A liberal feminist encounters reality

[NotTerfNorCis]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/oct/17/feminism-working-womens-prison-inmates-sex-work-marriage

I had engaged with ideological debates on the topic of sex work before, of course I had. I knew that to question whether sex work is really like any other work would make you a dreaded “swerf” (sex worker exclusionary radical feminist) and – like the patriarchy – is an attempt to control what women do with their bodies. People don’t need rescuing, the theory goes, they need rights and unions.

The majority of sex workers I met in prison, who arrived with bruises and track-marks, would rather have been doing anything else. They needed their rights protected, sure, but they also wanted a route out. The reality was not simple. It rarely is.

This is in Germany, where full decriminalisation of prostitution has led to horrifying practices

I was sexually harrassed on the street more in two weeks in Germany than in the other fifty weeks of that year in the UK. I watched two men camp on a bench outside a women's public loo[1] and harass every woman who used it as she entered and left. That's right: in Germany, a woman can't even piss free from harassment. Why does no one listen to us when we say "we just want to pee in peace"?

[1]: There was no similar bench outside the men's. It's almost as if the bench was put there so that men could sit on it to harass women...