Workshops

The best kind of workshops are when you get some sex workers together and talk... SWAG hopes to host workshops in the future.. it is just the beginning.

Do it Yourself Ideas

  1. Attendance: Have a sex worker night.. Post on your local boards or write sex workers in your area. RSVP do a survey monkey to see who can attend .
  2. Reserve space: If you have an incall or a club in the area you could reserve a room. If there are sex work friendly centers they may have a meeting room open - here in Toronto the 519 Community Centre regularly allows sex work positive events.
  3. Pick a topic: from how to informal talks to learning experiences
  4. Bring in a specialist: Tell them you wish to cater to sex workers and ask if they are open to this. Some sex shops, like Good For Her and Good Vibrations, regularly have workshops on techniques (see if they will host one just for sex workers).
  5. Collect a small fee: to cover the cost of tea, the speaker and whatever else comes up.

Here are Some Workshop Ideas

  • specific sexual techniques (fellatio, cunnilingus, anal play, multiple positions, tantra) and new services such as erotic (fantasy services and servicing disabled clients
  • assertiveness training and conflict resolution
  • self-defense
  • bookkeeping, investing money, business management skills
  • telephone skills
  • first aid
  • massage and beauty therapies
  • exercise classes
  • nutrition
  • local languages (for immigrant sex workers) or tourists' languages

The Desiree Alliance Presents
"Re-visioning Prostitution Policy: Creating Space for Sex Worker Rights and Challenging Criminalization"

July 9-12, 2006 Las Vegas, Nevada

  • Advocacy and Outreach: How to build local networks of Sex Workers and supporters.
  • How to identify and participate in existing networks.
  • How to represent the broader voice of a marginalized segment of society. Peer-based outreach.
  • How to set up Know Your Rights and Advocacy trainings in your region.
  • Court Support.
  • Empowering under-represented communities within the sex industry.
  • Fundraising/Grant-writing: How to raise money for projects that aim to decriminalize prostitution.
  • How to get funding for an existing organization.
  • How to get seed money to create an organization.
  • Self-Defense Training
  • Protecting Our Families: Custody rights, legal guardianship, having an emergency plan, and other family issues.
  • Health/Safety Issues for Workers: Drugs, safe-sex, personal choice, mandatory STD screening
  • Direct Services: Identifying and serving the needs of our local communities.
  • Legal/Political strategies for decriminalization: Grassroots organizing models. Methods of political reform. Strategies for social change.
  • Labor Organizing: How unions work, benefits, strategies, how-to, etc.
  • Lobbying: Who to talk to. What to say. Lobbying packets. How it works. How to dress. Where to go. When to go. Lobbying campaigns.
  • Media Training: Who should talk to the media? How to write a press release. Creating a press list. Creating talking points and sound bites. Know your audience. Organizing press conferences.
  • Analyses of existing policies surrounding sex work and their social, cultural and economic affects.
  • Social, cultural, or economic analyses of alternatives to criminalization of sex work internationally
    Analyses of, and experiences with, alternatives to criminalization of sex work including variants of decriminalization and legalization
    Demographic analyses of existing forms of prostitution in the United States
  • Workplace issues relevant to sex work, including unionization, professionalization, licensing, health, customer relations, dealing with employers
  • Negative impacts of prostitution policies on workers including stigma, stress, fear and impact of arrest, violence, burnout
  • Public opinion polls on prostitution and other strategies to develop voter support for alternatives to criminalization
    Strategies for working with property owners, the public, and policy makers to develop political allies
  • Alternatives to criminalization, current trends, pitfalls and progress, framing the discussion
  • Working with the criminal justice system on alternatives to criminalization The effects of punitive policies which target clients (John schools, shaming and billboard campaigns, curb crawler policies, etc.)
  • Specific current issues such as mandatory HIV testing, the 'anti-prostitution loyalty oath' regarding funding in the context of trafficking and HIV prevention, efforts to increase criminalization of commercial sex in federal law and other issues