Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics

July 25-30, 2010

Las Vegas, NV

What: This year St. James Infirmary will be giving out full and partial scholarships to attend the Desiree Alliance Conference in Las Vegas July 25-30.  Full scholarships include hotel, flight and registration, some ground transportation.  Partial scholarships include hotel and registration.

Who: Scholarships are for current and former sex workers in the Bay Area ONLY, with priority to people who are low income,  who are presenting at the conference or who are working in the field of sex worker rights or direct services

When: Applications must be received by April 15th, 2010. All applicants will hear of the process outcome by May 9th, 2010

How: Complete this application and follow the instructions.

About the Sex Workers Project

Using human rights and harm reduction approaches, the Sex Workers Project (SWP) protects and promotes the rights of individuals who engage in sex work, regardless of whether they do so by choice, circumstance, or coercion. In addition to providing direct legal and social services to over a hundred individual clients a year in immigration, criminal legal, civil, and police misconduct matters, we offer “know your rights” trainings for sex workers and people who have been trafficked, and conduct training and outreach to service providers and community organizations who may come into contact with trafficked persons or sex workers.

Our direct service and human rights documentation work enables us to provide unique and critical information, analysis, and practical recommendations for policy advocacy at the local, state, federal and international level aimed at securing systemic change grounded in the experiences and concerns of our constituencies.

Location: 1372 Mission Street @10th

When: Thursday, December 10, 2009

6:00pm-8:00pm

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“Race Cooper plants his tongue on Tony Aziz’s nipple during a game of “Nearly Naked Twister” at the Folsom Street Fair Sunday, September 27. Warm weather brought out throngs of people to the leather and fetish extravaganza. The popular Twister game (with a kinkier twist) was a benefit for the St. James Infirmary, a clinic that provides health care and social services to sex workers, and was organized by Berkeley’s Steamworks bathhouse.

Thanks guys!! You all looked so hot and we are super grateful for the fun and donation of $813 to the clinic.

The process for choosing Las Vegas as our next conference site was a lengthy one, that first involved a broadly distributed community survey that revealed the top three location sites for the next conference: Washington DC, Las Vegas and Tucson.  Next, the Desiree Alliance Board of Directors, a working group of sex workers and allies, assessed all three cities for viability by conducting interviews with various sex worker community members (stakeholders) in each of the three cities, and another survey that specifically measured “people power” and volunteer commitment to manage all conference logistics. After 6 months of this process, Las Vegas was chosen for both its affordability and on-the-ground commitment from volunteers.

For those of you who have attended the Desiree Alliance conference in the past, you will be pleased to know that next year’s conference in Las Vegas will include pre-planning preparations for the next (2011 or 2012) Desiree Alliance National Sex Worker conference to be held in the dynamic town of Washington DC.

On behalf of the Desiree Alliance Board of Directors, we would like to thank all of you who contributed to this process and for your patience.  We are thrilled and excited about another hot and stimulating conference where we can learn, share and network with all of you.  More than ever, we are eager to meet new community members.

See you next year in Las Vegas!

Join Dr. Carol Queen, Lorelei Lee, Al Eros, Lilycat, Diana Morgaine, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry and their fans for a funfilled night of “Sex Worker Literati.“

Well the event last night was so amazingly hot!! We sizzled at the door too.  Everyone who came out made the night so much fun and a very successful fundraiser.  As we just celebrated our 10th Year (can you believe that?), we are blessed to have so many amazing people in our community.

We grossed just over $15,700 with a net of $13,200 in unrestricted funds!! What a huge success this is. Thanks to those of you who donated and if you still want to donate it is not too late! Because we are in jeopardy of losing much of our funding from the upcoming State/City budget cuts, so any help you can give us right now is greatly appreciated.

Special thanks go out to the one and only, volunteer supreme, Johanna Breyer for her tireless coordination and planning of this event for months, many months!

To all the MC’s, DJs and performers and their assistants who came and made the show so spectacular, we are so grateful.  To the dancers in the VIP room: thank you for hustling and shaking your hot sexy stuff for a good cause.

To all the volunteers who worked tirelessly last night, some without breaks (sorry!), we are so grateful for everything you have given to us and the clinic.  To those of you who came with volunteers and performers who got held up coming in, we apologize, thank you for your patience.

Thanks to Derrick Hanson and Kimberley Kline for assisting Johanna these past months with coordinating the event.  Thanks to Dakini, Jeff Palmer and Dan Ingwersen for their volunteer time setting up and breaking down the event (stage, rigging, lights, music, etc.).  Thanks to Paradise for having us, and waiving our event fee!

Thanks to the Sugar Plum Elves for hustling our 50/50 raffle and thanks to Jake Berkowitz the winner for donating his half of the raffle back to the clinic!  Special thanks go out to our Silent Auction donors: American Laser Center, Raging Stallion, The Russian River Resort, Opal Hotel, and Eco Boutique.

We so proud and amazed to see such an ecclectic group support the clinic.  We are so, so thank full to have seen such amazing outfits!! and performances!!  This one is going down in history.  Margo St. James was sainted by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and is now: Sister Trixxter!  I am so glad I was a part of it.

Naomi Akers
Executive Director

In the next episode, Sadie Lune interviews Bacchus, a client of sex workers — about how he became a client, what his feelings towards sex workers are all about, the things he looks for in a sex worker to hire and how he prepares for a date, and what’s changed about his political and personal views on sex work since becoming a client himself.

You can download this episode directly here, and subscribe to RenegadeCast in iTunes to get each new episode as we post it.