Alexandra Snow

Sex Workers Tried to Warn Us About Age Verification Laws | KQED Requiring internet users to verify their ages before accessing mature content may sound reasonable. Shouldn’t we be doing a better job protecting kids from online vulgarities? But free speech advocate...

I talked to @morgansung.bsky.social about sex work, surveillance, & censorship for close all tabs from kqed!

www.kqed.org/news/12075321

as the industry gets harder and the legislative screws tighten, more people who have no business teaching are doing so to make a quick buck.

Ethical SW educators understand that you will never make a fraction of the money from teaching as you do from actual SW.

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Hopping in here from my non spicy account -- I don't teach in person SW skills online, for obvious reasons, but I do teach online safety that applies to both. That class is free at WickedAlliance.com

I've said a lot of things about good vs bad education over the last few years and I maintain that

The world does not become safer by pretending we do not exist or trying to legislate us away.

It becomes safer when we have rights, leverage, and legal standing.

Nothing about us without us.
And sugar, we're not going anywhere.

International Sex Worker Rights Day is not about “celebrating empowerment.” (although I eagerly await the day it is)

It is about ending violence.
Economic violence.
Legal violence.
Cultural violence.

We are workers. Artists. Parents. Students. Organizers. Survivors. CEOs of our own bodies. People who have built entire ecosystems of education, mutual aid, and digital innovation all while navigating our own marginalization.

We are not your morality tale.
We are not your TED Talk.
We are not your sensational headline.
We are not your dirty little secret while you vote away our rights.

We are not your morality tale.
We are not your TED Talk.
We are not your sensational headline.
We are not your dirty little secret while you vote away our rights.

Stop conflating all sex work with trafficking.

Trafficking is real. Coercion is real. Grooming is real. Many of us have survived those things. Criminalization does not prevent them, but it does make reporting them more dangerous. You cannot fight abuse by stripping our agency.

Healthcare without stigma.

Doctors who treat us like adults with legitimate occupations. Therapists who understand that sex work is not a mental health diagnosis. Research that includes us instead of pathologizing us.

Immigration protections.

Migrant sex workers are not collateral damage in anti trafficking theater. Raids do not equal rescue. Deportation is not care.

Fuck ICE. End of story.

Platform accountability.

Adult platforms cannot keep extracting 20 to 40 percent while hiding behind lip service. Transparent processing fees. Clear contracts. No sudden account deletions with no appeal.

We built the billion dollar industry. We are not disposable inventory.

Protection from police violence and state surveillance.

When we report assault, we should not be interrogated like suspects. When we call for help, we should not be threatened with our own criminalization. We deserve safety without punishment.

Financial dignity.

Stop closing our accounts. Stop freezing our funds. Stop making us financial refugees in our own country. We deserve stable payment processing, mortgages, insurance, and retirement plans. “High risk industry” is not a moral category, its a bureaucratic excuse.

Labor rights.

We work. We generate billions. We deserve workplace protections, contracts that mean something, the ability to sue exploitative studios and platforms without risking arrest. We deserve rights and safety, not more morality lectures.

Decriminalization. Full stop.

Not partial, not Nordic. Criminalization pushes us into dark rooms with fewer witnesses and less leverage. Criminalization isolates. Isolation breeds violence. Decriminalization creates visibility, and visibility creates accountability.

International Sex Worker Rights Day is not a hashtag, it is a response to systems that treat our labor as profitable but our existence as disposable.

So here are our demands. Not vibes or empowerment fluff, demands.

Attention is cheap. Alignment is rare. We don't need permission to change how power looks, fucking do it anyway.

To anyone making a living off their image: you don’t owe the world constant perfection. The work still counts when you’re resting, healing, or rebuilding.

Under capitalism, survival becomes contingent on selling labor—and sex work is one of the few markets where marginalized people can exert some degree of control over that transaction.

When it feels like the darkness is winning, remind yourself: Empires have fallen. Tyrants have crumbled.

What they don’t tell you is that movements are made of ordinary people. The arc of history bends because people like you do not give up. Keep bending it.

<straps on boots> Ok whores, time to lead the revolution

This is why sex workers should be embraced by the left. No other group has learned to survive this far outside established systems of support — banking, funding, social media, legacy media, law enforcement.

They're the first person you want on a quest.

The Student Loan to Sex Worker Pipeline Robin Keane explores the student loan to sex worker pipeline: how the cost of education influences the decision to do sex work.

"The vast majority of sex workers I know either have or are currently obtaining collegiate (often advanced) degrees. In fact, many of the workers I know are dependent on sex work to afford their programs. This was how I entered the industry myself."

tryst.link/blog/the-...

The revolution may not be televised, but at least it'll be well-dressed.

Hit me with your thoughts. What words capture this? What phrases come to mind when you think about learning how to actually show up for each other in meaningful ways?

It'd be great if it was a snappy name that made folks feel like the heros they are and more inclined to join.

“Mutual aid” is often just monetary resource-sharing, but this is about the people behind it—how we take care of each other, how we stop being so disconnected, and how we make community care an actual practice, not just a nice idea. Because care should be reciprocal!

Basically, all the ways we can actually be useful to each other in the world we live in now.

So here’s my question: What do we call this? “Ally” feels too one-directional, like it’s about helping “others” rather than building a network of care for all of us. Advocates? Avengers?

Because once the aid is given, people are still often alone—and we want to change that.

This includes soft skills for the fight ahead—holding space, conflict resolution, de-escalation, being helpful in a crisis, skill-sharing, dismantling racism, first aid training, research, organizing, etc.

This is about learning how to show up for each other—both for people who share your experiences and for those who don’t. It’s about mutual aid that goes beyond just $$ resources and actually cultivating stronger relationships, deeper understanding, and real community support that goes both ways.

A lot of “allyship” programs focus on how to support people who *aren’t* like you, but that’s not quite the vibe.

I want to help people find their commonalities. Things have become so divisive and people retreat to their own corners.