Rene Ross posted a heartfelt message on her Facebook wall last night. 

She will no longer operate as Stepping Stone's executive director.

She wrote:

"As many of you know, there have been significant challenges with funding that began last September and hopes for other funding did not come through. Moreover, the remaining staff are delivering critical programming that program users depend on for their health and safety. Those programs must be protected at all costs. I am hopeful that the savings the organization will accumulate by eliminating the ED position will allow the staff to carry on with their crucial work."

Former Stepping Stone executive director, Rene Ross

The news of Ross's departure was featured in this morning's radio and print media reports, including the Chronicle Herald and the CBC, the latter having reported that Ross quit, but it is unclear whether she quit or her position was eliminated due to the aforementioned budget cuts. Halifax Media Co-op's Hilary Beaumont posted a well-researched article noting that Stepping Stone has undergone major changes due to shifting and unsecured funding at the organization.  

As ED, Ross was very vocal and publicly minded, often appearing on local radio and television, as well as online, including a post for the HuffPo. In the meantime, Ross states that she "will continue to support the staff and program users and will provide any support required by the Board in this challenging time." She goes on to say, "Stepping Stone is my heart, the staff are the amongst the best I have ever worked with, and the program users have taught me more than I could ever dream of learning in a university or from a book – because those impacted by policy are the true experts for change."

 

 

 

Every year at Halloween, my partner asks me, "Do you want me to pick up candy for trick-or-treaters?"

The answer is always no, because I don't want all that candy in the house. Chances are you may be sitting at your desk right now, munching on leftover candy, gum, chips and all sorts of sweet and salty snacks. "Get them out of my house before I eat them all," you may be saying.

Well, now you can, and do something good with it.

You can give it to sex workers.

Every week, staff from Stepping Stone, a sex-workers' outreach organization, go out into the streets, where they deliver what are euphemistically called "goodie bags." Condoms, lube and a snack in brown paper bags. Well Stepping Stone wants your snacks, so they can go in the goodie bags too.

For the next week or so, Stepping Stone will be accepting donations of candy to distribute through their street outreach program. To find out how, email Stepping Stone's executive director, Rene Ross, at rene@stepping-stone.org. She or a staff member will set up a time and place for you to drop off your goodies.

Begone from my cupboards and my belly, you delicious candy!

On a Friday afternoon, a staff member is putting together what they like to call “treat bags” for the night. The bags are filled with condoms, lube, a small snack and a bottle of soda. They are distributed to the city’s street-based sex workers, all done by the people at Stepping Stone.

Stepping Stone is a non-profit organization that works with street-based sex workers in Halifax. Because they are non-profit, much of their funding comes from places such as the United Way, government programs (for housing) and legal foundations (for court support). “We work with over 100 individuals on a monthly basis on all of our programs,” says Renee Ross, the executive director of Stepping Stone.

“It's hard to get people to donate and support a cause for one of the most marginalized populations,” Ross says. She notes that although they are a non-profit charitable organization, they don’t have the same cachet as others. “It's not a favourite cause for many. Finding donations and corporate sponsors is a huge challenge. We occasionally get donations of goods and services, but most of the things we need come out of our own pocket," she says. So that means a lot of the things that could potentially be donated can become costly at the end of the year. Things like condoms. "We go through 16,000 condoms a year," Ross says. 

Last year, Ross decided to create a fundraiser event for Stepping Stone. Named The Lobster Trap after a former strip club in the city, the event was a success, and so Ross decided to try to recreate that magic. This year, the event is named after the famous Peppermint Lounge. "It's a tip of the hat to the former sex workers that we still work with and support," she says. "We want to let people know that the sex trade in Halifax has a history, good and bad. We want to have a fun night and use the opportunity to get the word out."

The event is being held on Friday, Sept 28 at Michael's Bar & Grill on Young Street and features a showcase of some of the best of the city's punk scene, including The Scoop Outs and King's Eden. Ross is reluctant to say how much money she is hoping to raise ("I don't want to sound greedy," she jokes) but says that any and all funds will be greatly appreciated. 

For more information, check out the Facebook event page. 

It's the end of "awards season," but with the Oscars and the Grammys all finished, what does that leave us with?

How about the Hookies?

Organized by escort website rentboy.com, the Hookies (link NSFW) is just like any other awards show, with hosts (Alec Mapa), presenters (including Village Voice queen Michael Musto) and various categories. The only difference is that the nominees are all professionals who work in the sex trade.

Sex workers -- whether they be escorts, working in porn, street-level or wherever -- are often maligned by the very society that seeks out their services. It's kind of nice to see something that celebrates some of the individuals who work in this trade. The scope of the awards is limited -- it is geared toward men who work/have sex with men -- but it's a very public start. 

I know a few Haligonian sex workers who deserve awards. The I Put My Kid Through School Award. The Advocacy Without Judgment Award. Let me know when the nominations for those are coming out.

Limitations aside, the one thing I enjoy the most about this event is the inclusion of people who work in the porn industry.  The fact that many "pornstars" work as escorts, or in various forms of the sex trade, is rarely discussed openly, working as a bit of an open secret within the sex trade. The nominees include individuals such as Kennedy Carter, and there is even a Best Pornstar Escort category.

So who will win for Best Newcomer, Best Top or the penultimate Mr International Escort 2012? It all goes down (or up?) on March 23 in New York City.

It’s a subject that gets people hot and bothered, no pun intended.

It was recently announced that the city of Los Angeles is passing a ruling stating that condoms must be used on the sets of all porn shoots. It came about after a recent surge of pressure from healthcare practitioners, former and current performers, and, arguably, the media interest in this subject.

Porn is a multibillion-dollar industry, and Los Angeles – or rather, the San Fernando Valley, which is part of the greater metropolis of LA – is considered one of the biggest producers of it in the world. Various organizations have been campaigning for this regulation make condom use required by law, groups such as the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, as well as certain performers in the industry who have said that the industry doesn’t care about the health and safety of their performers. The detractors have argued that this is an example of state-sanctioned censorship and a removal of their rights to free expression. Already, the mainstream media is picking up on this story, even discussing the idea that some porn producers may simply move their productions to jurisdictions where such regulations don’t exist. Companies such as Treasure Island Media, which is arguably one of the biggest producers of bareback porn in the US, wouldn't be affected by the law since it is based out of San Francisco. Does this mean everyone will move to San Fran? Or even just outside of city lines?

The problem with the regulation is that it isn’t perfect, and depending on how it is enforced - as well as who enforces it - the entire situation could quickly become moot. In fact, The Globe and Mail even reported that there already is a law on the books in California, but that it isn’t properly enforced. The Globe quotes Ged Kenslea, of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, as saying:

Let's make one thing clear: condom use on adult film sets is, and has been, the law in California under blood-borne pathogens regulations,” he said. “It is just a law that has not been uniformly enforced or followed. This film permit ordinance that the city council approved today provides another enforcement mechanism to make sure that adult film producers are complying with existing California law.”

It’s essentially the same law as those that protect actors, stunt men and others on film sets from being put in possibly harmful situations. Precautions are followed to ensure their safety. I recently had a discussion about this very subject with a friend of mine, a former sex worker and porn enthusiast who put it to me this way: “Are building contractors permitted to allow their construction workers on-site without a hard hat, safety goggles or steal-toed boots? No! And if they do, their industry’s regulatory body fines them, or worse yet, shuts down their project.”

It comes down to job security, something most people in the porn industry don’t have. Workers are workers, and workers deserve safe working conditions.

This Saturday, Dec 17, marks the International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers.

And I’m not sure what to say about it.

I could start off by talking about the violence that many sex workers deal with, or the social stigma, or the legal difficulties that many sex workers are subject to.

I could mention the people I know who have worked in, or currently are working in the sex trade, but I don’t want to disclose their names, ages or genders, because I believe in their right to privacy.

I could talk about how a lot of the mainstream media still uses the term “hooker” for sex workers. Of how they are often painted as victims and addicts, no matter what their situation may or may not be.

But to do any of those things would give only the smallest insight into why this day exists.

So I made a promise to myself. To read about sex work. To talk about it. To make an effort to understand it as much as possible so that when the day comes when I do write about it, I can write about it in a way that is respectful and representative of the sex work industry.

This is what I am doing for this year’s International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers.

I tend to ignore gossip websites such as TMZ, but then again, I have a tendency to read gawker.com, which has a habit of posting occasional gossipy bits. But I’m not here to talk about gossip, per se, but rather about the paparazzi who have field days with it.

Namely, I am calling out TMZ for their use of the word “tranny.” Specifically, their videographer in this video. Watch the video here.

In the video, the paparazzi clearly says to Lamar, “Lamar, what do you think of that tranny trying to get at you, bro?”

I can’t believe I’m saying this (let alone talking about TMZ), but, really TMZ? Really? Wake the fuck up. Not cool.

***

But what is cool is this: a video from Australia about a sex worker who specializes in clients who are disabled.

Scarlet Road Video from Paradigm Pictures on Vimeo.

Kudos to this woman, to the people who are talking about this openly, and to the creators of this video.

Kudos to Catherine Galliford, the RCMP officer who has taken it upon herself to voice what she has seen and experienced as the head of the Missing Women’s Task Force in Vancouver.

The Province recently posted a story about Galliford, who is slated to testify in January at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. Galliford gave a statement to the RCMP totalling 115 pages, which included her claim that the RCMP had enough evidence to ask for a search warrant to search Robert Pickton’s farm in 1999. Pickton’s farm was not raided until 2002. She herself was subjected to ridicule and insults. According to The Province:

The officers, Galliford alleged, wanted to tell her about “their fantasy.”

“They wanted to see Willie Pickton escape from prison, track me down and strip me naked, string me up on a meat hook and gut me like a pig,” said Galliford, who also recounted the episode in her formal statement to RCMP.

The worst part about all of this is that I’m not really surprised by any of the information that I’m reading. There are many issues at stake with this investigation, including violence against women, as well as the treatment of First Nations women. But this did get me thinking about images and ideas around sex workers, specifically within law enforcement and the media. Note: this is not to ignore the other issues or to disavow that these three separate issues are not often connected. I also do not wish to make sweeping generalizations that all the women who were murdered by Pickton were sex workers, but it is known that many of them were. 

Sex workers are often portrayed and viewed by police officials – as well as the mainstream media – as victims or criminals or both. This is problematic at best. One of the main issues in discussions about the sex trade is a lack of knowledge – a bias I admit to and am working to diminish by informing myself about issues related to sex work.

It is a bias that I would argue many journalists are subject to, without even being conscious of it, let alone understanding it. The fact that the word “hooker” is still used by many mainstream media outlets is another example of the lack of knowledge and respect that many people in the sex trade deal with.

To expect that a law enforcement agency would make the effort to understand its own biases is laughable to some and unfortunate to all who are subject to it. If we are to talk of victimization, then I would argue that Galliford was a victim of this bias, as were the women – both counted and uncounted – who fell to Pickton.

****

A final thought: the irony is not lost on me that the day The Province posted this story, Xtra posted the story of Gerald Hannon, who was a sex worker, announcing his “retirement” from the industry in what is a positive description about sex work, with an interview conducted by someone in the trade.