This is a repost of some thoughts I posted on my facebook wall a while ago. Pasta tweeted about the similarities between anti-sex work and anti-abortion arguments some time ago, and the analogies certainly are striking. Even more so because some of the same self-declared feminists willing to die for abortion rights are making such obviously flawed arguments against rights for sex workers. Choice Joice has also discussed the connection here and here. Anyway, by way of developing the analogy further, I'm going to catalogue as systematically as I can some ways in which the arguments of those who would criminalise sex work would apply to abortion provision, with some rebuttals. Please do let me know if you can think of further analogies I'm missing!
1) "People don't *like* selling sex!"
Well, some do enjoy the work. But nothing depends on this. The point isn't whether a person enjoys it, but whether it's the best thing for her at a particular point in her life. And she is the authority on that. Being pro-sex workers' rights doesn't mean being "pro-sex work", any more than being pro-choice means being "pro-abortion". In a perfect world, contraception would be so reliable that abortion would never be necessary. You can also consistently believe that 1) sex work wouldn't exist (or would be very rare) in a perfect world; and 2) we should do everything within our power to make it safe and legal in THIS world. Trying to stamp out one particular outcome of a set of social problems, while leaving the underlying problems intact, is nothing short of a deep political confusion.
2) "Choosing to sell sex to avoid poverty isn't a REAL choice!"
Lots of women choose to have abortions because they don't feel they can bear the cost of a(nother) child. Does this make it an "unreal" choice? Women terminating pregnancies they otherwise want because of financial pressures is obviously not good, but the "solution", equally obviously, is not to ban abortions. Rather remove the financial pressures, through improved welfare arrangements or better job opportunities.
3) "Some women are forced into sex work!"
Indeed. Just as some women are pressured into having abortions by partners or family members. In fact, the same abusive relationship dynamics often apply. We should obviously do everything we can to eliminate these abuses, but driving activities underground is hardly the solution. An illegal abortion provider is less likely than a legal provider to give effective counselling that might detect coercion. Similarly, abuses are more easily detected in a decriminalised sex industry where sex workers are able to interact with each other, social services and the police more freely, and where clients are able to report suspicions of abuse without fear of arrest.
4) "But you get PENETRATED! Gross!"
"Full-service" sex workers often do, in fact, offer penetrative sex as a service. Notably, however, abortion usually also involves the introduction of hands and/or instruments into intimate bodily spaces. Apparently this may be uncomfortable or even painful, and many might feel it is undignified. Nevertheless, we think that women can and do meaningfully consent to having things introduced into their own bodies, even if it's not pleasant, if that serves their interests.
A possible rejoinder is that money changes hands in sex work. But, of course, abortion providers often also take payment. The proponent of sex work criminalisation must therefore offer some reason why it's less dignified to receive money than it is to pay money in a transaction involving penetration.
5) "We don't want to criminalise women, just clients!"
I hope we are not very convinced by the position: "We don't want to criminalise women who have abortions, just providers!". The point is the same - women may rely upon a particular institution for various reasons, and eliminating the institution is going to harm them, even if they aren't directly criminalised. When we criminalise abortion providers, service provision goes underground, becoming less available, more expensive and more dangerous. Similarly, when we drive sex work underground, there will be fewer clients, who are less law-abiding, offering less money, and demanding riskier sexual acts.
6) "We don't HATE sex workers, we just have problems with the institution!"
This claim is belied by the actions of your most vocal allies, including many of the people who are supposed to provide services. And you do NOTHING to prevent this! In the US, women accessing abortion services often have to face a gauntlet of anti-abortion protesters who shout personal abuse at them, invade their space and threaten them with violence. These are people who profess to "Love the sinner". Allegedly "moderate" anti-abortion activists do nothing to prevent this.
The same is true of sex work. Lots of self-declared "feminists" apparently have no problem addressing sex workers with dehumanising language (which I won't repeat here), calling them "traitors to women" and "pimps", actively blocking them from giving their perspective in the media and literally shouting them down. This is to say nothing of the behaviour of (mostly male) politicians who are trying to "fix the problem". In Sweden, which is supposedly "helping" sex workers by criminalising clients, a sex worker called Petite Jasmine had her children taken away from her on the grounds that her profession was a form of "self-harm". The state thought it better to grant custody to her abusive former partner, who went on to murder her when she visited her children. Why don't the people who are supposedly concerned about the welfare of sex workers address this disgraceful behaviour which is a) right under their noses; and b) perpetrated by their self-declared allies?
7) "You're not representative because you're rich/white/middle-class/etc!"
Opponents of sex workers' rights routinely present themselves as speaking for a "silent majority" who are deeply oppressed by sex work. Under this view, the "privileged" sex workers who support decriminalisation are just looking out for their own interests, at the expense of the less fortunate. The same slur is often directed at wealthier white supporters of abortion rights in the US, who are accused of attempting to perpetrate "genocide" against poor black people.
This slur, firstly, ignores the many, many organisations that support decriminalisation and represent sex workers who are decidedly NOT privileged, in terms of class, race, immigration status and the type of work they do. The South African organisations SWEAT and Sisonke are good examples. Secondly, while it's true that relatively well-off sex workers are disproportionately represented in public debates,it's worth thinking about why this is the case. Obviously, if you're better-off, you may have more time, money and energy to participate in advocacy. But, more importantly, "whore stigma", like abortion stigma, is EVERYWHERE. To come out in public as a sex worker, as someone who has terminated a pregnancy, or as someone who supports for these people is to risk ostracism, vicious personal attacks, physical assault and, in some places, criminal sanctions. A little bit of privilege goes a long way in insulating one from such attacks. If you want to hear from more "representative" voices, maybe you should stop attacking them when they try to speak up.
Well, some do enjoy the work. But nothing depends on this. The point isn't whether a person enjoys it, but whether it's the best thing for her at a particular point in her life. And she is the authority on that. Being pro-sex workers' rights doesn't mean being "pro-sex work", any more than being pro-choice means being "pro-abortion". In a perfect world, contraception would be so reliable that abortion would never be necessary. You can also consistently believe that 1) sex work wouldn't exist (or would be very rare) in a perfect world; and 2) we should do everything within our power to make it safe and legal in THIS world. Trying to stamp out one particular outcome of a set of social problems, while leaving the underlying problems intact, is nothing short of a deep political confusion.
2) "Choosing to sell sex to avoid poverty isn't a REAL choice!"
Lots of women choose to have abortions because they don't feel they can bear the cost of a(nother) child. Does this make it an "unreal" choice? Women terminating pregnancies they otherwise want because of financial pressures is obviously not good, but the "solution", equally obviously, is not to ban abortions. Rather remove the financial pressures, through improved welfare arrangements or better job opportunities.
3) "Some women are forced into sex work!"
Indeed. Just as some women are pressured into having abortions by partners or family members. In fact, the same abusive relationship dynamics often apply. We should obviously do everything we can to eliminate these abuses, but driving activities underground is hardly the solution. An illegal abortion provider is less likely than a legal provider to give effective counselling that might detect coercion. Similarly, abuses are more easily detected in a decriminalised sex industry where sex workers are able to interact with each other, social services and the police more freely, and where clients are able to report suspicions of abuse without fear of arrest.
4) "But you get PENETRATED! Gross!"
"Full-service" sex workers often do, in fact, offer penetrative sex as a service. Notably, however, abortion usually also involves the introduction of hands and/or instruments into intimate bodily spaces. Apparently this may be uncomfortable or even painful, and many might feel it is undignified. Nevertheless, we think that women can and do meaningfully consent to having things introduced into their own bodies, even if it's not pleasant, if that serves their interests.
A possible rejoinder is that money changes hands in sex work. But, of course, abortion providers often also take payment. The proponent of sex work criminalisation must therefore offer some reason why it's less dignified to receive money than it is to pay money in a transaction involving penetration.
5) "We don't want to criminalise women, just clients!"
I hope we are not very convinced by the position: "We don't want to criminalise women who have abortions, just providers!". The point is the same - women may rely upon a particular institution for various reasons, and eliminating the institution is going to harm them, even if they aren't directly criminalised. When we criminalise abortion providers, service provision goes underground, becoming less available, more expensive and more dangerous. Similarly, when we drive sex work underground, there will be fewer clients, who are less law-abiding, offering less money, and demanding riskier sexual acts.
6) "We don't HATE sex workers, we just have problems with the institution!"
This claim is belied by the actions of your most vocal allies, including many of the people who are supposed to provide services. And you do NOTHING to prevent this! In the US, women accessing abortion services often have to face a gauntlet of anti-abortion protesters who shout personal abuse at them, invade their space and threaten them with violence. These are people who profess to "Love the sinner". Allegedly "moderate" anti-abortion activists do nothing to prevent this.
The same is true of sex work. Lots of self-declared "feminists" apparently have no problem addressing sex workers with dehumanising language (which I won't repeat here), calling them "traitors to women" and "pimps", actively blocking them from giving their perspective in the media and literally shouting them down. This is to say nothing of the behaviour of (mostly male) politicians who are trying to "fix the problem". In Sweden, which is supposedly "helping" sex workers by criminalising clients, a sex worker called Petite Jasmine had her children taken away from her on the grounds that her profession was a form of "self-harm". The state thought it better to grant custody to her abusive former partner, who went on to murder her when she visited her children. Why don't the people who are supposedly concerned about the welfare of sex workers address this disgraceful behaviour which is a) right under their noses; and b) perpetrated by their self-declared allies?
7) "You're not representative because you're rich/white/middle-class/etc!"
Opponents of sex workers' rights routinely present themselves as speaking for a "silent majority" who are deeply oppressed by sex work. Under this view, the "privileged" sex workers who support decriminalisation are just looking out for their own interests, at the expense of the less fortunate. The same slur is often directed at wealthier white supporters of abortion rights in the US, who are accused of attempting to perpetrate "genocide" against poor black people.
This slur, firstly, ignores the many, many organisations that support decriminalisation and represent sex workers who are decidedly NOT privileged, in terms of class, race, immigration status and the type of work they do. The South African organisations SWEAT and Sisonke are good examples. Secondly, while it's true that relatively well-off sex workers are disproportionately represented in public debates,it's worth thinking about why this is the case. Obviously, if you're better-off, you may have more time, money and energy to participate in advocacy. But, more importantly, "whore stigma", like abortion stigma, is EVERYWHERE. To come out in public as a sex worker, as someone who has terminated a pregnancy, or as someone who supports for these people is to risk ostracism, vicious personal attacks, physical assault and, in some places, criminal sanctions. A little bit of privilege goes a long way in insulating one from such attacks. If you want to hear from more "representative" voices, maybe you should stop attacking them when they try to speak up.
8) "The only good transactional sex is MY transactional sex!"
This post is one of the best things I've ever read. It relates the experiences of abortion providers who have performed abortions on vocal anti-choicers. Sometimes these are women who have protested outside the very same clinics where they have the procedure, and then return to protesting the following day. What's notable about these women is that they recognise why abortion might be necessary under their own particular circumstances, but fail to recognise that other women might make the same choice given their circumstances.
The same goes for sex work. Possibly the worst offenders are ex-sex workers like Rachel Moran who, in her own words, sold sex "in order to survive", and now wishes to shut down the sex industry through criminalisation of clients. She wishes, in other words, to make the survival mechanism that she herself used unavailable to other vulnerable women. This is not to deny that she, and many others, had a terrible time in sex work, just to point out that she recognised it as the best option available when she was in a bad situation.
But even women who have never sold sex make a version of the same mistake. As I discuss in a previous post, just about everyone has sex that they didn't really desire out of lust, but because it fulfilled some other need. Many women have had sex they didn't especially desire in order to keep a partner happy, to have children, to "get rid of" their "virginity". They expect others to trust their ability to weigh up their own needs when they decide to have this kind of sex, yet refuse to attribute similar agency to those who decide to have sex specifically for money.
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