Ok, I have to push back again. Having known many sex workers, while it is certainly an income option of last resort for many people, it is not always. I know some people who are very established in their careers and there is nothing desperate about it (even if the origin of the career path in some cases was). And others, like dominatrixes, often train specifically and purposefully to purse a career in sex work that they enjoy. There's a million variations, but this knee-jerk "all sex workers are desperate" nonsense is starting to sound really antiquated and ill-informed. And rude.
Sure I never said "all sex workers are desperate", I said "in many cases". There was a great book I read a while back "Revolting Prostitutes" which talks about this distinction between types of sex workers. There are many, many sex workers who are perfectly happy doing their work, and I believe that these are the people you know (the book gives this group the tongue-in-cheek name "happy hookers"). However on the whole these people tend to be affluent and well-connected (which could also be extrapolated from knowing an HN poster), and as such get over-represented in our current sex-work discourse IMO. Responses like this, which use these "happy" sex workers to push back on the negative aspects of sex work experienced by people who are acting out of desperation obscures a lot of important nuance at play. No doubt that the moralizing "all sex workers are abused and need saving" is equally if not more harmful, but I think it's really important that we acknowledge that for many people sex work is often just that: work (which is also the take of "Revolting Prostitutes"). Understanding it as a form of labor, subject to all the usual abuses of labor plus the extras unique to sex work is IMO a really important framing for thinking about sex work as a crime. This is where I'm coming from when I describe "many" sex workers as "desperate"; they are people who really need income doing the best work they can find (either best pay, most flexible hours, etc). Not trying to condemn anyone for their choice of career or side-hustle, but ignoring the reality that many sex workers are exploited by their employers and clients is IMO far more rude than my previous comment
Upvoted and apologies for being too aggressive in that last comment.
I would only add that it is my understanding that most sex workers would very much like sex work to simply be considered work, and that the only way to improve conditions for all sex workers is to end criminalization of consensual sex between adults, paid or otherwise. At least that's the overwhelming consensus of the swers I know and the stuff I read/follow on the topic.
Thanks, and no problem! It's a touchy subject and there's lots of shitty takes on it so I get the reaction. Definitely agree that the best solution is simply decriminalization, maybe with the addition of improved support services for the populations that do find themselves turning to sex work out of need.
It says "providing sex services is probably an act of desperation in many cases" which was enough to trigger me, but I agree I overreacted and posted a follow up.
