Shameful Secrets

I’ve been mulling over my experience at the Speak Up! Media Training seminar I recently attended. Miss Calico has done a beautiful job here of describing the days events, so I’m not going to try to reinvent that wheel.

I haven’t written anything since the seminar, not for lack of desire, because the question of ‘what’s my message’ has been rattling around my brain ever since.  While I haven’t quite settled the question, I’ve decided that that’s ok… I’m still working on finding my particular voice. That shouldn’t stop me from speaking, however.

For example:

Walking on Christopher Street sometime last week, I saw a young woman in a very low cut dress trying to find out how to get into a building. She was noticeable primarily because she was talking to someone in a second story window and could be clearly heard. I mentally tagged her she as an actress or model. Great, sexy dress.

I had to pause briefly to wait for the lights to change, and, standing next to two men, overheard one of them say: “She’s probably a cheap hooker.” Exactly as the light changed.

I stopped, turned looked him directly in the eye and said: “In that dress? She’s not cheap.” turned and walked away.

Do I think I changed his perception of the woman as being ‘cheap’? No.

Do I think I made him less scornful about one type of sex worker? No.

Do I think I convinced him that she might not be a ‘hooker’? No.

What I do know is that minutes later, waiting to be let into the building I was going to, these two passed me, and carefully avoided looking me in the eye, while I looked directly at them.

Why?

Because in that moment I had felt empowered to Speak Up!

There are more and more sexworkers/bloggers out there every day. This exception seminar brought home to me how important it is that we know how we appear to the media, and the world… How important it is that we’re saying what it is we intend, not being backed into a corner by another’s agenda. Every single one of us has an agenda, a message. Sometimes the agenda is over reaching and fluid, sometimes it is specific and static. Regardless, we need to be proud of what we have to say, say it clearly, and directly.

And that is very, very hard to do.

Thanks to Audacia Ray, and Eliyanna Kaiser for helping put me (I hope) on the path to clarity ov voice, and Sex Work Awareness and the Sex Blogger Calendar for helping make it possible.