What is wrong with the term 'Sex workers'?

I’ve lived in and around the red light district for years.

The worst I saw was a woman in her underwear being thrown screaming out of a car which sped off.

Many of the women look very ill but I guess you can’t ring in sick when you’re working the streets.

And most importantly...

What about health and safety at work?

That's why decriminalisstion is always called for not legalisation.

Because if it were legal, then h&s would apply. And then the circumstances under which it could happen would be... Well extremely restrictive let's put it that way.

It's all disingenuous rubbish. The oh it's no worse than stacking shelves and way better paid rubbish.

No change from what me used to say. Easy money earnt on your back. Don't even have to get out of bed.

Same shit new packaging.

If sex work is work....

How is it taxed?
What's the pay scale?
Where's the workplace risk assessment policies?
What protections do workers have?
Is there a Union?
If someone is dissatisfied, do they get a refund?

I agree with a PP. sex work is work is just a way of sanitising an abusive practice.

The German article is horrific. The abolitionists are brave.

Has Angela Merkel ever voiced her views on the legalisation of prostitution in Germany?

OP it's because it's a term that encompasses a wide variety of different activities and therefore is used to water down the violence etc stats and point to 'sex workers' who are in relatively safe circs esp physically to show it's really not a bad thing.

It includes anyone employed in any aspect of the sex industry, eg

Camwork
Stripping
T*ttie bars
Cleaning doing admin working bar etc in a strip club
Sugar daddy situations
Camera work in porn
Pimping

Etc etc

That's why the term is objectionable. And it was coined with this exact reason in mind.

I’ll never forget my next door neighbour many years ago yelling at her boyfriend
“I have to go out and sleep with dirty old men so you can smoke crack.” Which is not something I hear many women in other jobs saying tbh.

I think that I have a job with union protection, low risks and a pension fund is more empowering tbh.

www.feministcurrent.com/2016/10/24/lisa-ling-endorses-legalized-prostitution-cnns-life/

I didn’t find the Lisa Ling doc, but I did find this article about it.

Yeah, I was going to mention the Emma Caldwell podcast. It's important and powerful listening if you haven't heard it already.

As someone who had a neighbour who was a street prostitute at the same time and the same streets as Emma, I saw her bruises, lost teeth and complete loss of self. And I celebrated with the woman who returned, drug free and looking 20 years younger when she'd been finally persuaded by her family to get out, come home and get help.

She wasn't empowered. She wasn't a cam girl or selling only fans nudes. She was on the sharp end of prostitution which is ugly and dangerous, and she barely escaped with her life. Many Glasgow girls weren't so lucky.

And that was when the police were telling the women to stick to specific streets where there were cameras. Funnily enough, the men in cars took them elsewhere to rape, beat up and sometimes murder.

You don't get a lot of ppl trafficked into eg plumbing or waiting tables

tbh, I'm not sure about the latter within some discussions about modern slavery.

A new report published by the Gangmasters & Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) found that Indians are in the top 10 victim nationalities at risk of human trafficking and forced labor in the UK. Vietnamese nationals were the most at risk, followed by migrant workers from Romania, Poland, China, Sudan, and India.

The GLAA reports notes that Indian workers commonly work in the hotel and restaurant industry in the UK.

www.freedomunited.org/news/indians-uk-restaurant-sector-greater-risk-modern-slavery/

For every individual who wants to claim the term “sex worker” and declares the job was chosen freely, we know there are more individuals, overwhelmingly women, who are being trafficked or otherwise forced into the role. I can’t use the term “sex worker” or even argue for enforcing laws against prostitutes as long as vulnerable people, again mostly women, are being raped and violated in the industry. If the minority of individuals engaging in this kind of economic exchange could miraculously remove the trafficking and coercion, then they might have an argument. It’s simply impossible though. There will always be more demand than supply.

I used to believe prostitution should be legal and woman should have full autonomy over what they do with their bodies. I saw a documentary by Lisa Ling that went into the economics of a legal brothel and it really opened my eyes. I obviously did more reading from there, but I could never go back to believing in “sex work” again.

You don't get a lot of ppl trafficked into eg plumbing or waiting tables.

I prefer "victim of sexual exploitation".

I also think that calling it work not prostitution sounds more respectable, better for your self esteem, fool yourself it was free choice

@Maria53 my fault, i didn't notice the name wasn't included in the link!

The woman was really quite disdainful, wasn't she? Women who've been through it know that the horrors are still horrors even if you give it a fluffy name. The problem with prostitution isn't that it's called prostitution!

I think the term sex worker is horrible as is prostitute. The old term Lady of the night is a lot more flattering.

Or whether on schools career day, a sex worker should come in an explain to the kids that this is a great option for well paid and flexible hours. As long as they don’t mind the anal prolapse and probable rape part.

If sex work is like any other type of work, ask your friend if she’d be ok with jobs being posted at the job centre and women being under pressure to take them or have their benefits sanctioned.

Even our government, who have done so many terrible things to people in poverty do not sanction unemployed people for not taking a job as a so called 'sex worker'.

They get close with the state sanctioned rape they are now instituting in womens prisons, but even for people that unscrupulous forcing desperate people into 'sex work' is still seen as a step too despicable to take.

A woman’s vagina is not a place of business. I hate when people pretend prostitution is all “happy hooker”, empowered woman who just loves sex so much she is willing to sell her body to any man who is willing to pay.

It’s exploitation period.

However my friend was clear that 'this is their preferred name, it's what they ask to be called'

Does your friend know many prostitutes/sex workers?

One of the problems is the broadness of the term - it takes in strippers and lapdancers and women who sit at home in front of a web cam talking dirty. (As well as pimps, as a PP said.)

There are feminist concerns about women doing those jobs, but prostitution is a very specific service, giving men access to women's bodies. It is hugely dangerous, dehumanising and in no way empowering for the prostituted woman.

Oh sorry @FlyPassed I didnt see you had linked to the podcast already and essentially made the same point

[quote FlyPassed]Prostituted women are not a hive mind, so your friend can no more claim that they all want to be called sex workers than I can claim they all want to be called prostitutes.

I am more inclined to focus on trafficked women and those who sell sex out of desperation and deprivation than women who do a bit of cam work on only fans, or the rare Belle du Jour types. Tbh I'm not much interested in the latter.

I care about vulnerable women, and it does not serve them to pretend prostition is a great life choice when so many come to such great harm. I also believe it harms women, as a class, to live in societies where our sisters are up for sale.

I recommend your friend listens to the prostituted women interviewed in this podcast. I listened a while ago so can't recall which episode, or the survivor's name, but her answer to the question of teminology may be illuminating if your friend genuinely cares about what these women want.

open.spotify.com/show/6KpQGBXTpqGs9J26mTSbZV?si=792noqAfSL-lCbBVxfIA_g&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1[/quote]
Agree with this.

Have you listened to the Emma Caldwell podcast on BBC sounds OP? It might still be available, not sure. Emma Caldwell was a murdered prostitute and one episode interviews her friend who was also a prostitute at the time. The term sex worker really bothers her.