Modern Era
(1950 AD - )
Room One
Margo St. James
(circa 1940 - )
In 1962, at the age of 25, Margo St. James decided to become a sex worker and worked as a prostitute for four years. In 1973 St. James started Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE), arguably the first American organization of prostitutes to work towards its decriminalization and destigmatization.
Links:
Unofficial Margo St. James Fan Club
Xaviera Hollander
(June 15, 1943 - )
Xaviera Hollander was born in Indonesia to Dutch parents. After living in Holland and South Africa, a romantic interest brought her to the United States where she became the secretary of the Belgian Ambassador. When her engagement broke up she began working as a New York call girl on the side and later became a successful madam. In 1972 she wrote the autobiographical book, The Happy Hooker, which was a landmark in positively presenting sex work. It became a global bestseller. For the next thirty years she wrote a column for the magazine, Penthouse. Regan Books published a 30th Anniversary edition of The Happy Hooker in 2002. The 30th Anniversary edition demonstrates how much has changed in that prostitution tell-alls no longer raise eyebrows, and how much has not in that Regan Books found it prudent to censor parts that had been previously acceptable.
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Norma Jean Almodovar
(May 27, 1951 - )
Norma Jean Almodovar was born in Binghamton, New York. Her ancestry includes a Mayflower pilgrim, a Harvard president, and Charlemagne. Almodovar grew up poor and had 13 siblings. Her mother raised her as a Baptist fundamentalist and she grew up believing she was chosen by God to become a missionary to Puerto Rico.
After high school, Almodovar, visited her aunt in California and became involved in a fundamentalist Christian cult. Through the cult she met Radames Almodovar and married him. During their marriage Radames forced Almodovar to get an abortion and later became inebriated with her 16 year old sister and had sex with her. The marriage only lasted three years.
In 1972 she joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) as a traffic officer. (At that time women were not allowed to be regular officers.) For ten years she worked in the notoriously corrupt Rampart and Hollywood Divisions.
Disgusted with the unjust and foul activities of the LAPD that included a burglary and drug ring, a murder-for-hire ring, and sex with minors she resigned in 1982. Almodovar then became a Beverly Hills call girl because:
In 1983 Almodovar was visited by a friend on the police force, Penny Isgro. Isgro told Almodovar that she had a sexual fantasy to work as a call girl. Almodovar made a phone call to assist Isgro in this desire. Because of this, seven LAPD officers with their guns drawn later came to her apartment and arrested her for "pandering." Isgro admitted during Almodovar's trial that she set up Almodovar to prevent her from writing an expose of the LAPD. (The LAPD confiscated all her manuscripts during the arrest.) For making a phone call on behalf of Isgro, Almodovar spent two months in solitary confinement for a psychiatric evaluation and later 18 months in a prison.
Although Almodovar was originally sentenced to only three years of probation, for the first time ever the Los Angeles District Attorney appealed a judge's sentence. This obvious attempt to prevent Almodovar from publishing her book about the corrupt LAPD drew nationwide attention including a feature on the television program, "60 Minutes."
After leaving prison in 1988 no publisher was willing to publish her book, Cop to Callgirl. In 1991 the Los Angeles riots over the beating of Rodney King occurred. It was not until this event exposed the circus that was Los Angeles justice that a publishing house finally had the courage to publish Almodovar's book in 1994.
Almodovar has continued to be a leading voice in the rights of sex workers. She continues to run the Los Angeles branch of COYOTE and was a co-founder of the International Sex Worker Foundation for Art, Culture and Education (ISWFACE, pronounced "ice face").
Her proudest achievement was as a COYOTE delegate to the United Nations' Fourth World Women's Conference in Beijing, China in 1995. She and four international peers fought well-funded sex criminalization groups and successfully had the word forced added to the United Nations' Platform for Action that now reads, "... all forced prostitution and pornography are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and must be eliminated."
(Above information retrieved from Almodovar's website, NormaJeanAlmodovar.com, on July 12, 2007.)
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Carol Leigh
( - )
Carol Leigh, the "Scarlot Harlot," coined the term "sex work" in the late 1970s. She was an early spokesperson for COYOTE and co-founded the Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy Network (BAY SWAN). Leigh currently administers the BAY SWAN website which features extensive information about sex worker rights and issues. Leigh represented the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women on the Board of Supervisors' Task Force on Prostitution. Her life and work is presented in her 2004 book, Unrepentant Whore.
(Above information retrieved from Leigh's blog, WhoreCollege.Blogspot.com, on July 17, 2007.)
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Annie Sprinkle
(July 23, 1954 - )
Annie Sprinkle was born Ellen Steinberg and grew up in a sexually conservative environment in Granada Hills, California. She began working as a prostitute in her late teens in a massage parlor. In 1973 she moved to New York City and began her career in hard-core pornography - first as a set-assistant and then as an actress. She eventually starred in 150 porn films and in 1982 she was the 2nd best-selling video star with her innovative and autobiographical porn feature, "Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle." Sprinkle continued to do prostitution for 20 years.
In a 1992/1993 interview Sprinkle conceded that being a prostitute in America was an extremely difficult job but that she never felt forced to do it for financial reasons. Sprinkle said of her experience:
Sprinkle made it clear she was not alone in having a rewarding experience in sex work:
Sprinkle was on the forefront of the 1980's "sex positive feminist movement" and has actively supported the rights of sex workers. In 2002 she earned a Ph.D. in human sexuality. Sprinkle continues to draw on her vast and varied sexual past as an accomplished performance artist, lecturer, and author. She cites Xaviera Hollander as a role model.
(Above information retrieved from AnnieSprinkle.org on July 20, 2007.)
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Page last modified August 8, 2007.
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