To The People Who Want To Stop The Sex Trade #facesofprostitution

Dear People who want to stop the sex trade,

 I am writing to you today with mixed emotions. I am writing this from my own opinions and feelings, i dont speak for anyone but myself.

 Some of you have had traumatic experience in the sex industry, some of you know someone that had a bad experience, some of you are supporters of these experiences and some of you have your very own personal agenda that i cant work out yet.

 I dont understand the way you guys interact with sex workers. Why do you treat us like the enemy? Its makes no sense.

 I have heard a lot of you say the last week or so, about how many victims are not speaking on twitter, their voices arent being heard. Ive heard you talk about how so many women are suffering from PTSD from their experience in the sex trade. Ive seen you post many photos of women from my industry that have been killed from the last 50yrs. Ive been told by you that my work safety and health and life is not worth the same as a victim of trafficking. Ive had to listen to you tell me that you will never support me, never believe me and that my 14 yrs of first hand experience is not valid... not one little bit.

 I understand you have a mission. I get it.. i really do.. but at what cost? At what sacrifice?

 Im only one person. I guess that makes me a minority. In this situation, the way you have treated me, the way you have interacted with my peers, the way you have taken our positive hashtag and turned it into a horrible exploitation of sex workers that have passed away, this has had a impact on me that i dont understand and i dont know what to call.

 From such a high when the hashtag first came out.. that was really liberating and it was amazing to have so many peers bond in a way.. and then to such a low when you started to attack on a whole new level.

 I havent been involved in fighting for sex worker rights for very long. For many years i had no idea the activism world of sex work existed. But when i found it, it opened my eyes.

And, to have people like yourselves attack us in a way like this, id never seen this before and i didnt know how to react to it. I have no experience in dealing with people that seem to hate me. People dont hate me.. I think im a pretty chilled likeable person (even if it is only in small doses).

 I didnt know how to digest it internally either.

 At first i was annoyed.. then i was angry.. then i was FUCKING angry... and then it started to change into this new feeling... Its like someone knocked the wind outta me. I cant human. My phone rings, i dont want to answer. My dog wants to go outside, i cant get off the couch. I know i need to eat, but i just cant eat. I try to watch tv, i cant concentrate. I swear off social media, then bam! Im back on there checking twitter, seeing another horrible tweet and then i sit there in shock for a moment, not knowing what to do... I feel shit.

 This has affected me badly. I know i should walk away.. but i guess when you feel passionate about something, you can kinda get obsessed.. and i feel like the right message needs to be out there.. so i keep coming back for round #545

 You want to protect people from harm... you want to save people from abuse.... but what about the people, like me, that you harm along the way?

 Is it ok to give a person anxiety or whatever it is im having, just to fight the cause?
 Is fucking me up mentally an ok sacrifice to save other people?

 I read a web page and it spoke of a person who was abused for 10hrs after they posted pics of women that have been killed. I have felt that kind of abuse for nearly 2 weeks. Not 10 hours. Nearly 2 weeks. All due to the negativity you have thrown at us. People were crying on this web page. I havent cried. But ive been close. I dont feel like i have the strength to cry. This whole situation has drained the life out of me.

 Is treating sex workers so poorly really helping your cause? Really?

 Why is it ok to create a new victim in me, to save another victim that you havent even met yet?

 I think you need to rethink your game plan. Sex workers do not have to be the enemy, nor should we be treated like we dont count in the discussion of keeping women safe.

 I want many of the things you do! I want to stop exploitation. I dont want anyone in the industry to be forced! I dont want people to be abused!

 But the thing that is different to us.. is i believe there is a way to both stop the abuse AND keep sex workers that choose to be there safe and with rights.

 And the other difference between us is, i dont want to hurt anyone or make any one feel like they arent worth shit in the process.

 You know what, even if we disagreed on everything!! - we still should be having a respect debate. I dont understand how so much hate and distaste came into the equation...

 Posting the pics of lost women was horrible. Did you even think what could do to one of us? Did you not think that maybe one of those women had been a friend of one of us? That seeing that pic might trigger something terrible? Did you ever stop to think that maybe the person in the photo would never have agreed to be in a campaign like that, being used to fight her peers? Did you stop to think how their families might feel, seeing their daughter used as pawn in a twitter campaign??? The sex workers who posted their pics, did so with CHOICE. You took away those womens choice and used them! You exploited them. How could you do that when thats the exact thing to you trying to stop?????????

 You dont need to resort to this harmful way of fighting. There are better ways. Stop this continued attack on sex workers!

 Please!

 You dont ever seem to want to talk to us. Unless we tell the story that helps your cause, you treat us like we are beneath you.

Im a person just like you, just trying to do what i think is the right thing.

 This letter wont make any difference. I know that. I will probably (again) be ridiculed and used as evidence to back some random argument that you need to make, if its read by anyone at all......

 But there has to be a better way... I cant keep doing this.... I cant keep feeling like this.....

 And if you have any decency in you, you wouldnt be wanting to make people feel like this.

 But im just the minority right, who cares?

 Holly xx
 (supporter of full decrim)

#FacesOfProstitution .. was great but now Im fucked

I havent posted a blog in AGES.
i guess life got a bit busy... youtube has become more the place i vent and rant and talk shit.
But today i wanted to blog.
It might not make sense.. i may go around in circles. THis writing is more for me just to get stuff out.. its a way of processing shit i guess...

So in the sex industry world here in Australia lots of things have been happening. If you don know what Im talking about, go check out the #FacesOfProstitution hashtag on twitter... its a great campaign that started with the right positive intention by Aussie sex workers.... and now it has been hijacked and twisted and used against us.

Sex workers dont often come out and speak up. Why? Because the moment we do, we put ourselves in danger of being shunned from family and friends, we get attacked by the people who want to end our industry... and this attacking is what i want to talk about today.

I think im a pretty staunch person. Ive lived rough and many wouldnt believe it but im street smart. I left home young, ive done a lot of drugs, hung out with a lot of criminals, heck at one point, if you didnt have a warrant our for your arrest, i would not date you LOL.

I can handle my shit.

These days, i come across like a meek sort of person. A push over. Some have called me wishy washy. I like to think that im a bit more relaxed in life, things dont get on my nerves and make me lose my shit as much as they used to.

I like who i am today.

I would not be friends with the old me.. god, that is the kind of girl i stay faaaaaaar away from now that im old lol. But i dont regret my old self, it is a part of who i am.

And sometimes, when im feeling cornered or a bit vulnerable, i revert back to that old self. I come out in true bogan housing commission trailer park trash style. I have a foul mouth, I fuck shit up and while im in that mode, i dont see anything but my target. Later on i look back and think "Fuck, you could of handled that better" but the truth is, i dont know any other way to handle things when its gets beyond a certain point.

 Enough about me, back to my fucking point.

So This campaign has been hijacked. This campaign has been going on for i think 2 weeks. EVERY DAY at least 20 times a day, i check the hashtag to see what new awesome sex worker has posted! Every day. I have tweeted everyday using the hashtag too.  The anti's, they have been there from day one also.. small in numbers at first, not enough to warrant caring about...

Until the last few days they have been in overdrive.

Their ammunition now? To post pics of deceased sex workers. Over and over and over. It seems like HUNDREDS. Their photos, theirs names and "killed by johns".

Im not the kind of person that gets "triggers" off stuff. I dont think ive experienced anything that sets me off emotionally... but for some reason, this triggered something inside me. I felt ill. I felt disgusted.

These people are using our passed peers in attempt to fuck us up and prove a point. What point? I dont know.

A lot of the pictures of these women are from long ago. I cant speak for them, but let me tell you, if i ever died at work, i do NOT consent for my pic to be used by antis to end my industry. I DO consent to sex workers using my pics in an attempt to gain full decriminialisation for the industry on a global level.

So after i saw the pics of passed peers, i got angry. I went full houso style and cut loose. How fucking dare they use those photos for their horrible agenda. I tweeted to the people posting the pics, told them how disgusting they are for using those images. That those women were more than just sex workers and their lives should not be used as a tool in their agenda! Maybe in not as nice wording tho lol. Add a few "fucks" in there.

Do they not realise that those people were mostly killed due to the stigma? That they were working under bullshit laws that did not keep them safe?

 "killed by stigma? STigma doesnt kill, Johns kill"  - is what the anti's say

No... no you are wrong. Stigma does kill. It is stigma that allows a mass murderer to target sex workers because they KNOW the cops will not take sex workers seriously when they are in a country where our work is illegal. The Green River Killer himself said that he knew police and people would not notice if sex workers went missing. We became a target because society allows people to believe that we are not worthy. Our lives dont matter. To kill a whore is not as bad as killing a nurse right? The whore shouldnt have been on the street if she didnt want to be attacked right?

FUCK OFF.

So anyways, i let loose. I said fuck cunt fuck fuck, lots of french... i told anti's to fuck off. I just lost my shit.

Thats not how i wanted to tackle this issue.. but when i saw those pics... i thought that was my invitation to play dirty.

It was only a brief moment of bogan insanity on my part. A good friend pulled me up and said, think of the cause, you dont want to be that crazy hooker... and i stopped. Im so glad she spoke up to me about it, because even that brief moment of houso hell, i look back and regret.

So ... i thought ok.. how do we combat this... we cant stop them using our hashtag and turning our positive campaign into a negative one... what can we do?

The next time i logged into twitter and checked out the hastag, there they were, pic after pic after pic of my passed away peers.

I went on a posting spree. I got links to all my youtube videos and put them in the hastag. I figured, if i could just push the anti posts so far down the page, they would not be seen by people! Yeah! That should work! So i posted my videos.,.. then i searched thru youtube and found inspiring videos by sex workers all ove rthe globe and i started posting them!

I flooded the hashtag with positive sex worker stuff.

I sat back... looked at the hashtag page.. awesome, no sign of dead people.. no sign of their hate....

Later i checked the hashtag again.. oh god.. they were back.. time for round two of flooding their shit off my screen.

It was like a silent victory in my head.. nothing of theirs was deleted, but it was no longer in my face making me feel sick to my stomach.

Ive never met these people, but seeing them there and there faces used as a weapon.. it really affected me in a way ive never felt before. Like in a negative way.... i cant explain it.

Then some of my peers were making comment "They only care about us when we are dead"... this is actually true.

Ive stood up and tried to engage with these people. Ive tried to show them that there are ways to both save the trafficking victims that they want to save AND to keep sex workers safe and with rights. There is a way. But they dont care about sex workers. they only care about "victims" and while i understand they have this need to help people, i dont understand why they cant help us all.... do i need to be a victim before i am considered worthy of helping?

OK.. so then.... this feminist blog makes a post.... telling the world how hookers made them cry.. cos we are cunts like that apparently... they used our pics and our words and made it all about them and how they feel.. they twisted shit, they once again used bullshit arguments .... you can read the crap here- https://realforwomen.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/whats-new-in-individual-empowerment-how-to-make-women-and-men-cry/

This made me kinda upset.. no actually it made me a lot upset... but i dont wana get into that.

They keep bangin on about a "Pimp lobby"" wtf is this?????? I am a private worker.. there aint no pimps here.. and i certainly dont support the idea of pimps, but the moment you are Pro-sex work, you are in the Pimp lobby.. for fucks sake! Where do they get these ideas????

I just seriously cannot fathom why they treat us so poorly. Why they do not listen. Why they cannot see that there are ways to help ALL people in the trade, whether we are in by choice or forced.

And the thing that scares me the most is, because a lot of us cannot come out and speak up, its the ANTI's voices that can be seen and heard over ours..... how the fuck are we going to make change if we keep being silenced by people who dont even know the first thing about the industry!!!!!!!!!!

They are so quick to shut down the thought of full decrim.....

OMG thats another thing! they keep using the term FULL DECRIM when talking about the swedish model. FALSE

FULL DECRIM is when ALL people in the sex industry, workers and clients are not criminals.

The Swedish model decrims the workers but makes our clients CRIMINALS. THIS IS NOT FULL DECRIM. Stop using the term!!!

Also, these anti's get confused with "legalisation"  and decrim... its two different things douche bags..
I really think they should educate themselves on the language before they go off all half cocked on social media. YOU ARE NOT EXPERTS.

A mate was talking to me the other day about local council stuff right, and he was saying that if i had to take shit to court, because ive worked in the industry a long time, i would be considered an "EXPERT IN MY FIELD" in that court of law! Dis you hear that? The courts would consider me an expert? Now im not 100% sure of this fact but my mate was pretty adamant that this was true.... so if a court can recognize our expertise, why the FUCK do antis feel they have ANY RIGHT to question us??????

OK i need to get a coffee.. my head hurts.. these anti's have really shown me that they dont give a fuck about really helping people.. they only want to help those that make them look better at church or at the school.. cos you know, bragging about how you "saved a girl who was abused all her life"  sounds a lot better than "i helped these sex workers get better working conditions"  doesnt it........ pffffft

Big Brother AU/UK are a-ok, US is meh

So i admit quite freely that I am a Big brother Lover.
No shame here, I've loved it from day one, the moment i saw the first season in Australia. I love the social experiment aspect of the show. I love seeing how people mingle, how relationships form. I'm not watching a "competition" in my head, I'm watching a real life soap opera and its tacky at times and its lame at times, but I LOVE IT!

I was introduced to the UK and US version of Big Brother by a mate and

Oh... Canada...... :(

Less than a year ago, Canadian sex workers had a win! Canada's top court overturned all restrictions on prostitution, declaring that existing laws violated sex workers' right to safety. The Supreme Court of Canada struck down bans on brothels, street solicitation and living on the earnings of prostitution in a unanimous 9-0 decision, and gave the Canadian government one year to re-write the country's prostitution laws.

Amnesty, you are pretty awesome in my books xx

Recently Amnesty came out and said they support decriminalisation of the sex industry as a positive model for countries to take on. For sex workers this is a huge thing! Its great! Its AMAZING! It doesnt actually mean that every country will take on decrim straight away but HOPEFULLY in time maybe one day they will do it! We can only hope! 

So then on twitter some tweets came under the hashtag #QuestionsForAmnesty from sex workers and allies saying great things and then of course the anti sex industry people with their radical ways of thinking. 

Letter To The Editor

Is it just me or is it time to take “Sex” off the front page of the paper?
Friday 6th dec edition, on the front page we have a lovely story on letters to Santa .. And then right underneath “SEX ZONE MOVE UNDER REVIEW” in the biggest font possible.

 My 2 main issues with this are:

 1. Yes I am a sex worker and yes I wrote in a submission to Council regarding zoning. The industry and these issues obviously quite close to my heart, BUT is this front page news? The sex industry in NSW is just another LEGAL industry. Would a butcher shop wanting to move to a different zone make the front page? Nope. But the moment an issue comes up with the adult industry BAM!

Why Do Some Men.......... (can apply to women also)

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