It’s important to understand that your experience is the slim minority. If the typical case were that it was work like any other job (i.e. not uniquely coerced) then we should of course consider it like other forms of wages labor and prioritize a rejection of the harmful social aspects surround it rather than the thing in itself as it usually exists. To attempt work to divorce it from its material roots in systemic capitalist misogyny (sex as a means of last resort for gendered economic violence, the escalation of proletarisn division via the establishment of misogynist mores and associations). I do appreciate efforts to destigmatize in isolation, it’s important to work to divorce a socialist analysis of sex work from those exact mores socially ingrained to say it’s wrong on puritanical grounds.
But this is not the typical case. The typical case is more extreme forms of coercion than face the typical wage workers in their own societies, and of course especially male wage workers. It more often is slavery than wage work. You likely deal most often with the most state legitimated forms. You likely also encounter some less state legitimated forms, wherein failure to comply with your boss’s demands comes with a threat of direct physical violence or death. In that limited context it’s easier to see a path forward through further legitimation and (always) industry expansion, i.e. attempt to turn a black market into one regulated explicitly by the state and ostensibly with identical worker protections as everyone else.
I do not of course know everything about your experience, but I would guess you work less often with those with stolen passports, with servants forced into unexpected sexual aspects of “employment” (again tied up in immigration or other legal status), with abused partners, with children.
I want to also note that there are principled communist orgs against the expansion of sex work and many are made up of or founded by sex workers. Some of the positions I’m sharing come directly from them.
Edit: I think I maybe wasn’t clear so I just want to say your work in organizing sex workers is great and so is them being in your cadre. I also don’t want to imply that you are simply “expansionist”.
I think both can be true. I always like to imagine: If we had luxury-space-communism, would these sex-workers still be doing sex-work?
Some absolutely would be, some absolutely would not be. Based on vibes, I think most wouldn’t, and that’s a problem.
But I think the same can be said for accountants, or wait-staff, or most other professions. The problem is the “need to earn a living” that is pushed on people by society.
Doesn’t really matter what entirely different conditions would theoretically produce. These ones produce coercion, and not just typical wage slave coercion. The sex industry is rife with it, it’s inseparable from it as of today.
Though even if we did look past that, there’s some rhetoric that has been used by basically every communist ex-sex worker I’ve met. It goes like this: under capitalism wage labor is wage slavery, there is a strong coercive component. Then what is coerced sex? And sex for a wage? The answer would trigger the content filter.
It’s important to understand that your experience is the slim minority. If the typical case were that it was work like any other job (i.e. not uniquely coerced) then we should of course consider it like other forms of wages labor and prioritize a rejection of the harmful social aspects surround it rather than the thing in itself as it usually exists. To attempt work to divorce it from its material roots in systemic capitalist misogyny (sex as a means of last resort for gendered economic violence, the escalation of proletarisn division via the establishment of misogynist mores and associations). I do appreciate efforts to destigmatize in isolation, it’s important to work to divorce a socialist analysis of sex work from those exact mores socially ingrained to say it’s wrong on puritanical grounds.
But this is not the typical case. The typical case is more extreme forms of coercion than face the typical wage workers in their own societies, and of course especially male wage workers. It more often is slavery than wage work. You likely deal most often with the most state legitimated forms. You likely also encounter some less state legitimated forms, wherein failure to comply with your boss’s demands comes with a threat of direct physical violence or death. In that limited context it’s easier to see a path forward through further legitimation and (always) industry expansion, i.e. attempt to turn a black market into one regulated explicitly by the state and ostensibly with identical worker protections as everyone else.
I do not of course know everything about your experience, but I would guess you work less often with those with stolen passports, with servants forced into unexpected sexual aspects of “employment” (again tied up in immigration or other legal status), with abused partners, with children.
I want to also note that there are principled communist orgs against the expansion of sex work and many are made up of or founded by sex workers. Some of the positions I’m sharing come directly from them.
Edit: I think I maybe wasn’t clear so I just want to say your work in organizing sex workers is great and so is them being in your cadre. I also don’t want to imply that you are simply “expansionist”.
I think both can be true. I always like to imagine: If we had luxury-space-communism, would these sex-workers still be doing sex-work?
Some absolutely would be, some absolutely would not be. Based on vibes, I think most wouldn’t, and that’s a problem.
But I think the same can be said for accountants, or wait-staff, or most other professions. The problem is the “need to earn a living” that is pushed on people by society.
Doesn’t really matter what entirely different conditions would theoretically produce. These ones produce coercion, and not just typical wage slave coercion. The sex industry is rife with it, it’s inseparable from it as of today.
Though even if we did look past that, there’s some rhetoric that has been used by basically every communist ex-sex worker I’ve met. It goes like this: under capitalism wage labor is wage slavery, there is a strong coercive component. Then what is coerced sex? And sex for a wage? The answer would trigger the content filter.
Here is an article that touches on that phrasing and also directly answers your statements. Content warning: sexual abuse. https://thistlefarms.org/blogs/learn/articles?srsltid=AfmBOopWRF4cNLXjqrjwQuknMCh5H-TKVxDpv2c7E0RP_d_nd5xUH9Kw