I keep quoting people who say the stuff I struggle to put into words, but can’t get quite right. So, here we go… Melissa nails it again:
On the abuse issue, I try to reframe it around either:
1) 1 in 6 women in their lifetimes are survivors of sexual abuse or assault, and clearly not all of them become sex workers.
2) We never ask how often women in other helping/service professions do that work as part of their being survivors. The number of rape crisis counselors and educators I have worked with who are survivors is HUGE, for example. In a way, that makes sense. In another, it can be very damaging.
As a culture right now everyone’s so quick to pin adult sexual behavior (and sex work as part of that) on some childhood trauma. “What MADE you that way?” is one of the only questions people who don’t understand human sexual variation and the sex industry ask. It’s part of the discourse of sex right now, and it’s infuriating as a sex worker *and* a survivor . It’s about context, though. When it comes to something like The View, I don’t know how I’d talk about sex work and sexual abuse and not have everything I said manipulated. There can be solid reasons to be strategic about discussing abuse, but I hate feeling like we “can’t” because we’d somehow damage the movement.
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One Response to "More quotage"
As far as I can tell, anything to do with sex that isn’t completely mainstream-normal comes up with the same, “Oh, what horrible abuses drove you to that?” responses.
My queer friends have talked about it, and I’ve occasionally seen it directed at them. I’ve had it offloaded onto me by the bucketload for being kinky and poly. Blowjob wars. Etc. It’s a persistent undercurrent of bizarre alienness, this notion that sex has to be exactly the same for everyone.
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