Coyote Too

As I write this I just finished an hour and a half of consulting from my hotel room. The bane and advantage of being a consultant; it's great that I can consult remotely, but sometimes it's a pain that I have to. But hey, it paid for the hotel room.

The big news though is that I now get to shower, pack, and end off to the hotel the first phase in meeting a bunch of really great people whom I've been twittering with for over a year now, but most of whom I've never met in person. Although it's certainly the case for me that the impetus for attending was getting to see my friends, we shouldn't lose sight of the the goal of this event.

This is the release party for the New York City Sex Bloggers Calendar (and no, that link is not SFW). This is the second year of an awesome event put together by Tess and Diva, whom I first met on Twitter as @urban_gypsy and @debaucheddiva. I had the pleasure of meeting them in person a few weeks ago when I was on the first stage of a multi-week road-trip from Massachusetts to Florida and New Orleans, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them again. (To give you an idea of how much I'm looking forward to it, my car broke down in North Carolina on Wednesday, I found a dealer in South Carolina who could take it on Thursday, limped 100 miles to the garage (the wheel bearing was going, it was a close call). They fixed it in the morning, and I then drove for 13 hours to get to New York that evening.)

But this isn't just about getting a calendar full of titillating pictures. The calendar sales and the the raffle tickets at the party (and wow are there some nice prizes) all go to support the Sex Work Awareness non-profit organization. Here is their mission:

Mission Statement
We believe that all sex workers have a right to self-determination; to choose how we make a living and what we do with our bodies.

We aim to empower our diverse community by building the capacity of sex worker-serving and sex worker member-based institutions as well as the skills and resources of sex workers themselves.

We also conduct research about sex workers and the sex industry in order to better understand it, develop public education initiatives, and advocate for the rights of sex workers.

And in case you're wondering just what they mean by "sex worker". 

A sex worker is a person who does erotic labor in exchange for an agreed upon exchange of money, goods or services.

Sound vague? It’s meant to be!

It’s often assumed that “sex worker” is a euphemism for “prostitute” - but actually it’s an umbrella term for many different kinds of jobs within the sex industry. A sex worker might be a prostitute, porn performer, phone sex operator, exotic dancer, sensual masseuse, dominatrix, hustler, or many other kinds of jobs. His or her “erotic labor” may or may not include physical contact with a client. Some forms of sex work include “sex,” or some kind of genital touching, but many kinds of sex work don’t include sex at all.

The phrase was coined by Scarlot Harlot, also known as Carol Leigh, more than 30 years ago when she got fed up with the fact that the only words available to describe this kind of work were slang.

So attend the party, or at least buy a calendar (they're only $20 and they make great Christmas gifts ☺).

And if you're there (or at Twisted Monk's Sensual Rope Bondage class on Saturday, or at the Hypergender Burlesque QTOPIA show Saturday night), say hello! That's me up there on the right. ☺