$pread 'Em
Nothing tags you as a sex-industry neophyte quite like asking Mary Christmas if that's her real name. I stopped myself just in time, but it was still obvious I had a lot to learn. As it happens, education is a main goal of Christmas' new magazine, $pread, an NYC-based quarterly subtitled "Illuminating the Sex Industry" that debuts this March.
"We want to publish something that gets read by sex workers and the general public," says Christmas, who hatched the idea for the magazine with fellow sex workers, and now fellow editors, Raven Strega, Rebecca Lynn and Rachel Aimee.
"There's a lot of writing about sex work by academics, but nothing accessible for a mass audience," Christmas explains. "The idea is to make $pread more attractive than your typical indie magazine. Women who work part-time in a massage parlor are more likely to pick it up if it looks like a fashion magazine, as opposed to some rag at a small anarchist bookstore."
In straddling the distribution line between big newsstands and small shops like the Lower East Side's Bluestockings (an early advertiser), $pread will be unique among its sister glossies. The launch issue, to be distributed in select cities in the U.S. and Europe, includes a piece on human-trafficking laws; how black women are treated in the American porn industry; Catherine Frank on quitting stripping; an interview with sex educator Carol Queen; and a report from the international AIDS conference in Bangkok. There's also an advice column on health and legal issues, book reviews, news briefs, fiction and art.
By appealing to the wide spectrum of sex workers and the people who love them, the women of $pread hope to turn a profit while raising the profile of what Rachel Aimee calls a "vast, misunderstood industry."
"We want to bring issues out into the open that you don't often see in the media," says Raven Strega, who describes the editorial approach as a mix of advocacy and good writing. "One common misconception is that all sex workers are women. We have two articles by male sex workers in the first issue."
People see sex work as the problem, says Strega, when really the problem is how outsiders like managers, pimps and police exploit sex workers. "People don't know about the kickbacks. The police action, the constant fear, the strip-club managers that pull illegal maneuvers and don't offer minimum wage. A lot of these things are a result of sex workers not being able to go out in the world and say, 'Hey, look at this.'"
The quartet, all in their early and mid 20s, hopes their magazine will help destigmatize sex work, and envisions the day when it is a form of employment as socially acceptable as being a paralegal or a nanny.
"If you go for a job, you can't write, 'I was a prostitute for the last five years,' on your application," complains Aimee. "By presenting their stories in their own voices, it should help validate sex workers as members of society, as people.
"This is just step one," she continues, maintaining $pread has no concrete political agenda. "Before you can make things better, you have to make it so people can speak for themselves. We don't have answers; we just want to provide a platform. By creating a dialogue, we hope to encourage people to come up with solutions."
$pread subscriptions are available at spreadmagazine.org. The first issue hits newsstands March 15.
-Alexander Zaitchik