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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Though maybe public attention is more on slavery and not sex work and I'm just exposed to the wrong bubble? I'm happy to hear more sides to this.
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I'm against the slavery aspect. Admittedly, I have no special admiration for prostitutes or porn stars. To be totally honest, I'm fine if its harder for sex workers to find sex work if that makes it that much harder to force the unwilling into sex work.
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Isn't there a scale though? what if you tripled the difficulty of jobs for all sex workers worldwide but reduced one unwilling person's suffering by 2%? Like there's a tradeoff being made and I think everybody has different points they like on that spectrum.
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My experience agrees with yours - slavery is largely outside the social view. And everything else, really. Abusing a minor vs. sexually abusing a minor. Assault vs. sexual assault. Rape vs. murder. Add sex to anything and it dramatically increases its public visibility.
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My impression is that what happens is everyone agrees sex trafficking is really bad but not many people (especially with power) care to defend nom-trafficked sex work, so you end up with a conversation denigrating sex work generally and no referee to defend normal sex work.
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Well slavery is really connected to the clandestine sex industry.
An that happens in every country. No only in the 3rd world ones.
People don't like the idea of that connection but also don't want to admit that safe sex work is not bad.
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Oh yeah I'm really happy I'm not a cam girl, but I'm abnormal. I assume a lot of my issues with it can be summed up by my being probably autistic?
I still preferred being a camgirl, even though I wasn't suited for it and I disliked it, to working in that damn factory.
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No, you are right. People really hate sex work as opposed to any other work. Which is funny because how is sex work any more exploitative than any other job in a capitalist society?