FUNDRAISER FOR #TJHISHAandANGELIA’s FAMILIES

AMBER LOVE 24-SEP-2014 There’s a cult of misogynists (including sad ill-informed women) who denounce Emma Watson’s now famous UN speech which launched the #HeForShe campaign. The call to action was directed at men to get off their asses and not cheer on their women from the sidelines when it comes to equal rights. It’s sad that we expected there to be backlash. I think most of us also expected a fair amount of men to jump on this campaign trail and continue the blaze saying they’ve been here all along.

But are they really here? Are they really concerned for all women?

SELECTIVE EMPATHY

Sex workers’ rights and lives rarely come into mainstream focus. It was when the world lost the glorious grandmother to all, MAYA ANGELOU, that a light was shone on the world’s oldest industry in a more positive way. Yet there was still that apologetic and sympathetic cloud: oh, that poor woman didn’t have any other way to attain income. That’s the message that comes through predominantly. Not that maybe some women choose the industry because they want to do that work. The notion women want to be dancers, prostitutes, cam girls, Dommes, or anything else considered vulgar and dirty is lost, out of reach of the white masses unless you’re actually one of them.

I follow a lot of people on Twitter, over 2,000. It can be hard to keep up with at times. I have no idea if there is an analytical tool for determining the demographics of who I’m following, though there is probably something out there about who is following me. I don’t know if I’m simply missing the feeds of men that would be talking about the sex industry without condemning it while still enjoying the elements of it as entertainment. It was on Twitter where I learned of TJHISHA BALL(17) and ANGELIA MAGNUM (19) as victims of brutal crime. It was on Twitter where sex-positive users had no problem referring to the young ladies as sex workers; but that detail is carefully omitted in every newspaper article I’ve read.

Crime Fiction Writers, I’m looking at you. Why are you ignoring these women when you use women like this as your inspiration?

This week, not one of the crime writers I follow has mentioned the heinous murders of BALL and MAGNUM, two strippers in Florida. They’re murders were so similar to scenes from modern crime fiction novels, TV, and movies. It’s damn near surreal: take two strippers, strip them nake, (do god knows what), murder them, bind their hands, and dump the bodies on the side of a Jacksonville road around 1 am on Thursday, September 18, 2014. And none of you seem to have this on your radar – not even for “research.”

Is it because they are women? Is it because they are Afican-American? Is it because they are sex workers? Is it because they are not your daughters?

Some people have taken the initiative to set up a YouCaring page to raise the $17,000 for the funeral costs with any exceeding going to the families. Follow Twitter user @_peech for those details.

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.