Ask most people about government and they tend to talk about their federal representatives, the White House, or maybe the Mayor. But the state government may have the most significant impacts on our daily lives, particularly in the realm of criminal justice. This two hour seminar is presented via a partnership of Sex Work Awareness and the Urban Justice Center’s Sex Workers Project. In it, sex workers, former sex workers, and allies will learn from a veteran staffer of the state legislature how the legislative process works, how to talk to elected officials about sex work issues, and what opportunities exist to engage with elected officials and affect change in Albany.

This is a FREE event, but you must RSVP to info@sexworkawareness.org.

For more information, please contact info@sexworkawareness.org.

Snacks and coffee will be provided.

Due to the overwhelming success and turn out for the first screening and panel event, Pay As You Go : An Evening of Sex Worker Shorts, we’ve decided to do another night of it! The Pay As You Go Redux will include new short films and documentaries, with special panel discussions after the screenings with Melissa Ditmore and Melissa Gira Grant, moderated by Audacia Ray.

The Pay As You Go Redux

Saturday, November 7 at 7:30PM – 9PM

Union Docs / 322 Union Ave, Brooklyn NY 11211

Suggested Donation : $7

Buy Tickets in Advance Here

SANGRAM : Sex Work Organizing in India by Audacia Ray & SANGRAM (with support of the International Women’s Health Coalition). USA & India, 2009 (6 minutes)

The Sangli district in the rural south of India has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the country. This health issue has become the crux of a powerful sex workers movement that has risen up over the past twelve years, in which sex workers have become agitators for change in health systems and policy that affects them on the local, national, and international levels. VAMP, the sex work organizing project of the non-profit SANGRAM

Taking the Pledge by Melissa Ditmore and Erin Siegal. USA, 2007 (13 minutes)

“Taking the Pledge” features sex workers from Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Mali, Thailand and discussing the problems created by the ‘anti-prostitution pledge’ required to receive funding for HIV prevention from USAID and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief (PEPFAR). In English, Khmer, Thai, French, Portuguese and Bengali, with English subtitles.

You Must Know About Me by HOPS and WITNESS. Macedonia, 2009 (18 minutes)

“You Must Know About Me” features interviews with sex workers from Skopje, focusing on three main themes : Their family lives, the conditions they work under, especially the violence and discrimination they face from police officials as well as some clients, and lastly, the ramifications of a big raid that happened in November of 2008. Several sex workers were arbitrarily arrested, held in detention overnight, forcibly tested for STDs and, to add insult to injury, unwillingly featured in national media that had been tipped off, and was waiting as they exited the clinic.

In Our Own Image by Madonna Productions. USA, 2009 (19 minutes)

What happens when sex workers become not just the subjects of media gaze, but reporters and publishers of sex trade news? This documentary short looks at $pread Magazine, an example of sex worker-made media, and discusses its aim to change the way media itself approaches sex work.

Workin Girl Blues by Damien Luxe. USA, 2009 (4 minutes)

An experimental video considering the pluses and minuses of some jobs + a blues song.

Sex Workers (And Proud Of It) by Jean-Michel Carré. France, 2009 (Sel.)

In France since 2003, Nicolas Sarkozy has been in charge of national security. Meanwhile, women and men are fighting for the rights to rent freely their body in a political context where the market economy allows through the lens of sexual liberation and with hopes for legalization of commercial intimacy. Stigmatized by moral judgements questioning the relationships of men/women, sexuality and its power, subjects discuss their work and its meaning.

Friday, November 6, 2009 6:30 TO 9:30 PM

VISIONS OF SEXUAL FREEDOM

NEW YORK CITY SEX BLOGGERS 2010 CALENDAR

BURLESQUE…..SWAG…..SEXY BLOGGERS….RAFFLE

Celebrate the release of our Limited Edition 2010 Calendar – I’ve posed with the very handsome Sinclair Sexsmith for my calendar shot – you’ll have to buy your own to see the final image!

Meet your favorite sex bloggers and the hot photographers who shot them, get a free gift bag and maybe win an amazing raffle prize donated by on of our many sponsors and supporters.

Support Sex Work Awareness with a $20 calendar purchase.

FREE ADMISSION

Friday, November 6, 2009
6:30 – 9:30 PM
Fontana’s
105 Eldridge Street
New York, NY

Check out SexBloggerCalendar.com for more details!

Pay As You Go: Sex Worker Shorts
Saturday, Oct. 25 – 6pm & 8:30pm
Suggested donation $7 per show, $10 double feature price. Special free panel discussion at 7:30pm between the programs.

PROGRAM 1: 6:00 – 7.30 pm

You Must Know About Me by HOPS and WITNESS. Macedonia, 2009 (18 mins) DVD

“You Must Know About Me” features interviews with sex workers from Skopje, focusing on 3 main themes: Their family lives, the conditions they work under, especially the violence and discrimination they face from police officials as well as some clients, and lastly, the ramifications of a big raid that happened in November 2008. Several sex workers were arbitrarily arrested, held in detention overnight, forcibly tested for STDs and, to add insult to injury, unwillingly featured in national media that had been tipped off, and was waiting as they exited the clinic.

The Line by Nancy Schwartzman. USA, 2009 (30 mins) DVD

A one night stand far from home goes terribly wrong. As the filmmaker unravels her experience, she decides to confront her attacker. Told through a “sex-positive” lens, THE LINE is a 24 minute documentary about a young woman – the filmmaker- who is raped, but her story isn’t cut and dry. Not a “perfect victim,” the filmmaker confronts her attacker, recording the conversation with a hidden camera. Sex workers, survivors and activists discuss justice, accountability and today’s “rape culture.” The film asks the question: where is the line defining consent? THE LINE was completed in July 2009.

Workin Girl Blues by Damien Luxe. USA, 2009 (4 mins) DVD

An experimental video considering the pluses and minuses of some jobs + a blues song.

VAMP: Sex Work Organizing in India by Audacia Ray & VAMP (with support of the International Women’s Health Coalition). USA & India, 2009. (10 mins) Mini DV

The Sangli district in the rural south of India has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the country. This health issue has become the crux of a powerful sex workers movement that has risen up over the past twelve years, in which sex workers have become agitators for change in health systems and policy that affects them on the local, national, and international levels. VAMP, the sex work organizing project of the non-profit SANGRAM

In Our Own Image by Mandona Productions. USA, 2009 (19 mins) DVD

What happens when sex workers become not just the subjects of media gaze, but reporters and publishers of sex trade news? This documentary short looks at $pread Magazine, an example of sex worker-made media, and discusses its aim to change the way media itself approaches sex work.

PANEL: 7:30 – 8:15pm

Moving Image to Movement: Video as an Advocacy Tool

The widespread availability of the camcorder has morphed into the explosion of digital documentation via cell phones, flip cameras, and other devices. The much trumpeted “democratization of media” has about video as an advocacy tool for sex workers and others working for sexual rights and justice. They will discuss The panelists, who are media makers, activists, and advocates, will discuss their successes and challenges in building advocacy campaigns based around video and other multimedia.

Audacia Ray is a media maker and activist who is passionate about sexual rights. Audacia is the Program Officer for Online Communications and Campaigns at the International Women’s Health Coalition, an adjunct professor of Human Sexuality at Rutgers University, and the co-host of the monthly reading series Sex Worker Literati in New York. She is the author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration. Audacia is a former sex worker who was an executive editor at $pread magazine for three years and is a co-founder of advocacy organization Sex Work Awareness.

Violeta Krasnic is a human rights advocate, trainer for NGO management, and video producer. She is the Program Coordinator at WITNESS, an international human rights organization which uses video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations and empowers people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, public engagement, and policy change. Videos she has produced have been screened at the US Congress, State Department, Council of Europe, United Nations, and at advocacy events worldwide. Most recently, she collaborated with Healthy Options Project Skopje (HOPS) in Macedonia to help produce video “You Must Know About Me,” calling for adequate investigation and prosecution of violence against sex workers committed by the police officers and third parties.

Nancy Schwartzman is a filmmaker and activist working for over thirteen years to create community solutions to combat sexual violence and promote public debate. Her documentary film THE LINE is a personal journey that explores consent with a daring stylistic approach. Prior to her directorial debut, she produced the award-winning short film OCEAN AVENUE. Nancy is the founder of NYC-Safestreets.org an online initiative noted by The New York Times, Gawker and The Daily News to engage community organizations and businesses to create safer routes for pedestrians, especially women. From 2002- 2005 she was a founding editor and Creative Director of HEEB Magazine. For six years Nancy was the Program Officer at the Fund for Jewish Documentary Film. Learn more at http://whereisyourline.org

Damien Luxe is a multimedia artist, activist and performer from Brooklyn. She was involved in $pread Magazine from 2006 until 2009, taught media production workshops at the Desiree Alliance Conference 2007 and 2008, and performed in the SF Sex Worker Film and Art Festival in 2007. more at: axondluxe.com

Program 2: 8:30 – 10:00 pm

Tenofovir Trial in Cambodia by Women’s Network for Unity. Cambodia, 2008 (13 mins) Web

The inside story of Cambodian Sex Workers struggle around a trial for testing Tenofovir’s potential for HIV prevention.

Sex Workers (And Proud Of It) by Jean-Michel Carré. France, 2009 (85 mins) DVD

In France since 2003, Nicolas Sarkozy has been in charge of national security. Meanwhile, women and men are fighting for the rights to rent freely their body in a political context where the market economy allows through the lens of sexual liberation and with hopes for legalization of commercial intimacy. Stigmatized by moral judgements questioning the relationships of men/women, sexuality and its power, subjects discuss their work and its meaning. * We will be showing a short selection from this work.

Prostitution Free Zone directed by PJ Starr; Alliance for Safe and Diverse DC. USA, 2009 (13 mins) DVD

Constitutional right to freedom of assembly? Not in DC, honey! This film takes a sobering look at how, during attempts to gentrify inner-city areas of our nation’s capital, “Prostitution Free Zones” are being used to move targeted people out of the neighborhoods where they have traditionally congregated. Also featuring a “dramatic reenactment” of a prostitution free zone by Takia Cash, Sugaa Delite and other well-known indie film icons from the District.

Happy Endings? by Tara Hurley. USA, 2009 (90 mins) DVD

An intriguing exploration of the Asian massage parlor industry in Providence, RI, where a 25 year-old loophole has made the exchange of sex for money legal — as long as it happens behind closed doors. As the documentary follows a recent Korean immigrant, “Heather”, working to operate her spa, the city’s mayor fights to change the law that allows her business a legal existence.The film includes interviews with Korean women who work in spas, clients who frequent the spas, politicians from 1980 and today, police, local news footage, radio call-in shows and “voiced” reviews from internet escort review boards. * We will be showing a short selection from this work.

Sex Worker Open University by Ellie Gurney. UK, 2009 (7 mins) DVD

Sex workers are routinely portrayed in the media as victims. At London’s first ever Sex Worker Open University over two hundred sex workers, sex workers’ rights activists, and allies from the UK and abroad took part in workshops, discussions, actions and art exhibits. Documenting these events, this film presents an alternative and empowered image of the sex worker.

69 things i love about sex work by Isabel Hosti. Canada, 2007 (6 mins) DVD

A list of 69 things i love about sex work–a list that helps to keep me happy and healthy. This is my list based on my specific experiences in the sex industry. There are many other sex workers worldwide with many things to share–with lists of their own. Search them out.

Photo by Sinead McCarthy, design by Sinclair Sexsmith

Best-selling author David Henry Sterry and sexuality rights activist Audacia Ray, both former workers in the sex industry, are proud to announce Sex Worker Literati, a new free monthly reading series that features sex workers, former sex workers, and people with stories about the sex industry who will read, monologue, perform, and shimmy their ways into your hearts, minds, and naughty bits. The series kicks off at 8 pm on Thursday, August 6 at the Lower East Side staple Happy Ending (302 Broome Street), which fittingly enough was once an erotic massage parlor. On the first Thursday of every month, Sterry and Ray will showcase a diverse set of performers who have stories to tell about the business of sex.

The reading series is inspired by a new anthology edited by David Henry Sterry and RJ Martin, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Work & Money published in July 2009 by Soft Skull. After Sterry asked Ray to contribute a piece to the anthology, they began to discuss collaboration possibilities. The results are the Sex Worker Literati reading series and the website hoshookercallgirlsrentboys.com, which features writings by sex workers, sneak peeks at the book, and videos featuring anthology contributors.

The Sex Worker Literati inaugural reading on August 6 features six performers from all corners of the sex business. Blues diva and pinup girl Candye Kane, Times Square wild girl Jodi Sh. Doff, Scandinavian/African rent boy Damien Decker, and ex-teenage ho/ award-winning filmmaker Juliana Piccillo are all contributors to the anthology. They will be joined by renowned artist and former nude model Molly Crabapple, who is the illustrator and co-author of the graphic novel Scarlett Takes Manhattan and former go-go dancer and porn producer Sam Benjamin, author of Confessions of an Ivy League Pornographer.

Those in far-away lands who are unable to attend the reading series in New York will be able to enjoy some of the performances online: videos, photos, and stories will be published on hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com. We are also planning events for the anthology around the country, so check the website or become a fan on Facebook to find out more.

Molly Crabapple is an artist, author, and the founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, a 90 city chain of alt. drawing clubs. Called a “Downtown phenomenon” by the New York Times and “THE artist of our time” by Margaret Cho, Molly has drawn for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Marvel Comics. During college, she was a professional naked girl. Her first graphic novel, Scarlett Takes Manhattan, is out now from Fugu Press.

Candye Kane may still be a well-kept mainstream secret but in most underground circles, her diva status is legendary. She has been making music professionally for over two decades and toured worldwide since 1992, performing for amazingly diverse audiences. She played at the French Embassy in Rome for the President of Italy, headlined the Rhythm Riot, a rockabilly and R&B festival in the UK, and belted it out alongside Ray Charles at the Cognac Blues Festival. She slayed em’ at the Cannes Film Festival, kept them enthralled at New York Gay Pride and most recently, helped organize a thirteen city tour of the Netherlands for special needs kids. Learn more and hear her sing on her website.

Jodi Sh. Doff, writing as Scarlett Fever. Scarlett Fever was born with the first issue of BUST and has gone on to publish in Penthouse, Playgirl , Bust, Tear (Italy), Olive Tree Literary Review, Cosmopolitan, Stim.com and CommonTies.com; been anthologized in Best American Erotica ‘95, Bearing Life (Feminist Press – as Jodi Sh. Doff), Between the Sheets (Penthouse Anthology), and The Bust Guide to a New Girl Order . She has been active in prostitutes rights, harm reduction and outreach. Scarlett has been working on a memoirs of her ten years in the pre-Disney Times Square topless business for what seems like forever. She is proud to have been a chapter of “historical reference” in Lily Burana’s Strip City. There is also a serial killer love story, with some rather disturbing parallels to her own life, in the works. That said, Ms. Doff grew up in the suburbs as someone else entirely.

Sam Benjamin is a graduate of Brown University (1999), a former go-go dancer, and the director of over one thousand Los Angeles-based interracial gangbangs, gay and straight. His book, “Confessions of An Ivy League Pornographer,” is a memoir of a youth well spent.

Damien Decker’s writing has appeared in $pread magazine and the anthology Unhoused Voices. He has been featured on The Daily Beast and is currently working on a memoir. Damien was born in Zambia but moved as a young child to Scandinavia to become one of the first black people in northern Europe. He recived his degree in USA and is a former college, semi-pro, and national team athlete. Damien is a multilingual jack-of-all-trades who speaks fluent Swedish, Norwegian, English, plus enough French to not starve when in Paris and enough Swahili to know when mother was angry. He currently resides in New York.

Juliana Piccillo is a soccer mom, filmmaker, writer and sex worker’s rights activist. She has an MFA in Creative Writing.

Tables are still available – reserve yours today.

Registration is now open — save cash, register early!

Sex Work Awareness co-founder Audacia Ray will be joined by Speak Up alumna Megan Andelloux and $pread editor Monica Shores in a panel called “Sex Workers, Resistance, and the Media” Our panel is from 10:30 am-noon.

Here is the panel description:

Sex workers are frequently maligned and misrepresented in the mainstream media, where stories are most often about scandals, busts, violence, health and safety risks, exploitation, legislation, and moral judgment. This panel of present and former sex workers who are activists and media makers will address the ways we are represented in mainstream media and what sex workers and their allies can do to challenge and remake the way we are perceived. We will present media projects created by sex workers and discuss challenges encountered in the process of distribution and building an audience for our work. The workshop will conclude with making a short PSA video about how sex workers and allies can work together.