Sex work is like an iceberg.
At the tip, there are the people like KatesMott’s and friend, the “empowered” “sex work is work” types, who get to see the ocean, the sunshine, fresh air and the world. Life is seemingly nice at the tip. Unfortunately underneath them, joined by covalent bonds are the first tier: they are the women held just under the surface, constantly just submerged by poverty, drug addiction, never making quite enough money, constantly trying to keep themselves afloat and needing to take a breath every time they break the surface.
And underneath them is the next tier of women: those who are trafficked, beaten, raped, subject to horrors and killed. They are deep underwater, in the freezing depths, so far down that those “empowered” ones at the tip either don’t give one fuck that they’re all part of the same iceberg, or don’t make the connection, because where they are it’s warm and sunny.
It’s not
a refusal to believe that anyone can choose sex work as a valid way of making money
it’s the failure to acknowledge that those who do this are a tiny, small percentage of a huge submerged problem of horror around the world, and the failure to acknowledge that by painting sex work as a glorious opportunity you are ignoring - or deliberately misrepresenting - the reality that the percentage of women who come out of sex work unscathed, financially secure and set up for life is incredibly small.
And by continuing with advocacy for