I blog at Male Submission Art, host Kink On Tap, and support KinkForAll as much as I can, among more things.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm censored in some places. Make of that what you will. Follow me on Twitter.
Posts tagged: sex work
In one sentence, my position on sex work is: I don’t judge people for paying for sex, and I don’t judge people for selling sexual labor, but I will and I do judge everyone who uncritically participates in a system that creates and perpetuates an unequal opportunity for the purchase or sale of sexual services, such as the one that currently exists, and I find it morally reprehensible not to judge someone who feels indifferent about that disparity.
Why? Because sex work is work. And beyond merely having a right to employment, everyone has a right to meaningful and rewarding work of their own choosing.
This blog is my job. If it moves you, please help me keep doing this Work by sharing some of your food, shelter, or money. Thank you!
As per usual, hopefully well-meaning but ill-informed celebrities are enjoying whipping the mainstream media conflicatinator into a frenzy over sex trafficking crimes. (So, y’know, thanks for nothing, Ashton.) And while that’s unhelpful for a whole host of reasons, one thing it does do is offer the opportunity for clear-headed journalism to raise this really important point:
In the past, says CdeBaca, some feminists and religious conservatives have resisted attempts to talk about forced labor and sex trafficking as part of the same broader issue. “There were those who said that by focusing on both sex trafficking and labor trafficking, that somehow we were [treating] prostitution as a valid form of labor,” he says. Some felt that “if you care about women you should do stuff on sex trafficking—labor trafficking is a distraction.” But labor trafficking, besides being a gross human rights violation, is also a feminist issue. Seventy percent of guest workers from Indonesia, for example, are female. “Women are the majority of farmers in the world,” CdeBaca points out. “That means that many of the people who are enslaved in the fields, even in the U.S., are women.”
By “some,” this article specifically means social conservative feminist crusaders. In her book, Prostitution, trafficking, and traumatic stress, Melissa Farley writes:
In order to defend prostitution as sex work, trafficking was articulated as gender-neutral, with labor trafficking and sex trafficking collapsed under the same rubric as ‘trafficking in persons.’ Otherwise it would be too evident that the ultimate harm of sex trafficking is the decidedly gendered condition in which the trafficking victim is transported into—prostitution.
This is cleverly disguised double-speak. It may sound noble, but essentially condemns whole swaths of people based on categorical labels patronizingly dictated by Farley herself. There is no room in such black-and-white thinking for people to claim self-determination, to achieve a wholeness of existence every person deserves.
Calling this issue or that a “distraction” in no uncertain terms tells people “what you care about is not important.” It happens far too frequently. We mustn’t let this behavior continue.
At Pride this year, a contingent of supporters of accused Wikileaks source Bradley Manning marched holding signs that read “gay hero.” Predictably, certain LGBT advocates objected, claiming that the presence of the Manning contingent at Pride “dilutes the issues” of both Wikileaks’ importance and the fight for LGBT civil rights. They could not be more wrong.
I understand that, as activists, messaging matters. Struggling to be heard in this sound bite-obsessed media landscape necessitates clear and concise communication. But the need to be succinct is not a convincing argument against using the word “and”; Bradley Manning is the alleged Wikileaks whistleblower and a gay hero. Similarly, disappearing labor trafficking in order to inaccurately hype sex trafficking is a disservice to the 90% of human trafficking crimes that are non-sexual and to the people (of all genders) who are coerced into providing sexual labor.
Objecting to the intersectional reality of certain issues only makes sense if you buy into the either-or, throw-them-under-the-bus mentality on which systemic oppression is based in the first place. And anyone who calls themselves an activist or a human rights advocate who knowingly trades the well-being of even one person over another doesn’t deserve the self-appointed title.
This blog is my job. If it moves you, please help me keep doing this Work by sharing some of your food, shelter, or money. Thank you!
This blog is my job. If it moves you, please help me keep doing this Work by sharing some of your food, shelter, or money. Thank you!
Sing along to the new song about raid, rescue and the anti-trafficking fraudster Somaly Mam.
According to SexWorkEurope.org:
For those not familiar with Somaly Mam, she is the founder of AFESIP and anti-trafficking organisation in Cambodia. She is also a global campaigner for anti-sex work anti-trafficking organisations. Yet she and her organisation support the Cambodian law and police practices which have led to the abuse of 1000’s of sex workers and has made all sex work illegal. AFESIP illegally detains women who have been “rescued” in police and NGO raids and Somaly claims that any sex worker who speaks out against her anti-trafficking/anti-sex work position is a pimp, a madam or a trafficker.
Gee…who does that remind me of? Oh yeah, now I remember.
This blog is my job. If it moves you, please help me keep doing this Work by sharing some of your food, shelter, or money. Thank you!
Mustex4: Quick video to the anti-prostitution idiots. Honestly, I don’t think you people deserve to be called feminists, so I’m not gonna call you feminists because, really, you are a tool of the patriarchy you hate because you incessantly tie prostitution to gender roles.
These things are not inherently tied together, it’s just in this society we’ve built men happen to have power, so therefore men are the ones who can afford to buy sex from women. Buy sex from women, not buy women. If you think you’re buying women, outside of illegal sex trafficking, you’re an idiot.
Now, in an ideal society where power was equal, then anyone who wanted to could buy sex from someone who was selling it. And also you assume that, without property, no one would sell sex. No, people would still sell sex. For a million dollars, I would have sex with anyone and you probably would too, except that you hate money. Or at least, Nuclear Night’s little camp does. So, maybe prices would go up, but there would still be prostitution.
Now, is the current system in Nevada perfect? No. Why? Because cops won’t enforce the laws. Why won’t they enforce the laws? BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU WHO SAY THAT PROSTITUTES ARE PATHETIC CUM BUCKETS! This is one reason why I think that more male prostitution catering to female clients would help to raise the status of prostitutes in the current world that we live in, which sadly does put more value on men. Which is why these people should be pushing for a world where women don’t feel so ashamed of their sexuality that, if they’re horny, they can go out and buy sex from a hot guy without stigma.
That’s what you people don’t seem to understand. Prostitution will happen as long as people are horny, and people will always be horny. But you people are rarely, if ever, able to get your fucking heads around the idea of a male prostitute, let alone—gasp—a female client. And so, with my inability to get through to you people with logic and reality, that only really leaves with me with: fuck you!
» Cartman: And remember, we all die in 2012.
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This is the kind of stuff you won’t see on CNN. Gee, wonder why.
Stacey Swimme from Sex Workers’ Outreach Project confronts the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women for not supporting the human rights of people in the sex trade. (on TheAlyonaShow)
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FeministWhore: Hi everybody. Okay, this is going to be a little comparison between the anti-sex trafficking, um, propaganda of yore and the anti-sex trafficking propaganda of today. And, starting with yore, we’ll go to—aw, where the hell is this from? Fuck. It’s from Google Books. Some old dude, I think it was 1911 this was published. Um, I’ll get the link. Put it somewhere handy. I think the title of the book was “The Girl Who Disappears” but, uh, I will read to you.
[READING:] “This brings us to a vital, shameful fact, too little known to the general public, but a fact policemen have impressed on them more and more every day; prostitution as it exists as an international traffic and as a part of the life of every one of our big American cities, is no a longer a WOMAN’S trade; it is a MAN’S trade. There are women procurers, women importers, and women proprieters, it is true, but taken in the main the business is carried on by men, stimulated far beyond its natural proportions by men, and much of the profits are collected by men.
“The girl who disappears lives on somewhere in the under-world for the money profit of men. These men who profit directly form the shame of women fall into two classes—procurers and protectors. The classes overlap one another and the men are often engaged in both ends of the business. The procurer, or the “cadet” as he is usually known, keeps up the supply of women, which, except for his industrious labors, would fall far below its present volume. For while it is undoubtedly true that women do adopt a voluntarily a life of immorality, it is easy to prove that a large proportion of them must be forced or enticed into the life. If women in large numbers were willing to become prostitutes it would not be necessary to have such enormous machinery in order to recruit the ranks. The “cadet” himself would not be necessary. But so unwilling are women to debase themselves that the “cadet,” the dance hall, the Raines Law hotel, false marriages, drink, and even physical force are necessary to keep the hideous thing alive.
“The American born cadet, of Irish, Italian, or Jewish extraction, as a rule, is a graduate of the street gang. Usually he is familiar with the whole business of prostitution from his early childhood, and became immoral himself before he was fifteen.
“Consider a typical history, a youth whose childhood was spent in an Irish-American neighborhood in the vicinity of Cherry Hill in New York. As the boy played around the front door of his tenement or climbed the stairs to his home he was often accosted by showily dressed women and girls who paid him liberally, according to his standards, to run errands to grocery or corner saloon. While still pathetically young the boy learned the nature of the trade of these women. he earned many quarters by standing on a saloon corner after school and handling their business cards to men passersby.”
FeministWhore: [Laughing.] I love them old-timey books. They’re fun. Shit written in the ’20s. Anything between, like, 1900 and 1930 is just—well, let’s say 1935—it’s just, like, awesome. Awesome.
Okay, and where’s the one from today? [Laughing.] This is from Mark Lagan, who I’ve talked about before, the head of the Polaris Project. I had titled this—I wrote this blog entry long before I ever read that book. I just read that part in that book, like, I dunno, yesterday, y’know. I just, y’know, it blows my mind. It’s like the same exact shit, y’know, a hundred fucking years ago, it’s the same stuff that they write today. I titled it, “Anti-Sex-Trafficking Dude Calls Prostitutes ‘Nasty, Immoral’ — Prostitute Not Shocked” and it seemed important to me then, it seems important now, that dudes from the Bush administration are in charge of all this shit, apparently. He had a blog post actually called “Reverse the Stigma,” and he said:
[READING:] “Calling women in general ‘hos’ is reprehensible. But let me go further—calling actual prostitutED women and girls ‘hos’ is also reprehensible. By calling them ‘hos’ one suggests that they are dirty and unworthy of society’s concern or acceptance; that they are culpable for the NASTY, IMMORAL LIVES they are in; and that they have complete choice in the matter—or ‘agency’ as lawyers and scholars say. They may not have a choice. We need cops, immigration officials…”
[LAUGHTER]
[READING:] “…health care providers, other first responders, and all citizens to entertain the possibility that prostituted females may be sex trafficking victims. In any case they are always human beings of equal value to everyone else.”
[LAUGHTER]
FeministWhore: That line up there, “they are culpable for the nasty, immoral lives they are in,” ugh, see? Lagan thinks that just because he wraps it all up in a lot of feminist jargon that he thought he learned that he can just hide that “nasty, immoral lives” bit in the middle there, and make it seem not what it is. He thinks prostitution is nasty and immoral.
[Sigh.]
And, um, I guess that’s the end of my video. I just think that’s really neat. Go to Google Books, I’ll leave you a link, for the right sort of searching to do. And, uh, entertain yourselves. Okay, that’s it. Bye.
This blog is my job. If it moves you, please help me keep doing this Work by sharing some of your food, shelter, or money. Thank you!
Divinity33372: Okay, Donna M. Hughes is a very prominent anti-prostitution, pro-Swedish-model abolitionist feminist. She also has some input into the UN through the Coalition Against Trafficking Women. Her name is cited in many of their documents concerning human trafficking, sex trafficking. So this woman does have some influence. This is from her own document, “Hiding in Plain Sight: A Practical Guide to Identifying Victims of Trafficking in the United States.”
[READING:] “How trafficking is defined. Sex trafficking means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.”
Divinity33372: This definition says nothing about force or coercion. This is just regular prostitution. So, regular sex trafficking is prostitution.
[READING:] “Severe forms of trafficking in persons means…sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or…the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”
Divinity33372: This definition of sex trafficking—human trafficking—are what many of these abolitionist, pro-Swedish-model feminists like Donna M. Hughes worked so hard to put into place. These are the very same definitions that we, the sex worker’s rights advocates, have been talking about for months. Here they are from the Cornell website. (All these links are in the low bar.)
[READING:] “Severe forms of trafficking in persons means…sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person to induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”
Divinity33372: I will put a link about this particular kind of severe forms of trafficking in persons in the low bar.
[READING:] “Sex trafficking: The term ‘sex trafficking’ means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.”
Divinity33372: This says nothing about force, fraud, or coercion, because there doesn’t have to be any. This is just prostitution. That is all it is. Now, the government is calling prostitution “sex trafficking.” And, incidentally, here where it says, “The TVPA does not enact criminal penalties against traffickers or provide for services to victims unless acts of sex trafficking meet the criteria of ‘severe form of trafficking in persons.’” That is what we are here to discuss. On this, a lot of times we, uh, we call “bullshit.” And that’s what we’re here for, to separate the lies from the truth, or the abuses of these laws. But this is not the purpose of this video.
So if you come across a pro-Swedish-model, anti-prostitution [activist], someone who aligns themselves with those positions, and they don’t know who [Donna M. Hughes] is, they are ignorant and their positions are not well-researched because they obviously do not even know some of the most prominent leaders of their own movement. If they do not know these definitions, and they are taking a strong stance on the issue of prostitution, human trafficking, sex trafficking, they are arguing with you from a position of ignorance because these abolitionist feminist worked so hard, along with the religious right, to get these definitions made official that for any anti- not to know this, is like a Catholic not knowing the Ten Commandments.
And I don’t know about anyone out there, but I have personally taken the position that if anyone who aligns themselves with the anti-[prostitution] movement or with the Swedish model wants to engage me, from now on I’m going to ask them what the definition of ‘sex trafficking’ and ‘severe form of trafficking in persons’ is. And if they don’t know, I will direct them to links that will educate them as to their own positions, but I’m not going to waste my time educating my opposition about what their own positions are.
Here’s a good little tip for you: if you consider yourself on the pro- side of this debate, and the person who wants to engage you doesn’t know this, they’re not worth talking to.
This blog is my job. If it moves you, please help me keep doing this Work by sharing some of your food, shelter, or money. Thank you!
READING: “Donna M. Hughes is a leading international researcher on trafficking of women and children. She has completed research on the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and Korea.
“Her research has been supported by the U.S. State Department, the National Institute of Justice, the National Science Foundation, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, the International Organization for Migration, the Council of Europe, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women….”
Divinity33372: She also has some input when it comes to UN policy.
READING: “In the case of trafficking for sex-related work, which in most regions appears to be the major purpose of trafficking, the policy debate becomes complicated by national laws in host countries that differ on the legalization of prostitution or on sexual exploitation (if at all covered. Major differences of approach became apparent in the negotiations during the drafting of the UN Protocol. The Coalition against Trafficking in women (CATW) saw all prostitution as a violation of women’s human rights (Doezema, 2002)”
Divinity33372: I don’t know how to say that.
READING: “…but the Human Rights Caucus saw prostitution as legitimate labour. One expert points out that where only forced prostitution is considered illegal under national laws it is usually very difficult to establish this in court (Hughes, 2000).”
Divinity33372: Hard to prove in a court of law. Hmm…. Why would that be? According to the “UK Human Trafficking Claims are false in 68% of case, says UKHTC report”
READING: “Over two-thirds of checks on persons claiming to be trafficked into the UK find no trafficking has taken place, say latest figures from the UK Human Trafficking Centre.
“Of 385 outcomes to date on the 706 persons referred in the last year, less than 32% were confirmed trafficked, while 68% were determined “not trafficked.”
“Four out of five claimants were from outside the European Economic Area, many with no legal right to be in the UK.
“The bulk of the remaining 321 claimants are awaiting outcomes, while other cases have either been withdrawn or suspended.
“Of the 706 referrals, 319, including 55 minors, were referred on the basis they may be victims of sex traffickers. Other cases were for labour exploitation (193), domestic service (133), or uncategorised.
“The largest contingent among the 706 was 123 Nigerians. The Chinese accounted for a further 94 and the Vietnamese 62. British nationals thought to have been internally trafficked were the fourth largest demographic, comprising 38 of the 706. The remaining 389 came from 54 countries.
“A discredited Home Office estimate that there were 4,000 women and children trafficked for sex inside the UK in 2003 is due to be replaced this year. The new estimate is expected to be much smaller after two national combined police operations unearthed barely 250 apparent victims between them. The recently published crime figures for England and Wales show only 59 sex trafficking cases last year.”
Divinity33372: So they’re claiming that there are 4,000 women and children trafficked in the UK but they only really find 59. But there’s another side to this story. A story told by activists and advocates that are working with sex workers, who respect their needs, and their words.
In the book “Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives In Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights,” Melissa Ditmore writes, from chapter 6, page 117, “Feminists have shaped not only international law, but also United States foreign policy. Here, two ideological positions have lead to some strange alliances and even to efforts directed towards the defunding and discrediting of projects whose effectiveness is undeniable but whose positions are unpalatable. Ironically, even while trafficking is a key concern, it is sometimes precisely those sex work projects that are recognized for their excellent and effective anti-trafficking projects that may find themselves under attack.
“Once again, certain feminists have chosen to work with far-right politicians and other conservative figures to promote an agenda that actually limits women instead of empowering them. Their allies in this can include groups such as The Vatican, The Salvation Army, and other religious groups. Their targets include organizations whose efficacy in combating human rights abuses of sex workers and trafficked persons can be confirmed by their selection to receive funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
“It is very clear that grassroots efforts have affected policy. For example, on June 19, 2002 the abolitionist feminist Donna Hughes addressed the House Committee on international relations specifically to denounce sex work projects that she declared ‘promoted prostitution’ and to demand efforts to prevent funding for these organizations. The organizations named include the Nobel prize-winning Doctors Without Borders as well as the International Human Rights Law Group. Hughes has since followed this up with a number of press pieces and conference talks. Since then, the US administration has been…”
Turning page.
“…very clear in its determination that projects that ‘promote prostitution’ will not receive further anti-trafficking funds from the USAID. Unfortunately, this seems to include projects that work with sex workers in productive ways.
“Whatever the nature of the ongoing debate, ideology should not be permitted to override effective HIV prevention efforts or to interfere with treatment of HIV positive people. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is occurring with these vindictive efforts to defund sex work projects. There is as yet no way to quantify the number of infections such policies will promote, yet it is clear that sex workers are put at risk and it is equally clear that they are not the only people to be adversely affected by such misguided policy. The children and families of sex workers and their clients will be affected, and there will be a knock-on effect in the border area of public health. When alliances between certain feminist and the American right-wing politicians affect HIV prevention for the worse, it ceases to be merely incongruous and becomes positively dangerous.”
Divinity33372: There is a 13-minute video on this very issue called “Taking The Pledge” on Blip TV. Link in the lower bar.
VIDEO VOICE OVER: “Arpha Nota works with Empower Foundation in Thailand. This is an organization that has experienced isolation from former partners and allies sine the imposition of the US anti-prostitution policy requirement.”
THAI SEX WORKER (translated): “We don’t call it USAID funding…we call it the George Bush Discrimination Policy because that makes it much clearer, as to what it really is. It’s had a lot of effects on our work. For example, for 20 years, our sex worker networks worked well together, working with non-sex worker groups on all kinds of issues. But with the US funding restrictions and the pledge, it has broken down—people are now afraid to work with sex workers and sex workers rights organizations.”
Divinity33372: Many of these prostitution abolitionists will even resort to lying to get what they want, and not care whose reputation or whose life they put in jeopardy when they do it.
VIDEO VOICE OVER: “For fourteen years, Meena Seshu has worked with sex workers in Sangli, India. Sex workers throughout India have marched in protest of these restrictions. When Meena’s organization, SANGRAM, refused USAID funding because of the restrictions, they were falsely accused of engaging in trafficking of persons.”
Meena Seshu: From Washington, D.C., there was a newspaper article that was published that said that the funding for SANGRAM was terminated because of SANGRAM being involved in trafficking in women and girls. And we were horrified because trafficking is a criminal offense and we have nothing to do with trafficking. This has caused tremendous damage. It has caused tremendous damage to the HIV/AIDS program we’ve been having. It is because the women are in a collective and they are strong, and you know they said that we will not allow this to spoil our lives, that we still continue some amount of work. And I think it’s unfortunate that people like women who are the best educators of their male clients, who are leading the fight against HIV all over the world, should be subjected to this humiliation of this kind of grievance.
Divinity33372: So your next question’s probably, “Well, what constitutes ‘promoting prostitution’?” There are several things and some could be considered exploitive, but, the worst things that they consider promoting prostitution is giving condoms away to sex workers. Any NGO that is found to be giving any kind of protection or contraception, especially condoms, away to sex workers loses their US funding. Also, if someone comes to them and asks them, “Can I get AIDS from anal sex?” a lot of them (out of fear or paranoia, sometimes justified, sometimes not, depending on who the bureaucrats are right above them) will refuse to answer such questions and leave those people without that knowledge that could actually make the world that they live in—the world that we live in—safer from HIV/AIDS.
There are some of you out there who believe me and some of you out there who don’t. And for those of you who believe me, and who believe in me, I want to thank you for the support you’ve shown me over the past couple of days. And for those of you that don’t believe me, regardless of how some have tried to smear my name and character assassinate me, when it comes to the greater issues, what is really important, what we all SAY we care about, I let my history speak for itself.
And as far as the trafficking issue goes, if you don’t believe me all I want you to ask yourself, just one thing, what if I’m right? Y’see, it’s not about whether you think prostitution is wrong or not. The fact is, there is AIDS out there and if we don’t provide these people with services that they need, then we condemn them to die because of someone else’s moral judgement.
The rights of sex workers, as humans, are under attack. The right to protect themselves is under attack because when you can be arrested for having a condom, when charitable organizations that claim to care about you refuse to give you sexual education and protection because they don’t want to lose their precious US funding, that’s injustice.
You may like us, you may hate us, you may think we’re the scum of the Earth, but we’re human beings, and we deserve our rights. Because we’re here, and our message is spreading. And we are not going away.
This blog is my job. If it moves you, please help me keep doing this Work by sharing some of your food, shelter, or money. Thank you!