The problem I think that exists is that since my experience is that I believe the economic coercion made it sexual assault, the problem we run into is that our experiences become diametrically opposed.
By that I mean that it's impossible for me to believe that economic coercion = sexual assault and for you to believe that it's not sexual assault. One of us must be wrong. The problem here is that when it comes to respecting "experiences", which is something we all mostly want to do because it makes it easier to tell each other we still see one another as dignified humans, if we disagree on this then we must disagree on the experience in some way.
This then leads to.... Vicious results. People recognise that these two experiences can't coexist and one camp (usually those still in sex work) tends to get hyper-aggressive, I actually understand this reaction, I get aggressive about protecting my means of survival as well. But it's difficult.
I do think that people's views on this topic tend to change when they don't have that personal economic interest. And in a sort of protective instinct way it makes me very concerned. It's difficult of course, because this concern can be seen as "talking down to" someone, I've seen enough people come out of the industry and then just break afterwards to feel like there's a lot more going on with it than people currently in the industry tend to admit to.
I think a lot of this conversation however tends to not matter much? Like, materially what we want to happen for sex workers isn't that different even if we might disagree on the matter of economic coercion. We both want protections for sex workers, want them to be able to continue doing that work (because you can't just abolish the industry anyway) and want a future where that economic coercion is eliminated. What happens after that is so far off in the distance and so far outside of our current experiences it's not worth imagining.
The problem I think that exists is that since my experience is that I believe the economic coercion made it sexual assault, the problem we run into is that our experiences become diametrically opposed.
By that I mean that it's impossible for me to believe that economic coercion = sexual assault and for you to believe that it's not sexual assault. One of us must be wrong. The problem here is that when it comes to respecting "experiences", which is something we all mostly want to do because it makes it easier to tell each other we still see one another as dignified humans, if we disagree on this then we must disagree on the experience in some way.
This then leads to.... Vicious results. People recognise that these two experiences can't coexist and one camp (usually those still in sex work) tends to get hyper-aggressive, I actually understand this reaction, I get aggressive about protecting my means of survival as well. But it's difficult.
I do think that people's views on this topic tend to change when they don't have that personal economic interest. And in a sort of protective instinct way it makes me very concerned. It's difficult of course, because this concern can be seen as "talking down to" someone, I've seen enough people come out of the industry and then just break afterwards to feel like there's a lot more going on with it than people currently in the industry tend to admit to.
I think a lot of this conversation however tends to not matter much? Like, materially what we want to happen for sex workers isn't that different even if we might disagree on the matter of economic coercion. We both want protections for sex workers, want them to be able to continue doing that work (because you can't just abolish the industry anyway) and want a future where that economic coercion is eliminated. What happens after that is so far off in the distance and so far outside of our current experiences it's not worth imagining.