refusing to be safe
Written on Nov. 12, 2002 while touring with the Sex Workers' Art Show National Tour.
i've been thinknig about safety lately
i've been wanting to be safe
wanting to feel safe, all my life
do you understand?
do you understand?
cutting wrists at nine
turning tricks at thirteen
playing with dope at fourteen
ran away from three foster families
i don't claim to have always made the best choices but
i did the best i could do
to be safe
to feel safe
to be away from home
shelter, mental hospital or jail
they are all the same thing
everyone seems afraid for safety these days
media keep reminding us that we are not safe
when the airplanes smashed into the buildings
and mails arrived poisoned
they said it transformed america forever
as if america wasn't already waging many wars
as if there weren't already battlegrounds in this nation
as women and queer people, we knew all along
that our safety came with a price tag
we were taught to silence our voices
hide our bodies, sexualities, ourselves
to be safe, to feel safe, in this hostile world
we were all taught
that to be a slut, to look and act like a slut
translates to danger
so i learned
that being slut is a radical act of resistance
and subversion
see, us sluts
we violate rules, take risks
demand more than just safety
refuse to shrink away
from who we are
what we want
how we want it
to be a slut in the post-9/11 world
in which thousands of people are jailed, deported
or bombed in the supposed
pursuit of security
means that we must refuse to be safe
at someone else's expense
to be a slut in this u.s. of fucking a.
that thinks that marriage is the solution to poverty
that punishes homeless people for sitting on benches
and excludes trans people to protect "women"
means that we must refuse to allow the rhetoric
of safety to pervert and circumvent
our commitment to justice
so, let us be sluts, political or otherwise
let us form the posse of sluts everywhere
because everyone is safe when sluts are safe
because everyone is safe when sluts are safe