Jenny DeMilo

Good luck. There are scant few sex workers verified on Twitter even though its the preferred social media outlet for the marginalized group. I was an early adopter and encouraged others if my ilk (at that time i was a hooker) to join me. We called ourselves “Twookers” and i still have a Twitter list of that name. Twitter allowed us to connect in a real way, to support each other, share information and ideas. We were able to create our own social media support support system for a group of people who are often discriminated against, marginalized and often just flat out denied access to the the things everyone else is allowed to participate in.

 

We cant use linkedin, we get chased off Facebook for having stage names, tumblr hides our accounts from public view, instagram deletes us with no warning. You tube kicks is off not because our content violates any TOS  but because of WHO we are, Vimeo does as well. You get the picture we’re a discriminated group. Twitter was different, we were allowed to be there and as a group we thrived. Enter the Twitter Verified Account. It started with the famous, usually actors and the like. Moved on to political figures and people who were generally household names. Then it expanded. As it stands now anyone can “apply” to be verified. Verification has its benefits, if you are often impersonated it helps with that, you get ways to filter content, filter DMs, interactions that the unwashed masses don’t get. This is very helpful to a group of people often targeted for harassment yanno cuz we’re all whores. You need certain things enabled on your profile and you need to provide them links to prove not just who you are (especially if you have a stage name) and why you’re “noteworthy”

I figured id try and report back the process. You don’t see many sex workers verified on Twitter. I see a few international organizations and a had full of high profile porn starts. I wondered if that was because the process was daunting, somehow precluded sex workers from trying of if on a whole the industry didn’t want the blue check mark. Here’s what i leaned.

Its easy to apply but they give you very little direction.

Full out your bio, add your birthday, enable 2 factor authentication, conform your phone and email, send in some links, upload your ID,  write a 500 character essay on why you should be verified. (FYI that’s about 4 tweets)

The thing that was hard to wrap my head around as a sex worker was the ID. I just sent it in. It would have been a much harder decision if i was still a hooker. However im retired and have been for about 6 years. I currently work in the 100% legal business of Erotic Audio. I make and sell erotic hypnosis Mp3s and i’m popular in my field and a top seller. I make a rather tasty living doing what i’m doing.  So I sucked it up and sent in the ID.

Choosing which links to provide

This i had to think about you get 5 links. I decided to turn in 2 major publications that wrote about and interviewed me. This blog, Fairy Whore Mother and my E-Commerce site. The reason being since i was using a stage name, they needed to see i was who i said i was. The links to the media outlets was to show my newsworthiness.

Essay Writing

Okay I misread this at first and though it was 500 words. Its not, Its 500 Characters. So like 4 tweets worth of why you’re so great and should be verified. Its harder then it looks. This is what I wrote. I tried to tell them who I was and why my verification would benefit the Twitter community. I was a very early sex work blogger who blogged under my working name. Which back in 2008, let me tell you NO ONE DID. Not even Belle De Jour who later got a book deal and Showtime made a series about her wasn’t using her working name. BTW she is one of the rare sex work Twitter verified however shes came out publicly as a sex worker/Belle De Jour/ years back and is using her legal name not a stage name.

In any event I had to go back and edit down my Verify me essay to this:  

After that was done. I hit send and waited to be told in email wither Twitter would approve more or not in 6 days. In the meantime while I twiddled my thumbs I learned that MANY sex workers have applied to be verified only to be turned down. Some multiple times.

I waited and got my response this morning. Denied!

So went to the link  in my  you are not good enough email to see where I screwed this up. I read this

1. Well it does reflect me under my stage name and I gave them links to prove that as well as my legal ID.
2.  Not a corporation so this one is N/A
3.  My header is one of my main photos I use in my Hypnosis Branding and my profile photo is if my face. Maybe they were expecting photo of my tits?
4. My bio says what I do for a living (erotic recording artist) links to my sex work blog and lists and what i do for a hobby (equestrian) .Its also also pretty clear i’m politically active.  My tweets are open and i tweet a lot about current events, sex work and keep my self promotion tweets to under 10 10% of my twitter life. Oh and more then 90% of my followers are real. I have a very low bot follower count.  Maybe I should have it rewritten my bio to use buzz words like “leading” and “renowned” I dunno. I see other profiles of people that are just blank but then we all cant be Chris Evans I suppose and he is soooo much more real then I am.

But wait there’s more… Additional info maybe I screwed up there and that’s why Twitter doesn’t think i’m real or relevant

Okay I gave them Links to Fairy Whore Mother Likely the most impact-full and one of only full of sites that cater to sex workers by sex workers. This blog which has often stirred up controversy for the 10 years its been in existence and links to places Vice, The Quaz, LV Weekly where I was written about or interviewed. Maybe they just didn’t read them, I mean if your job was to wade though bullshit about verifying some boring motivational speaker why would you want to read really compelling interesting stuff by a best Selling NY Times writer or Vice magazine. Oh and just as an aside, im followed and follow more then my fair share of Verified accounts because yanno all us newsworthy and relevant people know each other and have secret handshakes and stuff. I did hear a rumor the more check marks that follow you and vice versa the better your odds. Um ok Twitter, that’s dumb if true.

So in conclusion Twitter doesn’t believe I’m relevant in my field despite over a decade of sex work advocacy for which my peers respect me and or i’m not “newsworthy” even though major media has taken an interest in me. Though you can bet your ass if I somehow spilled my old Washington DC  or Hollywood client lists they’d be all the fuck over me trying to verify me after the wold caught on fire. Cuz yanno Sex workers don’t count unless they are bringing down the demise of powerful men or being dragged though the mud labeled a whore. Right Twitter?