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• I'm not alone in finding Cupcake girls offensive and demeaning. You don't have charities going into schools to help female teachers find addiction and trauma recovery resources or go into hospitals to help female nurses connect with education in career development programs.

  Sex work is real work and as long as people, even well intentioned people, continue to see it as anything else, sex work will never be accepted as a legitimate career choice by cognizant and capable women.

  Insert any other profession in when they mention adult work and see how ridiculous they sound:

  "The safe house and resource center for (lawyers/teachers/longshoremen/bartenders) would provide everything in-house for physical, emotional, mental and, if people wanted, spiritual support."

  Please TRPWL, before you post about them in the future think about the message Cupcake Girls sends to the adult community and impact it has on the public's perception of women who work in the adult community and sex work in general.

  • While I cede that the cupcake part may be viewed as condescending, as cupcakes are for children, the remainder of your analysis is faulty.

    Your analogy to teachers/lawyers etc is silly because teaching and lawyering are not criminalized and stigmatized the way sex work is. As you are no doubt aware, when a society forces individuals underground, and makes them criminals by fiat, they usually encounter predators and dangerous or otherwise unhealthy situations. It is for that very reason (among others) that sex workers generally favor decriminalization (as do I). Nowhere does this organization claim that sex work is not real work. It IS work -- but it is needlessly hazardous work.

    Rather than concerning ourselves with "the message Cupcake Girls sends to the adult community", I suggest we deal in real world terms. There *are* people who need resources -- resources that are not being provided by sex worker activists. Most (though not all) sex worker groups that claim to be social justice organizations are in reality little more than social organizations. The annual Desiree Alliance meeting is an excuse for Stacy to set up three-ways and for sex workers to rub elbows, share tips (and meet clients). That's about it. What studies have they done? What resources do they offer? Their damn website it rarely updated. And SWOP LV is as useless as tits on a boar hog.

    The problem I have with most critics of the Cupcake Girls is that they never offer feasible alternatives. So concerned with presenting sex workers as "just like any other worker", they often downplay the bad parts. You know what, in the world we live in today, sex work is NOT like any other job. There ARE pimps. There are trafficked persons. The numbers are nowhere near what the lunatic antis would have you believe but believe you me there are women, men and transpeople who need, seek out -- and receive -- help from the Cupcake Girls.

    Let's talk about "the message" we all should be heeding: that sex workers need resources, are often afraid to seek them or are turned away, and so-called sex worker activists have not stepped up and put their money where their mouths are. If you want to place your "message" above the plight of the individuals who regularly seek out the aid of the Cupcake Girls, then with all due respect I think your priorities are way off. There are women, men and transpeople who fall through the cracks when activists focus exclusively on "happy hooker" messaging. Sending that message for supposed political effect is not more important than the lives of the people whom Cupcake Girls helps.

    My wife and I live in Las Vegas, and we know many women who have availed themselves of The Cupcake Girls' resources. The group matches sex workers and their loved ones with medical and financial assistance (such as tax preparation), as well as medical resources and psychological and other recovery programs, offered by NON-JUDGEMENTAL providers. Every one of these resource providers is screened. I have seen their work with my own eyes, and I have heard the praise from sex workers. That's all I need to see/hear; the judgment of sex workers is far more relevant than my own in regards to whether or not Cupcake Girls is a valuable resource, and I defer to them.

    Again, while I share your concern with the cupcake aspect, I have seen results that I would never want to be thrown out with the bathwater, as it were.

  • Ridiculous and short sighted. Sex workers are a marginalized group- we DO need resources. I have gotten many from the CCG; they have been invaluable in my life.

• Rights not cupcakes

  • And in the meantime, what? No resources? Sex workers should suffer on principle? I have the greatest respect for you, Maxine, but that's ridiculous. Solutions not slogans.