#risk to workers

[trans-axolotl]

"Much ink has already been spilled on Harris’s prosecutorial background. What is significant about the topic of sex work is how recently the vice president–elect’s actions contradicted her alleged views. During her tenure as AG, she led a campaign to shut down Backpage, a classified advertising website frequently used by sex workers, calling it “the world’s top online brothel” in 2016 and claiming that the site made “millions of dollars from trafficking.” While Backpage did make millions off of sex work ads, its “adult services” listings offered a safer and more transparent platform for sex workers and their clients to conduct consensual transactions than had historically been available. Harris’s grandiose mischaracterization led to a Senate investigation, and the shuttering of the site by the FBI in 2018.

“Backpage being gone has devastated our community,” said Andrews. The platform allowed sex workers to work more safely: They were able to vet clients and promote their services online. “It’s very heartbreaking to see the fallout,” said dominatrix Yevgeniya Ivanyutenko. “A lot of people lost their ability to safely make a living. A lot of people were forced to go on the street or do other things that they wouldn’t have otherwise considered.” M.F. Akynos, the founder and executive director of the Black Sex Worker Collective, thinks Harris should “apologize to the community. She needs to admit that she really fucked up with Backpage, and really ruined a lot of people’s lives.”

After Harris became a senator, she cosponsored the now-infamous Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which—along with the House’s Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA)—was signed into law by President Trump in 2018. FOSTA-SESTA created a loophole in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the so-called “safe harbor” provision that allows websites to be free from liability for user-generated content (e.g., Amazon reviews, Craigslist ads). The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that Section 230 is the backbone of the Internet, calling it “the most important law protecting internet free speech.” Now, website publishers are liable if third parties post sex-work ads on their platforms.

That spelled the end of any number of platforms—mostly famously Craigslist’s “personal encounters” section—that sex workers used to vet prospective clients, leaving an already vulnerable workforce even more exposed. (The Woodhull Freedom Foundation has filed a lawsuit challenging FOSTA on First Amendment grounds; in January 2020, it won an appeal in D.C.’s district court).

“I sent a bunch of stats [to Harris and Senator Diane Feinstein] about decriminalization and how much SESTA-FOSTA would hurt American sex workers and open them up to violence,” said Cara (a pseudonym), who was working as a sex worker in the San Francisco and a member of SWOP when the bill passed. Both senators ignored her.

The bill both demonstrably harmed sex workers and failed to drop sex trafficking. “Within one month of FOSTA’s enactment, 13 sex workers were reported missing, and two were dead from suicide,” wrote Lura Chamberlain in her Fordham Law Review article “FOSTA: A Hostile Law with a Human Cost.” “Sex workers operating independently faced a tremendous and immediate uptick in unwanted solicitation from individuals offering or demanding to traffic them. Numerous others were raped, assaulted, and rendered homeless or unable to feed their children.” A 2020 survey of the effects of FOSTA-SESTA found that “99% of online respondents reported that this law does not make them feel safer” and 80.61 percent “say they are now facing difficulties advertising their services.” "

-What Sex Workers Want Kamala Harris to Know by Hallie Liberman

[dismembered-narrator]

a bit of critique but i wish they commited more to the one-off episodes. they're littered throughout seasons 1 and 2 but they always involve the main characters (hayward's introduction, charity's episode, the call center in season 1; carpenter's slasher movie, hembry's episode, the flashback with nana glass in season 2), so when we get to chapter 36 with two unknown characters at the motel and no sign of existing characters until the end, it feels jarring rather than a continuation of a trend because there were no other fully disconnected one-off episodes in the series. i think it could have been cool to have a few pauses in the main story to explore the world and certain themes through other characters' eyes, so the motel episode (which i didn't really like) wasn't the only one

[ovaruling]

last night, during the street outreach, we had a woman come up to us, incredibly agitated that the undercover footage we were showing of slaughterhouses and dairy, egg, and fishing industries was visible to children.

two of the activists had brought their healthy, intelligent, wonderfully well-adjusted vegan children, who have both previously seen the footage with their parents and asked questions and received honest answers.

and i approached her to ask her—if she cared so much about the welfare of children, as she claimed, why was she not boycotting these industries?

if you are against child labor in any real way, you WOULD boycott industries that require labor in slaughterhouses, meat-packing facilities, fisheries, egg farms, dairy farms, fur and wool farms.

because guess who makes up a significant portion of that labor? CHILDREN. illegally and legally both, depending on the state or regional laws.

i’ve seen it with my own eyes at slaughterhouses, up close—i’ve seen children no older than 12 made to haul the dead bodies of pigs, still bleeding. i’ve seen them working in those farms.

there are innumerable minors “employed”—or enslaved—to animal agriculture and the resultant slaughterhouses and meat-packing and chick-grinding and animal skinning. PTSD doesn’t even begin to cover what these children come home with. to say nothing of how unsafe these jobs are—would anyone like to look into how many injuries and outright limb amputations are caused by slaughterhouse work each year? cuz it sure isn’t zero.

do you think Big Meat insures their workers and pays for medical bills and a pension when these incidents occur? how much do you think they care about safety code violations? the USDA and ASPCA approved slaughterhouses i’ve seen in person are in violation of at least 40 codes, minimum.

and let’s talk about the field farming of the immense amount of food required to sustain the animals imprisoned within these industries—lest we forget, most of the world’s food and calories go to feed these animals, not us.

and guess who they rely on most to farm that animal feed.

these industries will ALWAYS find a way to use children for their labor, because it’s cheap and it’s easy. they will NEVER stop using child labor. ever. it doesn’t matter how many laws are “in place”—these places will always get away with it bc they literally cannot exist without extensive and wildly cheap labor. you cannot invent an animal agriculture that won’t find a way to silently exploit minors for cheap labor.

these businesses are at the top of the capitalist heap—it’s a business that, once again, cannot exist without human slavery on a large scale, with much of that burden resting on children and immigrants (particularly women, btw).

if you actually care even a little bit about child labor, really, one of the most effective things you can do is to boycott animal product industries.

[stuckinapril]

I am so glad that I’m setting aside time to volunteer.

[spinef0ryou]

can’t believe people are still mad over aemond ‘mommy issues’ targaryen’s brothel scene like be fr 😂😂😂😂

where was he ever a daddy dom type? he’s the parentified middle child who always had to be the comfort to his mother, who winds with a canonical gf his mom’s age with a very similar name to his mom!

and ‘oh he controls a big dragon’ bitch where? he lost control of vhagar due to his own ego and hubris, and let petty vengeance get in the way of things!

[silversoulstardust]

watching atarashii joushii wa do tennen for the BL but I'm amused at how accurately they portray traumatic work experience

a simple thing could be triggering

and yet it could easily be fixed with a kind gesture from a superior

[crimeronan]

There would be a whole culture of video essays around what influencer nova is up to This Time I think

there's something really compelling to me about sol being an hbomberguy-style journalist-sleuth-influencer who is constantly making in-depth videos exposing nova's shit, except there's a dedicated portion of her fanbase who quickly get new people up to speed on "listen. this actually is all factual good work. but you must understand that at the end she is Going to promote a crypto pump-and-dump scheme. do not buy into the crypto pump-and-dump scheme"

[fishyartist]

Please learn what the Luddite movement actually was and why it failed I’m begging

[angryisokay]

My biggest beef with free market stuff is the recurring idea of everyone being educated, intelligent, and acting rationally all the time.

People, straight up, do not act rationally. Even educated, intelligent people will do the dumbest, most irrational shit sometimes. You have to account for the irrational behavior, and if you don’t then you’re being just as much of a fantastical utopian as hardline socialists and communists are.

If your economic theory doesn’t acknowledge that people are dumb as fuck more often than not, then the theory is garbage and you should start over and try again.

[sharkface]

Food service worker diagnosis

[trans-axolotl]

for about two years now ive struggled with relapses in self harm and have not really known how to deal with my desires for harm, health, and existing thoughts on antipsychiatry. ive been accessing psychiatric resources for well over a decade with a lot of trauma inflicted over that time. ive also dealt with really harsh approaches to reducing self harm that both began the problem in the first place and worsened it.

ive been working with my therapist to stop self harming but, to be honest, i have no desire to stop. i try my best to reduce risk where i can such as not self harming in an emotional state, using clean implements, and keeping it light. previously i didnt care about any of those things and self harm was mainly a dangerous coping mechanism. but now i see it almost as a form of body modification with a lot of intentionality to it.

i really dont know what to think. its objectively dangerous since i am harming myself but i also cant agree with the general aims of therapy and psychiatry to stop self harming as an ultimate goal. i want to be happy and healthy and for me that means living with self harm as a reality of something i will continue to do. and i think its my right as an autonomous person to choose what i do with my body, even if its harmful. yet i can feel the claws of psychiatry and feel so much shame and hatred towards the fact i cant stop. or more significantly, that i dont want to.

sorry for such a long ask, but essentially what im getting at is, how does one handle harm reduction when there is no desire to ever fully stop? i believe in my own right to bodily autonomy but ive also been told repeatedly that using my bodily autonomy to harm myself makes me undeserving of it and instead in need of carceral punishment. how do i even begin to navigate those contradictions of feeling like ive been horribly hurt and dehumanized and feeling like on some level ive deserved that dehumanization because of the pain i inflict? is self harm as body modification even a concept or idea that people have discussed? since i mainly just see it discussed as a coping mechanism.

content note: continued discussion of self harm and self harm methods.

Hi, anon. Thanks so much for reaching out.

I really resonated with so much of what you shared. It's really hard to try to navigate all our feelings associated with self harm when we are constantly hearing from society that our self harm makes us dangerous or unworthy or unable to live outside of institutions. For me, it honestly feels really violating when other people like providers try to push their narrative of what self harm means onto me. My relationship with my self harm is so personal and there's a lot of different meaning I attach to it, and I want the room to be able to talk about it in a way that actually makes sense to me.

Something that's helped me in trying to navigate all of this for myself is really just to come back to these values of bodily autonomy and harm reduction. A really important harm reduction value for me is that it is completely okay if people don't ever stop (whether we're talking about drugs, self harm, disorderly eating, etc). It's important to me that we can defend people's right to do all these things and recognize that harm reduction should not be just another method of coercion trying to convince people to stop. I strongly believe that people can have meaningful and valuable lives that also include self harm as a part of our lives. I want to build a world where we can say that we're not interested in completely stopping self harm and that statement is not reacted to with shame or blame, but rather with curiosity and respect for the fact that we are the experts on our own lives and choices. Part of encouraging autonomy is recognizing that we are allowed to make choices about our lives that might not be what the psych system wants us to make.

Anyway, all of this is to say: I think it's okay if you're not interested in ever stopping self harming, and I know a lot of people who also feel similarly to you. You absolutely have the right to interpret your self harm in a way that makes sense for you. I've definitely heard other people talk about self harm as body modification (I think some of the harm reduction zines in this google drive might talk about it, but I haven't read through them in a while. Continued content note for discussion of self harm, self harm methods, and diagrams of anatomy and self harm). It makes a lot of sense why you might connect self harm and body modification, and that's something that would resonate with a lot of other people. You have the right to build a life that includes self harm as a part of it, and find a way to do it that makes sense for your body and life.

That feeling of dehumanization you described is so so real. I really just feel a lot of rage towards a psychiatric system that makes us feel so hurt and conflicted. Untangling that learned shame and hatred towards ourselves is so fucking hard, but just know that you are not alone in that and that we have the right to reject the ways the psych system punishes us.

And I want to be clear that none of this is to downplay the very real harm, pain, or risk that can come with self harm, but rather to point out that abstinence only methods, shame, and carceral psychiatry did not do anything to support me with that. Instead, it left me feeling trapped and like it was worthless to even try to figure out what I needed in really difficult moments. So I also really just want to acknowledge and celebrate all the stuff you listed in your ask--using clean implements, not self harming in an emotional state, and keeping it light. I'm really glad that you've found some steps to take that make self harm more manageable for you. Those are not lesser steps or a waste of your time just because you are not interested in stopping self harm, and those things are such a great example of how harm reduction doesn't require you to stop self harming in order to make some changes that reduce risk.

Just sending a lot of love and solidarity to you, anon, from another person who is not interested in completely stopping self harm, even as my relationship to my self harm shifts and changes over the years. There are a lot of us out here and we deserve to have the space to openly talk about these things without facing judgement.

💜💜💜💜

[hauntedjohnny]

johnny being obsessed with maria not bc of love or lust but bc she reminds him of the pflugerville girl that he couldnt kill. he looks at maria and sees his mistakes. this redemption has been given to him on a silver platter and who is he to refuse. his brain can finally stop itching as he’s given a chance to scratch. he keeps her strung up as a trophy. something to prove to the family that he could do it. until her friends showed up.

[mc-tummy-blur]

Realized it’s the 36th anniversary for The Lost Boys (released July 31, 1987) a.k.a the movie that fundamentally changed me as a child (in a queer way)

Usually I link my ko-fi to my art pieces but considering this is a movie distributed by Warner Bros., I’m not gonna cause even though I just draw for fun for a small amount of followers, I don’t wanna risk making money from this post specifically (as unlikely as it is). I don’t know how strict the lines are for fan content that are made by the companies being struck right now (both for new media and old media), I just know that you can’t take any deals that a company tries to make with you in order promote current work for the companies being struck. However, considering I want to work in the industry one day, I’m not going to risk it by putting the ko-fi link directly onto this post. I’m only using this fanart to express my love for how this movie was written and acted, as it is filled with so much queer subtext, iconic comedic lines, and genuinely scary moments. This movie would not be a cult classic without the writers and actors involved, and considering this movie is on streaming sites like Netflix, those actors and writers should be paid for what they are worth, and I want to express that.

[stars-and-soda]

Really hate how the impact of consuming porn, often on cishet men, is used in converstaions about porn instead of the abuse sex workers face. Any time there's a discussion about sex work, there's a line of people trying to sideline swers in their field.

[existencebringsonlypain]

You ever start writing a tag and come across a phrase that's. Just ALL the scams

[vespertine-legacy]

it's okay, I'm normal about the Minister's post-class story letter to the Agent (and all "former Imperial Intelligence personnel") about Duty