Staying silent

Good girls never made history and all that.

I’ve held off writing this newslettr for a while, mostly because I feel bad about how I acted in this situation, and also because my own experience and background in this world felt so new.

Last year, I went to a technology conference in Berlin to get my first taste of the sex tech world. It was everything I expected from an event of its kind in Berlin; situated next to old, dilapitated buildings, sex dolls, attendees welcome to wear whatever they liked, a boudoir-kink-style photoshoot for your business photos, and in a freezing-cold, warehouse-style-cum-mansion space.

I won’t lie, I felt more than a little intimidated. Not at all helped by the fact that I had spent the previous 6 weeks travelling for work and personal trips, and limited to a carry-on sized rucksack so my style of dress was less than desirable! Ya girl was tired.

I made the effort to chat with different people, and attend panel discussions that piqued my interest. One such panel, which featured four sex workers and a moderator, was centred around the topic of AI and algorithms. I was looking forward to a solid discussion around platform safety, algorithmic bias, and perhaps their censorship experiences. Instead, it consisted of one (white, might I add) person on the panel of four, hogging the microphone and flaunting their OF stats and figures.

The conversation instead focused largely on the use of AI-generated imagery and the importance of signing detailed contracts with AI image platforms and performance management companies to ensure the safe and secure use of content. As someone outside the world of online sex work, I found this particularly fascinating. Learning about the critical role contracts now play in protecting performers, while also grappling with the rapidly evolving reality of how AI is reshaping porn consumption, was both eye-opening and thought-provoking.

The conversation took an interesting turn when the aforementioned panelist admitted nonchalantly that AI has been of huge benefit to them and has massively increased their revenue in recent years. I thought this would be more along the lines of using AI chatbots to speak with their customers and train the models to speak to their clients as if it were them. Unfortunately, they meant a lot more than training chatbots.

She went on to say that she now has an alterego with a penis, so is essentially acting as a trans woman through the use of AI image manipulation and sharing content appealing to a completely different audience, all to increase her profits.

I looked around in shock, as a few others in the audience also audibly gasped.

I sat there in disbelief, unable to say a word. In hindsight, I feel frustrated with myself for not speaking up, for not asking her what her reasoning was, and whether she genuinely believed this was acceptable. At a time when very real trans people (many with far smaller platforms) are navigating the profound, and often dangerous, realities of transitioning in the world we live in, it feels deeply troubling that money and recognition could instead be directed toward an AI-generated “clone.”

I took this photo on the way to the event. Google Maps brought me down some random forest path and I thought I was walking into some kind of trap.

I am ashamed that I didn’t speak up that day, nor start a conversation with someone around me afterwards. As a cis, white person, I have huge privilege in society and the wherewithall to speak up for those who face more struggles than I do, and yet I didn’t. So much for being open and honest and protesting for those who don’t have the same freedoms and energy.

While I don’t have lived experience, I have read and heard from people of marginalised communities who say it is absolutely exhausting having to constantly advocate and battle for yourself, day in day out, when the systems all around you are build off of your hard work, and yet you are the one that continues to suffer.

So I should have shown up and raised a hand to ask her her thoughts around taking work from others in a much less priveleged position than she is in.

Not only that, but trans people have paved the way for sex workers; Marsha P. Johson being a key human rights activist in the Stonewall Uprising and advancing LGBTQ+ rights in New York during the 1960s.

There might have been trans people in the audience too, who would be well within their right to be pissed off and ashamed of those around them for not broaching the subject with the panelist.

And others will argue that at the rate AI content is going, it won’t be long before real sex workers are completely pushed off platforms in favour of “perfect”, realistic AI models. Which brings with it a whole other level of moral questioning; who’s pictures were used to train the AI models? Who runs these accounts and benefits off of the financial gain made through these picture-perfect aesthetics?

And yet I’ve been sitting on this post for months. Partly because I felt embarrassed that I didn’t speak up. Partly because I worried I didn’t have the “right” to comment. But my silence doesn’t protect anyone, it just protects the status quo and allows the same old folks to get away with committing heinous acts.

And in a moment where powerful institutions are actively shielding abusers (read: the Epstein files), where sex workers are still criminalised, where trans people are relentlessly targeted in public discourse, the least we can do is call out what happens in the rooms we’re physically in.

Because this is how harm compounds. Not just through spectacular, headline-making evil, but through the everyday complicity, the seemingly “little things” that “aren’t a big deal, don’t worry about it!” things. Through polite silence. Through looking around, noticing the discomfort, and simply moving on.

We cannot say we care about sex workers, about trans liberation, about our bodily autonomy, and then shrink when it becomes inconvenient to speak up, to “make a fuss.”

If you want to stay informed and support people doing the work, follow and listen to trans activists and educators (I especially love trans sex worker Fusun Aydin). Follow ESWA (European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance) to read their reports and support their campaigns. Pay attention to who is most affected when technology shifts.

While I can’t go back and raise my hand in that room last summer, I can write this now and do better next time.