Continuing the series “Women on top” which started with this amazing interview with Corvette Le Face, this time I am sharing a podcast about adult sex education - Sex Ed with DB.

Sex Ed with DB is coming from O.school - a web project with live streams and moderated chats, through which their Pleasure Professionals will help you overcome shame, heal from trauma, and develop skills to communicate and set boundaries in the pursuit of your sexual pleasure. You can find super practical advise such as “3 different kinds of birth control” or “Online dating tips” to more informative streams, such as “What does transgender mean?”.

DB stands for Danielle Bezalel - the host of the podcast and an O.School pleasure professional. She will be attending Columbia University this fall to obtain her Masters in Public Health with a certificate in Sex, Sexuality, and Reproductive Health. For fun, she enjoys performing all over the Bay with her band, Happnstance, traveling the world, doing zumba, making media for social change, and eating endless amounts of chocolate.

Here is a short transcript of the “Sex Work Is Not Sex Trafficking” episode. It explores 2 subjects I will be diving deeper into in the next weeks - society's desire to “save” consensual sex workers from their lifestyle of choice and a very controversial law, signed by the US Government just few months ago - SESTA/FOSTA.

*Danielle Bezalel*

Mia Little & Danielle Bezalel on sex work and society’s perception of it (Mia Little is an adult film performer and sex worker leading sex education workshops at universities and online.)

DB: When you were growing up, would you say your family was sex positive? Do they know about your career? Were they surprised if they do know; what’s your family’s reaction to it?

Mia: Oh, they reacted very poorly, but I kind of expected that. I’m a first generation Filipinx women -- individual -- and my parents are from the Philippines. They’re very conservative religious and culturally, and it was a very sex-negative upbringing. I remember when I bolstered up the courage to ask my mom for birth control -- I cornered her at Sears where it was very public so she couldn’t make a scene and I was like “Oh I’m horrible but I need this birth control.” In my head at the time it was the only way I could have this conversation with my parent, without having it shut down immediately which it could have easily been at home.

It was really sex negative -- I had an older brother and from my view, it felt like his socialization was less restricted than mine because I was the younger daughter in their eyes and in the family. So I felt really restricted. Rape culture was really perpetuated and, victim blaming -- like “don’t you go out past sunset because the rapists are out.”

DB: Nope, that’s wrong.

Mia: That doesn’t make sense, and also like it’s not about putting the blame on the victim, I’m not inviting anyone by wearing the clothes that I’m wearing or talking about the things I’m talking about. I knew that very young, and when I got into adult film I knew that.

It’s never like people won’t not know. It will get out. Being in adult film is a very public form of sex work. It’s all over the internet, and if they have access to the internet, or if they know someone with access to the internet, it can easily get out that someone’s in adult film. So I decided I would rather have it come from me than they find out from a random individual -- it was never going to go well. And it went quite poorly.

It became very much like “We need to save you, come back!” and I was like “No, I’m fine! I’m really happy with my life.”

DB: Yeah, that makes total sense. And I’m sure there are a lot of people who grew up in very similar households that were kind of like: not only did we not talk about sex, but if we did, it was negative, and if you were to engage in any sexual relations, even as an adult, it was like we don’t want to hear about it, we don’t want to talk about it...very private.

Mia: It’s there, it’s very human, but you gotta hide it -- it’s shameful, it’s a secret. And for me, it’s not a secret, put it all out there! Literally, I’m creating content as a service for people to then use. It definitely is very difficult for my family I think.

Andre Shakti & Danielle Bezalel on SESTA/FOSTA: (Andre Shakti is a journalist, educator, performer, activist, and professional slut living in the San Francisco Bay Area.)

Andre: For folks who are not aware, there is a bill that just recently passed the senate called SESTA-FOSTA -- and basically what is does is conflate, in writing, consensual adult sex work with non-consensual, often underage sex trafficking.

DB: Signed into law in April 2018 SESTA FOSTA is a law that claims to fight sex trafficking by holding internet service providers* liable for user generated content that are seen as facilitating or supporting sex trafficking. So what the fuck does that mean? This means that conversations about sex work online are being censored by companies everywhere. The problem with this bill is that it conflates sex trafficking with consensual sex work performed by adults, and cuts sex workers off from online platforms that they have used to keep themselves safe. For that reason the law has drawn sharp criticism from sex workers, civil rights groups and anti-trafficking organizations alike.

Andre: And that is already having devastating consequences -- not just on sex workers. We have seen Amazon removing a bunch of erotica and sexual health and public health related materials, or burying them in the materials they offer but don’t allow people to rate so that they don’t come up in search options. We are seeing dating websites releasing updated terms of service about what kinds of language can be used in ones dating profile, we are seeing Craigslist, kind of famously at this point, taking down their personal ads that have been around FOREVER -- they were the original dating site! PayPal and Venmo are updating their terms of service...this shit is going down right now and it is bad. Because people didn’t take the time to actually research the difference between sex trafficking and sex work.

To listen to all episodes of Sex Ed with DB you can check it out on soundcloud.

*To be more specific the bill holds liable the intermediaries, or the online services which “own, manage or operate” content with the intent to “promote or facilitate” “the prostitution of another person.” This includes hosts and services with user generated content