War on Sex Work

Reading about the ways in which women in the sex work industry are unfairly targeted and harassed by law enforcement agencies came as no surprise to me. Those involved with sex work are often demonized and criminalized, particularly the women involved. I recall reading, about 4-5 years ago, the drastic difference in arrest rates between female sex workers compared to pimps and their johns. Now, in a culture that claims to be anti-sex trafficking you would think that when pimps are involved they would be the number one target. I suppose that the misogynist ideologies of our society tends to trump a supposed desire to be “anti-sex trafficking”.

While sex work can be a choice there are many instances in which it is not, or at least the “choice” isn’t all that clear cut. When addiction* and abject poverty are involved it seems a bit disingenuous to call it a “choice”, as it would appear that particular circumstances limits the amount of options one has. This is a large reason why a “war on sex-trafficking” will never be effectual if there is no genuine “war on poverty”. But, effectiveness is more than likely not actually the goal. It seems that the goal is most likely the continued harassment and marginalization of women. That’s not to say that there hasn’t been great strides when it comes to under-age sex trafficking, but the way in which adult women are treated w(and even under-age women for that matter) when they’re seen as “prostitutes” is deplorable.

The article “The War on Sex Workers” that Deirdre requested we read touches upon something that I find very rarely spoken about, and that is the liberal fetishization of the law. It was hard to hold back from snapping my fingers when I reading the following:

“It’s fascinating that women who claim to be feminists” are so willing to use the law in this way, says Ann Jordan. Supporting anti-prostitution enforcement requires them to call in the muscle of “all these institutions that have oppressed women forever,” she notes. “But they are willing to use the law to coerce a particular kind of behavior from women.”

  It is rare to see an acknowledgment of the inherent problems when activists turn to the law to right certain wrongs. If the structure exists as it is now, we should not expect any legislation to be effectual when it comes to particularly communities. If the structure is  built on certain foundational beliefs (such as patriarchy, misogyny, anti-blackness & white supremacy), then we can never hope to see the “law” act justly when it comes to those communities. This is something that many liberals fail to understand because they have spent so long believing that the law can bring justice when in reality it cannot, for exactly the reasons Ann Jordan stated in the quote above and then some. The only thing we should expect from a broken system that is built upon the marginalization of certain folk is for that system to continue to marginalize and oppress. 

*Please take a look at the "Faces of Addiction" photostream I posted earlier in the semester, as well as the related photostreams.