PERSONAL BELIEFS ON SW
Okay so I'm all for sex positivity and sexual liberation, It is important for there to be freedom to choose and exploration surrounding a person's own sexuality. I just don't think that requires SW to be an industry where a person's own bodily autonomy is used as a commodity.
Starting off, SW is always going to be inherently misogynistic. It has always been known that most SWers are made up of women whereas consumers of SW are men. Inherently there is always that power dynamic between genders and from what many studies can find that is part of the allure for men buying SW, the idea of the power they have over the SWer.
There is also the monetary motivation that can also pose an issue. There is a power imbalance between the SWer and the consumer due to who in this 'transaction' hold the money which equates as to whom holds the power. It causes the SW to be 'in-debt' until consent is given and the service is performed. How can we know how much the SWer consents based on the monetary value rather than of their own volition? It just begs the question of in a hypothetical utopia where money becomes meaningless how many people would still choose to be SWers?
Furthermore, the ability to boil down a human body, a person's autonomy and their consent down to a commodity to be bought and sold furthers more dangerous ideas. It boils SWers down to being commodities rather than people. When looking at SWers in this light it puts us back to square one that 'women are objects/property'. Its further not helped by also the research done that shows how men who consume exploit content such as porn will actually show signs of viewing women not as people but instead as objects for pleasure, this can lead to the problem that we go from working to seeing woman as equal people and in a means to try and liberate sexual freedom instead end up doing a 180 back to women being viewed as property again (if that makes sense sort of thing??).
Additionally, it further perpetrates negative fetishization of people based on their identities such as the fetishization of trans people, women, race, religion, sexuality etc... it just seems to do more harm than good surely? People are people, they aren't just fetishes.
Personally, I think the best way forward is not to stigmatize sex workers but instead, we should question the type of people who purchase SW. SW has always been a dangerous industry and perhaps there isn't a way to work around it to make it feminist?
anyways... thoughts?
(this isn't coming from a place of judgment, I just think it is important to look at all arguments about this and to discuss if there would ever be a way for such an industry to escape its historical context. And NO I'm not for criminalizing it as just like abortion it doesn't prevent it, just instead causes it to go underground and become much more dangerous. but deffo pro-sexual liberation, go wild!)