I’ve never really understood why people are so down on prostitutes. Now, I’m not talking about the sex-slave nightmare that’s boiling over in Mexico and in other countries — including ours. The people I’m referring to are adults who exchange some sort of sexual gratification for cash because that’s how they choose to make a living. Why are we bugging them? Better question: Why are we obsessed with what other people are doing in their bedrooms? As far as I can tell, people have been selling sex for as long as humans have used some form of currency and they’re not going to stop simply because others don’t approve.
With that in mind, allow me to introduce you to $pread. It’s tagline is, “Illuminating the sex industry.” It’s a magazine written by and for sex industry workers. And, you’re in luck curious people, Mother Jones’ Titania Kumeh just did an interview with the editor-in-chief.
Here’s how it begins:
Asked if he’s ever felt exploited as a sex worker, Will Rockwell—the 24-year-old editor-in-chief of the sex worker-operated magazine $pread—replies, “Yes, by the media. Every interview we do is twisted for the purposes of sensationalistic propaganda, whether it’s the conservative New York Postjerking itself off over the Spitzer scandal orMs. Magazine fantasizing about female victimhood and applying it in broad strokes to people they never really cared to know, and certainly never offered a helping hand free of judgment and surveillance.” He says the sensationalist and often stereotype-ridden depictions of sex workers—prostitutes, exotic dancers, dominatrices, phone-sex operators, and people who engage in informal forms of transactional sex—by media outlets sparked the 2005 creation of $pread, the country’s only magazine developed by and for sex workers.
Read the interview here.
Here’s a video from $pread, explaining why they created the magazine and how the mainstream media’s got their story all wrong:
— Rhiannon Bowman
This article appears in Aug 17-23, 2010.
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