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:
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.
I’m linking it again because it’s not SWERF material, it’s the opposite . The main people the article is against are men who coerce women into sex by economic means, not sex workers.
The article also says a lot more than inventing the term you use. It cites studies that shows that decriminalization neither decreased trafficking (seeing that most girls i was talking about end up in Switzerland, where prostitution is legal since 1942, it checks out), nor decreases violence against them (but they can call the police who will still harass them for drugs or being an immigrant), it very explicitly calls for a system similar to the nordic model but not involving the police, it makes the very obvious observation that it’s very easy for men not to pay for sex. It analyses what type of men can afford to use these services (which i see confirmed from when i was working at a place frequented by sex workers with whom i talked quite a lot), it correctly asserts that the main sources of violence against sex workers are men who pay for sex (again confirmed by sex workers i had the chance to talk with - cops were never involved) and it clearly asserts multiple times that the solution to the problem is not harassing sex workers but improving the material conditions of women globally so they actually have a choice in what trade they work in.
It’s only my assessment of the situation but i find it weird that SW unions have to fight for the right to exit even in countries where it is legalzed. Like, train drivers can say at any time they don’t want to be train drivers and go do some other shitty self-destructive job. What is the reason of that?
