Can Sex workers have “genuine” relationships? by Jessie Abraham 2009
Recently a friend of mine needed to prove to immigration that her
relationship was genuine- now that happens all the time – but imagine
if you were also honest about your employment and your employment was
genuine, your relationship was genuine and you have to now “prove” that
being a sex worker and having a loving and meaningful relationship can
exist- no he/she is NOT a client or was a client and even if you met
them as a client- its no one else’s business really.
Immigration seem to be worried and wanting to know that you’re not
marrying your husband/ wife from another country for money, travel, or
any other beneficial reason other then love- yes pure love.
Men can love whores. Women can love whore. Trans can love whores. Men
can be totally head over heels in love with a whore- I’ve seen it with
my own eyes! Yes! Even if she/he has sex with other men/women for
money.
Allot of men love whores because they can be the most compassionate
people on this earth- they also can be empowered, independent, not
clingy or needy, don’t ask you for money since they have their own, are
open and experimental in bed so you don’t get bored, some are funny,
considerate, have amazing life experiences and stories to tell, have
travelled the world or the country and have great negotiation skills,
life skills, survival skills, communication skills, some are great at
time management and boundaries- sex workers became fantastic with
switching hats or rather wigs in this case. – did I mention that most
sex workers are really comfy with being naked?? yup a partner that has
body confidence-SCORE!
Most Sex workers are intutive, perceptive, protective, supportive,
encouraging, helpful, caring, home loving, ( or hotel hating!) devoted
and dependable, imaginatie, sensitive, self reliant, Compassionate and
nicer than EVERYONE ELSE…. lol ok … thats actually what a magnet
says tht cancerians are.. and I’m a cancerian and I believe all of
that… but it’s also how I think of many of the sex workers I know. (
I know know ALLOT!)
Sex work is simply acting and you need to know what to say to when and
you need to lie outta your teeth sometimes in the bedroom “Yes!!! that
feels WHORE-SUM- I’m going to have a WHORE-GASM” – actually no I can’t
feel your tiny thin pecker at all, but it’s better than a huge 10 inch
cock knocking my cervix into my ribs- it’s not actually about me- it’s
about you and the $300 sitting in the corner that you paid me that will
pay my rent/ my childrens school fees or that pretty dress I saw on the
way here”
Just because we are sex worker doesn’t been we don’t know how to give
and receive love. I used to think that I’m “too complex, too HARD to
love” I didn’t even want anyone else to “ feel burdened about my lust,
my craziness, my lifestyle, and what to actually do if you have fallen
in love with a sex worker” or “it’s just too complicated” with these
thoughts brought on toxic relationships one after another- I didn’t
feel deserving of love- that wan’t because I was a whore- it’s because
I was hanging around with losers! I didn’t really give myself a good
chance to experience what real love was all about. But TRUST and
HONESTLY is incredibly important in any relationship, let alone a
relationship that involves a sex worker.
What is love? Well since its 2009 I googled the question what is love and wikipedia.org showed me this answer:
As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, ineffable
feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited
conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different
feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to
the nonsexual emotional closeness of familial and platonic love to the
profound oneness or devotion of religious love Love in its various
forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and,
owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most
common themes in the creative arts.
In other words: do they make your tummy dance when you receive a text message from them?
Do you spend time day dreaming about the future with them?
Do they make you smile and make you feel good about yourself?
Do they take the time to spend time with you and communicate their wants, needs and feelings when they do spend time with you?
What does it mean when your boyfriend/ girlfriends/ transfriend is
actually ok with your work- some people would say “How can you “let
her/him” do it?” Because clearly your partner loves you FOR YOU and
understands it’s simply a job like any other job.
Sex workers are the most compassionate and empathetic humans on earth!
Why do you think that so many nurses are sex workers and the high
number of sex workers that also are qualified to work with people with
disabilities/ elderly ? Like myself, I’ve been told time and time again
when I was paraplegic care worker, “I was special, only a special
person could do that job- you know dealing all those bodily functions
and needing ALLOT of patience”
So why the hell has not ONE person said that to me about being a sex worker? Not anyone can be a sex worker you know!
Sex workers make wonderful partners, if you don’t like the norm, like
to be kept on your toes, if you like giving and receiving massages,
have open minded sex, maybe since they are very good at boundaries you
may be lucky to do the things that “other” partners won’t do- but one
thing I can guarantee – ummm well since sex workers are all different
types of people I can’t think of something I can guarantee- other than
you will have the time of your life and even simply knowing a sex
worker and understand their work and life choices WILL make you a
better person 
So the verdict is…. Yes Immigration crew- past and present Sex
workers can give and receive love and also be fab souls xx Also they
can be amazing long term partners, mothers and fathers and aunty and
uncles…
Jessie Abraham 2009
–
Jessica Yee
Director, Native Youth Sexual Health Network
Chair, First Nations, Inuit, Métis Committee, Canadians for Choice
jessica.j.yee@gmail.com
jyee@nativeyouthsexualhealth.com
www.nativeyouthsexualhealth.com
The Creative Journey – Artist Pamela Masik Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Vancouver artist Pamela Masik in Gastown yesterday, at the unveiling of Mona — the first of 69 paintings she created depicting missing Downtown Eastside women. Mona will be on display at the new Terminus building on Water Street.
Art honours slain women
Mona Wilson’s face can be seen in the Downtown Eastside again for the first time since she went missing in 2001.
A giant painting of the woman — who was murdered by Robert Pickton — was unveiled in Gastown yesterday by Vancouver artist Pamela Masik.
Mona is the first of 69 massive paintings of missing inner city women to be unveiled by the local artist, who called the project “overwhelming.”
“Some of the things I did early in the work were to re-enact the death of some of the women who were linked to the Pickton case,” Masik said, explaining that in some cases she slashed the canvas. “It was almost as if I was birthing them and then recreating their death and then healing them, stitching them up.”
Bruce Curtiss, manager of Vancouver ministries for Union Gospel Mission, said the project will have a “profound, immediate and life-long effect on” women in the community. “As these paintings are revealed it’s saying (we’re) allowed to remember. We’re allowed to feel and shed tears.”
Masik has launched a program called The Creative Journey, which will be run out of the Union Gospel Mission, to allow women to express themselves through art.
Linda Westley, who has been a patron and volunteer at the Mission since 2003, said that by breathing life back into the 69 missing women, Masik has reaffirmed that they were important, and that they lived.
Run time
• The Creative Journey will run once a week for eight weeks starting next month.
Yes, but are hookers REAL Women??…Saturday, June 20, 2009
There are two constitutional challenges to the criminalprostitution laws currently working their way through the courts in Canada. One
is in British Columbia; the other is in Ontario.
The B.C. challenge began
in 2007 and was initiated jointly by Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United
Against Violence (DESWUAV), a non-profit society composed of street-based sex
workers, and by Sheryl Kiselbach, a former sex worker with 30 years of
experience in the sex industry.
In December 2008, however, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the
plaintiffs did not have the legal right to initiate such a challenge because it
must be brought by an individual, active sex worker. Justice Ehrcke rejected the
plaintiffs’ argument that the highly public nature of the court process
effectively prohibits active sex workers from launching a challenge due to fears
of arrest and retaliation, as well as social censure and discrimination.
While Justice Ehrcke’s decision was a blow, it’s really just one
step in what could potentially be a long road toward having such a challenge
heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. On January 12 2009, the next step was
initiated when DESWUAV and Kiselback filed an appeal. It’s set to be heard on
November 23 and 24, 2009. The basis on which the B.C. case is challenging the
prostitution laws is actually pretty interesting; you can read more about it here.
The Ontario
challenge also began in 2007 but differs in that one of the three plaintiffs is
a current sex worker. Amy Lebovitch is
an active worker. She is joined by Terri Jean Bedford, a former dominatrix and
street-based worker, and Valerie Scott, also a former worker and current
executive director of Sex Professionals of
Canada.
While the B.C. case has already been rejected and is now going to appeal, the
Ontario case will not be heard until this fall. Lebovitch, Bedford and Scott’s
lawyer will argue that the laws that prevent communicating for the purposes of
prostitution, living off the avails of prostitution and keeping a common bawdy
house are incompatible with the fact that prostitution is legal in Canada. The
challenge contends that the prostitution laws violate Section 7 of the Charter
of Rights guarantee to life, liberty and security of the person, by exposing sex
workers to danger.
An interesting development in the lead up to the Ontario case transpired
yesterday when REAL Women of Canada, a conservative women’s group, and two
religious groups – the Catholic Civil Rights League and Christian Legal
Fellowship – made an appeal to a Toronto judge to be allowed to participate in
the hearing. The three groups argue that if Canada’s prostitution laws are to be
decided by the courts, the courts should account for moral as well as legal
arguments.
“It is okay – to be blunt – for a person to sell their body, but when that
action begins to impede on others, fundamental moral values are impacted,”
Ranjan Agarwal, the lawyer for the three groups, told Mr. Justice Ted Matlow of
the Ontario Superior Court.
So who are these three groups that want a say in Canadian criminal law
anyway?
* * * * * * *
REAL Women of Canada
is the same organization that expressed outrage that the proposed Canadian Human
Rights Museum might include exhibits focusing on gay rights or feminism. They
instead advocated for exhibits showcasing the “selfless dedication” of “those
defending the family and traditional marriage.”
REAL Women also
believe:
As a prostitute sells sex as a service to a customer, the dignity
of women and men is demeaned, allowing the customer to buy the right to treat
another person as an object. It has nothing to do with love or personal
relationship, and removes the dignity and bonding of the sexual act from its
context of a loving relationship.
You can read their full position
statement on prostitution here.
The Catholic Civil Rights
League describes itself as Canada’s only lay organization devoted
exclusively “to bringing Church teaching to bear on issues of public
debate”.
League President
Phil Horgan argues:
Homosexual practices, adultery, prostitution, and pronography are
all sinful acts in the teachings of the Church. It has always been recognized
that with all serious sins, the state has a responsibility in exercising its
authority to promote the common good whether through the Criminal Code, tax
policy, education standards or the other broad areas of its
jurisdiction.
Christian
Legal Fellowship is “a national association of Christian legal
professionals, law students and interested friends who recognize the
responsibility of integrating Christian faith and law.”
There are many instructive
articles available on their site. Titles include: How
Much Diversity Can Canadian Courts Tolerate?, Same Sex Marriage: What Churches and Religious
Organizations Can Do in Response, Influencing Your Canada for Christ…As A Barrister,
and The Practice of Holiness and the Practice of
Law: Are they mutually exclusive?
Here’s a quote from one
of their articles entitled, Immorally Relative Codes of Conduct & The Value of
Christian Virtue in the Practice of Law:
Will constitutional democracy collapse tomorrow, or even in our
lifetime? Perhaps not. Structural institutions of free government may stand
for a time. The very essence, for which they stand, however, sometimes ceases
to exist. Thus, more is at stake here for lawyers than just our temporal
professional reputation. We bear the serious duty and responsibility of
preserving constitutional governance under the rule of law. When it comes to
matters of trust, history and the public will hold us accountable to God’s
naturally existing higher moral standard, for it is that internal standard
against which they measure their own conduct. Thus, to retain the trust of the
people and preserve constitutional democracy under the rule of law, we must
first return to being a profession with Christian principles where each one of
us personally measures our conduct against God’s divinely given higher moral
standard. God’s divine roadmap provides directions down a narrow road of
righteousness that inevitably leads to institutional integrity. Not a bad
destination if we are interested in preserving a constitutional democracy
under the rule of law.If anything could be more important than
preserving constitutional democracy for our children, it is our great
commission to proclaim his Word to the world. If others do not see Jesus in
us, and in our behavior, we will never reach them. We should be encouraged
that everyday many Christian lawyers around the world follow a Biblical
roadmap in the way they practice law and live their lives. In their walk, we
see the Lord use them to accomplish great things for His Kingdom, serving as
shining examples to others passing by along the way.
I just want to point out that I’ve included none of my personal opinions
about these groups here. I’ve simply presented their own words from their own
websites. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether you want these three groups
influencing the laws under which all Canadians must abide.
In response to these groups’ petition to be included in the upcoming
constitutional challenge, Alan Young, the lawyer for Lebovitch, Bedford and
Scott reminded the judge that the Supreme Court of Canada heard a Charter
challenge to the prostitution laws in 1990, which raised quite different legal
points. He said that, while the court upheld the provisions, it made it clear
that morality is not a factor in such challenges. He argued:
What these three groups want is a freestanding airing of their
grievance that drugs, homosexual bathhouses and prostitution are spoiling the
fabric of Canadian society. What you really have are three groups that have
very strong opinions about the immorality of prostitution. My mother shares
that opinion, but she would not be able to intervene in this case just because
she believes prostitution is immoral.
The lawyer for the three groups, however, argued that they would
stick closely to the details of the case if granted legal standing:
My clients have no interest in trying to derail the process. They
believe that our Criminal Code can and does reflect fundamentals of morality.
What my clients seek to do is simply stand up after five days of hearings and
make oral submissions.
And everyone needs more oral submission, right?
[with content from The Globe & Mail's Religious groups seek standing at prostitution
challenge]
Van workers hope Heed will save MAP
Mobile Access Project van started in 2004 to help street
prostitutes
Cheryl Rossi, Vancouver Courier
Published: Friday, June 19,
2009
A van that drives to the darkest, most isolated corners of the city in the
early morning hours and gives sex workers condoms, clean needles and
descriptions of violent johns has been pulled off the street because the
provincial government hasn’t renewed its funding.
B.C.’s new solicitor general, Kash Heed, a former Vancouver police officer,
could be the man to save it.
Kate Gibson, executive director of the WISH Drop-In Centre Society, received
an email from Premier Gordon Campbell’s office Wednesday noting her emails to
the premier had been forwarded to the solicitor general. She quickly penned the
new minister a letter.
View Larger Image
WISH executive director Kate Gibson says the van, the
funding for which was cut by the province, is the only constant in a street sex
worker’s life.
Photo Dan Toulgoet
survival sex workers don’t have in their lives, except for the constant threat
of violence and harm,” she wrote. “Even in their darkest moments women out in
the middle of the night alone, standing on the corner, know that the MAP van is
coming.”
The Mobile Access Project van began in 2004 as a partnership between WISH,
the Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education (PACE) Society and the
Vancouver Agreement Women’s Strategy Task Team. It has run on irregular
injections of cash from the federal and provincial governments and, in 2007, a
one-time contribution from a private donor kept the van running until the
provincial government came through with more money.
WISH spends $20,000 a month staffing the van with a driver, support worker
and peer support worker, who is often a former street prostitute. Until last
weekend, it ran seven nights a week, 365 days a year, from 10:30 p.m. to 5:30
a.m.
MAP staff connected with survival sex workers 13,650 times in 2007/2008 on
its route to Boundary Road, Marine Drive, through the Broadway, Fraser and
Kingsway corridors, the industrial areas, Downtown Eastside and to Davie
Street.
Staff gave out 76,576 clean needles, collected 49,469 used ones, and handed
out 95,376 condoms. They offered first aid and referrals, gave out coats and
umbrellas when it was cold and passed on messages from women’s families.
MAP van staff also collect 95 per cent of the “bad date” reports about
violent johns circulated to women in the industry and the agencies that serve
them in Vancouver and Surrey.
“If we have licence plate numbers and things like that, that information all
goes directly to the police, and then they can investigate,” Gibson said.
Const. Lindsey Houghton, media relations officer for the Vancouver police,
says the department supports MAP because it saves lives.
He said bad date reports help officers investigate and gather intelligence,
and the department appreciates more eyes on the street.
“Having a resource like the MAP van out there certainly enhances public
safety,” he said.
The Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General told the Courier in an
email Thursday that the funding request is being reviewed along with those from
many other groups, and decisions will be made as soon as possible.
WISH has organized a protest along the MAP van route starting at 9:30 p.m.,
Tuesday, June 23. For more information, email wishdropincentre@telus.net.
The Courier was unable to reach Heed before press time.
crossi@vancourier.com
PACE Society 15 year Anniversary – Friday, June 26th 2009
This month, Prostitution, Alternatives, Counseling, and Education (PACE) Society celebrates its 15th year of support, education, and advocacy for sex industry workers.
These uncertain times can be disheartening, but your support and solidarity carry us all through. Please join us in celebrating our community’s resilience and courage with an open house. Delicious food and good company await.
Friday, June 26th at 3:00pm
at the PACE office at 49 West Cordova St.
Catered by Heart of the City Food Group
Learn more about PACE or donate to us at http://www.pace-society.ca/
Art graciously provided by Christopher Williams, http://www.chris-williamsart.com
