(TW for mentions of rape.)
Today is my birthday. Today is also the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. In lieu of gifts, i would like to request the following:
1) Everyone, please stop referring to sex workers as female. Many sex workers– from strippers to escorts to porn stars– are, in fact, of the dudely persuasion.
1a) Please stop referring to consensual sex work as “violence against women.” It erases men and denies women’s agency! A twofer!
2) Everyone who professes to be concerned about human trafficking is now required to acknowledge that people are trafficked into things besides sex work. I realize migrant farmwork is way more boring than teenage girls forced to have sex against their will, but I’m sure you can manage.
3) Everyone has to agree that sex work is a job like any other job, and that the stigma against sex work is one of the major causes of violence against sex workers. As long as sex workers are considered worthless sluts and people are asking if raping them is rape or shoplifting, people are going to be violent against sex workers.
3a) In particular, can we get rid of this noxious idea that sex workers are somehow less real victims than people who have never done sex work?
4) The next person who references the Swedish Model (criminalizing paying for sex, but not selling sex) as good for sex workers will be fed to the laser-headed sharks.
5) Can everyone stop being violent against sex workers? Because, seriously, that shit is not on.
“As opposed to not paying (and not having sex) and letting her kids starve? How does THAT make anyone’s life better? If you’re worried about poverty trapping people in unpleasant situations, you should do something about poverty.” That’s an important point. People who want to criminalize the buying of prostitution also say that people who opt to do prostitution, even those not forced to by pimps, generally do so because they don’t see any viable alternative. They claim that poverty or addiction is forcing them to do this. That is very likely true, but how does ending prostitution make it… Read more »
@GudEnuf – you are totally misconstruing that post by Amanda Marcotte. someone pirating released pornography is still in the intended audience, they are just not paying for it. If someone is releasing porn, the intended audience is something like “people who find the stuff in this film a turn-on and like watching porn.” A movie pirater qualifies. It is, as explained above, just like pirating anything else, and if a crime, would be theft. The Marcotte article is about photos taken privately, for personal use. Her point is that just because someone is a sexy celebrity, doesn’t mean we get… Read more »
“What about sex tourism? If someone goes to a third world country and pay $20 to have sex with a person who’s only doing the work to feed her kids, can we really call that consensual?” As opposed to not paying (and not having sex) and letting her kids starve? How does THAT make anyone’s life better? If you’re worried about poverty trapping people in unpleasant situations, you should do something about poverty. “she incurred massive student-loan debt to obtain, and is under threat of arrest from the government if she defaults, but she can’t get a job in this… Read more »
You know, it’s fine and dandy for everyone here to have a pow-wow about how great sex work is – but what frustrates me is that in vast swathes of North America – it’s illegal. Why does that matter? Because not only, by participating in it do you stand a chance of going to jail, but it’s virtually impossible to know that the sex worker you might patronize isn’t being exploited. And that’s not OK. Yeah, he/she may smile, tell you that they love this line of work, and do an enthusiastic job – but you have no way of… Read more »
Equating the viewing of commercially made porn without paying with the release of an individual’s personal “sex tape”, privately made with the intent of it never being seen by anyone other than the people who made it (as a act of revenge, as a “scorned lover” act, etc), does comes across as very disingenuous and a derail attempt. If you have a beef with Jill or Amanda on some other topic, take it up at their site and let the rest of us get back to discussing the general topic of ending sex worker violence. Turning a blind eye to… Read more »
I agree with the overall thrust of FeministWhore’s arguments, and think GudEnuf’s hypotheticals aren’t especially relevant in practice. But if GudEnuf is the measure of the “ignorance” that it’s not worth spending more than a couple of dozen words to “educating”, I fear there is approximately zero hope for reforming society’s views of sex work.
Feminist Whore: “I’ve given these issues far more than a ‘first glance’, and I take umbrage at your suggestion that I approach these issues lightly. “ Well that just proves my point then. When I initially brought up the questions, you claimed they were so ridiculous that you weren’t sure if I was being sarcastic. The fact that you’ve had to think hard about these questions proves they’re not so ridiculous “Neither Jill nor Amanda are the sort of people I get my feminism from.” You can disagree with Jill or Amanda if you want. But Jill and Amanda are… Read more »
I pay income tax. I actually pay a higher rate than most people, since I’m self-employed. The “oh noes, white people are paying brown people for sex at rates that are high in the brown person’s native area but low in the white person’s” concern is… yeah. Sex work is work. Poor brown people are capable of making decisions on how they will sell their time and effort. The oh-so-quaint traditional farming life that these sex workers are avoiding comes down to “backbreaking labor for a pittance, under the control of the village hierarchy, with little personal choice or safety… Read more »
IMO as long as there were regulations and such then I think sex work should be legal. I mean things like 1) how people who sell food need a license and are subject to health inspections 2) how health workers need a licenses to show that they aren’t going to accidentally hurt someone and 3) confidentiality concerns and ethics, like lawyers and mental health professionals need to deal with. etc. So in many way sex work is unlike other ordinary jobs but not unlike other professional type jobs. The biggest issue though is that society (for better or worse) does… Read more »
GudEnuf: 1) I’ve given these issues far more than a ‘first glance’, and I take umbrage at your suggestion that I approach these issues lightly. 2) Neither Jill nor Amanda are the sort of people I get my feminism from. 3) Generalizing, hypothesizing, and hyperbolizing about rape and assault is no way to advance understanding or dialog. I guess I could cite this number 3 as a big part of the reason why I don’t get my feminism from Jill and Amanda. It doesn’t advance the dialog about rape, and it certainly doesn’t advance any dialog about sex work, since… Read more »
“2. Amanda Marcotte has a post explaining why she thinks “it’s about time that we started viewing the release of privately made sexual photographs and videos to anyone other than their intended audience as a form of sexual assault.”
Wow. That’s… interesting. I would say that it would be at most defamation. But sexual assault? Boy, is that trivializing rape.
Happy Birthday! Welcome to decade No. 3! An excellent concise post, (though you might be preaching to the choir) @GudEnuf The first scenario could easily count as “Rape via deception,” i.e. person A lies knowing person B would not consent if they knew the truth. Rape via deception is certainly not limited to sex work. Though it certainly isn’t rape if the check bounces afterwards. Certainly any performer or model in any erotica has a certain claim to that erotica by default, but only in the same sense as a performer or model in non-erotic media. Presumably they are able… Read more »
Feminist Whore: Thank you for answering my questions. Here are some “rebuttals” to your answers. (These aren’t really rebuttals because I’m not trying to change your mind. All I’m trying to do is show how the issues might be more complicated than they look at first glance.) 1. “Rape by deception” is a crime in two states. At least some feminists think “rape by deception” is an actual form of rape: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/07/22/on-rape-by-deception/ 2. Amanda Marcotte has a post explaining why she thinks “it’s about time that we started viewing the release of privately made sexual photographs and videos to anyone… Read more »
*clicks the imaginary ‘like’ button on FW’s comment*
Are you serious GudEnuf? I honestly can’t tell if you are seriously asking those questions or if you are making snark about people who do ask those questions. Here are my personal answers, just in case you’re serious: 1) No. Theft of services. Not to be confused with the situation ozy mentioned, where people treat the actual rape of prostitutes as theft of services. Raping someone whose occupation is providing sexual services doesn’t reduce that rape to theft of services, and theft of services doesn’t become rape just because the thefted service was sex. Any other line of reasoning is… Read more »
Oh ozy I think I just came.
Wow Ozy. I knew you were young, but…. twenty year olds should be legally barred from having their shit so thoroughly together. Happy fucking birthday!
Also, I heartily endorse all of your sentiments concerning sex work.
Happy “Natural 20,” Ozymandias, where you always make your Save vs. Teen. 🙂
@GudEnuf
I feel you. I believe am a very liberal person in this area, the status of things as they are isn’t anywhere close to right, but how well will we protect sex workers if we stop legally persecuting them? (How well do we protect normal workers, for that matter…)
Firstly, happy birthday! Secondly, love this post. I only recently discovered this blog and have been slowly making my way through the archives. I always considered myself a liberal person, and I still am, however this blog has really expanded my view on gender, sex, men, women, relationships, individuality and so much more I couldn’t possibly list it all. Each day I feel like I’m learning a little bit more of the puzzle, it’s a great feeling. A perfect example being this article. Even after reading the first point (not all sex workers are women), I still immediately equated the… Read more »
Happy birthday, Ozy. This was the second blog entry in my RSS reader for this day, just coming 15 minutes after Maggie McNeill’s… in that spirit, I’ll link to a post of hers from yesterday on the narrative surrounding pimps which covers some of the same ground as your post (disclaimer: she does seem to operate from a definition of “feminist” that erases you from the feminist tribe, Ozy). I’m especially reminded of the post in the context of GudEnuf’s comment: Finally, should sex workers pay income tax? If the government takes a cut every time a sex worker gets… Read more »
Happy birthday to yooooou~!
You missed Stalin’s birthday by 24 hrs!
We used to say to my (Sagittarius) political mentor, “Stalin was a Sagittarius!” when he needed to be calmed down. It worked, too!
PS: I was already married to a Maoist for a whole year at your age. If you think that shit is easy, think again.
Happy birthday, Ozy, and big thumbs up for this post. “1) Everyone, please stop referring to sex workers as female. Many sex workers– from strippers to escorts to porn stars– are, in fact, of the dudely persuasion. 1a) Please stop referring to consensual sex work as “violence against women.” It erases men and denies women’s agency! A twofer!” An interesting point of discussion would be how male vs. female sex workers are spoken of both in mainstream news sources and in political blogging. I’m thinking specifically about how escorts Ashley Dupre and Mike Jones, who were in the news roughly… Read more »
Thumbs up and a Happy Birthday to you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNSm1Xmt9Ew
Happy birthday Ozy.
And about the stupid law against prostitution in Sweden, do you know that many people in Europe believe they should have a law like that ? For example, France want to have a law like in Sweden and its supporters are Socialists that supported DSK when he was accused of rape. What a bunch of hypocrites.