What a wonderful start to the year! No snow (at time of press), new clubs opening up around town (you’ve really got to check out Club SinRock’s downtown location, which is staying open past typical club hours, by the way), weekly burlesque shows at The Jack London and Dante’s (Burly-Q and Sinferno, Saturday and Sunday, respectively) and decent weather is making this February out to be one of the best so far. That’s why we themed this issue as a positive Valentine’s issue—not that we don’t have mad love for the Anti-Valentine parties (check out the calendar at the end of this column), but it is nice to know that this year’s celebration of love will be somewhat more positive (and, hopefully, sunnier) than usual. Sure, we might pay for it, by watching the climate eat itself so we can have cool plastic shit, but when’s the last time you’ve been hiking on a Valentine’s Day date? Silver linings, folks. The oceans aren’t half empty—they’re half full.
My punch card for "know ten sex workers who get booted from social media for posting a picture that includes a small amount of skin, get one free" just filled up. So, what the hell, why not use this column for good?
Here is a brief lesson on how the pop culture and trend cycle works: a grass roots culture creates a thing, that thing becomes popular over time, then the thing becomes profitable and the big companies sink their tentacles into it, eventually redefining it and draining it of all original meaning. For example, look at punk rock. What started out as an anti-corporate practice of using home studio equipment to produce music that is indigestible to the mainstream (due to antiestablishment themes, aesthetic abrasiveness and, well, angry people in weird clothing, who go to basement shows, bootleg cassette tapes and beat each other up for fun), is now responsible for festival bands whose clothing you can buy in the mall. The "Vans" in "Vans Warped Tour" kinda sours the whole "we hate exploitation, capitalism and consumerism" experience, but, hey, two original members of Social Distortion are playing the Monster Energy Stage at noon, so let’s all pony up a month’s worth of income to watch the show.
On the same note as punk rock (and comic books, video games, hip hop, cheeseburgers, cannabis, etc.), the realm of "sex worker" has, seemingly overnight, been taken over by giant social media companies (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc.) and internet data farms (Google, Facebook Mobile, Facebook Messenger, Facebook For Commodore 64, Fisher Price My First Facebook Account, etc.). Boobs make up about 36C-44D percent of the social media market cap.
But, we need a history lesson. Let us rewind to the early days of the internet, when the world connected itself using brand new technology, that would allow for previously unheard of innovation—at which point, we immediately used it for, well, porn. Now, this wasn’t just any porn—this was single-image, hours-to-download, hard-tofap-to, probably-violating-copyright, worthy-ofwasting-one’s-AOL-hours (Millenials, look that term up and get back to me when you bitch about "only having a small amount of data") for pure, uncut smut.
There was a day and age, when you couldn’t just accidentally stumble upon gigs upon gigs of high-definition adult entertainment, from any genre you can think of (give it a try if you don’t believe me...there are sub-genres of Dragonball Z porn—don’t ask me how I know, but there are over 9,000 videos). In fact, if you’ve ever seen the word "pron" (which, by the way, did NOT get underlined by my word processor spellcheck alerts), it comes from the intentional misspelling of the word "porn," to subvert censorship, because "porn" was, at one point in time, blocked by most search engines. Back in the day, we had to walk up a hill, both ways, twice, in digital snow, before we realized that the snowy hill was actually a boob. Whoa! A naked boob!!!
Flash forward a couple decades, and if you do a search for "prawns" on your phone, Google asks if you meant to search for "porn," complete with suggestions. Taboo? Only if you’re looking up the address of the video store—there are Christian hookup sites, feminist-approved pornstars and skin flicks designed to be inclusive to every de mographic on the planet. Are you an Amish trans woman who prefers half-Asian, half-Australian, third-cousin themes, with Disney outfits and mild socialist undertones, but only in 4K and in Quicktime format? Well, the internet has dozens and dozens of results for you! Put simply, porn is basically pot—it’s mainstream, there are thousands of varieties, everyone uses it and the hippies should be glad that our society no longer punishes people who engage in it...
Unless, of course, you’re a stripper or model who posts a semi-revealing photo on Instagram using the wrong sex-related hashtag. In that case, let’s just go ahead and delete your account, remove your monetized ads, disconnect you from most of your followers and fans, then threaten you with a nasty letter. Of course, this doesn’t apply to famous porn actors or Hollywood prostitutes, but the real enemies, like Snapchat Premium models, local working girls and webcam chicks... you know, right up there with serial killers, kiddie diddlers and Nazis. Imagine if Adolf Hitler or Ted Bundy had the help of @GamerGurrl69PDX420...I doubt we’d even be alive today.
Obvious sarcasm aside, the big companies whose platforms you built and whose stock prices you helped inflate by giving away your data for free, well, they hate you. Tag a post with #YesAStripper or #SexWorker and see what happens. Sure, there will be gore porn above you and footage of a drone strike below you, but that Instagram feed is apparently not ready for half of a nipple or part of a butt—and, let’s not kid anyone, no one is ready for a sex-positive hashtag. That’s where society starts to crumble (yes, that’s more sarcasm, for those of you in the back).
It’s one thing to say "this is a private platform with terms of service that you signed." But, it’s another thing to remind you of this fact, while at the same time promoting a photo of Cardi B stuffing a flag in up her rectum with the hashtag #EatMyAssBitches and a link to buy her song, "Finna Fuck This Ni$$a With A Stolen GloCK," from the Apple Store, Google Play and Christian Mingle, before turning right around and telling @PDXStr1pp3rChixxx that their account "violates terms of service," because they posted a text-only meme about tipping dancers to their 400 followers.
If I had a dollar for every dancer, webcam girl, private model or even just random female who works at Starbucks and occasionally posts vagina-themed paintings, who got their account taken down after amassing a decent following that took weeks upon weeks of work to obtain, I’d have enough money to actually go to the strip club and tip all the dancers, who just lost their Snapchat Premium account because a drug dealer, white nationalist or gang member reported their yoga pants photo. "We’re sorry, but due to complaints from @MolallaSisterFucker88 and @ StitchesGetTheirDicksShotOff, the photo of you at the gym has been sent to Homeland Security." Real fucking "progressive," Zuck. Meanwhile, I misspelled "Virginia" in a search bar—using safe mode on a public internet connection—and guess what I saw?
At this point, even if you hate me as a person, a writer and/or an asshole, I honestly doubt that this month’s column is getting much disagreement from our readers. But, I haven’t gotten to the elephant in the room yet—a solution.
What can you, as either a fan or producer of noteven-that-"adult"-content, do? How can you, the thicc girl who posts gym selfies or the pole dancer who enjoys showing off her skills, get Instagram, Facebook (who owns Instagram), Snapchat and all the other apps on your side? Well, let’s first point out what doesn’t work: contacting these companies, starting petitions, getting a shitty lawyer, getting a good lawyer, complaining on other social media platforms or trying to take down Goliath yourself. What does work, you ask? Hashtags.
Unlike centralized content (shit you post directly to one or two linked social media platforms), hashtags are decentralized—if I start the #KanyeMusk2020 hashtag and enough people start using it in their own posts, then website search engines, trending lists and other aggregates have to take active steps to suppress it. And, what happens when you try to suppress something on the internet? Everyone accepts that two dudes in MAGA hats jumped a celebrity outside of a Chicago Subway in the middle of winter, 9/11 was an outside job and Epstein killed himself...oh, wait, no—it has the exact opposite effect.
Last month, a girl at a Target store got shamed by some asshat hipster blogger on Twitter, over the price of a toothbrush. Currently (and, thanks to the surrounding internet attention), this chick (@RealTargetTori...cool girl, go support her) is sitting on thousands in donation money and @ Target has yet to even address the incident (at time of press). The internet moves at the speed of light, if light was on meth and had a jetpack. Elsewhere in the Land Of The Virtuous Trolls, there are similar stories, such as the saga of Brad’s wife being fired from Cracker Barrel in 2017 (and the @ CrackerBarrel Twitter account being flooded with demands for her re-hire to this day). Put simply, if the internet rallies around anything (fast food chains, recently deceased primates, presidential candidates, etc.), shit gets done and we never, ever forget.
Sadly, just like comics books, video games, politics, journalism, movies and pretty much any other element of pop culture (yes, politics has been pop culture for a few decades now) that has been infested by the normies, the term "online sex worker" has gotten a bad rep, thanks exclusively to the latecomer, hanger-on, attention whore posers who make up less than a fraction of a half of a third of a percent of "sex workers," but seem to represent 99.9 out of 100, when it comes to media portrayal. Local stripper raising money for the homeless? Pfft. Ban her account, immediately. Influencer showing cleavage to "save Australia from climate change" (ahem, ARSON)? Well, color me monetized and slap my safe-for-children butthole! We’ve got a winner. As long as there’s a narrative behind her, she can dance above it naked—just make sure to weed out the ladies who aren’t famous, because they don’t help the corporate bottom line.
Distaste for the smug elite—not "misogyny," "anti-feminism" or a "hatred of women"—is the main reason why the "internet hates sex workers" meme is somewhat valid, but misaligned. Yes, there are some shitty men (and women) who are certified trash humans. But, I would argue that your typical /b/-tard or casual internet troll has nothing against the stripper next door, any more than someone who hates Kardashians is "transphobic" for not buying Caitlyn Jenner’s makeup or people who don’t like Captain Marvel are "sexist" for not enjoying watered-down, dollar store C.G.I., Hollywood preaching. The real enemy is sitting behind an office desk, not a table in his mom’s basement. The fact is, most people just hate smug, elitist, better-than-you low-level celebrities and most "influencers" who will never know what it’s like to build a following of loyal patrons from the ground up. Being treated like commoner trash by folks who have multiple paid servants to feed them vegan food from a silver platter is, well, not really something that regular folks can get behind, no matter how much guilt is used to dismiss the fact we have taste—for example, I grew up on The Lady Of Rage, Queen Latifah, Apollonia Kotero, Etta James, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston and I’m currently listening to Young M.A., so no, I don’t dislike Lizzo because I "hate black women." It just so happens that it’s 2020 and the hipsters are only now finding out that they exist. On the same token (pun accidental), no one giving tips on rectal bleaching via Instagram for ten million followers has ever seen a stripper pole—trust me. Wanna talk about cultural appropriation? Let’s start with sex work being hijacked by corporate slime and the pseudo-Hollywood elite. Joker wasn’t misogynistic, corporate trash, cashing in on angry men and shitty women—Hustlers was.
The internet is not always a nice place to women who show off their bodies. But—and, I do mean this seriously—if the take-down of all things sexworker-related is framed as an attack by asshole corporations on individual capitalists, you can bet your ass that the Libertarian snake would be wrapped around a stripper pole by next week. The dark underbelly of the internet is ready to see Zuck, Jack and whoever owns Snapchat burn alive. Fat dorks living in mom’s basement, eating chicken tendies and mining Dogecoin in last week’s underwear don’t "hate women," any more than strippers who don’t like it when local celebrities watch their stage show for free "hate men." Instead, they/we hate the establishment, especially the part of it that profits from our independent cultures, while at the same time, excluding us from them. And, yes, Instagram and Snapchat "models" who became "famous" two years ago are trash establishment celebrities—trust me, they were shaming strippers and calling sex workers "hoes" for years, before they hired an assistant to set up their social media accounts. Green Day is not punk rock, Cardi B is not feminism, Bernie Sanders is not grass roots and Belle Delphine selling her bathwater is not sex work—and, I like all of these people, but I’m not going to pretend that they’re what the label says they are, any more than I will pretend that the McDonald’s by my house is a "local restaurant." As an aside, that same McDonald’s has used needles piling up in the gutter, but a local burger shop around the corner got a fine for automatically including plastic straws in take-out orders—corporations, am I right?
It is time for strippers, webcam models, homemade porn producers and other actual sex workers to team up with the internet trolls, hackers, shitposters and, well, people like me. Together, we can put aside our flame wars and defeat the machine, as one cohesive unit. And, we will do it through a hashtag. Because, that’s the only thing that they can’t suppress without having it backfire. However, I’m about as creative as the rest of the Portland "creative" types, which mean’s I’m really not creative at all, especially when being creative actually matters. So, I am leaving it up to you, loyal reader, to start throwing sex worker-friendly hashtags out into the lexicon, until one sticks. #InstagramHatesStrippers, #LetSexWorkersExist, #NotAThot, #SnapbackAtSnapchat...none of those really roll off the tongue, but you get the gist. The point is, post your photos, do your videos, post your CashApp and Venmo links, get sock accounts if your main account is deleted, multiply and spread like a virus. I will put the word out through internet shitposter dog whistles (they’re already littered throughout this column) and, together, we will rally the troops in support.
Like it or not, thanks to meme magic and hashtags, a member of the WWE Hall Of Fame is the sitting president, a dead gorilla is the most honored historical figure of the last decade (#DicksOutForHarambe) and the most innovative, independent scientific mind of our time is launching cars into space and making rap songs about the dead gorilla, while negotiating with WWE Guy about something called "Space Force." Strip away the politics and what you have is living proof that, if you get the dark side of the internet on your side, you can meme anything into existence. Imagine the power that sex workers could take back from the big social media companies, if we found a way to bridge the communication gap between women who model while half-naked and the men who would gladly fund their CashApp account.
Say it with me—Zuck will not divide us. Zuck will not divide us. Zuck will not divide us...
SAT 1—STAR THEATER—MOST EXCELLENT BURLESQUE ADVENTURE
SUN 2—DANTE’S—SINFERNO FEAT. IVIZIA DAKINI
SUN 2—CLUB 205—STRIPPER BOWL PARTY
SUN 2—STARS CABARET (ALL LOCATIONS)—SUPER BOWL PARTY
SUN 2—ROSE CITY STRIP—DICK & NIK’S STRIPPER BOWL IV
WED 5—DANTE’S—DANTE’S—20TH ANNIVERSARY W/ DIRT NASTY
SUN 9—DANTE’S—SINFERNO FEAT. RACHAEL RECKLESS
THU 13—LUCKY DEVIL—12-YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY
FRI 14—XPOSE—VALENTINE’S NIGHT PARTY W/ DJ KENOY
FRI 14—CHEETAHS CABARET (SALEM)—VALENTINE’S PARTY
FRI 14—KIT KAT CLUB—ADULT STAR & PENTHOUSE PET CHRISTIANA CINN
FRI 14—DREAM ON SALOON, GUILTY PLEASURES—ANTI-VALENTINE PARTY
FRI 14—STARS CABARET (BRIDGEPORT)—LOCK & KEY PARTY
FRI 14—TABOO VIDEO (VANCOUVER)—VALENTINE ICE CREAM SOCIAL (6PM-8PM)
FRI 14—TOMMY’S TOO—2-FOR-1 VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL
FRI 14—THE RUNWAY—RED & WHITE PARTY W/ J DIGGS
SAT 15—SCARLET LOUNGE—ANTI-VALENTINE’S MELTED HEARTS PARTY
SAT 15—X EXOTIC LOUNGE—ADULT STAR & PENTHOUSE PET CHRISTIANA CINN
SAT 15—XPOSE—DJ DICK HENNESSY’S ANTI-VALENTINE’S DAY PARTY
SUN 9—STARS CABARET (SALEM)—EXOTICARAOKE
SUN 16—DANTE’S—SINFERNO FEAT. ADULT STAR & PENTHOUSE PET CHRISTIANA CINN
SUN 16—STARS CABARET (SALEM)—HEARTLESS ANTI-VDAY PARTY
SUN 23—DANTE’S—SINFERNO FEAT. THEATRES DES VAMPIRES
FRI 28—DANTE’S—QUEENS OF THE POLE
