Friday, February 27, 2009

Check Yourself-How to Practice Being a Sex Worker Ally

Ok, I fucked up. I outed someone I know as a sex worker in a situation where they were not present and I have no idea whether they would feel comfortable with me sharing this information. It was in a context in which I knew the people present held sex work-positive perspectives, and yet, it was not my place to reveal personal details about this person's form of employment no matter how rad I think they are.

In a social/political context where sex workers are still the last ones to be asked their opinions on their own profession, and where the notion of "the public woman" still prevails to the point where the lives and bodies of sex workers are considered fair game by city planners, government officials and media outlets, alike, it's great to see this discourse being flipped on it's head over at Bound, Not Gagged.

A blog dedicated to providing a space for sex workers to express themselves, respond to the media and talk about their profession on their own terms, Bound, Not Gagged aims to bear witness to the diverse lived experiences of sex workers; something rarely discussed during every latest and greatest sex worker scandal.

Especially relevant to my recent transgression is this list on "How to Be an Ally to Sex Workers" compiled by Sex Workers Outreach Project- Chicago (SWOP).

"1) Don’t Assume. Don’t assume you know why a person is in the sex industry. We’re not all trafficked or victims of abuse. Some people make a choice to enter this industry because they enjoy it, others may be struggling for money and have less of a choice.

2) Be Discreet and respect personal boundaries. If you know a sex worker, it’s OK to engage in conversation in dialogue with them in private, but respect their privacy surrounding their work in public settings. Don’t ask personal questions such as “does your family know what you do?” If a sex worker is not “out” to their friends, family, or co-workers, it’s not your place to tell everyone what they do.

3) Don’t Judge. Know your own prejudices and realize that not everyone shares the same opinions as you. Whether you think sex work is a dangerous and exploitative profession or not is irrelevant compared to the actual experiences of the person who works in the industry. It’s not your place to pass judgment on how another person earns the money they need to survive.

4) Watch You Language. Cracking jokes or using derogatory terms such as “hooker”, “whore”, “slut”, or “ho” is not acceptable. While some sex workers have “taken back” these words and use them among themselves, they are usually used to demean sex workers when spoken by outsiders.

5) Address Your Bias Against Sex Workers. If you have a underlying fear that all sex workers are bad people and full of diseases, then perhaps these are issues within yourself that you need to address. In fact, the majority of sex workers practice safer sex than their peers and get tested regularly.

6) Don’t Play Rescuer. Not all sex workers are trying to get out of the industry or in need of help. Ask them what they need, but not everyone is looking for “Captain Save-A-Ho” or the “Pretty Woman” ending.

7) If you are a client or patron of sex workers, be respectful of boundaries. You’re buying a service, not a person. Don’t ask for real names, call at all hours of the day/night, or think that your favorite sex worker is going to enter into a relationship with you off the clock.

8) Do Your Own Research. Most mainstream media is biased against sex workers and the statistics you read in the news about the sex industry are usually inaccurate. Be critical of what you read or hear and educate yourself on who exactly is transmitting diseases or being trafficked.

9) Respect that Sex Work is Real Work. There’s a set of professional skills involved and it’s not necessarily an industry that everyone can enter into. Don’t tell someone to get a “real job” when they already have one that suits them just fine.

10) Just because someone is a sex worker doesn’t mean they will have sex with you. No matter what are of the sex industry that someone works in, don’t assume that they are horny and willing to have sex with anyone at any time.

11) Be Supportive and Share Resources. If you know of someone who is new to the industry or in an abusive situation with an employer, by all means offer advice and support without being condescending. Some people do enter into the sex industry without educating themselves about what they are getting into and may need help. Despite the situation, calling the police is usually never a good option. Try to find other organizations that are sensitive to the needs of sex workers by contacting the organizations listed below.

12) As you learn the above things, stand up for sex workers when conversations happen. Share your personal stories if you so choose. Don’t let the stigma, bigotry and shame around sex work continue. Remember it’s important that sex workers be allowed to speak for themselves and for allies to not speak for sex workers but to speak with sex workers.

Realize that sex work transcends ‘visible’ notions of race, gender, class, sexuality, education, and identities; sex workers are your sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, lovers, and friends. Respect them!"

Local resources for Sex Workers:

Montreal- Chez Stella

Toronto- Maggies

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

We're nominated! Expozine Alternative Press Awards!














We've been shortlisted for Best English Zine at the Expozine Alternative Press Awards!

Nominated:
Lickety Split no. 7! (The Beyond human Issue)

Awards are this coming Tuesday, March 3 at Casa del Popolo, 4873 St-Laurent in Montreal. 7pm! Admission is free and beer and liquor specials will be in effect all night. Cum on out to the event, cross your fingers and help us storm the place like the Slumdog Millionaire crew at the Oscars...facebookish event below:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=65442183687&ref=nf

Our buds also nominated in the same category are:
Four Minutes To Midnight no. 10, www.lokidesign.net/2356
Nailbiter: An anxiety Zine, www.steemilie.free23.net

Expozine site is here.

Fuck yeah!

Job opening at Head & Hands!

À deux mains/ Head and Hands, a community organization based in NDG, is looking for a Street Worker with a strong background in harm reduction and previous work with youth. Requirements: bilingualism, active listening, knowledge of empowerment approach and community sector; must be adaptive in various social settings, able to work under pressure and with a flexible schedule. Must be available Tues afternoons and at least 2 evenings per week. Crisis intervention, work with user communities, street work experience, and familiarity with housing/social assistance programs are assets. Position is 34 hrs/week. Email CV to info@headandhands.ca or by fax to 514-481-2336 by Monday, March 16th, 10am (Attn: Street Worker Hiring Committee). Members of traditionally disadvantaged groups are encouraged to apply.

H&H are behind the Sense Project, Faggity Ass Friday and much more!

Chosen Family Photo Day! At the St. Emilie Skillshare!

Chosen Family Photo Day! At the St. Emilie Skillshare!

“dear friends,

we love chosen families and we want to show it.!!!
one-time offer: bring yer roommates, bring yer friends, bring yer lovers, bring yer cat. come get yer sears-on and pose with yer own chosen fam(s). we’ll supply the sweater vests, ties, collared shirts, jewels , reindeer sweater, you supply the smiles.

afterwards make small talk, drink rootbeer floats, eat buffet, and play cards with the extended fam.

ste emilie skillshare
Saturday, March 7th
3pm-8pm

you will be able to make an order for small and large format prints of yer portraits for a small donation.
4×6=1$
8×10=5$

remember: chosen family photo event=one day, the memories=forever

cant wait to see you,

love

ste emilie”

Radical Queer Semaine!

Radical Queer Semaine March, 6th-15th!!

Radical Queer Semaine 2009 is a week of events, workshops, performances, shows, music, video projections, artistic production, and direct action aimed at feminists, anti-capitalists, queers, anarchists, drags, lesbians, seropositive people, communists, transgendered people, artists, fags, dykes, gender-fuckers, sex workers, punks, flamers, (s)kids, bizarros and to all the folks that love them!”

Friday, February 20, 2009

Faggity Ass Friday is tonight! Glamour Puss(Y) edition!





















Faggity Ass Fridays: GLAMOUR PUSS(Y)

Head and Hands' Faggity dance party to support queer-positive sex ed!

Join us at The Playhouse on February 20th for a night of old Hollywood cabaret with a good dose of faggity ass style! Faggity Ass Fridays is proud to present "A Series of Unconventional Love Stories", a cabaret performance that will pull on your heart strings with tales of passion, cyborg love, first kisses and polyamourous sock puppets. Hosted by the very glamourous Miss Velveeta Spandexxx. Montréal's best queer dance party to follow with DJs Chrissy and Xavier T.

  • Friday, February 20th, 2009
  • 10pm-3am
  • The Playhouse (5656 Avenue du Parc)
  • $10 suggested donation; all money goes to the Sense Project, Head and Hands' holistic, queer-friendly sex education program

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

At Last, Low Brow Art to Scare Away those Winter Blues!



The Dead Dolls Cabaret is pleased to present:

The Swamp Pussy Revival Cabaret!!!

i.e., The Dead Doll Dancers tear a strip off Old Man Winter with a Mardi Gras Cabaret!!!

Montréal’s favourite dancing zombshell burlesque ghouls are wriggling from the seamy frozen underbelly of the city with their 2nd annual February cabaret.

This year’s event is tastefully entitled “The Swamp Pussy Revival” and pays homage to the heyday of Mardi Gras. Be sure to catch this one - when it comes to delectably filthy bump-‘n-grind, raucous dancing and unwilling audience participation, no one does it better than the strangely compelling Dead Doll Dancers!

The Dolls have smeared their particular brand of sleaze from the dirtiest dives to Canada Council-sponsored venues. Now, they return to their customary stomping ground in the heart of the red-light district, Café Cleopatra, which they are attempting to have declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

With a ravenous following ranging from brand-spanking-new lesbians to professional gentlemen old enough to know better, this event is sure to be as popular as November 2008’s “Haunted Ho-Down”, which featured two Dolls wrestling in a kiddie pool full of vanilla pudding.
How will they top that? You’ll have to be there on February 21st to find out …

Featuring guest artists

Big Moves, the perennially popular Boston burlesque troupe dedicated to fat positivity;

Nat King Pole, the carrot-topped drag rapper adored by ladies everywhere,

Dakini Dancers with their fusion style of baladi.

Samba Ritmundi will show us the sexy way Brazilians celebrate carnival.

Reena the Drag Queen Extraordinaire of Cafe Cleopatra will perform !

Aytahn Ross will juggle his balls!

Tommy Toxic -performance art! Fabulous costumes!

The Dead Doll Dancers will shuffle and shimmy !

Limbo contest! Real good prizes! Beads and Boobies! Burlesk!

Shimmies and Shivers!

Beware of the mysterious swamp pussy creature!



Come and get your foxy zombie fix!

With their torn fishnets, gaudy second-hand duds, rampant body scarring and pallid faces, is it any surprise that a whole chapter was written about them in Bill Brownsteins' recently published book "Montreal 24- Twenty -four hours in the Life of a City" ?


The Dead Dolls Cabaret presents:

The Swamp Pussy Revival Cabaret
Saturday Feb. 21,2009
Cafe Cleopatra
1230 boul.st.Laurent
Montreal
showtime :9pm doors open 8pm
tickets at door $10
presale: $8
available at Joy Toyz
4200 boul.st. laurent #415
tel.514-845-8697
show info tel. 514-816-8054

http://www.myspace.com/deaddolldancers

File under "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM OUR BODIES"

Abortion Ban passed in North Dakota

"North Dakota's House of Representatives has passed a bill effectively outlawing abortion.

The House voted 51-41 this afternoon to declare that a fertilized egg has all the rights of any person.

That means a fetus could not be legally aborted without the procedure being considered murder."

More here if you can stomach it.

For some reason, this made us think of that whole "prepregnant" horror and how we consider oursleves here at Lickety Split to be "preabortion" in most cases...

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Get Your Work published, Make Yo Mamma Proud!



Subversions Journal of Gender and Sexuality- Call for Submissions!!!

Subversions Journal of Gender and Sexuality, published once a year by Concordia's Women's Studies student association (WSSA) and produced by a handful of dedicated and saucy literary buffs, including Lickety's own Sarah Beall,

Implores you....Begs you... Commands you...

To:

SUBMIT!

Your: Essays, poetry, short stories, scenes of drama, photography, drawings, comics, rants, smut, and heck, anything you think fits the vast terrain that is gender and sexuality.

To: Subversions.Journal@gmail.com

Deadline: Monday, March 2, 2009 11:59 pm, right after the reading week.

Questions? Interested in getting involved? We'd love to hear from you. Right now we're especially interested in help with copy and layout.

(Photo of Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore by Chris Hammett)

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

If yer in MTL this Friday and want some smut....























Sarah Beall!! In PERSON! Whaaaat? Ha! As well as so many other hotties. This thang is always lovely...

"On the menu:
[:] Readings from saucy local writers
[:] Sexy Short Film Screenings
[:] Smutty Visual Arts
[:] F'd Comedy Stylings
[:] and Salacious Surprises!

Performances by:
[:] Rae Spoon
[:] Wai-Yant Li
[:] Nadia G (Bitchin' Kitchen)
[:] Laura "V for Vixen" Roberts
[:] Kate Lamothe
[:] Sarah Beal
[:] Larissa "Lit Pimp"
[:] Andrea Haussman
[:] Ask the Geek
[:] Childrin' R Skary

The fun begins at 7pm at the Co-op Bookstore.
Refreshments will be served.

$5.00 suggested Donation* / No one will be turned away.

*Donation gets you a raffle ticket for sexy subversive prizes! Prizes include a Boudoir Photography session with Ms. Andrea Haussman!

[Please note, this event is 18+ and the Co-op cannot be held responsible for the easily offended]."

M.I.A.

Awesomely and wonderfully pregnant at the Grammys!

Friday, February 06, 2009

Audio Smut! February! Edition!

Check out the latest edition of Audio Smut radio, yo! This hour was dedicated to sexy storytelling, so go forth and download the good stuff here: February 4th.

They said..."We're coming at you with:

~Julie fabulous conteuse (storyteller) reading a conte coquin about the the three little women and the big bad gay wolf.

~live erotica readings

~an interview with the DEAD DOLL DANCERS who are planning to revive MTL from hypothermia with a sleazy style of cabaret

***plus: Kristyn reads some juicy boy porn!***"