Help make December "Sex Work Awareness" month!

Originally posted on Best Sex Bloggers

We are exactly 9 days away from December 17, International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers. I’d love to suggest that we dub December “Sex Work Awareness Month,” and spend as much of our blogging time in December focusing on the violence and stigmatization that sex workers face, and also on the good that sex workers do in the world. And just as there is much of the former, there is also a great deal of the latter.

At Sex In The Public Square this month Rebecca Deos told her story about being outed as an escort, and discussed the harm done emotionally and financially not just to herself but to her husband and kids, and she also talked about how the experience brought them together as a family. We also posted a brief piece about the Women’s Institute Lady’s Guide to Brothels. We’ll be posting more this month about legislation in the UK that will increase the stigma on sex work rather than decrease it and about the banning of “extreme” pornography in the UK. And of course we’ll certainly be highlighting the December 17 events.

Sex work is a pretty common theme at Sex in the Public Square, and there are sex worker blogs that address the issues of sex workers in their own voices and with great power and eloquence. But equally important is the support that comes when people who are not necessarily sex workers speak up on their behalf. Not to talk over sex workers’ own voices but to support them by adding many more. Audacia Ray, in a post on Bound, Not Gagged, wrote about the Sex Work Awereness fundraising calendar project:

The vast majority of the people who posed for the calendar and are buying the calendar are not sex workers, but they are expressing solidarity with sex workers and putting their faces, names, and dollars on the lines to support the efforts of a sex worker advocacy organization. And this is a great thing.

• Blog about sex work related issues. When focusing on violence prevention it is important to tell the stories of the sex workers who have been hurt. It is also important, as we fight the stigmatization of sex work, to tell stories about the victories and the good that sex workers do in the world.
• Attend a December 17 event, encourage others to do the same, and write about it afterward.
• Remind people that when sex work is stigmatized sex is stigmatized, and that when sex is stigmatized we are all less free.
• Let people know about our fundraiser and the gorgeous calendar they can get for their $20 donation.

Sex Work Awareness will use the money from the fundraiser - and they get 100% of each donation - to help sex workers raise their own voices, make their own media, and to educate us all so that, to borrow from Audacia again, we can each help “build a culture where sex workers can speak up and be proud.”