Anarcho-whore critique of the Sex worker Narratives Arts and Politics! Festival

Illustration by revolutionary whore Grisélidis Réal

An anarcho-whore comrade living in Fortress Europe recently attended the Sex Worker Narratives Arts and Politics Festival, held 27 -29 May, in Brussels, Belgium.

SNAP Festival described it’s aims and mission as:

“SNAP!’s primary goal is to give voice to sex workers working in the various sex trades and to shed light from the inside on the experiences of these activities that are too often misunderstood and stigmatized.

SNAP’s programming is dedicated to highlighting works created by or with the active collaboration of those involved, in order to give voice to the diversity of the experiences of sex workers. From the most complex to the most agentive, the stories and representations of sex work are presented, talked about, shown and analyzed in a festive and benevolent context.

Minorities – of gender and sexuality, racialized, precarious – are structurally made invisible in the dominant media, or misrepresented. Among them, sex workers are particularly victims of stigmatizing stereotypes. Yet, representations have a predominant place in the construction of social imaginary. For that reason, creating and promoting narratives that respect minority populations is crucial in the fight against discrimination.

Moreover, as sex workers are mainly cisgender women, transgender men and women, people in migration process, LGBTQI+, fighting against prejudices and violence against sex workers is fighting against sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism and xenophobia.”

Our comrade, who is acutely aware of the whore-archy, sent us their perceptions of the festival. In publishing this critique and analysis of the festival, we are not attempting to diss the festival, rather we are encouraging the broader/ international sex worker movement to recognise the impacts of the kyriarchy and the role class, migration status, language, criminalisation, age, and sub/ culture plays in both representation, and creating accessible spaces that reflect the genuine diversity of sex worker communities.

Received by email

5 June 2022

So, I guess overall I was quite disappointed with the way the festival was organised. Despite the festival’s aims to highlight stigmatised and excluded sex workers, it seemed like the organisers didn’t’ share the concept of anarchistic, DIY, accessible events.

I’ll explain why I felt this way :

To attend the majority of the performances and the Saturday night rooftop party, people had to buy a 8€ ticket in advance, paying online. Many sex workers are paid in cash and don’t have money in bank accounts readily available (myself- and many sex workers who are migrants without papers and aren’t able to open a bank account- included). This meant many of us couldn’t get a ticket before it was sold out (around a week earlier). In my situation, I had to put myself on a waiting list which meant hanging around outside the venue till super late until all those who were organised (or resourced) enough to buy their tickets online in advance had gone in, and then wait until someone came out again.

AND WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS TICKET ANYWAY? An event for-us-by-us should allow sex workers free entry and priority to access the space over random hipster punters (which counted the majority of people present).

I spoke to some sex worker from the States who’d been invited to speak on SESTA/ FOSTA laws and who had been forgotten on the guest list, which meant even they couldn’t come to the shows. So fucking elitist!

Of the performances I saw, they were amazing, of course, but all were done by these sexy young white European educated people who had been to arts school, and who introduced themselves as “I’ve been an artist for 10 yrs and a sex worker for 18 months” … For me this stinks of people who have decided to do a phase of sex work to get inspired for their artistic expression or whatever- which is not the same experience that those of us who do sex work to survive have!

I can understand that some people have chosen to do sex work as a short-term means to further their artistic careers. In writing this, I’m not intending to diss people who are doing this- I’m more questioning why these voices and perspectives were dominant over other oppressed groups. I just want to make that clear for readers.

Of course, not everyone has this story but it certainly dominated the space, and there weren’t really many non-white, older, non-French-speaking, migrant, precarious, drug using, street sex workers welcome to take the stage in the performance space, nor anywhere else except on the occasional discussion panel as a representative of whatever minority group who is doing unpaid sex worker organising, support, and campaigning. And in these spaces there was no translation offered, fine for me as I have taught myself to speak and understand French, but shit for many other people! It also creates a real hierarchy about which type of sex worker is allowed to have artistic freedom and which type of sex worker is working away behind the scenes with little glory, status or sexy Instagram account.

Plus it was held in this massive posh as fuck venue in the centre of Brussels, with security guards checking bags on entry, which meant that we couldn’t bring any of own booze inside and had to buy super overpriced stuff at the bar instead. Totally not my idea of a good time and stresses the need for us to organise our own events!

But once again this is just my own perception; maybe other people had a great time and managed to not be critical of these issues which for me were quite blatant and meant I chose not to wait for permission to enter the Saturday night rooftop party.

I think I’m aware of these structural representative and organising issues because so many other types of organising I’m involved in / exposed to are super critical of these issues and are doing their best to be more inclusive of minority groups and more systemically oppressed communities.

Hopefully sex worker organising will take all this on at some point…

(And just to be super clear – this is only one persons spectator perspective and maybe other people who were more involved in the organising of the event would see it differently- but maybe not..)