OPEN LETTER TO SEX WORKERS' RIGHTS AND SEX TRAFFICKING GROUPS
If one checks my news clips at www.hightechmadam.com one sees some articles which have appeared about me since 1984 to present day.
Anyone who has ever appeared in the media in any way, as well as anyone who has even been bullied, knows that you can't judge another person based on not only media you might read about someone online, but especially through rumors said behind someone's back.
For example, the news clips which dubbed me the title "High Tech Madam" were because the media was confused about why a brothel would have such sophisticated security and surveillance equipment for one. Also, why it would be in a warehouse next to the police station. The answer is because it wasn't a brothel. While I was a prostitute, madam, stripper, and porn performer at the time of my arrest, as well as a trafficking victim and witness - the warehouse was in reality a "safe house" I'd put together for trafficking victims.
The woman inside the brothel was a prostitute I had gone to pick up after her pimp beat her up so badly he broke her nose and her arm. She had two black eyes. She called me for help and I went to pick her up. The pimp, like many pimps, was also a drug dealer who would let her sell his drugs for him to further protect himself from prosecution. When he realized where she was at and that he couldn't get inside to get her out nor could he threaten her out - he called the police to make an "anonymous tip" the warehouse was a brothel.
When the police knocked on the door - she answered it in her nightgown because it was midnight. Now in the mind of the police if you're a prostitute and are wearing a nightgown - you must be hooking. She was on probation for prostitution also at the time. The LAPD had been dying for something to arrest me over and saw this as their opportunity. They pressured her to say that I was "pimping" her out of this warehouse which was a little hard to sell was a brothel. That's actually why the arresting officer paid the reporter at the LA Times $50 to publish the article - thinking public pressure would help get me convicted for pimping.
Only the woman stuck to her story. Not hard when she had a broken nose, two black eyes and her arm in a cast. She offered to testify against her real pimp for his drug dealing and the case against me was dismissed. My mother was arrested for "pimping" me - not her. LAPD had a photo of me handing my mother a $20 bill for a bucket of KFC chicken she brought me one night. Under the law, that is "receipt of earnings from a known prostitute". However, I had no previous record for prostitution. So what made me a "known" prostitute? The word of a cop? Doesn't work that way.
So the reality is that I'm a lot of things. First of all, I'm a retired sex worker. I've been in prostitution, madaming, stripping, porn, phone sex, etc. I don't mean just "prostitute" either. I have the distinction of being the first person to also open a 900 phone sex line in the country. Without having sex with anyone, our phone sex operation was clearing $30,000 a week. Have I turned tricks? Yes. During my step work for my recovery, I went through some records and I estimated about 15,000 tricks in fact.
Meaning I am a recovering prostitute.
Meaning I'm a retired sex worker.
I'm also a survivor of sex trafficking myself. I was lured into a sex trafficking operation where I was forced and exploited to do what I had done. When I broke free of this "family", I then went "independent". From there, another type of trafficker connected to Chuck Barris, Iran Contra, and our own government as well as mob got ahold of me and I barely escaped with my life. A lot of people weren't so lucky. Those people made the street pimps I'd been connected to before look like kid play. After breaking away from them, I went independent again because my PTSD was so bad I was too dysfunctional to work at anything else. I got no help from the police. I got no help from the mental health fields because either they didn't believe what I was talking about - or they viewed me as a criminal who didn't deserve help.
To the sex workers' rights groups like SWOP, Red Umbrella, Desiree Alliance, and others - I was friends with Margo St. James who founded COYOTE. We believe that women had the right to control their own bodies and careers. We had the right to do whatever we wanted to do for work whether that was a job, or marry for money or prostitute for money. We had the right to do whatever we wanted without being called a "whore" either - hence Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics. Which is why I belonged to COYOTE from the year it opened until the year it didn't.
Now when I retired the sex industry and formed our 12 step program and hotline - Margo did meet with me to see if I was going to attack the sex industry in the process of trying to help. I explained to her that other careers had exit programs set up for them - why didn't we for one? If you're a football player and get too disabled to play ball any longer - people have stepped up to help you transition out of football. If you're an actor and you stop working - you can get unemployment. You can also get vocational rehabilitation. On top of this, if you're in any other industry and someone forces you to do that work there are labor laws to prevent this.
She understood that I believe if we were demanding the freedom to engage in sex work - then we should also have the freedom to stop, and support if we wanted to retire. Previously, if you tried to leave sex work it was like rejecting a family. The sex industry would feel betrayed and then shun that person like they did Linda Lovelace when she wanted to quit. In any other industry but sex work if you decide you want to retire - you are not shunned by that industry. If I own a hotel and I decide to go off and become an accountant - every other hotel owner doesn't shun me and shut me out like some "traitor". Nor do they gang up and force me to keep owning a hotel either.
Every sex worker I know wants to cry that it's a "respectable profession". Fine. Treat it like one. Meaning also if I make a choice not just as a woman, but as a person, to leave the sex industry then I should be supported in that choice also.
Because guess what? I can't go and take it back. I'm never NOT going to be an ex-sex worker nor ex-prostitute. That tail will follow me for life. I have been out of prostitution for 30 years now and to this day people still call me a "whore" and hold it against me. Just because I stopped doing those things 30 years ago - I'm going to be viewed as one until the day I die. If I go on a date, or a job interview - it is going to count against me to most people. Right or wrong that's the way it is.
When Linda Lovelace stepped out to say she had been forced to film "Deep Throat" the industry not only didn't stop her from being forced when she was on the set - but the industry did not step up to shun the pimp Chuck Traynor. In fact, he was allowed to continue making movies and to manage Marilyn Chambers. No one stood up to his feeding her drugs either while she made those movies for him. Not until she came into NA did people step up to him to back the predator off of her.
The industry sided with the pimp against her and against Marilyn. Just as it sided with the men making the money from behind the scenes when Jenna said she wanted to quit making movies at the AVN. The audience "boo'd" her decision.
Just as it did me. The ONLY person who stood behind my decision was Margo and for a time I had the support of members of SWOP and even the bloggers like Tits N Sass, Maggie McNeil, and others who are focal advocates for the sex industry.
But something happened when Domina Elle, Bella Robinson and Norma Jean Almodovar started approaching people in 2015 and directly, openly, and aggressively, not only attacking me personally, and the other members of SWA, as well as our hotline for those who also wanted help being the only hotline for adults to call for help operating since 1987 answered by another ex-sex worker AND trafficking survivor - but they further started attacking ANYONE who was our friend, a member of SWA, or even so much as spoke to me.
This reached an unheard of level when Sherry Slew, the leader of the San Antonio chapter of SWOP, was threatened to her face that if she so much as even spoke to me, let alone reached out to SWA for support for her to leave the sex industry, that not only would she be shunned by others within the industry, but that they would make sure she was "drummed out of her position within SWOP".
To my shock - SWOP did nothing that I saw either officially or unofficially to let them know this was unacceptable behavior. When another sex worker, Mistress Tiffany, was not only threatened, and harmed, herself by Domina Elle, but further, when a tape recording of a private call between her and I was taken without either of our consent and published on another site attacking the program of SWA, and every other ex-sex worker who belongs to SWA - again SWOP DID NOTHING to let Domina Elle know this behavior towards others within the community was not acceptable.
This is not in my opinion any longer a sex worker RIGHTS group. Not when there is the slighest toleraance of bullying of any kind. I pointed out some time ago that if it was tolerated in the way I was treated - then it would spread like a cancer. It appears it was tolerated when Mistress Tiffany tried to seek some kind of help and support from SWOP when she was attacked. It seems it was tolerated two years ago when Bella attacked Sherry.
This happened in 2013 when I tried to talk to Jennifer Reed about partnering together to try and defeat AB67. Jennifer reported to me that if she did this that she would "never hear the end of it by Norma". We lost AB67. The fact that Jennifer's decision about her behavior was being dictated by the coercion and threat of another person being tolerated by SWOP is what's at issue here.
I was a member of the online group of SWOP who has very clear stated written policies that one is not to be ejected or blocked without FIRST receiving a warning. Yet when another person who is on the payroll of Dennis Hof, and whose husband produces porn, demanded I be removed - the moderator of the group went against your own policy to remove me. Why? Because they were being bullied.
So this isn't just about me. This isn't just about SWA. It seems to me a LOT of sex workers are being bullied, threatened, coerced and shoved around and SWOP is doing nothing about it.
Including Kamylla. When Kamylla came to me in April of 2015 - I had her a job, a free attorney, and I could have easily made sure she didn't have to pay a penny in rent because of her apartment being "uninhabitable". The women had clearly expressed in EVERY interview that SHE WANTED TO QUIT SEX WORK.
She was then approached by Maxine Doogan and Domina Elle and also THREATENED about what would happen to her if she spoke to me. As a result of not speaking to me, she did not get work, her husband did not get work, $1,000's of dollars was put into an attorney's pocket that could have been better spent getting her a car, custody of her children was endangered, and she might have even been deported by not having access to our connections at Immigration had it reached that point.
I have text messages showing in writing that things were being said supposedly by her by Domina Elle that were not her feelings. They show she was being threatened by these women into being afraid to take any help from SWA - including to take work outside of the sex industry we had offered her . I have other text messages reporting the attorney she was provided almost screwed her over, and that the money is now gone and she still has no work. The messages report the money has been spent instead of on helping these sex workers getting to what they say they want - which is working outside of the sex industry - has instead been spent on drugs.
I have approached SWOP about looking at these text messages Kamllya has sent me reporting she has been victimized by these women, and that her desire was to leave the sex industry and to receive help from SWA but that she was threatened off even speaking to us - and I have not even been asked to review this information as of today.
I have further tried reaching out to other groups such as Desiree Alliance and Red Umbrella about these issues only to be told that they are "so afraid" of these women and their tactics and bullying that they will not lift a finger either about any of this.
Meaning that we have not advanced one inch from the type of industry that would stand by and ALLOW Linda Lovelace to have a gun pointed at her head during the filing of an adult film. The people on that set went home after the shoot and slept at night because they said to themselves "well I didn't point the gun at her". No but you allowed him to do it just the same.
As for the so called "abolitionist" and "anti-trafficking" field - I am a trafficking survivor. I have been rescuing trafficking victims since the early 1980's when the world didn't even know we existed. I spent 13 YEARS of my life, and considerable expense and sacrifice to step up to tell the world this was real and to keep talking and keep talking until we saw the passing of the Trafficking Act of 2000 giving this federal recognition.
Now that we have federal recognition - it means there's now money to be made in this field. Whether that money is through federal grants, fund raisers, or even speaking fees as a survivor - money is now on the table. Ever since money came onto the table - I've been the victim of what is called "economic interference".
Meaning when survivors like Beth Jacobs advances her career, and lines her pocket, through fund raisers and bookings and grants she's obtained while telling anyone who will listen to her that I've "gone back to pimping" it's NOT just her spreading rumors. It's a violation of the law and it's a crime. It's actionable by law. If we were two bakeries in town and she was to run around telling people that my kuchen had roaches - again this is not just spreading bad gossip or even back stabbing nor is it "jealousy". It is "economic interference".
Just as it is when I used to speak at conferences FOR FREE, and people who want to now get PAID to speak at these events in some fashion want to start spreading around rumors about me in order to advance their agenda's - it only appears to be "personal".
When I have other survivors telling me IN WRITING that they are receiving phone calls telling them NOT TO SPEAK TO ME then guess what? They are being controlled and bullied and threatened.
Those who have defied this "shunning" by others with a financial agenda in this field have in fact been shunned, blocked, and out right attacked.
That means guess what? I'm not the only one being harmed here - but SURVIVORS are being harmed.
It is control and coercion and force - something many victims of trafficking don't know well how to stand up against sometimes until years into their own recovery process.
So if you're a survivor and someone comes at you telling you not to speak to me or call SWA or speak to another SWA member - that person is HARMING SURVIVORS. They are no different than any other pimp in that they are trying to control, bully, harass, threaten survivors, and they are doing so for financial reasons. In every single case I've checked where this person has been telling another to "stay away" from Jody - they have been holding a fund raiser, applying for a grant, trying to sell a product - or had some other financial motive.
The prevailing gossip seems to be "don't talk to Jody because she's trying to get money". Really?
Where?
We do not charge for what we do. I don't pass the basket at a meeting. I am not applying for any grants and I'm holding no fund raiser. I give away our Recovery Guide and I do not charge for the interviews we have up of survivors online for anyone to listen to for hope.
Think it's not a big deal? Try to find tapes of trafficking survivors anywhere in the 80's or 90's and tell me again that's not a big deal.
On the website of every person bashing SWA and myself - I see them promoting their book, their nonprofit, their name, their face, etc. However, I have interviews with other members of SWA we have helped. There are quotes from them on our clips page. They are at www.leavingthliferadio.com
Why am I doing this? To let people know about a program they can join to find recovery that does not charge them anything. Not to sell my book. Not to do research. Not to carry out a grant. Not to advance my career in the field. I don't even work in the field. I'm disabled. What career am I advancing?
But boy I sure see a lot of others advancing their by walking over my back. What's not being discuss here is the other survivors who are being bullied in the process of this advancement.
I was raising a stink about Exodus Cry back with "8 Minutes". Now they've plastered the face of a woman all over the media claiming she's turned 43,000 tricks - oh now people are running off at the mouth that I'm the bad guy? What about Kevin Brown who was the fake preacher behind "8 Minutes"? What about Pastor Benny Perez who pocketed $1,000,000 plus that was donated to build a recovery home in Las Vegas when he filed bankruptcy?
Has anyone bothered to wonder why no one is sitting down dialing up the phone and filling up the emails of anyone who will listen about what bad guys these people are - but they sure are me? If you ask me - while everyone is focusing on SWA and me - a lot of bad guys are getting off the hook. Until I see HALF of the campaign waged against me waged on Kevin Brown and Relativity Media for "8 Minutes" or Snoop Dogg for his pimping of women for YEAR across the USA during his pimping revival or even Charlie Sheen for infecting escorts who now can't even work in porn and can't come forward in the media without risking being arrested - then I'll believe this isn't a DELIBERATE attempt to take the eyes off the real bad guys and ONTO THE ONE PERSON TRYING TO HELP THESE WOMEN!!!
Like most victims of pimps - I think you have who is a victim mixed up with who the real predators are. You're EXACTLY why we formed our program - because I was seeing women who had been pimped for most of their lives were continuing to be pimped and exploited once out of prostitution in the same manner as an alcoholic can become a dry drunk if they stop drinking without working the steps also.
And what are you doing? Turning on one of your sisters IDENTICAL to the pimping dynamic. Isn't that the dynamic of the "pimp whore" relationship? It's not just one woman one pimp - the pimp's whole operation is based upon the dynamic of getting the women attacking each other so they aren't attacking him.
I'm not seeing anyone going after Dennis Hof, Lance Gilman, Snoop Dogg, or even Charlie Sheen, for what they're doing to harm us - yet people are sitting around dialing up anyone who will listen about "let's not talk to Jody".
I"m mean I'm the elected bad guy here? Really? And yet again not realizing that the pimp is getting his whores to do his dirty work for him. Because from what I remember - the pimps I knew would never lift a finger to beat up their own bitches. They got their bottom bitch to do it for them.
So you know what survivors? Get a program. If you don't know how - that's why www.sexworkersanonymous.com was born. Do you remember why cops didn't like to go on domestic violence calls back in the day?
BECAUSE THE VICTIM WOULD TURN ON THEM WHEN THEY'RE TRY AND SAVE THEM IS WHY.
Because I saw the same thing happening in Catharsis back in 1986 - another room of survivors who were being pimped in recovery and didn't even know it. Now if you don't know what I mean by that - well that's why I'm working on our history right now "Anatomy of a Movement" which will be done in a few more weeks. http://anatomyofamovement.blogspot.com/2015/11/catharsis.html
Anyone who has ever appeared in the media in any way, as well as anyone who has even been bullied, knows that you can't judge another person based on not only media you might read about someone online, but especially through rumors said behind someone's back.
For example, the news clips which dubbed me the title "High Tech Madam" were because the media was confused about why a brothel would have such sophisticated security and surveillance equipment for one. Also, why it would be in a warehouse next to the police station. The answer is because it wasn't a brothel. While I was a prostitute, madam, stripper, and porn performer at the time of my arrest, as well as a trafficking victim and witness - the warehouse was in reality a "safe house" I'd put together for trafficking victims.
The woman inside the brothel was a prostitute I had gone to pick up after her pimp beat her up so badly he broke her nose and her arm. She had two black eyes. She called me for help and I went to pick her up. The pimp, like many pimps, was also a drug dealer who would let her sell his drugs for him to further protect himself from prosecution. When he realized where she was at and that he couldn't get inside to get her out nor could he threaten her out - he called the police to make an "anonymous tip" the warehouse was a brothel.
When the police knocked on the door - she answered it in her nightgown because it was midnight. Now in the mind of the police if you're a prostitute and are wearing a nightgown - you must be hooking. She was on probation for prostitution also at the time. The LAPD had been dying for something to arrest me over and saw this as their opportunity. They pressured her to say that I was "pimping" her out of this warehouse which was a little hard to sell was a brothel. That's actually why the arresting officer paid the reporter at the LA Times $50 to publish the article - thinking public pressure would help get me convicted for pimping.
Only the woman stuck to her story. Not hard when she had a broken nose, two black eyes and her arm in a cast. She offered to testify against her real pimp for his drug dealing and the case against me was dismissed. My mother was arrested for "pimping" me - not her. LAPD had a photo of me handing my mother a $20 bill for a bucket of KFC chicken she brought me one night. Under the law, that is "receipt of earnings from a known prostitute". However, I had no previous record for prostitution. So what made me a "known" prostitute? The word of a cop? Doesn't work that way.
So the reality is that I'm a lot of things. First of all, I'm a retired sex worker. I've been in prostitution, madaming, stripping, porn, phone sex, etc. I don't mean just "prostitute" either. I have the distinction of being the first person to also open a 900 phone sex line in the country. Without having sex with anyone, our phone sex operation was clearing $30,000 a week. Have I turned tricks? Yes. During my step work for my recovery, I went through some records and I estimated about 15,000 tricks in fact.
Meaning I am a recovering prostitute.
Meaning I'm a retired sex worker.
I'm also a survivor of sex trafficking myself. I was lured into a sex trafficking operation where I was forced and exploited to do what I had done. When I broke free of this "family", I then went "independent". From there, another type of trafficker connected to Chuck Barris, Iran Contra, and our own government as well as mob got ahold of me and I barely escaped with my life. A lot of people weren't so lucky. Those people made the street pimps I'd been connected to before look like kid play. After breaking away from them, I went independent again because my PTSD was so bad I was too dysfunctional to work at anything else. I got no help from the police. I got no help from the mental health fields because either they didn't believe what I was talking about - or they viewed me as a criminal who didn't deserve help.
To the sex workers' rights groups like SWOP, Red Umbrella, Desiree Alliance, and others - I was friends with Margo St. James who founded COYOTE. We believe that women had the right to control their own bodies and careers. We had the right to do whatever we wanted to do for work whether that was a job, or marry for money or prostitute for money. We had the right to do whatever we wanted without being called a "whore" either - hence Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics. Which is why I belonged to COYOTE from the year it opened until the year it didn't.
Now when I retired the sex industry and formed our 12 step program and hotline - Margo did meet with me to see if I was going to attack the sex industry in the process of trying to help. I explained to her that other careers had exit programs set up for them - why didn't we for one? If you're a football player and get too disabled to play ball any longer - people have stepped up to help you transition out of football. If you're an actor and you stop working - you can get unemployment. You can also get vocational rehabilitation. On top of this, if you're in any other industry and someone forces you to do that work there are labor laws to prevent this.
She understood that I believe if we were demanding the freedom to engage in sex work - then we should also have the freedom to stop, and support if we wanted to retire. Previously, if you tried to leave sex work it was like rejecting a family. The sex industry would feel betrayed and then shun that person like they did Linda Lovelace when she wanted to quit. In any other industry but sex work if you decide you want to retire - you are not shunned by that industry. If I own a hotel and I decide to go off and become an accountant - every other hotel owner doesn't shun me and shut me out like some "traitor". Nor do they gang up and force me to keep owning a hotel either.
Every sex worker I know wants to cry that it's a "respectable profession". Fine. Treat it like one. Meaning also if I make a choice not just as a woman, but as a person, to leave the sex industry then I should be supported in that choice also.
Because guess what? I can't go and take it back. I'm never NOT going to be an ex-sex worker nor ex-prostitute. That tail will follow me for life. I have been out of prostitution for 30 years now and to this day people still call me a "whore" and hold it against me. Just because I stopped doing those things 30 years ago - I'm going to be viewed as one until the day I die. If I go on a date, or a job interview - it is going to count against me to most people. Right or wrong that's the way it is.
When Linda Lovelace stepped out to say she had been forced to film "Deep Throat" the industry not only didn't stop her from being forced when she was on the set - but the industry did not step up to shun the pimp Chuck Traynor. In fact, he was allowed to continue making movies and to manage Marilyn Chambers. No one stood up to his feeding her drugs either while she made those movies for him. Not until she came into NA did people step up to him to back the predator off of her.
The industry sided with the pimp against her and against Marilyn. Just as it sided with the men making the money from behind the scenes when Jenna said she wanted to quit making movies at the AVN. The audience "boo'd" her decision.
Just as it did me. The ONLY person who stood behind my decision was Margo and for a time I had the support of members of SWOP and even the bloggers like Tits N Sass, Maggie McNeil, and others who are focal advocates for the sex industry.
But something happened when Domina Elle, Bella Robinson and Norma Jean Almodovar started approaching people in 2015 and directly, openly, and aggressively, not only attacking me personally, and the other members of SWA, as well as our hotline for those who also wanted help being the only hotline for adults to call for help operating since 1987 answered by another ex-sex worker AND trafficking survivor - but they further started attacking ANYONE who was our friend, a member of SWA, or even so much as spoke to me.
This reached an unheard of level when Sherry Slew, the leader of the San Antonio chapter of SWOP, was threatened to her face that if she so much as even spoke to me, let alone reached out to SWA for support for her to leave the sex industry, that not only would she be shunned by others within the industry, but that they would make sure she was "drummed out of her position within SWOP".
To my shock - SWOP did nothing that I saw either officially or unofficially to let them know this was unacceptable behavior. When another sex worker, Mistress Tiffany, was not only threatened, and harmed, herself by Domina Elle, but further, when a tape recording of a private call between her and I was taken without either of our consent and published on another site attacking the program of SWA, and every other ex-sex worker who belongs to SWA - again SWOP DID NOTHING to let Domina Elle know this behavior towards others within the community was not acceptable.
This is not in my opinion any longer a sex worker RIGHTS group. Not when there is the slighest toleraance of bullying of any kind. I pointed out some time ago that if it was tolerated in the way I was treated - then it would spread like a cancer. It appears it was tolerated when Mistress Tiffany tried to seek some kind of help and support from SWOP when she was attacked. It seems it was tolerated two years ago when Bella attacked Sherry.
This happened in 2013 when I tried to talk to Jennifer Reed about partnering together to try and defeat AB67. Jennifer reported to me that if she did this that she would "never hear the end of it by Norma". We lost AB67. The fact that Jennifer's decision about her behavior was being dictated by the coercion and threat of another person being tolerated by SWOP is what's at issue here.
I was a member of the online group of SWOP who has very clear stated written policies that one is not to be ejected or blocked without FIRST receiving a warning. Yet when another person who is on the payroll of Dennis Hof, and whose husband produces porn, demanded I be removed - the moderator of the group went against your own policy to remove me. Why? Because they were being bullied.
So this isn't just about me. This isn't just about SWA. It seems to me a LOT of sex workers are being bullied, threatened, coerced and shoved around and SWOP is doing nothing about it.
Including Kamylla. When Kamylla came to me in April of 2015 - I had her a job, a free attorney, and I could have easily made sure she didn't have to pay a penny in rent because of her apartment being "uninhabitable". The women had clearly expressed in EVERY interview that SHE WANTED TO QUIT SEX WORK.
She was then approached by Maxine Doogan and Domina Elle and also THREATENED about what would happen to her if she spoke to me. As a result of not speaking to me, she did not get work, her husband did not get work, $1,000's of dollars was put into an attorney's pocket that could have been better spent getting her a car, custody of her children was endangered, and she might have even been deported by not having access to our connections at Immigration had it reached that point.
I have text messages showing in writing that things were being said supposedly by her by Domina Elle that were not her feelings. They show she was being threatened by these women into being afraid to take any help from SWA - including to take work outside of the sex industry we had offered her . I have other text messages reporting the attorney she was provided almost screwed her over, and that the money is now gone and she still has no work. The messages report the money has been spent instead of on helping these sex workers getting to what they say they want - which is working outside of the sex industry - has instead been spent on drugs.
I have approached SWOP about looking at these text messages Kamllya has sent me reporting she has been victimized by these women, and that her desire was to leave the sex industry and to receive help from SWA but that she was threatened off even speaking to us - and I have not even been asked to review this information as of today.
I have further tried reaching out to other groups such as Desiree Alliance and Red Umbrella about these issues only to be told that they are "so afraid" of these women and their tactics and bullying that they will not lift a finger either about any of this.
Meaning that we have not advanced one inch from the type of industry that would stand by and ALLOW Linda Lovelace to have a gun pointed at her head during the filing of an adult film. The people on that set went home after the shoot and slept at night because they said to themselves "well I didn't point the gun at her". No but you allowed him to do it just the same.
As for the so called "abolitionist" and "anti-trafficking" field - I am a trafficking survivor. I have been rescuing trafficking victims since the early 1980's when the world didn't even know we existed. I spent 13 YEARS of my life, and considerable expense and sacrifice to step up to tell the world this was real and to keep talking and keep talking until we saw the passing of the Trafficking Act of 2000 giving this federal recognition.
Now that we have federal recognition - it means there's now money to be made in this field. Whether that money is through federal grants, fund raisers, or even speaking fees as a survivor - money is now on the table. Ever since money came onto the table - I've been the victim of what is called "economic interference".
Meaning when survivors like Beth Jacobs advances her career, and lines her pocket, through fund raisers and bookings and grants she's obtained while telling anyone who will listen to her that I've "gone back to pimping" it's NOT just her spreading rumors. It's a violation of the law and it's a crime. It's actionable by law. If we were two bakeries in town and she was to run around telling people that my kuchen had roaches - again this is not just spreading bad gossip or even back stabbing nor is it "jealousy". It is "economic interference".
Just as it is when I used to speak at conferences FOR FREE, and people who want to now get PAID to speak at these events in some fashion want to start spreading around rumors about me in order to advance their agenda's - it only appears to be "personal".
When I have other survivors telling me IN WRITING that they are receiving phone calls telling them NOT TO SPEAK TO ME then guess what? They are being controlled and bullied and threatened.
Those who have defied this "shunning" by others with a financial agenda in this field have in fact been shunned, blocked, and out right attacked.
That means guess what? I'm not the only one being harmed here - but SURVIVORS are being harmed.
It is control and coercion and force - something many victims of trafficking don't know well how to stand up against sometimes until years into their own recovery process.
So if you're a survivor and someone comes at you telling you not to speak to me or call SWA or speak to another SWA member - that person is HARMING SURVIVORS. They are no different than any other pimp in that they are trying to control, bully, harass, threaten survivors, and they are doing so for financial reasons. In every single case I've checked where this person has been telling another to "stay away" from Jody - they have been holding a fund raiser, applying for a grant, trying to sell a product - or had some other financial motive.
The prevailing gossip seems to be "don't talk to Jody because she's trying to get money". Really?
Where?
We do not charge for what we do. I don't pass the basket at a meeting. I am not applying for any grants and I'm holding no fund raiser. I give away our Recovery Guide and I do not charge for the interviews we have up of survivors online for anyone to listen to for hope.
Think it's not a big deal? Try to find tapes of trafficking survivors anywhere in the 80's or 90's and tell me again that's not a big deal.
On the website of every person bashing SWA and myself - I see them promoting their book, their nonprofit, their name, their face, etc. However, I have interviews with other members of SWA we have helped. There are quotes from them on our clips page. They are at www.leavingthliferadio.com
Why am I doing this? To let people know about a program they can join to find recovery that does not charge them anything. Not to sell my book. Not to do research. Not to carry out a grant. Not to advance my career in the field. I don't even work in the field. I'm disabled. What career am I advancing?
But boy I sure see a lot of others advancing their by walking over my back. What's not being discuss here is the other survivors who are being bullied in the process of this advancement.
I was raising a stink about Exodus Cry back with "8 Minutes". Now they've plastered the face of a woman all over the media claiming she's turned 43,000 tricks - oh now people are running off at the mouth that I'm the bad guy? What about Kevin Brown who was the fake preacher behind "8 Minutes"? What about Pastor Benny Perez who pocketed $1,000,000 plus that was donated to build a recovery home in Las Vegas when he filed bankruptcy?
Has anyone bothered to wonder why no one is sitting down dialing up the phone and filling up the emails of anyone who will listen about what bad guys these people are - but they sure are me? If you ask me - while everyone is focusing on SWA and me - a lot of bad guys are getting off the hook. Until I see HALF of the campaign waged against me waged on Kevin Brown and Relativity Media for "8 Minutes" or Snoop Dogg for his pimping of women for YEAR across the USA during his pimping revival or even Charlie Sheen for infecting escorts who now can't even work in porn and can't come forward in the media without risking being arrested - then I'll believe this isn't a DELIBERATE attempt to take the eyes off the real bad guys and ONTO THE ONE PERSON TRYING TO HELP THESE WOMEN!!!
Like most victims of pimps - I think you have who is a victim mixed up with who the real predators are. You're EXACTLY why we formed our program - because I was seeing women who had been pimped for most of their lives were continuing to be pimped and exploited once out of prostitution in the same manner as an alcoholic can become a dry drunk if they stop drinking without working the steps also.
And what are you doing? Turning on one of your sisters IDENTICAL to the pimping dynamic. Isn't that the dynamic of the "pimp whore" relationship? It's not just one woman one pimp - the pimp's whole operation is based upon the dynamic of getting the women attacking each other so they aren't attacking him.
I'm not seeing anyone going after Dennis Hof, Lance Gilman, Snoop Dogg, or even Charlie Sheen, for what they're doing to harm us - yet people are sitting around dialing up anyone who will listen about "let's not talk to Jody".
I"m mean I'm the elected bad guy here? Really? And yet again not realizing that the pimp is getting his whores to do his dirty work for him. Because from what I remember - the pimps I knew would never lift a finger to beat up their own bitches. They got their bottom bitch to do it for them.
So you know what survivors? Get a program. If you don't know how - that's why www.sexworkersanonymous.com was born. Do you remember why cops didn't like to go on domestic violence calls back in the day?
BECAUSE THE VICTIM WOULD TURN ON THEM WHEN THEY'RE TRY AND SAVE THEM IS WHY.
Because I saw the same thing happening in Catharsis back in 1986 - another room of survivors who were being pimped in recovery and didn't even know it. Now if you don't know what I mean by that - well that's why I'm working on our history right now "Anatomy of a Movement" which will be done in a few more weeks. http://anatomyofamovement.blogspot.com/2015/11/catharsis.html
Comments
Post a Comment