This Is How We Rise

Sex Workers are Stronger United!

Just one of the reasons why there are laws criminalizing our ability to organize when it comes to sex work. And also why the anti’s love to divide us between legal work and illegal work, creating a complex systemic whore-archy structure.

The Stop the Raids 2024 in Las Vegas Nevada brought many of us together from all over the US to talk about a variety of issues, from labor rights to cyber safety. We traveled from all over, Rhode Island to California, Texas to Alaska, all sex workers were welcome and allies were welcomed our last afternoon.

On the first night of the three night Stop the Raids many of us met up at Norma Jean Almodovar’s beautiful home for a kick off BBQ get together. Norma Jean Almodovar is an artist, author and sex worker activist. She is a rock star. Look for an upcoming blog about Norma Jean Almodovar with pictures of her work and more on her long time activism.

Stop the Raids focuses on how to combat the bad media that follows the Super Bowl, with headlines that purport high rates of sex trafficking, meanwhile arresting sex workers and causing harm, creating criminal records and generating money for the courts by requiring unnecessary bail. Here is a great op-ed about how anti-trafficking organizations do more harm than good.

All things that not only cause real harm to sex workers, but to their families. Arresting sex workers does nothing to combat sex trafficking. Make no mistake, the War on Sex Trafficking is the War on Sex Workers. 

Whore-equity was coined by Soma Snakeoil, Co-Founder and Executive Director of The Sidewalk Project at the 2024 Stop the Raids in Las Vegas, Nevada. We were chiming in the ground rules as we kicked off a weekend of solidarity building that encompassed labor rights, cyber safety, oppression training, and unionizing basics – all important organizing and safety information for what we later all chimed in as “The Whore Nation”.

Soma said “whore-equality” and that hit hard.

Whore-equality. Equality for all whores. Equality that speaks of giving equal treatment to all sex workers regardless of where or how we work. Regardless of if our work is legal or illegal. We weren’t buying into the whore-archy classification of one type of sex work as being better than another.

During the three days we spent together, our similarities rather than our differences was always the central focus of the event. 

Coffee search walks and short Starbucks drives brought laughter, creating a sense of belonging. We formed deeper perspectives from common conversations. 

Solidarity became more than just a statement. Solidarity was an action, and it became obvious to many of us that Stop the Raids was something bigger than just a weekend. By Sunday Stop the Raids was a movement where many of us felt freedom and understanding. That alone created space to be genuine. To be seen and understood as only another sex worker could understand.

To understand where we were going, we wanted to understand where we had been, and a historical time line was out for all of us to add to.

Written in various colored pens, some with stickers beside the entries, we wrote about important things like when we started in sex work, the key moments in our lives like going to jail because of the work we do to support ourselves and our families, dates when organizations were formed. We wrote down the bills we had worked to have passed, and about the bigger changes like FOSTA/SESTA that directly impacted all of us. We wrote about the things that changed how our safety and our way of doing business created clear lines that meant before and after.

Later on Sunday, after we spent the late morning and early afternoon creating poster board signs, we headed out to the Allegiant Stadium for the culmination of the Stop the Raids weekend, the Rally. 

Last year at the pre-Super Bowl event held in Phoenix the security line was inside the building where the pre-Bowl events were held. This year in Vegas the security perimeter and line was away from the building. We could pay the entrance fee and go through the line and the metal detectors, but no bags were allowed. Later we learned no political signs were allowed either. We had no idea that we would be so far removed from the media coverage we had banked on as we headed out, and we were regulated to an intersection at the entrance.

Although things did not go as planned and traffic logistics threw a wrench in many of our members’ ability to arrive at the Rally, and subsequently hindered allies that had planned to join, we were empowered and loud as we held our signs and stood tall and shouted “Sex Work is Work!”, “No Bad Women, Just Bad Laws” and “Sex Worker Rights are Human Rights!”.  

About twelve of us stood with our red umbrellas and signs, thanks to one of our members who went and bought out all the red umbrellas that could be found. The red umbrella is an international symbol for sex worker human rights. Since it had been raining, the umbrellas were also functional, although it had stopped raining during the duration we were there. Yes, make no mistake, God loves Whores.

After a few hours outside holding signs and being loud we used the free entrance passes handed out from a promoter for the nearby Crazy Horse II. We checked our signs and umbrellas and after taking up a large corner in the strip club we ordered more food than the kitchen has probably ever pushed out.

Stop the Raids is a foundational starting point where many of us from all over can participate, creating ongoing resources, support systems and expert contacts. I may not know about strippers and their need for support in unionizing, but I know the bad ass who started Strippers United. I may not have a firm grasp on how to find and administer grants, but now I know several that do! I met some of the most ingenious and creative sex workers and activists, a who’s who of whore nation is what we had called it.

There is power in numbers. I have been doing this work for twenty years now. Rarely do I feel a part of, seen, accepted. I have been incarcerated for my work. Told I was lower than scum on the bottom of a shoe by law enforcement. I won’t stand idly by as others are criminalized, and the things that I do bring a sense of not only action but justice into my life. Surrounded by these amazing activists, anything is possible. Including decriminalizing sex work.

Organizations and individuals interested in participating in action to stop harmful law enforcement raids should contact info@esplerp.org

Recent Stop the Raid’s Events

 2024 Sex workers push back on Super Bowl trafficking narrative February 5th, Advocates for the sex industry want law enforcement to turn the other way at “consensual sex work,” calling for its decriminalization.

LA Die in December 18th, 2023 – Hydee Feldstein Soto, end your bad policies! Sex Workers Die-In Calls Attention To Bad Los Angeles City Attorney’s Policy And Marks- International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

Stop the Raids Las Vegas Super Bowl LVIII 2024 Coverage

Super Bowl sex trafficking stings arrest hundreds, but sometimes miss target
February 10th, 2024

 2024 Sex workers push back on Super Bowl trafficking narrative
February 9th, 2024

Sex workers and advocates organize to stop trafficking raids around Super Bowl
February 7th, 2024

Ties between major sporting events and sex trafficking is a myth
November 16th, 2023