“Shying away from real issues and writing whitewashed blog posts quoted in cute fluff pieces which give Dennis Hof good PR is not empowering activism.”

I think this hits the nail right on the head. This wasn’t activism; it was advertising. Hof et al have clued in to the fact that there’s a market for “activist” sex workers… As long as that “activism” makes men feel good and doesn’t impose on their entitlements by demanding decent working conditions, labour rights, fair pay and safety.

“A woman’s right to choose… to be a prostitute while pregnant!” is the sort of tone-deaf, antifeminist slogan that seems to just be begging for backlash so Hof can have a lucrative pity party with the MRAs over how maligned and censored he is by the evil feminists, even though all he’s doing is letting the woman choose her choice.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/prostitution-pregnancy-pornography-exploitation-consent-a7697536.html

this irritating genre of touristy journalist writers to sex work, or the genre of sex workers using media pieces as odd advertising pitches in ways that set themselves apart from other workers or other women or other people is doing my head in – i don’t know if its growing somehow, but either way its so frustrating… the lack of accountability to their wider community, the lack of lived experiences to even know how much out of depth/out of touch with most sex workers they are,
and the lack of stigma, discrimination, criminalisation and other bullshit in their life to actually realise just how much their experience is only one experience- and to speak as if thats a universal experience or to leave out others experiences (or at least not write with any awareness of other sex workers experiences) just feels bleh

I’m just glad to see this article… coz i really flipped out at a similar article the other day …on Vice about a gender fluid sex worker which just felt so out of touch with any gender fluid or gender queer or trans sex workers I’ve ever met /worked with …and i felt like for fucks sake if people want to write about how the hardest issues they face is choosing nail polish for the week, or if they want to write how sex work is empowering for their sexuality all power to them… but this article just helped me crystallise my thoughts better in a way… in that its about platform and responsibility to community and taking that seriously…like these other people, they could go write about that stuff all day on their blog and i don’t care, I’m happy for them…but we only have so many spaces per period of time in the media…even if media is obsessed with sensationalistic sex work…its like that was still a slot on sex work…and its been filled with another vacuous piece devoid of any real politics, devoid of any real demands of change for the shit that is affecting the overwhelming majority of sex workers… and glamourising it in another weird way that i can’t help but feel like gives other aspiring journalists an idea for something to do for a week so they have a new hot take article for their next column …

anyway just wanted to post and send lots of love + respect for your writing, your sex working and yr parenting and yr surviving under such a shit system that doesn’t make it fucking easy to do any one of those things, let alone all of them at once!
>from a junkie whore

In this line: “Yeah sure, pregnant people need to be empowered to own their sexuality, and some might still choose sex work even with all the support and resources in the word.”

the word “word,” needs an “L” to make it world.

I am the editor from hell, please forgive my pointing this out if it annoys you.

Again, REALLY love your writing.

Really, really beautiful writing.

Thank you. Lots.