SWOP (Sex Workers Outreach Project) is conducting a survey of the industry.  Virtually all surveys of the industry to this point have always focused on streetwalkers.  While some valuable information has been collected, it represents less than 10% of the industry.  SWOP is surveying the entire industry, but with a focus on incall/outcall and massage providers.

The purpose of this survey is twofold.  First is to help SWOP and it's allied organizations, such as The St. James Infirmary, better serve the industry, particularly providers.  Second is to begin to refute many of the myths about this industry to educate the public before this Novembers vote on Angel's Initiative.

If you have not already taken the survey PLEASE do so:

http://swop-usa.org/surveymonkey.htm

This survey is for active and retired providers, clients, and others.


For those unfamiliar with SWOP - This is the organization responsible for Angel's Initiative which has just received enough signatures to be on the November ballot.  Angel's Initiative will give voters in Berkeley and other cities a chance to vote on decriminalizing prostitution.  After you complete the survey you will be taken to SWOP's homepage or you can click on the link above and then click 'home'.

Thanks from the SWOP team.

It would be difficult to imagine a less scientific, and thus less useful survey. Nothing more than agit-prop, and to my mind... spam.

Not sure where you got that.

Can you be more specific with how unscientific it is.  I'm out of the office until Mon, but will check then.

Any survey that lets participants volunteer is unscientific.

You are much more likely to have people who feel strongly one side or the other participate so you don't get a true cross-section of opinion.

If you asked the visitors to the DNC website and the visitors to the RNC website what they think of Pres. George, you'd get to wildly different answers.

Your 2nd and 3rd lines are absolutely correct.  However, this is a survey of (mostly) actual experience not opionion and we aren't looking for a generic cross-section but want responses from a very particular group of people - providers and clients who hang out on TER.

Now, that said, a more ideal survey of the industry would be done by clippers calling providers and clients on the phone or hanging out in a hotel and grabing them when they come down from their rooms.  Besides being logistically difficult, especially since getting client phone numbers would be difficult and unappreciated by the clients, it's very very expensive.

This survey is much less expensive and will provide data that are 'fairly accurate', though not quite the veracity of a complete random sample of the industry.

NO survey is perfect and many are actually highly inaccurate.  This survey though will give us information that is acceptable enough to help various organizations who serve the industry do it better and will go a long way towards helping more adequately educate the public about decrim.

JTH