I recently visited an art exhibit on sex trafficking by , and, as an ex sex worker, felt really alienated by the parts that shamed payment for sex. Unfortunately a lot of the anti-sex-trafficking movement ends up hurting women who are doing it consensually (cont.)
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For example, the "Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) ' bill has destroyed the livelihoods of many people in the sex work community. It reminds me a lot of the drug war - once public outrage happens, we can make severe mistakes.
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This article delves into the actual statistics behind sex trafficking, at least in the US, and shows how the problem isn't really as bad as everybody thinks it is. reason.com/archives/2015/
To clarify, this isn't about the rest of the world, which may still be a significant problem
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Work to help victims of sex traffickers is good, of course - but we have to be extra careful when dealing with titillating subjects that cause easy outrage (sex! kidnapping! young girls!). It's practically a movie already. If you can make a movie out of your movement, be careful!
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[Low confidence following] I also am vaguely suspicious as to why there's such outrage about this specifically, and I wonder if it comes from a quasi-puritanical view of sex as the 'most important thing' and indicative of a woman's worth. It seems tied to the idea that (cont.)
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And here I was told by some terrible shrews that "all ex sex workers realize they were victims", so I'm shocked by this (for sure they know best!)! /sarcasm
Nah, but for real, the anti-sex-worker people are abhorrent. I'm not even going to mince words about it.
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And really really good essay to back up those statistics! This article taught me quite a few things about the way society seems to treat the industry compared with how effective their methods are vs the reality and how misunderstood it all is. Great comparison to the war on drugs