Yet ANOTHER pro-sex work article in the Guardian

[Cunstancemarkiewicz]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/07/sex-work-stripping-home-life-compatible

WTF are they at these days? This woman is clearly damaged by her abusive mother and worn down by her years of lapdancing. She's clearly doing her best to support her family but at what cost to herself? And isn't it a grim picture of the American precariat without the social safety nets your average Guardian reader takes for granted? Yet the headline, and the casual defensive tone about the "work"....where do you even start...

I read the article but couldn't see anywhere where she says she sleeps with customers. So she isn't technically a sex worker is she? Unless stripping now counts as sex work? I can imagine some strippers wouldn't be happy with that!

I assume SP Berling is a pseudonym, though I also wonder whether the account is fictional.

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Information about how to complain here:
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It basically just reads as confirming the stereotype that most of the women who end up in the sex industry were abused in one way or another as children. Which is sad, and a sign that society is failing abused children, not empowering.

And stripping did more than pay the bills – it made me feel good about myself. I felt strong. I felt sexy. I felt confident, and that extended beyond my body to my personal boundaries, my emotional wellbeing, my willingness to drop people who disrespected me.

You would never hear a man say this.

How come men can get by OK without needing to turn to 'sex work' to 'empower' them? Men can 'drop people who disrespect them' without taking their clothes of for money and treated like an inhuman object.

queen stripping does count as sex work. It's a slippery slope type thing- as you can mix up stripping/chatlines/cam work with prostitution and trafficking then argue to decriminalize the whole shebang. Very cynical imo.

I'm a bit confused about what it is actually; it isn't an "article" at all, is it? And I don't think it sets out to be pro-sex-work - at least that's not how I read it.

Isn't it just (as the sidebar says) the extraordinary story of an ordinary person, or some such? I thought they did these things just as little insights into the lives of people whose stories would never hit the headlines, but who have interesting or uncommon personal experiences. It's an exercise in putting oneself in someone's else's shoes, isn't it? Allowing them to tell their story in their own words?

Honestly if it were glorifying the subject I would probably agree with you, but if it's just on person's personal musings on their life as a stripper, why shouldn't they be able to take both good and bad from that experience?

I'm not trying to be contentious, I'm just wondering really.

The sex work umbrella term covers both the exploiters and the exploited, as intended.

It’s the ‘who says sex work isn’t compatible with a happy homelife’ headline that’s the problem.

The Guardian usually don’t equate just about managing to feed and clothe your children and suffering harassment every day with happiness.

“Woohoo, I’m a shelf stacker and my boss slaps my bottom everyday, but really I feel empowered and my children aren’t starving!!”

It’s the ‘who says sex work isn’t compatible with a happy homelife’ headline that’s the problem.

Yes! I completely overlooked that the first time but it's bizarre; it doesn't seem to bear any relation to the text at all

How come men can get by OK without needing to turn to 'sex work' to 'empower' them?

I posted this on another thread so apologies for repeating. The "grid girl" fuss they was discussed on the Moral Maze. Melanie Philips, who is generally a libertarian and anti-feminist, came to the conclusion after hearing evidence from a stripper telling them how empowering her work was that it was not empowering but rather it is about the humiliation of the woman involved.

Phillips came to the conclusion that stripping about shaming and humiliating women. What empowerment is there? Provking an erection? Big deal- it's hardly difficult.

I agree with her. Think of the times you have seen strippers on film or tv. It makes me very uncomfortable for exactly the reasons Melanie Philips gave.

Has anyone seen Robert Altman's Nashville or Maxine Peake's Funny Cow. The stripping scenes in them are all about humiliation not empowerment.