That says a lot about the safety and job security-or lack thereof-in their profession.īoth of the individuals I spoke with brought up harassment as one of the most persistent threats to their well-being. Several individuals I approached politely declined speaking about their industry for fear of retribution and those who did speak with me wished to remain anonymous. Now that all of that is out of the way, and getting back to the well-being of sex workers-and strippers in particular-in my conversations with workers in the field and upon further research I found a plethora of deeply troubling issues that must be addressed.
There is a very real and devastating problem of sexual slavery, trafficking, exploitation and abuse but SWERFs fundamentally fail to meaningfully address this by conflating consensual sex work with it.įurther, from the objectification point of view, many sex workers-including those I am friends with and spoke to for this article-found sex work to be empowering, fun and rewarding when it is at its best. Rather than focusing on ending violence against sex workers, SWERFs focus on policing and punishing women’s bodies and sexuality. To add a moralistic component to the kind of labor we sell seems to me informed by those same aforementioned purtianical and patriarchal traditions rather than on the truly feminist principles of female agency and autonomy. Saying that sex workers sell their bodies is redundant and hypocritical considering that all of us who work jobs and participate in this late stage of capitalism rent out hours of our lives to employers and literally sell our bodies in the form of labor every time we work.
While most feminist schools support an individual’s right to choose what sexual activities they do or do not engage in, SWERFs take it upon themselves to tell other people what to do and what not to do with their bodies.” This also warrants a mention of the regressive school of feminism known as SWERFs (Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminists) who argue “that sex workers, particularly those in the prostitution and pornography industries, become the victims of regular sexual objectification, exploitation, and violence and that, by participating in this kind of industry, sex workers become co-perpetrators of these crimes. It is a brutish and nasty business, as men are traditionally lauded as studs for their sexual prowess and virility, while the double standard proclaims women to be sluts for the same sexual behaviors. It essentially boils down to the notion that women are either pure and viriginal-and thus worthy of respect, marriage and child-rearing-or they are sexual and promiscuous, the proverbial easy woman, and thus filthy, impure and unworthy of human dignity or respect. The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, dubbed this dynamic the Madonna-Whore complex. Patriarchal world religions-which means almost all of them- created an uncomfortably familiar purity dynamic that women continue to be held to. Historically sex workers have been demonized by pretty much every society that kept written records, even though they have been prevalent in them all going way back to ancient Mesopotamia where prostitution even had spiritual and ritualistic connotations. Although the majority of sex workers are cis women, there are also many transgender and nonbinary individuals in these trades, as well as some cis men.
#SPACE PUNKS LOCAL CO OP FULL#
First things first-sex workers are people who work in the sex industry, such as full service prostitutes, pornography models and actors, phone sex operators, erotic dancers and web cam performers. What has not been highlighted is the plight of the human beings who work in these clubs. The city tends to lean into this part of its brand as a quirky and weird place full of alternative thinkers and dreamers-and much ink has been spilled elsewhere about how there are clubs that cater to vegans, craft beer enthusiasts, metalheads, punks, hip-hop trap fans, karaoke singers, Victorian burlesquers and beyond. It is a well known fact that Portland has the most strip clubs per capita of any city in the United States.
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