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Amnesty's sex work position
Aug. 12th, 2015 03:12 amAll the evidence I have ever seen is in favour of legalising or decriminalising sex work, this has been the view of every sex worker I've ever known.
I'm a liberal, so I need to be very confident that an action restricting freedom will reduce harm to others before I can endorse it.
One of my most beloved friends is facing having her livelihood destroyed because of the censorious attitudes of our current government about the sort of videos that consenting adults can make.
And yet....
All the sex workers I know, and all of the ones I read in the not-mainstream-but-popular-with-our-kind-of-people press are pretty privileged; they might not be entirely wealthy, but they're not impoverished. They might struggle with misogyny, queer acceptance, transphobia and transmisogyny, but most of them don't actually struggle with how they're going to feed their kids tomorrow.
And there are people like Fiona Broadfoot, Bridget Perrier, Rachel Moran, who for those reasons or others feel like they were co-erced into sex work and are not happy about it, and feel that the Amnesty position is ignoring or silencing them.
And it would be easy, so easy, for me to construct a narrative where queer people of colour weren't systematically ignored, because the one I spend the most time with rarely brings it up, and it wouldn't be that hard to stop hanging out with the rest. And it would be so so easy to just not worry about whether I was paying enough attention to the voices of PoC, but I try not to do that because I'm not a complete cunt.
I am pro sex worker rights. But I am worried, that the decisions about what is in the interest of sex worker rights is all about the people who have a university education or a bunch of funding from Patreon, or a popular blog which results in offers to write for the Guardian or the New Statesman, or one way or another already have a voice, and is ignoring the Fiona, Bridget, and Rachels of the future. I would like to see some evidence from the SWU, and other pro-decrim organisations that they have sought out and listened to the voices of women who are in sex work through desperation, or trafficking.
Edit: I should probably have read it before posting, but actually, Amnesty's draft proposal provides this evidence quite clearly on pages 12-15. I am now convinced.
I'm a liberal, so I need to be very confident that an action restricting freedom will reduce harm to others before I can endorse it.
One of my most beloved friends is facing having her livelihood destroyed because of the censorious attitudes of our current government about the sort of videos that consenting adults can make.
And yet....
All the sex workers I know, and all of the ones I read in the not-mainstream-but-popular-with-our-kind-of-people press are pretty privileged; they might not be entirely wealthy, but they're not impoverished. They might struggle with misogyny, queer acceptance, transphobia and transmisogyny, but most of them don't actually struggle with how they're going to feed their kids tomorrow.
And there are people like Fiona Broadfoot, Bridget Perrier, Rachel Moran, who for those reasons or others feel like they were co-erced into sex work and are not happy about it, and feel that the Amnesty position is ignoring or silencing them.
And it would be easy, so easy, for me to construct a narrative where queer people of colour weren't systematically ignored, because the one I spend the most time with rarely brings it up, and it wouldn't be that hard to stop hanging out with the rest. And it would be so so easy to just not worry about whether I was paying enough attention to the voices of PoC, but I try not to do that because I'm not a complete cunt.
I am pro sex worker rights. But I am worried, that the decisions about what is in the interest of sex worker rights is all about the people who have a university education or a bunch of funding from Patreon, or a popular blog which results in offers to write for the Guardian or the New Statesman, or one way or another already have a voice, and is ignoring the Fiona, Bridget, and Rachels of the future. I would like to see some evidence from the SWU, and other pro-decrim organisations that they have sought out and listened to the voices of women who are in sex work through desperation, or trafficking.
Edit: I should probably have read it before posting, but actually, Amnesty's draft proposal provides this evidence quite clearly on pages 12-15. I am now convinced.
