Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 281 with Phoenix Calida of SWOP-USA – Part Two

Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 281 with Phoenix Calida of SWOP USA

This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker, and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk, where each week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry, and we give you a tip on buying and selling websites. This week we'll be speaking with Phoenix Calida of SWOP USA in part two of our interview. There are some upcoming events we'll be attending. December 3rd and 4th, I'll be at Affiliate World Conference in Bangkok. December 7th through the 9th, I'll be sponsoring AW Summit Elite in Ko chang, Thailand. And to start the year right, I'll be in Hollywood for XBiz LA. I hope to see many of you at these events. If you'd like to sit down and discuss business at any of these shows, contact us at adultsitebroker.com. We're proud to announce our latest project, thewaronporn.com. You'll find articles on age verification laws and other attacks on our industry. It's to raise awareness of our industry's plight in the war on porn. You'll find all that and more at thewaronporn.com. Now time for our properties of the week for sale at Adult Site Broker. We have a premium AI companion platform focused on emotional realism and deep memory. Users interact with lifelike companions that remember every detail and respond with real emotion. We have a network of BDSM subreddits. It has over 1.49 million users, over 3.8 million posts, and almost 45,000 comments. There's a porn picture site with both a Web3 and a Web2 domain. The keyword of the domains is one of the most globally recognized in search terms in the world, porn. We have a buyer who's looking for dating and lifestyle sites in Europe. They would also consider other geos. We're offering a strip chat white label. The average user spends 24 minutes on the site. We have a network of interracial reality hardcore sites. The main site has reality hardcore porn with amateur girls as well as some porn stars. There's a unique platform that bridges the gap between mainstream social link services like Linktree and adult content creators on platforms like OnlyFans. They combine a bio link with the ability to send virtual gifts. We're offering a growing free porn gaming site with adult sex games. The site is owned by one of the top entrepreneurs in our industry. And there's a highly active, organically grown Reddit community centered around the stocking and foot fetish niches. For more information, go to our listings page at adultsitebroker.com. If you have any questions, please contact us on our website. Now time for this week's interview. My guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk is Phoenix from SwapUSA. Phoenix, thanks for being with us on Adult Site Broker Talk. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here. I'm glad we finally got it together. We've been talking for a while. Phoenix is a longtime advocate for sex worker rights. Originally from Chicago, Phoenix experienced both poverty and police violence, and as a result, became determined to advocate for sex worker rights to prevent others from having to experience similar issues. When not talking about sex workers' rights, she can be found in the garden or under a pile of yarn and crochet hooks. SwapUSA is a national grassroots social justice network dedicated to the fundamental human rights of sex workers and their communities, focusing on ending violence and stigma through education, community building, and advocacy. Their goal is to uplift and protect sex workers through advocacy, education, and community support. Why do we need to talk about the stigma against sex workers? In a short answer, stigma kills. which quite frankly like that's the root of it but it's the stigma that allows bad laws to happen it's the stigma that makes people ignore when bad policies and laws are presented it also makes people ignore when violence happens to sex workers one of the things that i do with swap is the december 17th list and i essentially part of my job involves reading about sex workers who have been murdered at least three times a week and it's very heavy and it's very brutal and a lot of that is because of the stigma where people are just like, oh, no one cares if you're a sex worker and you get assaulted or you get murdered or, you know, you get hurt in some way. Like whether it's from bad policy or a bad law to someone like literally strangling you to death, there's just this assumption that your life has less value because you did sex work. And that is the cost of stigma. That is the price of stigma. And I really want that too. And I would like, you know, there to be less stigma for sex workers to be humanized. Well, I've got a personal story to share on that. There was a woman that I used to see in Oakland, because I'm from the Bay Area, and I actually saw a story on the news where a pimp came up to the window of her car and shot her to death, shot her in the head. She had children. It was very personal because I had started to know this person fairly well. And yeah, so a lot of sex workers get murdered and the police don't seem to care. Public doesn't seem to care. It's, it's terrible. It's awful. Like it's, and of course, you know, I'm from, I mentioned I'm from Chicago, so I try to, you know, I don't still live there, but I do try to keep an eye on news and there haven't been killings in the last couple years, as far as I know, but there seems to be a serial killer that was in Chicago, just murdering sex workers on the South side and no one. Yeah, there seems to be what a lot of the serial killers go after is sex workers. And it's tragic. It's very tragic. So cover a bit about the bias in healthcare against sex workers. Oh, right. So one of the things we have a swap behind bars is a 24-7 hotline. And we get calls from people who need resources. And one of the things that we get a lot of calls about consistently are sex workers who need a healthcare or healthcare resources. Because once your medical provider knows what you do, a lot of them will refuse to treat you or they refuse to treat you seriously, by which I mean, like treat you seriously in the sense that they take your symptoms seriously. They take what's going on in your life seriously. Right. So like one of the things that we see a lot is if sex workers have some sort of mental health struggle that we've had medical providers who will be like, well, you're only depressed because you do sex work or you are mentally unwell because you do sex work. If you just quit doing sex work, then you'll be better. You don't actually need medication or you don't need therapy. That can be fatal if somebody's depressed. Absolutely. We've also had instances where we've had people who have had like normal run-of-the-mill health conditions that were taken seriously by providers. One of the ones that we had was a woman who had two small children and anyone who has had small children knows that they are contagious like once you said they're good little germ carriers aren't they they are and i don't have that problem with my dogs fortunately but yeah her uh kids there was a pink eye outbreak at their school because you know once one kid gets it then it's the whole school and of course And she ended up with pink eye and her medical provider was just insistent on the fact that like it couldn't have come from the outbreak at her child's elementary school. It had to be because she was doing sex work and was essentially taking too many cum shots to the face. Yeah. Time to throw that doctor aside. There's health care specialists in the adult industry for porn. Do we have such a thing for in-person sex workers? We are working on it. We are trying to create a list. It's still somewhat in its infancy, but we are working on it because it really is a need for the community. And also one of the things, too, is for people who do have children that sometimes health care providers will report them to child services for the assumption of abuse or being a negligent or incompetent parent because you do sex work. And it's like that's not really an appropriate response to that. So, yeah, there's a lot of ways that there ends up being discrimination from medical providers. And we would like to see less of that, you know, because ultimately that just scares sex workers from going to see doctors and medical providers. And, you know, the further isolated you are, the more at risk of harm you become. So we kind of want to avoid that, you know. Yeah. You guys should be in touch with Jamie Bell from PASS. It's a testing facility, but they also, you know, I believe they also provide health care for sex workers, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, I can introduce you. Not a problem. He's a past guest, of course. Everybody's been on this, including you. Everybody's been here. Exactly. I'm part of the club. You're part of the club. Give me a brief overview of the groups that oppose sex worker rights. Who are they and what are their goals? Christian dominionism. mostly is the goal. A lot of the groups that are post-sex work generally tend to be right-wing or conservative religious groups, usually Christian evangelical. There is sometimes this just weird, bizarre, unholy alliance between certain types of radical feminists and conservative Christians, because both groups kind of hate sex, it seems. You know, I just, I mean, I just, I don't know. I abortion and lower the legal age for child marriage. Like that's just, I don't know. That's just me. Well, you don't live in Alabama or Utah, obviously. Indeed, that might be my problem. Or Arkansas. I may have been spoiled by the liberalism of Chicago. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And me, San Francisco, big time. Big time. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I think one of the things worth noting about these groups, too, is that a lot of them don't actually do what they claim. We've had groups like Exodus Cry or was it Operation Underground Railroad? Oh, but Exodus Cry, that was their old name, right? Mm-hmm. Which, oh my God, they still have that as a handle because ironically, they just followed the Swap account on Twitter and I'm like, why? Yeah, this afternoon, a couple hours ago, actually. I was like, why would you follow us? Okay. but yeah they have really awful ideas about sex work and they push propaganda about you know almost everyone in the industry is trafficked and which is not true at all not even remotely close to being true well they say they say that about porn which is is so fucking ridiculous yeah and it's just like that's it's just not even possible for there to be the amount of trafficking that they claim like if you really like break down the logistics of it like it's just not possible well the whole the whole Super Bowl myth, for instance. Right, exactly. People are like, well, all those sex workers that go to the Super Bowl are trafficked. No, I'm sure some are trafficked, but the vast majority are trying to make some bucks off the high rollers that are at the Super Bowl. Absolutely. And, you know, worth noting that as much as they say like the Super Bowl or other sporting events cause a peak in trafficking, there are not arrests of traffickers or rescue of trafficking victims that correlate to that to those um claims so and then there's a who was it like operation underground railroad that mess which was tim ballard's group um if folks don't know they made that sound of freedom movie about his exploits however it turns out that he actually is the trafficker so yes isn't life lovely so interesting yeah yeah so people were paying millions of dollars for him to go to non-white countries and rescue children from sex traffickers. And it turned out that he was actually just trafficking white women, white Mormon women from Utah to go on his little adventures. So, yeah. Yeah. That's a story all in itself. Talk a bit about sex work and boundaries. Oh, right. Yeah. I think that that's also part of the stigma and part of a lot of the propaganda that the anti-porn and anti-sex work groups try to really push is this idea that sex workers aren't capable of having boundaries. And that's just so, first of all, offensive. And secondly, incredibly harmful, because it really does reinforce the idea that sex workers are lesser people or they aren't deserving of the same rights and dignity and safety as others. And so we see this a lot where, especially coming from like the Marxist feminists, the radical feminists, I know someone's gonna send me a very long angry email because i said feminist you will not be the first you will not be the last it's fine but you know a lot of their thing is this idea that like sex work is degrading because it's just you're just like a set of holes for a man to masturbate into which is like a crazy fucking thing to say first of all like who talks like that but also is reinforcing the idea that you know all these jokes about like oh uh if i rape a sex worker is it rape or is it like theft uh you know because i didn't pay her and you know like you're just reinforcing that type of stuff and these people claim that they support women but i really am terrified like i can't imagine what they would do if they were on a jury where a sex worker got raped like i don't think they would actually convict the rapist that's a good point now they i'm sure they wouldn't right because they're like well you can't say no and it's like well first of all you can say no sex workers do have boundaries. Sex workers are allowed to have boundaries. It's absolutely absurd to suggest that. And just because money has changed hands and it's not different than anyone else having sex, even if it's a non-transactional type of sex, just because you, you know, consent to maybe performing oral sex on someone doesn't mean that they have a right to hold you down and anally penetrate you. You know what I mean? Like, no, like we set boundaries. We're allowed to have those. And so there's really something deep in the dehumanization of sex workers and the assumption of the lack of boundaries that I think makes it easier to justify violence against sex workers because there's this whole concept that like, oh, well, they didn't have a right to say no anyway because they're just a sex worker or, oh, they consented to anything because they're a sex worker. And that's just like absolutely not true. And the whole topic infuriates me really. Yeah. It's like, it's like saying if you're married, you can't commit rape on your wife. Yes, you absolutely can. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And just because you consented to something at one point doesn't mean you forever consent to that same thing. Like you can consent to a specific sex act once, that doesn't mean that the next time you have sex, you have to do it again. Like that's not how boundaries work. And it's just incredibly disappointing at the type of people that are pushing these myths because you're really just doing a disservice to the concept of consent for everyone. That's correct. And everyone has that right to consent. Absolutely. Give us some tips for community building. Oh, okay. So community building is one of my favorite things. Here's the hard part. You have to be willing to listen to people. I know it's not fun. It's not exciting. It's probably a little bit annoying because they're going to tell you that you're wrong because they've been here longer than you and they know more than you and you just got to eat that that is i think one of the biggest things is that that we constantly see is new people come in who are like oh i have this fantastic idea of how to deal with xyz let's do everything my way and ignore the fact that there's someone who's been here for 10 years or 20 years or 30 years who are like we already tried doing it that way multiple times and it didn't work and here's why because like once someone gets into something new from the ground level, like, but I, no one has ever thought of the way I'm presenting it. I promise you we have. So you need to learn how to be humble in that aspect. Kind of like the Nordic model. Exactly. Exactly. Like, I promise you we've discussed it. And so, you know, being able to be humble and listen, and also being able to sort of meet people where they're at, I think is a really important thing. I think a lot of people struggle with the idea that people have radically different lived experiences sometimes, right? And so someone can be talking about something and a new person will be like, well, I don't want to hear this or what you're saying is stressful or what you're saying is depressing or it's traumatizing and I don't want to hear it. It's like, but that is part of being in the community is being able to listen to different viewpoints, including the ones that you don't want. And also giving the community what they actually need. With SWAP, we try to do a lot of outreach. I personally do outreach where I live. And one of the things that always sort of strikes me is people will be like, oh, can I donate stuff to your outreach? Or can I do outreach with you? Which actually, no, you can't do outreach with me unless you go to a training session about how to do outreach, just saying. But people are like, oh, but I just want to go and do outreach, or I just want to donate some stuff. And then they donate like the most useless things. And I'm like, nobody wants what you're giving me. I have nothing to do with these things. There's nothing I can with these things because you didn't listen to what the community itself actually wanted and actually needed. And that's like a big part of why the act of listening is so important. Right. Because it was, uh, oh my gosh, someone donated, uh, candy. Like, um, like, oh, I forgot what they're called now, but it's one of like the most like sweetest stick to your teeth type of candies that like is in existence. Um, yeah. And I was like, you realize that I'm going out, give stuff to people who have been homeless for a long time and don't have dental care, right? Like, they can't afford to eat stuff like this. And even if they could, I don't know that they want to. Yeah, they need food and housing. They don't need dessert. Exactly. Like, can you give me like sandwiches and housing vouchers or something? Like, give me something useful. And it's like, a lot of people just have this idea that like, I just want to jump in because I have ideas. But it's like, just calm down, temper that, Dial it back a little bit and see if your ideas are actually what the community wants and actually what the community needs. So much more satisfying to actually build good community connections based on reciprocal communication, as opposed to you just barging and being like, here, this is the best way to do it. And no, no, no, it's not. No, it's not. Yes, I would imagine that is a frustrating thing because I'm sure you get a lot of ideas thrown at you. Quite often. And I mean, sometimes they're good, but usually they're not. You know, because it's always this whole like, well, I've never been in that situation, but this is what I think I would do. Unless you've actually been in the situation, you don't know what you would do. So just listen to someone who's there. They'll tell you. But I think that also goes back to seeing people as people who have agency, who have autonomy, who are capable of being reliable narrators of their own experiences. They don't need you to speak over them. And they're perfectly capable of telling you what would be most beneficial for them. So just listen, shut the fuck up. That's your advice on community building. Shut the fuck up. Okay, we'll just, we'll summarize it at that. How can sex workers engage in self-care? Oh, I think that one thing that's really awesome is having sex worker-led spaces that are like sex worker only. I think that's hugely important. I also think it's important for sex workers to be able to know where to go to talk to each other. You know, I did mention that SwapUSA and Swap Behind Bars has the 24-7 hotline where sex workers can call in, you know, vent, ask for resources, just talk to someone. I think that that's a hugely important resource. And I also think it's important because there is so much stigma against sex workers and there are so few resources in the grand scheme of things. I think it's really important for sex workers to take care of their mental and physical health because they're not always encouraged to, and they don't always have places to do it. So it's like you really do have to take the time to carve out for yourself and create a space. And I wish more sex workers would focus on that because that is really a long-term survival strategy. You can't just keep running until you burn out. Like, that's not healthy. Well, it's not healthy in anything. It was like me cutting down from six days a week doing my walks to five days a week. I was burning out. And I realized that if I took another day off, it would make all the difference in the world. And it absolutely did. It's the same thing with what you're talking about. With any kind of work, with any kind of workout, you have to give yourself rest. You have to give yourself pause. You have to take your time. Absolutely. I wish more sex workers felt comfortable enough to do that. But it's hard. Oh, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it absolutely is. A lot of people feel like they're in a race and life isn't really about that. By the way, I know there are many chapters of Swap. We talked about Swap Behind Bars. You guys are Swap USA. How do all the chapters coexist and how are they related? And along with that, how would you advise sex workers in terms of which chapter to talk to or, you know, things like that? Well, most of them are geographical. Like, obviously, you're going to want to reach out to a local chapter because they will, even though everybody talks nationally, you know, and we all get together, one of the main focuses is on trying to determine what's best for the community that each chapter is located in, right? Because whatever's happening in LA might not be useful to what's happening in Tennessee, which might not be relevant to what's happening in the Bronx. And so you obviously are going to want to go to somewhere that's more local to you. Obviously, national is national, but one of our main focuses is on policy in education. So that may or may not be helpful to what you're looking at. And then, of course, swap behind bars is for current or formerly incarcerated sex workers. So, you know, everyone sort of has their own function, I guess. I sort of think it is like parts of a body. Like we all are one body, but, you know, one person might be a leg, one person might be a hand, someone's a nose, you know, that sort of thing. That would be my best advice about that. You know, we also try to work with other sex worker organizations, too, because you might need something that's more specific that we don't do. Right. Because like it might not be enough to, for example, no sex workers or have a sex worker organization in New York City. you might need one that's like specifically for immigrants, particularly Asian immigrants, right, which is like Red Canary Song, you know, love them. Yeah, so you might need something that's maybe more specific, you know, going beyond just like the geography of the thing, like your specific needs. So that's what we try to do. But we do swap USA, we do try to keep a network of different activists, different organizations, and you know, so that we can connect people as needed, because we are all on the same team, you know? Sure, absolutely. It's all about protecting sex workers. How does somebody find out about their local chapter? Do you just, I mean, is it just something you can Google or go to Swap USA or what? We have some of them listed on the website. We do have some independent activists who aren't on the website, but you can always email us. We do have an info at SwapUSA.org. You can always inquire about your local area. And if we don't have anything in your area, then if we do know someone who works out of your area, you know, we can try to set you up with them. But, yeah, if it's not listed on our social media or on our website, you can always email us because not everybody wants to be listed for obvious reasons. So, you know, Whisper Networks save the world. Yeah, no, absolutely. How many branches are there altogether? And are you attempting to open new ones in any specific places? Between us and our affiliated other organizations, there's like 22, 23. And yeah, we do want to open up more. One of the things that we've been trying to work with is folks, in particular down south right now. I know I sound like such a Midwestern. There's a need. Down South. Yes, there's very much a need down South, especially as we're watching like the censorship bills and just evangelical conservative Christian policy happening. We definitely want to do that. And also trying to partner up more with orgs that focus on migrant sex workers, obviously, because of the current political climate. So I was going to say, that's just something that we've also noticed, like where there's a need and something that's lacking is that as we're seeing, you know, like an increase of ICE raids and anti-immigration rhetoric and things like that, that oftentimes sex workers are left out of that conversation because they aren't really seen as like respectable enough to be cared for by some of these organizations. Like we've seen people who are, you know, doing like bail funds and, you know, paying for lawyers or certain types of law firms that are doing like pro bono or like low cost immigration work. A lot of them haven't really been receptive to sex workers who've needed help. So I'm trying to branch out there as well. How is this whole immigration matter that Trump is totally mishandling? Oh, I said his name again. I'm sorry. I meant the orange blob. How is this whole immigration mess impacting sex workers? It is greatly impacting sex workers. One, because there are a lot of sex workers who are immigrants, first of all. Also, it would appear that a lot of the anti-immigration rhetoric is very heavily race-coded. So even if you do have paperwork to be here or you are a natural-born citizen, like whether you moved here legally or you were born here, if you're not white, there still is like a certain amount of concern, especially if you speak multiple language or English isn't your first language. And that's, for sex workers in particular, is tied into the anti-trafficking panics, the moral panic that we keep seeing, where it's really common for someone to see a sex worker living out of a motel or something who doesn't necessarily speak English very well, and for them to call law enforcement and be like, oh, there's a sex trafficking victim who got brought here from another country. And now, not only given the current climate, you not only have to deal with police, you might also have to deal with ICE. And it's not great. Yeah, the whole thing's pretty rotten. I can smell it from here. How can people outside the industry get involved and help sex workers fight for their rights? I mean, we have so many different places that we are operating right now. Obviously, call your lawmakers. I wish more people would make it a habit to call their lawmakers. go to your town halls, you know, like let people know what's going on, share articles about policy, right? Whether that be censorship policies, the age verification laws, actual like directly, direct sex work policy, all those sort of things. And, you know, one of the biggest things to do also is just to boost the work of sex workers, whether that's sex workers, blogs or podcasts, where they're talking about policy, they're talking about their lives, they're talking about what would help them, what hurts them, all those sort of things. Because really what I would love to see is normalizing sex workers as people and not just as people to listen to, but as like normal people. One of the ways that the stigma manifests itself is relying on the idea that the average person doesn't want to admit that they know a sex worker or that they consume pornographic content, you know, or that they've seen sex workers in person. And so they're sort of like relying on your shame to help the stigma that hurts sex workers. So it's like also kind of let go of your own shame and be like, oh, yeah, you know what? I do watch porn. I don't care. I watch porn. I do. And, you know, and like, and by watching porn, I found this sex worker and she has a blog and she talks about policies in her state. And I think she's, you know, great. So here's her blog. Like, you know, get in the habit of doing that type of thing. I think that would be incredibly helpful right now. Well, I feel very proud that on this podcast, we are very, very pro sex worker. I've had Amy Taylor on twice, who you undoubtedly know. I've had Elijah Foss on. They're both high-end providers. And I'm certainly looking for more because I want to hear their stories. I want my listeners to hear their stories. And I think it's important that everybody in the adult industry embrace the fact that they're a sex worker and not horse shame. Because that's really been a problem, hasn't it? Yeah, absolutely. I'm assuming you meant in a hierarchy way, but also yes. Yes, yes. Yes, exactly. Would like to think that some of that is going out the window, given the current climate, because it's no longer that like being legal will keep you safe or saying like, oh, but I only do cam work. I don't do in person. I'm better than you. That's not keeping you safe. Like, you know, like you're still going to be impacted by the age verification laws. You know what I mean? You know, like we really are much more in the same boat, I think, than people realized. And I'm kind of hoping that I think that this is an excellent, an excellent moment for coalition building. And hopefully we can make some serious ground that way, because we really are in this together. Whether people like to admit it or not, we're in this together. And I'd like to see more people come to our adult industry events because it really gives you an opportunity to talk to and meet people like myself and other people who run porn sites and run cam sites and fan sites and are involved in payments and, you know, do all the different tasks that make up the adult internet space. Yeah, no, that sounds like a fantastic idea, actually. And I think that that would be just amazing in the sense that it would provide excellent opportunities for connections and teamwork, which is really what we need right now, because none of us are going to be able to survive this alone. We just aren't. We've got to work together like we're doing today. Phoenix, I'd like to thank you for being our guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk, and I hope we'll get a chance to do this again soon. Thank you so much for having me. I would love to do it again. Well, you will. My broker tip today is part four of how to buy a site. Last week, we discussed making an offer and deciding the best price for the site you're buying. Once you've made your offer, the work begins. If you're working with a broker, like say, oh, I don't know, maybe adult site broker, we handle the negotiation for you. Let's say the seller doesn't accept your offer. They may make a counteroffer. If you decide that you're willing to pay more, You can either accept their counteroffer or counter back to them. A good rule of thumb is to always leave room to negotiate, so don't make an offer that's the absolute most you're willing to pay. If you do that, then you have nowhere to go if the owner counters your offer. Once the owner and you have come to a deal, then it's time to do some due diligence beyond what it is you've already done. During the initial process of looking at the site, you should have asked some questions. like in the case of a pay site, how many joins and rebills there are per day, and any other pertinent questions. During due diligence, you need to make sure everything is where you need it to be, technically, to integrate it with what you're already doing. You may even get your developer involved if you're not tech savvy. You and or your developer should ask these pertinent questions. Once those are answered to your satisfaction, you should either have the seller or yourself draw up a sales agreement. I always tell my clients to do the agreement. Why? Because that way you can dictate the terms. So whether you're the buyer or the seller, you can make the rules. But just get ready to have the seller's attorney change some of those rules. Nothing is final until everything is signed off on. Another thing we do for our clients is a letter of intent prior to the sales agreement being done. This gives your attorney a roadmap for the agreement. The letter of intent and more so the agreement will have all the terms involved, including who pays for everything, who pays for escrow, for instance. This can be paid by the buyer, the seller, or split between both parties. We'll talk about this subject more next week. And next week, we'll be speaking with Brad Mitchell of Mojo Host. And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest, Phoenix Calida of SWOP USA. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.