Shownotes
This episode is the first half of an absolutely fantastic conversation with an absolutely fantastic person! We're talking with one of my greatest sex worker friends, Lena Czura. Amidst much love for one another and a copious amount of laughter, we discuss the importance of community and organizing, what it means to be anti-racist as a white person in the movement against white supremacy, and navigating internalized power structures. Buckle up, folx. It's a real one.
Lena Czura's Links:
Website: lenaczura.com
Twitter: @lenaczura
Instagram: @lenaczura1
OnlyFans: @lenaczura
A Network of Sex Workers to Excite Revolution's Links
Website: answerdetroit.org
Twitter: @answerdetroit
Instagram: @weareanswerdetroit
Things We Mention:
The Body is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
(I say we name drop a lot of books in this episode, but that's the latter half, so stay tuned!)
Patreon: patreon.com/sexygalaxypod
Transcripts
Parker
Welcome to a sex workers Guide to the Galaxy, where the answer to life the universe and everything is sex workers. I'm your host, Parker Westwood and today I am bringing to you an interview I'm super excited about. I feel like I say that about every single interview because it's true but this time, I get to share with you a very dear friend of mine, you'll gather from the interview that we've been friends for a very long time and have influenced each other's journey in sex work quite a bit. I'm talking about Lena Czura, one of my very good friends in this industry and we tried to do an hour long interview and failed epically. It turned into a two and a half hour, wildly wonderful conversation, and it was vulnerable and beautiful and so we're doing another two-part episode and I'm filling the month of June with Lena Czura and I'm just going to say you're welcome in advance. I figured this was pretty appropriate as it is her birthday month and it's also pride. So, we talk about Lena's journey in sex work, how she got to where she is now. We talk about organizing, specifically for the decriminalization and destigmatization of sex work. We talked about being anti-racist in the, in that particular movement, but also just in general, being an anti-racist white person in the fight for the end of white supremacy and also, identifying internalized power structures. There's, there's so much in this and we go on tangents because you put a Gemini and a Libra in a closet, and this is what happens. So, I'm just really excited to bring this to you and happy pride, happy pride month, I'm going to take this opportunity to remind everyone listening that the first pride was a protest, and that we are still very much so in the fight for black and brown trans sex workers rights and it's a fight that's very near and dear to my heart and, and we're not free until we're all free. So, we got a lot of work to do but I'm glad you're in it with me. I'm glad that we're all in this together because we can't do it unless we stick together. So here is the first half of my conversation with Lena Czura. I hope you enjoy it. Let's jump in. Here we go. Okay, we're here with the one the only my best sex worker friend. I can't say you're my best friend or that I'm your best friend,
Lena Czura
100 percent.
Parker
because your best friend will come for me.
Lena Czura
That's true, and I, and your best friend is your best friend territory. [garbled]
Parker
No. Well, my best sex worker friend, Lena Czura.
Lena Czura
Hi.
Parker
Hi.
Lena Czura
Hi.
Parker
Oh, we're also in person. So, prepare for the giggles
Lena Czura
Yeah, and the ambient noise because I'm gonna, I'm gonna fidget, I'm gonna play with my hair throughout this.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
And I will take a sip of my la croix.
Parker
The only la croix, The only la croix, also la croix if you want to sponsor this episode?
Lena Czura
We just named dropped you hard. sell these bitches.
Parker
Sell it. So, take a moment as in tradition of this podcast,
Lena Czura
Yeah.
Parker
to introduce yourself. Pronouns, what kind of sex work you do, where you're based, all the things you'd like to identify as?
Lena Czura
Hi, I'm Lena Czura and welcome to my closet. We are we are currently set up in my closet right now.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
My closet is in what is known as occupied Anishinaabe Ojibwe territory and to some other people in iterations of society, Detroit, Michigan. I am from here. I am a sex worker, content creator, memories curator.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Yeah. Yeah. Professional travel companion that works on the coasts. So, LA, and New York and yeah,
Parker
Fantastic.
Lena Czura
Yeah.
Parker
So good. So comprehensive.
Lena Czura
So, my pronouns,
Parker
Yeah,
Lena Czura
My pronouns, um, my pronouns when I'm working, are she, my pronouns when I'm not working are she and they. I think that's an important distinction to make at this point in my gender journey.
Parker
Agreed.
Lena Czura
Yeah, it feels good.
Parker
Oh, so how did you get started in sex work?
Lena Czura
Um I got started in sex work, I've been Lena now for three years three years this month. Yay. Hey, hey, hey. Happy pride month. Happy Lena-iversary.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
It feels really good. Um, before I was Lena, I had been a pro DOM. Super low key, I was super low key pro DOM. Never had, pro DOM is a professional dominatrix because for all of the listeners who have listened to your podcast, you've had a number of pro DOMs that I have been so enamored with, so fucking enamored,
Parker
You and me both.
Lena Czura
I was never that cool. I was never as cool as Master Joshua, as Olivia Black, as Pinkie Bjorn. I was never as cool as any of these bitches.
Parker
It's hard to compete with those three.
Lena Czura
You know comparison is the enemy and also like, I just yeah, I revere, I revere them. Um, so I was a pro DOM. I got introduced into pro DOMming from my ex-girlfriend when I was in my 20s. She had been a pro DOM and she got me into kink stuff, and I loved it and she'd always said, like, she was like, how did she say it? She was like, she was like, she like, there would be like, clients would be dying to be a like a sub for you. Like they, like, and I was like, what a weird. When she said that like, I was like a mid 20s person and I was like, what the literal fuck are you talking about? Um, that just that was something that always stuck with me. So yeah, so she introduced me to that world and after we broke up, I got involved in the lifestyle, community and lifestyle community people kept saying the same thing. They were like, they were like, oh, you'd be great as a pro DOM and I was like, that is so funny, that is not the first time I've heard that and that was a lot of fun. I did that for I don't even know if I did it for a year, like right about a year,
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
and loved it but I couldn't maintain it with the job that I was doing, the career that I had and everything that sex work demands of us. So that was my first time actually applying sex work. I credit you as the first person that ever talked to me about sex work because even before that, when I was in my early 20s, and you and I were in a training together and we had to name, this was, this was when we were both involved in policy work and community organizing and we each had to name a person in the public sphere that we admired.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
And I remember being in this room with you, before I really like before we really knew each other.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
And, and you were like, person in the room that I admire, and you were like Annie sprinkle and I was like, who the fuck is Annie Sprinkle and like even the person in the training room at the time was like, who the fuck is Annie Sprinkle and you were like, Annie Sprinkle is a sex worker, advocate, activist organizer. They're all about like sex worker rights and gender that and I was like, what is this bitch doing talking about sex work? What is like, what is sex work? And that was the, friend you were talking about unionizing strippers, huh?
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
You were all on about unionizing strippers. Like, we can be who? Like what, um, and that was that was my I had no idea. I had no idea that sex work was a term. I knew what strippers were, but I had such a super classist whorephobic orientation towards sex workers and strippers in that, it as like the most visible component of that and it's we've gone down the rabbit hole ever since and here we are.
Parker
Alternately encouraging one another.
Lena Czura
Alternately encouraging one another to join the greatest, just the greatest journey and profession and community in the world.
Parker
It's been so good.
Lena Czura
Thanks.
Parker
I love that origin story.
Lena Czura
It's a good one.
Parker
Yeah. So, you and I, we met doing community organizing and policy work.
Lena Czura
Yeah.
Parker
Um, what? That is a huge part of your life and your story since before sex work.
Lena Czura
Yeah.
Parker
So, what of what about community organizing is important to you?
Lena Czura
Dude, when you sent me these questions, today, and I saw that this is the only question, this is, no, that’s a lie. This was the first question that I read on the page that I was like, bitch, what the fuck?
Parker
I don't make this easy.
Lena Czura
You don't make it easy! You don't make it easy. Um, yeah. So, I meditated with this one today on my couch and community organizing is important to me. So, I feel like there's a lot of ways that the world that we live in right now, the way that our society is structured, by race, by class, by gender orientation by religious persecution, it's not even religious affiliation like straight up persecution. That inflicts on my ability to be the fullest greatest human that I'm capable of being on this earth and I'm not okay with that. Like, I'm not okay with that and, and, yeah, so like, I'm, I think about this concept of. Have you read the book The Body Is Not An Apology?
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
So anyways. Hey, hey.
Parker
If you haven't read it, listeners, please purchase a copy. Give Sonya Renee Taylor your money.
Lena Czura
Purchase it from your local bookstore, god damn it. Don't, we're not dropping an Amazon link.
Parker
Yes, absolutely not.
Lena Czura
Go source it from your local bookstore and it better be POC owned, women owned, queer owned, okay,
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
If not, I will send you one from our lovely store here in Detroit.
Parker
It will be linked in the show notes, and it will not be an Amazon link.
Lena Czura
Thanks okay we can do that too, like they don't get a link, they don’t get a link at all.
Parker
I'm not making this easy for you either.
Lena Czura
So the concept in this in that Sonya Renee Taylor presents this book is like, like each of us have an innate destined path on this earth and the sooner and more earnestly that we actually like prune away the things in our lives, like internally, like in our relationships in our life, and on a bigger societal structure, like, the more that we prune away the things that are deviating us from our path of our humanity. Then like, the more we get to live in the joy of what of what we're destined to be here to do, so that like community organizing, where I'm like, I'm in a community with people where we are actively challenging the systems of oppression and for me as a white person is like, challenging the system of internalized supremacy that I have, is like, like supremacy fucks with me too like, we, supremacy has ripped away my ancestral spirituality and replaced it with American imperialism and materialism and I'm not okay with that. So, like that shits gotta go, like, I have to reclaim to reclaim like my own, like my own identity and what it means for me that's not like this void of whiteness, and this void of dehumanizing other people in order to validate myself. Like, that rips me away from my spirituality from my spirituality in my like identity and then like, I mean, it's I'm so like that that is like baseline. That's like baseline,
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Slash, like, it's way more fun to be in community. When we're like actively loving each other from a place of like, deep, like deep reclamation of identity. Like it that's where the magic is.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
If we're not doing that, like we're just fucking around.
Parker
Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
Lena Czura
Yeah, so I'm not here to fuck around.
Parker
I'm not fucking around in the fun way.
Lena Czura
Yeah, there's yeah, there's no there's like it's like not consensual. t's not cute. It's not fun.
Parker
Exactly.
Lena Czura
No one gets off.
Parker
Yeah, these like made up hierarchies get created
Lena Czura
And yeah that's bullshit, it’s bullshit. So yeah, my community organizing has been, has always been based on anti-racism work and was first when we were first working on, on economic equity
Parker
Hey, oh.
Lena Czura
We were working on issues of economic equity, and then and then I got into prison abolition work, and that was how I also was like my immigration work and having like a path for immigration, and also borders are bullshit.
Parker
Borders are absolute bullshit.
Lena Czura
Um, yeah, so prison abolition, border abolition, and, and sex worker rights decriminalization, and harm reduction
Parker
Way to lead me into the next question.
Lena Czura
Bitch.
Parker
When did you first start dreaming about organizing sex workers?
Lena Czura
I okay,
Parker
Or with sex workers?
Lena Czura
Yeah, I, that's such a good question. Um, because I don't know if the answer is super profound. It sure as hell wasn't when you were dreaming about, you were dreaming about this way before I was.
Parker
I started dreaming about this when I was like, 18, 19.
Lena Czura
You also like were conscious of wanting to like be a stripper when you were like,
Parker
Six years old.
Lena Czura
Okay there you go. I didn't want to put it out on you, but I knew,
Parker
It was really young.
Lena Czura
I became Lena, um, in June of:Parker
Same.
Lena Czura
foundations and all this other shit where I'm like, I'm tight.
Parker
Yeah, it gets messy.
Lena Czura
because this was in April of:Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
I was like, following all these accounts on Instagram on my personal, on my personal Instagram I was in it, was like a lot of strippers because I've always been, spoiler alert, I'm the biggest stripper fan girl, super fan girl ever. Um, and so I was following a lot of dancer accounts. I was following like a couple other like known sex worker accounts on social media. So, I like and I heard from my prison abolition work, that this shit was popping off that like FOSTA SESTA was coming and it was like this fucking like slow moving train that no one could stop.
Parker
Yep.
Lena Czura
And so, when I was clear that I was leaving my last job, one of the first emails that I sent was SWAT Michigan and I was like, hey, I come from this policy background. I have been in and out of sex work before. I really, I understand this is a really important moment, like, what, what support do you need? Like I'm happy to? Yeah, like, I'm happy to help. What do you need? And they were like, we have a brunch coming up, like come to this brunch and I was like, okay and I did and that's when I met a whole bunch of other full-service companions and they were like, oh, are you thinking about being a sex worker again? And I was like, yeah, I think I'm gonna be a stripper and they were like, okay, or you could just be a full-service companion. I was like, oh, my god, you're right, I could totally do that and so we did a little bit of talking about FOSTA SESTA and the rest about starting a business and that was, yeah, that was my like, branch into the community but also recognizing that there wasn't a lot that we could do at that point. In that particular like, iteration of time and space and so pretty much right after that is when I started talking to you. Remember? We would like draw those, we would just draw these giant, like,
Parker
Oh my god yes.
Lena Czura
Like mind maps, of like, all of your collective wisdom, all of my collective wisdom, all the questions that we had.
Parker
I hadn't even started as Parker.
Lena Czura
You hadn't even been Parker yet. You hadn't even been Parker yet. This is when I was like,
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
I was like, whenever I like had a space that I was hosting from. You rememeber?
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
You would like, roll out this scroll of paper and be like, what's happening right now?
Parker
I still have some of those.
Lena Czura
Keep them!
Parker
I'm keeping them forever.
Lena Czura
Oh, my gosh, so that was I mean, it was it was in tandem. It was in tandem with Lena. Um.
Parker
Yeah, because I was working on my website while we were doing that, because I remember,
Lena Czura
Yeah.
Parker
I hadn't launched yet. Mmhmm.
Lena Czura
Yeah, you launched, because I launched in June you, launched in September.
Parker
Yeah. Yeah. Both our birthday months.
Lena Czura
Both our birthday months. It's great. Yeah. Does that answer that question?
Parker
I think so.
Lena Czura
It was super circuitous.
Parker
Yeah but I think it, I sense, and I hope the listeners sense that there's just like a bit of a slow build of like, how it came about.
Lena Czura
Yes.
Parker
Sex Worker organizing came into your,
Lena Czura
Yeah, it was.
Parker
your psyche.
Lena Czura
I think it was, it was a slow build, and it was, it was always, it was always, always, it was always there in some capacity.
Parker
Right. Well, if you're working with, like organizing on economic justice, and prison abolition, and then borders, like you're gonna run into sex work in every single one.
Lena Czura
Hello.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Holy shit. Oh my god, yeah and yeah, I think that's a that's 100 percent right.
Parker
Yeah. Which leads into the next question a bit. Why is decriminalization important, especially in the context of what we were just talking about with like borders, and prison abolition, and all of these things? Like what? What would the decriminalization of sex workers like bring to the table?
Lena Czura
Revolution. Shit, I mean.
Parker
It's literally all we want.
Lena Czura
I mean, I just, I, I, fundamentally believe that sex work is a is putting a monetary value on the emotional labor that fuels capitalism. Like, when we, when we put in that and that is, that's why it's so fucking stigmatized, like, that is why we are so fucking stigmatized, because god forbid, a group of people, whether that is femme identified people, whether that is young people, whether that is like, however, whoever is on the spectrum, of people whose emotional labor is necessary in order to fuel capitalism, like the in, that's like, so, so, so invisibleilized and so completely taken for granted that the moment that we as a collective say, like, we are valued and our value is, is like, intangible and we can never really like we can never truly monetize how much like the fuck we run this shit.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Um, but if we had to, but like, since we're here.
Parker
Ballpark numbers.
Lena Czura
But like ballpark numbers, since we need to like eat and pay rent.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Yeah, um, then like, this is what that looks like. People have a lot of fucking feelings about it. Yeah, because this shit is so deep it that it like starts to take out the underpinnings of, of racial capitalism as we know it.
Parker
Absolutely.
Lena Czura
Yeah.
Parker
Yeah. I think that's so, that's so well put. I'm having I have a thought around also how sex has been used in in warfare, like specifically rape. Right?
Lena Czura
Yeah.
Parker
And so, like to monetize sex, and like our emotional labor and our sexual beings is essentially a form of taking that power back and taking the power away from the oppressor or the people who are using that to gain power over.
Lena Czura
100 percent. I mean, I would warfare, the creation of this nation.
Parker
100 percent.
Lena Czura
Like, hello genocide. Like the list could keep going.
Parker
Yeah, so there's, there's a lot of things at play around like why the decriminalization of sex work is such a sticking point.
Lena Czura
Yeah.
Parker
Politically.
Lena Czura
Yeah, and I like and I'll add this as an aside.
Parker
Yeah, and we're gonna.
Lena Czura
And here's an, here's our first aside.
Parker
Two air signs in a closet.
Lena Czura
Two air signs in the closet trying to do a podcast in an hour.
Parker
I'm actually proud we haven't had an aside yet.
Lena Czura
Joke's on you bitches. Okay, okay, so I am trying to remember what my aside is. Oh, so this is just like, my like, my own personal journey with as an organizer and as an organizer and a sex worker in the movement to decriminalize sex work. One thing that I have learned so much from our peers and especially honestly like Zee St. James, like Zee, like holy shit, one their podcast was fantastic two I learned so much from them.
Parker
Constantly.
Lena Czura
Constantly. Is, is like the place where my, my own shadow of like my blind spot of my own, like internalized classism is just like how fucking crucial it is for us to be working in tandem for decriminalization, destigmatization, and harm reduction.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Like I as a sex worker, particularly like how I how I perform my Lena brand, how I've crafted my Lena brand is very like, yeah, it's like very like, stabled and empowered and like 100 percent. Like, if I don't want to fuck with you, I'm really not gonna fuck with you, like there are a lot of fucking, like, gatekeeping shit to get through to at least even get to my phone that you can text me to, and I probably won't even text you back. Like, even at that point.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
If anybody is listening that has experienced this before, it's fucking true. Like, there's so many I mean. Right? We're talking like, I mean, a couple million, we're talking hundreds of thousands of sex workers,
Parker
Oh yeah.
Lena Czura
Who are in so many different places with sex work, and when we build with ANSWER, and our cornerstone with ANSWER, is that everybody deserves the right to choose to do this work on their own terms at any given moment and like that even sometimes in that space that vacillates,
Parker
Yep.
Lena Czura
For people. In that like the proximity to sex work, and access to safe drug use, to safe substance consumption, to a safe place to live, to like a safe place to care for one's children. Like that shit does not intersect with my brand.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
That shit does not intersect with the way that I experienced this work and I had, like, I'm just like, in as an organizer. I'm like, yeah, super important harm, like harm reduction, blah, blah, blah, but I never wanted to, like be fucking fierce about it.
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
Um, until we started organizing this ANSWER in like, just how much the shit kept coming up and I was like, fuck, dude, this has been my like,
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Like, this has been my blind spot. This is my classist bullshit, like, this is my classist bullshit coming out and I mean, yeah and it's just like, I'm just so, I'm just humbled.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
I'm just humbled in this work.
Parker
It's like, there's constant moments where you can be humbled, and I think it's important to choose to be humbled. Like to choose to look at yourself and recognize your blind spots. Not everybody does that. Right and that's, um, but in this work, it's so important to do, especially as white folks, and like,
Lena Czura
00 percent.
Parker
People of privilege.
Lena Czura
100 percent.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
I was just nodding, emphatically even though there's no camera, but I'm just like, yes, yes, yes, keep going.
Parker
Also, before we move on from that, tell on tell our listeners, what is ANSWER?
Lena Czura
Oh my gosh, we ,have we talked about what, we talked to, the podcast has heard about ANSWER before.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
But let me tell you again, because you bitches need to know. ANSWER is a network of sex workers to excite revolution. That's an organization that we have been a part of building that we've been at the genesis of alongside Zee and alongside some really fucking amazing people here in Detroit and that's the cornerstone of our work is decriminalization and destigmatization. And yeah, the belief that we as sex workers, every single one of us, deserves to choose to do this work on their own terms, and like we there is no right way to survive capitalism.
Parker
Hey oh.
Lena Czura
There is no right way to survive capitalism. So, get it how you get it and like,
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
And,
Parker
There's no shame.
Lena Czura
No shame.
Parker
In our game.
Lena Czura
and be able to serve like A) survive but B) feel embodied.
Parker
Yes, oh yes.
Lena Czura
Feel embodied in the process and that's a tall fucking order in this supremacist capitalist bitch ass system.
Parker
100 percent.
Lena Czura
So, we have a lot of work.
Parker
There's a lot a lot of work to do in a lot of different areas. One of the things we wanted to cover on this podcast is your identification as anti-racist and it's a thing that I've wanted to talk about on the podcast as well, and this is a, you're just the perfect person to do it with. So, what does it mean,
Lena Czura
Questionable side eye.
Parker
I'm so here for it. Um what does it mean for you to identify as anti-racist, and what does that look like?
Lena Czura
Hmm. I love how I read this question and I was like, oh, it's gonna be so easy to answer that, not easy, but I'm just like, yes. I'm so excited to answer it. Now we're here and I'm like, Like oh god and my oh god is coming from a place of wanting to sound like the perfect anti-racist white person in this one moment.
Parker
Identify that yes.
Lena Czura
Um and perfectionism is a fucking fallacy and is a block of intimacy and it's also a, it's also a pillar of supremacy um, so I just have to ground myself in that for a moment.
Parker
Yeah, if you're not fucking up every once in a while you're not doing it right.
Lena Czura
Oh my god, and you're not human.
Parker
No. Humans mess up.
Lena Czura
And whiteness likes us to believe that we aren't actually that human.
Parker
Yep.
Lena Czura
Because if we were, we wouldn't be judging other humans for being fucking human.
Parker
That part.
Lena Czura
Um, oh, what a void. Hey, we pulled the void card.
Parker
We did.
Lena Czura
God bless.
Parker
We pulled some taro before, before recording. Another aside.
Lena Czura
Yeah, and one of the cards was the void. Um, so yeah, so I, I identify as white American. My ancestral lineage is Slavic, and Eastern European, and also Welsh. Oh, I know, that, that's the Welsh doesn't come much into my Lena brand because I really I went heavy, I went heavy on the Slavic route.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
With my Czura last name, is a last name from my family's lineage. Um, so I mean, PS and by the way like that was an intentional move. Like I wanted to bring ancestry into my brand because I feel like when I started in sex work, I saw a lot of white identifying, or at least white passing to me, like they came up on my radar was like my whiteness radar and I was like, oh, yes, you were white. Oh, no, matter, who knows how they actually identify.
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
Um, I saw a lot of, of presumably white companions, like, engaging with a lot of appropriative branding stuff.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Like, I was just like, ooh, I'm like seeing a lot of like, bindis, and head dresses, and like, like real intentional exoticification because exotification is sexy. Like,
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
we literally call stripping exotic dancing. Um and the only way that we know how to exotify, our bodies in, as, as white folks is to, like, actually make them less white. Like, historically, we've been doing that for a really long fucking time. Like, hello, the creation of high heels,
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
For us to like, wear them to like, have a figure that we deemed was the figure of black women because black women were being fucking exotified and fetishized by white men that we were like, trying to act like we wanted to be in relationship with because someone told us that was important.
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
Like holy shit. Oh my god, we've, we've all been so duped you guys.
Parker
Survival.
Lena Czura
Survival.
Parker
In a lot of ways.
Lena Czura
Survival yeah. Um, and so, so. okay, so bringing it back to being an anti-, anti-racist white person in life. Why that's important to me. Is that right? Is that the question um, so it's a lot about what I was mentioning before is like, I feel like a lot of us who, okay, who are in social justice work. Who are, who identify as social justice movement people, I hear a lot of us be like, you know, I'm an anti-racist white person, because there are people of color in my life who I love and like, I don't want to be like, I don't want to think of anybody else who's not white as less than. And I'm like, yes, yes and, yes and, yes and, like, what's at stake for me?
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
What's at stake for me? Is that like, supremacy fucking tears my soul apart.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Like, if I'm not naming the fact that like supremacy actually dehumanizes my insides. There is no way that I can show up for my like brothers, sisters, siblings, that are people of color, whatever. However you identify gender, race, religion, there is no way for me to show up in this conversation unless I've actually claimed how like, my humanity is also like with me. Um, so yeah, so, so supremacy fucks with me. Like I said before it, it tears me away from my ancestors and my ancestral lineage and it's fucking alive even like right here in Detroit, like my, so I'm a fourth generation Detroiter. Um asterisk because white flight is real and the generation before me all grew up here and left Detroit because they could and they, and Detroit historically being a very black American city, my, my relatives didn't want to be here and like so many white families like up and left. And still like, have it still have this relationship with Detroit but not one of like, having been a resilient member of the community through generations,
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
But like the proximity of like, will claim it when it's convenient, but like we won't be here when the shit goes bad.
Parker
so much of that.
Lena Czura
So much of that so much of that. Yeah, yeah, one of my one of my family members of the generation above me has one of those mugs that's like Bitch please, I'm from Detroit.
Parker
Oh my god.
Lena Czura
And it, and it just like oh, it just it makes me it makes me feel so much confusion, anger shame. What, I'm like I'm like rolling my eyes in the back of my head and holding my hair because I'm like, identify I'm like, where's like, where's my humanity in this? Because, um, because my family has, has done this it's like, we have been a part of this city for, for, for a long ass time, you know, for like, 200 whatever years. And wait, I didn't do that math, right. Math is relative, time is relative, generations aren't like necessarily. 100 years, but we'll say 100, 150 years something like that. Um, so I have this picture of umm, it so this picture is part of a longer text that I have from a course there was like kind of like a cohort. Did I ever tell you about this this course that I did? With this organization called White Awake.
Parker
You did.
Lena Czura
Okay.
Parker
Because I took a course with them after you told me about it.
Lena Czura
Oh, I'm so glad! Oh, I'm so glad that we've been friends for a really long time.
Parker
We have.
Lena Czura
I don't know everything we've talked about. Yeah, yeah really reclamation of ancestry
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
As part of white folks in the social justice movement. Um, because it's a really good place to be in when we're white folks in the social justice movement.
Parker
Yeah, I love, I just want to speak to the part of like making it personal like you were saying like I need to know what it is in like in for me that,
Lena Czura
Because.
Parker
because it's, you have to feel it in your core, you have to have skin in the game.
Lena Czura
n. I am pink pussy hat, circa:Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
And when I show up like, I just like, I just really liked care, I’ll like care about my like friends who are black and brown and then like it's a really ,it's not even a rabbit hole, it's a short little, tiny chipmunk hole.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
To me being like paternalistic-ey, do-goody, performative ass bullshit.
Parker
Yeah, can I just say just because it struck me just now that that is like, people pleasing and fear of conflict, like showing up in the social justice movement.
Lena Czura
Oh my god! Those are my two favorite things to do when I don't want to feel my feelings.
Parker
Same yeah.
Lena Czura
That makes so much sense.
Parker
It makes so much sense.
Lena Czura
I am the biggest people pleaser ever.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
And I hate conflict.
Parker
Yeah, and in order to do real anti-racist work, we have to choose conflict sometimes.
Lena Czura
Yes, we have to choose to be uncomfortable.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
We have to choose to be in conflict and we have to choose to, to, to live in discomfort.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
And to live with less resources.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
We, I that makes me wildly uncomfortable.
Parker
Mm hmm.
Lena Czura
And for like, I think it's like my like people pleasing and fear of conflict are two coping mechanisms from my, my own like family structure in my own story in life. That is completely underpinned by what is acceptable in white identity. It is incredibly acceptable, acceptable for me as a white woman to be exceptionally people pleasing.
Parker
Mm hmm.
Lena Czura
Like hello.
Parker
I relate to that so hard.
Lena Czura
And it is really, really, like white girl code. White Girl code, hello white girl codes one oh one (101). Like, let me just tell them just tell one on us.
Parker
Reveal the secret.
Lena Czura
Like, it's like we don't get in conflict, like we like don't, we, we don't get in conflict. That's why there's so many other fucking stereotypes about literally every other identity group that is nonwhite being like, whatever, like um, like just conflict oriented in some way.
Parker
Yep.
Lena Czura
Or antagonistic in some way. Like, I mean, I've like just. this just hello.
Parker
Yeah. Yeah, and I think too there's the, the trope of like, well white, the white girl trope of gossip being gossipy, like behind someone's back.
Lena Czura
So true!
Parker
We don't. We don't con, we don't do the conflict, direct conflict but we gossip
Lena Czura
That. Thank you for saying that.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Thanks for, your right, your, direct conflict.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Direct conflict. You were 100 percent. Right, dude. We were talking about anti-racism stuff.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Talking about ancestral stuff.
Parker
It was a thing.
Lena Czura
More about, more about because if not, then we risk being paternalistic, do-goody white women. I've done that for a long time, I still that, still fucking creeps up dude.
Parker
Yep.
Lena Czura
That still fucking creeps out.
Parker
It's important to know it so you can,
Lena Czura
Name it to tame it.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Yeah and,
Parker
And name it to tame it.
Lena Czura
Oh, yeah.
Parker
I've not heard that.
Lena Czura
What!
Parker
That's good.
Lena Czura
Awesome you're welcome! You are welcome. Well, name it to tame it and, and be ready to do the repair work.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
When it does.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
You know, the repair work can show up differently. And,
Parker
Oh, we're creeping so, so close into the next thing, but I did want to touch on one more thing around anti-racism.
Lena Czura
Anti-racism, what else? What was the actual question?
Parker
Well, the, the actual one was like, what does it mean for you to be anti-racist?
Lena Czura
Oh, well, it's my entire life.
Parker
Yeah. Yeah, and then, the thing I want to touch on before we move on to the next bit,
Lena Czura
Yes.
Parker
Is like what, how is anti-racism?
Lena Czura
Wait I didn't get to finish my story.
Parker
What?
Lena Czura
I didn’t get to finish my story.
Parker
Oh, finish your story
Lena Czura
Detroit-ism, okay.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
But then that was really good question.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Okay, do you want me to finish this story?
Parker
Yes, finsihs your story and then, and then we'll go on to the next one.
Lena Czura
A libra and a gemini do a podcast in a closet and it’s absolutely, it's absolutely perfect.
Parker
We walk into a bar and then we walk straight out of it.
Lena Czura
Cause what the fuck are we gonna do in a bar.
Parker
Right. I love you.
Lena Czura
I love you so much. okay, this is going great. A big part of, so for me, a big part of my anti racism work, and my therefore ancestral work, as a white person is, it's not because it's not just about like, claiming my ancestry it's also grieving the loss of my ancestral identity in the way that it has been systematically replaced with this like ubiquitous thing that we just call white.
Parker
Yeah, which is made up by the way.
Lena Czura
Which is so, which is a complete social construct. And, um, and that, like doing that grief work, like fucking grieving, what I have lost is, is also what allows me to like to be more of a human in my relationships.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Um with myself with people that I love and in the community that I am accountable to and one of the so one of the things like that I was talking about here in Detroit. That was the, a picture that I got from a white, from the white awake group.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Um, was Hamtramck, Michigan. So, if you all are not familiar with the glorious city of Detroit, Hamtramck is a city within a city. It's two square miles, two square miles of its own city in the, surrounded by Detroit. It's like a little bit like, it's like north and east of where we are right now, but if you look it up on a map it's also like pretty well known. And Hamtramck was historically known as being like the like Polish Catholic stronghold
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
say there's this picture from:Parker
Wow.
Lena Czura
Bitch we can Google this and this is real.
Parker
Whoa.
Lena Czura
The Americanization program. So, the Americanization program was a compulsory program for any immigrant coming over predominantly from what we now identify as, like fellow white people, countries,
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
So, Poland, Ukraine,
Parker
like Norway,
Lena Czura
Macedonia, wherever, like keep going.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Um, and it was predominantly Eastern European at the time. Where like, folks would come, they would learn like the important English that they would need to know to work in the factories, and they would learn more importantly, like the, the cultural nuances of how to behave.
Parker
Wow.
Lena Czura
This is how, we're taught by the corporation that is General Motors. So, like, General Motors is doing this whole thing. Like, here's how you, here's how you behave in this space, and in your new home, here's what you sound like, here's what to do, here's what to not do. The graduation ceremony was literally, I kid you fucking not, was literally, the whole, like, the whole fucking thing was that the person graduating was supposed to, which was like the man of the family, i's not like women were fucking working,
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
Um, the person graduating was to take the items that they brought from their home country, and all of
Parker
Oh no.
Lena Czura
the cultural garb and bring them and throw them into this pot.
Parker
Oh no.
Lena Czura
The melting pot, and it gets lit on fire.
Parker
Ohhh.
Lena Czura
And it's just like this whole, like this whole ceremonious thing of this like complete taking of cultural garb and just washing it, like fucking erasing it, and then get it handed, getting handed an American flag.
Parker
Oh my God, that's awful. I mean, the fact that like the company is orchestrating
Lena Czura
And the corporation's y'all it's like, like, I can't like. I can't like when people are like, oh, like capitalism, racism, capitalism, racism, like United, like which one. It's like both were so, have been so systematically contrived
Parker
100 percent.
Lena Czura
have this picture to look at:Parker
Wow.
Lena Czura
Um the year that my grandma was actually born in Detroit, and I see like, holy shit, this is this is what my grandma was born into, this is what my mom was born into. Like.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Now like a, and, and like, understanding the way that my then like, my mom in her lifetime, grew up as like a Polack girl at a time when like Polish people like weren't we were like, kind of being ushered into the gates of whiteness. Like,
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
In like the like 50, 60, 70s, like it was a very, like slow thing, like my like my uncle's still get called dumb Polacks.
Parker
Right. Its almost same time Irish folks were being ushered into whiteness.
Lena Czura
Just the fucking Catholics.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Poor Catholics, poor Catholics got, we came in at the at the end.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Um, and it's the same way that we think about like Bosnian folks now. Or here in Michigan, how we think about like Chaldeans folks now, where there's like something, there's like a deep, intrinsic part in our brains where we're just like it. We can't even articulate it. But we're like, oh, I mean, like they're white, but like white, but and like the way that my, the way that I understand my family being in a white but category in their lifetime, and now I'm in like the white-white category,
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
It's just like, oh my god, it makes so much sense. Why we move the way that we move, and how, how we move.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
The way that we move, and how much has been fucking taken from us.
Parker
Yeah, and exposes, and exposes how much it's a social construct.
Lena Czura
Yeah, and how coercive this shit is.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Like how fucking coercive this shit is, like, every single one of our identity groups across the board, has a coercive relationship with capitalism, has a coercive relationship with racial capitalism, like we do. We can't escape it. We cannot escape it and yeah, so when I, when I touch in on like, Ooh, I feel the fire. I feel the fire.
Parker
We need it.
Lena Czura
When I am tapped into the grief, into the rage,
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
I like, I'm like, I, I'm ready to fucking link up. I'm ready to link up with fellow white folks. I'm ready to link up with like, fellow black, brown, who like people, across all spectrums of gender race class, who are like, yeah, this is fucked.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Like, I when I'm tapped in and centered and grounded, like, I'm ready to show up and be like, I like, I feel my fuckness ,I feel fuckness for you, and like, this shit is not gonna fly.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
And so like, I feel like in our iteration, I'm like, really with the word iteration today. And how that plays out, like now in, in our lives, like we're living through our like, first round of the Black Lives Matter movement was when I was an organizer. Now, in our second round of the Black Lives Matter movement as an organizer, it's like, I'm ready to show up because I refuse for this to happen, to continue happening. Like I refuse for the dehumanization of like my humanity and the humanity of people I love to continue. I refuse. I refuse.
Parker
Absolutely. but you gotta get in touch with that fire and I think that's I love that you identified that and like, where the origin comes from, because I think that's, that's the part of personal anti-racist work. That is so key to identifying that piece inside of ourselves that is grief and loss and anger.
Lena Czura
And confusion.
Parker
And confusion, and like, identify it, leaning into it, and, and really feeling those things so that we can show up in the anti-racist movement authentically.
Lena Czura
Yes.
Parker
And not in that paternalistic sense you were talking about earlier.
Lena Czura
I definitely identified as anti-racist, before being connected to this grief and this rage.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Um, and, and when I, and I, I lived in a space of guilt, like guilt was my primary motive. Like, I feel guilty for having so much privilege.
Parker
That stuff creeps up still.
Lena Czura
Therefore, I will be a doormat for whatever person has more melanin than me tells me what to do and now unlike now, I'm in this in like, I, oh, my gosh, and I, I did more harm than good.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
I was, I was incredibly harmful in my relationships and that's in the end, like I'm, I'm still in my repair work with that.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
And like, what that fucking looks like, dude, um being tapped into the fire doesn't absolve my relationship to the privilege I have now. It just means that I have the clarity that like, I'm not going to try and like, I'm not going to try to minimize, erase, play down my privileges.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Like, I am just so fucking on fire for equity.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Lke, what the fuck it looks like for every person that I love, and am in relationship with, and in accountable community with, to have the same access to resources that I do.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
And, and I get to live, like my journey now is like living in the discomfort and the recognition that like, what that may, like, what that looks like, is often being uncomfortable and like, like in this titrated place between like, fire, privilege, discomfort, rage, and like understanding that we deserve these resources. So, like, how the fuck are we going to get them?
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Like, how the fuck am I going to like, share, like, like mutual aid ,share the resources that I have, but not necessarily try and minimize or negate them.
Parker
Yeah, and take the risks necessary to show up.
Lena Czura
Ooooh.
Parker
Um, so with the anti-racist stuff, how does anti racism work and that identity fit into your sex work and business model? I know this is gonna be a two-parter. I know it.
Lena Czura
Oh my god, it's gonna be a two-parter. Fuck, dude. Um, I feel the inclination to judge myself really harshly right now. I feel the inclination to, I feel the inclination to throw myself under the bus.
Parker
Where's that coming from?
Lena Czura
Yeah, yeah, that's coming from my, my own narrative of like being the perfect anti-racist white ally means that I would uh, that that I would, quote unquote, be doing more. Or that I would, quote unquote, doing more I'm like air quoting.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
My fingers cracked in the microphone air quoting. So, you could probably know that I'm air quoting vigorously. Um I think that's it, I think.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
I think it's that. Um, okay, so I named that, and then I still have to answer the question.
Parker
Sorry, not sorry.
Lena Czura
Rude! God damn it this was rude. Um I, it's been a process. It's been a process. Um, it turns out that there's no handbook or instructions for like, how to be an anti-racist white person,
Parker
Shocking.
Lena Czura
And also, excuse me and also, yeah, and also like a, like a fucking hustler. So [uhhh]
Parker
Noises of exasperation.
Lena Czura
Noises of exasperation. Um, I feel the tension, I feel tension, I feel tension, I feel fucking tension between my identity as an anti-racist white person, and my brand as a sex worker. And I have put a lot of intention, and time and resources to bring those two things closer together. I feel like when I started, I, what I, this is also the beauty of what I why I fucking love Twitter as a platform for like, indirect or passive solicitation.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Because I'm a ,I'm like, have a platform where I can like, share my values and like even just like, share my spirit, which is just like, I'd like to think this is like pretty genuine and compassionate as a person, which is like a really important tenet as
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
anti-racist white person. Having feelings and like, desiring genuine intimacy.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Um, turns out whiteness doesn't like that and.
Parker
Truth.
Lena Czura
Um, yeah, so the tension that I feel is I don't know I'm going to do, I mean, I, I ask your feedback.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
I'm like, I'm like, ready to go in and be like, fuck, I haven't done enough. Like, I built like, I built the tenets of my brand on um like, um being like, hot able bodied normal like, like normatively beautiful. cisgendered white girl.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
And like, I can have an immense amount of success by just having those things. Like that's where my privilege fucking like catapults my shit into like, I mean.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Like, I just have to drastically not fuck up.
Parker
I love when you say that. You've, so you've said that a few times in my presence and I really appreciate you identifying like, I have all of these privileges as an able-bodied white, like normatively attractive woman and like, all I have to do is not fuck up. And it really, I think you are being a little hard on yourself because go figure. But I think it's, it's hard because marketing as a sex worker almost requires a certain amount of playing into the tropes and the stereotypes and like, that's why you will see people playing into the fetish, fetishization of whatever race they identify as, or they appear to be. Maybe they don't even identify as that but whatever they appear to be, or trans sex workers like playing, playing into the tropes there.
Lena Czura
Yeah.
Parker
And so I think marketing as a sex worker, is really difficult and I think for me, at least with, when I think about branding, I, it's, I've had the struggle of trying to bring my anti-racist identity into the way that I advertise and the way that I like post photos and like really trying not to, yeah, really trying not to play into the tropes as much as possible. Because there's, there's a certain amount of leeway that you can have and then also making statements on Twitter, on OnlyFans, and really just like identifying things, and making people think in ways like the people who follow you. I've noticed that you tend to put things on OnlyFans like celebrating ,I think it was, fuck was it on Columbus Day you posted something?
Lena Czura
Yeah.
Parker
Yeah Um, and, and you like made a point to like get heated a little bit and so I think like, maybe speak to that where like bringing that in taking those risks as part of your brand.
Lena Czura
Also, also, huge shout out to the team of people that helped me, actually like I do not okay first and foremost.
Parker
there you go.
Lena Czura
With branding, I don't do this shit alone. Like I have a social media manager I have an OnlyFans manager, I have an assistant that does all of my email. So, like, the beauty of working with this team is that like, I, I am very like with them. I'm very fiercely like this, like, this is my brand. This is what we're doing. Like they know me as like an anti-racist white person and we vibed on that level, like we super vibe on that level and okay, so this is helping me thank you because it's like,
Parker
I was hoping that would.
Lena Czura
It's like getting me a little bit out of my like shame spiral that I was going.
Parker
I felt it.
Lena Czura
I was really my shame spiral, I was so in my shame spiral
Parker
We don't need to go there, we don't need to go there we don’t have to go there.
Lena Czura
So much compassion.
Parker
We've got the high priestess here. No shame spiral.
Lena Czura
No shame spiral today, right next to the void.
Parker
Yeah, we needed the void.
Lena Czura
God bless, God bless. Yeah, so it feels like it's, um, it feels like my, my anti-racist value system has served me in a whole bunch of smaller decisions that in like arc, like overarching decisions, like my first decision was like naming. Right? And I was, and I got, I remember doing the branding workshop with PS group and it was just like, there's like, PS group has a fabulous.
Parker
It's amazing.
Lena Czura
PS group could probably also sponsor this podcast, because I'll probably keep talking about you guys. Has a great branding workshop. It's just like a whole bunch of really thought provoking questions and I remember being like, I'm really fucking set on keeping my last name Czura. And I and at the beginning, when I entered, the beginning people were like, oh, that's a little confusing. It's a little duh duh duh duh. And I was like, no, I got to do this, because like, this is my fucking tether. Like, if I go, if I like, go into a more generic name, like I will, I will be really tempted to continue to evolve in more generic ways and I can't, I refuse like, that is not in line with my values. I can't go not even like can't even go into like, basic bitch land because like, I still do basic bitch all the time. hello.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Reclaiming the basic bitchness.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
And, and also, like, it comes down to, you know, like, I remember I was abroad doing a photo shoot and I was in Mexico and it was gorgeous and amazing. And there was a moment when I was working with the, the set person and the photographer and there was a, we were in this really tiny mountain town in Mexico and, and there was a Mexican woman who was like, dressed up in traditional Mexican garb of like, the mountain town community with the flowers and the gorgeous and had like a little mule and a cart the mule was in the flowers, and the cart had the flowers, and it was beautiful, and the set person was like, oh my God, you need to go get a picture with that mule and that woman and I was like, Ooooh, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I will not do that. Like that, that's not of my culture. Cause that doesn't fit with my brand but like, that's not my culture, that's not of my people, and I'm sure as hell not going to go make money off of this photo with this like, wonderful elder brown woman,
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
like as a prop. The fuck? No. The fuck? No, next question.
Parker
Yeah. Thank you next.
Lena Czura
Thank you next. And like, there's been so many little decisions like that, that have been part of my, like, journey of being a sex worker that have also, that have also been, that have put me in a place of like being more vocal about my relationship to organizing, my relationship to sex worker organizing, and being a white person who's anti-racist, and now it's like, now I have clients who like, value me for this shit. Like, I would just, just and, and then when I was building my website, and in the like, the latest website that I have, I was really on about wanting to build a Detroit page. Like there were so many of us as Detroit companions,
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
That, but like none of us, I didn't feel like any of us were orienting around the city. and it felt like this really unspoken. Like it well, I'll just, for whatever it is, I read this like my like social justice spidey senses, like this is some white bullshit happening of like, like none of us as white companions orient around this black majority city.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Because like, because that wouldn't be, quote unquote, luxury that wouldn't be, quote unquote, classy. Like this, this like super tacit equation with race and class and I'm like I'm not fucking okay with that. So, I built on my website, I have like a page for Detroit, that I have off right now because I'm reorganizing it, I need to like update it but I was literally just like if you I think it was really sassy in my content, but it was something that,
Parker
You? Sassy in your content?
Lena Czura
Who is that? Who is that? Who could that be? but I was just like, if you have shit to say about Detroit say it to my face.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Like fuck you guys. Fuck like, I mean, love you clients.
Parker
But also, don't talk shit about Detroit
Lena Czura
Also don't talk shit about Detroit.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
Like I, I can't like I'm, I'm on a reclamation journey of my own family leaving Detroit of me now being in like, full time in Detroit being the only home owning person in the city of Detroit when at one time we had seven homes across the city.
Parker
Wow.
Lena Czura
Like not even a generation ago. We don't have that anymore. So, like, I can't be, I cannot afford to be like in this tacit white girl place of like, oh, I guess we'll just go hang out in the suburbs for the evening. Like, no bitch actually, it costs more money to bring me out to the suburbs.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Like, like and like there's just like this whole evolution of decisions for, in and of yeah, for my brand and now also starting my blog.
Parker
Yes. Do you want to take a moment to talk,
Lena Czura
No.
Parker
Okay we won't talk about your blog.
Lena Czura
Okay no, we can talk about my blog.
Parker
Okay I don't care what you want we're gonna talk about your blog.
Lena Czura
Uhhhh I don't want to do it
Parker
so, you're starting your blog.
Lena Czura
Can you hear me biting my nails?
Parker
What pray tell, pray tell what is your blog about?
Lena Czura
Well, it turns out that my blog is about pretty much being a white identifying sex worker in a movement to decriminalize sex work in, how it is my own journey, and importance for us to not center our whiteness in the movement to decriminalize sex work. That won't get shit done.
Parker
Hell yeah. Not at all.
Lena Czura
Um, and then a whole bunch of other asides. Like, it's really it's not a blog. This was another yeah. So, it was, it was actually it was an idea from PS group. PS group is just like, when, when we were doing SEO work, and I think PS groups does this to a lot of folks, like start a blog, it's great for SEO, when you update a blog, and you link it to your website, it's the best way to get your, in, when we're talking about SEO, we're talking about search engine optimization.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
So, the way the, the ranking that your website gets when you are like in an organic Google search, so you get higher up in the ranking, like, you know, in the top results, when you have content that's more updated. So, a blog is a great place to do that. Um, super great in theory, and when we talked about it, it was just like, yeah, you know, like, here's a few other examples of like, sex worker blogs, and it's just like, really stream of conscious, or like, really just like super client, like client facing, client talking to and like, you could just kind of do some shit like this and call it a blog, and I'm like, okay, okay, okay, cool. Yeah, I can totally do that, I can totally do, do that. Oh, shit. I can't totally do that. Like if I'm going to be in a space where I have my thoughts and values attached to my name and the brand that I fucking built, like you best believe, you best believe it's going to be about like movement work, and community organizing, and I can't talk about those things from any other place but my own. Which is my forever journey of being a white person in this movement and a forever journey being a white identified sex worker in our movement to decriminalize sex work. Um so that means I started writing a blog and the drafts are done.
Parker
That's exciting.
Lena Czura
it's exciting, I, you it's like funny honestly, now I'm, it'll be interesting by the time we air this podcast, if I, I have a good sense that it'll be like, up and going. That timeline. What is the self-accountability? Stop, stop, stop.
Parker
Oh, I love it.
Lena Czura
Oh, oh my god. So, um, honestly, the question is like, I don't even, I don't quite know if it'll be linked to my website, or if it'll stand alone, which like, totally defeats this whole purpose that we were talking about for SEO.
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
It's grown outside, it's grown so much bigger than, like, not bigger. It's grown. It's rooted, actually, it's like, grown and rooted more in a different place.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Um, and, yeah, so I'm very much leaning towards this blog being hosted on a completely different domain name, like having its own website. Just because the audience of the blog for me when I'm writing, the audience of the blog is like my peers.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
My peers who are, like both white identifying sex workers and not white identifying sex workers. And I, clients will read that, potential clients can read that, people who are sex worker allies can definitely read it, and that's not necessarily the intended audience.
Parker
Right.
Lena Czura
Um, and doesn't mean that you all won't get something from it. Yeah, and so I think, and I think there's a lot of this, like, we, when we as, as white folks, in the larger social justice movement, I think we've done a lot more work in more recent years, compared to when I first got started as a white person in the movement, where it's like, we were so decentralized, because we, we had so much unprocessed guilt and shame about our whiteness.
Parker
And there was the delineation of like, the good white person versus.
Lena Czura
100 percent.
Parker
Right. Yeah and now,
Lena Czura
And we and how much we've done a lot to, to perpetuate that.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Um, which, which I don't agree with. And, and by agree with, I mean, like, I, I feel it in me the way that I want to demonize fellow white folks who do not have the same values that I have. But I do that from a deep place of superiority complex, as opposed to being able to reach out and be like, ooh, I see the pain that is alive right now.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
Um, and we're actually suffering from the same pain.
Parker
Yes,
Lena Czura
We're suffering from the same pain of like being fucking duped by corporations. And we had those in, in our two ideologies our dominant narratives, have just taken off in two different directions.
Parker
Yes.
Lena Czura
And so like, if I come back from to this place of pain, and like recognizing that like, we are in the same place of like, this, this like ubiquitous-ness of whiteness is, is like telling us that we are different from our peers in some way.
Parker
Mm hmm.
Lena Czura
Then, yeah, and I mean, I and ,then like, then I can, I can, like, be in a much deeper compassionate place. That was a total aside.
Parker
Yeah.
Lena Czura
The thing that I feel like I want to flesh that out, but I don't want to get too off to the aside. What's, what are you feeling?
Parker
I also feel like that's just a blog post. Like I'm,
Lena Czura
Oh, yay I'll make a blog post.
Parker
I'm like, I'm so excited. I’m like in this place of like, I cannot wait to read your blog.
Lena Czura
Why! God damn it.
Parker
Coming soon to an interwebs near you.
Lena Czura
Thanks for saying that. Yeah, so that's the combination of anti-racist identity in my sex work life.
Parker
Absolutely. I also, deep sigh.
Lena Czura
Deep, deep sigh and more la croix.
Parker
I was yes. I was also thinking as you were speaking, and earlier when you were like thinking you didn't do enough work, this idea of like prioritizing time to like get out on the fucking streets when shit was going down like that was, that was a huge,
Lena Czura
That was a huge priority.
Parker
Yeah, huge priority, like canceling some of your work.
Lena Czura
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Parker
And stuff in order to I mean, we both did in order to like be there and do the work.
Lena Czura
Right. You are fucking right?
Parker
Um, we've, I, it's funny how we like don't remember the things that we do.
Lena Czura
I yeah. Yeah, we yeah, it's true.
Parker
In order to perpetuate a shame spiral which is not helpful and just keeps us, it's so yeah, it in our coping shit.
Lena Czura
In our coping shit, which also like, serves the dominant narrative.
Parker
100 percent.
Lena Czura
Serves supremacy,
Parker
Which is my way of pivoting to.
Lena Czura
Stop.
Parker
The lady said, stop. So, we're stopping right there, and I am really grateful that you all are here listening to this. This conversation means so much to me, and I was I'm still so grateful that Lena was willing to sit down and get vulnerable with me in this way. If you want to help fund our work with ANSWER, you can go to ANSWER detroit.org and donate directly there, you can also become a patreon of this podcast and 50% of the proceeds go towards a network of sex workers to excite revolution, you can become a patreon at patreon.com/sexy Galaxy pod. But if you can't spare the cash at this time, that's totally okay I'm just really grateful that you're here and you're listening and engaging. If you're feeling like you want to support even further and you don't want to spend any money, you can always leave a review, give us five stars, you can engage with us on Twitter at sexy Galaxy pod. Lena's information is in the show notes and everything that we talked about. Everything that I could possibly find a link to is in the show notes, so go check that out. There's a lot of really good books in there and stay tuned for the next episode dropping in two weeks. That is the other half of this conversation. I am so grateful for you. I don't know how many times I'm going to be able to say that, probably every single time, multiple times. I feel really lucky always to be creating this podcast so thank you so much for listening and Happy pride month. Stay Fabulous. Go out and get covered in glitter or whatever you want to do. It's, it's a really wonderful time to be yourself. Thank you for being you. Okay, space fact, space fact here we go. Space travel can be rather enjoyable. In fact, when you are floating in space, feeling the euphoria of the vacuous void around you, the pleasure can be so intense that you just cum into space, and the result is the Milky Way. Nanu nanu motherfuckers.