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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Personally, I'd go with a 1:1 scale. I don't want willing sex workers to have a harder time, but if making it impossible for sex workers to find work made it actually, literally, impossible for anyone to be forced into sex work, I wouldn't be that upset.
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I guess I would say most work. I say "most" because, historically, most civilization wouldn't have gotten where it is without some form of slavery. Construction and agriculture are acceptable, but only in the most desperate of circumstances.
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Also, this is all hypothetical. Outlawing all sex work would never stop sex trafficking, so I wouldn't support it, and any kind of legislation or other kinds of crackdowns would have to be heavily considered so they wouldn't cause more harm than good.