We are a mutual aid network for & by sex workers doing peer-led advocacy, education & mutual aid via community-based economies that value solidarity, resource sharing, and direct redistribution.
While bad laws and government inaction continue to threaten the survival of our most vulnerable community, we believe that practicing interdependence allows people to access what they need and helps make new futures possible.
Values
Cross-Movement Solidarity
We seek to promote much needed solidarity between the disability communities & sex worker communities, both of whom face intersecting challenges and systemic barriers that often go unrecognized or unaddressed due to societal stigmas and misconceptions. We hope to bridge this divide by creating a platform for mutual understanding, collaboration and coalition.
Resisting Isolation & State Abandonment
The majority of sex workers are disabled, neurodivergent and/or chronically-ill, and more likely to face isolation stemming from compounded whorephobia, stigma, ableism, and state neglect that push us into the shadows. We aim to offer accessible ways to be in community without increasing exposure risk.
For in-person events that we host, we strive for safer ways of gathering that take airborne disease transmission into account, such as encouraging testing beforehand, adequate ventilation and cleaning the air.
Sex workers have long practiced harm reduction, developing brilliant community-based risk management tools that well predates this pandemic. COVID safety should fit seamlessly into this tradition and be just another example of us taking care of each other and building safety where systems fail us.
Territory Acknowledgement
Our work takes place on the stolen territories of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples and the Wsáneć peoples, who have governed and protected these lands since time immemorial.
As sex workers, we recognize how colonial systems criminalize our labor, which disproportionately impacts Indigenous women, girls, 2-Spirit, and transgender sex workers. Intimate Access is committed to centering Indigenous sex workers in our organizing efforts through building coalition with disability-focused & Indigenous-led orgs on the island, and through redistributing resources to Indigenous sex workers.
