$pread a reasonably good magazine, and it provides some insight into the industry.  It has some good provider lore.  Moreover, it has the potential to become not only an international trade magazine of sex work, but a great magazine in its own right.  The question is whether it will live up to its potential.

$pread Magazine does come across as angry, hard-core, and ultra-political, with the kind of parochialism one would expect from Manhattan and the Barbary Coast.  Reading $pread, one gets the feeling that the writers and editors think of themselves as an avante garde.  An "avante garde" attitude can blind one to what is really going on, such as innovative ideas on how a provider can conduct business that come from Denver and the Twin Cities.  Still, $pread has an excellent opportunity to reach out beyond its core subculture among providers.  Coalition building is difficult, but important.

As long as the political leaders among providers project an image of living under siege, they will remain marginalized.  The self-confidence providers need in business is also needed in politics; creating a sense of calm under pressure is very important.  In politics, allies can come in strange places, and one's opponents usually come from people who one thinks ought to be allies.  For example, Berkeley was probably the very worst place in America to attempt a decriminalization referendum.  It would have made more sense in rural Nevada -- or rural California!  Radical feminists have been some of the worst enemies of prostitution, and they have been for over a century.  Andrea Dworkin can be seen as an ideological descendant of Cary Nation, and it was in the name of the Temperance movement that brothels were put to the torch in Colorado one century ago!

Yet now, the most active provider culture in the United States is probably in Colorado.  Politically speaking, sex workers have the upper hand there, although I doubt that they realize it!  For years, the police have felt under siege there from streetwalkers.  It's gotten to the point where a politically savvy sex worker movement there could get lots of support from folks in Denver if residents could be convinced that some form of legalization would keep streetwalkers off their front lawns.  Furthermore, sex workers, police, and the general public share a strong opposition to pimps.

Outreach, outreach, outreach.  There are experts in provider lore who are excellent writers, who live in "fly-over country".  Jennifer Eastwood (Missouri), Beverly Fisher (Colorado), the legendary Miss M (Minnesota), and Morgan Ellis (Toronto) come to mind.  A magazine with these authors would definitely be worth reading!  Although $pread Magazine risks becoming struggling marginal magazine for a struggling marginal movement that uses revolutionary rhetoric to mask its complacency, it has a chance of becoming something really special.

Let's hope $pread becomes something special.

-- Modified on 4/7/2005 3:25:10 PM