Response to the views of Mia Freedman on sex work
Submitted by bounce on May 7 2013 18:16
A sex worker's response to columnist Mia Freedman's blog in which implied that she does not respect the right of women with mental illness to become sex workers.
A few weeks ago both Dr Brooke Magnanti and Mia Freedman appeared on an all women panel on Q and A. Quite a few topics were discussed, one being sex work.
Queens, hookers, and hustlers: Organizing for survival and revolt amongst gender-variant sex workers, 1950-1970
Submitted by wojtek on Mar 13 2013 15:30
A selection from Mack Friedman’s Strapped for Cash: A History of American Hustler Culture.
From the Introduction:
Happy hookers: sex workers and their would-be saviors
Melissa Gira Grant on the framework in which sex work is discussed.
The following books were not published in 1972: The Happy Secretary, The Happy Nurse, The Happy Napalm Manufacturer, The Happy President, The Happy Yippie, The Happy Feminist. The memoir of a Manhattan madam was. The Happy Hooker climbed best-seller lists that year, selling over sixteen million copies.
Sex as work and sex work: a marxian take
In this essay, Laura Agustín discusses among other things, sex in relationships as work and sex work as reproductive labour and a job.
Quote:
An army colonel is about to start the morning briefing to his staff. While waiting for the coffee to be prepared, the colonel says he didn’t sleep much the night before because his wife had been a bit frisky. He asks everyone: How much of sex is ‘work’ and how much is ‘pleasure’? A Major votes 75-25% in favor of work. A Captain says 50-50%.
Sex work: Solidarity not salvation
An article by an Australian Wobbly sex worker advocating solidarity and syndicalism. Orginally published in the Autumn issue of Direct Action, the newspaper of the Australian IWW. Reprinted in issue #1745, May 2012, of the IWW's newspaper Industrial Worker.
An ongoing debate is taking place in anarchist and feminist circles on the legitimacy of sex work and the rights of sex workers. The two main schools of thought are almost at polar opposites of each other. On the one side you have the abolitionist approach led by feminists, such as Melissa Farley who maintains that sex work is a form of violence against women.
To the would-be sex work abolitionist, or, 'ain't I a woman'?
Submitted by wojtek on Feb 17 2012 01:49
In the following article, Sarah M, a sex worker in Canada who would like to “exit” the industry, replies to several articles written by the abolitionist Meghan Murphy. Sarah does not recognise herself in Murphy’s discourse, arguing that she constructs a false debate between feminists and the “sex work lobby”, prioritises ideology over the immediate demands of sex workers and proposes a patronising, ineffective and unrealistic alternative model in the “Nordic Model”.
Below is a passage from Sarah’s article. Please consider going to the rabble.ca website (where her article was originally published) and reading it in its entirety.
Forget victimisation: Granting agency to migrants
Laura Agustín, lifelong migrant and and author of Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry, explores the concept of migrancy, exposes the prejudices in what is meant by the term and proposes another vision, in which less advantaged people are granted ordinary human autonomy.
There is a growing tendency to victimise poor people, weak people, uneducated people and migrant people. The trend, which began as a way of drawing attention to specific forms of violence committed against women, has now become a way of describing everyone on the lower rungs of power.
An unlikely mobilization: The occupation of Saint-Nizier church by the prostitutes of Lyon
Submitted by wojtek on Jan 19 2012 17:28
A journal article by Lilian Mathieu which examines the occupation of Saint-Nizier church in Lyon, June 1975 by prostitutes protesting against police repression. It highlights the difficulties these politically inexperienced women encountered in mobilizing, namely preventing defections and choosing an appropriate mode of action; difficulties they were able to surmount thanks to resources provided by outside supporters endowed with practical knowledge in matters of collective action. Despite this assistance, however, the prostitutes' mobilization quickly declined and soon expired, in part because of the leaders' defection.
Helping women who sell sex: The construction of benevolent identities
Submitted by wojtek on Jan 5 2012 08:03
An article by Laura María Agustín on the emergence of 'benevolent' identities during the 'rise of the social' who saw their role as helping working-class women who sold sex, thus constructing 'prostitutes' as pathetic victims to the detriment of their agency and autonomy.
Social interventions aimed at helping the group positioned as most needy in Europe today, migrant women who sell sex, can be understood by examining that time, 200 years ago, when 'the prostitute' was identified as needing to be saved.
Response to: Prostitution is not compatible with anarchism
This is a response to the authors of the leaflet distributed at the "Sex work and Anarchism" workshop at the London Anarchist Bookfair 2011 (the original leaflet is reproduced below).
The leaflet was written and distributed by people who were in no way connected to the organising of the workshop. It did not clarify on the leaflet who the authors were or from what organisation they were from and merely said "London Anarchist Bookfair 2011" under the title.
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