representations, to promote the sanitized new district and increase its value. For example, the glass façade of the 2-22 building is apparently a reference to the dancers who stripped in the windows of the Red Light District. The symbolics of these communities are being exploited, while they are denied access to their work, are capitalized upon via the criminalization of their work or simply by their legal exclusion, as we saw with the 2-22.

In addition, by gentrifying and displacing communities and shutting down their places of work, we also reduce their access to services they need. For example, Stella was forced to relocate because of gentrification, which has had a negative impact on SWers’ ability to access the essential, front-line services Stella provides. 

I’ll finish by saying that overall, gentrification invisibilizes all these marginalized practices by pushing them further and further from the centre towards more isolated areas, removed from the sight of the rest of society. This puts people in danger, because the more invisible they are, the more at risk they are for violence and abuse. It is a profoundly disturbing impact of gentrification. It’s violence sanctioned by the authorities.

« Le 2-22 en 2015 », Wikipédia.

AG-MD: Are you the only artist who has been interested in the building that predates the 2-22?

AM: I did find other artists who were interested in it and wanted to document the existence of the peep show, before it was demolished.

One is Mia Donovan, a photographer and documentary filmmaker who spent her early career documenting the sex work milieu. During that time, she made a series of photographs with SWers at the former Studio XXX.5 As far as I know, these are some of the only images we have of the interior of the space before its demolition.

Another is Angela Grauerholz, also a visual artist, who shot a video of the intersection in 2005. At that time, we could see an overhead projection of two dancers in the window of Studio XXX, on the corner of Saint-Laurent and Sainte-Catherine.

These artists have documented the existence of these SWers by foregrounding them in their places of work. They were really interested in the physicality, the incarnate presence of the bodies of the SWers in those spaces, and not just the building itself. That made a big impression on me. It’s my hope to delve into the connections, of which there are many, between sex work and the arts. Many sex workers make art and many artists do sex work. I think we have a lot to learn and share.

dans le souffle de c. was presented at VOX Contemporary Image Center, from September 9th to December 3rd 2022 as part of the exhibition The Radical Imaginary II: Reclaiming Value. 

You can find other documentary resources that informed the project on its web counterpart: https://tinyurl.com/danslesoufledec 

1. To learn more about the fight for Café Cléopâtre: Wikipedia. (s.d). Café Cléopâtre, from https://tinyurl.com/cafecleopatre ↩

2. Stella is a community-based organization that seeks to improve quality of life for sex workers, to raise awareness and to educate society at large about the realities and forms of sex work so that sex workers have equal rights to health and safety as the rest of the population. For more information see: https://chezstella.org/ ↩

3. To read the brief produced by Stella: Stella. (2009). Mémoire sur la requalification du Quartier des spectacles, from https://tinyurl.com/quartierdesspectacles ↩

4. Société de développement Angus. (n.d.). Le 2-22, from https://tinyurl.com/le2-22saintlaurent ↩

5. This photo series was presented at Monument National in 2008 as part of the exhibition Le Coin produced by UMA, la Maison de l’image et de la photographie. The three selected artists were invited to document the intersection of St-Laurent and St-Catherine streets, on the cusp of its transformation. To learn more about this exhibition: UMA, la Maison de l’image et de la photographie. (2008). Le Coin, from http://www.umamontreal.com/lecoin/ ↩

Rights not rescue panties sex workers
CatsMTL

Open Letter La Paix des Femmes

Open Letter in Reaction to
La Paix Des Femmes

Maxime Holliday, Translated by Julia Thomas

La paix des femmes is a play written by author Véronique Côté in collaboration with abolitionist activist Martine B. Côté. Together, they sign this work as well as a related essay (Faire Corps), both published by Atelier 10 editions. The play was presented in Quebec City at La Bordée in the fall of 2022. One month before the performances began, Maxime Holliday, activist from the Sex Work Autonomous Committee (SWAC), published this open letter to denounce the play which, according to her, makes a crude, alarmist and dangerous representation of sex work. Speaking directly to the author, Maxime called for more diverse voices from the community to be brought into the play, thereby attempting to clarify (again) the difference between consensual exchange of sexual services and sexual exploitation. Following the distribution of the letter, a dialogue between Maxime and Véronique led to the latter withdrawing a line from the play and proposing that part of the written exchange between the two women be printed and displayed in the theater hall. During the first performance, pro-sex work activists interrupted, standing and carrying red umbrellas, to chant “my work, my choice” before leaving the room.

Rights not rescue panties sex workers
Embroidery by Melina May

Hi Véronique, 

 I’m writing to you today to discuss your play, La Paix des femmes. To start, I want to say I have much respect for your body of work – both the literary and the theatrical. You directed me twice during my time at CÉGEP, and I adored you. I will never forget when République: un abécédaire populaire came out, and you canceled our rehearsal to take us to the cinema to see it. I thought it was so beautiful, so rad, I promised myself I would always live up to the energy and passion you shared with us. I read S’appartenir(e) and La vie habitable. I saw you in Mois d’Août, Osage County and Laurier Station: 1000 répliques pour dire je t’aime. I went to see Scalpée because you were the director. I was never disappointed. You are right and you have a gift for touching people.  

When I heard from friends earlier this summer about La Paix des femmes, I was excited. Because prostitution is a subject I’m passionate about and one that I know well. A little background on my life – after CÉGEP I did a bachelor’s degree, traveled, worked in restaurants and bars, and started playing music. I got a second college diploma and moved alone into a beautiful apartment with an old, adopted cat. During the pandemic, I meditated, worked on art projects, met a wonderful person with whom I share a deep, loving relationship to this day, and moved to Montreal. I ended my career in food service after being hostile with two customers in the same week. I was stretched to the max after eight years in the industry and knew myself well enough to pull back before I snapped. In 2021 I started working at an erotic massage parlour, which I still do today, as well as working from time to time as a nude dancer in bars. I love it. My life is balanced and dynamic. I am a curious, politically engaged, caring person. I make art with my friends, performances and I take care of myself, my family and those around me. I read Martine Delvaux and Judith Lussier and listen to Angèle Arsenault. 

My friends are aware of my work in the sex industry, so I quickly heard about your play being published. I was told it was a dialogue between an abolitionist and a pro-sex-work scholar. I was told it was nuanced and written from multiple perspectives. I was skeptical but eager to read it because you wrote it. That is until my mother wielded your text at me to convince me to stop doing sex work. My poor, terrified mother, who has brutally invalidated me since I first wrote to her almost a year ago telling her about my work. My own mother, so freaked out that she can’t even hear or listen, much less trust me when I try to tell her about my experience. My mom emailing me your play. And my stomach in knots because, at that moment, I realize that the play confirms all her most sordid fears about my existence. At first, I’m so exasperated I tell myself I won’t read it. Anyway, she has refused to read anything I send her for a year. But what I needed the most was to be considered and heard. So I chose to open a dialogue by offering her a reading in exchange for a reading, which she eventually accepted.  

 So I read your play. While camping in the Jacques-Cartier Valley with my lover. I understand that your writing comes from a feminist impulse, a place of benevolent sisterhood, but I find this text hurts. Because it’s not a dialogue. It’s a lynching that rehashes all kinds of clichés about sex work in which exploitation, human trafficking and prostitution are all the same. The conversation occurs between a young woman (Alice) who decides to brutally confront Isabelle, the former feminist studies teacher of her sister (Lea), dead of an overdose six months after having started to prostitute herself. Alice blames Isabelle and the feminism she upholds for having caused her sister’s death, relying on an aggressive and dismissive abolitionist rationale. The character of Isabelle, who supposedly bears the pro-sex work argument, is discredited in the blurb on the back cover and tends to make dubious statements. She keeps waving “agency” as the solitary white flag to defend sex work in her discussions. And yet it is this same agency that we lose when she suggests that, as sex workers, “it is all we have left “1 and “they can’t take that away [from us].”2  Such claims strip sex workers of our agency, victimizing us and painting a bleak portrait of our reality. The story of Lea, dead after being recruited into a trafficking ring, inspired by the real lives of women who have been victims of coercion, extortion, abuse, and assault – is valid and alarming. We do need to talk about this reality, to denounce it. To shout out loud that as women in a misogynist and oppressive patriarchal system, we have lived and continue to live through appalling sexual violence. In this system, violence, as you say, is everywhere. It is intersectional. But I am so angry that these stories of exploitation are systematically used to represent prostitution in general, invalidating all those whose experience of sex work is ordinary or even straight-up positive. Ordinary experiences generally aren’t reported publicly or are labeled as isolated cases, creating an unbalanced and distorted image of our lives. Because If we are shown reports from Radio-Canada on “sugar babies” being manipulated and abused or women getting assaulted and killed, they also need to show us the story of the 45-year-old woman who has quietly worked for 20 years, and those for whom sex work is a means for empowerment and a good life.   

 Clarifying the difference between the consensual exchange of services and sexual exploitation, once and for all, would allow us to better combat pimps and fight to curb human trafficking more effectively. At the same time, SWers would benefit from improved working conditions to organize themselves and ensure their health and safety at work. Because this is indeed an intense job, and it is not made for everyone. The cliché of quick and easy money is totally absurd. Sex work is work. There are many security challenges, and strong relational, communication, and entrepreneurial skills are a requirement. It seems evident to me that all the energy used to discredit SWers and try to make them disappear would be much better used to help them obtain better tools for their trade and establish an empowering and safe social and legal framework. You infantilize a person when you suggest you are better at making choices about her life than she is. The worldwide abolition of prostitution is a legal and theoretical fable that only works on paper. I fail to see how the state could control the individual agency of SWers and their bodies without falling into repression and totalitarianism. And while it is indeed urgent to find ways to help women in extreme poverty who prostitute themselves to survive, it must be recognized that social and economic precarity would persist even if prostitution were made wholly illegal and/or magically disappeared. We can only make the lives of sex workers more difficult by stigmatizing them and working against them and their clients. Like with abortion, which can never be totally eradicated but can undoubtedly be dangerous when practiced under the wrong conditions, I believe that prostitution in Canada should be decriminalized 3 ; to allow SWers to self-organize according to their needs, which they know best, and create shared spaces, training opportunities, and unions to foster the improvement of their working conditions.

 La Paix des femmes, unfortunately, still contributes to the deliberate conflation of consensual exchanges of voluntary sexual services with human trafficking. Because if I understand correctly, the play was written based on only two testimonials (K. and C., thanked at the end of the book)? It seems that a sample of two individuals is not enough to get an accurate idea of how a whole environment, which one has not directly experienced, works. The contribution of your friend Martine B. Côté, student researcher and abolitionist activist who has worked with victims of exploitation, was no doubt highly relevant. If the play, and the attached essay, claimed to be about exploitation and sex trafficking, that would be fine. But because the works claim to speak “for women and against the system that exploits them” 4 about the concept of prostitution in general, I find the gratuitously violent and shocking images conveyed in the play to be shamelessly ridiculous and crude.  5

 It seems to me that this willingness to see using one’s body in a sexual way as automatically dangerous, painful, dirty, dishonourable, and shameful is a throwback to the outdated Catholic thinking that once controlled sexual morality. Suppose we believe today that women have a right to their bodily autonomy and sexual freedom. Why should “dislocating your jaw from giving blowjobs”6 (which already strikes me as either a horrible experience of sexual violence or a stylistic exaggeration but not a frequent consequence of practicing fellatio) be a worse scenario than destroying your lungs by breathing in chemicals in a factory, blowing out your vertebrae by lifting people to wash them in a hospital or ravaging your mental health as an overworked teacher in an elementary school? The patriarchal capitalist system exerts economic and social pressure and dominance on all women and all workers, regardless of their field. I am trying to demonstrate how our system threatens the physical and psychological health of so many of us. The working conditions of migrant people are often compared to modern slavery. The average household is being held in a chokehold by the ever-increasing cost of living. In this context, prostitution can easily be, for some people, the most practical and appealing way to pay for rent and groceries. It can also be an appealing occupation simply because sexuality and social work (because I assure you that sometimes we do act as social workers in lingerie) interest and stimulate us more than working in a hardware store, making sushi or being an administrative assistant in a production company.

Pancarte la criminalisation tue
Photo taken by Youssef Baati during a rallye organized by SWAC on October 7th 2022

For almost two years, I have worked with ordinary women, self-employed workers in the industry. Students, mothers, sisters, lovers, nurses, graphic designers, musicians, cashiers. For some, it’s a side job; for others it’s full-time. In the staff room, we tell each other our stories, we talk about our clients. Sometimes, we work on our computers in silence while waiting for appointments, sometimes, we share snacks and laugh loudly. In the strip club dressing room, we chat with the bouncer while putting on deodorant and take dinner breaks. We work where we choose to work and on good days, we earn a very good salary. I have many friends who work online, others who are independent escorts. I know a male escort for women too. Everyone, regardless of gender, needs physical contact. You’d be surprised how many people around us use these services but remain anonymous for fear of legal repercussions, stigma and shame. 

 Why is it still so inconceivable today that it is not necessarily humiliating and traumatic for a woman to get paid to dance naked or offer sexual services? Why is it automatically offensive to imagine a woman performing multiple blowjobs in one day? As far as I’m concerned, the end result of the feminist sexual revolution is to recognize the traumas we have lived through and to give ourselves the means, however diverse, to heal from them. Our great-grandmothers and grandmothers, required to sexually satisfy their husbands and produce children even when they didn’t want to. Our grandmothers, our mothers, and we live in a society where scientific research on female sexual organs is woefully behind that of male sexual organs. Our mothers, sisters, daughters, and we ourselves, who still have to research contraception for ourselves and fear that abortion rights will be revoked here too. Can we acknowledge our sexual trauma and work together to heal and liberate ourselves, all while respecting each other’s pace? Live and let live. I understand and appreciate that some women may feel repulsed and threatened by the kind of sexuality instilled in us by the hetero-patriarchal system. Because this model is indeed abusive, restrictive, and threatening to us.  But all while recognizing this, could we also be capable of caring for each other inclusively and respectfully, allowing each of us the freedom to manage the use of our body as we see fit? If I enjoy offering sex, paid or free, with my own body, which I take care of and which belongs to me, who am I hurting? My body continues to belong to me after my workday. I ride my bike with it, I pet my cat with it, I eat with it, I listen to music that I like with it, I work out with it, I have a glass of wine with it. I have sold a service but not my body. I find that getting paid to perform femininity and heteronormative sexuality is also a way to infiltrate the institution to bring it down from within. Because it recognizes that women never owe men anything. No sexual and/or relational work. No care work and no extra mental workload. That there are people paid to offer this kind of service, as far as I’m concerned, contributes to a return of power. To avoid the exploitation insidiously victimizing all of us in societies that teach us to fulfill men’s needs for free because “it is due to them.” 

 Coming back to the play, I also want to mention the things I liked: first of all, the fact that it raises questions about bodily autonomy in the context of egg donation. This is a topic I knew little about until recently, and it is pertinent to reflect on. And secondly, I liked how the client archetype was humanized through the character of Max. Well, what I remember is that the couple doesn’t communicate very well and that Max betrayed his girlfriend. He’s not the hero of the story, let’s say. But I’ll take that as a jumping-off point to say a word about clients. Before working in the field, I thought clients would all be big drunk macho jerks or old perverts. In the end, those clients do exist, but they are not the majority. And just like massage therapists, osteopaths, or tattoo artists, after an unpleasant appointment with a bad client, I make a note to myself not to take that client anymore. In reality, the majority of my regular clients are ordinary people. Neuro-divergent people, people with disabilities, recently divorced dads, insecure young people, old widowers, veterans, terminally ill men, and newcomers who have difficulty meeting someone because of cultural and language barriers. People with human needs. People who want to cuddle, who want to come and be validated. The patriarchy harms male-socialized people too. Everyone needs to be educated and to heal. I believe in the capacity of people and societies to learn from their mistakes and to improve themselves. I think there are many ways to change people’s behaviour and stop exploitation and violence against women. But just as I don’t think banning the sale or purchase of sex teaches men to respect and care for women or themselves, I don’t believe that it is prostitution that prevents women from having the same privileges as men. Misogyny is everywhere. In the price of feminine-gendered products, fatphobia, systemic racism and rape culture. It is within our intimate relationships and marriages. It is in the justice system, deficient when it comes to defending survivors of sexual abuse. Violence exists far beyond the concept of prostitution, and I think the day that society respects and cares for prostitutes as for any other woman, we will all have won something. 

 You carry your feminist fight through your art, and so do I. There are many feminisms and truths, yes. But to read comments like Francine Pelletier’s, quoted at the end of your play, which suggest that women are being inconsistent by choosing “to look like dolls”7 or “choosing to stay home and raise their children”8 revolts me. To think that women cannot perform an ultra-feminine gender identity or decide to dedicate their lives to their children at the risk of harming the feminist cause is binary and outdated feminist thinking. It still puts all the pressure on women, as if society will always hold it against them no matter their choice. As for my feminism, I update it constantly, and I fight for it on all fronts. In my personal and professional life. On the streets, in my bed, and on social networks. My songs are about our emancipation, and I use my workplaces as a space for direct intervention. I work with my legs, armpits, hairy pubis, shaved head, and sometimes long nails and artificial lashes. I feel beautiful and whole. I always say what I think. I am gentle and tender, but I never overstep my boundaries: I am firm in enforcing them. I resist, educate, and I cum. Sometimes at work and always in my intimate life. I cum. Because I am a woman and I belong to myself. Because I am a rigorous intellectual, a passionate artist, a faithful friend, a committed lover, a staunch feminist, a caring sister and a gifted and proud sex worker. If I am accused of inconsistency, I would say it is more a matter of freedom. Cultivated and nurtured through adversity.

 Reading your play, Véronique, I felt uncomfortable and bitter. It upsets me even more to think that the play will be presented in September at La Bordée. I can’t see how presenting this work will do anyone any good. But I can see how it will hurt many people. This play exudes fear, helplessness, rage, and pain but does not offer real solutions to improve anyone’s well-being. This play conveys all sorts of feelings that I share facing the injustices and violence experienced by women. Still, it approaches this complex subject in such a superficial and one-sided way that its impact is already being felt negatively in my personal life, as it will inevitably be felt in those of my friends and colleagues.  Even if I do not share your opinions on the future of prostitution, I would like to highlight all the good you and Martine are undoubtedly doing by listening to and helping victims of sexual violence get out of violent situations and rebuild their lives. I sincerely thank you for being there for these women, but I also urge you to consider the impact a play like La Paix des femmes can have on the collective imagination. For if the three of us are initiated into the subject of prostitution and human trafficking, the average person is entirely ignorant of the reality and issues involved. To present such an alarmist and unnuanced work will have, in my opinion, damaging moral repercussions on the cause of SWers and women in prostitution, particularly in Quebec City and the surrounding area. Therefore, I am addressing this letter to you, Véronique, and the entire production team to ask you to act by opening a healthy and diverse dialogue with our SWers community and integrating other points of view and informative resources from our community into the presentation of your play. We really need safe working conditions, to be listened to, consideration, inclusion, justice and respect. 

I am sending you this letter through the SWAC, a self-governed organization in which I am an activist, to maintain my anonymity. Thank you for respecting my anonymity, even though you may have recognized me by the very personal tone of my letter.  

 Thank you for reading my words. 

In the hope of awakening reflection and compassion. 

 Maxime Holliday
25 juillet 2022 

1. Véronique Côté. (2021). La paix des femmes, p. 90 ↩

2. SAME ↩

3. Like in a certain area of Australia, in New-Zealand and in Belgium since June 2022. ↩

4. Véronique Côté. (2021). Faire corps, back cover ↩

5. I want to reiterate that I speak from my experiences and those of my colleagues and whore friends. I am in no way discrediting the experiences of the women who have spoken to you, which are also very real and valid. ↩

6. Véronique Côté. (2021). La paix des femmes, p. 90↩

7. Francine Pelletier. (2018).Le corps d’une femme, Le Devoir quoted in Véronique Côté. (2021). La paix des femmes, p. 127 ↩

8. SAME ↩

CatsMTL

Poems – By Percevale

Poems

Percevale

Those poems have originally been written in french. Translating poetry is a hard task and is here to inspire and try to represent the artist’s words and intentions. The french poems have subtleties that can only be understood in that language.

I.
prostitution is not
a contract
it’s not a husband
I don’t have a ring on it

I do it like this
with good sex
with good faith

before I pick up my cash
and tell them
”see ya”

give me some cash
so that I can buy in return
something to charm
all the men I like

I accept all gifts
even impersonal ones
everyone loves wine
and I
make poems out of it

I don’t like jewelry
but when I receive it
from you
I find myself looking elegant
and it excites me strangely

I fall in love
3 times a day
for less than thirty minutes
and I know nothing
about love

Painting by Percevale

II.
they laugh at my jokes
with a good heart
half nostalgic half happy
my cold-hearted charitable
old men
who will never tell their wives
and I
made the choice to enjoy it
I find it poetic
I even find it quite comic
and I
have decided
that I can take what
it generates
it’s like an
actress’s job
psychologist’s,
of a penis not too steady
on the money intakes
like a job that cuts you in two
with a baseball bat
that brings you bread on
the table
that you can do everywhere
on the map
when you’re
whore-able

 

III.
i just took off all of
my clothes
just my
earrings left
but I only wore one
today
I’m sleeping at the whorehouse tonight
tomorrow it’s time
I hope I don’t feel anything
(I just want to feel you)
I take a sniff on
my arm
it smells like your sweat
a little bit
we’re not too big on
showers when
we’re together
huh
here I wash up after
every guest
the rooms stink
of condoms
cheap perfume and spunk
I think of you who
earlier said to me
“I love you”
for the first time

life is damn beautiful.

 

 

IV.
the girls are whining about
no customers
putting on makeup in the meantime
they tell me to comb
my hair
that self-care is important

I just want to be proud like
a boat
that has no human
to get on board
all I care about is
to not sink
I don’t care which way
the current goes

V.
the motels will be
kingdoms
like the old back bench of the
car
the beds will be temples
and cigarettes
medicine
in our stinking mouths of
beings
who kiss each other without rest
who eat with their mouths open
and laughing
all the time

 

CatsMTL

Beyond pride : A Call for Queer and Whore Solidarity

Beyond Pride

A Call for Queer and Whore Solidarity

Adore Goldman, Cyprine & Melina May

This text was written in the summer of 2022 and distributed at the Pride Community Day on August 5th and at the Anarchist Book Fair on August 6th, as the 24th edition of the International AIDS Conference in Montreal was ending.

Photo taken by Youssef Baati during a rallye organized by SWAC on October 7th 2022

Among the moral attacks that Pride is regularly subjected to – outside and within our communities – one criticism in particular seems indestructible: Pride is definitely an event that is too sexual. Indeed, from fetish outfits to drag parades to public displays of physical affection, they say that the sexuality queers exhibit is too present, too loud, too vulgar, too disturbing. Pride is a space of hypersexualized bodies, and those who participate are inveterate fuckers without dignity.

At the same time, this critique reveals the biases of those who formulate it: from a cisgender and bourgeois perspective, sex should be private, practiced in the bedroom, well away from the public eye. But on the other hand, it reveals the importance of sex in our communities. While this criticism misses the political dimension of sex, it is right about one thing: Pride and queer communities have put sexuality at the forefront of their political agenda. And that’s a good thing.

It is from these observations that we can question the place of sex workers (SWers) within queer protests and community spaces like Pride. If queers have in fact been associated with a movement of liberation and recognition of sexual minorities, what about the place of SWers? If sex is so present in our communities, and in a much deeper way than just “party sex”, how do those who practice it on a daily basis, those who are experts in it, the SWers, relate to the queer liberation project? As SWAC activists, we took the opportunity of Pride 2022 to remind our queer friends of some avenues of solidarity between our groups, and the need for a political position in favor of  decriminalization of sex work in queer events such as Pride.

Queer and SWers, a Common History, a Liberation Together!

Queers and SWers share a collective history of struggle. Pride and its street parade, celebrating all gender and sexual minorities, takes place every year in homage to the Stonewall riots that took place in June 1969. Without re-telling this story that has become ultra famous (perhaps even too famous, to the point of making it year 0 of the gay rights movement), it is important to remember that sex workers occupied a central place in the so-called “deviant” sexual communities, and were precisely those who frequented the Stonewall Inn. Indeed, many queer and trans people relied on sex work for their survival. Above all, the Stonewall riots were particularly significant in that they established a power relationship with the police. It is precisely because of those who were most exposed to police violence that this rebellion could take place with such force. At the forefront of the systemic police criminalization were homosexuals, trans people, queers, and whores. All of these people were mixed together in underground and nocturnal spaces in the metropolis, creating counter-cultures and building parallel economies. Selling sexual services was the basis for the survival of many. This is not to say that all sexual minorities were doing sex work, nor that SWers were a homogeneous and fixed group always standing alongside other minorities. Rather, we would like to emphasize the cross-cutting nature of sex work in these spaces. Most importantly, regular police raids targeted SWers bodies, regarding them as dirty and unwanted, in the same light as queer bodies. It is no coincidence that these bodies moved through the same spaces, creating affinities and resisting violence together.  This shared history of criminalization continues today; worldwide, 72 countries criminalize homosexuality, while the majority of the world’s countries have not yet decriminalized sex work (with the exception of New Zealand, Belgium and parts of Australia).  In other words, SWers, like other dissidents of the cis-heteropatriarchal order, have been and are still subjected to state and police violence. Another important point is that the homophobic treatment of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s gave rise to a pathologized image of gay men as vessels of disease, infectious bodies whose sexuality was inherently dangerous. In the same way, our sex-working bodies are seen as dirty and dangerous spaces, which only the most hygienic policies can deal with. Thus, one model of “management” of prostitution, called regulationist, aims to politically regulate the practice of sex work through sustained health control. This only feeds into this representation of a degraded and unhealthy body. Like gay men during the AIDS crisis, we are also constantly brought back to the idea of an absence of “purity” in our practices, and our identities are in themselves constant medical and social danger. Recent studies have shown that a significant proportion of trans women, who have been completely ignored by statistics until now, are affected by AIDS, but receive little care, while in some countries they simply do not have access to the latest treatments. In other cases, they have to choose between their hormone therapy and HIV treatment because they are incompatible.  The issue of health and vulnerability has thus linked both queer and SWer communities since the 1980s (and again, these communities can’t even be referred as two distinct groups). Finally,  Pride has become an increasingly well-known event in the last few years, and the price of this “mainstreaming” is high. Indeed, few remember Pride as a moment of celebration of the queer and SWers anti-capitalist force, spitting and rebelling against the police and the normative social order. The celebration of sexual diversity as a revolutionary political project has gradually been transformed into a process of institutionalizing homosexuality under the paradigm of tolerance, with a focus on the integration or even assimilation of cis-gay men into the cis-capitalist system. The issue of gay marriage, among others, seems to have taken on a disproportionate role in the political discussion. Like others1, we think this quest for equality is dangerous in many ways; by claiming marriage as an object of dignity for sexual minorities, the norms between good and bad sex crystallize and make us, SWers, lower-class subjects. It also trivializes whorephobia within queer circles, previously allies of our struggles. If marriage becomes the promise of political dignity, what about those who continue to trouble this institution, SWers for instance? Now, if it’s about being in a couple, having an adopted child, and a house on credit for two generations, how does that differ from the aspirations of a capitalist society based on the exploitation of the weak? Thus, queers, as a critical force of the gender binary, and as a target of the state, must divest from this political turn that effectively excludes SWers, trans people, and all those who distance themselves from the project of social integration and assimilation. Moreover, the word “gay” has progressively replaced the word “queer”, and the promotional images of  Prides on an international scale are full of thin, able-bodied, white, cis-gay men. Our project is more radical than that, and one only has to look back to the history of Stonewall to be reminded of that. If historically there are clear links between queers and sex work, it is interesting to ask why queers today practice sex work. There are several reasons, and the list is far from exhaustive: 
    • First of all, gender minorities around the world face material precariousness. The subject is not new, and there is a whole section of materialist feminists, and in particular those with a focus on Third World and are very critical of “development”, who have succeeded in formulating a fundamental concept to highlight this reality: the feminization of poverty. This means that economically, gender minorities systematically own less land, are less likely to be property owners, and receive fewer economic benefits than their cis male counterparts. Precariousness, in this sense, is not just bumping up against the glass ceiling, but is a whole system, from lack of guidance at an early age, to lack of access to schools, to housing discrimination. This particularly affects poor and racialized minorities, for whom sex work may be one – if not the only – way to survive.
    • Sex work is described by some minorities as a way of exercising with their peers. For trans women, for example, and trans women of color moreover, it represents a significant space in a society where their bodies are constantly rejected, denied, and treated as inferior. For those who transition physically, the costs of surgery and the lack of financial support pushes them to turn to sex work. Thus, “Monica Forrester, Jamie-Lee Hamilton, Mirha-Soleil Ross and Viviane Namaste argue that “a history of transsexuality is a history of prostitution,” contending that “the social enclaves that have historically enabled trans communities are predicated on the political struggles of trans sex workers, a category largely made up of women of color.”2
It would therefore be wrong to think that queer SWers engage in this profession out of a purely anti-capitalist and emancipatory vocation, to be more in line with queer “values.” The reality of capitalism being what it is, many minorities are simply rejected from the legal labor market. For many, including the authors of this text, sex work remains a preferable space to other underpaid care jobs, which would exploit us twice as much, for half the money. Thus, for some queer anti-capitalist activists, sex work can represent a way out of the norms of productivist and validist work, it can be used, transformed, left and taken up again according to the hazards of life. Sex work is not, however, outside the capitalist world, and does not constitute a practice that is inherently rebellious to neoliberal society. It is integrated into a larger economic system, but the individuals who practice it can redefine it according to their own values. We also want to guard against this rhetoric of “choice” (some SWers work by choice, others by constraint). We are deeply opposed to this myth of choice, which only serves to devalue those who are the most precarious, infantilizing them and taking away their agency. However, the idea of having a job where we are our own bosses, where we manage our bodies and our money by ourselves, can represent a material advantage (more money, less time) for those who do not fit (either voluntarily or involuntarily) into a productivist scheme of waged labor. For trans women, and this needs to be repeated – because they are the great invisibles of queer discourses, and yet the most present in certain niches of sex work – there is a structural and systemic rejection and violence of the world of waged work in general. 3 Thus, many queers are SWers because we live in a queerphobic society and we are economically unlucky, but that doesn’t mean we are assigned to this work without a voice. On the contrary, SWers’ spaces can be places of struggle, political discussion and feminist mobilization. If queerness is linked to the bizarre, to what disturbs, offends and blurs, then sex work is also linked to the disturbance of the social order, and can constitute a privileged space from which to think of a more global struggle, without stigma or romanticization.
Photo taken by Youssef Baati during a rallye organized by SWAC on October 7th 2022

The Laid-off Workers of the Family

While the LG 4 movement has put forward the demand for marriage equality in recent decades, it is clear that these demands have served the interests of the middle class and the well-off more than those of poor queers, who are more affected by discrimination in hiring and profiling, including trans people who do not benefit from “passing”. As Peter Drucker states, while access to marriage may bring material benefits to the middle class, “for those most dependent on the welfare-state in countries such as Britain and the Netherlands, legal recognition of their partnerships can lead to cuts in benefits.”5 Embedding oneself in capitalist and heteropatriarchal institutions such as marriage has therefore been strongly criticized by the queer movement, particularly in terms of the number of resources invested in such campaigns. 

It should be remembered that family as an institution is a site of capitalist accumulation. More precisely, it is one of the spaces where the reproduction of labor power takes place. When we talk about reproductive labor, we are not only talking about biological reproduction. It also includes all of the tasks necessary to produce workers who are physically able to work (for example, cooking a nutritious meal). This work is largely based on its gendered division within the family and society as a whole. Thus, the integration of gender binary is part of the capitalist discipline that is transmitted by parents through education and is essential to the process of capitalist accumulation. Even today, much of this work is done for free by women within the heterosexual family. And since queers deviate from the binary roles (male/female, dad/mom, productive/reproductive workers), they threaten the gendered division of labor and are further exploited. As Kay Gabriel affirms, “capital has “invented roles” for the social categories it abjects, and uses these as a lever of exploitation“.6

It is not surprising, after all, that the family is a particularly violent place for those who do not fit into the lines of binarity. One of its roles is to ensure that children integrate the capitalist gendered structure in order to be able to reproduce it in their turn.  Even homoparental families are tolerated only if they do not challenge this state of affairs. Even though their rights have improved considerably in recent years, social expectations remain unchanged; it is important that the children of these unions do not deviate from the heterosexual norm and integrate the structure of gender. 

According to Peter Drucker, the tolerance given to gays and lesbians in the 1970s and 1980s has only been possible by repressing gender dissident within their own lines.7 This allowed a certain class to benefit from the development of a gay market economy (and subsequently, its gentrification). The Société de développement commercial du Village, a gay neighborhood in Montreal, is a good example. 

Thus, “queers serve as a category of ‘last hired, first fired’ with respect to the family… an optional category of reserve reproductive labour for a working class increasingly pressed in our efforts to self-reproduce”.8 In the context of neoliberal austerity and the crisis of social reproduction in the global North, the absence of family support is often synonymous with great precariousness. In the 1960s and 1970s in enriched countries, gays and lesbians benefited enormously from the favorable economic context, characterized by full employment and greater job security, to be able to emancipate themselves from their families. This is no longer the case. Multiple cuts to social services and stagnant wages have increased dependence on family and made those excluded from it more precarious. For poor, racialized, migrant, disabled, neurodivergent and trans people, sex work is not only a survival strategy in the face of double exclusion from the family and the labour market, but also a space for organizing to demand better living conditions.

ACT UP!9 Fightback!
Against the Criminalization, We Organize

In 1989, on the occasion of the 5th edition of the International AIDS Conference, HIV-positive activists from Montreal and their comrades from ACT-UP invaded the Palais des Congrès.10 They denounced government neglect and demanded access to experimental treatments and better funding for research. It is hard to imagine such actions in 2022. Indeed, the 24th edition of the International AIDS Conference in Montreal at the end of July 2022 showed the total integration of community organizations into institutional structures. Thirty years later, confrontation has given way to a dynamic of concertation and lobbying.

The struggles against HIV and for the rights of sex workers are intertwined. In Canada, the first advocacy group for sex workers’ rights was formed during the HIV epidemic. In 1983, under the initiative of street-involved sex worker Peggie Miller, a small group of sex worker activists came together to found the Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes (CORP), a political organizing and lobbying project fighting for legal changes, including decriminalization. In 1985, in an effort to address the basic needs of SWers so that they could devote time to political work, CORP activists decided to found a self-help project that would become known as Maggie’s, which is still active in Toronto. The idea was that SWers needed to meet their basic needs in order to be more able to get involved. However, according to Danny Cockerline, a gay SWer and HIV-positive activist, some activists were not convinced by this argument:

[M]any were concerned that we would end up with another social service that prostitutes would go to for help rather than joining us in a political movement to defend our rights. 11

These words resonate with those of ACT-UP New York activist and writer Sarah Schulman, who also questions the services offered by HIV organizations and their shift away from political action:

My life has shown me that activists win policy changes, and bureaucracies implement them. In a period like the present where there is no real activism, there are only bureaucracies.12

The tensions between service provision on one hand and political action on the other are still very present in our struggles. While condom distribution, sexual health clinics, legal clinics, etc. improve our health and safety, they do not replace mobilization and direct action initiatives. History has shown us that the state constantly takes over our struggles and organizations – including funding – in order to pacify them. While many SWers rights organizations have grown out of self-organization, the government’s proposed funding has been confined to the health issue, focusing the organizations’ energy and resources on that issue alone. History has shown us that the state constantly takes over our struggles and organizations – including funding – in order to pacify them. While many SWers rights organizations have grown out of self-organization, the government’s proposed funding has been confined to the health issue, focusing the organizations’ energy and resources on that issue alone. 

As queer SWers, we believe that this space for compromise is a serious tactical mistake! While decriminalization is still not achieved, new diseases and viruses are disrupting our lives and making us more precarious. During the last three years of the pandemic, no single government public health policy has addressed our safety and health, as we are not recognized as workers. Even in a health crisis such as COVID-19 and more recently monkeypox, services for SWers, and more broadly for the most marginalized people, are inadequate. What we need is a replacement income, just like “regular” workers: in order to curb contamination, we must be given the means to stop working.  

More Demands, Less Representation

The struggle of SWers is intimately connected to queer/trans liberation struggles. As in the mainstream labor market, the material conditions of trans people in the sex industry are heavily threatened by systems of oppression that exclude them from work spaces. The struggle of SWers is thus a struggle in and against the sex industry itself. Our colleague Jesse Dekel, a trans sex worker, writes about this: 

Because of the fewer clients available to trans SWers, they are more likely to have precarious working conditions and are excluded from the better employment opportunities enjoyed by their cisgender colleagues. For example, trans SWers often face employment discrimination in massage parlors, brothels, and escort agencies that refuse to hire trans women, who are then forced to work on the street as their only option. They thus have poorer working conditions than SWers who work indoors and receive a disproportionate share of the stigma.

Also, laws criminalizing sex work in Canada particularly affect trans women. Women who trade sex in Montreal are regularly targeted by police – particularly those who work on the street and in bars – and are more likely to be charged with prostitution or other offences such as drug possession.13 

In this sense, the repeal of the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act in Canada and the complete decriminalization of sex work must be a central demand of the queer movement. We need to expand the spaces of solidarity beyond representation or a single letter in an acronym. We want access to labor rights so that we can self-organize in our workspaces, demand a safe and inclusive workplace from our employers, more easily report violence, harassment and discrimination in hiring, and obtain compensation for illness and pregnancy. 

However, legal reforms alone cannot combat structural violence; our demands must also focus on our material conditions to liberate ourselves. Barriers to traditional jobs, difficulties in accessing decently priced and adequately sized housing, increasing difficulties in accessing free and universal health care, childcare, and more broadly, structural poverty and growing inequalities, are all factors in increasing violence. If we are to address violence against queer and trans people in particular, we will need to demand more resources, money in our pockets, and housing for all.

1. Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion, AK Press, 2014. ↩

2. Kay Gabriel. (s.d.) . Gender as Accumulation Strategy , in Invert Journal ↩

3. 69.3% of trans people who do sex work have had a bad experience in the traditional job market and trans people who experience transphobic discrimination are three times more likely to turn to the sex industry.
Movement Advancement Project and National LGBTQ Workers Center. (2018). LGBT People in the Workplace: Demographics, Experiences and Pathways to Equity. ↩

4. We deliberately use the acronym LG to mean that these demands reflect more the concerns of gays and lesbians, mainly from a middle and upper class background, at the expense of queer and trans people. Thus, we want to refute the myth of the unity of the “LGBTQ+ movement” to better underline its contradictions. See Peter Druker. (2011). The Fracturing of LGBT Identities under
Neoliberal Capitalism, Historical Materialism, vol 19, no 4, p. 3–32 ↩

5. IDEM↩

6. Kay Gabriel. (s.d.) . Gender as Accumulation Strategy , in Invert Journal ↩

7. Peter Druker. (2011). The Fracturing of LGBT Identities under
Neoliberal Capitalism, Historical Materialism, vol 19, no 4, p. 3–32↩

8. Kay Gabriel. (s.d.) . Gender as Accumulation Strategy , in Invert Journal↩

9. Acronym for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. The first branch of ACT UP was founded in New York in 1987, and has since grown into an international movement. ↩

10. During the HIV crisis, ACT UP took direct action to demand access to research and treatment for HIV-positive people. The founding of the Montreal branch of ACT UP took place shortly after the action at the Palais des Congrès. Gabriel Girard et Alexandre Klein. (2019). Les leçons de la conférence de Montréal de 1989 sur le sida.↩

11. Danny Cockerline, «Whores History: A Decade of Prostitutes Fighting for their Rights in Toronto», Maggie’s Zine, n 1, hiver 1993-1994, Toronto, Maggie’s: The Toronto Prostitutes’ Community Service Project, p. 22-23. Traduit de l’anglais par Sylvie Dupont, dans Luttes XXX, Inspirations du mouvement des travailleuses du sexe, 2011, Les Éditions du remue-ménage ↩

12. Sarah Schulman. (2012). The gentrification of the mind: witness to a lost imagination. p. 16 ↩

13. Nora Butler Burke. (2018). «Double Punishment. Immigration Penality and Migrant Trans Women Who Sell Sex.» dans Red Light Labor. Sex Work Regulation, Agency and Resistance, UBC Press, p.203↩

CatsMTL

Montreal, Whoreganize !

Montreal, Whoreganize !

Sex Work Autonomous committee

SWAC contingent banner at the IWW protest on May 1st 2022
Like many others, the pandemic has largely  isolated many of us, sex workers (SWrs). Agencies, strip clubs and massage parlours have been mostly closed since the first lockdown; there is no physical place left that resembles a workplace. Many of us have tried our best to offer our services virtually, be it for a few minutes every now and then when our clients can take a break from everyday life. The Onlyfans platform has seen a dramatic increase in subscribers from 7.9 million in 2019 to 85 million a year later.1 Many SWrs have been transitioning to other areas of work, taking advantage of the new opportunity to do accelerated beneficiary attendant training or signing up to help out in the health and social services system. After a break period (or not), many have started seeing clients again while doing their best to reduce the risks of COVID-19 transmission, because they had no other alternatives. Others have made exclusive arrangements with clients, but these have often ended badly; boundaries become blurred, clients start mistaking us for girlfriends, try to push our limits, take over our time, start renegotiating condom use and so on.  As if it wasn’t enough to risk one’s health for a livelihood, the attacks have come from all sides; moral panic over pornography has intensified in the United States2, making it harder to advertise services online and collect payments over the Internet. Many of us have not had access to the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. In addition, the Quebec government has extended the curfew introduced on January 9, making repression ever more present in our lives, especially for those working in public spaces. Furthermore, no governmental public health policy has taken an interest in our safety and health during the pandemic, since we are not recognized as workers. One thing is certain, we are still working, but in even more precarious conditions than before and increasingly alone. In other words, the collective power acquired through organizing is being undermined, at this very moment when we need it most. Despite the presence of online communities, we have no place to gather in-person, discuss our working conditions and the ways of improving them. The Sex Work Autonomous Comittee (SWAC) is an autonomous political organizing project initiated by SWrs based in Montreal in the fall of 2019, just a few months before COVID-19 pandemic forced us into confinement. Obviously, everything has been turned upside down since then. During the first lockdown in March 2020, we thought we could wait it out, as it seemed impossible for us to mobilize in the short term. Now we see that we have no choice and that we’re going to have to be creative. After several Zoom meetings and an in-person workshop in a corner of a park, when it was still possible, we decided to write this text to lay the foundations for our organizing, and to outline what an autonomous SWr movement would look like.

Invitation flyer for the very first SWAC meeting (page 1-2)

Autonomous from who and why?

Since our first calls to organize, one question has come up over and over again: “Why create a new organization when there are already community organizations to defend our rights? Aren’t they the best ones to speak for us with many years of experience?”. Let us first establish that the creation of autonomous committees is in no way intended to replace or eliminate any organization or to criticize particular individuals. However, we believe that discussions about the organizational models and structures that are in place in a movement can only be beneficial to the struggle. By creating an autonomous committee, we want to create a space where mobilizations and collective actions are priorities; we believe that we and our colleagues have much to gain by organizing politically.  Since their inception in the 1990s, Canadian SWr organizations, like many others, have always tried to find a balance between providing services and collective action for political change, both at a legislative and public health level. Discussions on the tension between service provision and collective action have been a recurring theme in our conversations at SWAC over the past year. Time and energy being limited resources, we believe that asking this question early in the formation of a political group is essential. “This debate was already present at the founding of the Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes (CORP) in 1983” says Danny Cockerline, a gay activist, sex worker and founding member of CORP:

In its early days, the CORP devoted all its energy to lobbying politicians, governments, the media, police forces, etc. in order to obtain their support for the decriminalization of prostitution. In 1985, Peggie and Chris formed a group to start a self-help project. The idea was that the CORP would only succeed if more prostitutes became involved, and only when their basic needs were met would they be able to devote time to political work.3

This new project was called Maggie’s and is still active today in Toronto. However, the idea of creating new services divided those involved at the CORP, according to Cockerline, since “many feared that they would end up with another social service that prostitutes would turn to for help rather than join us in creating an advocacy movement”4. Since then, the CORP has ceased its activities and Maggie’s continues to offer services. However, the initial idea of being a training ground for SWrs to mobilize is less and less present in SWr organizations. Sarah Beer, a researcher on SWr rights in Canada, is critical of this model:

Funding formalizes organizational structures but tends to bureaucratize mobilization. The outreach services [recrutement practices of these organizations] that are provided can be restricted based on funding criteria (e.g., funding might give money only to do street-based, not indoor, outreach). […] As a consequence, sex workers need to organize on multiple fronts.5

Like Sarah Beer, we believe that if political demands and collective actions are not given priority in the SWrs’ rights organizations, it is because of the requirements of these structures, starting with those of their funders, and the resulting bureaucracy: activity reports and accountability, funding requests, action plans, human resources management and all the administrative paperwork that comes with them. In short, it is not surprising that there is not much time left to mobilize those who aren’t already active! The first SWr organizations’ funding was granted as part of the fight against HIV6. Of course, one can empathize with the fact that at the time, SWrs, like LGBTQIA+ populations and drug users, wanted to create their own health services to fight against an epidemic that was decimating their communities to the government’s disregard. However, as Act-Up activist and writer Sarah Schulman points out, these organizations are often reappropriated by governments to contract out work at a lower cost: 

The distinction between service provision and activism has become elusive. Poor people are very interwoven into state agencies: there’s a lot of surveillance […]. My life has shown me that activists win policy changes, and bureaucracies implement them. In a period like the present where there is no real activism, there are only bureaucracies.7

The bureaucracy of community organizations makes it difficult to have wide spaces to discuss solutions and to mobilize to defend our rights. This is why we believe it is time to organize on an autonomous basis.  The foundations of such an organization still need to be defined. This is what we will try to do here. Of course, this is a work in progress and these principles are bound to be updated. It should also be noted that SWAC activists have varying perspectives and work experiences. These principles therefore serve as a basis of unity, first at a theoretical and then at an organizational level.

Invitation flyer to the very first SWAC meeting (page 3-4)

Theoritical principle:

    1. The recognition of sex work as work and the need to decriminalize it in order to obtain the same labor rights as other workers;
We believe that sex work is work and that SWrs are workers. Furthermore, we believe that sex work belongs to a particular, undervalued category of work: reproductive work. Theorized by feminists from the Wages for Housework movement, reproductive work is defined as all the work necessary to maintain and renew the labour force: domestic tasks, care of children and the elderly, meeting the emotional, physical and sexual needs of the wage earner. This work has traditionally been taken care of by women in the heterosexual family so that men can be fresh and willing to go to work. If these forms of work have become more complex with the entry of women into the wage labour market, they have not disappeared and are increasingly taken care of by racialized women, following the international division of labour, to which we’ll return later. In the 1970s, wages for domestic work activists emphasized the contribution of this largely feminized labor to capitalism and the importance of perceiving oneself as a worker in the struggle against it.  How can we go on strike and refuse this work if we can’t name it as such? There were already links between SWrs and housewives struggling for wages at the time.8 In 1977, Margo St James, SWr and founder of Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE), was invited by the Toronto branch of Wages for Housework to a forum on the decriminalization of sex work. In their opening speech, the collective said, “Our poverty as women leaves us little choice. Hookers get hard cash for their sexual services while other women get a roof over their heads or a night out.”9 However, in addition to being devalued, sex work is also criminalized. This criminalization is an excellent way for those who appropriate our work to control its conditions, be it through a flesh-and-blood boss or an online platform. It is impossible for us to have access to the minimal protections normally guaranteed to workers. These precarious conditions are the source of daily concerns and challenges, ranging from difficulties in getting paid to the impossibility of denouncing clients and employers’ violence through legal mechanisms. Of course, we know that the decriminalization of our work alone cannot guarantee us decent working conditions, as evidenced by difficult environments of the legal sectors of the sex industry such as pornography or strip clubs. The pursuit of sex work decriminalization is therefore not an end in itself, but rather a first step in providing ourselves with the means to obtain better working conditions. We believe that by organizing now in autonomous committees for decriminalization, these committees will be able to serve as a basis for the organization of our workplace.  

2. The recognition that sex work takes place within a capitalist, neo-colonial and cishetero-patriarchal system; the recognition that women, racialized people, trans/queer/gender non-conforming people, migrants and people with disabilities are over-represented in sex work, due in part to the barriers to employment and good jobs in the capitalist system;

The context in which sex work takes place is often ignored by those who are outraged that women are forced to “sell their bodies”10. Instead, we start from the principle that all workers sell their bodies – this is a more interesting starting point in the struggle for better working and living conditions. In other words, starting from the point of view that work should be empowering and free from exploitation seems to be a trap to avoid. The sex industry, along with many others, is filled with exploitation, sexist and racist violence. However, few of us are in a position to refuse this work individually, because the reality is that we have to put bread on the table and pay the rent. Most of us are SWrs because it is the best or the least bad option available to us in this context. We have seen it throughout the pandemic; in Canada, statistics show that job losses have impacted women more severely than men11. In the United States, reports show that Black, Indigenous and Women of Colour are 1.5% more likely to lose their jobs because of COVID than white men older than 20 years old12. In Canada, BIPOC people still have a higher unemployment rate than White people, particularly Indigenous women13. This is also true if you are experiencing employment’s discrimination, whether you are a BIPOC, trans or disabled person. The job market is stratified by class, race and gender and it’s no coincidence that these people are over-represented in sex work. In this context, what options are available to SWrs who wish to leave the industry? Finding themselves behind the cash register of a grocery store or joining a long-term care facility to provide care? Not only do these options not reduce the risk of being exposed to the virus, but the expected decrease in income means that they’ll have to work even harder and lose time flexibility. This flexibility is desired and even vital for many, including, single mothers, students, and those with disabilities or chronic illnesses. Moreover, these work alternatives, often precarious and poorly paid, are not exempt from exploitation and violence. We also live in a time where an international division of labor prevails. The conventional definition of the international division of labour refers to the displacement of industrial production from the countries of the North to the countries of the South, where workers’ wages and protections are lower. Feminist thinkers have also demonstrated the importance of the work exported from the countries of the South to the countries of the North, particularly women’s reproductive work14. This can be seen by the large proportion of so-called essential work performed by migrant women, particularly in hospitals, daycare centers and long-term care facilities. These jobs are often done through employment agencies, causing a deregulation of work and allowing employers to get away with offering poor working conditions. More often than not, they are temporary jobs occupied by those with precarious immigration status, putting the people who work there at risk of deportation, as highlighted by the movement of migrant workers during the pandemic15. Similar logic applies in the sex industry, particularly in stripclubs, where female workers are often considered self-employed rather than employees. However, it is often assumed that women who migrate and work in the sex industry are victims of sex trafficking. This discourse ignores the role that borders and migration policies play in this process. Indeed, many are forced to accept terrible working conditions because of their precarious migratory status, but this reality is not specific to the sex industry, as some anti-prostitution organizations suggest.
Photo by Betty Bogaert at the SWAC gathering on March 3rd 2022

Organizational principles:

    1. The self-representation of SWrs and their right to talk about their own realities, and non-hierarchical self-organization that allows the implementation of direct responses and actions;
The principle of “by and for” has shaped the ways of the SWr movements. From its beginnings, there has been a tendency to place workers at the center of their struggles in order to detach themselves from the interests of those who supposedly want to save us. However, this does not mean that each SWr can speak on behalf of their colleagues and that no power dynamic crosses our work and organizational spaces. Racial, class and gender relations are very much present, and to have only one spokesperson, especially one that  is salaried, only crystallizes and emphasizes this power relationship.  Certainly speaking out when dealing with criminalization and stigma can be a challenge for many of us. But we think that there are ways to get around these barriers with a little bit of creativity. Organizing ourselves into open committees with a flexible structure will already allow us to discuss the demands that need to be put forward according to the context, and to be able to quickly reorient ourselves. In pandemic times, where the context is rapidly changing, this formula will allow those involved to put forward essential demands that would make a real difference in their lives. We want to create a space that is open to all SWrs in accordance with the basic principles of CATS, where we can discuss organizational methods, demands, and actions to be taken in order to achieve gains, without any of the bureaucratic red tape. We also aim to foster a space where involved people get to have more control over the struggle. But all these principles will be nothing more than wishful thinking if they are not backed up by consistent practice. This is why the rotation of tasks within a group is an essential element both for preventing the informal concentration of power that is created by assigning one person to carry out the most attractive tasks and to avoid  having the same people doing the less esteemed but nevertheless essential chores. Although it would be easier to delegate everything to a competent person, we think that in the long term, we have much more to gain by taking our own destinies in hand, and learning to do everything together, without making anyone indispensable.
    1. The mobilization of our colleagues in our workplace is the basis of organizing towards better conditions;
In almost all sectors of the sex industry, we often hear that it is much better to be self-employed and that it is a sign of empowerment to be one’s own boss. The pandemic has exacerbated the current trend to dismantle our workplaces to the disadvantage of the most precarious workers. Far from improving conditions for all, independence at work makes us insecure and, above all, distances us from our colleagues. We are then dependent on platforms that force us into competition with each other, while taking a cut in our salary. This trend is not exclusive to the sex industry and can be referred to as a kind of uberisation of sex work. Last year, strippers in London celebrated the legal victory that gave them the status of employees of their club16, just like the French Deliveroo delivery persons who had managed to get the company convicted of “dissimulating work”17 and the Uber drivers who won the right to unionize18. Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to know what our workplace is like and who our colleagues are, especially since many of us work on different platforms. That’s why we think it makes more sense to have a large committee that welcomes all SWrs and doesn’t divide us according to the type of work we do. This helps counter the tendency towards uberisation that isolates us. Moreover, it prevents us from falling into the trap of whorearchy, a term that refers to the hierarchisation between different forms of sex work. This hierarchy is constructed according to proximity to the client. Those who work only on the internet are therefore less stigmatised and criminalised and those who perform more intimate services are more so. 
    1. Autonomy from government institutions and other institutional donors.
As mentioned above, funding seems to be one of the elements that brings a great deal of complexity to community organizations. It also keeps us away from the activities we want to do, i.e. mobilising our colleagues and taking action to improve our working conditions. It also appears to us that this funding is contrary to the principle of “by and for” since it gives the state and private foundations a great deal of latitude to control our activities. In this sense, we believe that detaching ourselves from these donors is essential to achieving our goals, and that we should not sacrifice our autonomy to obtain funds. We believe that the search for money should be limited to the realisation of those projects and actions aimed at furthering our political objectives.

The crisis: an opportunity to reinvent the struggle!

 

The current crisis is an unavoidable moment of restructuring. The pandemic isolates us and makes us precarious, but it may also be an opportunity to reinvent our movement and organize ourselves, as it was the case with the HIV epidemic. While we recognize all of the barriers to mobilization, it’s time to be creative and to rethink our strategies.

Photo by Lizo Ginestet at the SWAC gathering on May 1st 2021
This particular context, has led to multiple strippers’ strikes in Portland and  Chicago to demand an end to racial discrimination against Black strippers in their clubs during the summer of 202019. According to Cat Hollis, one of the strike organizers, the closure of the clubs due to COVID-19 has allowed the strike to organize itself when the establishments reopened at the end of the first wave20. We, too, want to channel the anger and despair felt in face of the current circumstances into something constructive. We hope that this collective force acts as a catalyst for the creation of a strong SWr movement to achieve political gains that will have an impact on our lives. While the pandemic is exacerbating inequalities, we also want to turn it into a time of solidarity and struggles for better working and living conditions.  It is said that only the struggle pays off, and we believe that this payout is not only to come from the pockets of our clients, but also from those of the State. The same state from whom we must demand the social protections owed to us in times of crisis, and even more so, the recognition of our status as workers!

1. Axel Tardieu. (2020). Elles posent nues sur Internet pour payer leurs études, ICI Alberta, https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1762202/etudiants-onlyfans-internet-pornographie-chomage?fbclid=IwAR1rDnzlEP5kVJ8s57jkyzS2XGsIutnbBi2xQXOWR21o4nTi2kBHwxgFOV4 ↩

2. SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) and FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) are two bills passed in the United States in February and March 2018, supposedly aimed at combating sex trafficking. Under these two laws, web platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Craigslist, Backpage can now be charged with sex trafficking for published content. Thus, overnight, hundreds of SWrs have seen their income and security threatened by the closure of web spaces. Several SWrs also denounce that platforms like paypal or even their bank close their accounts without warning when they discover their activities: Jesse and PJ Sage. (2020). Episode 78: Porn Performers Talk Pornhub and Payment Processing, https://peepshowpodcast.com/episode-78-porn-performers-talk-pornhub-and-payment-processing
In December 2020, following a sensationalist article in the New York Times exposing the presence of underage videos and non-consensual acts on Pornhub, Visa and Mastercard stopped supporting payments on this platform. Several SWrs have denounced the fact that this measure will not affect the adult entertainment giant, basing its revenues exclusively on advertising, but will directly affect the revenues of those who sell their content on this platform. The links between the anti-Pornhub campaign and the American religious right wing have also been strongly denounced by journalist and ex-SWr, Mélissa Gira Grant. For more information: Melissa Gira Grant. (2020). Nick Kristoff and the Holy War on Pornhub, https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war-pornhub ↩

3. Since we couldn’t find the original version, this quote is translated from the french version of this text in Danny Cockerline, «Whores History: A Decade of Prostitutes Fighting for their Rights in Toronto», Maggie’s Zine, n 1, hiver 1993-1994, Toronto, Maggie’s: The Toronto Prostitutes’ Community Service Project, p. 22-23. Traduit de l’anglais par Sylvie Dupont, dans Luttes XXX, Inspirations du mouvement des travailleuses du sexe, 2011, Les Éditions du remue-ménage. ↩

4. Idem ↩

5. Sarah Beer. (2018). «Action, advocacy and allies: Building a movement for sex workers right», Red light labor: sex work regulation, agency and resistance. p.332 ↩

6. In Montreal, Stella was born out of a consultation committee of the Centre d’étude sur le SIDA on which the Projet d’intervention auprès des mineurs prostitués (PIAMP) and the Association Québecoise des travailleuses et travailleurs du sexe (AQTS), among others, sat. The project was intended to be a sister organization to Maggie’s, which had received its first funding a few years earlier from the City of Toronto’s Public Health Department. Claire Thiboutot. (1994). Allocution: appui au projet Stella, Montréal, Association québecoise des travailleuses et travailleurs du sexe (AQTS) et Danny Cockerline, «Whores History: A Decade of Prostitutes Fighting for their Rights in Toronto», Maggie’s Zine, n 1, hiver 1993-1994, Toronto, Maggie’s: The Toronto Prostitutes’ Community Service Project, p. 22-23. Traduit de l’anglais par Sylvie Dupont dans Luttes XXX, Inspirations du mouvement des travailleuses du sexe, 2011, Les Éditions du remue-ménage, p. 48 à 52 ↩

7. Sarah Schulman. (2012). The gentrification of the mind: witness to a lost imagination. p. 16 ↩

8. See Wages for Housework. (1977). «Housewives & Hookers Come Together», Wages for Housework Campaign Bulletin, vol. 1, no 4, dans Louise Toupin. (2014) Le salaire au travail ménager, Chronique d’une lutte féministe internationale (1972-1977). Les éditions du remue-ménage, p.257 ↩

9. Idem ↩

10.The question of “selling the body” is a subject of debate even within the SWr movement. On one hand, it is defended that one does not really sell one’s body, but rather a service or one’s work force. The Girlfriend Experience is an example of this. On the other hand, it is argued that selling the body is present in every field, be it construction, professional sports or even office work, and that all of these jobs wear out the body in one way or another. This perspective also helps to understand how gender performance is expected in certain industries, such as the sex industry, catering or fashion for example. Whether one starts from one perspective or the other, sex work is not fundamentally different in this respect. ↩

11. Radio-Canada. (2020). 3 millions d’emplois perdus au Canada depuis le début de la pandémie, https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1701093/coronavirus-chomage-avril-canada-perte-emplois ↩

12. Catalyst, Workplace that Work for Women. (2020). The Detrimental Impact of COVID-19 on Gender and Racial equality: Quick Take, https://www.catalyst.org/research/covid-effect-gender-racial-equality/ ↩

13. Idem ↩

14. Sarah Farris. (2017). «Les fondements politico-économiques du fémonationalisme» dans Pour un féminisme de la totalité, Éditions Amsterdam, Période, p.189-210 ↩

15. Dan Spector. (2021). Quebec Curfew making life even harder for undocumented workers doing essential jobs: Protesters
https://globalnews.ca/news/7610014/quebec-curfew-making-life-even-harder-for-undocumented-workers-doing-essential-jobs-protesters/?fbclid=IwAR11NG9HO7itDYjSqwIUi-bClk2gY750KR4gcRPqVHZfGoMVmOql2B6eZS8 ↩

16. Strippers union United Voices of the World, Decrim Now. (2020). Strippers Union United Voices Of the World (UVW) Wins Landmark Legal Victory Proving Strippers Are ‘Workers’, Not Independent Contractors,
https://www.uvwunion.org.uk/en/news/2020/03/press-release-strippers-union-united-voices-of-the-world-uvw-celebrates-employment-tribunal-win/ ↩

17. Catherine Abou Al Kair. (2020). Livraisons : La condamnation de Deliveroo pour travail dissimulé peut-elle faire tache d’huile ?
https://www.20minutes.fr/economie/2717155-20200218-livraisons-condamnation-deliveroo-travail-dissimule-peut-faire-tache-huile ↩

18. CBC News. (2019). 300 GTA Uber Black drivers unionize as city mulls regulatory overhaul, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/uber-drivers-union-ufcw-toronto-1.5190766 ↩

19. To learn more : Haymarket Pole Collective. (2020). Press coverage, https://www.haymarketpole.com/press ↩

20. Tess Riski (2020). A Labor Movement Demands Better Treatment for Portland’s Black Strippers
https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/06/16/a-labor-movement-demands-better-treatment-for-portlands-black-strippers/ ↩

CatsMTL

The Dark Side of the Looking Glass – Part 2

The Dark Side of the Looking Glass – Part 2

Kiko - Conversations with Céleste

Pictures by Orion
Artistic direction by Orion and Céleste

Céleste: Which pronouns do you use?

Kiko: Honestly, I’m thinking about this. I feel like if I say she/they people will always use she instead of they. I’m gender neutral but call me whatever you want. I would prefer they.

Céleste: So, what is your job? Well, in this case what are your jobs?

Kiko: I’m a stripper. I also work for my university, but I’m quitting that job soon. I’m gonna start an internship with an artist center in January, I’m super excited. And, the residency at the Museum of Fine Arts. I have the feeling that all the efforts I put into my work are paying off.

Céleste: I’m so happy for you! Next question.

Kiko: Oh wait, I’m not done! I’m also a musician, I do contracts for movies or small videos, audiovisual projects. I do concerts here and there.

Céleste: There you go, that’s what was missing! I felt like there was a big part missing. What’s your educational background?

 

Kiko: I immigrated here when I was 10 years old, and learned French in an integration program. Then, I was in an all-girls private secondary school, and it was very strict. I continued in college, also in a private school, so basically all my life I’ve been in private schools. Even in China, in elementary school, I went to a private school and there the educational system is very broken. Even in a private school that was supposed to be ethical, they would still physically punish kids that didn’t do their homework; something that is very illegal here. When I was in college, I was in art, literature and communication and jazz music. Now, I’m in University and I’m studying electro acoustic. I’m studying cinema also, but I don’t think I’ll pursue it because I want to focus on music. Do you want some tea?

Céleste: Yes, for sure.

Céleste: What are your hobbies?

Kiko: I really enjoy chilling with friends, watching movies, listening to music obviously, thrifting. I have so many hobbies but with work I have less time to put into them. I also like to spend time alone, with myself, it’s different from being at work.

Céleste: What are your passions?

Kiko: Music and art, sound art, visual art, all types of art!

Céleste: What would the decriminalization of sex work change in your life?

Kiko: Honestly, I think it would change a lot of lives. I was thinking a lot about this recently and why are strip club managers so shitty? Well since there aren’t rules, it’s not really regulated, the people that make the rules, well it’s the managers. Generally, they aren’t the most empathetic people, and the rules change often. It’s an environment that can become hard to work in, because we have no protection or security towards our employment. What do you think?

Céleste: I agree with you and the decriminalization in general of sex work would make our work safer and we could be less scared of the police, pimps, clients, managers, big industries, etc. Ideally, we would have access to more resources to do our jobs without so much danger. Is there something you would like to say to people outside of the sex industry?

Kiko: I’m sure that it’s not the same perception for all types of sex work, but when it’s related to stripping, often people will think it’s easy money, and people who don’t do this kind of work will expect you to pay their meal, for example. I’m very generous in life and I like to share with my friends, but it’s not easy money; everything has a price. And if I want to treat myself, that’s my business, but they have no rights to my money. More and more, I find friends that are strippers and/or sex workers and I feel better understood. I believe that the exterior world should learn more about how it works. There is so much stigma attached to this kind of work that I don’t tell everyone where I work, but it is literally a job.

Céleste: Last question I have, why were you interested in doing this photoshoot?

Kiko: It interested me because I feel that not many people are informed about this world, and I think it’s important to demystify it to get a little more empathy from people who aren’t familiar with it. Also, I think that my thoughts can help, or not, and bring connections with people who are in the industry.

Céleste: Thanks Kiko!

CatsMTL

The Dark Side of the Looking Glass – Part 1

The Dark Side of the Looking Glass – Part 1

Rose Epiphany Glitch - Conversation with Céleste

Pictures by Orion
Artistic direction by Céleste and Orion

With love

Céleste: What are your pronouns? How do you refer to yourself?

Rose: She/her but f*ck gender, but she/her.

Céleste: Me too honestly. Now, what are your jobs?

Rose: I’m a sex worker in various branches; I do a lot of sex work. I’m a porn actress, a cam girl, a model, and a stripper.

Céleste: Did you go to school or are you going to school right now?

Rose: I stopped college because I didn’t like it. I was in theater and visual arts.

Céleste: Why did you stop school?

Rose: I had more things to learn outside of school.

Céleste: In the end, was it the system that you didn’t like? That it’s so regulated and managed in that specific way?

Rose: I don’t like that they try to shape you into something and that there isn’t a lot of liberty.

Céleste: Otherwise, what are your hobbies?

Rose: I like to write; I write a lot. I like sex. I liked to read before, maybe I’ll get back into it. I like doing my makeup, like I did during the photoshoot; it’s a form of visual art, you know. And I like fashion also.

Céleste: Yes, makeup is a way to express yourself.

Rose: And dancing. Sexy dance.

Céleste: Is it a way to express your sexuality when you dance?

Rose: Yes, express the power and the sex.

Céleste: What would the decriminalization of sex work change in your life?

Rose: People could tell me less shit. And I just know it would be so much better for all of us. And that all of us being better and safer is gonna raise all our vibrations. It’s just gonna make the world a better place. And that’s it.

Céleste: I agree, that was well said. Do you have something you would like to say or not say to people outside the sex industry? Or a message, a little something.

Rose: Everybody’s a whore. So that’s it.

Céleste: Last question I have, why were you interested in doing this photoshoot?

Rose: I like photoshoots.

Céleste: True, earlier you were saying that you wanted to get more into photography.

Rose: I like the whole creating part and putting myself out there to promote myself and stuff. I gotta network for my career and meet people. I’m kinda introverted so I like to participate in every project I can without overwhelming myself. And this seemed like a chill thing, so I was into it. And it was a chill thing!

Céleste: Yes, me too I think this was fun. We wanted it to be relaxed so the person could show us who they are. I liked it a lot!

Rose: Yes, thank you!

CatsMTL

Short forms

Short forms

Maxime

Photo Youssef Baati

SEX WORKER

Deep within myself, I have no doubt
That feminism brought me to sex work.
That I’m a sex worker who consents to what she’s doing.
That the hardest part of my job isn’t even related to the work itself:
The stigma, the shame, the contempt & the rejection. The ignorance & the judgment
From my own mother.
People don’t understand, or simply refuse to believe
That women’s genitals are not weak.
That women’s genitals belong to women.
I use my body as I see fit
With men who benefit from the services I choose to offer
Whenever and however I want.
I am a sex worker
Feminist, honest & proud. 



Collage by Maxime
Collage by Maxime

TIGER

In dark rooms
Where  all criticisms emerge
The not enoughs and the too-much-this-too-much-that
Hidden in the bra of a girl high on coke
The roaring tigress
The very one responsible for your insomnia
The tigress of doubt
Chewing on my bones
Stunts my growth
I wish us all the opposite of a tiger 

 

SEX WORKER

Deep within myself, I have no doubt
That feminism brought me to sex work.
That I’m a sex worker who consents to what she’s doing.
That the hardest part of my job isn’t even related to the work itself:
The stigma, the shame, the contempt & the rejection. The ignorance & the judgment
From my own mother.
People don’t understand, or simply refuse to believe
That women’s genitals are not weak.
That women’s genitals belong to women.
I use my body as I see fit
With men who benefit from the services I choose to offer
Whenever and however I want.
I am a sex worker
Feminist, honest & proud. 

Collage by Maxime
CatsMTL

A Very Brief Overview of American Anti-Sex Trafficking Laws’ Racist History

A Very Brief Overview of American Anti-Sex Trafficking Laws’ Racist History

Jesse Dekel

Jesse Dekel at the microphone at our action on May 1st 2021 for International Workers’ Day

This article was first published in a June 2019 issue of Street Sheet (a street newspaper published in San Francisco). I adapted it from an essay I wrote in 2018, shortly after SESTA/FOSTA passed, which was a law supposedly intended to stop sex-trafficking but resulted in the abolition of a very large amount of sex work advertising platforms including backpage.com and other ubiquitous online ressources.

Reluctantly talk to any proponent of SESTA/FOSTA, and you can hear how moralistic discourse represents sex workers as precarious, agentless victims. This narrative has come out of sex trafficking discourse, to the extent that these arguments render “ sex work ” and “ sex trafficking ” as one of the same, which consequently creates a self-perpetuating problem wherein moral arguments by reactionaries with Christian Missionary savior complexes.  The “ agentless victim of sex trafficking ” narrative further deconstructs the notion of sex work as a legitimate form of labor, which in turn also reinforces these moral arguments. It is difficult to understand why sex work and sex trafficking are confused with each other, but looking at the social and judicial history of sex trafficking laws provides a lot of explanation.

The history of the concept of “ sexual slavery ” began during the Progressive Era1 in the United States. This coincided with the third wave of immigration that happened in the early 20th century, shortly after the Civil War, and after the passing of the 14th Amendment2. Sex workers were then represented as white American girls who were being trafficked by male pimps, who were in turn represented as Black Americans and Jewish immigrants. White women were also portrayed as being drugged or otherwise coerced to move to larger urban areas for sex work, and the narrative of “ innocence ” emerged as well as “ white slavery ” to describe this farcical phenomenon. The term made a distinction between “ chattel slavery ”, of whom the victims were people of color, and “ white slavery ”, which was a more pressing concern because all white sex workers were “ innocent ” and therefore worthy of protection.

This rhetoric also completely ignored how victims of sex traficking at this time were more likely to be Asian women. This is probably because white supremacy deems sexual violence towards Asian women far less of a human rights issue as they’re allegedly not innocent and civilized, but rather promiscuous and foreign.

The anti-sex work movement also coincided with the implementation of explicit and implicit anti-miscegenation laws, in which state officials could still practice racism below the Mason-Dixon line3. One of the most famous being the Mann Act, aka the white-slave Traffic Act which made it a felony to transport “ any girl or woman for immoral purposes or prostitution between countries or across state lines. ” 4Randal Kennedy writes in Race, Crime, and the Law that the Mann Act was used to soothe racist fears of Black sexuality: “ Proponents of the Mann Act constantly deployed the imagery of race to solidify support. They named ‘ white women ’ as the intended beneficiaries of the legislation. They also mobilized support by evoking the specter of purchased interracial sex. ”5

The Mann Act was used to convict people engaged in consensual interracial relationships, and the women were treated as criminals, forced to stand trial against their will. The infamous conviction of Black American boxer Jack Johnson led to a proposed anti-miscegenation amendment to the House of Representatives, as well as multiple laws that passed. In 2018, Johnson has been posthumously pardoned on the grounds that the conviction was (obviously) racially motivated.

White slavery reformers were often suffragettes, Christian groups and social reformers, including the founder of social work Jane Addams. “ White slavery ” began being amorphous in definition, any sort of “ immoral ” female sexuality from white women, was tacitly understood as being akin to sex work and slavery (particularly when the woman was involved with a person of color). Christian groups represented sex work as “ immoral ”, while many suffragettes and social workers regarded it as the exploitation of women. Jane Addams thought that opposition to “ white slavery ” could be used to garner support for the suffragettes and introduce “ social justice ”. She said “ it is quite possible that an … energetic attempt to abolish white slavery will bring many women into the equal suffrage movement. ”

Social work emerged and gained traction, with a goal of rescuing white sex workers. While this was happening, the social purity and social hygiene movements began working alongside moral reformers, first-wave feminists and social workers to develop laws regulating white slavery and sex work. Jane Addams eventually became a vice president for the American Social Hygiene Association, and the “ vigorous attention to social hygiene moved the prostitution debates out of the religious realm and into the realm of science and politics. ” In other words, many of these movements that were heavily associated with segregation and Christian moralism aimed to change their focus from ending the “ immoral ” behaviors of white sex workers to evidence-based research approaches with the intent to abolish sex work.

Social reformist O. Edward Janney remarked on this shift that “ [t]here are many social workers who should know the facts [of sex slavery], and [should] have presented to them methods by means of which they may assist in the suppression of the evil.” In short, with the medicalized model of the Victorian-era, the Christian moralists who used to condemn homosexuality and promote social purity were reworking their discourse into diagnosing “ feeblemindedness ”. Social workers used this diagnosis to explicate sex work and provide evidence as to why sex workers should be ostracized.

It is clear from the history of anti-sex work and “ white slavery ” that moral arguments have been heavily politicized around racist intent and Christian morality. These exact same moralistic arguments have been reworked into SESTA/FOSTA, without even a hint of change. And sex workers are the ones paying the price.

Works Cited

Gillian M. Abel. (2014). “A Decade of Decriminalization: Sex Work ‘down under’ but Not Underground .” Sage Journals, Criminology & Criminal Justice

Nicole F. Bromfield. (2015). “Sex Slavery and Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States.” Sage Journals 

Edward Janney.  (1975) The White Slave Traffic in America. Microfilming Corporation of America.

Randall Kennedy. (1998) Race, Crime, and the Law. Vintage.

Notes

1.“ The Progressive Era (1896–1916) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States of America that spanned the 1890s [after the Civil War] to World War I . Progressive reformers were typically middle-class society women or Christian ministers. The main objectives of the Progressive movement were addressing problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption. “ Wikipedia. (2021). “ Progressive Era ” ↩

2.“ The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. ” Wikipedia. (2021). “ Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution ”↩

3. “ [D]emarcation line separating four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia (part of Virginia until 1863). Historically, it came to be seen as demarcating the North from the South in the U.S. ” Wikipedia. (2021). “ Mason-Dixon line ” ↩

4.Nicole F. Bromfield. (2015). “Sex Slavery and Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States.” Sage Journals, Affilia, p. 132↩

5.Randall Kennedy. (1998) Race, Crime, and the Law. Vintage.↩