My empty nest adventure

I just returned from dropping my daughter off at a University in a big city near the East Coast. Far away from Alaska, our home, where both of my children were born. Where I was born.

I knew it would be difficult. I knew I would feel like a hollow shell for some time, at least until I got my head wrapped around all the changes that come with this right of passage most parents want for their children. It wasn’t necessarily the going to a college or university aspect I found important. My youngest was heading out on her own. She was going to pursue her own life. I am elated that I had a part in creating someone, could credit myself in molding someone, brave enough to jump out into the unknown and create a life for herself.

Sure, I have an amazing older son (he turns 26 in this month) who went off on his own a few years ago. His leaving home was in easy-to-bite-pieces. He only moved to LA less than two years ago, and he is regularly back in Alaska for work.

So my last child at home, my movie buddy and fellow series binger, my let’s go to the museum or for a walk or shopping or sushi, my most effected by my incarceration, has moved out.

Out of State for that matter.

So, I decided to embark on a journey of my own. I’ve always had wanderlust. It was a perfect time to go visit friends and family on that side of the States.

The East Coast.

Two weeks.

Driving rental cars part way, riding in Amtrak trains part way, even public transportation trains at times,

I wandered big cities and little towns, careened down toll roads and held firm in the belief that the Universe would carry me safely along my journey. I was ready for the discoveries I would make along the way.

It started rough. We stayed in a hotel less than 2 miles from where my daughter would be attending school, both tired from the overnight travels from Anchorage, complete with a shitty late evening/early morning 5-hour layover in Seattle.

I awoke with my eyes itchy and watering and a sneezing episode that kept me from sleeping any longer than 7am. Allergies? Maybe I am allergic to change. Whatever it was, I dealt with it throughout the trip. Even at home now I am dealing with it. So maybe I am really allergic to change.

I have to clarify something that may not be obvious to all reading this. People like me don’t usually bring their children to college. Normally we don’t shop for dorm necessities and comforts for them. We don’t usually have friends and family open their homes to us, feed us, even clothe us. People like me are lucky and blessed when this happens. I try to never forget that fact. I don’t forget where I started from and everything I have been through.

Short story, I was a throwaway kid. Age 14 found me in State custody (mom had issues, I had issues, State took over and had issues) and thus begin a whirlwind shit show of group homes, foster homes, youth detention centers, treatment centers, wilderness excursions for wayward youth and a lot of running away and making the choices broken kids are apt to make. I made it out, survived.

And for a while, that was enough. Then I decided survival wasn’t enough and chose to thrive rather than survive. But, that is a whole other story, part of it in the previous blogs.

Back to the journey.

The first day on the road alone I drove for hours towards Philly. I left after 10am, after I had brought my daughter and her last-minute Target items to her dorm. I was trying to stay composed as I headed to my rental car from her dorm building. I had her stay in the room since I didn’t want to have her walk me to the parking lot, being seen with a blubbering mom. As soon as I saw the car in view I knew I was safe enough to let the tears start flowing. I was happy to be wearing sunglasses and drove off quickly.

Waves of emotion, anger, fear, loss, and loneliness crept in at once. Anger the last to leave and we drove halfway to Philly together. Anger that I had missed out on two-plus years of my daughters’ life due to a charge that was both illogical and unfair. I drove on, mad at Alaska’s judicial system, listening to music. Crying. Happy. Grateful. Yet torn.

I had a long trip before me and knew I would have some time to figure things out along the way, get out of my system whatever might be blocking this growth gently prodding towards me.

It was time for me to walk out, or drive out, into the unknown. As I had so many other times in my life. I was still among the living. I would be fine. I would survive. Hell, I was going to thrive.

I was headed to meet someone I had yet to meet in person but had spoken to many times over the last two years. I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going to be staying but was able to make arrangements if needed.

I had about 5 hours until I got to Philadelphia. I listened to music, streamed from my phone to the nice Bluetooth system the blue Nisson Sentra rental car included. I loved being able to skip a song just by the touch of a button on the steering wheel.

Note to self: Next vehicle I buy, catch up with technology. The cigarette lighter attachment seems archaic after being spoiled.

I found a new band I liked, listened to parts of two different audiobooks, “Feminasty” and “It’s Great to Suck at Something”, and drove on.

Before I knew it I was sitting at a patio in the sunshine at a fancy grocery chain, waiting for Melanie as I ate a huge greek salad.

It was great finally meeting this powerhouse writer I had shared several phone calls with. Her vibrant eyes, easy smile and gorgeous head of hair led me to recognize her before she even sat down.

Me and M! Notice the Rocky statue behind me?
The Philly MFA was spectacular

She had me stay at her apartment and felt so very welcomed. I spent three days in Philadelphia, and they went by so fast. Our first morning we went on a “walk” that seemed all wrong for my shoes. It was beautiful, and being outdoors with the fresh air and the trees and the light, comforted me. Going back to nature is always what I needed to feel grounded, and this was perfect timing.

My second day was spent on the perusing around the waterfront and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The last evening had me walking her casual neighborhood, stopping in for a pizza and a local brew a few blocks away at a well-seasoned bar with a feel of refined nostalgia.

Philadelphia Museum of Art

I headed onward north after three days, the last stretch of having my rental car. From Philly I was headed to West Warwick to meet a powerhouse of an advocate, the incomparable Bella that formed Rhode Island COYOTE, positively impacting many sex workers and their allies’ lives.  She was also one of my pen pals while I was incarcerated for Sex Trafficking and really made a difference to me, both emotionally and mentally.

Watch this YouTube video of 10 years after Re-Criminalization: Reflecting on a Decade of Anti-Trafficking Activism in Rhode Island

 

I had a three-day visit planned with Bella. I really wanted to see how this amazing woman was able to do what she did and see first hand how her passion transformed in action that had made so much of a difference for so many.

From there I would be taking the Amtrack to Boston to visit my maternal family, a few cousins and hopefully find my grandparents’ final resting place. Then onward to spend time with my paternal side, my aunt and uncle, in Maine. I was about halfway through my trip now. I wanted to relish every moment. I remembered walking the yard at Hiland Mountain Correctional Center not knowing what my future held in store, and if I would even have much of a life after jail. Seeing the freeway, the open road even with traffic and bland travel stops, brought me back to the realization that I not only survived, but I thrived.

I drove through five states on my almost 5-hour drive. I had downloaded a bunch of Bruce Springsteen to listen to as I drove through New Jersey. My google map announced when I had arrived in New York State. As I passed the “Welcome to New York” sign there was a seemingly obligatory fender bender pulled off the side of the road. I only saw New York City from afar on I95. I was close enough. It seemed impossibly populated.

From there, I drove through Connecticut to Bella’s home in Rhode Island. I would be staying at her place.

Bella is vivacious. We shared similar life experiences. After we went to return my rental car and I felt the pangs of loss once again.  I loved the independence of driving, but my plan from here on was by train. Bella treated me to a delicious sushi dinner and a chance to catch up on the amazing projects COYOTE was working on.

Just look at this! I almost didn’t want to eat it, it was so pretty!

Spending time with Bella I got to see first hand the time and effort she put into COYOTE. She didn’t waste a moment of her day, always writing, reading or researching, I was enthralled by her sheer energy.

We discussed how sex trafficking propaganda and the harmful training and information given by law enforcement, and other anti-sex worker rights organizations that focused on rescuing sex workers, only caused harm.

Rescue usually meant handcuffs. The criminalization of sex work did nothing to help sex workers pay for childcare or their rent.

“When people are going to jail, they’re losing their apartments, they’re losing their vehicles, they’re losing all this stability they’ve created,” Bella shared, and I agreed.

 

Decriminalize!
Bella and I at the Capitol
At the steps of the Capitol in Providence, Rhode Island.

COYOTE RI observes the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

The days went by quickly. Across from the Capitol building was the Amtrak station, where I would take a quick hour trip to South Station in Boston, Massachusetts. As luck would have it, my cousin Billy was working a food truck at a nearby Square. I easily maneuvered my rolling luggage a few city blocks and joined my cousin.

Circa 1981 – Can you guess which ones we are?
2019

After dropping off my luggage I joined him on the food cart for a little drive to a private party a tech company had booked. There were other food trucks, some live music, and a beer garden. For free. Companies did this for their employees here? The sun was winding down and before long I found a not so expensive hotel in Malden, thanks to my Hotels.com app. I had no idea where Malden was, and not until the next morning did I realize that 1) I was quite an Uber away from Boston and 2) I was right next door to a graveyard. I didn’t mind the graveyard bit, but the location was killing me, and it became very apparent I would need transportation to get to Western Massachusetts. I booked another car and set off.

I will never rent from Budget again.

After a costly Uber ride to the city, I was told by Budget Rental that because I had a debit card and not a credit card I was not able to rent from them. The manager I spoke to on the phone made it sound as if I would be unable to rent from anyone in Boston due to not having a credit card. I didn’t understand. I had never had this problem before, and I had just rented a car from Budget and driven it through five states and had just returned it mere days ago!

 

Frustrated, I was able to call and make reservations with Dollar Rental and would be picking it up the next morning. Which meant a few more Uber rides. Always making the best of the situation I explored Bostons waterfront area, taking a sunset cruise and then hopping onto the Boston Gravestone Tour trolley.

Boston Harbor Sunset Tour

I think things happen for a reason, and if I had a car and had to worry about parking,  I wouldn’t have been able to experience these two fun tours.

Still, Budget, you can bite me.

Boston Ghost Tour!

The next day I Ubered to Dollar and picked up my car. I headed to Revere to pick up my cousin Bill, and off we went on I90.  Learning to drive in Seattle prepared me for any big city driving. I had the keys points down: drive on the offensive; use my horn a lot; and pay attention to my mirrors.

Sadly, cousin Bill had no idea where my grandparents were buried. My Uncle Al had brought their cremated ashes to Massachusetts in the mid-2000’s and laid them at the base of baby Ray’s grave. Uncle Al didn’t remember where or how he found the grave, and cousin Bill had no idea. It seemed my maternal side was not at all close. Some unremembered squabble or just lack of care stagnating any familial ties.

I vowed to figure it out and try again next trip, and we drove on, me dropping him off at his cousins and I headed to cousin Heathers to finally meet her in person!

Heather is in the picture of us circa 1981, but she has a sensitive job, so no pics of her. But it was really nice to connect with someone I had been able to communicate with on Facebook, she is so creative and has a beautiful home and wonderful family.

I drove back to Boston in the dark, knowing the next morning I would be returning the car and taking the train to Maine. I was officially headed towards my last leg, and was really wondering if I was able to take in everything I was seeing and experiencing. Time was flying by too quickly. I was ready for a quieter pace and thankful to be headed to see my Aunt and Uncle.

I had been to their summer home once before when I was about 14 or 15 years olf. My aunt swears I was closer to 12. I had never met either of them before and wasn’t happy about being so far from my friends and my grandma Lorraine. They were so different than me. They ate pizza with a fork and a knife! They ate really weird cheeses I had never even heard of. My aunt, understanding she was being handed over a troubled teen, had made arrangements for me to assist a local lobsterman. He was a guidance counselor at the school. and he reminded me of my grandpa Ray. An old school seaman, they even had similar accents. It wasn’t a month later I was headed back to Juneau, Alaska. I had reached out after my dad died, the large array of flowers sent by them filling the entryway to St. Pauls Catholic Church where my dads’ service was held. I had last seen them when they had come up for a cruise to Alaska in 2007.

I immediately recognized my uncle standing near the stairs as I deboarded the train. He looked the same, besides the slight limp he had from recent hip surgery.  My aunt awaited in the running car. She had the same eyes my dad had. It was chilly out, fall seemed to have transcended before my eyes as the train traveled north, the trees turning golden hues of yellows and reds as I had neared Brunswick.

Dexter

I was older now, and able to see the beauty in everything. I was able to make the connections I didn’t even know I was looking for. The history of what made my dad into the person he became.

The summer house was even larger than I had remembered and had the most gorgeous water view. There were kayaks. I could walk the shore and smell the ocean. I love Maine.

Me at age 3

My uncle took me to Kinkos for some reprints of some pictures I could take home.

My aunt drove me around to see where she had gone to school, where my dad was born, and the house they had all lived in when they were children. We stopped for me to take a picture and the neighbor across the street saw my curiosity and asked what I was doing. We struck up a conversation.

Childhood home

I learned a man had lived there for years now, a shut-in, the house was to be demolished when he passed due to the asbestos in the old construction. The neighbor shared that his wife had grown up in the house they still lived in. He was probably about 60 years old. I felt right at home, encountering Alaskan neighborly hospitality I had experienced growing up in Juneau. Neighbors looking out for each other.

We went by my grandmother’s house, a woman I never met, bought years after she divorced my grandfather, a house sold long ago, after she had passed.

I felt a connection to this land so similar to Alaska. I hadn’t even realized that my dads’ side was from Maine. I wasn’t interested in family or relatives growing up. The ones I had either let me down or were unable to be there for me. Only after my children grew older and asked about family did I start peering around ancestry.com. It hadn’t crossed my mind. I had only ever known what I had grown up not knowing.

I wondered how much Maine my dad had remembered. Before long his father had been transferred to Germany. His parents’ relationship had been in decline gradually throughout the years. My dad, being the youngest, was sent to boarding school. Away from his older brother and sister. My aunt was the eldest and grew to feel a mothering attachment to him since his parents were distant from each other and, sadly, to him. My aunt felt she had failed him. I knew otherwise. Addiction is a mother fucker.

I went back to Alaska with a deeper understanding of who I was and where I came from. Answers came to light on things I hadn’t even thought to ask. Of course, it all made sense.  I had long ago forgiven my dad for his trespasses and now came to understand he didn’t have an idyllic childhood as I was led to believe. I hoped he was able to forgive. There were so many things left unsaid between us.

I took the train back to Boston, where my cousin Dave picked me up. My aunt was worried about the sketchy Airbnb I had rented and didn’t want me using an Uber alone, due to safety concerns. I happily obliged, I had only met my cousin once before, and we were both self-absorbed teens at the time. I had a great time getting to know him over tacos and his overly lovable sweet dog, Sage.

I flew home to Alaska September 5th.

September had been a difficult month for me in years gone by.

Septemeber 5th exactly was THE day.

September 5th, 2002, was the day my grandpa had died. I flew down to Juneau and stayed with my dad in order to go to his funeral.  I headed back home after a few days. My mom refused to answer any of my calls or let me know when the funeral was and I needed to go home for my son’s birthday.

I spent time with my dad on that visit, sitting with him in the evening as my then 1-year-old daughter slept in the extra bed that belonged to his roommate, who was gone on a trip.  My son and husband were in Anchorage. We talked about his HepC, how he tried to just smoke pot rather than drink alcohol. I learned he appreciated college football, “because they were in it for the love of the game”, and hadn’t sold out yet. He was proud of me, of the woman I had become. Of leaving Juneau and going on with my life. Proud I wasn’t stuck there in the revolving door of state assistance, domestic violence and going to jail. That’s where I had left off.

That was the last visit I ever had with my dad. A police officer knocked on my door a few weeks later. September 23rd, 2002. Or around that date, since a coworker had to break into his place after he didn’t show up for work for a few days. Very unlike him. He was found with a needle in his arm.

I lost my dad just as I was really getting to know him, and I brought my kids and husband to Juneau to be with me as I buried him. It was my first funeral I could remember attending, and the first funeral I had to make arrangements for.

Since then, September was the hardest month of all. It didn’t help the next year, at the very end of August, my grandma had passed as well.

Now September would remind me of finding family and the missing pieces of myself along the way. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I headed out, to meet friends and family I didn’t know too well.

I learned I liked my own company. I met kindred spirits believing in a just cause and doing hard work to bring about change. I found a connection with people I share relatives and generational trauma with. I l was reminded that people are good and caring, and still check in on their neighbors. I finally grasped that we all carry on the best we can, with the aches of regrets of things that could not be changed. That didn’t have ruin those moments of life we had left to live. Those moments of driving down the Jersey turnpike, listening to Bruce Springsteen, no longer angry at a time lost.

My aunt, my grandmother, and my father on the Linderhof Castle grounds, near Garmish. Circa 1951.

Confronting my child molester

Warning: This post discusses childhood sexual trauma and may result in triggering other survivors of childhood sexual trauma. Please consult a local organization such as STAR (Anchorage Crisis Line: (907) 276-7273/Statewide Crisis Line: (800) 478-8999 ) or a personal counselor, or at least an understanding friend, if this blog post does so.

I recently found the man who had molested me when I was almost 9.  I decided to confront him. Such an easy, sparse sentence to write, but at age 44, it wasn’t that easy. It took me years to be able to do this.

First, I found that I needed to get over the fear that kept me the same meek little girl I had been, that kept me from thinking I was deserving of good things, that had me eating too little, or drinking too much, or staying in relationships that weren’t really…relationships.

Second was the anger. For a number of years, I couldn’t have knives in my home (we made it a joke but there was truth in it) due to my proclivity of throwing them when I was angry. And I was angry a lot. I would drink or use whatever in order to dim the anger, drown out the hate I held onto tightly. Yes, the anger took much longer. Even I knew I wouldn’t be making the best decision and having a positive outcome if I was still harboring that seething anger.

Yes. I could have found him years ago. I half-heartedly did find a PO Box in the Spenard area of Anchorage, Alaska that his mail was sent to.

It wasn’t the right time.

I just had a baby, a darling girl. I dealt with post-partum depression by seeing a counselor, the same counselor that had assisted me in my journey to confront my dad that had never happened due to his death. Luckily I mentioned to my counselor what was going on in my head. I can honestly say in my first hundred versions back then “confronting” wasn’t apart of my plan. Telling my counselor the truth saved me from acting out and possibly facing years in prison.

I knew my dad felt horrible and what he did ate away at him. We had gotten close through the years and he was my biggest cheerleader. The one hole in our fractured relationship was on course to be mended when he died from heroin overdose. I had been fueled by more anger, fear and regret not following through and confronting my dad and was left with a person who had escaped culpability for all these years.

It was only once. When it had happened that morning and I was able to escape his bedroom I told my mom and her boyfriend, Joe, both in the very next room.

Maybe they were too hungover, regardless, they didn’t want to be bothered by a scared seven-year-old describing something even she wasn’t sure how to form the words for. So no one said or did anything. Because of that, I had thought the world didn’t care about little girls and kept inside myself more and more. Not even a year before this happened, something similar had happened between me and my dad, who I barely knew. It seemed as if some visible brokenness appeared that other predators could easily spot, like a landing beacon.

As I grew older, I pushed the memories further back and as more time went by, my walls grew thicker.

Eventually, I ended up in States custody. I ran away. I drank. More things happened. I grew up.

It was normal now in my world. Things happened and not much, if anything, was ever done. I saw this in my life and in the other kids around me. Foster homes. Group homes. Juvenile detention centers.

Still, I never forgot. Life went on and I stopped looking for fulfillment with alcohol. I went to counseling. I wrote things on pieces of paper and burnt them or tied them to balloons. I put a lot of time and effort into letting go, forgiving myself, learning ways to talk to myself in order to not be a victim. Yet there was a voice in me that said the final chapter would be confronting the one person I knew I could.

My dad had passed years before, at the time I was working on getting the balls to talk to him about things he had done. I was in counseling and had done so much work to talk to him, forgive him, and move on. Then he took a hot shot and I was unable to. Besides dealing with his untimely death, funeral and burial costs, I had to deal with the resentment that came along with doing all that inner work and the selfishness of him dying before we could talk. I have visited his grave a few times throughout the years and I believe we have both found our peace. But Maurice had still been in the back of my mind.

Maurice.

You don’t hear that name much anymore do you? The countless times I had sought him out, the searches had come up empty, or at the most, sparse. I knew that the emotional work I did wouldn’t disappear and that when it would be time, I would be strong enough to go through with it.

So every few years I would google his name.

Maurice Hamby.

And then one day there was this article, with his picture. And it listed his place of employment in the article. He was a manager, right here in Anchorage.
Right by where I paid my rent. Across town, where I never went.

Having found him finally I knew I needed to take some time and make sure I still wanted to confront him and check my expectations on the outcome. If I still felt strong enough and that it was important enough I would follow through. No rush.

It took me another month to walk into that building and confront him. My expectations were to walk out with my head held up high and self-esteem intact. I also decided I would record it. I have listened to the recording a few times, and each time I am brought back to the shaky feeling I had as I walked through that door, phone in my purse, recording, not knowing who I would find and not having any idea of how the conversation would go.

I stopped in to see if he was there working just after Halloween 2018. I parked and readied my phone to record. I had to ground myself before I walked in, as I knew if I went in on auto-pilot I could possibly react in anger rather than be proactive and keep myself safe. I had no idea what Maurice looked like, except for the picture in the article. A man I barely knew for a brief moment decades ago. I remembered shaggy blonde hair. Long fingernails. A sneering smile.

I walked in, casually looking around. It was drab, the shelves barely stocked, with nonsequential knickknacks everywhere. A man, shorter than I, appeared from behind the counter, pulling closed a heavy sheet separating the front from the back as he greeted me.

After some chit chat, mainly to decipher I had the right person, I calmly asked if he remembered molesting me. He was taken aback. He started getting agitated and was visibly shaken. He stopped making eye contact.

“I don’t even know your name,” he had said.

As I stood there while Maurice denied everything it brought me to the realization of the biggest fear I had in confronting my dad.  The full denial. Which is what Maurice did. In his doing so, I was able to remove the one obstacle I had in my way, regardless of how much counseling I’ve had throughout the years.

That was the realization that I didn’t need an apology in order to complete this confrontation. I just needed to say: I remembered. You were wrong. With Maurice saying that it wasn’t true doesn’t excuse what was done. All I needed to do was say what I had to say: Here I am before you. And I remember. That’s what freed me. I walked out with my head held high and my self-esteem intact.

I was able to get the closure I was seeking from confronting Maurice. I had nothing riding on him apologizing or not apologizing. I knew regardless of what he said or did the inner work was always mine. I’ve made horrible choices in my life, based on what I wanted, out of selfish motives. But I knew this was something I owed the shy, quiet child hurt those many years before.

I think about other children that have been molested by people that were never held accountable, and how their predators probably didn’t remember their names either. And I wonder how we are able to continue in life, trusting, having relationships, going on with life, raising children, having jobs and bills and family problems. I wonder if others ever got a chance to confront their childhood predator that otherwise had no consequences. If they even wanted to. I don’t casually recommend confronting your molester. I would tell anyone to seek outside counseling before embarking. A friend recommended that I bring support. I didn’t believe I would be able to have to conversation I had if I had someone else with me, so I chose not to.

The recording of the whole interaction is posted below. If I had spent more time trying to figure it out, I am sure I could have transcribed it from some app out there. I wasn’t about to transcribe it myself.  I may have dealt with this emotionally but I know when to tap out. I’m not a glutton for punishment.

I hope that anyone who has been hurt and feels lost remembers they have a voice. I’m grateful I found mine. I share this in case anyone else is out there wondering if it’s okay to confront what has us wounded. It is if you need it to be.

AUDIO OF CONFRONTATION

 

 

An Alaskan Life of Sex Trafficking

In 2003 I had two young children and my first husband and I were two months behind in our mortgage, a home we had just moved into less than a year before. I had been homeless before and swore it wouldn’t happen again. When I was in college I knew women that had escorted and it seemed the fasted and easiest way to pay our bills. I called the numbers in the free weekly paper where escort agencies advertised. Only one called me back.

The woman on the phone was quick and to the point.

When can you start?

As soon as possible.

How old was I?

I’m 30.

She liked my answers and I was given an address and told to come by.

I went the next day, a trailer across the street from where I had burnt out as a drug alcohol counselor months before.

A short fat Thai guy answered the door. His puffy round face swallowed dark eyes that darted around distrustingly as he stood in the entryway smoking a cigarette. When he let me in it became apparent it was just us. We appraised each other. I had at least two inches on the guy and although anything could happen I figured my chances would be better than 50/50 unless he had a gun.

He gave a quick tour and my flight or fight adrenaline calmed a bit.

Here was the living room with two well-used recliners and a small couch facing a boxy TV from the 80’s. Here was the narrow hallway with two rooms and a bathroom on the right.

The back room had a small narrow bed on wooden legs without a pillow, only a thin sheet covering it, the other room, across from the bathroom, a twin bed, no pillow, same thin sheet cover.

“Sheets are right here, always put clean sheet on!” he barked with a thick accent.

I nodded.

“Here is sink, wash, always take garbage out. Always!”

I nodded and followed him back to the small living room.

“Phone rings, answer it. Sometimes call, sometimes knock. I get half. All is $100. You okay?”

I nodded. Did I not look okay? Was I okay? What the hell was I doing? Is this real?

With that, he nodded and went into a room at the front of the trailer, where the kitchen and his bed were hidden. I sat and took in my surroundings. I turned the TV on.

I didn’t understand what he meant by “all is $100.” I had no idea what someone would wear on the first day of work as a sex worker. I had actually Googled “what escorts wear” and was bombarded with images of thigh highs and stiletto heels. I owned neither.

I went with casual. Jeans, a form-fitting t-shirt, not too much makeup, but just a bit more eye makeup than you would expect the average soccer mom to wear. I sat and waited. I needed $1200 in order for me and my two kids to not be homeless at Christmas.

Not ten minutes went by before a burst of blonde came through the door. She looked as surprised to see me. She was younger, but not by much. I later found out she was 24 and she went by Monica.

“You’re new!” she laughed. She didn’t seem awful or hateful. I was relieved to see someone who could tell me what the $100 entailed.

“Ever worked before?” she asked, plopping down her huge purse in the space between us on the couch, pulling out her makeup and applying more foundation with a sponge. She didn’t need any more makeup on.

“No. Brand new. ”

She put her sponge down and looked at me, her eyes seemed friendly. She half laughed.

“Okay, sooooooo…. A few pointers.”

She gave me the rundown, from what to charge, to how to take the lead in the beginning, to how to get him the hell out so I could get to the next client. It was too much. I really wanted to take notes but didn’t want to seem like a total nerd.

“Always get the money before anything, and if he’s a cop, he can’t get naked and touch you, so make sure he gets naked and touches you. Oh and don’t let him try to do anything without a condom, no matter how much extra he wants to pay. Also, don’t tell him anything about your life, family, name, kids. Not a good idea, ya know?” I nodded, really wishing I could take notes. I would write everything down later that night at home.

I didn’t know at the time but the part of the police not able to get naked and touch me wasn’t true.

“Name?”

Amber.

“Is that your name? Uh….no, your other name…your working name?” she smiled. She had perfect straight white teeth. Too white. Were they real?

“Miranda…?”

I became Miranda.

A few months later I felt I didn’t need Vui. I had been paying him half and knew enough to go independent so I joined finances with another independent sex worker I met thru Vui’s and together we rented a furnished two bedroom apartment. I learned how to put my ads in the free paper to advertise. It was expensive to advertise in the free paper but that was where everyone found us. I bought a business license so I could advertise in the regular newspaper. I taught myself how to post online. The phone started ringing at all hours and I had yet learned any boundaries. I ran myself ragged.

Other sex workers we knew wanted to use our incall location. Soon, there was too much traffic and the landlord started asking questions I didn’t know how to answer. I found a house downtown, it was in a seedy area but there was plenty of parking and had a decent fenced backyard where we could lounge half naked and listen to music. We were all in this together.  We outgrew that, so next up was a smallish commercial location. The landlord let me paint the walls a Pepto pink. I was smoking way too much weed to be able to make such encompassing decisions. It was horrendous. I bought ad space at the radio station to announce our grand opening. I created a snazzy website to highlight pictures and contact information for Excel of Alaska. We were a dozen strong by now, a sisterhood (and even one amazing college bi guy) were we could laugh and bemoan the idiocracies that only daily nudity and happy endings could entail.

Soon enough that space became small and I found a four bedroom two story residential home. I was happy to leave the Pepto pink palace.

Renamed The Parlor, the large house was fairly busy. Open from 10am to 11pm, we offered walk-ins and calls to the house to set up appointments, just like when I had started two years earlier. It was a business. Two blocks away stood The Chateau, a well known Alaskan brothel that had been in business for two decades, closed due to tax fraud. I made sure to pay my taxes.

At the house, we created community and desperately needed boundaries. I  read Veronica Monet’s Sex Secrets of Escorts: What Men Really Want and was able to get some valuable ideas on how to proceed. Really, up until then, we were clueless and just making things up as we went along. We held weekly meetings where we discussed issues that surfaced (like how we wanted to do or not do lineups, or what to do when we had an unruly customer) and signed up for our times to be on the schedule. There were anywhere from 8 to 10 of us, and at least 3 were scheduled per shift, with two shifts in a day.

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Three cameras were installed for added safety. We worked together and made money. We laughed and bitched about our lives. We paid our bills and provided for our families. Some put themselves through school to learn massage or obtain esthetician certifications.

Things went smoothly until one night we were burglarized. It happened when we were closed and it was caught on the cameras. I knew it had to have been someone who worked there at one point because they knew where the drop box was. I invested in a large safe the size of a filing cabinet and bolted it to the floor. Then we were robbed. I wasn’t there, but several ladies were, including one of my closest friends. The bullet fired came inches from her head when the robbers became upset that the safe couldn’t be opened. 

The police did nothing to investigate. Instead, a few weeks later, they did a prostitution sting that I learned about one morning when I came in and saw the evidence receipts on the kitchen counter. The police cleaned out the safe, listed $340 as the amount, and arrested two women. They quickly bailed out. No police officer ever came to talk to me.

The final straw was the landlord coming over and tossing everything out, saying I hadn’t paid rent. I had, but it was to the man who had evidently been “subleasing” it, unbeknownst to me. I knew I could pursue legal remedies but I was exhausted. It was time to close shop and move on. 

I held a job at the local paper for a short time while I worked as an independent sex worker. I had got remarried during the time of The Parlor and things just weren’t working out. I got divorced and struggled with feelings of failure that I numbed by drinking heavily.

Months later I stabbed a man I didn’t even know at a bar. I was looking at 7 to 10 years. My kids were still young and I thought my life was over. Somehow I landed a “whale” client. I was given a hefty allowance and had no worries. The 7 to 10 years became ankle monitoring thanks to a private attorney and an agreement to pay the man’s medical bills. Still, I wanted to be self-sufficient, and I was getting older. A 401K plan and medical insurance seemed responsible and safe. I found an admin position at a gas exploration company where I was able to use my skills. I was able to utilize my degree and gain additional training in the human resources field. I remarried.

amyablogpic
Visiting my son while he was at Alaska Military Youth Academy, circa 2011.

In 2012 Monica, (the one who had imparted the valuable life-changing information my first night and who I had stayed friends with and worked with on and off through the years), fell upon hard times and returned to Alaska. I put up some ads for her. Never being able to go halfway, I created another website after another friend asked me to post and screen for her as well. Excel of Alaska was created. Within months I became overwhelmed and sick of the time wasters that called so I sold the business, website, and cards, to a young up and coming rapper who’s girlfriend was a few sex worker. I wished him luck. Still, it was hard to walk away. I liked the ability to make extra money and provide for my kids’ things I never had growing up. Plus, I was good at what I did. As long as I kept boundaries and not overwork, I would be alright. Sensual Alaska was created by lessons learned.

One of the things I loved about Sensual Alaska was the creative aspect of website design. I resigned the “knock or call” I had learned because of the need to screen clients. Dangerous things happened to many of my friends and the police never did anything to protect us. I utilized my computer sleuthing skills and completely screened clients before setting up appointments. I still had regulars from years before. I became pickier with who I worked with, not wanting to become overwhelmed. My motto was no drama, no drugs, no drunks.

juneauvisit
Happier times with my daughter and then-husband Quinn Batts, early summer of 2014 while we visited family in Juneau.
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Then-husband Quinn Batts and I on a 4th of July camping trip in 2014, days before I was arrested.

Fast forward two years.

July 9th, 2014.

I was adding some affiliation codes to the Sensual Alaska website as I sat at my kitchen table drinking coffee. Through the kitchen window, I saw someone I didn’t recognize walk to my door.  I felt shaky fear immediately. I knew something was wrong. I was a private person and people just didn’t show up at my house.  I was being robbed or arrested. 

As I sat on my porch with the lead investigating officer I was adamant that the independent contractor agreements were proof that I wasn’t a sex trafficker. I knew his tactics, saying he wanted to help me, that maybe I knew others in the business. I wasn’t the one they wanted really, but unless I knew some sex traffickers they would have to arrest me. I didn’t know any traffickers. I didn’t know anyone underage. I didn’t associate with others in the business, I stayed to myself and I assured him that if I did come across situations like that I would’ve called the police because victimizing people, especially kids, was horrific.

I hadn’t realized the laws regarding prostitution had changed in 2012. What had been Promoting Prostitution charges became Sex Trafficking charges. This increased the penalties, causing Class A Promoting Prostitution misdemeanors, punishable up to one year, being bumped up to Class C, punishable by up to five years. Class C felonies bumped up to Class B felonies, and so on. I was charged with eight counts of Sex Trafficking, all Class B’s and Class C’s.

Sex traffickers held women, men, and children captive and made them have sex. That wasn’t me. Everyone had their own key to the incall. We made our own schedules. We had contests with weekly prizes of who had the most appointments. We were a community, working together for safety, bitching about crappy clients and competing with each other on tips. It didn’t matter. I fit the broad definition of sex trafficking that was now Alaska law.

Sex work sure, but sex trafficking. No.

I was sure they would get it figured out. I was hopeful that the long-awaited trip I had planned with my now-14-year-old daughter, five days away, would still happen.

It didn’t. In the beginning, I had such high hopes that I would be able to resume to my normal life. 

firstcourtappearance
My first court appearance.   (KTVA News Anchorage)

The judge ordered the strictest bail conditions possible. Electronic monitoring (at my cost of $600 a month), a live third party at all times, and lockdown at home. And no electronics-phone or computer- in my possession. I was still on probation from my years earlier assault, arrested only 2 weeks before I had completed five years of probation without issue, so I was also charged with a petition to revoke probation since I had been arrested, an additional reason for increased bail conditions.

I was able to be out on bail with those conditions for a few months. I wasn’t able to pay my mortgage and had to ask friends to help. Friends brought food over so I could feed my kids, and my sister, who was my third party. After Christmas, right before my daughters 15th birthday, my sister decided she had to go back home. I found a new live third party, which was denied, so I went back to jail, my daughter returning home from school with her mom in jail, again. These were the darkest days of my life and I still recede to quiet places in my mind when I think of these days.

My attorney said I was looking at a 25-year minimum sentence.

example
A court hearing with my OPA appointed attorney, Brendan Kelley, and his associate.

While I was out on bail my then-husband Quinn Batts was arrested for Sex Trafficking, charged because he had helped me run my prostitution enterprise. His part in my enterprise: he would grab the laundry from the incall.

The State used him as a bargaining chip when they did offer me a plea deal; plead guilty to a Sex Trafficking Class B felony, and he would be able to plead guilty to a Sex Trafficking Class C felony charge. I would have open sentencing, with six to ten years, per judge discretion, and he would have five years, with five years suspended. It was too risky to fight my case, although my attorney was opinionated and exceptional, this was the best outcome.

As per part of the plea deal was I was allowed to bail out again, same conditions minus the live third party. I had the summer to get things in order. I spent every moment I could with my family, with loved ones. I had so much fear of missing my daughter’s high school years.

I contemplated suicide.

I contemplated cutting off the monitor and running away.

I took life day by day and stood as tall as I could at my sentencing, which turned out to be two-day ordeal, beginning on Friday, August 14th, where it was continued and I gratefully had the weekend to be with my children.

On Monday, August 17th, 2015 I was sentenced to five and a half years, just as my daughter started her first year in high school. I was remanded at sentencing. I had remained hopeful the judge would allow me ankle monitor or some other miracle would happen, still, I wasn’t entirely surprised.

Nervous, I tried to make small talk with the female trooper transporting me from the courthouse to the Anchorage Jail. She was quiet until we were waiting at the Anchorage Jail as I was turned over for intake. She told me I was lower than the scum on the bottom of her shoe. I was so angry. I knew then that I was marked as a sex trafficker in the eyes of society.

I walked the yard after being transferred to Hiland Mountain Correctional Center mulling over the day when I could and would speak up for myself. I knew that I wasn’t a piece of shit person and had a long road before me dealing with how society saw me. What would I say? What could I say?

While at the halfway house I faced additional harassment from staff because of my charge. My teenage daughter wasn’t allowed to visit me unless her biological dad brought her in. A man I had divorced when she was three years old and had a wife that did not want him to bring our daughter to visit me.

Because I had the word “sex” in my crime staff and probation officers, people that had control over my life and what and where I could go, made limiting choices for me. The home I had raised my kids in I had to sell since the mobile home park saw my name splashed all over the media and refused to allow me to return. I lost the two dogs I had for over seven years, my son, although by then a young man, became essentially homeless. I told myself I would be okay, it was all just material belongings. Yet even now I have moments of anger coupled with anxiety.

Yes. I was a sex worker.

Yes, I screened clients and set up appointments for myself and others.

And yes I have a sex trafficking charge.

Because of this, I have stuck with my minimum wage job as a server, a job I found while I was at the halfway house. I lucked out and was able to rent a room from a friend, and when she moved out I was able to take over the lease, but before that finding anyone that would rent to me was impossible. To be homeless would mean my daughter couldn’t live with me. To be homeless would mean going back to jail because on electronic monitoring, you had to have an address and a landline for the equipment. 

On November 14, 2018, I was granted discretionary parole. I was scheduled to see my parole officer twice a month, which after a few months was changed to once a month.

I am sure Alaska hoped I would go away quietly, grateful for the five years I was sentenced to. Yet, I was given more consequences than readily visible at my sentencing. My charge limits me because society hears “sex trafficking” and has a preconceived view of what that is, not entirely dependent on individual morals. Truly, when “sex trafficker” is mentioned, even I get a distinct view in my mind. Law enforcement around the world has been well funded by the End Demand movement and the term “consensual” might as well mean “immoral” to many.

Sex workers have been removed from the discussion and the systematic killing of both consent and autonomy has been removed by FOSTA/SESTA. This has seemed to be instrumental in the quelling of numerous deaths of sex workers, vastly ignored by mainstream media. Only sensationalism stands strong, while border agents are serial killers and once vibrant and safe sex workers are found strangled in the park or shot multiple times by police.

I am active in being a part of changing the laws that criminalize sex workers working together for safety and security. We need decriminalization of sex work in order to realistically fight sex trafficking, as well as combat the violence and stigma that sex workers face daily.

I speak up and tell others my story in hopes that more people will understand that sex trafficking and sex work are two very different things. Consent. Consensual. These are terms that have been drowned out by the moral crusaders that say anyone selling their body is unworthy of making an informed decision. The sensationalism of sex trafficking has permeated societies view of sex workers in a very systematic way.

I will not sink quietly into the backdrop. I will write about it. It’s my truth and I get to tell it. I am due to be off parole, with no further legal entanglements this upcoming December 2018.

The last few years have not made me bitter, but instead, have caused me to take a look at what I believe in and what I am willing to risk for my freedom of choice. 

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January 2018 in Las Vegas at the Women’s March, with some kick-ass Las Vegas sex worker crusaders.


The Unjust Life of Donna Armey

I met Donna when I was 21.  It was 1996 and I was doing time at Lemon Creek Correctional Center for a Tampering with Physical Evidence charge. I was convicted and sentenced to 5 years with 3 suspended. Donna had been charged with First Degree Murder at age 21 in 1987. She had already served more than 10 years.

Donna was quiet, intelligent, petite and blonde. I wasn’t. I was a hellion when I was 21 and in Lemon Creek Correctional Center. We didn’t have much in common but I had always been in awe of her, partly because of her calming demeanor and partly because she was surviving a life sentence. She didn’t belong there and I knew in the back of my mind somehow, she would be released.

Early parole?

Post Conviction Release (PCR)?

In 2014 I was arrested and placed into Hiland Mountain Correctional Center and Donna was there. I was surprised. I would always see her in the law library, where she worked for .50 an hour. She hadn’t won any of her appeals and had a very slow moving, frustrating one in the works.

She had endured countless people saying they would help her. Some did, to no avail,  and many didn’t. Over time we became close. We were roomies and would have decadent ice cream nights as we watched The Walking Dead. She would cook amazing vegetarian meals purchased from the measly commissary list, her only cooking apparatus a microwave. At times I would sneak her back fresh fruit from the cafeteria since she would very rarely go for their overstarched and empty calorie-laden meals.

Donna Armey is an amazing woman with a heartbreaking tale. I am embarking on this story of a life wasted away due to being incarcerated by hashing it out on this blog and then shedding light on her ordeal by doing two other things. First, I will be creating a website focusing on the many complex issues surrounding her conviction and her PCR, as well as the lawsuits and harassing write-ups and sexual misconduct by DOC, and second, a funding site to assist her with her ongoing PCR.

This is a brave woman who hasn’t sat idly by. Donna didn’t and still doesn’t back down to speaking of her innocence. Being a woman incarcerated you learn to keep your mouth shut. Not make waves. Not speak up. Usually, DOC gets away with this because women have more to lose. Contact with children, contact with the family. That’s not the case with Donna. She was never afforded the opportunity to have children, to raise a family, nor was she able to go to either of her parents’ funerals. She has paid a price. I love and respect her for never giving up.  I have waited a long time to be able to do this for her.

Donna as a participant at one of the Re-Entry Conferences that Hiland Mountain Correctional Center held.

The facts of the case are clear. Donna Armey was convicted of a murder that happened when she wasn’t there and that she didn’t orchestrate.

The shooter, Denbo, has been released and is living free.

What the hell happened and where are they now?

With support from home, Donna hired a well-known Fairbanks criminal defense attorney, Dick Madson, a local defense attorney best known for representing Exxon Valdez skipper Joe Hazelwood.

But before they met, Madson added her husband as his client. Although their interests conflicted, Madson remained the official attorney for both defendants for the crucial next two months.

The prosecution offered plea bargains. Mike Moritz testified and got five years with two suspended for helping kidnap Miner and to take him to his execution.

Clyde Denbo, the killer, also agreed to testify and got a 75-year sentence. If he had been convicted of kidnapping and murder, he could have gotten more than 200 years. He was released from prison in 2015.

Brad Graber helped with the kidnapping but didn’t participate in the murder. He got a suspended sentence for criminally negligent homicide, spending nine months in jail.

The state also offered deals to the Mathises, delivered through Madson. The district attorney would allow Donna Armey to plead guilty to manslaughter, like Moritz, while Geoff Mathis could plead guilty to first-degree murder.

All drug charges would be dropped.

Apparently nothing was put in writing, but the offers were mentioned in court filings later.

Donna Armey didn’t take the plea bargain because she was innocent. But she also says she didn’t understand the risk she faced.

Madson presented the manslaughter deal in a cursory way, taking only a few minutes when all three were in a small prison meeting room together.

Madson did not explain the implications.

The plea bargain offered would have gotten Donna Armey out in a few years at most with no requirement to testify. But after her conviction, prosecutors asked the judge for a sentence of more than 200 years.

In a 2003 affidavit, Madson defended his actions and said he did all he could to convince Donna to accept the plea bargain. The same affidavit also said, falsely, that he never represented both defendants.

Geoff got his own attorney but the couple’s cases were never separated. Having a joined defense created the impression Donna’s behavior was the same as her husband’s. The Anchorage attorney who represented Geoff, Janet Crepps, worked closely with Madson during the trial.

During the trial, Madson made a few efforts to distinguish Donna’s role from her husband’s but presented no witnesses. Most testimonies referred to the couple as “they” rather than as individuals.

Donna could have testified. She was an articulate and appealing young woman and could have believably blamed everything on her husband. She told me she would have told the whole story, including her husband’s part in it.

Madson said in his affidavit that he advised Donna not to testify because she had nothing to say that would help, he didn’t call witnesses because there were none to call, and he didn’t try to split the trials because the defenses of Donna and Geoff were the same.

The decision to pair the couple’s defenses and keep Donna off the stand may have benefited Geoff, who had been Madson’s client for two months.

The trials could easily have been split.

As the trial date approached, Crepps was on vacation. She requested a time extension to prepare.

At that point, Donna could have insisted on her right to a speedy trial, which would have automatically split her case from her husband’s. But she says no one explained the disadvantage of a joint trial and she waived her right.

The other accomplices made plea deals to testify against the Mathises.

In jail before the trial, Denbo told a fellow prisoner, Monte Kimball, that he shot Miner because he had panicked, not as part of a plan, according to a private investigator’s report from the time. But Denbo said he would testify against Donna to get the plea bargain and lessen his own sentence.

Even with that intent, Denbo didn’t offer much against her.

A key piece of evidence suggesting Donna knew about the murder beforehand was what she said when the killers returned to the pickup. Moritz said she asked, having heard three shots, if they had each taken turns firing.

On the witness stand, he failed to back up Moritz’s story about what Donna said right after the shooting.

Instead, Denbo said what Geoff Mathis also told me, that she was surprised by the shots and asked what had happened.

Then, on prompting from the prosecutor, Denbo changed his testimony to agree with Moritz’s.

But 10 years later, Denbo changed his story. In a letter and affidavit sent from prison to the trial judge, he said he had lied to implicate Donna Armey to get the plea bargain. Claiming he had reformed and wanted to clear his conscience, he now said Donna had nothing to do with planning the murder.

Leaving aside Denbo’s testimony, the last piece of evidence disappears that Donna Armey caused the murder.

After hearing all the evidence, Judge Jay Hodges considered dismissing the case, weighing whether Donna Armey could even be called an accomplice in the crime.

Using a legal rule to assume everything in the worst possible light against her, he said it was a close call.

But he let the case go to the jury and they handed her the same conviction as her husband.

Judge Jay Hodges sentenced Donna Armey to 99 years.

Donna as a participant at one of the Re-Entry Conferences Hiland Mountain Correctional Center put on.

What can you do?

Share this blog, help Donna’s story get out there.

She needs media attention and financial assistance fighting her PCR case. Having a private attorney that cares would be optimal.  I will be creating a crowdfunding source and have this linked to Donna’s site, once created.

Set up a Securus account.

Donna cannot call anyone unless they have an account. It costs $1.08 a minute to speak with a voice at the other end of the phone. She has been incarcerated for over 30 years now.

If you set up a Securus account thru this link write her and let her know so she can call you and you can either assist or add numbers to the account so she can contact people to assist.

Donna Armey #139122

Hiland Mountain Correctional Center

9101 Hesterberg Road

Eagle River, AK 99517

Donna as a participant at one of the Re-Entry Conferences that Hiland Mountain Correctional Center held.

Last time I spoke with Donna, she still had a court-appointed attorney, Jason Weiner out of Fairbanks, and was very dissatisfied with his representation. 

Gazewood & Weiner PC

1008 16th Avenue, Suite 200
Fairbanks, AK 99701

907-452-5196

Excerpts from https://www.leagle.com/decision/19891939778p2d116111917 and Charles Wohlford’s article https://www.adn.com/opinions/2017/05/13/unjustly-imprisoned-for-30-years-donna-armey-cant-get-alaskas-courts-to-listen-2/

 

When Sex Trafficking is Sensationalized: Criminalizing Working Together

I presented this to the 2018 CLPP (Civil Liberties  & Public Policy, held at the Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts on Friday, April 13th, 2018.

CLPP is a national reproductive rights and justice organization dedicated to educating, mentoring, and inspiring new generations of advocates, leaders, and supporters. Combining activism, organizing, leadership training, and reproductive rights movement building, CLPP promotes an inclusive agenda that advances reproductive rights and health, and social and economic justice.

My presentation, titled “When Sex Trafficking is Sensationalized: Criminalizing Working Together” was created to bring awareness and a broader understanding of how sex work and sex trafficking are being conflated.

I used Alaska as a case study and explored the differences between the Federal definition of sex trafficking, as well as the differences between New York and Texas State sex trafficking laws.

Also, many may not know this, but in some States, people charged with prostitution, sex trafficking or even patronizing a prostitute must register as a sex offender.

Comments, suggestions, and feedback are welcome. I would like to sit down with different organizations and with our lawmakers to discuss the information presented in this.

Thank you to everyone who helped with this, either with invaluable information, their time, and sitting in my run-throughs.

 

FOSTA FAIL

FOSTA

What is that? Unless you are in the sex worker sphere, you have no idea how this act can and will change your life.

You don’t have to be a sex worker to feel the freedom of speech encroachment of our individual rights being eroded away by this Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act.. FOSTA passed in late February. It’s been largely portrayed by the media and those in Congress as an “anti-sex trafficking” measure. It does nothing to fight sex trafficking, but it changes how individuals can express their sexual freedoms and dating activities, not only sex worker advertising, in a variety of ways.

Many online sites used to advertise or screen clients of those in the sex worker biz are changing their policies regarding any advertising.

Looking for love in all the obvious (online) places? Not on Craigslist. Craigslist explains in the brief notice that now appears in place of potential partners if you try to go to a personals listing.

Under current law, sites can’t be held legally liable if someone uses veiled terms to solicit commercial sex—aka prostitution. Such as Casual Encounters through the Craigslist personals.

But FOSTA will change that, opening up Craigslist (and every other digital platform) to serious legal and financial jeopardy should it accidentally “promote” or “facilitate” prostitution.

Prostitution is not sex trafficking. Prostitution involves consent and sex trafficking does not.

FOSTA will “subject websites to criminal and civil liability when third parties (users) misuse online personals unlawfully.”

So what does this mean for sex workers?

Ads for prostitution and discussion of prostitution and free-speech are implicated. Blogs could be shut down, and many could find their social-media accounts suspended simply for being honest about their work.

FOSTA makes it a federal crime to “promote or facilitate the prostitution of another person,” punishable by up to 10 years in prison, plus fines. For promoting the prostitution of five or more people, the penalty is 25 years.”

Sex workers don’t have to worry about being punished for posting their own ads, but they could run afoul of the law if working in pairs or helping a colleague place an ad.

FOSTA targets are websites, apps, and message boards. Congress updated Section 230, which has governed the internet for 22 years. It had protected web platforms from being sued in civil court or criminally charged by state prosecutors for third-party (i.e., user-posted) content.

Section 230 had stated that unless they create the content in whole or part, these platforms shall not be treated as the speaker of such content, and good-faith efforts at content moderation (like banning ads that explicitly mention illegal acts or auto-filtering out content that contains prohibited words) do not change this.

Under FOSTA, this won’t apply when paid sex is concerned.

Sites are updating and changing things in order to prohibit any content that could get them held liable.

If that’s not bad enough, FOSTA “shall apply regardless of whether the conduct alleged occurred… before, on, or after such date of enactment.”

This is known as an ex-post facto law, and it’s forbidden by the U.S. Constitution.

No less than the U.S. Department of Justice has urged against passing FOSTA, calling it unconstitutional and saying that it would make prosecuting sex traffickers harder. “You’re heading in the wrong direction if you [pass a bill] that would raise the burden of proof in cases against sex traffickers,” said Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden Wednesday from the Senate floor.

Wyden—who co-authored Section 230—was the only Democrat to vote against the bill, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul the only Republican. An amendment to FOSTA proposed by Wyden would have clarified that websites can try to filter out illegal content without increasing their liability, but it was overwhelmingly defeated.

Wyden stressed that FOSTA is not a matter of substituting some free-speech rights for a better ability to stop sex trafficking. Rather, it’s imposing serious burdens while at best doing nothing for trafficking victims and quite likely making their lives worse.

For one thing, it incentivizes law enforcement to go after third parties rather than stop traffickers or rescue victims. It also takes away an important tool for finding trafficking victims—the open internet. This new paradigm creates huge incentives for cops and prosecutors to go after websites and apps rather than actual criminals—ensuring thatreal victims, and public safety, will suffer along with open expression. Online ads have allowed an untold number of victims to be identified and found. What’s more, the digital trail of ads, emails, and texts can provide evidence that makes catching and prosecuting the perpetrators easier. Law enforcement loses this when traffickers switch to private, encrypted, or dark web forums.

But wait, there’s more!

Clean houses and want to post an ad on Craigslist? It was free until now. Now it will cost you $5 an ad. That is everytime you post.

The domino effect of FOSTA is just starting to rear its head.

Do you have any domino effects of FOSTA? What are they? You don’t have to be a sex worker for this act to affect you.

Fight against #FOSTA

Check out FOSTA FAIL!

Available for the next 5 days via @Teespring: https://tspr.ng/c/fosta-fail

Names we cannot forget

Violence against women has been heavy on my mind lately.

A few months ago I was able to attend my first sex worker event here in Anchorage. The Community United for Safety and Protection (CUSP) hosted Alaska’s 5th Annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers in Anchorage on December 17.

Held at the Alaska Center for Alternative Lifestyles, our community members read off the names of those murdered and/or missing, many still unsolved.

In total, 17 Anchorage sex workers are on the list since 1990.

We all stood with candles at the end, reading the names of the different women killed over the years. I read the names of two women, one found murdered, the other hasn’t been found. I was disgusted that I hadn’t heard anything about either of these women before this day.

Months later, it’s something I think of often, how do missing or murdered women get swept under the radar?

Either name could have been mine, or someone I knew.

Here are the two women you may not have heard about from 2014.

Jael Hamblem

Jael Hamblen, was last seen at her South Anchorage apartment on Oct. 11, 2014. Twenty years old at the time, she left behind a 7-month-old son. She has yet to be found.

More information can be found here regarding Jael.

Jessica Lake was only 26 years old when she was found murdered.

More information is linked here.

The reports don’t list either woman as a sex worker, yet newspapers generally do not list circumstances in an open case.

I won’t delve into detail because I did not do the research needed in order for it to be factual. I’m not going to do either of these women any justice by 1) waiting until I had all the details, besides regurgitating what the newspapers already reported, and 2) spending months conducting a private investigation that would likely just cause me anger issues.

Take some time to read about these young women, and if you or someone you know think you have any information that could help either case, please contact the detectives listed in the articles.

Alaska has some of the highest rates of abuse towards women.

Alaska can be a deadly place for a woman. A new study ranks Alaska first in the nation in the rate of women murdered by men.

The Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. that aims to reduce gun deaths, says the homicide rate among females murdered by males in Alaska was 3.15 per 100,000 in 2014. That’s nearly three times the national average.

Rape is underreported nationwide, but Alaska’s rate of reported rape is three times the national average.

Cheri Ingram was murdered February 28th, 2018.

An Anchorage Grand Jury indicted 27-year-old Simon Weyiouanna on Murder in the First Degree, Murder in the Second Degree, and several counts of Tampering with Physical Evidence in the First Degree.

Weyiouanna picked up Cheri in a “street transaction” in Spenard with the intention of paying for sex. While he was carrying her body to his car a neighbor saw what was going on and called the police, the neighbors holding Simon at gunpoint so he wouldn’t leave.

Other local sex workers that may have seen Simon as a client are fearful to come forward with information.

The Prosecutor and the Municipal Prosecutor are not willing to make a statement that people coming forward would have immunity. Standard immunity in Alaska doesn’t cover this situation and an attorney would need to go over the agreement before sending any names.

As laws make it harder for anyone working as a sex worker and push more for criminalization for those working together, this leads to isolation, more chances for exploitation and fewer chances for safety protocols.

Sex work is being branded as sex trafficking, with the actions most sex workers use for safety, security, and screening punishable as felonies.

It’s time to change this.

Get involved!

Make a difference!

Interested in attending Simons court dates so Cheri’s killer gets more than a few years for murdering her?

Visit Community United for Safety and Protection (CUSP) here.

Join the CUSP mailing list to stay informed.

We need your help!

Women’s March 2018 – Las Vegas

I went to the Women’s March in Las Vegas in support of sex workers, incarcerated women and those that face prejudice based on their personal choices. I  knew that to be a part of something far bigger than me would give me a chance to give back to something I could and never would be able to do alone.

We stood on the stage at Sam Boyd stadium in solidarity. Umbrellas, sex worker signs, red t-shirts emblazoned with “Rights not Rescue”. Arriving early, we set up our informational table and arranged various flyers. SWOP Behind Bars, SWUP,  as well as some local sex worker support groups, were all represented at the table. Tech genius Rebel Rae had created an app the night before to use rather when someone was interested in staying connected or learning more about how to support sex worker rights. Yes. The night before. She, along with others (Emma) communicated for countless hours with the March organizers, had lost sleep for weeks and made the magic happen in order for sex workers to be able to come together here at the Women’s March Las Vegas 2018.

Rebel Rae and I in Las Vegas, 2018

The March was a battle cry, with notables such as Alicia Garza, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, civil rights activist Rev. William Barber III and Cris Sardina, director of the Desiree Alliance, a sex worker-led network of organizations, communities and individuals across the US working in harm reduction, direct services, political advocacy and health services for sex workers, taking the stage. See Cris Sardina’s speech below.

I stood on stage, sign in arms, and shivered as the sun waned and the wind kicked up. The Las Vegas Women’s March co-chair Carmen Pere, Executive Director of The Gathering for Justice, spoke early on, focused on white women’s responsibility to create space for people of color within the movement and in the political arena.

“If you don’t see your community at the table, make sure to pull up a chair,” Perez said. “And if you’re white, scootch your chair over a little. Make room for us.”

I nodded in agreement, knowing first hand how real discrimination and separation feels. Yes, I’m white, but I have never felt I had a place at the table. Growing up in State custody and foster homes, being a felon at an age before I could legally drink, and being a sex-worker (retired), I had always felt a seat at the table was beyond my reach, or at the very least, had felt like an imposter while I was in that seat. Sitting at the table at the Sex Trafficking workgroup, or at the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission workgroup, is uncomfortable. To move over because I am white is not only absurd but felt like I was once again being separated because I didn’t measure up or fit in. I didn’t see a way in from being set aside.

The process of empowerment cannot be simplistically defined in accordance with our own particular class interests. We must learn to lift as we climb.  – Angela Davis

It would be hours until Cris Sardina would give her speech. We waited on the stage, cheering and supporting the speakers before her.

“Walk together to the finish line. ”

“Apathetic attitudes that refuse to do anything is violence.”

“Be loud with our votes.”

“Organize, show up and have a voice.”

“We must build an inclusive movement in this country.”

We held our red umbrellas, signs gripped in our hands as the prevailing cold wind whipped warmth out of many. Did we have a seat at the table? Three and a half hours into the Women’s March Cris Sardina took to the stage.  See her speech, below. After a few minutes on the stand, the music kicked on to let her know to wrap it up. She wasn’t the only one given notice. Other speakers were given a musical push as well.

Cris Sardina’s speech:

I am a mother, I am a grandmother, I am a great-grandmother, and I am a sex worker.  

As I stand here today, I look out and wonder how many of us, intentionally or unintentionally, place our boots on our sisters’ necks?  That under the crushing weight of patriarchy, we divide, we separate, and we silence one another. The learned processes of morality and judgement and laws that holds us down, keep us from speaking with one another, keep us from standing together, and keep our gaze from envisioning a rights-based world where equality equals reality.  

These teachings are deeply ingrained in the fabric of our herstories, and we cannot escape them.  But now, we stand in a timed place of history that we must unlearn these belief systems.  Because, if we pretend the hierarchy does not exist within us, we continue to divide and separate and silence one another.  We will continue to center the selected few to the battle cry of #MeToo and #TimesUp and #AllWomen, and it becomes a moot point to those this very space loudly quiets down.  

Our responsibilities are great to one another and we must ask ourselves the hard question of what has been accomplished untying the knots, if we continue to hold on tightly to the rope.     

I want us to see the sex workers rights movement as part of the solution and not the problem. We are a strong and fierce community made up of every color, every race, every identity, every shape, every economy, every religion, and so much more.  Sex workers have been to the United Nations, we’ve been to the White House, we’re currently in the 9th circuit fighting for full decriminalizaton, we’ve been given national and global audiences, and we get IT done! 

When we literally lay down our bodies to be arrested on the Senate floor for healthcare, when criminalization still affects people who are living with HIV and AIDS, when the courts continuously hammer down on reproductive rights, health, & justice, when raped women still stand on she said/he said platforms, when accessible childcare is still absent, when trans voices are screaming to stop killing them, when women still pay the price of being a wife and mother versus a thriving career, when sex is criminalized in the legal and moral courts, when families become homeless because their paychecks cannot meet the rising cost of gentrifications, when women still take home less pay than men, when children go hungry in the most developed nation in the world, when people of color are incarcerated in the United States at percentages that far exceed any global percentages of incarceration, when blood for oil destroys native lands, when city waters are poisoned and undrinkable, when groups of people are deported for dreaming… When the government is brutally attacking everything we have fought for: On the front lines, you will be standing right next to a sex worker.  

In my time, I have seen many things.  I have lived through the generations that fought in the streets for the recognitions and rights we have today.  And now, I live with the generation that will carry the same burning torch – farther and more furious.  I applaud every woman here today. Stand in your truth not in your judgement.  Stand with each other and ask one another “Is my boot on your neck?” 

This is my truth as I live it.  I no longer give anyone permission to see me as less than.  Don’t dismiss my womanhood.  I am a sex worker.  I am allowed to be here.   

Use your vote wisely!  Live in your Truth!  Burn it all down and Rise among the ashes!

I tell myself that all movements need time, to keep going and face the difficulties. That is what the work is. I’m new to this, having made parole only two months ago. Only recently could I tell my truth. I was outed as a sex worker in 2014, demonized as a sex trafficker. Still, I find myself wondering how others that have faced the same discriminatory practices, the same type of “thanks for your words, now kindly get off the mike…” are able to not only stand by as the sweeping of the speeches occur but are a part of the very broom.

The negative form of prejudice can lead to discrimination, although it is possible to be prejudiced and not act upon the attitudes. Those who practice discrimination do so to protect opportunities for themselves by denying access to those whom they believe do not deserve the same treatment as everyone else.

The time to marginalize and separate further is over. To allow on stage, but not finish our words, to claim to hear and include but continue to push back when someone more “important” or “relevant” wants to speak, only further oppresses. To marginalize, alienate, and exclude a people who have had no choice but to struggle for our legitimacy and existence is deeply wrong.

The violence sex workers are subjected to, and our limited access to justice, is enabled by social attitudes that position sex workers as second-class citizens. In the end, we were on that stage. It all begins somewhere, and long before I was involved in sex worker rights, someone was setting the stage for our voices to be heard.

Now is the time sex worker rights movement becomes more than just random upset individuals; we have been organized and strategic for some time now. Still, understanding that did not help me, when the next day I would be sick in a hotel bed, shivering, hot and nauseated. It was worth it, being a part of, rather than apart from.

In a perfect world, sex worker rights wouldn’t have to be something that receives criticism. In my perfect world Angela Davis, someone who inspires me to keep it pushing in times of emotional discomfort, would be there in attendance. On stage.

No such luck. Next time, maybe.

Support sex workers rights! Rights, not rescue.

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Freedom

It has been 15 days since I have been released from the Department of Corrections Ankle Monitoring program.

EM, for short.

I did a short interview with Daniella Rivera with Channel 11 news the morning I was released. Finally, a news program that didn’t show me as some moral monster. I was able to tell my side of the story and discuss the issues that I have struggled with staying quiet about.

http://www.ktva.com/story/36892700/amber-batts-the-state-created-an-advocate-by-charging-me-with-sex-trafficking

Now, some may be thinking “Wouldn’t it be easier to just shrink into the background?”

That would be safer, rather than putting my face and voice out there. But I wouldn’t have to read comments like this, to brighten my day:

“I’m very very sorry to know that there is a young high school graduate entering adulthood who has a so-called “mother” that advocates and does such filthy, immoral, dangerous, self-deprecating so-called “work” and wants to be respected for it. Would she really encourage her daughter to be one of these prostitutes? I just can’t believe there truly are mothers like this in the world.”

or…

” I am sick of seeing the articles about these criminals with no remorse! Screw them. Just think of all the crime and violence connected to these idiots. The STDs, violence and dugs connected to the prostitution trade takes a huge toll on our communities and the children of these thugs. Have you ever spent time with the child of a pimp. They become way worse than the parent. Stop acting like pimp an ho are decent life choices.”

Said typos are their own.

Yes, it would be easier to just stay quiet. Let others fight this fight, lick my wounds (loss of home, time with kids and friends, independence) and just be grateful. Oh, so grateful, that I am free.

Well, I am doing both. I am grateful but I will not be quiet about what changes I see need to be made.

Freedom of speech. Freedom of thought.

Silence will not change anything. Targeting sex workers on the premise of combating sex trafficking will not end trafficking. Let me write that again.

Targeting sex workers on the premise of combating sex trafficking will not end trafficking.

It is time to examine our moral values and judgments. I would rather speak up for what I believe, the autonomy of life choices, then stay quiet and watch the criminalization of sex workers take place.

Alaska State Law lumps sex workers working together, for safety, for sanity, as sex trafficking. I’ve written much about my thoughts on this. I’ll spare you more at this juncture.

Federal law defines sex trafficking as:

Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years. FOR MORE INFO VISIT LINK HERE.

Sex workers are a marginalized group, further criminalized and targeted. Much of the violence many face comes from those framed as “rescuers”.

I wish I could respond to the myriad of comments on the Channel 11 news link. I am not willing to put my children in the line of fire of those who condemn me for my beliefs. I won’t use my blog as a war zone to respond to those comments, either.

If I could say one thing that could change something, it would be this:

Stand up and speak.

Silence does not change anything.

If you believe in making a change, in anything in your life, then don’t be afraid to speak your truth.

Thanks for reading today! I am now off to get ready for my minimum wage job.