Thursday, July 31, 2014

Search for the truth on sex work

 
So many untruths are being bandied about as the Tories try to railroad uncertain Canadians into accepting new prostitution laws that will criminalize even more of the industry.
    I know from my own circle of friends - at least the ones who aren't sex workers themselves - that it's almost like people are frightened to rethink what they think they know about the sex industry. Yet there is so much exceptional research out there that challenges this fuzzy belief that to be a sex worker is to be a helpless, trafficked victim dragged into the business by a man who will beat you if you don't comply.
    But surely the public's instinct to want to avoid thinking about an industry they find unpleasant hardly outweighs the rights of tens of thousands of other Canadians to a safer workplace and some respect and dignity. In other words, get informed, people.
    And here are some excellent research papers and relevant info to help get you started:

2 comments:

Raedwulf said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Raedwulf said...

There is an excellent autobiography by a sex worker who worked in the sex trade from late 1800's to early 1900's. She worked in several brothels and subsequently managed brothels in the Canadian prairies. In the book she even discusses relations with the police and neighbours. It is a book with more straight goods and honest objective personal information than any other writing I have ever seen. Title is "Madeleine an Autobiography".

One interesting observation is that the brothels were run only by women. Pimps were not on the scene until the present laws were passed. The law
making soliciting a crime essentially required sex workers to have a pimp.