How long has Tucson had a SWOP chapter?
This chapter is at least three or four years old. We were one of the earlier chapters. Tucson ended up being the home to many experienced sex workers who came here after the first Tucson Sex Worker Festival. That was an interesting experience. We got national coverage, like CNN, because of the right wing. They were upset because public funds were going to this festival. Really, we got a small Tucson Pima Arts Council grant. The speaker of the House in Phoenix decreed it an outrage, because the UA was hosting panels for the festival on trafficking. You haven’t had a festival since? Well, it’s been a couple of years. Since then, we’ve become a sex-worker mecca, with women coming from Chicago and San Francisco to live and work in Tucson. A lot of the national core of SWOP now lives in Tucson. What ran through your mind when the bust in Phoenix happened? I was very troubled by those arrests. But it is election time, and this is what happens when politicians have to prove to the public they
