I’m a queer trans woman, and consequently I exist in spaces where positivity about “sex work” is compulsory. It is very tiresome. God help you if you decide to point out that being a sex slave for rent as a day job seems dehumanizing or horrific, because that’s not very progressive of you!
Kind of shocking and ridiculous that these so called feminists fret endlessly over misogynistic messaging in media, the objectification and commodification of women’s bodies, and sexual exploitation in workplaces, but turn into free market libertarians over the distillation of this violence into an industry apart.
All jobs involve selling your body!
No they don’t! I work in a factory. It’s not always pleasant, but when we say “corporate is really bending us over on this overtime,” this is at least a metaphor. My legs hurt from working twenty days in a row, but no one raped me. Are we living on the same planet? Yes, I am using my body to work. This is actually an extremely superficial similarity. I cannot believe this needs to be litigated.
Sex work is part of Queer history!
I find this offensive. Picking cotton is part of Black history, too. Wholesome!
Criminalizing sex work only hurts sex workers!
This is true, but legalizing it won’t help anyone but the existing capitalist class within the industry. The only way to help sex workers is to give them ways to escape. You won’t see me calling the cops on them.
Sex workers should unionize!
A statement dreamt by the utterly deranged. How are they gonna strike? How are they gonna prevent scabbing? Is the economy gonna collapse if your demands aren’t met? Please show your work.
Genuinely, this might be a psyop.
I found this post https://hexbear.net/post/3739639 to be very illuminating in terms of why people want to classify sex work as work or more accurately the sex worker as a laborer. Most importantly, it's sourced from material written by sex workers.
edit: removed a sentence making a comparison to other peoples trauma.
What I read about sex work getting classified as work is along those lines, it's about giving the sex workers tools to fight for better working conditions. The idea being that by bettering their life, they are more likely to be able to make a free choice of where to work, which would include no longer doing sex work. A destitute worker with no free time is less likely to be able to improve their life than one with free time during which they can go job-hunting, building a support network etc.