$pread Blog

To kick off 2010's flurry of $preadivities, we're coordinating a series of drives to widen our reach. Check out our Academy Pitch below and please re-post to academics and listservs! If you end up forwarding the pitch to a listserv or two, please write info@spreadmagazine.org with the list so that we can track our distribution. Increasing our distribution is an important key in tackling our income problem. Please help forward the pitch!

A HOLE IN YOUR SYLLABUS? FILL IT WITH $PREAD MAGAZINE!

What better way to teach about the complexities of the sex industry than to use sex worker-made media in your classroom? Replace those pesky secondhand sources and academese that all-too-often obscure the lived realities of those of us in the sex industry. Assign $pread today! $pread Magazine is an all-volunteer quarterly produced by and for people in the sex industry and those who support their rights.

Go to www.spreadmagazine.org/shop or email spreadstore@gmail.com to order issues with a 30 percent University Discount on orders of over 15 copies! For more information, visit our website, download our Media Kit, or email info@spreadmagazine.org.

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In contrast to the misrepresentation of sex workers by the courts, Congress, and the Academy, $pread Magazine creates a space for sex workers to speak for themselves. Our editorial mission is decidedly open-minded: we’ll publish perspectives of current or former sex workers, regardless of their opinions on the industry. $pread does not endorse any particular "solution" to the sex industry; we promote the right of sex workers to tell their own stories and define their own experiences.

$pread is not just for sex workers: it’s for anyone who’s curious about the sex industry. Our magazine is popular with activists, academics, and policy makers. Educators have used $pread as a multi-disciplinary teaching tool to explore a range of themes, such as:

LABOR: How do sex workers engage with the sex industry, both as a job and as an industry? Contributors discuss working conditions/challenges around the world, and how sex workers operate in both informal and formal economies. Other articles discuss regulation of the sex industry, its intersection with capitalism, and how poverty, discrimination, and social marginalization affect working choices. Writers also explore related themes, such as commodification and ownership.

- "Survey Says: Job Satisfaction?"
by Alexandra Lutnick, Issue 3.1
- "The City’s Red Lights: Mumbai’s Boom Town of Migrant Laborers,"
by Svati Shah, Issue 4.3
- "Positions: Can We Justify Working for Pimps?"
by Eve Ryder and Anonymous, Issue 1.4
- "Lust for Life: Inside America's Only Worker-Owned Peep Show,"
by Erin Siegal, Issue 4.1

IDENTITY: What is a sex worker? What is the identity of a sex worker? How do race, gender, age, class, sexual orientation, size and other aspects of identity affect the working experience and income-earning potential in an industry where beauty standards can be highly exclusive? Contributors share their thoughts and experiences to reflect on the multi-dimensional nature of identity.

- "The Price of Being Different,"
by Kevicha Echols, Issue 3.1
- "Keeping Her Off the Pole: My Daughter’s Right to Choose,"
by Katherine Frank, Issue 1.4
- "Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star: Interview with Rich Merritt,”
by Rebecca Lynn, Issue 1.4
- "Black Tale: Women of Color and the American Porn Industry,”
by Mireille Miller-Young, Issue 1.1
- "Positions: Is Sex Work a Sacred Practice or Just a Job?"
by Tasha Tasticake and Vero Rocks, Issue 3.1

MIGRATION AND TRAFFICKING: In an increasingly globalized world, what factors influence the movement of individuals within and across borders, and how does this relate to movement in and out of the sex industry? $pread contributors have written scholarly and personal pieces about the relationship between migration and sexual labor, while also exploring the political significance of conflating trafficking and prostitution in the context of the global sex trade. Articles emphasize the need to address labor abuses (and more broadly, the complicit actions of governments in enabling these) while also challenging the paternalism present in understandings of exploitation in the sex industry.

- "Bodies Across Borders: Experiences of Trafficking & Migration,"
by Melissa Ditmore and Juhu Thukral, Issue 2.4
- "Back in the Brothel: How My Fears about the Dangers of 'Rescue' were Confirmed,"
by Jo Doezema, Issue 1.1
- "The Sex Workplace: No Day Without An Immigrant,"
by Rachel Aimee, Issue 3.3
- "Sex and the City of Joy: White House Morality Threatens Kolkata's Sex Workers,"
by Sarah Stuteville and Alex Stonehill, Issue 2.2

VIOLENCE AGAINST SEX WORKERS: What is the impact of the attitudes our society holds towards those in the sex trade? As a result of the illegal or semi-legal nature of sex work (itself a form of violence) and the stigma surrounding the industry, many sex workers face police harassment and brutality, exclusion from communities and resources, stigmatized interactions with service providers (such as doctors), client violence, and systemic violence at the hands of courts and other legal structures. $pread contributors explore experiences with individual and structural forms of violence from both personal and political angles.

- "I Have Nothing To Say: Killing a John in Self-Defense,"
by Lynne Tansey, Issue 2.4
- "The Cutting Edge: On Sex Workers, Serial Killers, Switch Blades,"
by Sarah Stillman, Issue 3.2
- "The Unicorn and the Crow: A Photo Essay," by Prin Roussin, Issue 3.2

- "U.S. Blockade: Anti-Sex Work Pledge Restricts Funding for HIV/AIDS Prevention Work," by Kimb Giunta, Issue 1.4

ACTIVISM: What do sex worker rights movements look like today? Have organized challenges to the systems that circumscribe the rights of sex workers succeeded? How does organizing shape the experiences of sex workers as both workers and activists? Contributions reflect how sex worker activists around the world use collectivizing and mobilization to address violence, influence legislation impacting sex workers, secure rights as industry workers, and generally work to meet the needs of sex workers with respect to health, safety, legal issues, and more.

- "Sex Workers Take to the Streets in Taiwan,"
by Yu Ying and Fang-Ping Wang, Issue 2.2
- "Photo Essay: Cambodia's Banteay Srei,"
by Banteay Srei and Erin Siegal, Issue 3.3
- "Capital Punishment: Activists Fight 'Prostitution Free Zones' in Washington, D.C.,"
by Penny Saunders, Issue 5.2
- "ICRSE Report: European Sex Workers Gather in Brussels to Strategize and Demand Rights,"
by Pye Jakobson, Issue 1.4

TESTIMONIALS AND AWARDS

If you're still in doubt, take a quick look at our peer review process; here is what professors, students and media have to say about $pread:

"$pread bluntly challenges students' preconceptions about sex work and prostitutes — and does so with style, wit and shrewd analysis. The diversity of opinion within the magazine is also a pleasure, and rare in any publication. Reading $pread inspires some of the semester's most engaged discussions, and [the] best student writing."

– Liza Featherstone, author, contributing writer to The Nation, and professor at CUNY's Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Labor Studies.

"My field study/internship with $pread offered me a wonderful opportunity to be part of a real working magazine while learning about sex-worker advocacy.  I was able to use my time with $pread to help me better understand the complexities of my particular field of study through real-life application."

– Letha Muth-Kimball, Hampshire College '09.

"Giving voice to the voiceless is a journalistic responsibility, but sit down with an issue of this controversial little title and you’ll realize how effectively the mainstream media have denied sex workers a place at the table. Smart and culturally revealing, $pread aims to educate, inform, and provoke discussion about sex work."

– Utne Reader, Jan/Feb 06, $pread was awarded Utne's Independent Press Award for Best New Title in 2005.

Assign $pread for your classes today!