6 Undercover Cops to Arrest 2 Women on Mission Street

Outreach in the Mission neighborhood is more and more depressing.  More and more young white people fill Valencia Street, while significantly less people are out just one block over on Mission.

Walking down Mission Street with bags still pretty full for the end of a shift, my outreach partner and I wondered as to why.  Well, we have seen considerably more cops walking a beat in the neighborhood over the past few months, more and more houses for sale, and even Capp Street is beginning to compare to Guerrero with more and more houses with fresh paint and fresh concrete on the sidewalks.  Gentrification is happening.  So yes, the streets are cleaner, but at what cost?

It is close to the end of the month, and poor people are waiting for their GA checks, and for their food stamps to be renewed.   However, if they are thrown into jail, these social benefits are cut off, leaving them in a worse position upon release from jail.

Around 18th and Mission, someone walking pretty quickly away from 16th said that there were a bunch of cops who came up upon a couple of women, so she wanted to get away from there.   When we got to the scene of the cops, there were several plain cars that had been parked pretty quickly, and about 6 undercover cops wearing hoodies and windbreakers arresting two women – one woman looked like she was in her late 30’s/ early 40’s, and the other woman looked to be about 20.

The cops were mostly white, and the two women were of color – the older one was black, and the other woman was brown.  The cops were asking them questions about their friend who had been robbing banks, but the older woman said she knew nothing of it, and the other one stood quietly.  One cop was going through a bag, asking if they had anything in their bags that they shouldn’t have.

“You don’t have to let them go through your bags – they need a warrant to do that.  Don’t consent to a search,” I said.

One of the cops looked at me and laughed, and continued going through the bag and asking questions.

“Don’t say anything until you have a lawyer.  You have a right not to say anything until you have a lawyer.”

One of the cops said, “oh yeah, you don’t have to talk to us until you have a lawyer.  These people are your friends, you should listen to them, ” he said in a condescending tone.

Not surprising, but this made it apparent that their rights had not yet been read to them.  Why?  Well do people on the streets have any rights?  In this system, not really.  Supposedly, yes, but the police aren’t interested in protecting their rights, as I have seen again and again, both in and around my neighborhood, and during outreach shifts.

The women were led in hand-cuffs to the undercover cop cars, and started to argue, an argument fueled by the cops as they played their good-cop/ bad-cop routine.

It seemed as though these cops were trying to get information from them about someone else, but in the meantime humiliated and de-humanized them, as the arrest happened.

But, okay, well the richer people moving into the neighborhood will feel much safer as society’s problems are thrown into  our favorite societal garbage bins: jail.

The Empowered Sex Worker and Social Change

(grammatical gender note: I am using the pronoun they in the singular so as to be gender neutral. The person who is the object of the pronoun can be transgender, gender queer, neutral gender, gender-fluid, male, female, etc. So here I use they and their so that any gender can apply)

Some people equate sex workers with slave and claim that they can never be empowered. Many people use the issue of sex trafficking as an umbrella to include a very different (and diverse) population who choose sex work, and equate them with actual slavery. People who claim that all sex workers are victims and can never be empowered, contribute to the oppression of sex workers. If sex workers say they are empowered, shouldn’t this be heard, and not immediately disqualified? Sex workers all over the world are speaking out about their complex experiences and claiming empowerment. The experience of the sex worker, just like society, is complicated, but perhaps some things about the sex worker experience can be broken down into different aspects of multi-faceted spectrum.

An empowered sex worker is a sexual educator, a cultural advocate, and a healer.
An empowered sex worker educates their clients on safer sex practices, thereby preventing disease transmission. They also facilitates safe sexual play, be it in the realm of BDSM or beyond, educating their clients in safe, consensual enactments of their fantasies. An empowered sex worker heals by providing safe physical, emotional and spiritual exploration. By making the space for education and healing, an empowered sex worker advocates for societal change for the better. An empowered sex worker brings great gifts not just to their own communities, but to the greater society.

We must support this.

Sex work has been around since the beginning of human history. It has existed regardless of what governmental system has been in place, and it has existed in many forms. Historically, regardless of whether, sex workers were honored and given a place in the spiritual temples, or if they were banished to the streets or outskirts of town, they have existed. When they were honored and respected, their work happened safely – and safety was therefore secured for the the worker and for the client, and for the client and for the community. When they were banished, and stigmatized, everyone was endangered. Without safe physical and emotional space, they operated at higher risks of all sorts.

An oppressed and disempowered sex worker, though strong, and fighting, is put at great risk. This risk extends to the clients, and to the entire community. When a sex worker has to hide, or live in fear, risky behavior happens. When a sex worker is not respected, violence against them is permitted. This harms the sex worker, the client, and the community at large.

We must prevent this.

This is a very black and white way of examining the circumstances around sex work, and we do not live in black and white world. The sex work experience is not easily lumped into one place along this spectrum of empowerment. Many forces fail to recognize this, many forces refuse to recognize this. Some sex work is tolerated when convenient, and most sex work is not tolerated as is convenient. This means that sex work happens on some sort of complicated spectrum between the empowered sex worker and the disempowered sex worker.

This is definitely the case in the United States.

The United States is the site for the leaders in capitalism. Here democracy has been equated with capitalism, and as capitalism enables greed and numerous other human evils, not everyone wins in a capitalist system. In fact, most people do not win. In some ways the few who are on top have it best. Those on top lack the stress of making ends meet, and money gives them access to the best resources: the best living conditions, the best education, the best health-care, the best environments, and so on.

Meanwhile, those on the bottom are deprived of these resources, in many instances, these resources are taken directly away from them. This harms them tremendously: the removal of access to resources makes room for disease in all forms. The limitation of resources is a social injustice, and perpetuates social disease.

Those responsible for the limitation of resources need to be held accountable for their crimes.

Democracy are supposed to be a mechanism for social justice. However, when the so-called democratic government is bought by the capitalist corporations, government enables social and economic stratification.

Fortunately in the US and in the world, capitalism is not the only force in play. Community organizing and activism has allowed for voices other than the corporations to be be heard, and people have demanded their rights be upheld.
However, it is a battle, and because it continues to be a battle between the rich corporations and the (economically) poor communities, and because the government is mostly controlled by the rich corporations, government in many ways fails society.

Now let us return to what has been called the oldest capitalist profession in the world: sex work. In the capitalist society sex is often traded for money which allows access to resources, or sex is traded for resources.

Capitalism is problematic. Capitalism often involves the exploitations of people and natural resources. In sex work, the worker can often be exploited, especially in the spirit of the capitalist society. Sex work can also be an individual using their own body, mind and spirit in a consensual manner with a client. When the sex worker is empowered, this capitalist endeavor happens without the exploitation of people and resources, and in fact can be an educational and healing contribution to society.

In the meantime, the sex worker gains access to resources. This can be great for the individual sex worker.
This alone does not solve society’s problems, but it also does not harm society.

What happens if a sex worker uses their access to privilege to aid the social justice movement? What happens when an artist who cannot get sufficient funding in the United States to do their work, becomes a sex worker to fund their work? What happens when a marginalized person uses sex work as a means of improving their lives when social services have failed them?

What happens when someone, who has been oppressed, finds a means of liberation from their oppression? It is possible that they take some time to enjoy the fact that they have been liberated (as they should)! It can also mean that their connection to the oppression fuels them to take action against oppression. Here is where an empowered sex worker (much like an empowered former user, an empowered person of color, an empowered person with disability, etc, etc, etc) becomes a threat to those systems of oppression.

Could this factor potentially contribute to the ongoing stigmatization, and criminalization of sex workers?

YES.

So perhaps, we can all work to at least change our own personal roles in this oppression, and check our judgements, check our attitudes, and open up to the possibility that this sex worker may have something of extreme value to contribute: to our communities, to society, and to our understanding of the world.

Gavin Newsom Appears for Photo-Op at Ladies’ Night

Ladies’ Night, hosted by the Women’s Free Clinic, teams up with other service providers to provide a weekly night of harm reduction services, food, massage, games, and more. This evening, Ladies’ Night left its usual location to set up in front of City Hall, so that community members could speak out about their needs.

Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget cuts would remove funds from various service providers – particularly those providing harm reduction services that save lives and minimize harm to people use drugs. These cuts would especially harm the poor, such as those who are homeless, living in SRO’s, disabled, doing sex for trades, and/or other populations of lower socio-economic status.

He did choose to make an acknowledgement to these marginalized populations by appearing at the Ladies’ Night rally for a five minute photo-op. In between checking his watch, and a barely concealed yawn, he feigned attention to the person who had the mike and was talking about living with Hep C, and what it meant to be sick and not have access to services.

I was there doing outreach for St. James, “I have something to say to Gavin Newsom.”

“Well, now is your chance,” said my outreach partner.

I headed over to the crowd around the mayor of people taking their picture with him to tell him to stop ordering street sweeps. Street sweeps are round-ups of people in the streets – homeless, sex workers, and more. When they get thrown into jail, all their services are cut, and the few who have housing, often lose it once they are thrown into jail.

However, by the time I had nearly made it the 30 feet to where Newsom had been standing, the mayor was running for his car, bodyguard close behind him. His window was shut by the time chants for “give us funding now’ were echoing across civic center plaza, and his town-car quickly sped away.

A meager political move on Newsom’s part, at least we know there is some hope for the desperately needed harm reduction and service provider funding.

vibrators a public morality issue?

Even though there are many unfair laws in the state of California, and I will continue to criticize San Francisco, I live in a lovely little bubble compared to many other parts of the country…Hey Carol Queen, I propose two more stops for the next Masturbate-a-thons: Alabama, and the front steps of the United States Supreme Court

http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/xpress/X19/

Hypocrisy

Oh the Hypocrisy. This is old news for many but I wish to reiterate:

Randall Tobias recently resigned from his State Department position after his name was released as being on the “D.C. Madam’s” client list. He was responsible for USAID policy which took an anti-prostitution stance and required organizations all over the world to sign a pledge that they would not help prostitutes. This of course, means that sex workers all over the world loss access to services which among other things, allowed them to practice safer sex. This means that people all over the world were put at GREATER risk for HIV and other disease and STI transmission.

Watch this 13 minute documentary for more information:
http://sexworkerspresent.blip.tv/file/181155/

Intros and what-not

It is a very interesting and charged time for sex workers. The recent Deborah Palfrey “D.C Madam” case has millions more people talking about sex workers, and whether or not prostitution should be legalized. National Obscenity laws have endangered the freedom of consensual alternative lifestyles. In some states in this country it is illegal to sell vibrators. Several cities in the state of texas are cracking down on strip-clubs, enforcing distance rules (three feet between a dancer and a client). Strippers in Ohio are organizing. In many states, sodomy is still against the law. Meanwhile, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and as governmental money continues to go to war, many people are left out in terms of education, housing, and health care.

San Francisco, the capital of sexual freedom, queer sex, sex positive, and one of the best places for the sex worker has been the cite for dangerous developments. Recent Chronicle articles about sex trafficking and even more recent massage parlor raids has made room for some important voices around trafficking issues, while excluding other important voices. As San Francisco is quickly being gentrified, along with raids on immigrants, evictions of low-income families (who are often people of color), the streets are being swept of all the homeless, who are more often than not sex workers. Gavin Newsom has been following ex- New York mayor Guiliani’s lead in “cleaning up the streets” by taking money out of social services and putting into throwing people in Jail, or buying people tickets out of town, in order to make the richer, whiter inhabitants of San Francisco feel safer. At the surface, all of these measures may look good to certain (privileged) populations, but overall have been causing more harm than good. Where do people go when they get evicted? What happens when a transgendered person gets thrown in jail? What happens when an illegal immigrant gets deported back to the country where their problems are even worse then in the United States? What happens when somebody with problems with substance loses access to services to help them deal with their problem?

I want to discuss these questions. They affect me, they affect my friends, they affect my neighbors, they affect the people that I work with.

What else?

I am a student. I have a bachelor’s degree, I have been working towards pre-requisites for a master’s. I live in San Francisco, and I work for a free clinic for sex workers and their partners. For the clinic, I do harm reduction street outreach, and in the clinic, I provide reiki. I have been a sex worker for almost seven years. I am also an artist: writer, musician, and performer. I am concerned about my community – not just the sex worker community, but my neighborhood community, my school community, my queer community, my artist community. All of these segments of my greater community are affected negatively by all sorts of city, state, and national policy. I wish to have a dialog within and across community lines about issues affecting people worldwide. The world is not as black and white as many people would like it to be. We need to make room for our diverse voices and experiences. We need to work to make this world a safe place for ALL of us.