Hi Amy,
X:talk have been running sex worker only spaces for over 5 years, they're pretty experienced at making spaces as safe as possible for people - I trust them implicitly.
I put this question to them, and although there wasn't a definitive "vetting" process, it was made clear to me that this had never been a problem in the past, and that if it did become a problem that it would be dealt with swiftly and efficiently. I thought your question was a fair one but I was happy with the response I got from them.

I can't actually imagine what a vetting process for sex workers would look like. We all work in different ways. Some of us advertise online or in print; some of us don't advertise at all. Some of us work in venues, or at home. The only thing that unites us is self-identification. I personally think you'd have to pretty weird and deeply unethical as a researcher or journalist to go to the effort to call or speak to someone associated with X:talk, get the address and then turn up and pretend to be a sex worker. It seems bizarre to me. In any case, X:talk and the other organisations get enough media requests, as do we all, but they've never asked to be admitted to sex worker only space. At Sex Worker Open University, during the sex worker only spaces, it was absolutely obvious when there were people there who weren't right for the space, and that was dealt with beautifully. I think a similar thing happens on here when people post who aren't right for the space: researchers, agency people, skeezy people: they get moderated pretty sharpish.

Anyway, about 8 or 10 people turned up, most of whom I knew or who were known to someone else in the room, we ate some mince pies and drank some wine (juice in my case) and talked shop. It was nice. Some people went to a bar after. One person who none of us knew turned up, but who had heard of X:meet through another notice, but I felt absolutely happy on talking to her that she was kosher.

If anyone fancies coming along, the next one will be Tuesday 17th January, probably 8-10pm. People mentioned that friends of theirs from the agencies/flats/clubs wanted to come, but didn't finish til 9ish, so we'll go on later this time.

V x x

Bump.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) night.

What time does it start?

Another lovely X:Meet on tuesday; the next one is the 21st February. If anyone wants someone to go for coffee with before, just so you don't walk in on your own and not know anyone, please let me know! 8pm again!

V
x x