Stripper Awards Gala in Minneapolis spotlights sex workers, decriminalization efforts
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On Monday evening under a disco ball at Green Room in Uptown, the Minneapolis chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, more commonly called SWOP, hosted the annual Stripper Awards Gala. The night celebrated workers in the industry while raising money to support harm reduction, advocacy and labor rights efforts for the Strippers Guild.
The gala consisted of performances, a twerk competition and several awards for categories like “pole princess,” “miss new body” and “best baby stripper.”
SWOP created the Strippers Guild in 2022 to begin a labor organization for strippers in the Twin Cities area. Workers from clubs like Rick’s Cabaret, Seville, Dream Girls and more have been outspoken about the need for safety in their field. Of the estimated 700 strippers in the city, 200 have opted into the guild. A handful of other cities including Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco have also worked to unionize.
“There’s really been a strong sex workers rights advocacy going for a couple decades now, and, dancing being one of the legal forms of sex work, it’s an area where we can really advocate for safe and equitable work conditions,” said Andi Snow, the executive director of the SWOP Minneapolis chapter in an interview with MPR News’ All Things Considered before the gala.
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Decriminalizing sex work remains a central pillar of the organization but the process has been slow moving. Legalization and decriminalization are different efforts, with sex workers advocating for the latter. Decriminalization would mean removing criminal penalties for consensual adult sex work.
Organizations like SWOP say this is the path to follow because it allows sex workers to operate without a fear of being arrested and create safer working conditions. Legalization, which is what is the law in the state of Nevada, means there are specific regulations and licensing for sex workers. It comes with strict rules and workers say it can cost them their autonomy and protections.
In 2023, SWOP published “The Decrim Report,” a zine that provides research and community input into the need for policy change. Their hope is that the zine can educate the public and policymakers about the need for decriminalization.
The Minneapolis chapter of SWOP started in 2016.
“We were established by a bunch of sex working anarchist moms who needed to support each other and the need for that work grew and became immediately so important — it’s been amazing,” Snow said to the large, loud and very fashionable crowd on Monday night.
Gala reflects organizing effort among strippers
Mila, the public relations manager of SWOP and host of “Other Words for Whxre” podcast, and Athena, the chief operations director of SWOP, joined Snow on stage to kick off the night. They said their goals are simple: they want to decriminalize sex work in Minneapolis and Minnesota, and get better labor rights for strippers.
“We know this work is hard on the body, and girls get hurt all the time. So we can make it a little bit easier on one another, if we’re organized,” Mila said.
Bianca Black, a porn performer, presented the “Double Trouble” award at the Gala and has been in the industry for almost five years.
She is a new member of SWOP and said she keeps returning to event after event because the organization makes her feel so welcomed.
“They make us feel so included and so representative of what we do,” she said. “It’s really important for strippers to feel good about what they do and feel like the work that they put in is incredible ... they deserve to be here and dance and turn up and look pretty and feel pretty and just be respected as professionals.”
Jazzy Belmont has been a sex worker for six years, and a stripper for four. She currently dances at Seville’s. She recently started leading the harm reduction effort with SWOP.
She makes sure every club has drug-testing strips and trainings on how to administer Narcan in case of possible opioid overdoses, and in general works to ensure that the dancers feel prepared in case of an emergency. She said after working in the industry, she wanted to be a part of the change to make it better.
“I really realized the internal part of this industry, about what goes on when it comes to how we're treated, the rights that we have, the interior when it comes to the strip club industry, it's so much deeper than what we ever realized. And there needs to be a change. I want to be a part of that change whenever I can,” she said.
Focus is on efforts to decriminalize sex work
While the topic of sex workers and strip clubs has been buzzing from the recent win of “Anora” as best picture at the Oscars on Sunday evening, some sex workers in Minneapolis told MPR News they're opposed to the award-winning movie. This reaction follows national trends shown on social media from the sex work community.
Mila of SWOP said by portraying a stripper who marries a rich man, the film follows the same stereotype other stripper films do, such as “Pretty Woman.”
“Some white savior comes and sweeps her off her feet and takes her out of the club — that’s always the narrative. And the fact is that it is always actresses playing the part of sex workers but when sex workers die or get kidnapped, nobody f----- cares but this girl can go on to win all these awards for portraying us.”
Real strippers like Mila say their focus is on decriminalization.
In 2019, the Minneapolis City Council passed an ordinance requiring adult entertainment venues like strip clubs to provide protections to dancers such as giving them copies of their contracts and posting rules for customer conduct. Managers and owners were also prohibited from taking tips from entertainers, and the ordinance sought to improve sanitary and safety conditions in clubs.
In 2015, Minneapolis repealed laws against “spitting and lurking,” which were directly impacting sex workers, according to SWOP. At the time, Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges said she believed the laws had unfairly affected people of color.
Data from the Minneapolis Police Department at the time showed that 59 percent of people arrested on suspicion of lurking from 2009 to 2014 were Black. The numbers also found that white people are most often the ones reporting the suspected lurkers.
A decade later, SWOP is still working to overturn an anti-loitering law they say is creating an unsafe work environment for them. Minnesota statute 609.3243 states loitering with an intent to “sell prostitution” is a misdemeanor.
California, New York and Washington are some of the states that have recently removed anti-loitering laws.
“They’re really only targeting sex workers now,” Snow said in a 2023 interview with MPR News about the anti-loitering laws. “It targets people of color and restricts their access to public spaces. There is a huge disparity in the enforcement of it.”
Minneapolis Council President Elliott Payne said in November he feels like ordinances like the anti-loitering laws are often counterproductive.
“There’s this kind of interplay between what are the behaviors that are happening in the real world, and how we are criminalizing that and to what end,” he said. “Is it a public safety end? Is it a public health end? Some of these laws were really counterproductive when it came to the ultimate goal of safety.”
But the legislative process isn’t easy, he said. While repealing an ordinance is straight forward, he believes there will be broader stakeholder engagement that can slow things down.
“Oftentimes there's a lot of either uninformed opinions or even misinformed opinions when it comes to some of these topics, and so especially as we start getting into topics that have a history of stigmatization or taboo, I think you really need to bring the public along when you're trying to address ordinances that are in the vicinity of these types of sensitive topics.”
Payne previously said discussions around repealing the ordinance were still “in conversation.” But SWOP doesn’t plan on giving up anytime soon.
“It’s gonna change, it just starts with one movement,” Belmont said. “We can’t do a whole bunch right now, we can do as much as we can and hopefully it grows over time.”