Sex work is not and cannot be consensual. If you believe it is, read this.
If a man holds a woman captive in a room, and tells her she will not be fed if she doesn't have sex with him, would that be consensual? No, obviously.
But you might say "A sex buyer isn't holding a woman captive". Sure. Then how about this - if the man holding the woman captive invites another man in, and says he can feed the captive woman and have sex with her, but only if she agrees (and she will not be fed if she disagrees), would that be consensual? No, obviously.
You might then say "But a sex worker isn't captive at all". Well, many are. That's what sex trafficking is. And sex buyers are rarely able to tell if a prostituted woman is being actively forced into it or not. But sure, lets look instead at the other cases and disregard the trafficked women for now (as the sex work lobby loves to do anyway).
What if instead of being held captive, the woman has nowhere else to go but this room owned by the man? If she doesn't, she will have no shelter. She will have no food. The man agrees to feed her, if she has sex with other men, and himself. This example would be analogous to a brothel - even a legal brothel (where there are, in fact, many sex trafficked women as well). Or perhaps an independent prostitute, where the room represents an apartment she rents with the money she gets from prostitution.
Now at this point many "pro sex work" people may start to feel that this is consensual. She chose to, after all, right? But what does this imply about what counts as rape? Her options were to starve in the streets, or to have sex. She may not be physically forced inside the room, or physically forced to have sex with the men (although approximately 60% of prostituted women report being raped by sex buyers), but her decision to do so is made under pressure and duress. "Fuck or starve" is coercion. It was in the first example. It doesn't stop being coercion if we put a few steps between the "fuck" and the "starve". And coercion is a form of rape.
What about women who aren't actively at risk of going hungry? Women doing it for fun, as a side gig? Well, would these women do it if the money was removed? If the answer is no, she is not enthusiastically consenting to sex. If it was enthusiastic consent, she would do it regardless of money. If you need a bribe, it's absolutely not enthusiastic. And sex without enthusiastic consent is rape.
Supporting sex work as consensual goes against every single basic tenet of consent.
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
prguitarman
blakekathryn
izzy806
gummygunk
