Sex Work Awareness recently implemented its first day-long Speak Up media training workshop, which took place in New York at the Harm Reduction Coalition in mid-April 2009. At the end of the day, the workshop …
Read the full story »We conduct research about sex workers and the sex industry in order to better understand it, develop public education initiatives, and advocate for the rights of sex workers.
Twelve of NYC’s most dynamic literary and sex positive women have joined together in order to support Sex Work Awareness with a sexy pinup calendar.
Sex Work 101 is a basic primer on issues affecting sex workers. It adds to public knowledge about sex work and encourages discussion about the issues sex workers face.
media trainings for sex workers that include reactive and earned media, traditional mainstream media and do-it-yourself new media
We produce advocacy and public education videos and prepare sex workers to participate in television and documentary interviews.
Donna Hughes, a Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Rhode Island and an outspoken opponent of the sex industry, wrote a piece for the Providence Journal called RI’s Carnival of Prostitution. In the piece, she describes a hearing in which sex workers speak out for themselves and give their perspectives on legislation to re-criminalize indoor prostitution in Rhode Island. Learn more about about what’s going on (well, sort of) from the archives of the Providence Journal. Filmmaker Tara Hurley responds on her blog (which, by the way, is the best chronicle of this saga I’ve seen).
The bulk of Hughes’ piece is criticism edging into mocking the sex workers who spoke up at the hearing. One of the women she picks on is Megan Andelloux (pictured above), who was a participant in the first Speak Up media training that Sex Work Awareness did in April.
Ms Hughes had this to say about Megan:
Then a tattooed woman, calling herself a “sexologist and sex educator,” spoke against the bill. She is also a reporter for a prostitutes’ magazine called $pread. (I couldn’t make this stuff up!)
And this is what Megan had to say in return:
Let me introduce myself: I’m the nationally certified sex-educator and derogatorily labeled “tattooed lady” mentioned by Ms. Donna Hughes in Wednesday’s paper. It seems that the would-be chairwoman of URI’s women’s studies program (she is not) was so put off by my appearance that she called into question my credentials. Putting quotation marks around my profession was insulting. And yes, it is not “made up” that I am a contributor to the sex-workers magazine $pread. Is it so shocking that sex-workers can read?
This “Opinion piece” was nothing more than an exercise in highbrow name calling. She attacked the opponents to her pet bill as “a sordid circus”, as “smelling of other odors”, and as projecting the atmosphere of “a carnival”. As an alum of URI (‘97), I would have expected faculty of our honored University to develop a reputation for science and truth. Instead, it seems that Ms. Hughes would rather resort to right-wing scare tactics. Perhaps if “the Professor” really cared about women, she wouldn’t attack us for the way that we look.
Megan J. Andelloux, AASECT, ACS
With the support of the APC Women’s Networking Support Programme, Sex Work Awareness is embarking on a research project to investigate restrictions on women’s access to sexuality information on the internet. Part of the project includes regular …
On April 18, 2009 Sex Work Awareness had our first Speak Up! Media Training for the Empowered Sex Worker in New York City. All the attendees got to take home a big packet of …
Join us at the 6th Annual Conference: HOPE to ACTION
Saturday, May 30, 2009
9am-6pm: Hunter College, 68th St & Lexington Ave
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Sex …
Sex Work Awareness has been named the United States country research partner for the Exploratory Research on Internet & Sexuality (EROTICS) research project, funded by the Association for Progressive Communications’ Women’s Networking Support Program (APC …
After the success of the Speak Up! seminar, made possible by the funds raised last year from the 2009 NYC Sex Blogger Calendar, we’re all extremely excited to be repeating this project. This year some …
Sex Work 101 was inspired by conversations that happened during the Women, Action and the Media 2008 conference held in Cambridge, MA from March 28-30, 2008.
Former $pread magazine editor and board member of Sex Work …
A sex worker is a person who does erotic labor in exchange for an agreed upon exchange of money, goods or services.
Sound vague? It’s meant to be!
It’s often assumed that “sex worker” is a euphemism …
The sex industry is a big, amorphous, largely unregulated (though in some instances, strangely and/or over-regulated) industry. It includes both legal and illegal jobs and in the United States is often identified as a multi-billion …
“Speak Up! Media Skills for the Empowered Sex Worker” is a day-long seminar offered by the New York-based organization Sex Work Awareness (SWA). The workshop is based on $pread Magazine’s successful “Journalism for Sex Workers” …
