…please, please, don’t tell me that sex work is ALWAYS “violence against women.” Don’t tell me that my sweet, awkward, unable-to-find-dates client who pays me for two hours and MASSAGES me, without having sex, in a candle-lit room, because I tweeted that I had a bad day, is exploiting or violating me. Don’t tell me that the outcall guy, in a wheelchair, who also can’t find a partner who isn’t a judgmental fuckface, wanting some affection and a blow-job (because he’s never even been touched sexually before) is violent. Don’t tell me that my 65 year-old divorced client, who can’t navigate modern dating, and who just wants to be kissed while I jerk him off, is doing anything wrong. He isn’t. And neither am I. They don’t deserve to be arrested for that. I shouldn’t be harassed, intimidated by police, and forced to retire from sex work (out of fear of being outed) because of moral panic, which, thanks to police now targeting independent sex workers in Southern Ontario, I’ve now had to do. I’ll be applying for welfare next week, because I still have to pay for luxuries like rent, food, tampons, and soap. Are you happy now, radfems? Will you be satisfied when myself, and a lot of my community, will be forced to move back in with our parents (those of us lucky enough to have such options), or go hungry, or live on coffee because it suppresses our appetite?

THIS is the REAL WORLD consequence of your misguided and ignorant campaigns. I’m happy that you want to help those who want to exit sex work. But I am pissed, angry, and occasionally suicidal because you see fit to fuck with the last option I had for basic survival. What the FUCK am I, and folks with a lot less privilege and options than I have, going to do now? Work and risk jail, or getting put on some list that will show up at borders, welfare offices, and RCMP stations?

-Brazen Lee in “An Open Letter To Anti-Sex Work Activists” at her blog