Starting today, you may see a few more friendly faces on Tryst. After much debate and many sleepless nights, we are finally saying fuck you to FOSTA/SESTA and are accepting profiles in the US. You can sign up here.
For those who are just tuning in, you can learn a little bit more about Assembly Four's history, Switter, being banned from Cloudflare and launching Tryst, our modern escort directory/platform, here.
The landscape of sex work has changed dramatically in the past 8 months and we've seen our peers go through some of the hardest times in their careers. The judicial slamming of the FOSTA/SESTA hammer has deflated the entire community - but it has also brought us together. We're now fighting a new fight.
Since FOSTA/SESTA passed, we have seen:
- 13 workers go missing, 2 workers confirmed dead, 2 workers have been assaulted at gunpoint (14/04/18)
- Admission from law enforcement that it is harder than ever to catch traffickers
- 60% of workers from a report by Coyote RI said they have taken sessions with less safe clients out of financial desperation.
This is only what has been published. This doesn't even skim the surface of the workers assaulted, forced into street work or returning to predatory parties. We all relied on Backpage at one stage or another. We all relied on blacklists and community forums. We need these sites to survive. With 42 million of us worldwide, something needs to change. We cannot be governed by the anti-sex stance one country has decided to take.
When we launched Switter Listings mere hours after the Backpage seizure, we had an instant influx of survival workers, trans workers, workers of colour and other minorities. In the first 30 days, we saw 17,266 listings. This was a refuge for them, providing them with what Backpage and other since shutdown sites once did: autonomy, screening, and most importantly – indoor work.
We want to keep Switter free and accessible. We were aware when we started that funding would be something we needed to tackle, particularly when excluded from the use of many US-based platforms, and Switter costs money and time to run.
With all three of us working full-time on Assembly Four, we felt that Tryst was the best way for us to continue supporting Switter. We will also be using a portion of the funds to contribute to other sex worker-run projects once we have covered our operating costs.
Join us today!
Sign up for a profile here.
We are offering a 3 month free trial in the US to kick things off. Things to note when signing up:
- This is a paid platform with a 3 month free trial. Our pricing structure after this period can be found here. Memberships may be subject to change as we grow. We want to keep prices low for everyone, but please note that if this out of your budget, Switter Listings is only a few clicks away.
- Please ensure that your images are at least 700x700px, are of you and are not close ups of body parts. While you do not have to have professional photos, we do want to ensure that photo quality is of a high standard.
- At this time, Tryst is for independent escorts only. If you are an agency, you may continue to use Switter, but please do not apply to Tryst. We will let you know if this changes in the future.
- Please provide us with any other links that will verify that you are an independent worker. We are attempting to keep malicious characters off Tryst, and to help us do this and to have your account approved faster, please provide us with anything you can to help us verify you.
- If your profile is rejected and you think we've made a mistake, please reach out!
- Lastly, please be patient :) We're only a team of 3 already stretched quite thin at the moment. Your profile should be approved within 1-4 business days. If it isn't, feel free to reach out to us and we can investigate further.
That's all folks!
We want this industry to be a fairer place and we cannot do that without your continued support. That's it for now but we would love to hear you feedback and suggestions now or in the future. Always feel free to hit us up via our support page!