Christians in Sexwork
A Forum for Strippers & All sexworkers

At
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Christianstrippersandothers/

Background
Christian Sexworkers?
From Dave's E-mail (from DZ)
if you know a Christian prostitute, perhaps we could put up her testimony on a website or at your site. A lot of people would be interested in that, I think.

at your page http://www.sexwork.com/coalition/christian.html would you consider doing the following:
inviting any Christian prostitutes, strippers, sex workers, erotic massage practitioners, etc to share their testimonies for a page of testimonies and letting any prostitutes, strippers, sex workers, erotic massage practitioners, etc know that you will take their prayer requests and be praying for them?

I'd like to read that and I'd be happy to pray for those who have prayer requests. If they share their testimonies, it would be interesting to read how and when they came to know God, if they attend church now, if so, what kind, and how they personally reconcile their work with their understanding of God.

Dave replied that I am supportive of the idea but not sure how much response there would be other than just attract tons of guys. I suggested a private board as to not expose to LE risk and where they could be anonymous and share issues more privately.

DZ started a public Yahoo group and brought in lots of new guys in a few days and one Christian stripper.

I suggested using Christian prostitutes and strippers as the group name was a bit offense since prostitution is illegal and narrow usually meaning the street hooker vs the private professional "sexworker". DZ changed the group to
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Christianstrippersandothers/

The intro DZ wrote:
This group is for Christians who are entertainers, prostitutes, escorts, erotic massage practitioners, noode (that is a yahoo peculiarity. They say you can't have any profane or vulgar language in a group description and "nude" is a prohibited word.) models, adult models and strippers to share their testimonies, prayer requests and needs, if any. This group is allow for nonChristians of the same types or others to ask questions, if they wish, or to share prayer requests and needs, if they wish. The home page photo is of Christina Silvas, who was a Christian attending an Assembly of God church and a Sunday School teacher. She was also working as a stripper, and then posed for Playboy. When the church found out she was working as a stripper, they threatened to expel her daughter from kindergarten. I don't know if Christina has found another church, but we'd welcome her! We'd also note that Kathy Ireland and Britney Spears are Christian. This group will be moderated to prevent flame-throwing or other hurtful and abusive posts against those who share some of their lives. Christian edification in the way of testimonies, Bible explanation or other discussion is appropriate. For the sake of personal privacy of any females who may post, some may wish to create a new yahoo ID with a fictitious name and location. I wouldn't want anyone to be snared by vice cops because one such saw your name, location and story of any "illegal" work. Of course, others may be happy to post with a real name and location. Either is fine with us! God bless you!

Dave comments: I discussed the idea with Bill, my co-founder of Liberated Christians (http;//www.libchrist.com). He has no interest but is supportive of my interest in sexwork but we have agreed nothing would be said about sexwork on www.libchrist.com since it might offend some folks there and detracts from the main purpose of libchrist.com.

Below are some of Bill's comments which I very much agree with:
... it would seem to me that any Christian sexworkers or strippers would be laboring under a lot of spiritual and emotional conflict regarding their faith, since virtually any opinions about their professions they would have encountered in the church would be extremely negative. This state of affairs would lead me to doubt they would open up to any inquiries. On the other hand, this could be the very reason to try and reach them, if a means could be devised to do it.

As far as sexworkers are concerned, I think that the women you interact with on your sexwork site and in person probably know about Liberated Christians. Maybe you could put up something on the sexwork site inquiring as to whether any sexworkers have Christian backgrounds, without implying that you're trying to evangelize or something. It would be interesting to see if you get any response. If you did, you (we?) could go from there as to how to follow this with further discussion.

As for strippers, one of the things that is obvious is that the majority of these women are quite young. While I have never done any research into the demographics of strippers, I would suppose that many of them have hit on this work as bringing in bigger bucks than minimum wage jobs and that, at least in some cities, Phoenix being among them, many are probably college students, paying for tuition with their income. The point is that, because many (most?) of them are stripping for what I assume is fairly good money, rather than because of the thrill, it is at least statistically likely that some have some sort of Christian background, something they are as likely to hide as swingers hide their backgrounds.

It's also possible that a few have found the LC site because they may have been trying to reconcile their Christian experience with their jobs.

So, I'm wondering if it would make any sense to write something on the site about stripping and see if any strippers would respond. I have some doubts about this being productive.

My thought is whether the goal is to be supportive of the Christian sexworker or have a place zillions of men will come to lurk. If they are sincere Christians that can be OK, but I question whether that will be the case.
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Dave comments I am now setting up a link on sexwork.com both on the main page and in article "Prostitution Is Not A Biblical Conflict" and on www.sexworktoronto.com I invite anyone with Christian issues to come and both Bill and I as well as DZ, are available for more private support.

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