She, for example, seems to love the whole “end demand” idiocy, which I compare to having desperate people, working on badly constructed, and just short of sinking, boats, then, instead of going after the boat owner, or creating regulations, and enforcing them, for boat safety, you a) let the owner hide, b) watch while the desperate workers, hired to run the boats, go down with them, without actually trying to rescue them, and finally c) claim that you are “helping the real victims (i.e., the workers), by, instead, bankrupting the workers, and arresting the people buying cruise tickets.

Its a very bizarre, alternate, universe that “sex work” seems to live in, in which “protecting and saving victims”, means, “Let the building burn down, around the hotel staff, while arresting the people renting rooms.”, for another example I pointed out. I dare say that there is no other industry in which the prevailing solution to a problem is to harm the victim, for their own good, while not only failing to pursue the victimizer, but redefining the “buyer of the service”, as the one creating the victims, all while claiming the justification for this is, as the fool I argued with did, that, “The reason they are victims is because you can’t ‘consent’ to sex for pay. The money makes it impossible!”

But, I guess this is just sort of the flip side argument – “We need to save the victims, since you can’t consent to something someone is paying you to do.” vs. “It can’t be assault, because you chose a job, in which you already consented to sex with the person you claim assaulted you.” It makes me angry, but.. not surprised, sadly, that you can have people argue **both** of these contradictory things when talking about the same job.

This is a really great point: “One has to wonder whether Mitchell’s argument that sometimes things that are clearly rape are somehow not rape because of circumstances could not just as easily be applied to marital rape or sexual assault while drunk/on drugs. After all, these groups could also be argued to be “putting [themselves] at risk for harm,” just like Mitchell argues sex workers do.”

On that note, would an escort who’s flat broke and at risk of being evicted be putting herself at risk for harm by NOT working? We all make choices in life. Why is choosing to sell sex a more terrible and more vilified form of harm than choosing homelessness?

What is so fucking special about sex, that makes it so evil?