Anti Sex Work Logic is Painfully Inhumane
The more commonplace jail and criminalization is, the easier it is to forget how inherently violent it is. To have men with guns grab you and threaten you with violence unless you go with them. To be locked up in a cage with little to no privacy. To be given a police record that makes it incredibly difficult to find other employment. That’s the baseline, even if the police are on their best behavior. For many people the experience may include unnecessary strip searches, sexual harassment, derogatory slurs, assault, and/or rape.
These statistics and letter sent to Melissa Gira Grant where the police tell us they see this treatment as the “humane” choice is very upsetting. Keep in mind we’re not talking about trafficking victims. We’re talking about individuals struggling to pay the rent, with friends and lovers who care about them, who might have children to take care of.
They say that they cannot “in good conscience” allow them to continue to provide for themselves in the way they have chosen and must instead use force, violence, and the threat of further harm in order to coerce them into giving up their income source. They continue to rely on this tactic even though admit themselves that this is ineffective for many.
The police are following the strategy set forth by anti sex work activists who intend to make the job an increasingly “hostile environment.” I can’t help but gawk at that phrase. In so much else of my life it is something to be avoided. Labor rights will rally against hostile work environments and call for better labor conditions. Employers are quick to respond to or defend against such claims because they know they could be held legally responsible. Yet here it is the desired outcome.
They know that those consensually engaging in sex work are typically doing so because it is the best option available to them. Some will tell you they honestly enjoy the job, or that it accommodates their life or their accessibility needs in ways that other jobs don’t. Others will tell you they don’t like it but it’s better than the alternative. Anti sex work activists want to see more harassment and violence until people choose to give it up.
In truth, that is the motivation behind criminalization models that focus on clients. Reduce demand to reduce the industry. But think for a moment about every other labor circumstance where the number of employers are cut in half but there are the same number of people seeking work. Supply and demand will drive wages down and employers will know they have the upper hand and make more and more outrageous demands. In sex work that means agreeing to unsafe working situations and not being able to screen clients, demand the use of protection, or report crimes.
This is the desired outcome people are talking about when they say “reduce demand.” Make the working conditions so dangerous and hostile that people move to other lines of work.
The major problem here is that other work is not always an option. Many of the sex workers I know enjoy the freedom that independant sex work can bring. They would hate to have it taken away, but they probably do have other options. I also know plenty of people who have chosen sex work because they were chronically unemployable due to anti-trans discrimination, accessibility needs incompatible with traditional workplaces, or other reasons. They won’t be able to find work elsewhere and will have to continue working in sex work no matter how “hostile” it becomes.
That is the end result of this approach - some happy independent sex workers disgruntled dislocated workers forced into careers they dislike. Others will play the odds hoping not to be struck by violence. But desperate sex workers with no other choice will continue doing sex work, simply in more and more dangerous circumstances experience violence as a part of the job regardless of whether it comes from clients or cops. Safe houses or free hotel rooms won’t help pay the rent and utilities or feed you when you’re hungry.
It reminds me of a section from the book The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story when the author describes being arrested for sex work and being beaten and raped by police, then she ends up getting arrested again. The officer asks her “Do you chaps have no other work? Why do you walk the streets? What’re we supposed to do with you guys? We beat you, arrest you, and yet you return to the streets.”
It’s a dramatic failure of the imagination to only see violence as a possible solution to the situation. If arresting someone doesn’t work, they try beatings. If beatings don’t work, they have no other ideas left. So they just keep on arresting and beating and wondering why things aren’t getting better.
izzy806
ellievsbear
areudirty
stormborns
kaledo-art
