End Violence Against Sex Workers
December 18th, 2007Yesterday was the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
Trixie tears it up on her blog (emphasis hers):
Violence against sex workers boils down to two things: a woman who demands money for sex is a woman who is saying NO to sex without money. For all of our fancy talk and progress, our society STILL does not wholly support women’s right to say NO. Our problem is not just with women charging money for sex, our problem is with women SAYING NO to sex with men unless the men meet conditions set by women.
Read the whole post here.
Damn, that girl don’t mince words, and bless her for it. Go read, seriously.
I’ve said some of this before…
I can tell you exactly what I teach my clients, and it’s not kinky in the least. They have to ask specifically for what they want; they only get it when they pay for it; and they can pay for it from one person — me.
Funny how that works! As a sex worker, I’ve never been more in control of my sexuality. I make all my choices: how, where, with who, for how much. And oh, yes, if.
You don’t have to be a whore to realize you have choices, but being a whore forced me to claim them. I’m glad.
December 18th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
This is probably the most succinct and powerful defense of sex work I have ever heard.
You know I have held a forceful grudge against prodommes for a while, but, my friend, I think you are beginning to convince me.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I’m glad it works for you.
You have always been respectful of me and my choices, and that’s all I ask.
December 20th, 2007 at 10:34 am
My opinion will count for little here, as the blogger already believes that I condone rape.
The idea of a day to end violence against sex workers is, I am sure, justified by the amount of violence women who engage in this profession encounter. Obviously there isn’t such a thing as an international day to end violence against nurses or waitresses or any of the other jobs that Trixie identifies as traditionally female. But having said that many of these other jobs are far less financially rewarding than sex work.
The job I did rewards you for the amount of risk you are prepared to accept. In an ideal world sex workers would not be targetted as disposable people, but we are far from that ideal world.
I have known plenty of sex workers in my life and slept with a lot in my youth. I wonder if I qualify as a rapist because when I first moved to Bangkok as a young man so many of these girls offered to “fuck me for free”. According to Trixie the fact that I slept with working prostitutes and in some cases lived with them for a short period of time without paying them is equivilant to rape. I suspect Trixie is really only talking about women who view sex as business, much the same way I view trading a eurodollar futures contract, indeed she ponts out the difference between sex slaves and prostitutes. It is common for American women to view all whores in Asia as tragic victims but that is not the case, a city like Bangkok which has stunning economic growth is of course a beacon for poor women all over Thailand and there are plenty of jobs to be had, but just as in America some women prefer the sex industry to the lower paid and, perhaps more physically demanding jobs available in other industries. I suspect that European and US sex workers just feel that the cheapness of a hooker in Bangkok makes her more exploited. Maybe so, but no-more than the fact that a waitress or hotel cleaner or assembly line worker is equally exploited. Sex work is an option for all women, some choose to do it - some do not and when I say sex work I mean everything from phone line girls to lap dancers to escorts and to crack whores. I personally do not have a problem with women pursuing this line of work. I am not a parent but if I was or if any of my nieces decided to do it, I would be disapointed not because of any grudge against sex workers, just that I would like to think they were smart enough to earn a living without resorting to the oldest profession.
I was homeless and poor when I was 16 and still managed to achieve a reasonable standard of living, sex work is a limited and far less lucrative option for men. I accept however that I was lucky to have been in a fast growing city in 1986 and perhaps the chances I took wouldn’t be available to people without the appropriate qualifications nowdays. I am sure that someone will quote me the level of violence that women who work in the sex industry are exposed to and I agree that whatever the number is it is unacceptable, but in my opinion all violence is unacceptable. I have been in a number of dangerous situations and witnessed some shocking things. In 1997 in Sumatra, as I was fleeing the country, I saw women getting raped and murdered by ethnic Indonesians simply because they were Chinese - one 14 year old girl was gang-raped at the side of the road by so many men that her vagina and anus were just a bloody hole before she was beheaded, her mother and father had already been executed and their shop house store was looted and torched. And what about the recent gang rape of the 19 yr old girl in Saudi Arabia - sure the guys got jail sentences but she was sentenced to 200 lashes because she was sitting alongside men she was not related to. Another occassion I recal in 1999 or 2000 was in a city, I think it was Solo in Java, where a group of fundamentalists chained the doors shut in the local red-light district and set fire to the bars, with the hookers inside I have no idea how many girls died, maybe 200-300.
What is the point of these examples, the point is that terrible things happen all the time but at least as sex workers who have chosen your career path you can protect yourself to a certain extent because you must. It is a good idea to protect sex workers but even in the UK, which is the most heavily CCTV country in the world, a killer was allowed to murder a number of working girls in a small town like Ipswich. This proves that the police have learned little from the Yorkshire ripper in the early 1980’s.
December 20th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Toni, I don’t think you condone rape. I just think you’re less rabid about the line of consent, and fighting the ambiguities therein, than I am.
It may not have been clear from her post, but Trixie (and I) are women who have sex without money too. It is when we are working that we also demand the right to not have sex for money. I’d be a very unhappy girl if I couldn’t have sex for free! It’s the unconditional right to choice we want, on and off the job.
I’m a very smart girl. I have held other jobs and will again. I don’t have to do this; I want to.
Thank you for some really good points.
December 22nd, 2007 at 6:00 am
I suppose I am less rabid than you about rape, probably because of my gender. If my creditors ever catch up with me and I have to go to the big house I may have a different perspective. Even in my dotage, 38 in January, so fuck you to all the people who said I would never see 27! I am far too good looking to spend time in jail.
I talk an awful lot about my experiences during the Indonesian riots in 97 because it made a huge impact on me. Seeing children raped and killed was horrific. Deep down I know I couldn’t have made any difference but the fact that I put my own safety and that of my girlfriend ahead of other people makes me feel ashamed. What is worse is that it wasn’t the first time I have been in life and death situations, I have to accept that when push comes to shove I am a coward, call it Catholic guilt or whatever but a little bit inside of you dies when you realise you could have done more.
December 23rd, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Thanks for pointing this out. Much like the drug war, the war on sex work has never made total sense to me. I understand the basis of the drug war (and it’s even uglier than I’d thought… (c.f. Anslinger’s testimony on why it should be outlawed)) but I’d -never- figured out any reason, logical or otherwise, for the ban on sex work. Selling is legal, fucking is legal. Why isn’t selling fucking legal? Because it means that women might be able to say No or put conditions on sex. Makes much more sense now, or at least, begins to.
December 24th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
I’m not intimately familiar with the drug war. I hesitate to compare the war on sex work with drugs: sex work, at least when not conflated with trafficking, seems to me a victimless crime.
December 25th, 2007 at 12:41 am
Only insofar as the impetus for both of them was a “moral” drive to hold a group down - in the drug war it was racism, and the war on sex work is genderism.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I think the underlying “wrongness” is the pervasive idea that women do not have the right to consent!
A woman who chooses any sex is perceived as wrong. Slut/whore/whatever. Women who choose sex with their spouse have often been warned not to like sex “too much” or too often, lest they frighten their man with their appetite, or worse, find him inadequate. The conceit is that women have to be “protected” from their own libidos, as well as from others’ libidos. To extend the idea to include the right to say “no”, if one cannot consent to “wrong sex”, one also cannot refuse “right sex”. Still no freedom, no choice. Total bullshit.
December 30th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Well, this will shock you entirely none - I agree. But then I didn’t get Eileen’s “Got Consent” button for no reason. I do think there is something very interesting in Trixie (and your if I am not mistaken) contention that the fact sex work allows/forces/necessitates the woman stating explicit consent (by way of the money) it angers men who believe women have no right to withold consent. I need to roll that around in my head some more, it seems true to me, but there’s something about it that is nagging at me and I can’t quite place it right now.
This line from Toni, “I suppose I am less rabid than you about rape, probably because of my gender.” depresses me, but I doubt it a rare thing.