https://www.feministcurrent.com/2024/01/06/on-respecting-sex-workers/
Ever since I have been writing about prostitution and the sex industry more broadly, I have been accused of one thing: not respecting “sex workers.” Often of “hating sex workers,” actually — of “whorephobia.”
Since about 2011, I have been labelled a “SWERF” (sex worker exclusionary radical feminist). While this term didn’t catch on in the same way “TERF” (trans exclusionary radical feminist) did, it caught on among leftists, third wave feminists and those advocating for the legalization of the sex trade. The intention was the same as with the term, “TERF”: to twist feminist advocacy for women’s rights, safety, and dignity and efforts to protect women from dangerous and predatory men by preserving women’s spaces and/or by criminalizing men seeking to exploit and abuse women and girls in the sex trade into some kind of “phobia” or effort to discriminate against a “marginalized population.”
This has been a defining factor of the third wave, broadly, as those challenging the supposed empowerment attached to objectification are labelled “slut shamers;” those questioning whether the normalization of violent sex and BDSM is in fact just a matter of “consenting adults” are labelled “anti-sex;” and those suggesting prostitution is not simply “a job like any other” are labelled “anti-sex worker.” Despite my efforts over the last decade+ to explain my position, which was developed through study of various legislative models throughout the world as well as through interviewing and reading the work of countless experts on prostitution, including women who were once prostituted themselves, but had managed to exit the trade, freed to assess their situation clearly and speak the truth about the industry, the accusation remains the same.
https://archive.ph/FwDtY
Ever since I have been writing about prostitution and the sex industry more broadly, I have been accused of one thing: not respecting “sex workers.” Often of “hating sex workers,” actually — of “whorephobia.”
Since about 2011, I have been labelled a “SWERF” (sex worker exclusionary radical feminist). While this term didn’t catch on in the same way “TERF” (trans exclusionary radical feminist) did, it caught on among leftists, third wave feminists and those advocating for the legalization of the sex trade. The intention was the same as with the term, “TERF”: to twist feminist advocacy for women’s rights, safety, and dignity and efforts to protect women from dangerous and predatory men by preserving women’s spaces and/or by criminalizing men seeking to exploit and abuse women and girls in the sex trade into some kind of “phobia” or effort to discriminate against a “marginalized population.”
This has been a defining factor of the third wave, broadly, as those challenging the supposed empowerment attached to objectification are labelled “slut shamers;” those questioning whether the normalization of violent sex and BDSM is in fact just a matter of “consenting adults” are labelled “anti-sex;” and those suggesting prostitution is not simply “a job like any other” are labelled “anti-sex worker.” Despite my efforts over the last decade+ to explain my position, which was developed through study of various legislative models throughout the world as well as through interviewing and reading the work of countless experts on prostitution, including women who were once prostituted themselves, but had managed to exit the trade, freed to assess their situation clearly and speak the truth about the industry, the accusation remains the same.
https://archive.ph/FwDtY