Sex workers will protest Amy Schumer at S.F. festival
Feminist Amy Schumer doesn’t have the back of one segment of the female population: San Francisco sex workers don’t like the way she makes jokes at their expense and plan to protest her performance today at Clusterfest.
“We want the audience to know that Amy’s jokes have some real-life effects on our already marginalized work,” Maxine Doogan, a sex worker activist and founder of ESPLER Project, said in a statement. The ESPLER Project is a nonprofit that provides by legal advocacy, education and research on behalf of sex workers and other erotic service providers.
The protest by sex workers, from 4 to 6 p.m. today outside San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, coincides with International Whore’s Day and scheduled demonstrations by thousands of sex workers in cities around the world.
Sex workers also object to Schumer’s vocal support for a controversial new law that targets online sex trafficking by holding websites responsible for user content related to sex work.
President Donald Trump in April signed into law the bill known both as the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act and the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act. The bill enjoyed wide political support from prosecutors, victims, anti-trafficking activists and a handful of celebrities, including Schumer.
But many sex workers and some advocates for trafficking victims, along with tech advocacy groups, opposed the bipartisan legislation,
fearing it would make vulnerable populations less safe and put restrictions on free speech, according to the Cut.
The bill would target sites such as Craigslist and Backpage.com, which are used to advertise sex services that are offered by voluntary sex workers, as well as by involuntary victims who are sometimes underage, the Huffington Post reported.
Sex workers worry there could be unintended consequences from cracking down on sites they’ve long used to screen clients, post messages and share “bad date lists,” The Cut said.
Sex workers say that censoring these sites or forcing them to shut down could force them back out onto the streets.
Doogan said, “SESTAFOSTA, which makes it a crime for a third-party platform to enable or facilitate sex work, has resulted in our advertising platforms being shut down, and
forced us out of relatively safe online spaces into riskier street work.
“Thanks to the law, many resource and advocacy organizations have also shuttered. Amy supported the law and even made a PSA in support of it.”
As for Schumer, the ESPLER project release didn’t specify which jokes the comedian, actress and “Trainwreck” star had made at sex workers’ expense in her routines. But she is known for her raunchy, self-deprecating comedy which she uses to skewer sexism, gender relationships and popular culture.
Schumer is scheduled to perform at 9:15 p.m. as part of the second annual Clusterfest . a three-day festival of comedy and music.
Other stars performing at the festival include Jon Stewart, Trevor Noah, Tiffany Haddish and Berkeley’s The Lonely Island.