Sex Workers Project Asks MSNBC to Pull Show on "Sex Slaves"

[+ quoththeraven]

Since we're thinking about outing, what does the collective wisdom of this board think about this?

 

http://jezebel.com/sex-workers-project-asks-msnbc-to-pull-show-on-sex-slav-1717782506

 

The show not unsurprisingly focuses on female sex workers, but what if they took a look at male sex workers? And is it right even as aimed at female sex workers?

[+ WilliamM]

...is it right even as aimed at female sex workers?

 

If Pennslyvania Republican state legislator are telling the truth, it seems that the message has been translated into all female sex workers are sex slaves.

 

Some Pennsylvania Republican senators and governors have been relatively liberal -- Bill Scranton, Arlen Spector, Richard Schweicker -- so who knows. Of course there's also former senator, Rick Santorum.

 

http://citypaper.net/news/big-brother-visits-the-strip-club/

[+ quoththeraven]

the message has been translated into all female sex workers are sex slaves.

 

There are many, many people who feel that way, including those radical feminists who remain. They're more the fringe than the mainstream of the feminist movement, but they still exist. (Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin are probably the most publicly famous.) I don't know if all radfems are sex-negative, but a lot of them are, and many of them are convinced that all female sex work is either trafficked or coerced.

 

They have a point about the conditions under which women choose sex work. For women, there is probably less choice involved with escorting-type sex work than with other kinds of sex work. But the fact that it's a good economic choice for women that is disfavored and not that fun because of client expectations and disrespect -- the ones who seem to enjoy it seem to do so for reasons of money and status, not because they enjoy the sex -- has more to do with how society is organized than with sex work itself, and the radfem position infantilizes the women who make the choice without being trafficked or pressured by another human being but who are pressured by economic circumstances and says they're too stupid to exercise agency over their own bodies. That's not much better than the attitude of the exploiters (such as most if not all pimps) and many johns.