Edit:
Here is a list of resources to learn about sex worker from actual sex workers who are engaged in the struggle for worker’s rights:
- https://www.nswp.org/resources/types/nswp-briefing-papers-248
- https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/white-mans-burden-revisited/
- https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/from-brothel-to-sweatshop-questions-on-labour-trafficking-in-camb/
- https://titsandsass.com/the-massage-parlor-means-survival-here-red-canary-song-on-robert-kraft/
- https://medium.com/purplerose0666/the-af3irm-agenda-b5ec31216904
- https://medium.com/@katezenjoy/dear-esperanza-5aa7db4d501a
- https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/decriminalising-sex-work-in-new-zealand-its-history-and-impact/
- https://www.mayamorena.com/anti-equality-model-campaign/2021/5/22/pscegcnr680fh4oazlmwe8i5527o9j
Bigger repo of theory / resources:
Books to check out:
From an non anglo perspective the sex industry , since it exists in almost every country , inevitably is comprised in almost all cases (beyond many sex workers in urban enviroments in rich western nations from a non poverty backgrounds having any semblance of power and dominion over their bodies and choices,especially through stuff like Only fans ) in its vast majority by very poor women forced from usualy a very young age into prostitution. As the only choice to make a living, in horrible horrible conditions with immense physical and psychological abuse . Vast networks of human trafficing,pedophilia and grooming interconnected with local mafia , cartels and horrible pimps dominate the sex industry in the vast majority of cases with the more “global south” you go the more despicable it becomes . What % "informed sex workers that are comfortable to concent and chose their life " exists in most of these cases?
How can any leftist living in lets say eastern Europe post USSR collapse “not be critical of the Sex worker industry” ? The sheer numbers and horror of the humanitarian disaster that is the “sex industry” in that and most parts of the world cant be excluded from critisism and strong opinions by EVERY leftist no matter how many individual exceptions of sex workers ,especially from western nations, that may have an experience with much more nuance and different dynamics and ability of choice for them . They will be an extremely small exception and the relatively comfortable upper crust in the midst of the millions of women forced into prostitution and abuse from very young age , utterly stuck now and scarred and groomed for life and as a FACT would have taken different paths, wished for a different life and prefered any ,yes still exploitative,trade
Extreme class warfare and the destruction or lack of actual institutionalised gender equality and opportunities was what created and creates the sex industry as a large scale thing and what pushed the majority into it. Proven by history when millions of women that just 5-10 years prior whould have been in the path of free education, housing ,healthcare and job of their choice were suddenly pushed into sexual abuse, grooming and scarring just to put bread on the table and not be homeless. Thats the reallity here and in most of the world and the vast vast majority of sex workers are helpless victims that didnt chose or consent to a life of abuse and destroyed dreams and didnt concent to the future and choice taken away from them. .
Im not against sex work, it will exist and has always existed . But the current sex industry and sex work in the reality around me has little to do with the personal experience and nuance of consent and freedom of choice and “its work like any other” of people like OP that will continue their sex work hopefully in a socialist society in the future
Yep, this is the correct take.
I squirm every time i see another post by US university students about how we need to stop demonizing sex work when it’s a daily occurrence here that underage girls are disappearing from orphanages and no one says it but everyone knows that they’ll end up in brothels in Western Europe.
And these posts are always about how the people who criticise sex workers would love it if they were jailed and i’m like, no? Literally no one i know who would be considered someone like these people wants sex workers to be jailed, they want them to be freed.
But at the core issue is exploitation (but also yes, there is some privilege from anglo perspectives). One has to extricate the two problems and view them separately I feel. I dont think brazillian sugarcane collectors want to outlaw farming, but they do want to outlaw slavery of themselves.
with sex work it’s at least two pronged (or intersectional) problem: coercion/exploitation (worker rights and moral issue) and society’s disdain (brainworms long cultivated from bygone era) and privilege of more successful voices/global north being louder
Yeah that’s a serious issue even in this thread it can be seen that no one is “criticising” sex work from a moral standpoint yet the whole premise of the post is that somehow people would do that. So we have two opposing sides that are screaming at each other despite the fact that they agree.
I won’t be popular with this btw but there actually is a moral argument against sex work but not on the workers side.
what material measures are taken to protect the vulnerable from sex trafficking?
https://medium.com/purplerose0666/the-af3irm-agenda-b5ec31216904
I can only talk about Hungary, but there is virtually none. Where i live the victims of sex trafficking are overwhelmingli Romani girls and the cases i mentioned are the only ones that ever get reported. As you can imagine these people are mostly very poor and marginalized so no one really cares about it apart from the usual “yeah it sucks that happens, but…” bullshit.
Every once in a while these trafficking bands get busted and when it happens here, even though prostitution is illegal, if they are forced into it, cops don’t harass them any further as your article suggests. Though what happens next to these girls is foggy, since there is an institutional abyss in this area so most of them end up as a streetwalker anyway where cops are way less lenient.
I’m going to quote part of an article written by a sex worker on this topic:
The vast majority of sex workers do not exist in a simplistic binary between “privileged” and “forced.” The strongest sex worker unions in India are composed of the least privileged sex workers. It is unfair to dismiss the vast majority of these sex workers’ efforts to create unions, create savings banks and microcredit to fund education for their children, and create exit strategies for each other, as “privileged” or “neoliberal”. These are Indian women, living under the rules of this Capitalist system that we all have to navigate, who consider themselves Third World feminists too, who fight trafficking while supporting sex worker rights.
In reality, decriminalization is not as helpful for “privileged sex workers” as it is for the most vulnerable sex workers of color and migrants, who are most frequently targeted by police. The UN Development Programme reported after surveying 48 countries in the Asia Pacific to show that decriminalization is most urgently necessary for the poorest sex workers working in the most difficult positions. Under the Nordic Model in Sweden, Norway, France, Ireland, and Canada, which criminalizes the buying of sex, migrant and trans sex workers like Vanesa Campos are the ones most hurt by mass deportations in Sweden, evictions in Norway, doubling of violence against sex workers since the passing of Nordic Model in Ireland, and fatal discrimination against sex workering mothers at the hands of social services, also in Sweden.
Criminalization of any part of the sex industry, including the purchase of sex, hurts the least privileged sex workers most.
- Source
The video itself touches on this when she talks about the experience of being ignored when she brings up the good and the bad of her job.
From an non anglo perspective
There are many People of Color who work in the sex industry, including the woman in the video I posted.
“Sex Trade Expansionary Feminism” is not a thing and the concept is actively harmful to sex workers.
Check out my response to this:
