Sex in the City : NOW CLASS, GET On YOUR KNEES

Neither Jenna Jameson, Heidi Fleiss, nor the "Mayflower Madam," Sydney Biddle Barrows, showed up at a "Sex Work Matters" conference. Jointly held by The New School and CUNY Graduate Center on March 30, the city's first-ever sex-worker conference did, however, fill a room with out-and-proud self-proclaimed hos, academics and activists. This was no bawdyhouse: panels were dominated by analyzers rather than doers. The tangible assets of strumpets and the scholars who love to study them were disguised by matronly eyeglasses and longish skirts.

I didn't see even one horny john wondering around. In fact, most of the men seemed to be gay or trans. If there were any pimps, they hid the bling. A couple of gray-haired grandmother types were even there.

I'm not exactly unfamiliar with the sex industry. My experiences date back to what writer Brad Gooch calls the Golden Age of Promiscuity-the '70s and pre-AIDS early '80s. Back then, hookers and pimps openly cruised through Times Square in flashy pimpmobiles, the girls tucked into hot pants and dudes in neon-rainbow polyester outfits, Flagg Brother platform shoes and fake-fur-lined fedoras. Now that everyone's consciousness has been raised, it's all about advocacy, intervention and decriminalization. But back in the day, we'd just hang at the Gilded Grape with the tranny hookers and not worry about organizing into unions. Peddling your ass wasn't a topic for Ph.D. theses, but a way to pull in a few bucks to make the rent.

There has always been an uneasy alliance, if not hostility, between sex workers and academics, which was why throwing them all together in one room was a novel idea. Academics and activists are famous for patronizing streetwalkers, porno stars, phone sex operators and strippers. My sympathies were with the ladies of the evening. Even with those wild hours, they managed to make it to a 9:30 a.m. session, where they could hear high-flown academese spouted by ivy-towered eggheads and concerned social workers.

To be sure, some of the sex workers served as panelists as well. Speakers hailed from 13 countries, including Canada, Israel, Sweden, Bangladesh and New Zealand. Organizers of the conference, doctoral students Alys Willman-Navarro of the New School and CUNY's Antonia Levy, had originally aimed for an even more international crowd, but could hardly afford it on a shoestring budget of $3,000. The two had dreamed up the one-day conference to provide a forum for sex-worker research and encourage a dialogue between the sex workers and those who study them.

But too many academics and non-sex worker activists, on top of too many panels pushed my snooze button. Especially guilty was an opening talk on "Opportunities and Challenges in Sex Work Activism and Research." Yikes! It ain't easy to make sex-for-pay boring, but this talk managed it.

Things started to sizzle a bit more during the panel, "Multiple Roles: Sex Workers, Activists and Academics." Robyn Few, a former San Francisco exotic dancer, prostitute and activist was impassioned and down-to-earth as she spun out her anecdotes. She riveted the audience with her cautionary tale about being arrested by the FBI in 2002 under the Patriot Act. She ended up serving six months and was convicted on one federal count of conspiracy to promote prostitution.

After that somber message, laughter emanated from the "Sex Worker Outreach and Activism" discussion, so I'm sorry I missed that one. A panel on money dealt with labor and why girls opt for a career in sex, which boiled to one message that everyone knew walking in: "I did it for the money."

Despite the simple economics of the sex trade (commodity: body; purchaser: horny male; monetary exchange of services for money), there was a surplus of pretentious academic jargon that peppered every discussion with the freight of Marxist, Laucanian or other trendy jargon. For example, try stuffing this one into your black-lace bra: "Little work exists in a sex?industry framework, but if we agree that it refers to all commercial goods and services of an erotic and sexual kind, then a rich field of human activities is involved." I guess that means that giving a blow job isn't hard-it's all in the technique. Or how about this erectile-dysfunctioning phrase: "Reappropriating Interpellated Identity Through Sex Work." A bit more inspiring is the title, "To Love, Honor and Strip: Romantic Relationships and Adjustment Strategies in Exotic Dance Careers." Or, how to meet a millionaire while sliding down a poll in crotchless panties.

A day for shop talk with the sexperts But still, this was a day for the girls to bond and talk shop with the so-called experts. So with no potential tricks around, why did women bother with makeup and sexy getups? Hardly necessary to take notes on coming out of the closet and filing taxes. They might as well take a break from orgasms and mint-flavored condoms for a few moments while discussing the serious business involved in providing sexual pleasure to the men and women of the world. Activists were careful to make the distinction between human trafficking and forced prostitution, of course, since all of the sex workers in the room had chosen their jobs, and a number of speakers dealt with the very real problems around the world with violence, rape and especially AIDS.

This may be the world's oldest profession, but things are changing drastically. Whores-pardon me, "sex workers"-are talking to labor unions like the AFL-CIO about organizing themselves. More men and women work in the sex industry than you might think; it's just that most of them won't admit it. "Coming out" was one of the themes of the day, although some of the participants preferred not to be videotaped, since the event was being Webcasted. Some prostitutes and phone-sex workers confided that, as a result of disclosing their profession, they were stigmatized by family, friends and co-workers. But others reported being suddenly viewed as cool, even arm candy, or were propositioned and consulted about sexual problems.

Simply legalizing prostitution isn't always the answer, according to some activists, especially when the brothels are controlled by exploitative entrepreneurs as is sometimes the case in Nevada and Amsterdam (like the big bald dude on HBO's Cat House who tries the girls out and then discards them when he's tired of their charms).

Does sex work matter? It depends on who you speak to, but it seems some of the pioneers of the sex-work industry don't matter, since they were excluded, possibly because of pressure by the powers-that-be at CUNY. Was this the result of an inflammatory January New York Post article? I received a flurry of calls from the public affairs office stating that the panelists were selected by a consortium of doctoral students and faculty. Longtime Californian prostitute advocates Norma Jean Almodovar and Carol Leigh, aka "The Scarlet Harlot," were both not invited. Almodovar was actually uninvited. A professor from CUNY asked her to speak and sent her an airplane ticket late last year.

"I was invited without presenting an abstract, because of my notoriety in the sex-workers rights movement," Almodovar told me. Almodovar was a former member of the LAPD and wrote a book entitled "Cop to Call Girl." Organizer Alys Willman-Navarro told me Leigh's abstract was rejected by the organizers, which Leigh says is not exactly true. Prior to the conference, the Post labeled her "dean of academic studies" at "Whore College," where she ran a series of classes for sex workers including "Safer Oral Sex Techniques," "Advanced Erotic Touch" and "Six Herbs That Can Cure Anything, with a Focus on Genital Health."

Leigh actually coined the term "sex work" back in the late '70s and has been in the field for 25 years. Almodovar has been on the ramparts since the early '80's. "Carol Leigh and I have been out there longer than any sex-worker advocate other than Margo St. James," Almodovar said, referring to the founder of COYOTE, the first prostitute-rights group. Almodovar speculated that the reason she and Carol Leigh were uninvited might have been because the students didn't have the clout to oppose the university administration.

Best of Times, Worst of Times Many at the conference maintained that things have changed for the better in terms of tolerance by the general public, and even much of the mainstream has accepted alternative sexuality. The explosion of sexual images and pornography on the Internet, film and television have made "deviance" commonplace. And don't forget about all those pimps and hos costume parties. Barb Brents and Kate Hausbeck, professors at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, cautioned, however, that the Bush Administration has drafted anti-sex industry legislation, aided by a coalition of anti-sex far-left feminists and their allies on the religious right.

The night before the conference, Spread Magazine threw a so-called gala party at the LGBT Community Center celebrating their one-year anniversary featuring an art exhibit by sex workers. Guests included practicing and retired prostitutes, a few exotic dancers, and one former Suicide Girl. The highlight of the night was book signings by the literary celebs of whoredom, the aforementioned "Scarlot Harlot" Carol Leigh and Tracy Quan.

Although Carol Leigh was initially snubbed by the Sex Worker conference, she was later added to a panel. When I spoke to her later, she was most diplomatic about her slight by the committee organizers. "I'm not exactly sure what happened, but it wasn't just that the abstract was rejected. I had to be insistent to be added to the program," she said. "We were told we weren't supposed to present anything."

Nonetheless, Leigh was presented with an Aphrodite Award at the party, thanks to the advocacy group PONY (Prostitutes of New York) because of her sexual service to the community as well as her extensive videography from the early days of sexual activism. At a booth next to Quan, she signed copies of her book "Unrepentant Whore" and hawked various wares, including sex-work buttons, T-shirts and stickers.

Her appearance contrasted sharply with the less flamboyant women: Leigh is a plus-size with beet red hair, revealing some nice cleavage stuffed into a red corset. Despite her over-the-top style, Leigh is an articulate and ardent advocate for sexual freedom. "There was no active sex-advocate community years ago," she said. In terms of whores choosing their profession, her comment is typically forthright: "Do I want to go to college or do I want to sell my ass on the street?"

One of the points revealed at the conference was that many current academics and activists were once sex workers themselves. "Almost everyone I know who has a Ph.D. was a sex worker originally." Yet, Leigh believes most of the statistics compiled by researchers have been "very skewed." Things haven't changed that much, in her opinion. "The stigma against sex workers has been overwhelming, including by the academy."

Quan, on the other hand, is a more lady-like sex advocate, but no less outspoken. She's affable, perky, and intent on capturing the right camera angle during the photo op. Her second opus, Diary of a Married Call Girl came out in the fall. Her first novel, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, was originally serialized by Salon and Revolution Studio optioned the film rights for an upcoming flick to be produced by Darren Star, creator of HBO's Sex and the City. Quan is a former call girl who says she's had sex with thousands of men, but is still very attracted to them, a self-professed romantic: "I want a good cozy relationship with a man-a lot of sex activists tend to be larger than life." The scribe of sex-for-hire, who specializes in sex workers who lead double lives, thoroughly enjoyed the conference-she's gotten used to the clashes between the academy and the bordello. She satirizes the rather tricky dynamics between sex workers and academics in her new book.

Veronica Vera, porn star, sex journalist, and dean of Miss Vera's Finishing School For Boys Who Want to be Girls in Downtown Manhattan, added, "I would ask advocates who ask prostitutes if they had an abused childhood." However, she told me she definitely thought the conference was "very empowering."

I agree in theory, but would have preferred a sexier mix that allowed the sex workers to speak more freely. Sex work should never be boring. Bring in da noize, bring on da 'hos!