SEX WORK

I will state straight out that the term ‘sex work’ is one that bothers me.  I find the sanitized language to be both overly generalized and engulfingly over-encompassing, while simultaneously painting a formulaic, unimaginative, and stereotypical picture of a PIV-for-money transaction.

There was a time in my life when I would have heard the term ‘sex worker’ and either {1} scoffed, in a “rose by any other name” kind of way (only replace ‘rose’ with ‘skunk’ and ‘skunk’ with ‘whore’ and you’ll get the gist), or {2} frozen, in that horrible fight-or-flight in-between kind of way, before scrambling to contact the (jaded, ineffectual) authorities in a flailing attempt at rescuing the victim(s).

And my guess is that, after reading the above paragraph, you have either {a} written me off as close-minded, or {b} are nodding along in agreement/approval.

As to {a}:  My step-sister was a whore.  As in, she prostituted herself – a la selling sex – for drugs and/or money, and when she got money for fucking, she used it to buy more drugs.  All while, at best passively neglecting her children -or- at worst, actively participating in harming them.

Since caring for those children later fell to me, I will emphasize that as to {b}:  While not all sex workers are themselves victims, victims of sex work – and victims of a society that turns its head to the existence of sex work – do exist.

Couple my step-sister experience with the fact that my biological father routinely had sex with prostitutes at parties and brought home STIs to my mother as a result during his coke-and-gambling phase, sprinkle with a combat-PTSD stepfather who chose more than once when I was a teenager to verbally go into graphic detail about some of his dealings with prostitutes while in Vietnam, shake vigorously with my work-related introduction to a young female victim of human trafficking, top with a sprig of antipathy toward pornography, and you would think the hangover from the resultant cocktail would be enough to poison me against all sex work for all time.

BUT

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