This article was published on Medium as a teaser for HARLOT Magazine prior to their formal launch in February 2016. You can view it on the Harlot site here.

I found Fight The New Drug the way everyone else in the Bay Area did: I left my house and was smacked in the face with a billboard.

They tout a pretty grim party line: pornography rewires the brain to the point that it inspires consumers to rape and compulsively consume child pornography, leaving them impossible to achieve intimacy with real partners.

Those are pretty steep accusations to put on pornography alone; to combat the supposed colossal detriment pornography is having on your brain and your ability to not rape even at this very minute, FTND has put together a rehabilitation program, called Fortify, to help people wean themselves off of pornography. It boasts 30,000 happy customers–I make 30,001.

Before I checked into rehab, I reached out to FTND, and was, to my surprise, sight unseen and no credentials necessary, put right on the phone with their CEO and Founder Clay Olsen. In my conversations with Olsen, he assured me that the campaign, one that has no plan to be repeated and has never happened previously, was not meant to legislate for the banning of pornography but merely to “promote discussion” in an area of “movers and shakers.” I’m not immune to flattery, I guess you could consider the Bay Area a hotbed for discourse and full of movers and shakers — especially queers. FTND didn’t launch in Los Angeles or Las Vegas, where a lot of porn studios are, didn’t launch in D.C. or New York, our actual capital and our social capital, they picked San Francisco, the battleground for queer marriage. I was hyper aware that a lot of this was thinly veiled rhetoric was a rehash of Prop 8 handwringing, but Olsen assured me that FTND has “homosexuals on staff.”

I guess everyone can get a gay friend.

FTND has a lot of unusual practices: there’s no strategic plan, no national campaign in the works, no annual reports on their website, and they lack a board list. Their major enterprises are giving talks in high schools and middle schools alongside DARE programs, and by selling absolutely hideous merchandise. If you want to reel us queers in, you’re going to need to give us better than this.

FTND has spent 3 years developing the Fortify Program. While not outright calling it an online rehab, Fortify is very much like a 12 step program. It’s tagline is “A step towards recovery.” It promises no results, much like an actual 12 step program–that’s not to say 12 steps don’t work; it’s just not guaranteed. Fortify is free for people under the age of 20, and then $39.99 for people 21 and over. I created a new email address and code name and filled out the applications for both tracks.

Admitting They Have A Problem

I didn’t end up submitting the under 21 application because I thought it was bad form. As a result I got this horrifying email.

“We WANT you to have this as an option, you just need to tell us why you want it. Asking for you to write an essay to give you FREE access to a program that costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars, isn’t too much to ask, is it?”

This line, while abusing commas, is very telling of Fortify’s brand. The combination of guilt and scolding is just the sort of comforting support a young teen worried about their sexual development needs. It also feels pretty disingenuous. Why do they need an essay? It reads as lightly hostile, especially when doubled with the line:

“Please don’t let your fear keep you from something that could help you.”

Fortify is ultimately a product, one that is being used to funnel information to its creators (that will be covered later). The pleading and emphatic insistence on this product being crucial to people, especially minors, is a strange sort of capitalism where the currency is inner torment and self-doubt.

Why did I sign up for pornography rehab? After my conversation with Olsen, I thought of him as a wayward young man with a warped sense of social justice. I saw pieces of myself in him, in his desires to create positive change, that we were comrades really on two different sides of the fence. I signed up for the Fortify program as a means to better understand what FTND was about and to see if, by some miracle, they had developed a tool for people with addictive personalities that might actually be legitimate and supportive. Alas, Olsen is a veritable Gepetto of pseudoscience and non-peer reviewed pop psychology, heavily endorsed by such esteemed psychologists as Russell Brand and Terry Crews.

As a queer, poly, feminist, porn-consuming, witch, vegan in the Bay Area, I figured I was just the sort of audience FTND was looking to reach with their campaign and embarked on the 31 question questionnaire.

I busted out the bourbon and made a night of filling it out.

The pre-program survey questions ranged from the innocuous

To baffling

To alarming

The anti-masturbation rhetoric is not explicit but very much implied–the program asks a lot about my masturbation habits. The questionnaire also calls pornography cheating–which feels steep and invasive in every sense–and asks a lot of leading questions about my emotional state.

I have no idea what this information is actually used for. I imagine, considering the nature of the questions, that it’s being funneled back to the programs Co-Developer, Dr. Jason Carroll of Brigham Young University, a Mormon institution and Olsen’s alma mater.

My suspicion stems from Carroll’s specialties, which are “marriage fragmentation, sexual intimacy, marriage readiness among young adults, the effectiveness of marriage education, and modern threats to marriage (such as pornography, delayed age at marriage, materialism, premarital sexuality, and non-marital childbirth).” Carroll teaches BYU’s “Marriage Prep” course, which is disappointingly a college course you take for credit and not a Live Action Roleplay set in the universe of the films Kinsey and Pleasantville. Carroll is also a homophobe, but it’s fine because of all those homosexuals on staff that Olsen mentioned. No homo(phobe)!

Because of Carroll’s political agenda, I am fuckless on the fact that my questionnaire was an utter lie and will fuck up his data.

Steps In The Wrong Direction

Fortify has badges and coins that serve like sobriety chips and notes of encouragement which are actually rather sweet. Again, very much like AA in design, however entirely flawed its premise.

The battle rhetoric is strong with FTND in general but it really hits its stride within the Fortify program. You, once wayward, are now a “Fighter”, as are all the FTND fans who post selfies to the #PornKillsLove hashtag. The calendar function to keep track of success and backslides for pornography consumption is called the “Battle Tracker.” They have introductions that are called “Basic Training.”

There’s a disconnect here, for me: FTND is not a lobbying organization nor are they working to ban pornography–what exactly are they fighting for? Their aggressive speech doesn’t encourage changes to the industry, nor efforts to fight human trafficking, but rather to tell people to stop consuming a product that for many is an important sexual tool on the basis of shaming and it being addictive — science that is unscrupulous at best and insidious at worst.

(In case you missed it, this is a form that asks me to document where, when, and on what device I looked at pornography. CEO Clay Olsen believes even sexting with your significant other counts as pornography; it’s a very uphill battle to victory.)

You earn badges by watching videos and participating in the activities and journaling about your experience. I wrote the most horrifying journal entries in the hopes that someone would reach out in support but alas, nothing doing.

Some of the activities are things like the following:

When evangelism is a principal part of your tool for recovery it starts to sound a whole lot like marketing.

I would like to mention that 12 step recovery programs DO NOT operate on evangelism as a tenant of their function. They do often encourage people to surrender to and believe in a “higher power” (generally a higher power of Christian denomination) but people in Alcoholics Anonymous don’t pound pavement with Alcohol Kills Love shirts. Addiction is a stigmatized condition–for Fortify to borrow that oppression to boost its credibility is disgusting.

This is totally just a data collection platform that people pay for. I became so convinced of this that I actually read a terms of service.

We collect two types of information (personal information and anonymous information) and we may use this information to create a third type of information, aggregate information.

1. Personal information — Direct and indirect information that identifies a particular individual, such as the individual’s name, email address, and telephone number.

2. Anonymous information — Information that does not directly or indirectly identify an individual. When you use public areas of the website, you are doing so anonymously.

3. Aggregate information — Information about groups or categories of visitors, which cannot be used to identify an individual, such as a number of hits per page and traffic sources.

We collect the following information:

*Name

*Company/School Name

*Address

*Email Address

*Phone Number

*Gender

*Age/Date of Birth (DOB)

*Credit/Debit Card Information

*Online Behaviors

*Device use

Pay attention to this part, because it’s the most important:

How We Collect Information

Information is gathered through forms filled out when you apply to the Fortify Program, Post questionnaire, marketing surveys, make a donation, purchase merchandise, fill out the battle strategies, Quick Questions, Action Follow-up Questions, enter in Battle Tracker info, or complete any other form on fortifyprogram.com or fightthenewdrug.org.

This means when you sign up for the program, Fight the New Drug and its co-creater Dr. Jason Carroll have access to every piece of content you put onto the site, including the required journaling. This preys on the emotional vulnerability of people convinced that their masturbation and porn consumption are ruining their chances at a healthy emotional future–it gets even more gross when you circle back to the part where minors opt into this service. The essay my underage alter-ego was asked to write to prove I needed porn rehab provides this professor and FTND with the inner emotional processing of sexuality of minors.

Think Of The Children. Like, Actually Think Of Them.

The children likely to be exposed to FTND’s ministries are in conservative communities, public schools already participating in anti-drug and abstinence-only sex education programs. You sign a pledge at the event, just like those “saving yourself for marriage” pacts that rumbled through middle and high schools like mine. FTND’s target group is children like me — insecure, queer, alternative–to guide them towards the right path, a relationship where no porn is consumed and where masturbation is implied to be detrimental to your relationship.

This is the problem with making the rehab system similar to a game with badges and coins to unlock. In order for people to get the “help”, they must funnel their hearts and souls into a site that will ultimately send their information to an anti-sex agenda. In order to “win” rehab, you have to journal. Your victory in rehabilitation comes at the sacrifice of your inner experiences. FTND sees ANY consumption of pornography as cheating or risky behavior. When they run out of steam with those arguments, they then fault you for human trafficking and drug use. This sort of sex shaming hides itself as feminist, and treats people within porn as pathetic victims in need of liberation.

It reads so Christian to me: “they know not what they do.”

I take Olsen’s actions very personally. I already live in a world that has a strong opinion of my sex life and my value as a sexual being, and if this is his concept of being my ally, he’s an ally I don’t fucking need.

The videos are their own special hell.

The videos lean heavily on inconclusive pop and pseudo psychology on addiction making pornography out to be like tobacco. There is a lot of talk of “rewiring the brain,” a vague concept that seems to treat addiction as habit versus something concrete.

The main issue with FTND and Fortify is that it sees testimony as empirical evidence. The confessionals from former porn stars are horrifying; while the porn industry is exceptionally flawed in its treatment of women and sexual assault, these testimonies read much more like human trafficking narratives. In a video entitled “The Industry’s Dirty Little Secret”:

which I have included the audio of here, pornography is lumped in with prostitution and other forms of sex work. Statistics are stated with no real citation. They also have a few spelling errors on their videos and that really bugs me. Within this video, the speaker reads quotes from former porn stars detailing abuse and drug use that occurred while they were in the industry. Because I’m a decent human being with a good grip on the world, I believe that every single one of these stories is true. It wasn’t shocking or even enlightening to hear that people were being sexually exploited in an industry that pays for sex. What I did find shocking was how Fortify made up statistics of the frequency of drug use among porn stars and that they implied that most of the people involved in porn were victims of sexual trafficking.

According to FTND, because porn is make-believe, you can’t guarantee the performer is having a good time, which is in itself evidence that the majority of porn stars, mainstream or otherwise, have been sex trafficked. It’s almost hilarious.

Again, FTND isn’t an organization with any plans to lobby nor be politically active in any way–equating pornography with a chronic level of illegality is talking out both sides of their mouths. Getting people to stop watching porn isn’t enough of a platform. You need to advocate for porn stars and provide more services than graphic tees and lectures. FTND, for claiming to be apolitical, doesn’t work if it isn’t political, which leads us back to the Porn Kills Love campaign that was supposed to promote “discussion.” What was the discussion supposed to be if not a call to action?

The construction of the videos is very purposeful: a young, conventionally attractive man tells you that porn is detrimental to your emotional romantic relationships, a thing all human being are encouraged to seek most of their lives and many want to succeed in.

The commentary is covert and bland enough that if you were really struggling with what you thought was porn addiction, shame around your orientation or sexual interests, it would be downright predatory. Porn has its problems; FTND is not terribly good at identifying them. Half of their analysis is correct — most porn is packaged for male consumption and thus is degrading to women, it’s a terrible tool to teach teens how to have sex, the industry comes with stigma and people’s lives can be ruined by being involved in it, and revenge porn as a violation of consent. Fortify doesn’t focus on any of these, but rather circles back around to porn being icky and will make it harder for you to be in a relationship (like you’re obligated to be; it’s all covered in Dr. Carroll’s course, I’m sure) because you won’t be able to connect with your partner.

Porn does feed into unrealistic expectations for sex, but that’s because we provide terrible sexual education and thus young people learn about sex THROUGH porn. I speak from experience–I gleamed most of my sexual education from erotica and pornography.

Oh right: the definition of porn according to Fortify is all erotic material including articles about porn. Meaning technically their videos detailing pornography’s harms count as pornography.

The videos are dealing in their own form of fantasy, based around the idea of pornography being inherently addictive. It’s that same sort of dramatic overreaching where boomers lament that video games ruined social interaction for the newer generations; FTND is a fancy version of your asshole grandpa bitching about kids and their selfie sticks. Pornography gets compared to nicotine in how the brain responds but really their point makes no sense because a lot of it as to do with oxytocin or the “bonding chemical” released during sex. Oxytocin has a heavy role in sexual congress to be sure but how this relates to nicotine at all is never clarified, nor are their sources cited–a common theme for FTND. They cite Psychology Today and other not peer-reviewed publications on their blog, but the Fortify program is glaringly missing any citation of statistics or how this information was collected.

FTND and Olsen specifically keep enthusing that what they are trying to do is encourage conversation. However, Olsen and FTND are marketing people. They have no right or credentials to promote any actual discourse on the topic, which is what makes the Fortify program so insidious. It’s well shot, well pitched, and seamlessly blends into support and recovery rhetoric.

The most disgusting part to me is the false sense of community. Fortify doesn’t even provide you with the intimacy of an online forum to bond with people — you know, how like porn doesn’t allow you to connect with humans because of all the oxytocin, a pleasure chemical that your brain releases for just about any fucking reason imaginable. Fortify leaves you dependent on the program by providing you with videos and a journaling feature.

You’re shouting into the void of your own despair.

Lauren Parker is a writer based in Oakland. A harbinger of chaos, she spends most of her time hunched over her computer working on her podcasts, Erotic Friend Fiction: A Bob’s Burgers Podcast, and Listener Beware: A Goosebumps Podcast. She has written for the Toast, the Tusk, Ravishly, Main Street Rag, and plain china. You can follow her on twitter @laurenink and online at www.laureneparker.com

This article was produced and published on behalf of HARLOT Magazine, an intersectional e-rag set to launch in January 2016. For media inquiries and article pitches, contact us at dirtiestwellknownsecret@gmail.com.

This article was published on Medium as a teaser for HARLOT Magazine prior to their formal launch in February 2016. You can view it on the Harlot site here.

What does it mean to desire, and what does It mean to be desired? That the politics of such transcend our very bedrooms is the notion filmmaker and activist Jamal T. Lewis, alum of Morehouse, intends to interrogate, probe, and examine without apology and with much confrontation.

Racism, misogyny, femmephobia, fatphobia, ableism. These are words, subjects even, that the LGBTQIA+ community is inclined to dismiss, issues that either people don’t want to acknowledge or only approach with superficiality. With the documentary No Fats, No Femmes (whose Indiegogo campaign ends on January 5th), Lewis intends on embracing the complexity those questions have to offer, without the hubris of answers necessarily, but with the humbleness of curiosity and desire for insight.

I spoke with Jamal recently about how to navigate one’s identity in a homonormative (read: white cis middle class urban gay male) queer world, projections of desire, and what desire means.

I guess we should start at the beginning. How did you conceive of this being something you wanted to explore both on its own and as a documentary?

It came to me in undergrad. I vividly remember one day being on one of the apps. I never really gave Grindr a try, because it it targeted a certain kind of audience–a very white cis middle class audience. I used Jack’d, and another app called Growlr–an app for bears. I tried it for a moment and I was like, no, that’s not a space for me either, because it was centered around a masculinized fatness.

I had reached a point where I was both bitter about and frustrated with gay male hookup/dating culture; like, wow, there is really no end to this shit.

I totally understand.

“No fats, no femmes” was everywhere! I couldn’t understand why someone would be so proud to boast such prejudice and this “masc for masc” bravado. Like, why is this a thing? I was also frustrated with myself as well because I had also internalized that kind of rhetoric, and I would often try to conform and kill parts of myself just to get a nut and a fuck. When I said “no more” to it, I dedicated myself to getting to the root of my own desire formation. I remember putting a really long message on my Jack’d profile, offering a sharp critique of people using “no fats, no femmes” on profiles.

People weren’t really responding to or receiving it; so, I started looking inward. I thought “is it not resonating?” I eventually erased the profile and took it down. Then I made a new account, and on that profile, I put “Looking for documentary subjects for a film called No Fats, No Femmes if you’re interested, hit me up.”

I would say that’s when it was conceived, in 2011. It’s since grown into a beautiful life and research project of me really interrogating the root of desire formation and making sense of how we have learned and still learn today; of desire and how that has shaped the politics of desire and who gets to be loved, whose body is desirable and whose is not; who’s worthy of being saved and whose body is not worthy of being saved.

Desirability politics isn’t just limited to our bedrooms.

Have you always been introspective and wanting to interrogate those ideas about desire, about the self, about construction of identity?

I would say yes. I have always been a very curious person, always asking a lot of fucking questions. Even growing up, asking questions was my earliest understanding of resistance. I’d always offer pushback, even when things really did not deserve pushback. It was somewhat childish and selfish, but I feel like if things aren’t going in the way I think is right for myself, I will always question it. Even with my own identity and coming out in high school– I left home, because it wasn’t a safe space for me.

With this project, I’m saying “I deserve a desire that’s not violent and asks of me to kill parts of myself just to be desired or desirable in somebody’s eyes”.

And this idea of desire as politics, when did you start exploring that?

Very recently. I’m pointing a lot towards bell hooks’ work, because bell hooks questions everything as a cultural critic and media theorist. She writes extensively around race, desire, and love. I remember reading her one day and thinking, “wow, I’m really interested in the intersection of desire and politics.” I feel like I recently came into that as a thing, and I’m focusing my academic research around that, and I’m hoping this film will be a sound board for later work in teasing out what I really mean by desirability politics and the politics of desire.

I totally understand with regard to compromising in terms of killing parts of yourself off. I actually very recently deleted all the apps off of my phone, because you get on them and then no one really responds, or they say really racist things. This one guy asked me if I worked at the Chinese restaurant on Sisson Avenue. And I was so offended–

Oh my god.

I worked at the one on George Street, and I’d never talk to those bastards! That’s a joke; I’ve never worked in a Chinese restaurant. When you create your profile, you’re constructing a version of yourself, and projecting, and I’m wondering, why do you think people would want to project a version of themselves that seems racist or misogynistic or femmephobic or fatphobic?

That’s a great question, and I feel like the answer to it is that it comes at various points, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer to it. I think one way that I have tried to make sense of it is that I think people are performing in a way that they must perform just to be desired themselves. Often times, these profiles will state or list what they don’t rather than what they do want, so it’s almost a way of performing femmephobia and fatphobia, which all points back to misogyny. Performing misogyny just to get laid. I honestly can’t find any other reasoning; people do that because they feel that’s what they have to do.

People wear it as a badge of honor. And it’s a very complicated thing. What I don’t want to accomplish or achieve with this project is to shame people for how they name and experience their desire(s); I’m just asking that they look deeper, and interrogate that. Some people just might not be into me or femme folks, but the goal of this project is not for us fat femme folks to get laid–I could care less about that. I don’t need to be fucked, I have an okay sex life. I’m just saying we all need to understand that the root of our desire is informed by many fucking things and it’s informed by things that we take in. So I think people put them on their profiles as a way to perform/embody this violent hyper-masculinity, which goes back to: a) wanting to being normal; and, b) wanting to be desired and fucked as normal. The only way to do that, it seems, is to perform those kinds of things.

I assume you know what RuPaul’s Drag Race is?

Mhm, of course.

How do you feel — I watch that show partially because it is a guilty pleasure, but I think there’s an interesting of body, race, beauty, and gender politics, and I’m wondering what you thought about that?

Drag Race is an interesting show–I really love how some of the queens are really brilliant in their wit and humor. The last season I watched, I remember Ginger Minj competing. Ginger Minj almost had that win, and she said one thing that was really poignant. She said a “big girl would never win this show.” That was a neccesary critique on so many of the ways that consumerism informs what is marketable and what is not. I was like, “damn, she’s right. I’ve seen big girls ascend to the top on the show, but never win.”

These are people that send ratings through the roof: Ginger Minj, Latrice Royale, Mystique Summers (“Bitch, I’m from Chicago!”) Also, it’s so crazy how drag has shifted from this really radical genderfuck performance. It’s moving away from this really entertaining drag performance to who can be most beautiful, and who can look most like a cisgender woman; who can look most like a model, because those things will sell.

And you mentioned in your Indiegogo video about these connections about being desired with capitalism. Could you elaborate on that?

For the film, I’m pulling different snippets from movies, films, television shows, magazines, and cartoons in a way to show how the media economy benefits from fatphobia. I’m thinking about beauty as a system of domination under capitalism. Magazines, TV–any kind of media mostly market white, cis normative thin bodies. Everybody wants to subscribe to that and be that because that’s what they are fed as “beautiful”. It’s what circulates most in our economy and makes the most money.

I remember my friend was critiquing me on how I was setting up and writing my dating profile and whatnot–he specifically used the metaphor that you’re selling yourself essentially. It’s interesting, and certainly problematic that the best way to sell yourself is to buy into the ideal beauty standard or the homonormative ideal or anything like that. With regards to gender fucking and race and body, Paris is Burning and Portrait of Jason are two very important films for ostensibly shedding light on an aspect of queer culture that was, at that point, not well known or under-seen. I’m wondering to what degree has that changed since the release of those films. Portrait of Jason was released in the late ’60s and Paris is Burning just had its 25th anniversary, I think. How has our ability to navigate our identities changed since then, specifically within intersectional purposes: race, gender, class?

I think things have radically changed since then. I think some of this longing to be seen and fucked by patriarchy is still there. And I don’t think that’s going to go anywhere until people are ready to really fuck shit up and imagine new worlds for themselves and their desires. Our language for self and the world has evolved since then because folks did not have access to complex and critical understandings of gender; all people had was “gay” and “transvestite”. So you know those things have radically changed.

Paris Is Burning still informs many queer people’s notions of self-identity. A lot of people are like Venus; they just want to be loved and live a very normative kind of life, in a nice house, with white picket fence and family. And a lot of people are also like Octavia; they want to be a model, and be respected for their whole selves.

So as you were growing up — I think self-actualization is a very important part of life, and we certainly have mixed messages in our society with regards to that, but was there any particular figure in the media, a fictional character or anything, in a book, film, television show, anything, that you saw yourself in, or has that yet come to be?

Growing up, I was very thrilled to see pieces of me in characters. I feel like it’s hard to try and capture everything because we are constantly evolving, over the years. And if there is ever a moment where our whole selves are not being reflected back to us, we create our own representations and stories. There was one particular figure in Baby Boy that I saw parts of myself in. Have you seen it?

I have not, but I’ve heard of it.

There’s like this one gay hairdresser in the movie. I remember at one point — Tyrese was a booster in the movie (someone that steals clothes for a living). He was getting this lingerie piece for this hairdresser–and back at the salon the hairdresser holds this pink little lingerie set up, he’s just like “Mmm, how much?” And Tyrese says “$40”. And the hairdresser is like, “forty dollarssss?!” That moment really tickled me and warmed my heart.

I also really adored Andre Leon Talley in high school. I couldn’t tell you who I look to now, because there are so many people! But growing up, I would say Noah’s Ark was a really big thing for me. It was an image of queerness created by a queer person. I also looked to RuPaul for inspiration a lot back in high school. I won’t discredit them now because of their messy politics; but he was a representation of strength and courage, as somebody who clearly genderfucked on TV.

Reading books and playing video games were really formative, too. I saw a lot of myself in women and female characters.

What was your formative queer experience? Not when you knew you were queer, but a moment in your life that helped you solidify your identity as such.

Full disclosure: I’m a Libra, so I have a really hard time making decisions sometimes; I’m really indecisive. So something came to me, but I’m like, that’s not it, that’s not it.

You can have more than one! I mean, part of navigating our identity is going through different experiences. But anything is fine. Whatever means the most to you.

I would name coming into my body and my gender as a really formative queer experience for me, and understanding both of those things as resistance. I’m just really comfortable with the ways that I have grown to see it, know it, and love it.

Kyle Turner (queer cis male monster, he/him) is a freelance writer, editor, and transcriber, and, if John Waters is to be believed, a good dancer. He began writing on the internet in 2007 with his blog The Movie Scene. Since then, he has contributed to Esquire, MUBI, Playboy.com , Flavorwire, TheBlackMaria.org, The Film Stage, Film School Rejects, Under the Radar, and IndieWire’s /Bent. He is studying cinema at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.

This article was produced and published on behalf of HARLOT Magazine, an intersectional e-rag set to launch in January 2016. For media inquiries or article pitches, contact us at dirtiestwellknownsecret@gmail.com.

This article was published on Medium as a teaser for HARLOT Magazine prior to their formal launch in February 2016. You can view it on the Harlot site here.

The past week has seen an unyielding tidal wave of articles written about the latest porn industry scandal, predominantly penned not by industry workers themselves but by journalists outside the community–as seen here,here, and here–occasionally flirting with legitimacy by quoting sex worker correspondents.

“I have to tell you, I am filled with rage right now,” begins Lorelei Lee, a blonde bombshell and porn industry veteran celebrating fifteen years in the business. She’s spitting fire over the phone, a palpably resonating anger.

“I’m used to being a mouthpiece for my community. Most of the time when I talk about sex work, I’ve addressed the topics so many times that I’m calm, controlled, poised. But not this week. These recent events are just publicized versions of hundreds of similar incidents that have happened to my [sex worker] friends and I over the years. It reminds me how far we still have to go to be seen as humans to the rest of the world.”

Sex workers are easy targets for those looking to take a swing. Sex work exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs) get to swoop in and be the “saviors” while they speak over, for, and ignore the words of actual sex workers in lieu of pushing sex-negative agendas and claiming that every instance of sex work is one of exploitation. Law enforcement officials spend valuable time and resources conflating non-consensual, underage sex trafficking with consensual, adult sex work in the public eye, in the hopes of being recognized a hero for yet another “bust”. Then there are your regular run-of-the-mill bigots who actively work to create a fantasy framework of good vs. evil with apocalyptic urgency, whether it’s in their own home or through their Facebook statuses, so they can sleep easier at night. After all, it’s a lot easier to attack something than to address our own mistakes and inadequacies in comprehending it.

As we’re all undoubtedly aware of at this juncture, Stoya called James Deen out as an abuser on Twitter and War Machine argued Christy Mack’s career in porn suggested she consented to his violent sexual assault, and the subsequent drama has effectively drawn people with petty scores to settleback into the ring.

I don’t use the words “alleged” or “accused of” in the citing of these horrific displays of aggressive misogyny and abuse, and I strongly advise others to follow suit. Utilizing those words stifles abuser accountability and delegitimizes the multifaceted, lifelong struggle of survivors. It’s important to look at the ways we discredit or devalue someone’s account of assault. Assuming innocence until proven guilty is in itself a microaggression; most instances of sexual assault happen in private, thereby eliminating the possibility of witnesses. Abusers know this, and capitalize on it.

Since Stoya’s initial disclosure, a number of prominent industry professionals have come forward with their own painful stories about Deen, and a quick Google search of Christy Mack’s name provides scores of graphic photographs of a woman beat nearly to death.

How many black eyes and broken spirits need be witnessed before someone listens? What does it take to believe a woman? What does it take to believe a whore?

We don’t need another sensationalized piece about all those “poor disempowered victims”. We don’t need “investigative” accounts highlighting every layperson’s opinion of Deen followed by conveniently anonymous testimonials of people who “saw it coming” and “weren’t surprised”. And we certainly don’t need journalists outside the sex industry calling sex workers to ask us basic fucking questions about our jobs in the spirit of being “relevant”.

If seventeen seasons of Law & Order: SVU has taught us anything, it’s that Americans love a sex scandal. Flashy headlines about sordid affairs, sex trafficking rings, and porn industry betrayals remain a relative goldmine for website analytics. Journalists know this. They thrive off of it, and they’re always going to prioritize an angle of controversy over doing their homework. No matter that affairs are not sordid by definition, that labor trafficking is actually a much more urgent national issue than sex trafficking, or that betrayal is by no means limited to those in the sex industry.

I don’t believe that the majority of society is actively gunning for the marginalization and perpetual punishment of sex workers. Instead I believe that ignorance is our greatest societal illness, and when the only windows to our community are those constructed by non-sex workers, well, everyone suffers from the inherent misinformation. Not allowing sex workers to be the authors of our own history erases us and does us no justice.

Society doesn’t benefit from glamorized, introductory-level “not all sex workers are bad” garbage.

“When you’re a member of a minority group that works really hard to not internalize that oppression, that work usually consists of you devouring materials produced by other members of your community,” Lee notes, “When non-workers are writing about sex work, they can’t know the history and the culture the way people within the community do, no matter how well-intentioned they are. There’s no excuse to start from square one, to call me up and ask ‘What are common stereotypes of sex workers and how are they wrong?’. That question has been answered a million times. Just do the goddamn work or let someone else who’s done it take the credit.”

When you’re a marginalized person, the aspects of your experience that mainstream media mouthpieces always want to focus are only the tip of the iceberg of unending labor you are expected to provide for society. This work — the grueling emotional labor of being a 24/7 advocate, educator, and defense attorney to your own community — is just as vital to your survival and, in a lot of cases, just as dangerous to your safety.

Those of us who experience intersecting oppressions wind up responsible for teaching and reminding the rest of the world that we’re human beings. We make ourselves unnecessarily vulnerable in doctor’s offices, educating them on the distinction between our gender and our genitals. We shell out hours of unpaid time defending our “lifestyle choices” to our families. We get into social media disputes dispelling harmful societal myths like The Bootstrap Theory. We regularly confront those who perpetuate rape culture, shame us for our sexual autonomy and insist we’re “asking for it”. And this is all while we’re attempting to have lives — to travel, to engage in meaningful relationships, to provide for ourselves, to get a good night’s sleep. Why is that our responsibility?

Why does being a sex worker imply that we deserve to do this emotional labor over and over again? Similar expectations are not held of our abusers — instead, society is quick to demand clemency and understanding for them. Why is it that Stoya and Christy Mack have to repeatedly relive their trauma by convincing the general public that their assaults are not linked to their work or to whom they inherently are as individuals? If it’s the responsibility of every marginalized person to educate on the nuances of their marginalization, how can we as a society claim to be wholly egalitarian?

Maxine Holloway is both a longtime sex worker and the founder of the Ask First Campaign, a project created in 2013 to promote awareness around consent in public spaces. Though the campaign’s slogan is “Ask First. It’s really that simple.”, Holloway has complex opinions on consent politics and the porn industry.

“Consent is so much deeper and more faceted than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” saysHolloway, “On porn sets there are a number of variables involved that can impact your ability to consent, such as your gender, race, current financial stability, and professional reputation. While all porn sets are different, the culture on set can be one of entitlement, where the women’s bodies are perceived as constantly accessible to the male talent. Unless you’re feeling empowered to do so, it can be difficult to change that narrative and protect yourself.”

The term “fluffer” has been used colloquially to refer to a person employed on a pornographic set to ensure that the male performers are kept aroused. Problem is, fluffers are a myth — no porn set ever budgets for an extra set of hands to maintain erections. In fact, in a hideous display of irony, James Deen himself is credited on Wikipedia as one of the people who dispelled the myth of the fluffer. This doesn’t seem to faze some male actors, who assume blanket consent of their female coworkers as soon as they step on set. As a woman, depending on how situationally impressionable or uninformed you are, other performers can take advantage of your vulnerability and push your physical and emotional boundaries fairly easily. Particularly if the porn director or company is more than willing to look the other way.

There is a longstanding narrative within porn of women as “overpaid starlets”, and men as a “struggling underclass”. This calling out of James Deen has, among other things, highlighted the ways that porn, however ‘counter-culture’, is still part of the culture. It’s an industry, and where there’s an industry there’s a workplace, and where there’s a workplace under patriarchy, cis men will take up as much space as they can, in sometimes egregious ways.

Just because a porn performer signs a contract consenting to a sex scene, this does not in any way imply that they are available for non-negotiated acts or time. If I’m being paid to clean your house — which is not, by the way, beyond the realm of possibility because sex work doesn’t pay to the degree that the public imagines, and many of us need to take on side hustles to survive — I’m not going to also wash your car and walk your dogs when I’m there unless I agreed to it beforehand and am being adequately compensated. If I’m taking a water break in between shots on a porn set, I shouldn’t have to worry about male talent groping my ass or inviting me to blow him on the couch while he relaxes.

None of the reporters trying to go viral with their one-dimensional pieces on sex work have to put up with these invasive expectations in the workplace, so why should I?

Last year Holloway was on a porn set where the male talent was having trouble ejaculating. The shoot couldn’t wrap until they had documented the “pop shot”, and so the cameras were turned off while the male performer masturbated in hopes of getting himself close to orgasm. Soon thereafter, Holloway unwittingly found herself being propositioned as a fluffer.

“At some point the guy requested my assistance in ‘finishing’ him,” Holloway recalls, “I was reluctant because I didn’t really want to do it and hadn’t signed up for it. I knew that the scene would be brought to completion by providing him that access to my body and attention, though, and I wanted to be a ‘good sport’, so I did it. No one pressured me. I just wanted to be a perceived as a ‘good’ performer and as being ‘helpful’.”

Assault isn’t only assault if it’s motivated by violence — assumption and entitlement can be just as much at fault, as can gender socialization. This is the very definition of rape culture.

Male desire is expressed externally and female desire expressed internally; men tend to have a more difficult time on porn sets. They’re expected to sustain a hard-on for hours at a time, as well as orgasm on command. No “pop shot”, no paycheck.

This attitude is directly responsible for the widespread abuse of erectile dysfunction drugs in the porn industry. Cisgender men in their twenties and thirties routinely pop ED pills to ensure pharmaceutically-assisted erections for the duration of their shoots with devastating long term consequences. Cisgender women have no such expectation attached to their bodies or performance. Faking an orgasm is a walk in the park for most of us, and as such there’s a certain professional sympathy felt for male talent when their boner takes a nosedive. Combine that sympathy with cultural expectations dictating that girls are more compassionate and nurturing than boys (and therefore should be readily available to assist and console them when necessary), and you’ve created an especially loaded environment for women to work in.

“In my experience, I do think it’s been a lack of awareness [on the part of male talent] more than anything predatory,” observes accomplished pornographer and dominatrix Mz Berlin, “My experience in the adult industry has been a good one with regards to my boundaries being respected, but then again I’ve always felt empowered to say ‘no’. I feel like participating in BDSM in my personal life equipped me with the necessary communication and negotiation skills regarding my body and my limitations that then translated to my work. I have had to shut down male entitlement early on in some interactions with male performers, but I’ve never had anyone respond negatively to me telling them to cool it.”

It would seem that we’re back to the topic of responsibility. We’ve already established that it should not be the responsibility of the sex worker to educate others on basic principles of consent and agency, even if the “other” is also a member of our community. So who gets held accountable for assault on set?

“This is a great opportunity for the adult industry to talk about consent on set and what that looks like to us,” Berlin continues, “Basic guidelines regarding consent on set would be helpful. Women need to be encouraged and empowered to own their bodies, and men need to learn to respect that agency. I believe much of that responsibility falls on the studios themselves to uphold consistently higher standards of safety and awareness.”

Notorious fetish porn super-studio Kink.com was quick to sever ties with Deen after multiple women stepped forward with stories of assault. Even so, a few of the assaults happened under their watch, and people within the community are calling for severe internal reform.

“Over the coming weeks and months, we will review our Model Bill of Rights to strengthen rights of performers off-set, and work with the larger industry to help performers who have been assaulted to more easily come forward,” the company wrote in a recent statement responding to the criticism.

Here’s the thing, though: Kink.com has one of the most evolved consent policies of any porn company currently operating in the United States. Theyhave to, due to the rigorous physical and emotional conditions their models endure. To get thrown in their Talent Office’s pool I had to submit an online application, then undergo a virtual interview via Skype (I was living on the other side of the country at the time), then fly out for an in-person interview to, in short, make sure that I a) was who I said I was, and b) knew what I was getting myself into. I had lots of time in between these stages to Google the studio, talk to other performers who had worked there, and watch a bunch of their content.

From that point on, every time I arrived for a shoot I had to fill out a comprehensive questionnaire that asked everything from my current fitness condition to that day’s sexual preferences and limitations. I was impressed every time. If you think every porn studio adheres to similar practices; you’d be dead wrong.

Can assault still happen at Kink.com? Abso-fucking-lutely. It has, and it probably will continue to, just as it happens on street corners, in schools, in churches, and in private homes. There are over 130 paid employees under their expansive roof, each employee a unique individual with their own motivations and intentions, and people can be assholes. But I bet if we made the same efforts to ensure enthusiastic, safe, and sane consent across the adult industry’s board performers would experience a lot less trauma. Perhaps we should even go a step further and provide a paid advocate in-house or per-shoot whose sole mission was to ensure the health and well-being of the performer. A pornographic “house mom”, if you will.

In addition, it seems as though performers with agents are much more susceptible to unsavory work environments as a result of having less of a personal hand in the booking process. Do we crack down on agents? Encourage industry workers to move away from utilizing them and towards taking control of their own empires? Or turn a magnifying glass to the communications that happen between agents and studios?

I’m only one person with a single set of experiences to speak to. I’ll never pretend to know any, let alone all, of the answers. But let’s remember who deserves to rise to action when change in the sex industry is called for: the workers themselves.

The rest of y’all can just pull up your lawn chairs and listen.

Andre Shakti is an educator, producer, activist, and professional slut devoted to normalizing alternative desires, de-stigmatizing sex workers and their partners, and not taking herself too seriously. @andreshakti,www.AndreShaktiXXX.com

This article was produced and published on behalf of HARLOT Magazine, an intersectional e-rag set to launch in January 2016. For media inquiries and article pitches, contact us at dirtiestwellknownsecret@gmail.com.

This article was published on Medium as a teaser for HARLOT Magazine prior to their formal launch in February 2016. You can view it on the Harlot site here.

I'm a big proponent of people discovering and pursuing what they want, in ethical and consensual ways. Some things I want are a beautiful queer family, an end to police violence (and/or policing altogether), a sustainable home which serves as a community support and nourishment space, full liberation of all people through disability justice, and an end to industrialized capitalism. But before I developed and articulated all these desires, I wanted to see my body. I wanted to see my complex, brown, disabled, queer body. I wanted to see myself having sex and being sexual and falling in love with my body and the world. So when I had the opportunity to start acting in porn, after my BFF/life partner pushed me to introduce myself to Jiz Lee after a Careers in Sex panel, I took it.

And I'm glad I did. It's opened up a beautiful world for me.

I have had, at parties and other outings, disabled people come up to me and say, “You were the first visibly disabled person I ever saw being sexy/sexual/having sex on film.” I'm even gonna get wet eyes right now you guys. I love having a body, and I love how I use it.

It's great when a movement speaks to you, and the moment that that happens, you might discover just what is that you want and hope for in this world.

I wonder: who felt like a movement was speaking to them when we started seeing the giant orange billboards going up all over Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area?

FIGHTERS on Twitter

Our campaign in the Bay Area is still going strong! These billboards are sparking a huge conversation! #PornKillsLove pic.twitter.com/I2Fhtwdi2F

Who read the billboard, “Porn Kills Love. Fight for Love” and was like, “YES, you guys, I finally know what I stand for”? Some young, white, trying to be just the right kind of progressive but-also-just-the-right-kind-of-citizen-son-or-daughter Bay Area residents might be eager to jump on a bandwagon calling itself love.

The enemy of love identified by relatively young organization Fight the New Drug, a secularly approached, Mormon backed campaign which focuses on stigmatizing the making and viewing of porn through youth education isn’t just porn, but sex work in general. Their “science”, “fact”, and “personal account” based, loosely interactive website carelessly ties together multiple, not inherently linked industries and incorrect assumptions about sex work and, ultimately, sexuality itself.

In the same sense that dominant culture chooses not to read “white” as a race, or “straight” as a sexual orientation, FTND chooses to frame good-ol’ fashioned, marital, heterosexual, cissexual, private, closed door lovemaking meant for making babies as the default and correct sexual expression, deeming anything other than that suspect.

FTND's street teams, also called Fighters, pictured on their website, are apparently entirely made up of blonde Levi's models and the occasional black Levi's model who sport shirts bearing their catchy slogan, “Porn Kills Love”.

So what are these kids representing and promoting? And just who are they talking to?

The Faulty Logic of “Porn Kills Love” In 5 Parts

Myth #1: Porn is like a drug! It is addictive and you can build up a tolerance to it over time!

I take drugs seriously. I have seen things like meth, cocaine/crack, and heroin devastate the lives of people in my communities, and even take the lives of people I love. And yet: you know what has never helped any drug user get the help they need without fear of stigma or punitive action? “The War on Drugs”. It began after crack hit the streets in the 80's (an inside job), changing a whole lot of already marginalized people's lives for the worse. Since then, it serves to protect only those cops and government officials who buy into it, and has wreaked punitive havoc on hundreds of thousands of particularly black and brown people.

Criminalizing any activity, addictive/dangerous or not, only pushes those who take part in it further and further into the margins, and drives those who don’t want to be punished (either socially or institutionally) to secrecy and isolation. There are many complex reasons why people use drugs, either casually or consistently, and the circumstances and environmental factors which contribute to this are only exacerbated by policing and criminalization. The more isolated you are, the more at risk you are, the less likely you are to use the safest methods, or to have access to supportive resources at all.

And the same is true of any war on the sex industry. The criminalization and stigmatization of sex work only contributes to the isolation and at-risk status of sex workers.

Where is FTND on issues that are actually affecting my people? Like intergenerational trauma, police violence including murder and sexual assault, institutionalization and incarceration, eviction and homelessness, the extremely intentional government sanctioned accessibilizing of crack cocaine and other street drugs, the deaths of transpeople?

FTND believes that it is not possible to have a casual relationship to porn consumption. Any use, according to the Fighters, is an addiction. To indulge that logic, it must also be said: to have an internet porn addiction, as in to watch porn at all outside of a theatrical screening, you have to have a computer. You have to at least be comfortable enough to not be zipping from dollar to dollar figuring out how you're going to eat some food and pay your bills. You have to have some down time, to have an internet porn addiction. You have to have your own internet, most likely, because I know library and coffee shop IP addresses will block your choice to access porn in a public place, if you are that bold. You have to have your own space inside of the housing that you have; if you're trying to keep your addiction a secret, you're most likely watching porn alone behind a closed door.

FTND’s message is directed towards a privileged audience. They’re not concerned about the survival and recovery of the most at-risk addicts in our communities.They're concerned about the class-privileged, straight marriages that are falling apart because couples can't communicate with one another about their desires.

The truth is, almost any behavior, including buying stuff, having sex, eating sugar, and using the internet, can be turned into a self-isolating, self destruction addiction. It’s up to people and those that love them to determine if a behavior is hurting them.

FTND weaponizes addiction rhetoric to pathologize reflecting on our boundaries. If you watch porn, you might become less shocked by certain sex acts, you might learn something, and you might become more tolerant of other people's personal sexual desires and be less likely to act in harmful, discriminating ways towards another person based on what you perceive about their desires.

In The Survivor's Guide to Sex, survivor, sex educator, somatics practitioner, and co-founder of the transformative justice project Generation 5 Staci Haines asks her readers questions at the end of every chapter. At the end of the first chapter she says,

“Take a look at your own attitudes/biases regarding sex. Make a list of what you think are examples of healthy consensual sex and what you believe are not. Where do these ideas come from? How could they change?”

It is beneficial to us in our healing not only as survivors, but as people who have been denied equal access to holistic sex education, to learn about sexuality, our own, the sexuality of others, and recognize where our attitudes and beliefs about sex come from. It is not up to FTND to tell you, or anyone, what images of healthy, loving sexuality look like.

Myth #2: Porn is not “real”, and people who watch porn will gradually lose interest in “real” sex.

Porn stars are real people. Having your job involve a little bit of make-believe doesn't make you not a real person. Jennifer Lawrence s not a shared hallucination. Thank goddess.

Yes, many actors in film industries, adult or not, experience pressures to change or maintain their bodies in ways which pertain to dominant culture's standards of beauty. This is due to white supremacy, patriarchy/misogyny, transphobia, heterosexism, ableism, and capitalism. Such dehumanizing body politics are on still the table in many lines of work in which workers are supposedly not meant to be sex symbols.

While FTND define normal, healthy sex as being between two people (read: straight cis man and straight cis woman) for the purpose of intimacy and procreation, sex is actually a much broader landscape/animal than that. Are we not sexual when we are by ourselves? Don’t we sometimes discover the most intricate, nuanced aspects of our sexuality, when we are responsive to our feelings, feelings which are sometimes stirred when we see something we like? Like porn that turns us on? If you assume that human beings are only sexual in the context of straight love making, or if you assume that sexual people cease being sexual when another person isn’t around, then you are setting yourself up to feel betrayed.

Not only is masturbation a normal and awesome part of human sexuality, it’s also easily and beautifully documented in porn!

If your primary sexual or sensual expression is not having sex with another person, and in fact you prefer watching porn/having sex with yourself/etc: A) you might be an adult film actor who is not extremely sexual outside of work and prefers to set sex on a stage, which is fine B) you might be autosexual, on the asexuality spectrum, or celibate, which is also fine C) you might have issues pertaining to your conception of your own sexuality and desires that you need to talk about, work through, and explore without judgement.

Do you have someone who you can trust to talk about these things with? Maybe someone who is not telling you that porn is the biggest problem in your life? Straight, cis, white, non-disabled people take for granted how much their sexuality is represented in the mainstream media. People who hold these often visible privileges expect to see their bodies on television, on the silver screen, on billboards, in fashion magazines, and yes, even in porn.

While white, able bodied, cis straight people can go back and forth about whether or not their bodies are being misrepresented or exploited through various manifestations of sexual imaging in the media, it is often hard to imagine what it might be like, to never have had an image of someone who looked like you being a sexual or even just romantic person. For so many trans people and disabled people, people of color with white parents, etc. we didn't even grow up with in person representations or stories of loving sensuality and sexuality between two consenting people who had bodies like ours.

I believe that explicit discussion and representation of a diverse array of consensual sexuality is necessary for us to approach liberation and embodiment.

Myth #3: Porn destroys relationships, I.E. KILLING LOVE!

I was on a panel in 2013 at UC Berkeley in which a student asked me and the other porn star panelists,

“What are you going to do if you want to get married and have a family?”

I don't know that I assume that everyone who attends these kind of educational panel discussions of sex work and porn are necessarily people who know sex workers personally or are fans of porn, but I was generally sort of surprised by this question. And it made me pop out of my little bubble of self-love and respect and sex worker appreciation and see some of the lingering attitudes that had decided to attend the event.

Maybe people respect our decision to go through the regrettable phase of making and or performing in porn, just like some people say, “You can have a bi/gay/queer phase. I don't agree with it, but I respect your decision. Call me when you've pulled through.”

Maybe we’re just some sort of entertainment to them, people with messy sensational lives like reality TV show stars (who are also real people BTW), and when you get to the panel, you expect us to talk about nasty sex and funny behind the scenes stories and all that junk, and then you wonder: “I wonder what these immature people might do if they ever decide to clean up and have a normal life like I am intending to do by attending Berkeley, marrying a good woman, and buying a small country?”

I don't remember who said it, but one person on the panel responded aptly, “What makes you think we don't already have partners or families?” We had all made reference to our boyfriends, girlfriends, primary and tertiary partners, parents, nieces, best friends, and growing communities multiple times throughout the discussion. Do our already existing vibrant family structures, sometimes alternative and sometimes more normative, not count if we are queer or if we are making porn?

What does FTND have to say to queer sex workers who are happily married and have babies?

While not everyone has been able to come out about their adult film star status, or choose not to for various reasons regarding safety and stigma, a lot of us do, and are supported by those we love. If love is being killed, it’s not in our name.

If you can't tell your partner that you are uncomfortable with them watching porn, or if you don't feel like you can watch porn because your partner will judge you, or if you feel like you can't admit that you don't like porn or some of the sexual desires porn has opened up for your partner, or if you feel like your partner will judge you for performing in porn, your relationship needed counseling from the get-go, and porn, again, is probably not the root of your differences and problems.

Myth #4: Porn is exploitative, coercive, and inherently linked to human trafficking.

Where's my girl Jada Pinkett Smith on this one? Her views on human trafficking used to name stripping, escorting, and porn as the gateways to trafficking and therefore spoken of with the same suspicion and stigma, but after acting in the film Magic Mike XXL, her and Channing Tatum began to discuss ways that people could take part in adult entertainment ethically and responsibly. She realized that she truly enjoyed sharing in the sexual energy of the simulated strip club in which the camaraderie between women was strong.

While Jada and my views on responsibility might differ slightly, I'm glad that we can agree with thousands of sex workers around the world, that sex workers must be treated like human beings with agency and rights from the get go:

“What I realized in my human trafficking advocacy is that the sex industry is going to exist. There is no way to eradicate this. The clothing industry is going to exist. There is as much trafficking in the clothing industry, in the chocolate industry, in the coffee bean industry. Instead of focusing on eradication, I wanted to bring the idea that no matter what someone is doing, they should be treated as a human being.” (pulled from Rolling Out Magazine)

Amnesty International and a number of other human rights organizations and experts on trafficking are seeking the decriminalization of consensual adult sex work as a way to make sex workers safer and help prevent and get to the bottom of human trafficking and the slave trade:

We have chosen to advocate for the decriminalization of all aspects of consensual adult sex- sex work that does not involve coercion, exploitation or abuse. This is based on evidence and the real-life experience of sex workers themselves that criminalization makes them less safe. We reached this position by consulting a wide array of individuals and groups, including but not limited to: sex workers, survivor and abolitionist groups, HIV agencies, women’s and LGBTI rights activists, Indigenous women’s groups, anti-trafficking groups and leading academics...Other groups which support or are calling for the decriminalization of sex work include the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, International Labour Organization, the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, Human Rights Watch, the Open Society Foundations and Anti-Slavery International.

Any nonconsensual act can be filmed and called porn. It is insulting to me and other porn performers, and any survivor, that some people rape on camera and then try to distribute that as porn. Filmed sexual assault is not porn. There are sex workers who have experienced violence within the industry, and justice for them starts when we start differentiating exploitation, coercion, and assault from sex work. Stop calling all exploitation porn when you mean exploitation, and stop calling all porn exploitation.

I believe in workers rights over bosses' profit, and that goes for sex workers' rights too. It will only be through deeper and broader education, and the empowerment and destigmatization of service workers (sex workers included) that justice and liberation will be possible.

Get with the times, FTND. If your movement was primarily advocating against slavery, wage slavery, indentured servitude, racism, globalized capitalist misogyny, the sexual assault of sex workers, trafficking, and rape culture, and for the basic human rights and decriminalization of at-risk people everywhere, then we'd have something to talk about.

Myth #5: Porn leads to violence and warped ideas about women, sex, and love.

Sites which have commended FTND for their stance on porn have said that “women” who feel empowered by making porn are among the privileged few based on race and class, and that most poor women of color are forced into sex work. In that case, I guess as a poor, queer, disabled erotic performer, adult model, educator, and activist I would be considered a ridiculous anomaly. It's true that there should be more options and jobs that do not discriminate based on someone's body and circumstances. It's also true that the stigmatization and criminalization of consensual adult sex work will not empower anyone, of any gender.

To try to assert that pornography is the primary source of patriarchy, misogyny, and rape culture is extremely misguided. While yes, porn has been around for a long time, and yes, porn has become less vanilla in recent iterations of internet porn, better sex education is certainly not to blame for porn, and porn is certainly not to blame for misogyny and rape. Porn, both a form of art and a form of sex education (just as any media is an education whether the makers intend it to be or not) in and of itself, reflects a multitude of societal values, whether they be mainstream or underground. This is true of all media ever created.

Are you only interested in stopping the rapes that were caused by porn? While some rapists can claim to blame porn for their actions, others could blame “Grand Theft Auto”, “Game of Thrones”, or their own fathers for poor examples set.

Young people who absorb the idea that they should and can coerce their partners into sexual acts they see in pornography, other media, or by people in their lives, are not receiving a well-rounded sexual education, or may have experienced something nonconsensual or coercive themselves.

While I do not think that kids under 18 should watch porn, it is also important for parents to be aware of what information their kids are absorbing, and talk to them about sex and desire in ethical, but non-stigmatizing, non-moralizing ways.

What we have here is a failure to communicate:

So many of the “facts” gathered by FTND about porn, its users, and its victims involves gaping holes in a holistic understanding of people, sexual difference, and social issues. What is missing from the analysis is a broader conversation about sexual education, desire, ethics, and equity. Who are these partners who cannot talk to each other about how they really feel about sex? Who are these white hipsters who somehow think that their message is relevant to anyone who is not just like them?

It's no coincidence that these signs went up all over the San Francisco Bay Area, home of porn sites such as Kink.com, Crashpadseries.com, Queerporn.tv, NaughtyNatural.com, FtmFuckers.com, Translesbians.com, Bonusholeboys.com, innovative intersectional sexual education coming from places such as Good Vibrations and The Center for Sex and Culture, erotic and political performance groups such as Sins Invalid, and an extremely active sex positive culture.

I know there are tons of white techies with unclear values here now, but you know what else the Bay Area is full of? People of color who invented the words that FTND appropriates with ease. Queer people who have queer sex. Disabled people and trans people who approach sex in innovative, adaptive ways. People who not approach sex at all. People who's bodies cannot make babies, whether they want to or not, and people who's bodies can make babies, whether they want to or not, and who are still not given the reins to steer us towards reproductive justice. Liberation movements created and carried through by queer/disabled/people of color, indigenous people, artists, laborers, sex workers, poor or working class people, houseless people, and people who are all of the above. Liberation movements surging on even while people are assaulted, arrested, evicted, institutionalized, and killed. Liberation movements that do not need to be trendy to be powerful.

For a couple of weeks, the billboard on 27th and San Pablo more appropriately read,

Cops Kill Love.

Fight For Love.

I asked the guys who hang out on that corner if they knew what the sign said before, and they did not. It's better that way. Fight the New Drug was never speaking to us to begin with.

Perhaps a more accurate slogan might be:

“Watching internet porn is a controversial practice for straight married people, and might complicate the sex found in a straight marriage.”

But I guess that wouldn't fit on a sign, and it would be harder to make the message seem universal, because it's not.

* as of the writing of this piece, the “Porn Kills Love” billboard in my neighborhood had been graffitied to say this, but within a couple of weeks, it somehow seamlessly says “porn” again.

Dear Reader, Tag offensive billboards.

Neve Be is currently a columnist at maximumrocknroll, and you can find more of their written work in Coming Out Like A Porn Star edited by Jiz Lee, EverydayFeminism, Plenitude Magazine, ModelViewCulture, and nevebeyankin.tumblr.com.

They are currently at work on a book, and liberating their/your/our bodies. Find them on Twitter: @nevebeyankin and Instagram: @seasickstarlit

This article was produced and published on behalf of HARLOT Magazine, an intersectional e-rag set to launch in January 2016. For media inquiries or article pitches, contact us at dirtiestwellknownsecret@gmail.com.

This article was published on Medium as a teaser for HARLOT Magazine prior to their formal launch in February 2016. You can view it on the Harlot site here.

“These girls have to deal with men in their lives every day…they don’t listen to them, they don’t even ask them what they want. All we have to do is ask them what they want. And when they tell you, it’s a beautiful thing, man. We’re like healers or something.” — Donald Glover in Magic Mike XXL

There’s an old trope in the sex worker community about the client that talks a big game — whips, chains, acrobatic positioning–only to arrive to their appointment and spend the entire session crying on the provider’s shoulder about a major life dilemma. While individuals outside the industry may dismiss this profile as an endearing tall tale, the workers themselves know better: that they’re frequently sought out as emotional support under the guise (or wrapped in the sparkly packaging) of sexual desire.

Real talk? Clients just want someone to listen to them.

For men, purchasing the time of a sex worker has become more societally-acceptable than purchasing the time of a mental health worker. That unrequited burden of emotional support then ends up resting on the shoulders of the sex worker with whom the man is already sharing connective, intimate time. It’s not that men aren’t ever just seeking aid in some kind of sexual release, but despite living in a country where public opinion seems to be embracing the erotic services market, we’re still shaming men for perceived vulnerability.

Somehow we’ve evolved (?) to a place where guys buying each other lapdances makes them studs, but paying for a therapist’s couch time makes them sissies. Mental health services have always been viewed as a “feminine” issue; men admitting they may need emotional assistance is seen as an assault to their masculinity. But what could possibly be more masculine than paying for sex?

Sexual desire can put people in a place of extreme emotional vulnerability, especially if they harbor alternative desires that they’ve been rejected for in the past. When clients make that first contact, they are often blindly putting all of their sensitivities and shame in the hands of the sex worker. They’re craving acknowledgement, encouragement, reassurance, comfort and acceptance — even if they’re not introspective enough to realize it. When their proclivities are met with a subsequent lack of judgment, the sex worker establishes themselves as a “safe” person, and often unwittingly becomes the focal point for the client’s overall emotional unrest. This turns the interaction from one of sexual labor — a consensual, mutual agreement between client and provider where the provider is getting compensated for their advertised services — to one reliant on unpaid emotional labor.

That’s giving clients the benefit of the doubt, by the way. Sometimes a tangible relationship with the worker isn’t desired at all, and the mere return of correspondence acts as fantasy fulfillment, perpetuating a culture of exploitation that the clients often aren’t even consciously aware of. For example, I received an email the other day from a potential client. He identified the advertising platform he’d found me on before inquiring about my rates. Here’s how the rest of the conversation unfolded:

At this point it became obvious to me (as someone who’s been working in the sex industry for almost ten years) that “Matt” had no intention of ever setting up an appointment. Instead, his goal was to elicit elaborate responses from me, responses that he hoped would pad the lining of his mental spank bank with fantasy material that he could return to time and time again. Responses that I would be in no way compensated for.

Our culture supports and encourages unpaid feminine emotional labor at every turn. Women are groomed to spend our daily energy being “intuitive and empathetic”, aka “good friends” to other people, without expecting our efforts to be acknowledged or rewarded. We’re told to be completely receptive to the hardships of others, particularly men, and to be readily available to lend an ear and a wealth of advice, even at the risk of personal loss.

This isn’t, by any means, an issue isolated to women who work in the sex industry. Every woman who has come across the aggressively extroverted man at the bus stop griping to her about liberal agendas, the guy driving her Lyft soliciting her for relationship advice, or the stranger bro in line at the cafe unloading on her about the “totally sick” party he threw over the weekend has experienced unpaid emotional labor.

As Jess Zimmerman points out in her piece on female emotional labor for The Toast:

“…How convenient that this cultural construct gives men an excuse to be emotionally lazy. How convenient that it casts feelings-based work as ‘an internal need, an aspiration, supposedly coming from the depths of our female character’.”

We’re told that being perpetually emotionally available to others make us more “girl-like” or “woman-like”, and bolsters an increased feeling of feminine acceptance in the world. This is despite the rather obvious fact that it’s doing other people a solid favor. Which means we should get something in return.

Make no mistake: charging for emotional labor is an inherently feminist act. And as sex workers, we should be charging just as much for our emotional output as we ask for our erotic output.

Sex worker Hunter Leight actively practices as a counselor, not unlike many of her peers who provide erotic services while concurrently working as professionals in the social sciences. There’s an unmistakable correlation between the two occupations: due to the heavy emotional artillery involved in sex work, those who excel at responding and relating to other human beings often make ideal sex workers. Leight is no exception.

“Not all sex workers are women, but all women are socialized to be emotionally available at all times, particularly to hold space for the woes of men,” Leight asserts, “We’re constantly being confided in and accosted for advice without our consent. Our time is labor and has value. People assume free access to time and effort from women because of a still-prevalent patriarchy.”

In part due to her training as a therapist, Leight has a complex understanding of the huge need for emotional support and loving contact inherent in sex work.

“When communicating remotely as a sex worker, emotional labor looks like a consistent, genuine, and involved effort to support the client. When face-to-face with a client as a sex worker, emotional labor can look a lot like therapy, but what we provide is far more intimate than therapy; we acknowledge the full humanity of our clients,” Leight continues.

Critics may argue that sex workers often are paid an hourly rate that’s disproportionate to many “mainstream” jobs, therefore they shouldn’t complain. What they’d be failing to take into account is that we charge to compensate ourselves not only for the exhaustive nature of the work, but for our complete lack of protections and benefits, as well for the lack of guaranteed income. Sex workers have no health insurance, no workers compensation or vacation pay, and generating money is a constant hustle not unlike that experienced in other sales or freelance positions. We have no steady paychecks, no hourly reimbursement for the time we spend developing our brands, generating promotional copy, responding to inquiries, and maintaining relationships.

One company is trying to set a precedent for charging for sex workers’ emotional labor, but not everyone is buying. Adult performer and fetish wrestler Syd Blakovich first launched Barbary Coast Grapplers, a company that matches clients with accomplished, athletic women to roll with, earlier this year.

“With Barbary, I wanted to offer a unique service: quality competitive wrestling with trained technique-savvy professionals who also don’t deny the sexual appeal of the service,” says Blakovich, “I was doing [celebrated XXX website] Ultimate Surrender for ten years, but the 24/7 correspondence implication behind taking private sessions with clients always deterred me from doing so. It was too much customer service with no guaranteed financial reward.”

A business-oriented individual, Blakovich clearly sees communication as an investment on the part of client, and as such she set a one-time $25 fee for Barbary clients’ correspondence that’s applied toward a future booking.

The negative responses she was met with were both immediate and unrelenting. Many clients jumped on the offensive, expressing outrage and resentment over being charged “simply to talk with someone”. Blakovich was surprised but undeterred. She believes that the fee sets a necessary paid emotional labor precedent for the rest of the sex worker community, and she’s sticking by it.

“We do our community as much of a disservice as we do ourselves when we don’t know what we’re worth and fail to enforce it,” she remarks, “If a client asks me why I’m charging them in a way that’s genuinely inquisitive rather than accusatory, I don’t hesitate to provide them an honest explanation of my business practices. But if they’re being dicks, I’ll politely disengage. They can, and will, go elsewhere.”

“Lawyers, therapists, and many freelancers charge for communication time that goes beyond the basics required to arrange their services. I see no reason why sessions shouldn’t, either.”

Not only can the sheer volume of effort associated with sex work correspondence prove overwhelming, but managing communication around sex work seems to involve a disproportionate amount of poor communication tactics as well as a great number of people taking advantage of it. Responding to emails riddled with run-on sentences, fragmented thoughts, pushy agendas, offensive assumptions, and embarrassingly poor spelling and grammar is infinitely more tedious than doing customer service in a conventional workplace where individuals see each other as professional peers and address each other as such.

It’s actually amazing to me that the vast majority of men who contact me for erotic services communicate in a manner that would infuriate my middle school English teachers, then later identify themselves as programmers, doctors, and lawyers. The implied lack of respect there is maddening.

If there’s one thing I want you to walk away with, it’s the understanding that your value should not only be recognized while you’re “on the clock”. We’re always on the clock. Sex workers, women, slaves to the wage.

The sooner we empower ourselves with the knowledge of our time as labor, recognizing exactly what that labor is worth to us and refusing to negotiate it down, the sooner we’ll all be free.

Andre Shakti is an educator, producer, activist, and professional slut devoted to normalizing alternative desires, de-stigmatizing sex workers and their partners, and not taking herself too seriously. @andreshakti, www.AndreShaktiXXX.com.

This article was produced and published on behalf of HARLOT Magazine, an intersectional e-rag set to launch in January 2016. For media inquiries and article pitches, contact us at thedirtiestwellknownsecret@gmail.com.

This article was published on Medium as a teaser for HARLOT Magazine prior to their formal launch in February 2016. You can view it on the Harlot site here.

EINAR
I don’t want to put [the dress] on.
GRETA
I’ve not asked you to!

She lays it across him. He goes to lightly push it away -

GRETA
Would you just relax…? The sooner I start, the sooner I finish. Close your eyes.

In the interest of disclosure: I have to admit I have no real idea about what exactly makes crossdresser porn tick. As I’ve stated before on my own blog, not once in my life have I ever gotten an erection from putting on a pair of panties and “the feel of silky smooth nylon stocking fabric” has always felt irritating and confining rather than erotic. I understand, politically, that many “crossdressers” are trans-aligned folks that have limited outlets due to societal repression. As a drag queen back when Texas sodomy laws were still on the books, I wound up seeing a lot of that repression, way too close for comfort, waving a badge in my face.

I understand how queer culture has encoded itself in pulp fiction and erotica throughout the 20th century in order to subvert and circumvent said repression. I get it. I simply just don’t understand the porn itself.

I get it, but I don’t get it.

That said, being an internet-addicted transsexual for almost as long as the internet has been a thing means I’ve encountered plenty of said porn. I understand the structure, the beats, the emphasis on certain images. It’s really not unlike other classic queer erotica; the feeling of loss of self-control, the internalized shame and reveling in bucking social stigma, themes of being lured away from “normal” life into a hubris-laden decadent “freedom” that always ends in punishment.

The idea of a queer happy ending is verboten, even in escapist literature. A dreary reminder of the surrounding claustrophobically heteronormative world.

The thing that differentiates crossdresser erotica from other contemporary erotica is that, instead of being seduced by a person, the protagonist is seduced by the clothes. Instead of “whiffing the confident musk” of the leather clad daddy about to whisk Stiffcollar Closetman off to Brokeback his Mountain, the protagonist is seduced by “the silky smoothness of the stocking fabric carefully drawn up over his knee”.

It’s always those fucking stockings or angora sweaters or whatever.

Earlier this year, I was snuck a copy of the shooting script for The Danish Girl, the “biopic” of Lili Elbe, one of the historical first recipients of gender confirmation surgery. Or rather, the screenplay adaptation (and just released film) of the also award-winning (Lambda Lit Award for Transgender Fiction) fictionalized “biography” of Elbe by (probably not a transgender woman) author David Eberhoff. Reading this script, goddamn if all those beats from crossdresser erotica weren’t in there. The script is practically written like porn:

Einar walks between racks of clothes that hang in two tiers so the ruffled
and feathered hems of jewel-coloured gowns brush his cheeks.

An explicit sensual pleasure, which Einar is conscious of but feels no need to investigate.

He pauses. The ARIA ceases, he hears women CHATTING, sometimes DROPPING THEIR VOICES, emitting DIRTY LAUGHS, which make him smile and wonder. A stolen intimacy.

Then Einar moves on, appears at a clearing in the room. Anna is being pulled into a corset by a DRESSER.

She sees him — is delighted, breaks free for a moment, her flesh spilling deliciously in all directions.”

“They LAUGH and Anna signals to the dresser to pull at the corset once more, smiles in delighted anticipation of the discomfort to come.”

“He fiddles with the second stocking now, a light sweat dewinghis forehead by the time he’s rolled both to the knee. He opens a shoebox: — the yellow pair from the shop window.

EINAR
I saw these in the window of Fonnesbech’s…
GRETA
Smart aren’t they?
EINAR
I don’t think they’ll fit…

He takes them out… The first shoe just fits. Something catches in Einar’s throat as he pushes his foot into the second. Greta’s eyes are narrow as she works. Einar looks down at his feet, the disjuncture between the body above and below the knee…he breathes… can’t keep his hands steady.

They both look over to where Anna’s dress hangs. It is white, weighted with beads at the hem and cuff. Beautiful.

EINAR
No, Greta…
GRETA
I need to see how the hem falls.

She goes to get it… Einar asserts himself now, firm:

EINAR
I don’t want to put it on.
GRETA
I’ve not asked you to!
She lays it across him. He goes to lightly push it away -
GRETA
Would you just relax…? The sooner I start, the sooner I finish. Close your eyes.

He’s reluctant. Greta WHISPERS, genuine:

GRETA
Please.

Einar yields as Greta runs her fingers gently down his face, closing his eyes, begins to arrange the dress over him, like dressing a paper doll. Satisfied, Greta returns to work. Einar’s eyes stay closed, his breathing slightly laboured, his lips apart… The dress weighs heavily on him.

His head moves slightly, feeling it brush at his neck. His fingers curl involuntarily around the beaded cuff. The SOUNDSCAPE becomes heightened: the creak of Greta’s easel, the jangling of her bracelets, the sound of the sea, the wind in the riggings. The SOUNDS build, combine, fill his head… then:

ANNA (O.S.)
Well hello, there!

And you know what, that’s fine. I’m not against the existence of this sort of stuff. The thing that bothers me is that underneath the screenwriter’s panty party is a real story being obscured. As far as trans history goes, Lili Elbe is a very important figure. She wasn’t the first first to undergo sex-reassignment surgery; that would be Dorchan Richter. But Dorchan was a very private woman, whereas Lili was a vibrant Weimar-era German socialite and respected artist.

Her first surgeries were done under the direct supervision of Magnus Hirschfield, who, alongside his Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, probably deserve their own movie. Her later surgeries (including the one she unfortunately died of complications from so Eddie Redmayne could win an Oscar) were done by the controversial Kurt Warnekros.

Every aspect of her life is a vibrant exploration of early 20th century queer subculture, artistic decadence and pioneering medical science.

Where the fuck is that movie?

Fonnesbech’s relieved. Though he’s left with questions.

GRETA
It’s hard for a man to be looked at by a woman. Women are used to it, of course, but for a man…

Mr Fonnesbech begins to look wildly vulnerable.

GRETA
To… submit to a woman’s gaze. It’s unsettling…

Fonnesbech nods, relieved — that’s exactly it.

GRETA
Although I believe there’s some pleasure to be had from it, once you…

She smiles mischievously.

GRETA
…yield.

Fonnesbech swallows, cheeks pinking. Greta works, eyes glinting at what she’s provoked: finally getting somewhere.

It’s quickly established that Greta, Lili’s wife, has this domineering proclivity towards men, especially her painting models, that she dominates through quick wit and entendre. This is a frequent trope of “forced femme” erotica, in which such a woman manipulates her unwilling and frequently protesting male partner into crossdressing.

EINAR
You won’t tell anyone about this?
GRETA
Who would I tell?
EINAR
Greta…
She sees he means it now. A little surprised:
GRETA
I won’t tell anyone. No.

Greta mixes paints. Einar battles with the stockings.

Through a “wacky” mixup, Greta’s model is late, so she cajoles her husband Einar to try on the dress she intended the model to wear. He protests, but she eventually browbeats him into it. Of course, then the model finally shows up seeing Einar in the dress, humiliating him.

This humiliation is a frequent feature of the crossdresser/forced femme erotica, from which the script clearly and frequently borrows plot development beats.

This all honest to god happens, and they even have a fucking “Dragged Into Drag” MONTAGE of Greta goading Einar into becoming Lili, which is just as absurd and terrible as it sounds.

MONTAGE BEGINS -
INT. WIDOW HOUSE, BATHROOM
Einar has one of Greta’s sketches of ‘Lili’ stuck on the
bathroom mirror. Plucks a few hairs from his eyebrows to better
resemble the glamorous arch in the sketch.

INT. FONNESBECH’S DEPARTMENT STORE, COSMETICS DEPT
Einar tests lipsticks on the back of his hand, absorbed. Two
women LAUGH and he looks round, self-conscious, but it’s nothing
- just Greta messing around with one of the assistants.

EXT. NARROW STREET, DAY
Einar follows Greta, watches her hips sway, the way her weight
shifts; copies, feeling his way into her walk.

DISSOLVE TO:
INT. WIDOW HOUSE, STUDIO
Einar’s face, still concentrating as he paces the floors in
Anna’s yellow shoes, his trousers rolled up around the ankle.

INT. WIDOW HOUSE, BATHROOM, EVENING
Einar’s (unmade-up) face in the mirror. Greta does the last
button at the back of a simple shift dress he’s wearing. She
looks into the mirror.

INT. WIDOW HOUSE, BEDROOM, EVENING
Einar in the dress, sitting with his legs wide apart as Greta
sketches. She nudges him and he corrects his posture…We see
sketches around the room depicting ‘Lili’s’ progress.

INT. FONNESBECH’S DEPARTMENT STORE
Greta pays an assistant for several pairs of stockings.

INT/EXT. WIDOW HOUSE, STAIRS LEADING UP
Greta coming home, her key in the lock.

- MONTAGE ENDS -

Stockings appear frequently in this film, appearing prominently in 14 different scenes. They should get their own iMDB credit. Each time Lili is engaging directly with them; observing them, reflecting on them, caressing them between her fingers. She stares at other women’s stockings as often as she looks them in the eye.

Behind smudged glass, a worn-out girl in a corset and stockings grinds against a chair, sullen. Einar studies the girl and gradually his body begins to mirror hers, a parody of female abandon. We see his reflection in the glass now, gradually eclipsing her… He breathes, an almost orgasmic GASPING breath of relief.

Pre-transition, Lili is uptight and insecure, only brought out of her shell by the goading of Greta to crossdress. After bringing out this other side of her spouse, Greta quickly regrets it, and longs for things to return as they were. Eventually she begins to resent this change as the pieces fall together. At one point, she grills a childhood friend for clues to what her no-longer-husband was really like.

Answer: a big old sissy.

GRETA
He told me that you kissed him once.

HANS
I what…???

HANS
Oh no! You’re right — I’d forgotten. We were fooling in the kitchen,
Einar put on his grandmother’s apron… His father was sleeping - or so we thought. He was always sleeping -

HANS
Anyway, Einar just looked so pretty in that apron — I kissed him! Next thing
I know, his father’s chasing me out. I don’t know what he thought was
going on. But we were just little boys, you know, playing around?

Greta begins to see and treat Lili as a separate and distinct individual than her earlier incarnation, but makes clear she prefers the former. Lili becomes reclusive and obsessive, ashamed of what she’s become, but unable to go back.

This existential uneasiness and seeming questions of nature of self are continued tropes of crossdresser erotica/performance. This separation into separate entities, for instance, is a technique utilized/recommended in books by crossdressing community figure Miss Vera. The idea is to incorporate the preferred personality traits of the crossdresser into the “side” most sexually and romantically compatible with the partner/spouse.

LILI
Greta… what is it? Didn’t it go well? Did someone upset you…?

GRETA
I need to see Einar.

LILI
No, Einar’s not… Let me help…

Greta cuts her off sharply, desperation building:

GRETA
I need my husband. Just get him!

LILI
I can’t…

Lili’s eyes cloud. Greta moderates, already losing hope…

GRETA
I want to talk to my husband. I want to hold my husband. I need him. Can you get him? Can you at least try?

Lili deliberates, pained by the request…

GRETA
Please…

The third act culminates in and out of horrifying hospital scenes and Lili’s seeming obsession with “completing the process” as Greta looks on helplessly. Lili’s intersexuality is thrown in as an afterthought (a doctor mentions finding ovaries during one of the surgeries, which is never mentioned again) as they gruesomely wheel the increasingly sickly Lili from one operating theater to another.

That it’s so casually approached and then thrown away sends a stranger message than exploring or omitting the idea: what does it mean? Is it an attempted affirmation of some sort of underlying biological cause for Lili’s transsexuality, or an exploitative jab at the anomalous nature of same? Both? Something else? It’s difficult to tell.

So like, remember when I said that this sort of pulp erotica never has happy endings? In all likelihood, this is exactly why the life of Lili Elbe appeals to these sort of storytellers. It’s an appealing tale to them because her story arc ties so neatly into a tragic little bow. It plays into a sort of “No Homo” narrative (which I’ve discussed before) that flirts with empathy for the gender-non-conforming, but has a built-in safety valve to contain this understanding within the realm of play or fantasy.

Presented this way, it’s a punchline not unlike a cautionary tale; Lili Elbe dared to defy conventional wisdom/understanding of her existence and it literally killed her. Awww, the poor deluded thing. Enterprising auteurs have managed to condense and execute this formula in four minutes. It’s not like anyone actually manages to spend the rest of their life like this, right?

That’s the unspoken (and repeated) message this tired coda sends to trans ladies in the audience, as well as audience members that may know or even love a trans lady in their life: the mechanics of their actual continued existence remains an unspoken mystery to be regarded with pity and unreliable narration, clucking the tongue and saying “how fabulous and/or tragic” with no further consideration.

Rani Baker is a freelance writer, artist, and frontperson for Destroyed For Comfort. An aspiring game designer, creator of of the game Never Go To Work. Maybe you’ve heard of her?

This article was produced and published on behalf of HARLOT Magazine, an intersectional e-rag set to launch in January 2016. For media inquiries or article pitches, contact us at dirtiestwellknownsecret@gmail.com.