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My name is Arianna Travaglini, and I am a sex worker.
In Spring 2014, I found out that several pornographic films and scenes I’d performed in were nominated for a Feminist Porn Award, the ceremony for which happens annually in Toronto. Severely low income but committed to making the journey, I set up a crowdfunding campaign on a platform called Fundly to raise a modest $500 for the plane ticket I needed to get there. I successfully raised the funds in record time, but when I went to cash out, I received an error message. According to the payment processor that Fundly utilized at the time, WePay, I “violated their Terms of Service” and they refused to process my funds. Not because my campaign contained any sexually graphic imagery or text, mind you; it was because I simply existed as a sex worker.
My name is Arianna Travaglini, and I am a sex worker.
Summer 2016 found me scouring AirBnB for an affordable place to stay while I visited Baltimore to celebrate Pride and see old friends. After two weeks of experiencing a series of bizarre glitches with the platform, however, I received an email notifying me that my AirBnB account had been disabled. The message ended with, “Please understand that we are not obligated to provide an explanation for the action taken against your account.” Until that point, I had been frequently utilizing AirBnB for two years for recreational travel, receiving nothing but amazing reviews from hosts. Soon afterward, other sex workers in my community started publicizing stories nearly identical to mine.
My name is Arianna Travaglini, and I am a sex worker. I am also a journalist, an activist, a sexual health educator, a performer, and an event producer. I have two pitbulls named Derp and Detective Olivia Benson, a cat named Girl, a snake named Lilith, and a tarantula named Becky. I have four incredible, supportive, loving partners who would move heaven and earth for me, as I would for them, and I have some of the best friends a gal could hope for. I love dancing, rock climbing, reading, horror movies, and Oreo cookies. At my core, I’ll always be that Italian Jersey girl who teases her hair a little too big, laughs a little too loud, and GTLs like a pro.
My name is Arianna Travaglini, and as a sex worker, I shouldn’t have to work so hard for digital platforms, legislators, or you to see me as a human being — to listen to me and to believe me. To be honest, the kind of sex work I do isn’t even important. I have been active in a number of different areas of the sex industry for the past eleven years. I am not, nor have I ever been, a trafficking victim. But thanks to the recent passage of a bill known as SESTA-FOSTA, there is no longer any legal distinction between consenting adult-aged sex work and nonconsensual, often underage sex trafficking.
As Violet Blue puts it in a piece for EnGadget, SESTA-FOSTA “...removes protection for websites under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and makes sites and services liable for hosting what it very, very loosely defines as sex trafficking and ‘prostitution’ content. FOSTA-SESTA puts into law that sex work and sex trafficking are the same thing, and makes discussion and advertising part of the crime.” As Blue points out, this illogical conflation combined with an intentionally fuzzy, ambiguous interpretation of sex and commerce makes the perfect recipe for digital censorship disaster.
Trust me, sex workers want to see an end put to sex trafficking just as much as anyone else. But instead of working with us to effectively identify and eradicate trafficking — which would require them to see us as human beings — government officials are seizing and shutting down the very online platforms that we use to make a living and keep ourselves safe.
The FBI raid on the headquarters of Backpage.com — a website known for its sex-related classified ads — is the latest blow to sex workers worldwide at the hands of an overzealous government. Because of its accessible advertising pricing structure, Backpage was especially popular with more marginalized workers, like transgender women and people of color who couldn’t afford to pay for “fancier” ads. Without a way to advertise our services online — and subsequently communicate with interested parties — workers have lost the ability to screen our clientele ahead of time to ensure our own safety. And as a result of lost income, many now run the risk of homelessness and starvation.
The shutdown also pushes sex workers who typically work indoors to the streets to find customers, thereby making them significantly more vulnerable to trafficking, violence, and death. Don’t believe me? A recently released study shows that when Craigslist launched its erotic services site in 2002, female homicide rates dropped by 17 percent. Sadly, both Craigslist’s erotic services site as well as their personals section have now been shut down as a direct result of SESTA-FOSTA.
But yeah, this totally helps trafficking victims, no question about it.
Fortunately, there are numerous ways for you to become an engaged, informed ally to sex workers in this fight for our survival.
First, listen to sex workers when they tell you what makes the work they do safer, as well as when they tell you what doesn’t. Believe them — it’s really that easy! It’s something we’ve been practically screaming at legislators since this mess began, and if they won’t believe us, it’s up to people on the individual level to do that work for them. Second, combat microaggressions that perpetuate stereotypes and misinformation about sex workers in your social circles. Shut down your buddy who calls sex workers “whores,” or your aunt who insists that all of those “poor, coerced drug addicts need to be saved.” Let them know that you oppose bills like SESTA-FOSTA.
Third, get the word out that this brutal onslaught of online sex censorship isn’t just bad news for sex workers — it’s bad news for any person who both has sex and utilizes the internet. Finally, if you can afford to, put your money where your mouth is. Organizations like Third Wave Fund's Sex Worker Giving Circle and Lysistrata's Emergency Fund are raising funds to distribute to sex workers in need. You can also send donations to both Massachusetts Sex Worker Ally Network and Support Ho(s)e Chicago, two organizations leading the opposition to SESTA-FOSTA.
The Backpage shutdown is just one example of the devastation to come at the hands of SESTA-FOSTA. If people outside of the sex industry don't do more to combat these legislative headwinds, we’re going to continue to lose mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters, all because they dared to strike out and make a living on their own.
Andre Shakti is a journalist, educator, performer, activist, and professional slut living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is devoted to normalizing alternative desires, de-stigmatizing sex workers and their clients, and not taking herself too seriously. Andre is the reigning "polyamory pundit" at her non-monogamy advice column, "I Am Poly(amorous) & So Can You!". You can also find her as a pleasure professional on the exceptional #SexyEd platform O.School.
