Let’s talk about the Sex Worker V. Anti-Trafficking Movement’s Ever Growing Conflict
Anti-Sex trafficking (slavery) organizations often conflate sex work with prostitution and therefore are intolerant to opposing views. I have a very unique perspective on this issue and I am one of the most qualified people to talk about this subject because I’ve been a victim of child-sexual slavery, a sex worker, and then a human rights leader. My view points encompass my actual experiences of oppression and empowerment through my relationship with my body and my sexuality. Both the media and anti-trafficking activist’s conflation of prostitution and sex work is what’s hindering meaningful progress.
I’ve long witnessed the debate among anti-trafficking activist groups and sex workers. There’s a few repeated themes I keep witnessing. Anti-trafficking groups believe that in order for true equality to occur between the sexes; women’s bodies can not be used as a commodity at all, even when done consensually. If this is giving you purity culture vibes, it is because it is. I’ll explain why. The United Nations specifically says that all human rights are formed on the basis of human dignity. The definition of human dignity,
Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights.
Human dignity encompasses three main pillars: Justice & Legitimacy Belonging & Inclusivity, and Accountability. Justice is legal protection, political representation, and civil rights where as legitimacy is to be recognized with in the legal and political structures with in a nation as a class of people. Belonging & inclusivity are the main pillars of 4th wave feminists movements in the era of MeToo. Both Millennials & GenZ feminists overwhelmingly support legalized and regulated sex work on the basis of body autonomy and the right to choose what and how women use their bodies. Yet, anti-trafficking movements work against this ideology by saying that sex work is prostitution and is therefore sexual slavery. As someone who has these lived experiences, I side with GenZ and Millennial feminists. I am very anti-carceral (I disagree with most cases of harsher punishments and laws due to law enforcement systems whose historical roots lie in slavery itself). I find carceral feminist usually work within the anti-trafficking movement. I believe prohibition, and extreme punishments to be historically racist and dangerous. Now, that’s not to say my position is absolute. There is a need for intersectional legislation; yet no anti-trafficking movement has accomplished this.
Given my own experience with child-sexual slavery as a teenager in the Marine Corps. the impossibility of justice and the absence of laws defining sex trafficking in 2007, led to me experiencing torture, rape, arbitrary incarceration, prostitution, and homelessness. All of this happened against my will and most of all without my consent. I was dealing with power dynamics where I was extremely oppressed and had no rights. I was treated less than a human. I was treated as property. My story is far from uncommon. The United Nations cites that children soldiers (people under the age of 18, who enlist in the military) are at highest risk of becoming sexual slaves. That’s exactly what happened to me. Everywhere I turned to where I begged for help; I was met with more human rights abuses and cover up tactics such as administrative violence. Sexual slavery is a set of systems that exploit sex trafficking victims through force while creating an environment that denies human rights.
After my time in the Marine Corps. while I was working odd jobs as I was trying to make money to get out of homelessness; I got involved in sex work and had a sugar-daddy dynamic. Let’s be real Capitalist exploitation of $8.50 an hour in Westchester, New York was not covering even my food bill. I got involved in the illicit sex and drug trade. I wasn’t being prostituted at that point. I define my experience with prostitution different from sex work. After being tortured in the Marine Corps. over three days, I ran the fuck away. I did not think I was going to survive. The level of torture and administrative violence I was experiencing along with the fact that I was fighting back; I was deathly afraid I was going to be murdered. This is why I ran away. The Marine Corps froze my bank accounts as a result. Due to the fact that I was UA (unauthorized absence), I had to be UA for 27 1/2 days exactly to return to the Marine Corps so I could remain enlisted but be sent to a new base. Any longer I would have received a felony and at 17 and 18; I did not want to be barred for life from my human and civil rights. Any shorter and I would have been returned to the base that I feared was going to murder me and cover it up. I had enough cash to get to Philly, once I arrived, I had no money left. I had to go stripping and had to get involved in prostitution to survive those 3 and 1/2 weeks. I never imagined myself there. I was a straight A student and I was a competitive boxer. I remember thinking to myself, how did I land here? Now, I know. The power dynamics, I experienced plus the lack of rights.
When I got involved in sex work after I was unlawfully barred from benefits. I chose how I would approach sex work. I did this for a few years until I was promoted enough times in finance to make a living wage. As a society, we are so far from that reality and this is why the explosion of OnlyFans has taken off. Women around the world are using OnlyFans. Many of them are women with Masters Degrees who are teachers and are struggling to raise a family. Virtual sex work is still sex work. The women who are engaging willfully and consensually are not being sex trafficked or prostituted. By definition prostitution entails a pimp or some other form of male dominance where as sex work; 100% of the proceeds go to the women and everything is on their terms. It’s quite the opposite, they are being financially and economically empowered. They are making more money by commoditizing their bodies then they are working as teachers or serving in the military. Study after study indicates that the advancement of women economically is the fastest avenue to gender equality and world peace. Watching interviews and speaking to sex workers; they repeatedly say they feel significantly more empowered both with their sexuality and with their finances. The reasons they cite this is because it’s on their terms, with their boundaries respected so they feel empowered. They appreciate their body autonomy and to do with their bodies what they please. I agree that body autonomy is the greatest form of empowerment and representation of human dignity.
A perfect example of this is Kim Kardashian. She started her career as a nude model in PlayBoy Magazine and even went on to film a consensual pornography. While she lied about it being “released” without her consent the public has now seen the contracts she signed with Vivid Entertainment. She knew she could commoditize her body in to fame and billions and did so on her terms. She literally engaged in sex work and as a result, she is the most famous billionaire female in the world. Due to the stigma of sex work, she lied about the fact that she engaged in sex work. Sex work is not at all dehumanizing on its own, it’s the misogynistic stigmas we place on women when we conflate prostitution and sex work. This is exactly what the anti-trafficking movement is doing. The world is not absolute it’s full of idiosyncrasies. The Anti-trafficking movement is taking an all or none approach. This is why I believe they’ve been ineffective at abolishing sexual slavery.
There are more sexually enslaved victims today then there were at the height of the legal slave trade. Clearly decriminalization efforts by anti-trafficking movements over the last century are ineffective. Rightfully so. If sex work is legalized and regulated; it would create a legal industry that can be set up to protect sex workers, provide benefits, and allow women to choose if and how to commoditize their bodies on their terms. I know no greater form of liberation for women than to empower them to make their own choices about how to use their own bodies. It also incentivizes men, the primary buyers of sex, to participate in the legalized markets. This reduces the number of men participating in the illicit sex market where sexual slavery thrives.
They no longer have to risk prosecution, they no longer have to worry about the risks of STDs, they no longer have to participate in the illicit markets. Also, according to Professor Galloway at NYU Stern School of Business has stated, “The most alarming statistic we face in the U.S. is the rapidly growing number of involuntary celibates.” Incels are known to be easily radicalized and often target schools for mass shootings. It’s not even the end of the year, an 35 school shootings have taken place in 2022. Right now, only 33% of the male population ages 18 to 32 are involuntary celibate. In 7 years this percentage is forecasted to rise to over 50%; we are trending in a direction where more children’s lives are at risk. We are also trending in a direction where sexual slavery and violence will also increase. This is why the anti-trafficking movement as a whole is failing horribly and why sex workers and younger feminists don’t co-sign on to the anti-sex trafficking movement’s ideologies.
They fail to understand the radicalization pipeline and how it begins with involuntary incels and leads to domestic terrorism and extremism. I make a viral tiktok on the radicalization pipeline and how involuntary celibates get recruited by extremist groups. Nick Fuentes is the most prominent incel who has literally radicalized to the point of being an admitted white supremacist. His following is radicalized with him. They are in the exact age groups Professor Galloway discussed.
Legalized and regulated sex work must entail certified sexual therapist and psychologist oversight where these young men can have therapy sessions to help them de-radicalize in a non-clinical environment with the incentive to have sex by first learning about boundaries and consent from Doctors. Most psychologists who specialize in sex therapy first started working in jails with sex offenders and sex traffickers. They generally support legalized sex work with clinical and medical oversight. When we look at radicalization; the United Nations says that investments need to be made in to prevention of male violence. Mass violence done by males is primarily coming from incels who are frustrated they can’t have sex and don’t have either emotional regulation skills or communication skills to attract women. As they become radicalized they begin to become misogynists and engage in behaviors of male dominance and ownership over women.
Instead of demonizing sex work and categorizing it as one and the same with prostitution and sexual slavery; there’s a massive opportunity for de-radicalization, emotional skills development, the potential to abolish sexual slavery, foster an environment of safety, prevent STDs spreading, sexual and relationship education, female economic empowerment, and a severe reduction in mass violence. We have to change the way we look at sex so the dynamics shift from oppression to empowerment for all. By removing the power dynamics that lead to sexual slavery we can abolish sexual slavery and liberate women and girls. The power dynamic that anti-trafficking movements fail to even think of is that buyers of sex are typically involuntary celibates or lack healthy relationships skills. They feel powerless and buying sex and objectifying women is a toxic way to reclaim their power and if it doesn’t work out they murder or commit violence and end up in jail. On the other side of the coin, sex workers die, women experience abuse, and unnecessary amounts of harassment and children die. As a result sexual slavery grows and radicalization keeps becoming a stronger influence moving us to a more violent society. As a nation our politics is more radicalized today than at the start of the civil war. We almost had a coup and a dictatorship. We almost witnessed the collapse of Democracy. We have experienced women’s body autonomy and reproductive rights role back. This is a serious danger to sex trafficking victims especially girls. As a teenage girl who experienced these circumstances, I can affirm that true liberation and equality for me; means that I have 100% body autonomy and the right to choose what and how I want to use my body at all times. To me denying me the ability to use my body for profits whether it be through nudes or sex work is still oppression and the denial of human dignity. It plays in to purity culture ideals that my body should only be for a man I love. It only allows wealthy and famous women to commoditize their bodies while disenfranchised women have to power to choose how to use their own bodies to empower themselves. It also affirms that only one type of body should be monetized. It plays into the ideologies that affirm radical ideologies and therefore the anti-sex trafficking movement is counter-productive to its cause and why it’s had little success in actually abolishing sexual slavery. I believe this is why the United Nations has taken a neutrality stance because anti-sex trafficking organizations have thrown tantrums without involving sex workers in the discussion and instead conflate victims of prostitution and sexual slavery as one in the same with sex work.
Every illicit market has been unable to compete with its regulated counter-part. The prohibition era of alcohol made bootleggers fall to their knees. I’ve never seen someone making alcohol in their own home and selling it as a side hustle. The same with marijuana legalization. Every state that has moved to legalize it has seen the illicit markets collapse. Marijuana dealers are now employed at Cannabis Connoisseurs making benefits and paying taxes. The same applies to sex trafficking. Everywhere in Europe most notable the Netherlands, has had great success with a legal and highly regulated sex market. Even the Harvard Law Review, cites there success in terms of worker safety and for the significant reduction in violence against women. In essence a legalized and regulated sex economy yields benefits that lead to safety and gender equality. The Harvard Legal Review states, “Legalize prostitution, impose strict regulations, and construct comprehensive support systems that allow sex workers to do their jobs safely.
The desire to protect women from sexual abuse will always be valid, and if anything is a desire that should be more widespread in the United States. What is disingenuous is opposing legalized sex work for reasons that purport to be women’s safety, but that are actually coming from a place of discomfort over women openly engaging in sexual interactions for financial gain. If you are uncomfortable with the idea of women having sex for money, then you should also have a problem with pornography, exotic dancing, and people dating for money. If you do not have a problem with all of these socially accepted practices but have a problem with prostitution because it is “morally questionable,” then you have lost your right to any forum where decisions about the safety and rights of women are being made.”
This is not to say that all risks of sex work will be gone. This simply means that the anti-trafficking movement needs to stop behaving as the morality police and needs to start looking at comprehension reforms that have worked in other countries. World population review says that 43% of U.S. women experienced some type of sexual violence compared to just 10% of women in the Netherlands in 2021. The CDC says 25% of U.S. women have been raped. In 2021 there were 220 rapes, less than 1% of the Netherlands Population. It is worth looking at what the Netherlands government has been doing. The U.S. ranks significantly worse than the Netherlands and most of the world for that fact on both sex and labor trafficking annually. While legalization isn’t the only steps towards the abolishment of sexual slavery; it is one of the steps.
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