'Everyone needs an ally'

Outreach project fights for the dignity and safety of sex workers

A national social justice organization dedicated to protecting the rights of sex workers and providing a safe network of peers is coming to Tulsa. 

The goal of the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) is to re-frame the narrative around who does this oftentimes dangerous work and why. “They really work to de-stigmatize sex work through outreach and education,” Tulsa chapter organizer Kylie Shelley said.

Community and visibility are essential to this project, according to Shelley. “SWOP is sex worker-led, because it’s important [they’re] able to empathize with the kinds of things sex workers deal with.”

SWOP is both a racial and economic justice organization whose solidarity with vulnerable groups runs deep. According to the group’s mission statement, it is “committed to the safety, autonomy, and human rights of people in the sex trade, and stands in solidarity with the many social justice movements intersectional to our own, including but not limited to Black Lives Matter, disability rights, drug and immigration reform, gender equality and the LGBTQ movement, and the rights of the working class.” 

Chapters have launched in more than 20 states since SWOP’s 2003 inception. Shelley sees power in those numbers. “If we simply bring people together, they can organize. Whether that’s disseminating information about your rights, or where to get PrEP, birth control or condoms. It’s sharing experiences, resources and information,” she said. “It’s about getting sex work, those two words together, into public conversation within the community.”

As a sex worker who has mostly had to figure things out on her own, Tulsa-area resident Jane Doe (pseudonym) said she understands the importance of SWOP’s goal of creating a community.

“There is huge value in having a community of sex workers,” Doe said. “Sex workers can promote each other’s content, warn each other about bad experiences/clients/colleagues, share knowledge. In a marginalized industry, there are many unknowns, and naivety can be dangerous for a newcomer. Knowledge is power.”

The hope is to create community and awareness around sex work in the Tulsa area. But with visibility comes the need to manage misconceptions and address stigma.

“For me, sex work is a way use my femininity to my advantage. I have worked online for years as an adult content creator. Everything I do ends up on the internet for purchase,” Doe said. “The biggest misconception about sex work is that it is easy money—it is not. To make a comfortable living from sex work on a full-time basis requires an enormous amount of time and effort, and even then a good income is not guaranteed. Many want your time, products and services for free, particularly with online work.”

Doe said she’s done a bit of everything, because sex work isn’t one-job-fits-all. She’s done work as a cam girl, worked as a phone sex operator for a time and has been cast in pornography, but she said that’s just scratching the surface of what sex work entails.

Shelley added there are misconceptions that all sex workers are street-based and on drugs. These are ideas she is happy to dispel. “The idea is that nobody knows someone that’s doing sex work … but somebody you love is a sex worker,” Shelley said. “More people than you think, that are in your community, are doing this.”

The 2018 FOSTA-SESTA law dealt a huge blow to sex workers, according to Shelley. Signed into law by Donald Trump over a year ago, she says the Fight Online Sex Trafficking (FOSTA) bill—combined with the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA)—puts sex workers in more danger. The law makes websites responsible third-parties facilitating any sex work through their site or platform, which in turn, prevents sex workers from sharing information and warning each other away from violent clients.

Many sex workers say they feel they’re being pushed off of social media platforms due to a practice called shadow banning, in which specific users are discretely banned from a platform. Most often workers say their images and content are flagged and vaguely labeled as violating community standards or are simply labeled as “inappropriate.” Shelley said shadow banning disproportionately affects sex workers, who feel their content is flagged or banned even when they know they aren’t violating site standards. 

These are a few of the hurdles facing the safety and livelihoods of sex workers, which Shelley hopes the Tulsa chapter of SWOP will address here at home. The group’s first event—one of four needed to become an officially recognized chapter—will be the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers on Dec. 17. 

“SWOP wants the chapters to be sex worker-led, but they’re open to all sex workers … but in any community organization or advocacy organization, it takes everyone. Everyone needs a co-conspirator, everyone needs an ally,” Shelley said. “If you think of sex work as a career, there are people that are retired, people that are just starting, people that are still considering. And SWOP is for all of them.”