Sandra

The phrase “going down like a drunk hooker” is full of slut shaming. It is not celebratory, or honoring of sex work. It has the full feeling of frat boy ignorance of the life of a sex worker. It fuels the image of sex workers as strung out ho-bags. When you hear “drunk hooker”, does the wonder of a person sharing their body for the joys of sex come to mind? No, the image of a used up piece of substance strung sex garbage who will do anything for a buck does, and THAT is why an apology to sex workers was in need. Especially because a lot of us sex workers ARE Fetlife supporters. I was personally offended. Not overly offended, but offended nonetheless.

One other aspect of this, is that the bulk of sex workers who do use substances, are people who do not want to be doing sex work, or are trafficked, and they use substances to deal with the pain, to disassociate themselves so that they can work (or live with being forced to work).

There is a certain privilege for those of us who have chosen sex work, and in ignorance we can say “oh it’s just a joke”. It is not a fucking joke for the suffering of those in sex work who are forced to be there against their will, or are so hopeless they feel there is nothing else for them to do. It is an ignorant, tasteless and insensitive joke – not so much for us privileged sex workers, but for the ones who are not.

that woulda been a little nicer 🙂

If FetLife put that in their TOS, then they’re the ones who get to make that call. Unlike defamation, “hate speech” does not exist as a legal category in the US.

Now if they want to engage in speech that alienates a large part of their own online community, then they can suffer the consequences of that without anybody’s formal free speech rights being violated at all.

I’m just asking these question, I’m not saying I know the answers. It’s really difficult to say where the lines are. Technically, and like it or not, Fetlife’s TOS does not allow for hate speech: “You agree that you will not use BitLove Inc’s Products and Services to: Personally attack, make fun of, troll, flame, bully, stalk or otherwise harass another member….Make or promote any type of racism or hate towards anyone in specific or a group of people. Unless in the context of role-playing between consenting parties”. ::shrug:: That’s why I asked!