“Sign Here, Give Up Everything: Sheri’s Ranch”
Host Daisy Ducati interviews Jupiter Jetson about workers at Sheri’s Ranch in Nevada organizing to unionize after new contracts introduced in December that asserted sweeping intellectual property ownership and a power of attorney allowing the ranch to monetize workers’ names, likenesses, and creations in perpetuity. Jetson explains Nevada’s legal brothel system, hiring and STI-testing requirements, and how Sheri’s rules and scheduling resemble employee control despite workers being labeled independent contractors, an issue now before the NLRB. Workers rapidly organized through a Discord, consulted an IP attorney, and connected with CWA to collect authorization cards and file for union representation. After management was notified, multiple organizers and workers were fired and the ranch issued several revised contracts, prompting unfair labor practice claims. Listeners are urged to sign a petition and donate via unitedbrothelworkers.com, with no boycott requested.
*This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors.* *This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors.* Begin transcript after opening credits.
Jupiter: [00:00:00] So that’s where this story is going to be taking a bit of a turn. Yeah. ’cause the thing is, is they will say that we’re not classified as employees. They will say that we’re independent contractors. However, our working conditions, our pay structure, the rules, the scheduling, the everything about it, I can call my hair green all I want.
It doesn’t change the facts. So yeah. Um, that’s actually something that is currently being, uh, it’s working its way through the NLRB right now.
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Daisy: Hello everyone and [00:01:00] welcome to YAS Podcast. I’ll be your host today, Daisy Ducati, and thank you so much for being here with us. Before we get into today’s episode, I do wanna remind you that YAS Podcast is produced by YAS Work. We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to changing public perception via media.
And if you love our podcast, please consider donating donations like yours, keep our project going. So head to yaswork.org/donate. Thank you so much. Today’s episode we’re gonna talk about what’s going on at Sheri’s brothel in Nevada, and the unionization effort of the workers. So we’re here today with Jupiter Jetson.
How you doing?
Jupiter: Hello. Nice to be here.
Daisy: I’m so excited to get into this. This is, this is a topic that’s close to my own heart. [00:02:00] So before we get into the juicy bits tell us a little bit about who you are and your connection to the brothel.
Jupiter: Well, uh, my name’s Jupiter Jetson. I actually am a porn actress and a brothel worker.
However, my time in the brothel actually predates my entry into mainstream porn. I have been working at Sheri’s Ranch since May of 2018. So almost, it would’ve been eight years, uh, coming in May that I’ve been there.
Daisy: Awesome. Yeah. So what’s happening? So actually first let’s talk about the legal brothel system in Nevada for people that don’t live out here.
How does that work? I.
Jupiter: Yeah, I, you know, it’s funny, it’s become so normalized to me over the last eight years that I kind of forget that for a lot of people, the Nevada brothel system is just a complete blank space in, in their knowledge. Yeah. So, uh, the way it works is that, so of course, [00:03:00] Nevada is the only state that has legalized sex work.
However, there is a bit of a misconception with how that works. Um, a lot of people think that it’s legal in Las Vegas. It unfortunately is not. Sex work is only legal- well full service sex work, to be specific, is only legal in about, it’s most counties in Nevada. Uh, there’s 19 specific locations left.
Uh, no county that has a population of 750,000 or more is permitted to have a brothel. So it’s population based. And the way it works is ladies show up at the brothel. Of course, we have to be hired first, so there’s a pre-arrival human resources component. Once we arrive, we fill out our contracts, we sign out, uh, fill out the forms for our sheriff’s card.
We are STI tested, and then we, once we clear the STI tests, we go to the sheriff’s office, get a photograph, fingerprints, background check, and [00:04:00] the stamp of approval from the state, and then we can go and get to work in whichever brothel hired us.
Daisy: Got it. And so what do the contracts normally look like for this kind of work?
Jupiter: Uh, you know, I, I can really only speak from my experience at Sheri’s Ranch. Um, I, I did work very briefly at a different brothel that actually doesn’t exist anymore. Rest in peace, Kit Kat Ranch. Yeah, it was my very first house. I was there- I mean, I was only there a grand total of six weeks.
Spread over two months, but still special place in the heart, and now a very special charred hole in the ground. But, uh, I, I can’t really speak to what the contracts look like at other places, but I do know that historically the contract at Sheri’s ranch was always fairly, uh, I mean, it was never a wonderful contract.
But it, it used to have fairly standard components in it. You know, they use a lot of our photos for advertising. So of course there was a photo release. Um, you know, and just your basic, um, [00:05:00] worker business relationship contracts, you know, things like, don’t trash the place, uh, you know, don’t speak badly about the place.
Things like that, that are fairly common sense. Um, a couple of things about, how both the corporation and the individual should be giving each other 30 days written notice of any termination of contracts just protective things. Um, that changed in December. Now mind you they had started kind of teasing that there were some contract changes coming back in the fall. Uh, around the same time that I’d had a conversation with the general manager of Sheri’s about how the owners were toying around with ideas about how they might be able to monetize the fact that they have a very large number of porn actresses in their employee at this point in history.
And of course, my answer to that line of questioning was that they can’t, they cannot monetize our content, but I, I digress. Yeah. They had been saying that there were gonna be new [00:06:00] contracts coming and that they were gonna be released the week of Christmas and that they were no major changes, just tying up some loose ends, fixing some clerical errors, but they kept saying it very ominously.
Ladies aren’t gonna like it. But the ladies aren’t gonna like it. A lot of you aren’t gonna like these contracts, and so
Daisy: what a odd thing to say.
Jupiter: Well, exactly what a, what a strange way to tell us about changes to our jobs. So the week of Christmas, I reached out to one of my coworkers who was actually physically there at the ranch at the time, and just asked her if she wouldn’t mind sending me a copy of the contract, because of course, the, the ranch does not send us these contracts in advance. They expect us to arrive after traveling across state lines. Across country borders. In my case, I come here from out of the country for work. Um Oh wow. And they expect us to just sign upon arrival. So I [00:07:00] got a copy of this contract that of course my coworker had already signed because it had been presented to her upon arrival.
Yeah. And by the third page I was- I literally crying. There was it was genuinely devastating to read the terms of this contract because even though I’m not a lawyer, there were some terms that immediately jumped out of me, out at me as completely non-negotiable and completely inappropriate for this kind of contract.
Um, namely starting at section five which was governing our intellectual property rights. Um, yes. All of a sudden we’re not just workers, we’re contact content creators, and apparently the ranch is a studio and they’re a studio that owns everything we do ever in perpetuity. Uh, the intellectual property claims that they were making would grant them ownership of everything we have ever made, past and present, and future surviving the- surviving termination of our employment, surviving our death. [00:08:00] Surviving our death, everything here. Now most concerningly.
Daisy: Wow.
Jupiter: And also surviving our death is the power of attorney that this contract also grants the ranch. Because
Daisy: What?!
Jupiter: if yes. In the event that after trying to get us to sign on the dotted line to sign over our copyrights.
We refuse. We were supposed to be granting them, our power of attorney to sign documents for us. And because this power of attorney was paired with an interest or coupled with an interest, I always forget the exact word that means that it was not paired to our employment, our business relationship, our lives.
It was paired to their interest in our business and their ability to monetize it, meaning that long after we work there, long after we die, they can sign our name on the dotted line to continue monetizing our image, our likeness, our writings, our music anything we do inventions, patents.
Daisy: Wow,
Jupiter: all of it [00:09:00] listed. So they’re trying to fully own, like your name and likeness, name likeness, anything we do. Um, they felt, I apparently, and mind you, I, I guess I can’t put words into their mouth because I don’t know what they felt, but if I were going to make this assumption based solely on the con on the contract, they felt entitled to ask for our entire being and rights to it because we’ve worked there.
Daisy: Wow. That. That’s absolutely outrageous.
Jupiter: Yes. Yes. I, I have to admit, okay I’m not used to being this morally correct.
Daisy: Yeah,
Jupiter: it’s, uh, it’s a bit wild. But yeah. So, and, and on top of that, you know, even if they were try, if they could have tried to explain away, like, oh, it’s a standardized contract, and we didn’t mean to throw that in there, which is something they had said a couple years back when they had made.
Other contract changes that had been ruffling some feathers. Um, yeah. So [00:10:00] when it was brought up though they just tried to explain it away as, oh, no, no, no. We just need that so that we can share your photos with journalists, which isn’t true. Photos to journalists are covered under fair.
Standards don’t even require Yeah.
Daisy: Journal use, whatever.
Jupiter: Yeah. They actually don’t even have to get a photo release. They, they don’t even need a model release. Um, yeah, so it, it was very obvious that there was some kind of ulterior motive and we, you know, we, we first, okay, so first things first, when I got this contract, I immediately got in touch with an attorney, Michael Fedder, if anybody’s looking for a good IP attorney. Yeah, he he read over this contract for me and immediately validated exactly my reading of what I had seen. And so my next move we got it into, we had a group Discord chat that Molly Wilder, another worker at the ranch had made a couple of years ago, just as like a community space, you know, lost and [00:11:00] found girl needs a ride to the airport, what have you.
And at the time that this contract came out on, I got my copy on December 27th at that time this Discord had about 12 members. It was very little used. Not exactly even well known. Um, by the end of that week, it had the vast majority of the workers who work at Sheri’s in it, I think we’re- it’s been a while since I’ve looked at the exact number, but it’s, it’s the vast, vast majority of workers at the ranch are in this discord.
And we had had a mutual aid fund set up, had contacted the attorney again. Had sent a group letter, individual letters, and we’re working towards figuring out how to proceed from here. Within five days. Yeah, within five days. We had all of that. And that’s kind of where we stayed for about a month and a half, was in this position of every, you know, every week ladies would arrive at the ranch and ladies would say, Hey, I just need more time.
Can my attorney look at this? And so every week, ladies were being sent home and being told, okay, well you can have [00:12:00] your attorney read this. And then come back next week, but you have to sign it next week. So, by February 3rd, we realized that we were absolutely out of all of those weeks, and that everybody who was coming in at this point was going to be told sign or leave.
We were at that deadline. So, uh, it was January, I wanna say January 30th, maybe a little bit before then that I reached out to, uh, Suzy Q and was just, kind of asking her, ’cause someone had, someone else I work with, uh, Lillian Young Leave, who’s a professor at UNLV had mentioned, you know, Susie might be a great person to talk to about this.
She’s got a lot of connections in this sphere. And I had just been on her podcast, so I was That’s a great idea. Reached out to her and she, I like immediately got me in touch with Carrie Biggs Adams, who is one of the bigger dogs, um, at CWA and Nava and all of that. And she got in touch with our local CWA 9413 in Nevada.[00:13:00]
And they had a meeting with us the very next day where they went over what the union could do for us. How they might be able to help and what that could look like. And then asked if we’d want to join them and, uh, yeah. Yeah, it’s been, uh, we’ve, we of course, obviously said yes at that point.
Daisy: Amazing.
Jupiter: Um, and we all were really, really, really excited.
We. From the moment we said yes, it took them about 12 hours to get a digital version of union authorization cards because we’re kind of a strange case in that we’re all spread out across the four corners and within.
Daisy: And so real quick, I’m sorry, are you actually classified as employees at Sheri’s?
Jupiter: So that’s where this story is going to be taking a bit. Of a turn. Yeah. ’cause the thing is, is they will say that we’re not classified as employees. They will say that we’re independent contractors. However, our working conditions, our pay structure, the rules, [00:14:00] the scheduling, the everything about it, I can call my hair green all I want.
It doesn’t change the facts. So yeah. Um, that’s actually something that is currently being, uh, it’s working its way through the NLRB right now.
Daisy: Okay.
Jupiter: And it’s one of the things I’m actually gonna be finishing up, uh, some statements on that. On that actually later this afternoon. Um, that is the one fly in the ointment is, we are as of this exact moment according to the letter of their contracts, not employees, however, according to the letter of their recruitment portion of the website, which says employment.
Would you like to become a sexy Sheri’s la- one of Sheri’s sexy ladies? And then if you want to email them, it’s employment at Sheri’s ranch.com.
Daisy: Ah. Also, generally, if an employer is telling you when and how to work and what you can [00:15:00] wear and how long you have to be on the premises and things like that, that generally qualifies you as an employee.
Jupiter: Yeah. We don’t pass any of the ABC test. We cannot work from home. We, you know, and there is this party line that the ranch will try to sell to us, that, you know, we have to pay for all of the products and the things that we need to do our job. But if you actually look at it from a lens of reality, no, we don’t.
We pay for condoms, we pay for lube. And if you’re one of the ladies who doesn’t just dress like you normally do, but with, maybe more skirts involved, you have to pay for clothes beyond that. What else are we paying for? We aren’t paying for the sex furniture. We’re not paying for the loca- We’re not paying for, you know, the amenities.
We’re not paying for nru gel. We’re not paying for the events that they are putting on to attract customers. We’re not paying for any of the things, the website, the things that we are actually needing to do our job. Not really. [00:16:00] Not really. I mean, and that’s, that’s, that one’s really the only even slight gray area because yes, I have to buy my own condoms.
Everything else is provided by the ranch, the linens, the towels, the everything. And beyond that, the amount of control that is exerted over us, I mean, we don’t get to choose our doctor. Yeah, we don’t get to choose what day we come in. We don’t get to choose how long we stay. We also don’t even really get to choose what weeks we work.
We can request, we can say, I would like to work, like for example, if I want to work this week, but they actually have things going on that week and they don’t want me there, they can say no, and they can give that spot to somebody else that they think would be a better fit for that week.
Like we don’t actually, we are given the illusion of control, but no actual control over the, the methods of our work.
Daisy: And it’s also, it’s my understanding that they also have very specific rules about like not leaving the premises while you’re working.
Jupiter: Yes. Uh, [00:17:00] this is actually something that I started advocating against in 2021 within the house, not publicly.
Because in 2021. The laws were changed in Nye County before then, uh we were not legally allowed to be off campus for more than 24 hours. And before that it had been for more than eight hours. And even more restrictively when it first was written, it was no more than four hours. So we have been in the brothel industry specifically in Nye County because it is of its proximity, proximity to Las Vegas.
We have been on a, a very positive trend with that where all movement restrictions have been removed as of 2021.
Daisy: Okay.
Jupiter: There is absolutely nothing that says how long we need to be on campus for, or how long we’re allowed to be gone before we have to retest, before they have finally moved it to be more like a system that the porn industry is more familiar with.
Okay? Where there is just a frequency of testing mandate. Um, and ours is actually more frequent than the porn industry, although [00:18:00] far less extensive. We are only tested for four path for four specific STIs. Um,
Daisy: interesting.
Jupiter: It’s, yes, it’s actually, it’s kind of funny. So the testing protocols in Nevada, specific, in Nevada as a whole are wildly out of date and out of touch with science.
And this is something that I actually started working on in 2021. I, it started as a petition. With the Nye County Commission to remove three words from the Nye County Code. And those words were via endocervical swab. Because I wanted to get ladies out of stirrups and I wanted to open the industry up as at least in Nye County, um, without discussion to trans women.
Um, because as of right now, the, while the Nevada State Code has specific instructions for how to test trans women, the Nye County Code has not added that language to their- to their charter. So that’s been something that I started working on years ago, and it’s actually through that effort that I’ve built the [00:19:00] community that led us to here.
Because if I hadn’t been working on the STI testing, I wouldn’t know Dr. Young leave. If I didn’t know her, I wouldn’t have been told to call Susie. So it’s kind of crazy how that works. Um, how, and this is why activists always say, build community.
Daisy: Let’s give a little background for the listeners on who Susie is. ’cause I know Susie from back in the day.
Jupiter: Fair enough.
Daisy: Um, we both worked at the Lusty Lady in San Francisco, which was the first unionized, cooperatively owned strip joint. Um, it was a peep show and it, the Lusty Lady kind of. The unionized in a time where that was absolutely unheard of for sex workers and has been the starting point for a lot of sex work, labor activism.
Uh. And if you wanna learn more about that, you can watch, there’s a documentary about it called Live Nude Girls Unite. And so [00:20:00] Susie was heavily involved with the Lusty Lady
and has been heavily involved with a lot of labor rights organizing and like sex work organizing. And so she’s a very good person to have involved in this and is also involved with a lot of union organizing.
Jupiter: Yes. Yes. She proved that proved to be incredibly correct. Because, yeah, within 24 hours of getting in touch with Susie, we had a meeting with the CWA and that’s kind of what led us to here, uh, which is where we’re at. Although it’s, believe it or not all of that is the not dramatic part of this story.
Once we got the invite from CWA we started collecting union cards. And yeah, within 24 hours we had more than half of the ladies, but we wanted to have a super majority. So I came in person to the ranch. Um, the day that there was the changeover day where everybody was coming in and flagged ladies down in the parking lot, getting them to sign.
There was another lady, a [00:21:00] friend of mine, Paloma Car. She was in the building, sending ladies out. Side to me, like Jupiter’s got a, a message for you. She’s sitting in her van. And we, that was how we got to a super majority within 48 hours of
Daisy: amazing
Jupiter: actually even getting union cards, which is, uh, we didn’t even realize how wild that is until afterwards.
Daisy: Yeah. That’s fast.
Jupiter: Yes. Super fast. And again, we were like, it’s so funny in retrospect ’cause we were like, I don’t know if we’re really, if we’ve got the, the kind of support and solidarity we need, and it’s like, oh God, we we’re killing it. We’re killing it.
Daisy: Yeah,
Jupiter: we’re doing so good. But
Daisy: I highly doubt any of the workers actually want to sign over all of their rights.
Jupiter: No, no. Nobody,
Daisy: it’s such an absurd ask.
Jupiter: I don’t know of anybody who’s just eagerly awaiting giving up the right to their own signature.
Daisy: And not even for compensation, that’s the thing.
Jupiter: Explicit, explicitly for free. And actually they’ve, they’ve tried to release like five different versions of this new [00:22:00] contract, a placate.
And the newest version actually not just gives them our rights for no additional consideration, but also explicitly forbids us from monetizing our, our likenesses and our content. It’s wild. It’s wild. That one doesn’t count because
Daisy: what, so
Jupiter: that, thankfully, that one doesn’t count at all because it was already wildly illegal for them to even have another new contract after we unionized.
Like they’ve, so basically they’re, I guess we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, um, just a little bit because, uh, their response to our unionization is just truly wild. So we, yeah. We submitted our union authorization cards that day. Um, the next day we, you know, handed out some like bingo solidarity cards that had like the, common arguments against the union that the ranch is gonna make and all of that.
That same day they received notification that we had been unionized and the very next day, me and Paloma were fired. I was fired [00:23:00] first via email, and then 10 minutes later she was fired in person at the ranch.
Daisy: That’s conspicuously illegal.
Jupiter: I mean, I’m sure, I mean, considering they had just approved three months worth of dates for me, and I hadn’t even been at the ranch except to collect union cards.
I mean, I’m sure, I’m sure it had nothing to do with the union. That’s sarcasm for those among us. But yeah, uh, yeah, they fired me and her on day one. And things stayed fairly quiet for about five days and then the next changeover day, or four days on Tuesday the next, uh, the next one. Oh, wait, no.
Yes. Adeline was next fired because a lady tried to sign under duress with the contracts. They fired her. They also soft fired another lady who may, because they finally hired a labor attorney- may end up coming back, but, uh, they definitely hard fired Molly [00:24:00] Wilder, who appeared in the AP with me after the article came out she was fired.
Uh, and, and the ranch has just basically gone on a rampage of unfair labor practices. They are quite popular with the NLRB right now.
Daisy: Yeah. That, that, that happens when unionizing starts
Jupiter: Yeah.
Daisy: It’s gonna hit the fan.
Jupiter: Yes. Yes, they do. And, and that’s the thing, is it, it seems as though, at least at the outset, they thought we were bluffing. Like, that’s the, that’s the impression that we all get based on their response is they thought that we didn’t have a leg to stand on. I think they still think that, I don’t think they realize how much they’ve treated us like employees.
Daisy: Yeah. That kind of happened with the Lusty Lady too. Like the dancers were already considered employees, but still, like once the unionizing started, there was this like backlash for management that was just so obvious and so illegal [00:25:00] and. Like you’re not gonna get away with it.
Jupiter: No. And you know, that has been the really wild and really beautiful thing that I think is coming out of this is that, you know, in Nevada, the brothel system has always existed in kind of its own weird little legal bubble where the kind of general- the general vibe and the general feeling is that this job is illegal everywhere else.
And so if you rock the boat in any way and you try to change even a hair of this system, the whole house of cards is gonna crumble and the whole thing’s gonna go away. Because- that makes total sense that they’re going to just completely destroy a multimillion dollar tax paying industry in a state with no infrastructure.
Because the workers want rights. That makes tons of sense. Totally tracks. Um, but there is that idea that if we push too hard, then they’ll say, well, I guess if the ladies need- are [00:26:00] fighting for their rights, I guess it means they don’t have one. They don’t have them, and we must shut it down.
And I just, I have more faith in society in 2026 than to think that people are going to say the answer is to just shut it down at this stage in the game.
Daisy: Yeah. And one of the most powerful tools that we have as sex workers and as women is the constant underestimation of us.
Jupiter: Yes.
Daisy: People love to underestimate us and think that we don’t know what we are doing and that we’re not gonna follow through, and that we’re not gonna put in the work to fight for what we need. And when they underestimate us, it gives us power to do what we need to do.
Jupiter: Yes, every attack is a surprise attack when people have no, no acknowledgement of your abilities.
Daisy: Yes. On that note, we’re gonna take a quick little break and we’ll be right back after a quick [00:27:00] message.
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Daisy: And we are back with Jupiter Jetson talking about what’s going on at Sheri’s ranch. So we talked a little bit about what the contract is asking, and it seems like this is going to be a very complicated legal battle to make this unionize- union stick. What does that path look like for [00:28:00] you?
Jupiter: Thankfully I would say it actually it, it’s not so much complicated as it is a setting of new precedent in Nevada. Which I’m excited to see, um, because really everything about whether or not our union is going to stick, boils down to how the NLRB decides our classification.
And to be honest, just having lived the experience for the better part of a decade, I can tell you that I’ve not lived a, an experience of an independent contractor. I have never been able to contact my own clients. Outside of the work approved email, I’ve never been allowed to publish a wi- a wishlist. Um, I’m not allowed to have a website unless it mentions Sheri’s ranch explicitly.
I am not allowed. There’s just, there’s so, I mean, I’m not allowed to wear jeans if I wanna wear jeans. Yes, there are specific rules. If I would like to wear denim, the only denim I’m allowed to wear, it must show at least this much butt crack or, or, or, or butt cheek. There’s rules about how [00:29:00] much butt cheek I have to show.
Daisy: And there’s clients that specifically fetishize jeans.
Jupiter: Yes. Yes. It’s actually, it’s become an issue with a lot of ladies because it used to be that Fridays we could wear pants, um, and that we weren’t allowed to wear pants any day, but Friday. But now we’re allowed to wear pants any day we want. But they’re never allowed to be jeans unless they’re booty shorts.
Daisy: Weird.
Jupiter: That’s, yeah. It’s, it’s, there’s things like that.
Daisy: It’s odd rule.
Jupiter: Such an odd rule and seems so arbitrary, but it’s, you know, they’ll. We have that. We have, we’re not allowed to wear terrycloth robes. We must wear high heels. Like I had to get special written permission to wear flat shoes in the lead up to my hip replacement surgery.
Like
Daisy: what?
Jupiter: Yes, like I had to get special permission and it wasn’t blanket permission. Like anytime my hip was in pain I had to be like, oh, I have to wear flats again. Like it wasn’t just, you can wear flats whenever you need to. It’s, [00:30:00] Nope. You need to get permission every time so that that way, ’cause you’re not allowed to wear.
Daisy: Wow.
Jupiter: Flats into the bar. You’re not allowed to wear flats in a lineup. Like it’s, there are very strict rules about how we present ourselves, how we advertise ourselves where we advertise ourselves. And these aren’t, you know, don’t get me wrong, it can get a little bit confusing because there are so many rules that govern the Nevada system.
And the ranch will try to abdicate responsibility by saying that a lot of the rules that are just corporate rules are legal rules. So it’s, there is no world I see that I can see there’s no path forward that I can see in which somebody looks at the facts of our working situation of which we have plenty of evidence and says, oh yeah, these guys are totally independent contractors.
Like, I just don’t see that, like I, I, I can’t imagine these circumstances that would lead to somebody coming away with that conclusion. So I wouldn’t say it’s, it’s a, it’s a complicated legal battle. It’s really just going to be more of a slog because we have to get to the point where [00:31:00] they agree that we are employees who deserve rights.
And then from there we get to start thinking about the negotiating table and we actually get to start working on getting them to the table to work with us in good faith to build a contract that makes both sides happy.
Daisy: Yeah, and it seems like there’s a lot of parallels in this situation to what happens with strip clubs and their classification of dancers. And a lot of times the way that’s handled is the club is often required to at least offer, offer the dancer the option to be an employee. And a lot of clubs try to work around it or downplay it or not offer that option. But generally speaking, like if they tell you when, where, and how to work, then they have to at least offer you the option of being an employee.
Jupiter: Yes. I actually, it’s funny, I, um, so I, in, I’m from Cleveland originally and I worked mm-hmm. Um, as a bartender and cocktail waitress [00:32:00] at the strip club in Cleveland that got sued, that changed the laws and kind of reformed the industry. And so I, I worked there in the days when everybody was an independent contractor, but was required to be there x amount of days per week and had all of these rules. And I got to see what happened. In the aftermath when they changed the rules and the club, same club didn’t want to have to offer employee protections to their workers. That club went from being- I would say it was consistently ranked as the number one or number two club in Cleveland, and the last time I was in Ohio I went in there and it’s a ghost town because they don’t want to actually guarantee that they’ll have workers there on a slow Tuesday night.
So there aren’t any, you know, it’s, there’s a benefit to- there’s a benefit to companies to have employees as well. It’s not only benefiting the worker, it it, it allows you to have staff. It allows [00:33:00] us to have rights. I don’t see the downside.
Daisy: Yeah. And with this contract that Sheri’s is trying to push, it seems like they’re trying to have basically complete ownership of the workers without any protections at all of being an employee.
Jupiter: Yeah, well there some of the clauses, especially the power of attorney in that contract it, it’s not even just an employee contract it’s illegal.
Daisy: Yeah.
Jupiter: Power of attorney isn’t supposed to be used, but
Daisy: seems more like trafficking, honestly.
Jupiter: Tra-, I, yeah. I always hate to use that word.
Daisy: It’s pushing the line,
Jupiter: but it’s really pushing the line. It’s a bad look. It’s a really bad look. Especially when we are in an age of, you know, all of the workers at Sheri’s, we are the fair trade organic you know, sex workers pasture raised, if you will. We, we are, you know, we are the model of consensual sex work that people who are anti-trafficking should want to see.
And, [00:34:00] and at the end of the day, it just. It pains me that we can’t get away from that, even in the legal system, if that makes any sense. Like I, I think that it’s it only behooves the legal system to really lean into being the ethical option. If, if they would like to mind you- I’m team Decrim. I think that the, the most ethical option is to just not criminalize people who are trying to make a living. Yes but a hundred percent it gives fuel to the aunties when the legal brothel is trying to so blatantly exploit their workers.
Daisy: Yeah, and this, it, it brings up the conversation of legalization versus decrim and why we always push for decrim instead of legalization because there’s so much room for exploitation.
Jupiter: Because that’s the thing if this wasn’t one of only a handful of places that I could choose to work. Sure. Cool. Um, right. But the thing is, is there’s literally a handful of places that I can work [00:35:00] in, especially because I, you know, I in particular am a fairly high profile worker in the brothels.
It’s not going to be easy for me to. Go to another house, like I’ve built my brand alongside working at Sheri’s. Like that’s,
Daisy: yeah,
Jupiter: that’s where I work. And so under a system of decrim, there would never be a situation where you have to choose between maybe finding another job or signing your life away.
Um, that’s only possible in legal- in a system of legalization where corporate owners are allowed to hold a monopoly and gatekeeper a safe workplace. Thank you.
Daisy: And if workers were allowed to control when and how and where they work and work independently, then this really wouldn’t be an issue. Everybody would just be tell Sheri’s to go fuck themselves.
Jupiter: Exactly.
Daisy: Basically
Jupiter: that is exactly what would happen, which is why, you know, I would love to see a movement of. [00:36:00] Workers gaining rights and it creating a domino effect that legitimizes sex work and allows for real discussion of decriminalization across the country.
Because really I think that is the, I mean, and, and it’s not like, I think this, it’s that there’s actual university studies that back this up. I’m, you know, that it’s. Decriminalization is what leads to the least harm in sex working populations. It also lowers violence in general. It lowers crime rates in general. It also lowers, a lot of specific health issues. I mean, it’s just, it’s better for society as a whole, not just sex workers.
Daisy: Yeah. So what. What are the next steps and how can we all and our listeners help and support this fight?
Jupiter: Well, uh, if you want to be supportive, of course. Um, I would like to point out something kind of important because I still have a lot of people I care deeply about that are working at Sheri’s. [00:37:00] Uh, we are not calling for a boycott. We are abs. Not at this time. We are not. There is no picket line for people to cross. Uh, it is actually quite encouraged to make sure that our coworkers are well paid and well-treated right now while we go through this. But if you would like to support the terminated workers support the Union effort, you can go to unitedbrothelworkers.com or unitedbworkers.com.
If you’re on a work computer and you don’t wanna get yelled at. And you can sign our petition, uh, you can donate to the GoFundMe that’s going directly to the fired workers. And you can all of course, spreading the word, telling your friends, letting everybody you know, know that sex work is real work and we deserve, real rights.
All of that helps.
Daisy: That’s amazing. And I really hope that this, this union sticks and you all are able to return back to work withyour intellectual property intact. It’s absolutely absurd
Jupiter: [00:38:00] That’s the dream
yeah. No, it’s,
Daisy: I, I can’t get over it. It’s such an absurd ask.
Jupiter: Like I said, it’s, I think, and I just personally, I think that that could be partly responsible for why this has gotten as much attention as it has is because I will say that, in, in most of the previous cases of sex workers unionizing that I’ve seen, there’s very often been kind of a, a very uninformed public backlash of, well, they choose to do that work, so, you know, whatever why should they fight for more rights or better conditions? You know, that’s what they get. But at the end of the day this issue seems to be something that the average worker can see happening to them.
Because we are in an age of people taking more and more control of IP and personal autonomy I think that there is a. It is such an egregious violation of any human’s rights, though, to, to take someone’s signature, to take [00:39:00] someone’s likeness and to take it forever. Not tied to a job, not tied to anything specific, I think has been a real flashpoint for people.
Daisy: Yeah, that’s, and also like I feel like with sex work in general, there’s always this issue of once you are a publicly known sex worker, it can be very difficult to do anything else with your image and with your reputation of being a sex worker because of stigma, and this kind of also feeds into that, where now it can also be difficult to do anything else after working at Sheri’s because they own your name and likeness.
If you sign this contract.
Jupiter: Yes,
Daisy: and it, it just, it closes other doors of employment opportunities. Business opportunities.
Jupiter: Oh, a hundred percent. And that’s the thing is that, every woman who starts at the [00:40:00] ranch we are very often asked what our goals are, our first week. Like, what is it that you hope to get out of working here? And the idea is that we are supposed to be building our future. We’re supposed to be spending time, gathering resources and, and working on whatever it is that’s next for us. And this just closes the door.
Daisy: Yeah,
Jupiter: on whatever is next for us, um, which is just, I, it, it’s just completely antithetical to the entire system as it was explained to me when I was hired eight years ago.
Daisy: Yeah, and it, it also seems to have some parallels to what happens in the music industry with recording contracts.
Jupiter: Yeah, yeah.
Daisy: And how these major corporations try to own people’s masters and their name and their likeness as well.
Jupiter: Yeah. And it’s, it’s also got really very real echoes of the, you know, the, the actor strike the writer strike the sag strike from last year.
You know, this was a lot of what they were fighting for was the rights to retain the use of their image and not be AI applied. We’re, [00:41:00] we’re, we’re all fighting for the same things here. You know, we just might wear slightly sparkly or clothes while we do it.
Daisy: Exactly. Exactly. Well, thank you so much for telling us about what’s going on out there, and it’s, I really hope that this legal battle turns into a victory and that you guys can come out on top.
Where can we find more of you? Where can our listeners support you better?
Jupiter: Oh, well, everyone can find me. Um, I’m everywhere except Twitter. I’m at Jupiter Jetson. So TikTok, Instagram, BlueSky, uh, just my name on Twitter. I got, I got deleted. I got deleted a little bit ago. Yes, that’s why.
That’s why if you, if you’ve, if you’re someone I followed forever, and I’m not following you right now, it’s because I got deleted and I’m on a backup account that I made like five years ago and then never touched. So I’m on Twitter @jupitersarmy oddly appropriate for right [00:42:00] now. It was originally supposed to be a fan page, but yeah.
@jupitersarmy, on Twitter, @jupiterjetson, everywhere else. And, you know, unitedbrothelworkers.com, uh, for any and all updates.
Daisy: Yes, and please, please go sign the petition. Donate to the GoFundMe is the GoFundMe link on the United Brothel Workers.
Jupiter: Yes. If you scroll down, if you scroll down, there’s a button that says donate now. It’ll take you directly to our GoFundMe.
Daisy: Perfect. Thank you so much for telling us all about this. I really hope it goes well.
Jupiter: Thank you. Pleasure’s been all mine.
This concludes our episode of YAS Podcast.
Make sure you go to yaswork.org/donate to support our efforts of spreading the good word of sex work.
Thank you.
YAS Podcast began as Yes, a Stripper Podcast. With original hosts AM Davies, Onyx Sachi, GiGi Holliday and Daisy Ducati. Visit yaspodcast.com [00:43:00] to learn about our hosts, our story, and comb through our archives of transcripts. You’ll also find episodes as far back as 2020. That’s YASPodcast.com YAS Podcast is a part of YAS Network, a collection of podcasts created through YAS Work.