Peelers partake in cancer fundraiser
Two-year-old cancer sufferer to benefit from event
Sandra Thomas, Vancouver Courier
Exotic Dancers for Cancer will once again remove their clothes for a good cause.
Former stripper Trina Ricketts said in the past four years the strip-a-thon fundraiser has proved so successful in Vancouver, a second event is planned for Victoria this year.
“A lot of people didn’t believe it would last,” said Ricketts. “Everyone’s shocked.”
Last year the group raised $8,000, which was divided between Rethink Breast Cancer and a Kelowna mother, and former stripper, struggling to survive financially during cancer treatments. The dancers initially wanted to donate partial proceeds from the 2007 event to the Breast Cancer Society of Canada, but were turned down because the donation was deemed too controversial. After the story broke in the Courier, the dancers came to the attention of both the national and international media.
The dancers then decided on Rethink Breast Cancer, which will once again receive partial proceeds. The second recipient of this year’s fundraising efforts is the family of a two-year-old boy from Victoria. Ricketts said the boy has completed treatments for a germ cell tumour, but now suffers from hearing loss and speech problems. The boy’s family was devastated financially while he underwent treatment for the tumour.
Ricketts, who has been organizing the large event as a volunteer since its inception, said for the first time, a small portion of the funds raised will go towards a salary for an exotic dancer who’s taken over much of the event planning.
“It’s really, really stressful trying to plan an event of this size,” said Ricketts. “I have two jobs and can’t do it anymore and it’s a matter of paying someone or it’s not going to happen. It’s also about giving a dancer some gainful employment. I hope people don’t see it as a negative thing.”
Last year Ricketts conducted an informal poll on the website www.nakedtruth.ca, asking which strip club dancers enjoyed working at most. The Naked Truth website is an online stripper community. Ricketts wanted to use the information to help her choose the location for this year’s event. She said the hands-down winner was Mugs and Jugs in New Westminster, which closed a month after the poll was completed. She then turned to the dancers’ second choices–a tie between the Penthouse Nightclub in Vancouver and the Red Lion in Victoria. Last year the fundraiser took place at the Drake Showlounge, which is also closed.
Ricketts hopes the annual fundraiser will remind people to go out and support local strippers by patronizing the clubs that are left, particularly those dancers love working at most.
“Safe working options for women disappear when strip clubs close down,” says Ricketts. “The misconception that strip clubs are vessels for organized crime where women are exploited is causing widespread harm for women who have chosen this profession over minimum wage jobs.”
She adds high property values are also leading to the sale of many former strip clubs.
“What people don’t seem to realize is that exotic dancers like their jobs,” says Ricketts. “We clock in and clock out, like anyone does. And we don’t think sex is evil.”
A live auction will be part of the fundraiser–if the dancers can find a volunteer willing to get onstage and direct it. Anyone willing to offer their time for a good cause can contact Ricketts at annie@nakedtruth.ca.
The Fifth Annual Exotic Dancers for Cancer takes place in Vancouver April 4 from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the Penthouse Nightclub on Seymour Street. Pre-sale tickets are available at Urban Body Lazer, 860-777 Hornby St. for $15 or $20 at the door. In Victoria the strip-a-thon takes place April 6 from noon till 1 a.m. at the Red Lion Inn on Douglas Street. Admission is by donation.
Fifth Annual Exotic Dancers for Cancer
Another Year – Another Stripathon Fundraiser
Best Strip Clubs in BC Venues for Exotic Dancers for Cancer Sister Events
VANCOUVER: The show must go on! After the Breast Cancer Society of Canada turned down funds from a stripathon fundraiser last year, the group known as Exotic Dancers for Cancer will likely never have trouble finding recipients for their fundraisers again.
Following a massive response of outrage from citizens across Canada, the group received numerous offers to accept their donation – many from cancer organizations that had turned them down in the past. They chose Rethink Breast Cancer last year and will give the proceeds to them again this year.
The Fifth Annual Exotic Dancers for Cancer will take place at two of BC’s top rated strip clubs to work at this year. In Vancouver, the fundraiser will be held Friday, April 4th from 8 p.m. till 2 a.m. at the Penthouse Nightclub. In Victoria, the event will be held Sunday, April 6th from noon till 1 a.m. at the Red Lion.
Both clubs were tied for second place as 2007’s best clubs to work at in BC by The Naked Truth dancers – an online stripper community that founded the fundraiser five years ago in honour of a former exotic dancer who was going through treatment for cancer at the time.
Originally the event was planned to be held at Mugs and Jugs, named #1 best club in BC to work at, but the club closed late in December to add to the growing list of strip club closures across the province.
Spokesperson, Trina Ricketts, hopes the annual fundraiser will remind people to go out and support their local strippers by patronizing the clubs that are left, particularly clubs that dancers love working at the most.
“Safe working options for women disappear when strip clubs close down,” says Ricketts. “The misconception that strip clubs are vessels for organized crime where women are inherently exploited is causing widespread harm for women who have chosen this profession over minimum wage jobs.”
Ricketts is working with government officials to change certain regulations that are also harming the industry in an attempt to increase the profitability of running strip clubs in BC and discourage initiatives that lead to more club closures.
“What people don’t seem to realize is that exotic dancers like their jobs,” says Ricketts. “We clock in and clock out, like anyone does. And we don’t think sex is evil.”
For more information about Exotic Dancers for Cancer, go to www.nakedtruth.ca and click on “events.”
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contact: annie@nakedtruth.ca
The Impacts of Prohibition
In the Vancouver area from the 1920’s all the way up until the early 1970’s the sex industry enjoyed peaceful and profitable times. The industry for the most part existed in what were called “Supper Clubs” where a gentleman could be entertained with a nice dinner, an escort to keep him company, and a Las Vegas style exotic dance performance. Dancers, escorts, cigarette girls, waitresses, and bartenders all worked together under the same roof. This was a community where everyone worked within their own personal boundaries and (at risk of romanticising the past) in relative safety, within a supporting work environment.
In 1975, after a 5-month long police investigation involving 12 undercover officers collecting evidence by way of electronic eavesdropping[1], the Penthouse Show Lounge was shut down and the owners, the Filippone brothers; charged with living off of the avails of prostitution for allowing the escorts to come to the club to meet customers. As a result, NO supper club owners in Vancouver were willing to work with escorts anymore. Immediately, the visible street level trade in Vancouver emerged and the first recorded murder of a sex worker in Vancouver took place as a possibly unintended consequence of a good intention. However, regulation activities undertaken without a clear understanding of sex industry structure, interdependence and consultation has negative effects on the lives of those most affected: sex industry workers.
In 1985 the federal criminal code law revisions governing sex work had equally disastrous effects as the mortality rates of Vancouver sex workers increased by a staggering 500%. Further, in 1990/91 the City of Vancouver threatened Downtown Eastside Hotel owners with criminal charges and the loss of their business licenses if they continued to allow sex workers to use hotels rooms on an hourly basis. The hourly room rentals provided sex workers with off street location where they could at least wash after entertaining a client. The City of Vancouver applied pressure to the hotel owners and, as a result, owners were no longer willing to facilitate the safety of sex workers and workers were ‘discharged’ to the back alleys of the city.
This left nowhere for sex workers to meet their clients except for the dark, isolated industrial areas by the Port of Vancouver. The number of sex workers that went missing dramatically increased in that year and three serial murderers/ rapists were arrested for killing and torturing Vancouver sex workers. Once again an attempt at social regulation caused significant harm to Vancouver sex workers and the loss of this relatively safe work environment.
Recently the targeting of Health Enhancement Centers and increased enforcement against Exotic Show Lounges has once again jeopardized the safety of Sex Industry Workers. The need for a community based process through which the sex industry can govern itself and where workers can have collective input into their future and their economic, social and political stability is all the more urgent.
We call to action all sex industry professionals, coworkers, allies and sympathizers. We have an opportunity now during this current charter challenge to ensure that adult voluntary sex industry workers fall within the protective potential of Canadian legislation, law enforcement and the community. Perhaps we can work toward the end to the slaughter of sex industry workers in Canada and the end to harmful policies and prohibitions.
[1] Brock, D. (2003). Making Normal: social regulation in Canada. Edited by D. Brock, Nelson Learning Canada INC.
This excerpt was taken from the Forward of the Leading the Way report.
Giving sex workers control
Susan Davis has a dream.
The Vancouver woman’s vision? To build a safe and legal environment for sex workers to entertain their clients. Free from police harassment and free from violence.
“No one in Vancouver was unaffected by the trial of Robert Pickton,” Davis says of the convicted murderer who targeted isolated sex workers with grisly killings. “The dildo gun, the garrotting of the arms and legs — and the fact that nobody cared,” recounts Davis, an activist and a sex worker herself, with over 20 years experience. “And the only solution to this problem can come from people who have lived it.”
Davis, along with other female, male and trans sex workers in the BC Coalition of Experiential Communities (BCCEC), spent six months drafting a mission and governance procedures for a cooperatively run sex-work facility. Just last month, the project, dubbed the West Coast Co-operative of Sex Industry Professionals, was officially incorporated by the BC government. They hope to have the facility up and running in time for the 2010 Olympics.
In a cruel Catch-22, sex for pay is not illegal, but almost anything you would need to do to get work — such as talking to potential clients or taking them somewhere to have sex — can be subject to penalty under the Criminal Code. The BC cooperative is planning to lobby the government so their planned workspace is exempt from “bawdy house” charges.
“Enforcement policies have led to the systematic elimination of safe work spaces for sex workers,” Davis told xtra.ca. “There are few places where indoor work can take place, and the competition to get into them is huge. People are forced into dangerous environments.” By contrast, a cooperative venue run by sex workers themselves means greater control.
“It’s a form of expense sharing,” she explains. Sex workers can tell clients to meet them at the safe-work site. The facility will have different options, “quickie rooms, middle-of-the-road rooms, and VIP lounges,” according to Davis. Sex workers will only pay for the time they are there, and the fees will go toward upkeep of the site, including safe-sex supplies and shower facilities. The public will see a reduction in public sex, less traffic by sex-work clients, and the elimination of sex-related litter on the streets.
Meanwhile, sex workers will have an avenue out of danger and isolation. And a way to access support in a trusted environment. Davis says her group has already established a positive relationship with the street-nursing community. “We’ve talked about having a nightly clinic onsite where sex workers feel safe and they know their confidentiality will be respected.” The co-op site could serve as a community centre for sex workers, including those who want support to exit the industry, she says.
The fact the site will be managed by sex workers themselves is key, Davis says. “We are going to own this, take things over so we are not at the mercy of support agencies. So many paycheques and mortgages are dependent on the downtrodden of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. No one should profit off other people’s misery like that.”
Davis says the West Coast Co-operative has received a lot of encouragement to date — though not from the Tory government and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. She is undeterred. “This is going to happen whether they like it or not.”
“I’m going to shame them into submission,” Davis vows. “The time for profiting from our deaths — and for keeping us sick and dying and in need of social-service support — it’s over.”
For more information on the West Coast Co-operative of Sex Industry Professionals and the BC Coalition of Experiential Communities, see bccec.wordpress.com.
