Sex Workers Archival Project
@ArchivalSex
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a primary source share for the histories of sex workers & our struggles | focus on 1930s-late 20th century criminality | Tweets by @sm_kaylor
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Pinned Tweet
a 1936 Daily News political cartoon accompanying a piece critical of police surveillance of sex workers in New York City
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On this day in 1985: dozens of sex workers in Paris marched through the streets to protest rising prices and evictions that were pricing them out of their neighborhood in an effort to keep the area "respectable." (1)
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That time Ann Landers wrote that it was a mistake to deny federal funding for former sex workers to teach safer sex practices; "Not only would ex-hookers be experienced instructors, but working prostitutes would be more likely to listen to them."
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Today we're giving a brief introduction to Candace Dionne Clark, a Black sex worker who in the 1970's and 1980's stood up for herself where she worked in Waikiki, Hawaii, and showed no shame about her profession (1)
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"'Any person who works for a living deserves to be represented by an organization that can make their livelihood better.'"
The Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio) 24 Mar 1979, Page 19
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Before the VCR, porn theaters operated as a primary location where viewers could watch these films (1.) Advertisements for the movies were printed in newspapers, sometimes on the same page as ads for non-pornographic movies, as they were here (2)
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March 3, 2001. "Calcutta, India: Some 25,000 Indian prostitutes are expected to gather in a Calcutta soccer stadium today to demand official recognition for their profession."
#InternationalSexWorkerRightsDay
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from 1965—sharing more from this one soon
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“The word “whore” is used to stigmatize women; the word “prostitute” is used to criminalize women. Rather than disassociate from either the social or legal label used against us, we identify with both and we demand our rights AS WHORES, AS PROSTITUTES.”
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In 1977, COYOTE declared February 14 to be Hookers' Day, with the Hookers' Masquerade Ball on this date as their first ever fundraiser in New York
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Throughout the 1970's, multiple landmark cases were tried in the US that (re)defined relationships between gender, sex work, & criminality. The first of several we will be highlighting is that of John Doane in 1975, believed to be the first man charged with prostitution in MA (1)
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“If sex work were empowering, men would do it”
The March 1975 issue of Penthouse Forum, featuring the cover story “Brothels for Women”
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"In New York, over fifty percent of the population in women’s jails have been convicted for prostitution. Saddled with a record of arrests, convictions, & prison terms, many women find it virtually impossible to make a living in any other way.” NY Women in Criminal Justice, 1977
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📸 Mondo Muff, an erotic Polaroid artist active in New York through the 70s-80s
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Pennsylvania, 1990: in an effort to strengthen obscenity laws, pro-censorship groups and advocates turned to the usual claims of violence against women and children in pornography. This time, however, they looked beyond porn and expanded their reach to other domains (1)
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Some aspects of sex work have changed rapidly over time, but solidarity is timeless. London, 1952: when the wives of American Air Force sergeants felt intimidated by a few outdoor sex workers and called for police, "a menacing group of 30 prostitutes" rushed out in support.
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"Should we (MasterCard) not be associated with companies selling cigarettes online because someone objects to cigarettes? It's a slippery slope for us to begin making moral judgments."
Joshua Peirez, vice president and senior counsel for MasterCard, on the issue of CSAM, 2002
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the Action Committee of Women Prostitutes, 1975 (translated by Elaine Marks)
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Techniques of Law Enforcement Against Prostitution; The National Advisory Police Committee to the Federal Security Administrator, 1943
“It suggests... enlisting cooperation of the unwitting facilitator—the hotel owner, tavern owner, taxicab operator..."
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“They're making a list, they'll put you on twice.
If you complain they'll call in the vice.
Fascist laws are coming to town.”
—Carol Leigh, aka Scarlot Harlot, from her book Unrepentant Whore
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In addition to paid advertisements, the guide regularly featured information regarding outdoor sex workers in their “Streetwalkers Guide”
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In 1979, Clark filed a federal suit against Honolulu officers "in what is believed to be the first civil action ever filed by a prostitute here," for "beating and intimidating her as part of an effort to keep her and other prostitutes out of Waikiki."
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November 9, 1963: PROSTIES FIGHT FOR RIGHTS AND GET THEM, cover story in Confidential Flash. Though this article quickly falls into the lauding of non-worker led “reform” measures and nationalism, prostitutes’ lobbies and words are cited as ushering in a call to action.
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“Officials of two women's organizations said the bylaw puts women who seek abortions on the same footing as prostitutes.”
From 1984; one of many examples in which there are the options of coalition with sex workers or a distancing from sex workers
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Mistress Olivia Outré, photographed for an interview in Bondage Life (number 61). At the time of the interview, in the 1995, she had been a professional in bondage work for roughly twenty years
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In the 1970s, women in the art world organized against both gender and racial inequities, protesting for greater inclusion in museums and at times reflecting upon how women were more likely to appear in the museum as a subject--the nude, oil-painted muse--rather than artist (1)
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In addition to $40,000, Clark filed the suit for an injunction to stop police from arrests and stops without probable cause, threats of violence, and coercion to leave the state. She stated that she had no use in hiding her job as a sex worker.
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"The prostitutes demand that the studio apartments in which they work be returned to 'those who put their money into them and on whose backs one wants to make vulgar speculation,' Katia said." (2)
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London, 1965: strippers begin a strike and talk of forming a union upon the firing of three workers who demanded higher pay. This story and their demands for better labor conditions, naming their work as work, made it to US media, appearing in hundreds of papers coast to coast
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From DARE, August 1954: a voyeuristic piece of photo journalism on trans women, including sex workers, rife with rhetoric of panic and desire
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Boston, 1978: Boston Wages for Housework and Black Women for Wages for Housework (NY) organize “A Street Trial: Women vs Business and Government”
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In 2018, workers faced both the closure of Backpage and the passing of FOSTA/SESTA. Both loss as well as tireless work of community advocates brought more visibility to the intersections of sex work and technology, a space that has historically been theorized & criminalized (1)
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SW’s, how would you feel about your photos or records being handled by a researcher (a SW or civilian) in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years? If you could set the limitations of usage, or ensure certain privacy measures were taken, what would they be?
tonight’s reading
one question I keep grappling with is the ethics of sharing low budget porn or “modeling” that might have been done as a one off for rent, under the impression it wouldn’t circulate widely. hoping to work through some of that in reading this one
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The master's tools will not dismantle the master's house, but Candace still knew how to put up a fight and did not give up on claiming her rights even as a Black sex worker. The body search was determined to be illegal and the charges were dropped. Case dismissed (6)
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Carter reported being threatened, beaten, and told she would be arrested unless she agreed to lie that she was beaten by "Japanese tourists" rather than police. At this time, however, she had already been wired by the FBI to record police misconduct. (2)
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Boston, 1982: photo from the Valentine’s Day Hooker’s Ball hosted by Prostitutes Union of Massachusetts, to raise bail out funds and assist battered women
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And only ten years prior was the historic occupation of Saint-Nizier church by Lyon sex workers, part of a movement that has been studied and emulated by workers across the globe in the decades since. (5)
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San Francisco, 1976: District Attorney Joseph Freitas announces that he will no longer prosecute people charged for prostitution (1)
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The transcripts were later released, and included a police officer asking Clark, "hey Candace, you wanna die?" (3)
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Then, too, anti-porn advocates, appalled by how easily accessible magazines were, argued that they were not opposed to freedom of speech, only to contradict themselves by then saying a ban on retail would be appropriate as pornography was not "artistry."
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“Dare was launched as a normal sized magazine in May 1950 by New York City based Career, Inc., quickly switched to mini format, and lasted until the late 1960s.”
Tag yourselves 🍒
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Candace did not win the suit; the fact that it went this far was already against all odds. Of course, she went back to work with all eyes on her and would be arrested shortly after this case was dismissed, in October 1980 (Image: 3)
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"I'm afraid I'll be murdered some day."
Rosie Nitribitt (1933-1957), murdered in her Germany apartment, was referred to as both "The Countess" and the "stingy call girl." Fascination with her life, or its end, led to multiple biopics produced immediately following her death.
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In 2015, former police officer Daniel Holtzclaw was found guilty of 18 counts of rape and sexual assaults against Black women. Though rarely held accountable, this was not the first time an officer had been found guilty after multiple sex workers came forward.
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This, of course, wasn't the first issue that workers had or the first time they resisted. Just a couple weeks prior, workers disguised themselves in the same method to protest police harassment. (4)
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Doane was a working class father and husband who had lost his previous job and turned to sex work out of financial need. This narrative, familiar to many sex workers, is too rarely one that the criminal justice system sympathizes with (2)
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Instead of accountability or even the "bad apples" line, Honolulu Police Chief Francis Keala took this federal probe to be "war" and "attack." Clark's identity only made matters worse for Keala: "'Prostitutes contribute nothing to this community but problems,' he said." (4)
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Conspicuously absent, as per usual, is the mentioning of resources for children, including sex education, as well as any determination of what differentiates "smut" from "art," who would make this distinction, and why it is of significance.
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Clark was arrested for and convicted of theft after she and another sex worker saw a client one evening; while he was with the other worker, she allegedly put an additional $650 in her vagina and ran out. According to her, she already had that money, and the man was a no-pay (5)
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In explaining their reasoning, the mayor stated that "Prostitution is a fundamental liberty... but I just want to get rid of all the riff-raff that accompanies it. The number of prostitutes in the Saint-Denis area has increased four-fold In the last 10 years" (3)
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Though outdoor sex workers are often represented as homogenous in class, this is not and historically has not been the case. Elizabeth Bernstein's 2007 book Temporarily Yours provides ethnographic research on this topic specific to the Bay Area.
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The defense did not even feel the need to call witnesses; prostitution in MA, it was confirmed, was strictly "a female...offering her body 'for in discriminate sexual intercourse with men for hire.'" (5)
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“Lynda in Leather” (Selbee Associates, 1960)
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1962 advertisement for the Strippers School Book (1957)
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In the early 1970's, city ordinances in Nevada were approved to increase restrictions upon pornographic materials and shows. In May 1973, an "emergency ordinance" was passed in Vegas to ban the staging of live sex acts, despite there not having been any venues featuring them (1)
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A 1940 editorial on porn as “a definite threat to the American youth”
Then, too, anti-porn advocates, appalled by how easily accessible magazines were, argued that they were not opposed to freedom of speech, only to contradict themselves by then saying a ban on retail would be appropriate as pornography was not "artistry."
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Far from flimsy, this defense led to a not-guilty verdict:
"was Mr. Doane booked as a male or female? 'Male,' the officer replied; and on the strength of that single word, Fred Doane was acquitted in accordance with the laws of the state of Massachusetts." (4)
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This is not to say, however, that male sex workers in MA were exempt from police harassment or even arrest before Doane; one can imagine that loitering, public indecency, and other similar offenses were often weaponized against men of color and QTPOC workers in particular.
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Thread on the importance, and nuances, of today’s announcement of a DA candidate in Manhattan whose platform includes not prosecuting prostitution charges, contextualized with a summary of recent NYS policy and platforms
While DAs who don't prosecute isn't the same as decrim, there is something *really* important about having a DA who won't support criminalization, which is why I think supporting
@elizaorlins
is important & more than about NYPD arrests - and that it's a huge step to decrim (1/
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As many are all too aware, “womanhood” has been used as a catalyst to advance white, imperialist aims of violence and oppression. We need to center Asian sex workers regarding yesterday’s events and understand the many axes of power and oppression that were present
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1. "Grand jury clears policemen in prostitute civil rights case," The Honolulu Advertiser 19 Apr 1980
2. Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 12 Oct 1979
3. "FBI Releases Transcript of Tape of Prostitute Being Threatened," Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 25 Jul 1980
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In the early 1930's, before Go Ask Alice, there were the "Diaries of a Lost Soul"
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As many have written of, in the late 19th-early 20th centuries a moral panic related to "white slavery," or the fear of coerced sex work of young white women, informed and was informed by xenophobia & racism. Some "abolitionists" of the era, however, later revoked their positions
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As recounted in The San Francisco Examiner, "A local periodical called 'San Francisco Bay Area Pleasure Guide' describes the Union Square area as "expensive, but worth it. Lot of action, safe area and established pros.'"
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4. The Honolulu Advertiser, 22 Mar 1980
5. Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 18 Oct 1980
6. Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 25 Nov 1982
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While the Nordic model is once again in headlines, one may look to other instances in which sex workers' clients faced increased surveillance and criminalization to "end demand." This was a method used in Baltimore in the mid-1990's, though accompanied by arrests of workers.
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Further, it goes without saying that the gender binary referred to and violently upheld by these courts obstructs these narratives; we'll be sharing experiences, cases, and law changes related to trials of trans sex workers of the 1970s in threads to follow.
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"Doanes attorney, P.J. Piscitelli, said the case against his client is absurd because by definition, a prostitute is a woman. 'All the statutes speak of are women, the lawyer said. Have you ever heard of a male prostitute? Prostitution is strictly a female affair.'" (3)
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another personal favorite: KFC coupons and peep show ads, side by side in the state of Hawaii's largest daily paper
The Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, Hawaii) 13 Jul 1973, Page 46
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Though reporting was perhaps more sympathetic to Doane's plights than is typical of coverage of sex workers' arrests, this was not the backbone of his defense. Further, the offerings of sexual services were not denied. What, then, did they argue to avoid the 6 month sentencing?
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Obscenity Bill (1141) "would give local prosecutors the power to arrest groups like 2 Live Crew who distribute obscenity through “live performances” This bill had already passed the House and the Senate unanimously earlier in the year" (1)
Image credit (2)
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From 1973, a heightened moment in the sex wars, a political cartoon in the New York Daily News accompanying a piece on increased restrictions for "filth merchants": "the sad, bad, anything goes days are over—and, we hope, gone for good."
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From 1866, a piece in the San Francisco Examiner steeped in the ideologies of "social hygiene," Orientalism, and the violence of racialized whorephobia and fetishization that have been confronted, documented, and theorized by AAPI women, sex workers in particular.
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Requiem For Tina Sanchez, a 1976 film examining the ubiquity of runaway teenagers and the case of Sanchez, who left home when she was 11 years old. With a lack of resources for runaway youth and those in sex trades, Sanchez was murdered at the age of 15.
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Morality in Media was an anti-pornography advocacy group founded in 1962 by religious leaders and led by Catholic priest Morton A. Hill, who used the rhetoric of a "silent majority" to argue that only a small, immoral minority of the population was against the ban of porn (1)
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Thus, the British Association of Strip Tease Artists was formed. Actions that followed included the calling of a director to fire civilian actresses portraying sex working characters and replace them with workers who had what they argued to be the required range and skill
London, 1965: strippers begin a strike and talk of forming a union upon the firing of three workers who demanded higher pay. This story and their demands for better labor conditions, naming their work as work, made it to US media, appearing in hundreds of papers coast to coast
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“‘These porn dancers can be dangerous; one has to watch closely to make sure they don’t pull a concealed weapon from some orifice.’”
When Marilyn was arrested in 1985 during a poorly-executed sting operation by
@SFPD
-- approved by
#SanFrancisco
's then-mayor
@SenFeinstein
-- it made national headlines, including this short feature in
@people
#MarilynChambers
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“Oddly, of all the people I talked to, virtually only prostitutes and customers took the view that their relationship was the obvious one of supply and demand, with money the prime factor.”
- journalist Jess Stearn, 1956 (p. 6)
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tw/ transphobia
A year after Doane's trial, Indiana reported their first arrest of a "male prostitute" in 1976. There were four major differences in this later case: the worker was Black, found guilty, received little press attention, and was a transwoman* named Charlene Harris.
Throughout the 1970's, multiple landmark cases were tried in the US that (re)defined relationships between gender, sex work, & criminality. The first of several we will be highlighting is that of John Doane in 1975, believed to be the first man charged with prostitution in MA (1)
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A documentary on the event that began International Sex Worker Rights Day can be found here: "Tales of the Night Fairies explores the power of collective organizing and resistance while reflecting upon contemporary debates around sexwork."
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Instagram @/swarchivalproject. Unfortunately some things have to be censored there, but any images and clippings shared here can also be found there with citations as well.
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As for Doane, his case was referred to as humorous, and was the subject of a television docu-drama three years later; he was also written of in pornographic magazines (6). "I think they ought to give him three gold stars and a turkey," his lawyer said (1)
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"An assortment of other streetwalkers, including transvestites and gigolos, also parade the neighborhood. The narcotics hookers are in the lower Tenderloin; the transvestite hookers around Hyde, Ellis and O'Farrell streets and the classier prostitutes frequent Powell, Sutter..."
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For added context, this interview comes one year after Carol Leigh's coining of the term sex work, and five years after Margo St. James founded COYOTE, a time of heightened sex worker organizing.
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“Particularly effective in preventing prostitution activities in a tavern is the refusal to serve women at the bar. Several hotels have adopted the policy of denying service to unescorted women in the bars or cocktail rooms after 7pm…” (1943)
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1. The Record (Hackensack, New Jersey) 17 Apr 1985, Page A4
2. Calgary Herald, Calgary, Alberta, Alberta, Canada, 17 Apr 1985, Page 26
3. The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah)17 Apr 1985, Page 7
4. The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California)27 Mar 1985, Page 2
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Over 1,000 followers and it's been less than three weeks since this project was started. The want and need for these histories is inspiring to see, and there are so many of them to share. Looking forward to doing so, and seeing where it takes us 👯♀️
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As this project is indebted to sex work scholars, theories of knowledge production, and leftist critical theory more broadly, it would be remiss to not say something regarding
@VersoBooks
. Verso Books quietly released a statement last night in response to Emily Janakiram
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A small note for accuracy, the magazine pictured here isn't emblematic of what was most often found at drug stores at the time; in the late 30s in particular, the porn magazines most readily available at these venues were often cartoons and sketches
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Of course, as workers have been addressing over the past few days & for a long time now, the empowerment question may not be the most relevant here. And, men who work for men are prevalent in the sex trades, as they have been historically; it isn’t newsworthy. Nevertheless—
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