Women who sell or exchange sex and coronavirus

[AnnaClick]

Hi everyone. I’m Anna and I’m one of the people in Scotland working on the urgent task of making sure women involved in all parts of the sex industry or selling or exchanging sex are able to get access to support and information and financial help right now. We know this is a really difficult and scary time and we are urgently trying to get in touch with women. We need to hear what you need and what are the best ways to get that support and help to you. We also want to make sure that decision makers know this right now too. If you are involved then it would be great to hear from you, or if you know of someone then please pass on our info. I’m available at www.click.scot/voice/ or [email protected] I’ll also be on our online chat here www.click.scot/contact/ Tuesday 11-1 and Wednesday from 2-4pm. Our online support is also available every week day from 11am-3pm – you can check out twitter for up-to-date online support times @click_scotland Thanks.

Moral beliefs aside, if lone women are prostituting themselves for drugs they are addicts and unless they are given free drugs they are going to continue to do it during the pandemic as well as all other times.
They would need to be given free drugs to get off the street because they are not going to go cold turkey.
Pimps are a whole other matter.

@fckmmsnt
I must highlight this because, to the best of my knowledge, it is the single biggest factor that drives women into survival sex work (and, no doubt a lot of other things they would prefer not to do too!). In the current crisis it is insurmountable.

Great I’ll tell my friends who are sex workers and haven’t to quarantine for 12 weeks to get a job in Tesco then? Or the single mums who are now having to look after their kids all day as schools and childcare are closed.

Survival sex workers often live from day to day and, at this point it is still a 5 week wait for Universal Credit (hopefully that is going to change at any time) which even with a £20 increase is woefully inadequate, and drove a lot of people to sell sex in desperation in the first place. This is the shortfall sex worker organisations in the UK are appealing for donations to make up. Nobody can survive without money.

@madcatladyforever

I think in the current climate this is the best solution for ALL addicts.
they are addicts and unless they are given free drugs they are going to continue to do it during the pandemic as well as all other times.
They would need to be given free drugs to get off the street because they are not going to go cold turkey.
I haven't had enough dealings with drug culture to be able to wrap my head around what will happen otherwise, every step of the way, sourcing drugs as well as sourcing money to pay for them. It seems simpler to just give them free, pharmaceutical grade drugs and accomodation conditional on isolation.

@gayedalton I'm not sure why you are trying to argue with me when i'm saying that sex workers need support facepalm

@fckmmsnt
Absolutely not arguing with you, I agree with all the things you have said but the childcare issue has been a bee in my bonnet for 33 years and I wanted to highlight it because it seems particularly relevant now.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-failed-attempt-to-silence-the-sex-trade-survivor-rachel-moran

Interesting article here about people trying to silence a woman talking about her lived experience of exploitation through prostitution , how she escaped and how she now helps other survivors.

GayeDalton

I am not at liberty to discuss that.

No discussion required. The court proceedings for your defamation of Rachel Moran were in public and reported in the press, as well as the judge's comments about you.

fckmmsnt (interesting name )
Sex workers have also worked hard on their businesses, paid tax etc and also many of them do have other jobs josh have also collapsed. This forum is wild, according to you sex workers are all victims but are also all evil women who dredge no help.

You seem shocked that different women on the forum might be opposed to prostitution for different reasons. Why is that?

Women in prostitution who "work hard on their business" and pay tax are not typically the ones in survival prostitution. Most (not all) of the women on this board prioritise the needs of vulnerable women prostituted to multiple men a day, not those doing a Ph.D. in queer studies and shagging a couple of guys a week after dinner. Just like we prioritise the needs of the vulnerable when it comes to other restrictions on what people can do to earn a living (e.g. health and safety rules, minimum wage). It would be like someone bleating that they would like to take a job for less than minimum wage or without H&S rules because they can afford it or don't need the protections.

The funds shared are for women in survival sex work as they are unlikely to be able to access state support. The money isn’t going to anyone with any savings or alternatives. Street workers and brothel workers have been helped by the fund. People on this thread are arguing that the fund shouldn’t exist

Also most sex workers are (like all workers) somewhere in the middle. Not working for fun, working for economic survival, to put food on the table. The lack of empathy with women who are terrified of being evicted is staggering. I suppose they are bad women though so they don’t count

Also most sex workers are (like all workers) somewhere in the middle

This is a pimp/punter lobby trope for which there is no evidence.

@FloraFox

It would be like someone bleating that they would like to take a job for less than minimum wage or without H&S rules because they can afford it or don't need the protections.

Indeed.

@Fckmmsnt
It always comes back to the same thing, People, all people cannot survive without money.
Obviously some sex workers are FINE and I have seen some astonishing generosity from them to those less well off online over the past few days...
Others are worried enough, but not especially so.
But then there are those who were selling sex to survive due to exceptional circumstances, that left them in an impossible position with every conceivable statutory resource (and the 5 week wait for UC just made them less exceptional than usual) those people, through ABSOLUTELY NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN are sick with fear and utterly desperate with no means at all RIGHT NOW.

Lack of empathy seems to relate to the "othering" that always comes packaged with ideological polarisation and designates a specific group of people as "life unworthy of life". Its a very nasty part of the human condition.

Yes here’s a great example of “othering “ of women who have been prostituted.

One such slur would be that delivered by Ms Dalton, who allegedly said the women of SPACE International were 'A pack of greedy, spiteful little frauds who sold sex workers lives out along with their souls.'

'It’s just disgusting to see our women spoken about in that way' says Moran. 'Every woman representing SPACE International has lived the sex trade, many of us delivering frontline services to women currently in prostitution. We know what we're talking about because we’ve lived it and we’ve witnessed other women live it. Whitewashing the sex trade won’t work with us. That’s why our voices must be rubbished as fraudulent. They are a dangerously powerful opposition to the counter political narrative.’

Some people believe those who sell sexual access and services are Their equals and adult human beings with a right to life, those people are fully within their rights to do whatever they can to help them at this time, and give others the choice of doing likewise.

Oh do fuck off dear. Some of us have actually been prostitutes.

SEX WORK IS NOT ‘WORK’ - IT’S ORGANISED CRIME.

IF YOU GIVE A SHIT ABOUT HELPING WOMEN GET AWAY FROM CRIMINALS, YOU WOULDN’T PEDDLE THIS CHOOSY CHOICE SHIT.

Street workers and brothel workers have been helped by the fund. People on this thread are arguing that the fund shouldn’t exist

‘Workers’ - you really need to fuck off with that. You are normalising the rape, trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable women who are groomed into selling sex, often after surviving childhood sexual abuse.

If you want to help women in prostitution, start a business and employ them. Not a brothel or a cam site, but a workshop or a bakery or an online shop, one that pays a living wage, doesn’t require references and fits with school hours. Throw in some medium term free accommodation and a fixed plan to help them save a deposit on a rental place, along with a guarantor scheme. Make it easy for them to take time off for counselling and/or addiction support. Bring it on site if possible.

Don’t just throw a cash payment at them and then send them back out on the street to suck the cocks of abusive strangers.

This isn’t ‘support’ it’s yet more GROOMING. You are PART OF THE PROBLEM, yet you identify as the solution!

What an absolute pile ‘o shite.

Lack of empathy seems to relate to the "othering" that always comes packaged with ideological polarisation and designates a specific group of people as "life unworthy of life". Its a very nasty part of the human condition.

Yet more patronising clap trap.

This is what’s known as The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations’.
Look it up.

And stop grooming women into believing they belong at the bottom of the barrel, you act like you are a saviour but you are pushing women back towards abuse.

Lack of empathy seems to relate to the "othering" that always comes packaged with ideological polarisation and designates a specific group of people as "life unworthy of life". Its a very nasty part of the human condition.

A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

@IONA
That would not be an example of "othering" at all.
"Othering" is very impersonal, it concerns designating a whole category of people as less than human in order to justify a group policy based on ongoing empathetic disregard and injustice.

One of my friends is a brothel worker who has to isolate for 12 weeks and one is a street worker living in temp accommodation. Not sure how I’m meant to start a business at the minute either. Or how my friends with disabilities or child care issues are meant to work 40 hours. Sex work is work. Tens of thousands of families are fed by people doing it. If you don’t think it’s work can you ask that HMRC write off tax bills please? Your ideological stance doesn’t trump reality. Also some people on this thread are saying that some workers are “too privileged” so which is it? Is it all rape and exploitation or not?

Also I’m not working at all at the minute. Not sure where I’m meant to get all this start up money from. Property in London? Seriously?

@DuLANGDuLANGDuLANG

If you want to help women in prostitution, start a business and employ them. Not a brothel or a cam site, but a workshop or a bakery or an online shop, one that pays a living wage, doesn’t require references and fits with school hours.

Totally agree with you there, (but tied accommodation is always a really bad idea, and packaged in combination with associated counselling and other services fosters a very unhealthy level of co-dependency) however, I am not aware of any organisation, abolitionist or otherwise that is offering such work, and, that does not get us over the problem of real human beings caught in a pandemic with no means at all, THAT requires immediate cash.

fckmmsnt

One of my friends is a brothel worker

Are you a punter or a pimp of this "friend"? You've only posted under this username on two threads both about prostitution. Just curious about your interest in this matter.

@@DuLANGDuLANGDuLANG
you act like you are a saviour
Totally apologise if I have been coming across that way, not least because it would be very misleading, I won't be "saving" anyone. In general I just want to see sex workers destigmatised and empowered to:
Think for themselves
Speak for themselves
Represent themselves in all matters concerning them
Expect and demand the same right and respects as every other human being.
Make their own decisions

In the current terms of COVID19 I just want to see as many sex workers as possible find the means to survive to the other side, and that is pretty urgent now.

but tied accommodation is always a really bad idea,

Which is why I said it needs to have an end point and plan to save a deposit and move on.

It’s as if Mrs Jellyby opened a brothel.