Porn/Prostitution/Sex Work Conference
Fred Cherry
In Message-ID: <rame.858040431p15669@primus>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.erotica
Subject: Porn/Prostitution/Sex Work Conference
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 97 18:29:02
Taliesin <tali...@paganpleasures.com> wrote:
)Thought you might like to know:
)
)The International Conference On Prostitution and sex work sponsored by
)Cal. State University, Northridge and C.O.Y.O.T.E. (Call Off Your Old
)Tired Ethics, a prostitutes and sex workers rights organization) will be
)held March 13 to 16 at the Airtel Plaza Hotel in Van Nuys, CA. The panel
)speaking on pornography includes Nina Hartley, Christi Lake, Mike Horner,
)Stacy Valentine and myself. Speaking on other subjects will be Norma Jean
)Almodovar, Tuppy Owens, Xaviera Hollander, Kathy Willets, Sydney Biddle
)Barrows, Betty Dodson, Juliet Anderson, Annie Sprinkle, Margo St. James
)and Veronica Monet. The keynote speaker for the conference will be Dr.
)Joycelyn Elders, former Surgeon General of the US.
)
)The Porn Panel will be speaking to academics, scholars, and researchers
)who study sex work, and will also speak to the media. You'll probably see
)some of us on TV this week or on some talk shows a few weeks from now.
)Some porn magazines are covering the conference, so look for articles
)about ICOP in a few months.
)
)Also the First International Hookers Ball will be held on the 15th in
)conjunction with the conference.
)
)All of us on the Porn Panel are looking forward to both an educational
)experience and a helluva lot of fun.
)
)Taliesin
)tali...@paganpleasures.com
I was on a panel titled: "SEX WORK AND THE DISABLED: A FACT RATHER THAN A
MYTH." My subject on that panel was: "the perspective from the view of the
consumer." Here is an exact transcript of what I said:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I am a client of women prostitutes, commonly known as a "john." I am now 71
years of age and I have been patronizing women prostitutes since the age of
thirty.
I have to give you some background about myself so that you may understand
exactly how and why I became a john. I was born with a chronic illness
known as celiac disease. This is also known as malabsorption syndrome.
On June '84 I sued in New York State court for the purpose of having the
laws penalizing prostitution declared unconstitutional. I lost the case on
the grounds that I hadn't been arrested. Go to any law library and look up
the case of Cherry v. Koch, 491 N.Y.S. 2d 934 & Cherry v. Koch, 514 N.Y.S.
2d 30.
The complaint in that case says, and I quote:
b. Plaintiff CHERRY suffers from a medical condition
known as malabsorption syndrome (also known as celiac disease).
c. Said medical condition causes plaintiff CHERRY to
suffer from emaciation and extreme fatigue, making it impossible
for him to engage in normal social activities that lead to
meeting women and sexual relationships.
d. After many years of unsuccessful attempts to develop
a sexual relationship with a non-prostitute woman, plaintiff
CHERRY first had sex, at the age of thirty, with a woman
prostitute.
End of quote.
Just to show you how thin I am, when I was 38 years old, I was five feet,
ten inches in height and weighed 98 pounds. Now, because I have a low
thyroid condition, I have ballooned up to 120 pounds.
Here is another example of a disabled john. This comes from the book:
NOT FOR LOVE, by Virginia McManus, pages 150-151 (New Dell Edition First
Printing--January, 1964 . Ms. McManus was a schoolteacher who had a friend
who was a prostitute. One day the police raided the friend's apartment and
arrested Ms. McManus along with the friend. Because Ms. McManus was in that
apartment, she lost her position as a schoolteacher. Then Ms. McManus
decided that she might as well BECOME a prostitute. Something similar to
that happened to Margo St. James. Anyway, here is what Ms. McManus says
about one of her clients:
Quote "He was a well-known John in New York; he had a spinal disorder and
was quite crippled and it was necessary to go to his home. There would have
been no problem had he lived alone, but he stayed with his mother. The
mother herself would often place the call for a girl since the man had
difficulty holding a phone, and she would answer the door and usher the
girl into his bedroom. Afterward she would politely offer a cup of coffee
and attempt to make casual conversation. The whole experience was rather
ghastly and strained but he paid a hundred dollars and most of the call
girls felt morally obliged to see the handicapped Johns and be unusually
kind to them." unquote
Now one has to consider that the first edition of this book was copyrighted
in 1960, and one hundred dollars was a lot of money then.
Do you realize that each and every one of the parties to that transaction
is defined as a criminal by the laws of just about every state in the
United States? The mother, in particular, is actually committing the crime
of "promoting prostitution" (pimping) which is a felony and can get a
person a prison sentence of several years. Just ask Norma Jean.
Let me tell you about some of the experiences I have had. One evening,
close to where I live, I saw a young lady just standing around. Well, you
know the old saying: "Hope springs eternal in the human beast." So, I sez
to her: "Would you care to go on a date with me?" And she replies in the
affirmative. Then I sez: "Would you care to go right now with me to my
room near here?" And again she replies in the affirmative. So I sez: "I
don't suppose you're going with me just because you like my looks." Now to
THAT, she replies in the negative. So, now I sez: "Would you like a
present?" And she sez "Yes." So I sez, "What would you like?" And she sez:
"Twenty dollars." Now, please remember that this was almost thirty years
ago. So, don't call me a cheapskate. Then when we went up to my room and I
started to disrobe by taking off my shirt, she sez: "I'm not taking all of
you money, am I?" I sez: "WHAT!!" She sez: "You've got to eat tomorrow, you
know. I don't want you to starve."
That was one of the better experiences I have had. I have had some really
bad experiences as well. One time almost forty years ago, I went to a
massage parlor. In those days in New York City massage parlors were the
place to go when one wanted to find prostitutes. This particular massage
parlor had been highly recommended to me. When I went there, I selected
what I considered the most attractive woman there. When we got into our
private room, I attempted to hug her. She became very indignant. She said:
"We don't do that here.!" Now, it's a strange thing about me. I can't just
plunge in when I'm having sex. My libido just doesn't work that way. I need
to have, as I put it: "A little lovin'." I need to be hugged, and to hug
the woman I am having sex with. There is a popular author by the name of
Buscaglia who claims that everyone needs to be hugged at least once a day.
I can get along with being hugged once a week. I remember, six years ago,
before I had been diagnosed as having a low thyroid condition, I was so ill
that I was in constant pain. I hadn't had an erection in weeks. But I still
wanted my regular call girl to visit me. This was a relationship that
started out as a call-girl, client relationship and grew into a genuine
love relationship. Now at that time, I wanted her to visit me just to hug
me and talk to me, even though sex was then impossible for me. She kept
begging me to go to the Mayo Clinic, and eventually persuaded me to go
there. That was where my thyroid condition was properly diagnosed.
Two years previous to that, when I was in relatively better health, She
asked my what I wanted for a birthday present. I said: "All I want is a
little lovin'." She must have misunderstood me to have said: "a little
oven" so she bought me a microwave oven.
Now, I don't know whether or not she misunderstood me, but I do know that
she bought me a microwave oven, and that was just what I needed. So, I
decided to buy her a computer. She was a part-time prostitute. In addition
to prostitution, she was working in another occupation. So, I felt that she
could use a computer in her other field of work. This was 1989. I owned an
Apple IIE and I was running CP/M. CP/M used to be THE system for personal
computers before the IBM personal computer came on the market. So, I was so
much in love with this woman that I wanted to get her the best available
computer. I bought twin computers, one for her and one for me. I bought IBM
PC's with the 386 microprocessor running at 20 megaherz. That was just
about the fastest and most powerful personal computer available then.
I got far more from that purchase of computers than she did. I had been
working for over two years trying to solve a mathematical problem. With the
aid of my IBM PC I was able to generate two mutually orthogonal DIAGONAL
Latin Squares of order ten. This had never been done before. The result was
published in a mathematical journal.
The reason I bother to mention this is that this accomplishment gave me a
tremendous boost in my self-esteem. Before I had done this, I used to think
of myself as a rich bum. Now, I can truly call myself a mathematician, even
though I only have a bachelor's degree in mathematics.
I am more than just a john. I am an ACTIVIST john. I began my activities in
1962. I was then a member of the American Civil liberties Union. The New
York branch held a meeting which they advertised as an old-fashioned town-
hall meeting at which anyone could discuss any subject. When I tried to
advocate that the American Civil liberties Union take up the case for
decriminalization of prostitution, I was hooted down, and the moderator of
the meeting agreed with the hooter's denial of my right to speak there.
In 1964 I became a member of an organization called the New York City
League for Sexual Freedom. This was then an organization of ALL sexual
orientations which advocated and demonstrated for the rights of ALL sexual
minorities. For example, on 8/23/64, I was the central figure in a
demonstration for decriminalization of prostitution. On 9/19/64 I was one
of the participants in a demonstration for homosexual rights.
At that time there was only one homosexual rights organization in New York
City, namely the Mattachine Society. The next thing that happened was that
a large number of homosexuals and lesbians from the Mattachine Society
joined the New York City League for Sexual Freedom and took over. They
elected their people to lead the New York City League for Sexual Freedom.
Under their leadership, the League stopped advocating decriminalization of
prostitution and, instead, began to advocate homosexual child-molesting.
That's when I started to be homophobic. I decided, as a means of protest,
to mail out a large number of postcards denouncing one of the leaders of
the Mattachine Society. I decided to denounce the Reverend Robert W. Wood
of the United Church of Christ. He agreed with many people that the world
is overpopulated, but then he went on the preach the doctrine of homosexual
superiority. He said that God had created homosexuality in order to counter
the population explosion. On the way he also said that abortion and
sterilization were immoral. And, of course, like many homosexuals, he
argued that prostitution was also immoral.
I specifically denounced him for insinuating that Jesus Christ was a
homosexual. I think it is obvious that when a Christian clergyman claims
that Jesus Christ was a homosexual, that clergyman is claiming that
homosexuals are morally superior to heterosexuals.
I have also sent large numbers of postcards denouncing Edward I. Koch,
formerly Mayor of New York. Koch wrote a letter which was published in the
New York Post on October 19, 1979, page 25. In that letter Koch compared
prostitutes to "garbage in the streets" and "odor, disease and rats." And
yet Koch did not object to HOMOSEXUAL prostitution. When Frederick
Richmond, Brooklyn's notorious homosexual child-molesting Congressman ran
for re-election in 1978 Koch endorsed him. This was AFTER Richmond had been
arrested for offering money for sex to an underaged boy.
In 1984, as I mentioned previously, I sued in New York State to have the
laws on prostitution declared unconstitutional. I hired William Kunstler to
represent me. I wish I had been aware at that time of Kunstler's interview
in Playboy Magazine of October 1970. In that interview Kunstler denounced
Playboy for "degrading" women by publishing nude photographs of them.
Anyway, it is obvious to me and any one else who has any knowledge of law
that Kunster deliberately lost that case.
I have appeared on several T.V. talk shows. I appeared three times on the
Morton Downey, Jr. talk show. Now, people has criticized Downey, but he
always allowed both sides of a controversy to be represented, and WELL
represented. Other talk shows only allow one side of a controversy.
In 1984 I appeared on the Phil Donahue talk show. He wouldn't allow me on
the panel. Only Downey allowed that. Anyway, I was in the audience and I
said: quote "Every sexual activity involving consenting adults is permitted
nowadays except prostitution, and I don't think it is fair that we should
be the only ones who are still being arrested for what we do in private."
Unquote:
Thank you for your patience and I also want to thank Norma Jean for giving
me this opportunity to speak.