Dear Phyllisha,I have thought for two hours before deciding to post this publicly; I was really torn about it because the following is an answer to a private email and I value privacy. However, this is not a private topic: it is about that same Union which is inviting workers of this industry to give their contribution to improve everybody’s working conditions and consequentially the reputation of the whole industry. It is a public dominion topic which I believe it deserves to be treated with the greatest transparency possible, the lack of which I was complaining about in my previous comment to an earlier post by Mike. I wouldn’t be intellectually honest if after my public complaints I kept the subsequent developments secret. Therefore, I won’t post your email, but I am going to answer it publicly, courtesy of Mike’s blog.
First let me start with the no disclosure disclaimer at the end of your email: hold on to it if you like, but you better stop emailing me tout-court if you are afraid that what you write gets spread out. You cannot decide unilaterally what I can or cannot disclose about an email I have received. If you ask me to renegade my opinions I might feel encouraged to let the world know about your attempt to shut me up, in fact. Pressuring people to keep things secret is not the best visit card for a legal organization born to bring people together and to improve their working conditions. Don’t forget that the biggest plague of all among performers has always been the fear to speak out.
Hence and back to the substance, I have nothing to take back or to apologize about. If my criticism is wrong, you have every right to reply and to bring evidence of the contrary. Should the union find my proposals and offers of help interesting, I have already stated numerous times at which conditions I’m available to offer my contribution free of charge. Unfortunately (for some, not for me), I don’t compromise with the adult industry since several years. And my silence is not for sale.
I have nothing against you or anybody else (except when you try to silence me). To the contrary. I’m simply tired to see the same old stale attitude towards the things that are needed to improve our industry and that regularly get belittled when not ignored.
As I already stated a few times and quite a while back, these are a few things that any organization which want to be taken seriously need to consider before even starting the day to day operations:
- Professional website.
- Transparency on who is currently running the union, with names, contacts and roles published on the website.
- Press agent and official speaker.
- Socials manager (whoever is taking care of Twitter is damaging the union’s reputation by the minute. It’s not by being rude and telling people to shut up that you gain consensus).
- Regular communication with members (no need for phone tree: email, telephone, text…it’s all available for free and can reach everybody at the same time for any communication need. Check Whatsappmessenger app and its groups system, for example: send a text message for free and everybody gets it in real time for free.)
- Clear, public and to the point letter of intents with few achievable points in the short-medium term.
- People in charge who are responsible for their area of aid or/and expertise regarding day to day operations.
- Project financing plan.
- Transparency, transparency, transparency (changing elections dates and terms, not informing about the changes, telling people – me for example – that you have sent out the ballots when those same people haven’t received them is the best way to not be trusted).
They are all points that I have raised from day one and that I have offered to help about and I haven’t seen any improvements on any of those points in the last 6 months. Not a single improvement. And yet, until you have the above you won’t be taken seriously because you won’t be able to even start the engines of such a piece of machinery or to create chapters and electing officers. What you don’t seem to realize is that the union has already lost its momentum. You have launched and advertised an organization promising things that cannot be achieved for the simple reason that this organization has no structure, no players, no content, and no specific goals or, if you prefer, it’s not organized at all. You haven’t been able to capitalize on the surprise and novelty effect and its subsequent enthusiasm generated on people. It’s as if Coca Cola launched their drink without having the recipe yet: nobody likes to drink from an empty can.
My door is always open for serious projects. But again, my words and opinions are not negotiable. I don’t need to be part of the union and the union don’t need me to be part of it. People make choices and they are all legitimate ones. As long as any party takes responsibilities for their choices. So, please, refrain to ask me to take back my thoughts and opinions or to apologize about them in the future (it sounds very shady or, if you prefer, old style union…) You can always shut me up and prove me wrong though, by giving your public statements a factual substance: I still won’t say that I was wrong about my specific concerns, but I for sure will be the first to clap to and support the union and its initiatives.
And to draw a line: I don’t know if there are incoming elections, when, by whom etc and I’m pretty sure that after this writing of mine there won’t be any interest in involving me and it’s probably even better so. But if you guys were so crazy to keep considering me for any position, I want to make clear one thing once and for all: I’ll consider only if I will have successfully passed through a vote and if I will know who voted, when and how and if I will be given the chance to make those data publicly available. Differently, I will support or criticize the union initiatives externally case by case.
I know you will be furious, by now, and instead you should be grateful that someone still takes the time to stimulate the discussion publicly. Believe it or not, this writing of mine will benefit the union one way or another much more than if I kept it between me and you. Never be afraid of public discussions even (especially) when people seem particularly critic.
In fact if you will able to express a constructive reaction to this criticism you will probably be the first one in decades doing so in this auto referential and entitled industry and you will definitely inspire many more people to join the union that any of those bombastic statements given to the press to date. I sense your passion for this union, so don’t give up. But it’s time that you start doing what’s needed seriously, if you want it to succeed. My participation is irrelevant, your dedication is not.
A very respectful and sincere hug,
Sabrina
