Dennis RomeroYou might call them victims or exploited, but a pro-sex-worker group founded in L.A. wants you to know pros are in control of their own bodies.
And it's doing so with mobile billboards that are being driven around town this week. The group, SWAAY (Sex Work Activists, Allies, and You), went mobile after claiming that every billboard company in town turned it down.
Here's what the ads say:
Sex worker: a person who consensually exchanges their own sexual labor or sexual performance for compensation. Sex work is not the same as forced sex trafficking or sex slavery …
Credit: SWAAY
Got that, Ashton Kutcher? Probably not.
Still, the org, which wants to decriminalize prostitution, is fuming over the rejection by L.A.'s major outdoor advertisers (some of whom have been in trouble with the city over illegal signage, ironically or not).
SWAAY posted this photo under the title “Billboards with controversial subjects that were accepted by the outdoor media companies … “
Credit: SWAAY
Its own billboard cruised through Hollywood yesterday. It will be on the streets through Nov. 8, the group says.
SWAAY volunteer Sabrina Melmoth:
Bad laws and hurtful social stigmas work together in a vicious cycle that makes life more dangerous and difficult for the people who engage in sex work. SWAAY seeks to chip away at both problems by sharing non-sensationalized, first-person information about life as a sex worker, and advocating for the full decriminalization of sex work.
[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]
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