WHAT IS SEX WORKERS ANONYMOUS?

I was born in 1960, so I grew up with things like the womens' liberation movement, the sexual revolution, and watching women trying to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. This means my teen years had me witnessing the way things like pornography and prostitution grew into a mainstream industry as I was growing up.

Porn films back in the 1970's were literally films. If they weren't "art" or "foreign" films, and had an XXX rating - this meant the only way to watch them was to either rent out the reels and get a projector for home viewing and/or to show at a bachelor party, or you had to go to an adult theater to view these films. These theaters were of course in seedy parts of town, and only in major cities. This allowed the mob to basically own the porn industry as they owned the theaters the films were played in, as well as they were the ones who had the financing to make these films.

The first real "porn star" was called Linda Lovelace who starred in the adult film "Deep Throat". What made her a star was because that film was the first XXX rated film which actually played in mainstream theaters in 1974. The lines were around the block, and this was the first time couples and groups of friends actually stood in line to be part of the "hip crowd" who were seeing this film.

The book "The Happy Hooker" hit the bestseller's list in 1974 also. This was the first book about being a hooker, especially one that was "happy" about it, which hit the mainstream also. The first legal brothel opened in Nevada in 1974 also. The musical, "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" was on Broadway in 1978. If you had insomnia in the 70's, you'd get Mae West playing late night strutting around with her diamonds and lines like "Come up and see me sometime" to Cary Grant.

To add to this culture of commercial sexualization being promoted to me as a teen, we had a Planned Parenthood a few blocks from my high school. Practically every girl in the gym locker room was talking about how they'd got on birth control pills to increase their bust size free thanks to this clinic which gave them away like candy to us back then.

With all the talk about how women should have the same rights as men, to have the right to decide they wanted to be on birth control, to have a legal and safe abortion on demand, and to be paid equal to men - the idea that if we were to have full and complete control over our bodies and sexuality, as well as our reproductive organs, that this meant we should be allowed the right to "sell" access to our sexuality, i.e., to be able to engage in prostitution, (or a "victimless crime" as prostitution was referred to back then in mainstream media) was very much an idea a modern, free, woman considered part of her attaining not only her freedom from male domination, but also attaining power of her own sex and commerce.

As a young developing woman, I didn't like the idea of marriage based on what I was witnessing of it. My grandmother was murdered by my step-grandfather. My mother was being abused by my father, as was I. It seemed every marriage I was seeing wasn't very appealing to me, so I was drawn to prostitution for many reasons from a very young age. I devoured a copy of "The Happy Hooker" I was able to steal out of my parent's bedroom. My dad had copies of Playboy, Penthouse, Chic, Hustler, etc., all over the house and since I was a latchkey kid, I spent more time reading those magazines after school than my textbooks. I'd stay up late just to watch my idol, Mae West, telling us how "Good girls go to heaven - but bad girls go everywhere".

I've heard the saying many times "little girls don't want to be prostitutes when they grow up", but that didn't apply to me. I was completely fascinated with the idea of elite call girls and madams as far back as I can remember. I ran away when I was 13 years old even because I wanted to get away from my parents and become a stripper. I'd seen girls as young as me going in and out of a local club called the "Dog Patch" and I wanted to be like them.

So you can imagine when I saw Margo St. James on Merv Griffin's afternoon talk show talking about being a high class escort and madam - my eyes were glued to the set. She was the first person I ever saw on TV, or anywhere, talking about decriminalization of prostitution so I was all ears. As soon as I turned 18, I attended the "Hookers Ball" she organized in San Francisco.

That event opened my eyes to the concept of sex work as a legitimate profession, so when I heard she was launching COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) I joined immediately.

One of the first things I remember with COYOTE was helping Margo to decriminalize prostitution in Rhode Island. We chose that to be the first place we'd focus on achieving this because we felt it was far enough from Joe Conforte's Mustang Ranch, and his ties to organized crime, as we could get. We felt once we got enough research to prove the benefits of decriminalized prostitution, not legalized, we'd then be able to expand it out from RI with time. I'm pretty sure we achieved that about 1979 because it was about the same time I found myself being mentored into prostitution as again a "business".

You see I'd taken a special test that allowed me to leave high school early and jump to community college. To put myself through school, I got a job at a local nightclub. It turned out this club was owned by a family related to Richard Pryor's family who used it as basically a front for prostitution, drugs, etc. If you've heard Pryor's story, you'd know he's talked openly about his mother working as a prostitute at his grandmother's brothel - so this was literally a "family business" for these people.

These people lived a few houses down from the Jackson family, they drove Rolls Royces and wore Rolex's, and with the nightclub we were surrounded by celebrities all the time - so this was a very glamorous and profitable lifestyle I was witnessing. Just like interning at any job you want to break into, I soon had this family mentoring me into the business side of the sex industry.

What I mean is it wasn't about just prostitution - but instead they were teaching me about their pornographic production company, their escort service, the incall service, their topless maid service, etc. So I was being taught everything from how they recruited "fresh talent" to how they ran each one of these various businesses that went way beyond the concept of some prostitute standing on a street corner.

This view and training allowed me to see how all of the various fields within sex work operate - from porn, to stripping, "sugar babying" (as it's called now), fantasy role playing, escort services, and even how "management" operated within these various business entities.

All this to say I was knee deep into that industry when an LAPD detective decided that he didn't agree with the way I was "treating it like a business" and along with every other top level madam in the country in 1984 - I found myself arrested on a false charge, my face/name plastered all over the 11 o'clock news, and every penny I had seized by law enforcement.

This period of time was a "perfect storm" of a lot of events all coming together at the same time which led to my decision to form a 12-step program modeled after Narcotics Anonymous. For one thing, I'd just started seeing these courts set up where people were able to avoid going to jail if they elected to get treatment. This wasn't just drug courts for addicts who agreed to get drug treatment, but also was happening for rapists and child molesters who claimed to have sex addiction, and even wife beaters were being allowed to attend Batterers Anonymous meetings instead of going to jail.

So you can imagine what I was thinking when the prosecutor was talking to me about how I might be looking at 10 years or more in prison for what I was being accused of. That was with no option of any other way BUT prison if I was convicted. I know because I asked why it was that if I was a drug addict, a rapist, a child molester or a man who beat his wife I'd be allowed to either check myself into some treatment center or attend some 12 step meetings instead of being put into prison - and there was no answer or option. For us, meaning for anyone who was convicted of either prostitution, pimping (which was also the legal term for being a madam), and/or pandering -if you were convicted and there was a mandatory prison term attached to that conviction - you didn't have any of these options these other people had. We couldn't even plead "insanity" as those who had murdered someone could to get out of going to prison - which in California literally meant being sent to Death Row. I say this because the madams who were convicted from those 1984 arrests, like Cheri Woods was, served their prison time in the Death Row prison.

Did I think this was fair for anything I had done, let alone if convicted of something I was being falsely accused of? Not at all. But did what I think matter to the criminal justice system?

Not at all.

Not until the HIV/AIDS disease hit the epidemic proportions it did by the mid-1980's. I was losing many friends to the disease back then because if you were a female at that time who got it, you were pretty much dead within a year. Because of a deal I'd worked out, I agreed to be on probation for three years in order that my mother didn't go to prison on the charge of taking money from me, i.e., taking earnings from a prostitute.

Part of my probation terms were I had to attend school and have a job. So every day after work I was going to various hospices around Los Angeles trying to take care of friends of mine who were dying. When they died, many having no family, I was then dealing with funeral homes who would refuse to even touch the bodies. By 1986, I was seeing bodies being put literally in restaurant refrigerators because all the normal freezers were full. This was because no one was willing to touch the bodies of any "prostitutes" for fear of contracting HIV/AIDS.

Trying to find ways to help my sisters and brothers in arms who were battling this epidemic on the front lines, I continued to meet with other COYOTE members like Norma Jean Almodovar. She was an escort who had also been charged as a madam, who was trying to organize an LA chapter of COYOTE. As I would go to have lunch with women like her or Margo St. James to talk about how to address what was an epidemic wiping out a large number of people we personally knew - I soon got a call from my attorney.

He told me he'd received a call from a detective stating I could be charged with "conspiracy" if I continued to have these lunch meetings with other "known madams and prostitutes". With prostitution and madaming illegal - they felt us meeting to discuss how to "organize" and "improve work safety" and such topics was "conspiracy". Not to mention it could be considered a violation of the terms of my probation where I'm not supposed to be meeting or associating with "other criminals" as my friends were by legal definition.

We had work to do and people we knew were dying. They were getting sick without health insurance. They were dying with no family to make funeral and burial arrangements. We also wanted to make sure that in Rhode Island where it was decriminalized, that the infection rates being lower than they were in Los Angeles was something we wanted made public knowledge. We were having to argue with doctors to agree to even provide medical care to our sisters and brothers because of their fear of contracting the virus from even being in the same room as a "prostitute" who they always assumed was also an "IV drug user" and if we were talking about our gay brothers who were sex workers - then doctors ESPECIALLY wouldn't want to treat them.

Meaning we had literal life and death things we had to be meeting to discuss and organize while at the same time we were being threatened by the cops if we continued to help our community, our friends, our family members - we'd possibly have our probation and/or parole terms violated and possibly new charges of conspiracy added to the list and LAPD meant business. They wanted us to stop meeting and their sentiments were the more of us who died alone and didn't get any proper care when sick - the better.

The fear of HIV/AIDS reached a crisis point as we didn't really know at that time how the disease was even transmitted. The general public felt anyone who was a prostitute, a gay male and/or an IV drug user however were carriers. This caused many lunatics to do things like bomb the office the Advocate magazine (a gay community publication) was based out of by people who wanted them shut down. Restaurants in West Hollywood were being literally burned down. Areas where street prostitutes worked, especially strips where gay males and transgender prostitutes strolled, had cars coming by and just shooting at them. Gay bath houses were being attacked, as were some strip clubs.

Nurses were threatening to not report to work if forced to treat anyone who was a "prostitute, an IV drug user and/or a gay male". Coroners and funeral homes were refusing to touch the bodies of anyone identified as belonging to one of these groups felt to be carriers of HIV/AIDS. Ambulance drivers were refusing to transport anyone they felt was in these groups. The weekly prostitution raids stopped entirely because no cop wanted to go anywhere near prostitutes, and even the guards at the jails were threatening to strike if they were forced to be anywhere near these groups of people.

Then came something that made me feel I had no choice but to get involved politically. That was in 1986 when Lyndon LaRouche trotted out Prostitution 64. He was calling to have anyone identified as belonging to these groups taken by force off to an island to be quarantined in the interest of "protecting public safety".

This may sound like something out of a science fiction film, but this idea people in these groups were a "threat to public safety" was very real. There were a lot of people who were talking about what a great idea this was to "clear out the trash risking our health". I was within these communities up to my eye balls because of all of the people I was caring for personally, as well as my own attendance in Narcotics Anonymous meetings to stay off the cocaine. I just assumed people would be storming the news and talk shows back then to oppose this Proposition - but again because of the fear and the violence being directed at these groups because of this fear - people were too scared to identify as belonging to one of these groups to oppose this law for fear if we lost - they'd be one of the first ones rounded up for this quarantine.

When I started witnessing people basically going "off the grid" in fear this would pass and they'd be rounded up like something out of WWII, I myself became very afraid. Just imagine how you'd feel if your state were talking about passing a law where you'd get a knock on the door and then be taken off to an island somewhere long before we had cell phones and the internet even. Who would make the decision as to who was going to be on the list? How long would we be put into this quarantine? What would happen to our pets, our children, our homes, our jobs even?

At the very same time as this was happening, I had been talking to these women who were part of a church group called "The Family". These women had been prostitutes who worked the streets of Hollywood and had pimps, who claimed this church had "rescued them from the streets".

Only as I got to know them better, I realized they'd pretty much traded one pimp for another. I say that because this church had them going out to entice men into the church, as well as to donating to the church, by offering sex. Each of them were telling me they were desperate to get away from what really was a cult - but they each had small children and their only source of income was prostitution. With again this virus just having people dropping like flies at that time - these women were wanting to get out of prostitution desperately but this church leader wasn't going to let them stop. So I had literally 10 women with small children asking me if I could help them to get out of this situation before they contracted HIV/AIDS and left their kids as orphans.

That's why I say it was just a "perfect storm" where I felt I had no choice but to become an advocate. Back then if you worked in an office, you weren't able to watch daytime TV. We didn't have VCR's back then really, nor things like Tivo. I figured if I stuck to appearing on daytime news and talk shows to try to lobby to stop this Prop. 64 from passing - maybe I wouldn't get fired from my new job as a paralegal I'd just got as an intern.

I remember my first news appearance I got on to oppose this law from passing. I spoke about how we had "much better ways we can address this disease" than dragging people off to some island somewhere. I talked about these 10 women I knew who wanted to quit working as prostitutes, which could spread the disease, but who couldn't stop because of this minister who was controlling them and refusing to let them get other work. I basically took the tactic we had much better ways to address the spread of this disease than this idea of dragging people off like criminals.

When I got home from the station, I had a call from an apartment building owner. He told me he had 10 units he could offer these women for one year free, and further, he'd find jobs for them if they wanted to get out of their situation. That was my first official "rescue". We organized all 10 of these women and their kids to escape this cult. After I did a few more news and talk shows about this cult, I understand the "Family" left the country for a few years to escape the publicity.

News spread of what we'd done because this landlord was also an attorney. The California Attorney General back then was Edwin Meese. Mr. Meese had just got done with the Meese Commission investigating porn on behalf of Linda Lovelace who was claiming she'd been forced to make "Deep Throat" by her husband/pimp holding a gun on her off camera while the crew had done nothing to stop his abuse and exploitation of her. LAPD had just gone through this wave of arresting madams back in 1984 - which was just two years prior.

I called Mr. Meese and as Attorney General, and because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and this Prop. 64 being considered - I asked him if we could instead of talking quarantine talk instead about decriminalization of prostitution. I explained we weren't going to get testing and education about these disease to sex workers when they were scared of arrest. Further, we weren't going to get sex workers and porn performers to routinely use condoms if the cops continued to call them "evidence of a crime" and use them against us in criminal courts.

He then countered with his belief prostitution would never be decriminalized because of how much the criminal justice system depended upon arresting prostitutes, as well as how much the drug wars was also dependent on arresting prostitutes to get them to become informants against drug dealers. I reminded him we were in a health crisis and we needed to treat this as such - not a moral or criminal issue. I also spoke about how it wasn't fair we were offering IV drug users a way not to go to jail while this option was denied sex workers and madams - both of who were non-violent criminals by their standards.

He referred me to the mayor of Los Angeles back then - Tom Bradley. I was given a meeting with him and he agreed we needed to take a novel approach to a problem we'd never faced before. What that approach was however, he said we'd have to figure that out. To figure out what to do, he offered us a room in city hall and then told every county department from social services, to mental health, the health department, etc., to give us one person to form a task force to sit down in a weekly meeting and figure out what we were going to do about this epidemic if we weren't going to do the quarantine.

I pointed out to these people, and the mayor and the Attorney General - we needed to bring in other sex workers and madams to this task force and discussion - but if we were going to be charged with conspiracy and possibly violate the terms of our probation - we had a problem. When I was having these discussions, I was also including a man who was one of the original members of Narcotics Anonymous as he was representing the IV drug users in this dilemma. This is when he informed us that Narcotics Anonymous had once had this same problem - and they'd passed laws which protected them.

In other words, they had laws passed allowing them to attend NA meetings and work on their recovery with other addictions without it violating their probation/parole terms. Alcoholics Anonymous further had legal precedence which allowed that anyone who contacted a 12 step hotline, or said anything within the rooms of a 12 step program - was protected by law even if they confessed to murder within that structure.

Now we were onto some solutions. We started having these weekly task force meetings to discuss how to address this issue - of which arresting prostitutes was not helping the problem. Especially the fear of arrest was not helping us address it because people were having to protect themselves - as well as their kids who could be taken away if they got arrested.

This epidemic was so sudden, there was no funds to do anything either. However, within the 12 step program structure, we could do things like outreach as "volunteer" work, and thus not cost the government a dime. After a few of these task force meetings - the county of Los Angeles agreed that they would not only stop arresting anyone on a prostitution charge, as well as charging anyone carrying condoms with a crime, but further they'd also release anyone who was incarcerated on a prostitution and/or madaming charge into the 12 step program for prostitutes IF we started this program. There were laws already in place which allowed the courts to immediately do this without the need to spend years and millions changing and/or updating the laws. People were dying literally daily - so we didn't have time to do anything but take the fastest route possible to address this crisis.

I was lucky that the main office for NA was in Los Angeles, and the people who ran AA had actually convened a big meeting in LA to also discuss what they were going to do about the epidemic that was affecting their program. This allowed me to talk to them about how we could set up these programs to pretty much do like drug court was doing for addicts - only for prostitutes.

So on August 15, 1987, Prostitutes Anonymous had it's first official meeting at the Tarzana Treatment Center. Once I got permission from AA to start a new 12 step program modeled on their steps, the mayor arranged for us to take over 1500 female prostitutes and 400 male and transgender prostitutes who were incarcerated in LA out of the jails and into housing he'd also got donated to the cause.

The first women we sprung out of jail were those who were pregnant, had kids, and especially those who were already HIV/AIDS positive. A property was donated that used to be a drug treatment program - and we were able to not only house these women until they could get on their own feet, but it allowed us to reunite them with their kids who had been taken and put into foster care.

Now as you might imagine, most neighborhoods wouldn't agree to the idea of housing HIV/AIDS positive transgender and/or gay male prostitutes instead of them being in jail - so we agreed we had to do things "on the down low". We knew if we talked to the press about what we were doing, we'd never be able to do it. The same for the neighbors of where we placed the female prostitutes who were also HIV/AIDS positive we'd just taken out of the jail.

With the way this LaRouche had the "moral majority" and basically the religious right fanatics talking about burning people they thought were "evil" and being "cursed by God" with the disease - we also were worried if the general public knew anything about where we were housing these people things could get ugly or even violent. Thankfully, Prop. 64 did fail. (So did Joe Conforte's idea to expand legalized prostitution into California to "fight HIV/AIDS" which he tried to get passed in 1988.)

So was Prostitutes Anonymous started because "prostitution is an addiction"? Nope.

Was it started to "outlaw prostitution"? Nope.

Are we trying to outlaw prostitution or do we condemn it? Nope.

It was started by ex-sex workers who wanted to find a way to get our community out of jail - especially out of jail so they could not lose their kids and also get proper medical care they weren't getting in jail (ESPECIALLY if they were transgender because back then when a trans was put into jail they were denied all hormones and/or any medical care to remain their chosen sex).

It was started as a means for sex workers and madams to be able to meet and discuss how to help their community without fear of law enforcement surveillance and/or even being arrested for something like conspiracy or possibly violating their probation/parole simply for having coffee with a friend.

The hotline for this program, being the first hotline in the country for sex workers, didn't make "distinctions" about who could call them for help. We didn't say you had to be "trafficked" to get help. We didn't even say you "had to say you wanted to quit sex work" to get help. If you were involved with the sex industry in any way, male, female and/or trans, a prostitute or a pimp or a madam or whatever, who needed help with anything for any reason - you called us because we were literally the only hotline to call for any help. A hotline that's still being answered today.

Realize we had NOTHING back then except COYOTE - which was focused primarily on California and then Rhode Island. Now trust me - the jails weren't going to agree to release inmates convicted on prostitution and/or madam charges into COYOTE'S custody back then - but they were to Prostitutes Anonymous. Because of the 14th amendment, the courts HAD to turn someone who asked for it over to us as "medical treatment" or they could possibly have a lawsuit filed against them for denying them this option. Again, the benefits of having these laws about 12 step programs and the courts already grandfathered in by AA and NA - it allowed us to move quickly and without money or anyone's help but us back then.

I say that because back then, the legal and political system viewed "prostitutes" by the legal definition of "criminal" across the board no matter what their circumstances were. So if you were kidnapped off the street, handcuffed to a bed and forced to be a prostitute (as did happen back then), then the law STILL considered you a "criminal".

This status also meant you were not able to access any services or experience any of the legal benefits of being a "victim" through the Office of Victim Services. But as "ex-prostitutes", they HAD to listen to us. That's why by 1991 - we had every major city in the USA turning anyone who was convicted of these charges over to our program as an alternative to going to jail.

But that was before money entered into the picture - which did once the Trafficking Act passed in 2000. That's when things changed entirely. Now if you'd like to know more about this history, about this 12 step program, and/or how things changed in this country once the Trafficking Act passed - allowing for the first time some people who were in sex work to be viewed as a "victim" instead of a "criminal" as was the case across the board before - then you can learn about the entire history over the years at www.thejodywilliamsproject.com