Building Bridges

I’m a little late writing this but since attending Sex 2.0 I just have not been able to find the time to sit down and put into writing my thoughts on it. What finally prompted me was an email Dacia recently posted on her tumblr that she received one morning.

One of the reasons I wanted to attend Sex 2.0 was to expand my knowledge about sex workers and sex worker issues and that was why I attended the session presented by my friend Elizabeth Wood and Renegade Evolution titled Building Bridges. Along with the fact that knowing Elizabeth as a friend and admiring her for all she does I wanted very much to see a presentation by her.

You can see the entire session here on Elizabeth’s site thanks to Calico who recorded it on her Flip camera she received as part of the Speak Up! Media training session that she attended in NYC back in April. Of course I need to give a shout out to the NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar which made it possible for Sex Work Awareness to hold that training session with the funds that were raised on the 2009 calendar. (you can buy a day for $10 to support future Speak Ups!)

One thing that I still think about when I think back to that session was something Ren said during it. She pointed out that only sex workers are their job. When are you introduced to someone as "Hi this is Joe, he is an accountant" or "This is Marie, she cleans toilets." When Ren said that it made me think about how so many analyze the reasons people go into sex work or use the fact they are in sex work as reasons for anything else in their life that might not be going right at that moment.

Several things in that email Dacia received stuck out to me with the first one being the comment that she has a masters degree. For some reason that shocks people that sex workers can be educated. They don't have to be high school drop outs. This person made is seem that because she was once a sex worker and is now a sex worker advocate she is wasting her masters degree. That made me think of all the women who receive degrees and then after working for a few short years leave their jobs to stay home with their children. Some are out of the workforce for 20 years even. Why is it we don't look down on these women for "wasting" their degrees by staying home with their children?

It would take me all day to touch on each thing in that email that was totally outrageous but it isn't necessary. Anyone with common sense can read that email and see for themselves how fucked up that persons views of women in general are. It isn't just about sex workers but their perception of how women should behave in general and if they don't conform they then use the words whore and cunt to try to demean them.

I come across that a lot in both this online world and the printed world and what I have come to see is that people are fucked up and will write their crazy views and thoughts however they feel. But luckily there are people such as myself and my friends that have that common sense when we read stupid shit like that to just laugh at it and say "what a fucked up miserable insecure person that is."

So much of this goes back to how sex work and sex workers are perceived in society and how they are always portrayed in the media along with how sex itself is percieved. What is ironic for me is that I lived that so called perfect life by society standards and all that it included. The doctors, lawyers and higher educated people. To say I was unhappy would put it mildly.

These days I have quite an eclectic group of friends including many who are or were former sex workers. When I look at all the people I have met in the past year and how they have enriched my life I think about how lucky I have been. I don't place value on someone or judge them for what they do. I view them and accept them for how they live their life to its fullest and enrich the lives of others.

Now I want to share a fan girl moment with you. One of the people I very much wanted to meet at Sex 2.0 was Ren. I had followed her blog for over a year and I absolutely loved her kick ass views on life. She also scared the shit out of me. It figures when I finally met her in person I would see that Ren was short just like Tess. I remember admiring Tess for her kick ass approach to life and never being afraid to say what she felt. It was one trait I adapted from her along with showing off my cleavage.