TonioTimeDaily

"Sex workers themselves are not inherently trafficked through their job profession, and there are plenty of individuals who find empowerment and/or economic stability in selling sex to consumers. Nobody who is arguing for the legalization of sex work is saying that we should legalize sex trafficking, and presenting a false equivalency between the two only serves to stigmatize sex workers even further into the fringes of our society. Far too often, people with even the best intentions will assume that someone is being trafficked when the sex worker themselves does not believe this to be the case. The most concrete way to know a sex worker’s treatment is to ask sex workers themselves without personal judgement or indignation. If more policymakers, and law enforcement asked sex workers about their day-to-day experiences rather than relying on their own assumptions and implied moral values, the United States would likely be a far safer country for sex workers to operate in than it is today.

To work towards the de-stigmatization of sex work in popular culture, we must put pressure on media producers, distributors, content creators, journalists, law enforcement, and countless others to reframe how they view sex workers. This task, as stated earlier, cannot fall solely upon sex workers themselves in a society that actively criminalizes their revenue stream, endangers them in and out of custody, constantly scrutinizes their every move, belittles them on the media, and then blames sex workers themselves when the crushing weight of stigma ends up translating to real-world violence. While consumers can help determine the acceptability of various depictions of sex work, a bulk of the stigma against sex workers can only be solved through structural and political reforms. Until the day comes when sex work is legalized and treated as equally valid as any other form of labor, we must continue to fight alongside sex workers for their basic human rights. Failing to address this issue with due diligence will continue the stigmatization and subsequent violence towards sex workers for years to come."

"There’s a line towards the end, when the dust is settling a bit, that really punched me in the gut, about “how people keep making lives for themselves”. It kind of felt to me like the overarching theme of the book. That everyone is just trying to live, and shouldn’t they be treated with equal compassion regardless of their ways of living. The way it’s written feels very accessible, very human. Ultimately, what do you hope that people reading this book, regardless of how much they knew about sex work beforehand, will come away feeling?

"Conflation of sex work and sex trafficking

Because prostitution can be an extremely political topic that represents differing political interests, the method of data collection and the use of collected data can vary in reliability.[12] While more pro-sex work academics, organizations, and activists make an explicit demarcation between sex workers and victims of sex trafficking, many other groups consider prostitution to inherently lack a voluntary component. Many anti-sex work activists consider any form of migration for the purpose of commercial sex to be a form of human trafficking.[13] As a result, depending on the definition of human trafficking by the organization or data collector, the number of either migrant sex workers or victims of sex trafficking can dramatically change depending on whether or not these two categories of individuals are conflated. Scholars, service providers, and practitioners who attempt to remain apolitical and outside the feminist views on sex trafficking and sex work regarding prostitution still often remark how the legal definitions of human trafficking are still too vague for them to efficiently and neutrally define and count victims.[12][14] As a result, who is considered to be a migrant sex worker or victim of sex trafficking can widely vary."

See also: Prostitution law

Decriminalization - No criminal penalties for prostitution

Legalization -prostitution legal and regulated

Abolitionism - prostitution is legal, but organized activities such as brothels and pimping are illegal; prostitution is not regulated

Neo-abolitionism illegal to buy sex and for 3rd party involvement, legal to sell sex

Prohibitionism - prostitution illegal

Legality varies with local laws

The legal status of sex work varies in various different national contexts around the world. Scholar Janie Chuang identifies the following four regulatory models for prostitution:[16]

"Many sex scandals in American history have involved incumbent United States federal elected politicians, as well as persons appointed with the consent of the United States Senate.[1][2][3] Sometimes, the officials have denied the accusations, have apologized, or have lost their office in consequence of the scandal (e.g. by resigning, being defeated, or deciding not to run again).

This list is ordered chronologically. There is some emphasis on sex scandals since the mid-1970s, because the media was less inclined to cover these matters before then.[4] Additionally, outing people because of perceptions that their political positions are anti-gay has become increasingly common since 1989.[5] More generally, any perceived inconsistency between personal conduct and policy positions makes a politician's sex life more likely to become publicized.

One of the definitions of sex is "physical activity in which people touch each other's bodies, kiss each other, etc."[7] Thus, instances or accusations of sexism, homophobia, or exhibitionism that do not include or seek that sort of physical activity are not covered by this list.

Scandal is defined as: “loss of or damage to reputation caused by actual, accused, or apparent violation of morality or propriety.”[8] Scandal is not the same as controversy, which implies two differing points of view, and is also not the same as unpopularity. Misunderstandings, breaches of ethics, or cover-ups may or may not result in scandals depending on the amount of publicity generated, and the seriousness of the alleged behavior."

"The idea that sex workers forfeit any right to assert consent or to be angered when the consent of other women is violated perpetuates the myth that sex workers are inherently morally compromised, or interested so single-mindedly on earning a profit from sexual services that she gives up her right to assert boundaries, agency, and solidarity with those whose consent is disregarded.

I am disheartened and repulsed by the pernicious idea that sex workers are convenient receptacles for the world’s predatory men, eager and able to absorb whatever predilection comes their way, so long as the price is right. Zeroing in on the allegedly anomalous sexual act that Louis CK performed is to lose sight of the criminal act he inflicted on the women who were present for this violation. Believing that sex workers can serve as a Band-Aid for the gaping wound created by masculine sexual entitlement is an avoidance tactic that won’t shield anyone but predators.

Sex workers are not a life hack. They are human beings who have every right to choose what sexual acts they will perform, whom they will perform them with, and under what circumstances. That there exist so many who would deny them these basic acknowledgments is a sicker joke than any of the ones I’ve heard about dead hookers."

"I’ve spent the years since transitioning out of the industry coming to terms with the complicated sexual experiences I’ve had in my lifetime. Now, it seems women who haven’t traded sex for cash have begun to engage in a similar reckoning: from the #metoo movement and Harvey Weinstein to the New Yorker short story, Cat Person, and the much-read (and debated) story about a bad night out with comedian Aziz Ansari, we’re talking as a culture about sexual harassment and the meaning of “bad sex” in broader terms. We’re talking about consensual experiences that have left us feeling unsatisfied and taken advantage of. Consent, we’re collectively realizing, is sometimes not enough.

The #metoo movement has gone a step further, and complicated our understanding of ethical sex. Ethical sex isn’t just consensual—it’s non-exploitative, it’s protected, it’s honest, it’s pleasurable. Something can be consensual and still really fucked up—exploitative, dishonest, unsafe, not pleasurable. We’ve finally gotten to a place where we’re talking about more than just “rape” or “not rape.” I got to this place myself when I left the sex industry. I reconciled myself to the fact that the sex I’d had for money, though consensual, was unethical in other ways. It was exploitative. It was joyless. I had nothing in common with my clients. Sometimes I hated them.

When I transitioned out of sex work, I began seeking everything my intimate life was missing: I wanted sex that was pleasurable and non-exploitative. I wanted a romantic partner I could be honest with, and who shared my values. I wanted someone who treated me with concern and respect. To be sure, some sex workers are capable of finding this while working in the business—and some privileged sex workers may even find this with their clientele—but most sex workers, I’d imagine (like most women) are used to far less."

"If men have the right to pay for sex without judgment, then women also have the right to make sex their career."

"Prostitutes. Do they revolt you? In Revolting Prostitutes, a new book published by Verso, sex worker activists Juno Mac and Molly Smith ask why sex work elicits such polarized views. “Sex work is the vault in which society stores some of its keenest fears and anxieties,” write Mac and Smith. They argue that many non-sex-worker feminists, whose lives will not be materially affected by any legal changes to the industry, intrinsically view prostitution itself as an abomination.

Mac and Smith’s take is rooted in pragmatism. People, mainly women, sell sex. How can we keep them safe? Both writers are deeply involved in sex worker activism, and their book is a call for revolt. Broadly asked Mac and Smith to unpack some of the more enduring myths about sex work."

"I've only walked out on a couple of bookings," Karma said. "One, because the client repeatedly tried to kiss me on the mouth despite not paying the additional fee. Another because he was just really rude and disrespectful. I realize I'm very lucky to have not had to deal with a forceful client, because many other girls have had bad experiences with this. I have never felt in danger at work. The establishment offers security. There are cameras everywhere but inside the rooms, a security guard on duty and an intercom in every room. I've have not contracted an STI since I started working in this industry."

Mayo Schreiber is an expert in criminal law and the Deputy Director of CHLP. According to him, "there are many well-known and documented factors that coalesce causing HIV/AIDS to persist." They're not outside of us, or somehow foreign to the way we live. "These factors we as a society created and sanctify," Shreiber said. "They are the result of national and local political decisions for which we are responsible: HIV criminal laws that stigmatize and harshly punish people who take the responsibility to get tested or sex workers who carry condoms, a lack of syringe exchange programs, a lack of sexual health programs or condoms in prisons and jails, the failure to provide affordable health insurance and housing for all our citizens, the failure to provide comprehensive sexual health literacy programs (particularly for young people), parental refusal to accept adolescents' sexual orientation or gender identity that force them onto the streets, etc.

"These factors have the greatest impact on those in our nation with the least amount of political and economic capital—the young, the impoverished, people of color, men who have sex with men, transgender people, persons who overuse drugs, sex workers, prisoners. It is primarily they who bear the brunt of the political decisions allowing HIV/AIDS to exist. But it is everyone in this country that pays the price."

P.S. I think clients, pimps, managers should be screened without issue in all parts of the adult sex industry. 

"Sex workers aren’t always a part of the conversation about police brutality, but they should be. Police regularly target, harass, and assault sex workers or people they think are sex workers, such as trans women of color. The police usually get away with the abuse because sex workers fear being arrested if they report. If we lived in a world that didn’t criminalize sex work, sex workers could better protect themselves and seek justice when they are harmed.

Protecting sex workers from police violence is just one of the reasons we need to decriminalize sex work. It would also help sex workers access health care, lower the risk of violence from clients, reduce mass incarceration, and advance equality in The LGBTQIA+ community, especially for trans women of color, who are often profiled and harassed whether or not we are actually sex workers. In 2020 the call for decriminalization has made progress, but there are still widespread misconceptions about sex work and sex workers that are holding us back. Some even think that decriminalization would harm sex workers. That isn’t true.

Here are five reasons to decriminalize sex work that would protect sex workers, help hold police accountable, and ensure equality for all members of society, including those who choose to make a living based by self-governing their own bodies.

Decriminalization would reduce police violence against sex workers, Decriminalization would make sex workers less vulnerable to violence from clients, Decriminalization would allow sex workers to protect their own health, Decriminalization would advance equality for The LGBTQIA+ community, and  Decriminalization would reduce mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal justice system."