by Heidi Hoefinger*

On a rainy Saturday night in Brooklyn (October 24, 2009), sex workers, allies, activists, academics and media makers got together for a New York sex worker film festival titled ‘Pay As You Go: Sex Worker Shorts.’ Hosted by Union Docs—a public space for non-fiction projects—and curated by activists and media makers, Audacia Ray and Sarah Jenny Bleviss, the sell-out event consisted of two programs of short documentaries produced by sex workers and their allies from around the world, with a panel discussion in between. The panel of sex workers, activists, and media makers explored the possibilities of using documentary and experimental media-making in the fight for sex worker human rights and the reduction of stigma and violence related to sex work. The event was so popular, the organizers had to turn many people away. Every available space in the venue was filled, including people sitting in the aisles, and standing in the back.

The first film, titled SANGRAM: Sex Work Organizing in India (2009), by Audacia Ray & SANGRAM (with support of the International Women’s Health Coalition) focused on an influential sex workers movement in the Sangli district of rural south India, an area which has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the country. This short 6-minute informative documentary illustrated the ways in which sex workers have become agents of change in local, national and international policy development and health systems.

The next film, You Must Know About Me (2009), by HOPS and WITNESS, was shot in Macedonia and focused on interviews with sex workers from Skopje. Behind protected identities (changed voices and blacked-out images) they discuss their lives, working conditions, and the violence and discrimination they encounter from some clients and police, as well as the major November 2008 raid that took place there, where sex workers were arrested, detained, forcibly tested for STDs, and then exposed in the media. The film was a moving depiction of the sobering realities of everyday life of street sex workers in Macedonia.

This was followed by a thought-provoking autobiographical film about the sometimes unclear line between rape and consent, aptly titled The Line (2009), by American Nancy Schwartzman. The filmmaker reveals her own tale of a one-night stand in Israel that goes horribly wrong when her friend and co-worker violently sodomizes her. The 30-min film follows her on her quest to deal with the issue by talking to police, psychologists, survivors, activists and sex workers in Nevada brothels, and finally climaxes with her confronting her attacker back in Israel (which she records on hidden camera). The film draws attention to the complicated issue of consent, and asks, Where do we draw the line? (Ironically, she too ignores the issue of consent when she films him without permission with a hidden camera, but this is an issue we never got to discuss!)

This intense auto-documentary film was followed by one of my favorites of the night—the witty and humorous experimental video by Damien Luxe called Working Girl Blues (2009). Accompanied by a blues song that she writes and sings, the film considers different jobs and highlights some of the pluses and minuses of each. She concludes that jobs in art and sex work have the most pluses!

Next on the line-up was the informative film Prostitution Free Zone (2009), by PJ Starr and the Alliance for a Safe and Diverse DC. This film focused on the attempts of Washington D.C. to gentrify certain parts of the nation’s capital by moving targeted people and populations out of areas where they normally congregate. Constitutional rights to freedom of assembly are denied to those sex workers and drug users who hang out in the new Prostitution Free Zones. In addition to interviews, the film uses, mostly successfully, a ‘dramatic re-enactment’ by local film icons to highlight people’s concerns and issues in those areas.

The first program of films was then followed by the panel discussion on using video and media as advocacy tools. Chairing the panel was Audacia Ray, the Program Officer for Online Communications and Campaigns at the International Women’s Health Coalition, co-host of the monthly reading series Sex Worker Literati in New York, and an adjunct professor of Human Sexuality at Rutgers University. She is the author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration. Audacia is a former sex worker who was an executive editor at $pread magazine for three years and is a co-founder of advocacy organization Sex Work Awareness.

Other panelists included Violeta Krasnic who is a human rights advocate, trainer for NGO management, and video producer. She is the Program Coordinator for the international human rights organization WITNESS, and helped produce the video on Macedonian sex workers. Panelist Nancy Schwartzman is a filmmaker (producer of the auto-documentary The Line) and activist against rape and sexual violence. She is the founder of NYC-Safestreets.org which engages community organizations and business to create safer streets, particularly for women. PJ Starr is a sex worker rights activist and filmmaker of documentary and fictional videos about the life and politics of sex workers. She produced the film Prostitution Free Zone. The final panelist, Damien Luxe, is a multimedia artist, performer and activist, who produced the film Working Girl Blues. She was involved in $pread Magazine from 2006 until 2009, taught media production workshops at the Desiree Alliance Conference 2007 and 2008.

The panelists each talked a little bit about themselves and their work. There were a few questions from the crowd. One male audience member stirred some debate and interesting responses from the panelists when he questioned whether they were campaigning for sex worker rights or human rights. Taking the victim stance, he felt that human rights should be the focus, rather than sex worker rights, since sex workers are essentially victims, and sex should always be between two loving adults. The panelists essentially told him to take his morals and shove it! PJ Starr’s response was the most diplomatic, and received applause, when she explained that although the sex he engages in might be loving and moral, not everyone’s sex is, and we must respect the human rights of all people, regardless of the morality of the sex they have!

The room was heated up and ready for the next program of films. The first film in the second half was a selection of segments from the full length French documentary by Jean-Michel Carre, called Sex Workers (And Proud of It) (2009). The male and female sex workers in this film spoke honestly, and in many cases, humorously, on screen (no identity distortion) about the politics, power and meanings of sex work. Their brutal frankness and dry sense of humor caused many laughs from the audience. I was left wanting to see the entire film, as only 15-minute selection was shown.

This was followed by another 15-min selection from the full-length documentary by Tara Hurley called Happy Endings? (2009). This film delved into the Asian (mostly Korean) massage parlor industry in Providence, Rhode Island, where a 25 year old loophole has made the exchange of cash for sex legal as long as its behind closed doors—a loophole that that current mayor is fighting hard to change. The interviews with Korean masseuses, clients, politicians, and police were informative, however, the voice and image distortions were poorly done and quite distracting and made it hard to concentrate on the content. The rep for the film did pre-warn the audience about this, but the alien voices and swirling distorted heads still made the viewing experience difficult.

Next was an enlightening documentary on the development of $pread Magazine called In Our Own Image (2009), by Mandona Productions. $pread Magazine is an example of what happens when sex workers themselves become the reporters and publishers of sex trade news. The film discusses the magazine’s aim to change the way media itself approaches sex work, and reveals the hard work, effort, time, sweat and tears devoted to making each publication a reality. Many interviews in the film were with current and former employees of $pread, many of whom were in the audience, and/or the producers of some of the films on the program, so the film got a very enthusiastic response from the audience!

Following this was another short clip (trailer) of a full-length documentary called Central American Sex Workers Organizing (2009), by Claire Thorne, which is to be released in 2011. We hear the voices of sex workers from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala discussing everyday life, violence, trafficking, transphobia, and marginalization, which all speak to the complicated relationship between the market economy and empowerment through sex work.

Finally, we got to the moment I had been waiting for all night: the screening of the short film produced by Ellie Gurney about our London-based Sex Worker Open University (2009). (Yay!!) The film highlights the first-ever Sex Worker Open University that took place in March-April 2009, where hundreds of sex workers, activists, academics, artists and allies participated in a demonstration, in workshops, discussions, debates, and art exhibits. We see clips of the demonstration in Piccadilly Circus against the Policing and Crimes Bill, of the feminist anti-prostitution debate, of the erotic dance and self-defense workshops, of discussions around clients, safe spaces and emotional safety and of the photography exhibit of prostitutes across Europe by Mathilde Bouvard. The film presents an alternative image of the sex worker as empowered, rather than victimized.

There was a very positive response to the film by the audience. I spoke a little about Sex Worker Open University and our plans to host a London Sex Worker Film Festival in February 2010. I also handed out a flyer with info about sex worker activism in the UK (basically just listing websites for X:Talk, IUSW, SW5, ECP, and the MySpace page for SWOU). There was a great deal of excitement about the London film fest, and lots of people approached me for the information flyers. Many people were interested in staying informed, and keeping the transnational sex work activism links open and active.

The final film of the night was another autobiographical experimental video titled 69 Things I Love About Sex Work, by Canadian Isabel Hosti. The video is set to music, and features mainly slow-motion images of her having sex with various clients (client faces never shown), and her list, of 69 things—one at a time—that keep her ‘happy and healthy’. Among lots of other perks she enjoys in her work, the list includes things like hooker art, hotels, girl calls, shopping, alcohol, drugs, and room service. Her honesty and positivity were refreshing, poignant, and humorous—while the images of her having sex, giving blowjobs, and erotic dancing with ‘real’ clients was almost disturbing, in an intriguing, voyeuristic kind of way. The combination of honest images with honest text worked really well. This, and the other experimental film about the pros and cons of work by Damien Luxe, were my two favorites of the night, as they were made by sex workers themselves, and had a slightly more artistic appeal, as opposed to the serious and heavily politicized angles of some of the other documentaries in the program. But that’s just me…

Overall, the event was a huge success—so successful that they are actually running the programs again at the same venue (UnionDocs) on November 7, 2009. A portion of the proceeds go to benefit SWANK, Sex Workers Action New York, which helped conceive and support the event.

*Heidi Hoefinger, Social Researcher
Global Girls: Autobiography and E-Literacy Project
Media and Communications
Goldsmiths, University of London