Comments on: Still Learning: On Writing As A Privileged Sex Worker

By: ‘You’re not representative’: Identity politics in sex industry debates | genders, bodies, politics

Mon, 31 Aug 2015 09:10:31 +0000

[…] sex workers themselves acknowledge that most (though not all) high-profile activists hail from more privileged backgrounds. However, this refers mainly to Western activism, which is abolitionists’ main focus (erasing […]

By: Lena Duvall

Lena Duvall — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 19:51:15 +0000

Coming to a place of understanding how to redistribute the benefits of our unearned privileges and create space for folks who are constantly being marginalized is for the betterment of all, and helps create stronger movements that can more effectively shift power.

By: Domina Elle

Domina Elle — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 03:05:53 +0000

In reply to Harold.

BAM!!! I totally agree with ‘Harold’. If you learned it- you did earn it!

I have earned, fought for, striven, worked my ass off for everything I have. I have even had a bunch of nasty bitches try to take what I have earned away from me. AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN BITCHES.

I crawled on my belly until I was able to stand on my own feet.

The talk of privileged as opposed to not privileged reminds me of ‘white guilt’.

Sorry, but being empathetic and sensitive shouldn’t require people to be self denigrating because of what social standing or color of skin they come out of! Wealthy or poor! Caucasian or whatever!

Because I am white I am not amongst the most marginalized? I have been told this by sex worker activists. REALLY??? HHmmm. Let me process that with my memories of the police brutality I have personally experienced (the color of my skin and any perceived social standing sure as hell didn’t seem to matter to them), the times I was homeless, or had to hustle for a place to be safe that night. The times I was marginalized into ‘treatment’ programs I should not have been involved in to begin with (but they need those cases to survive now don’t they?! They do NOT discriminate! You become a mere case number). I have worked the streets, crack houses, I was standing on the very edge of life with no support anywhere- one more tiny tiny move and I would have fallen into the black abyss not to return. Thank goodness somehow I was able to pull myself down from the edge to safety. Thank goodness I found the strength to fight for my life! No one was coming to save me, I had to save myself.

But sex worker or not…..in case people haven’t noticed,

WE ARE ALL SLAVES. I guess we could get into a pissing match over who is more enslaved but I really do not see a point.

MUCH LOVE to those whose eyes are open wide.

By: Lori Adorable

Lori Adorable — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:28:10 +0000

In reply to Lisa Muggeridge. Thanks for this ridiculous derail. Nah, no, nope stop bye.

By: Margaret Corvid

Margaret Corvid — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 15:33:46 +0000

Lauren, thank you for your comments. My anxiety is my own shit to deal with and it’s an uphill battle but engaging with this fantastic movement and figuring out how to contribute ethically and with awareness of my privilege has helped. Of course my dealing with my anxiety is entirely secondary to the essential work of sex worker rights that needs to be done.

By: Margaret Corvid

Margaret Corvid — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 15:32:11 +0000

What Caty said. Those who self identify as trafficked are, indeed, not your rescue project, Lisa. They can speak for themselves. Here is a moving and fantastic but very triggering example:

https://storify.com/whorephobia/we-all-have-a-voice-lori-and-hubby-guest-tweets-fo

By: Caty Simon

Caty Simon — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 15:10:35 +0000

In reply to Lisa Muggeridge. Have you noticed that we have posts up here by people who self-define as fitting the legal definition of trafficked workers? As well as survival sex workers? And people who started in the sex trades underage? Did you notice reading this piece that it was *marginalized sex workers* who corrected Margaret about the trafficking myth? We don't need you to speak for exploited people in the sex trades--they are already part of our community and they represent themselves.

By: Lisa Muggeridge

Lisa Muggeridge — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 00:48:50 +0000

Re; the trafficking ‘myth’. You get to declare it a myth when you are helpless to deal with a girl who is 14, who the local authorities wont protect, and you can’t even explain to her that the 20 blokes who just paid her ;’boyfriend’ at the party she was trafficked to in another city, raped her….It is a myth for you. The sex industry is defined as where money changes hands, not just the nice bits you work in. And when poverty is not the reason many of us have to look to the sex industry, you can start declaring its always choice. Deliberately created deficits in ongoing attacks on womens incomes mean it is not a choice, and we would like sex work defined as work which involves having sex and our sexual autonomy not to be treated as a commodity in the wider labour market. That doesn’t take anything away from you, it may protect women who dont want to have sex or have the right to say they dont want to removed. You choose because you have always had a life that allows choices. You attack on the basis of people who dont share your choices, discussing the limits to their and the harm that does.

By: Lisa Muggeridge

Lisa Muggeridge — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 00:35:34 +0000

Signed: one of women you oppress with the bullshit you sell and cause harm with.

By: Lisa Muggeridge

Lisa Muggeridge — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 00:33:51 +0000

I’ll be honest, your privilege does come through in your writing. When you declare yourself an oppressed minority, in a country ravaged by austerity, because you like spanking people. It’s not even a minority sport, most people are into something, but you ahve been privileged enough that you suddenly think this identity you have adopted for yourself out of boredom with your life, gives you the right to appropriate arguments from real civil rights movements at a time when people are actually suffering. You declare trafficking a myth because it’s offensive to you to have peopel discuss the systematic rape and traffick of girls even in this country, it’s offensive to an identity you adopted out of boredom with an already privileged life. Your wittering about sex work, for women in poverty it’s very important that sex work is defined differentlya dn involving our sexual autonomy, before it’s normalised as labour, because once something is labour the jobcentre can force you. You witter on about your rights, you don’t speak for sex workers and sex workers rights are really important for all women, but you can only see your bored upper middle class identity and solipsism. Read this utter bullshit and tell me that there is no problem with your privilege coming through in your writing- http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/09/it-possible-live-modern-contemplative-life I’ll assume this post is beacuse some of the criticism you have faced, that you don’t acknowledge, has somehow affected your self image. Quite frankly, you are just an example of the rottenness of media culture. That your inane witterings are treated as important in a magazine who whitewash the perpetuation of real harmful inequality for political reasons.*New Statesman btw Seriously, we get it, you got bored, you decided your very mundane and dull and normal sexual preference was an interesting identity to adopt. Maybe instead of believing that your role was to bear witness, you had done something useful you woudlnt’t be left turning our offensive and oppressive tripe like this. You might develop the ability to actually reflect, isntead of inflicting your dangerous, illinformed and pampered navel gazing on people.