Intersectional Understandings of Sex Work

Shawna’s presentation for Kindred House has been illuminating for me, especially about what I see is missing from my WGS education so far, as well as what is missing in my own activism. A lot of my own academic research has highlighted the ways that feminist pornography can be a site of reclamation, and I spend a lot of my own time reading about (privileged) sex workers who see their jobs as empowering, rather than a site of disempowerment. This is likely why when Shawna discussed the Nordic model, my first thought was to sex work activists who are vehemently opposed to this model. The Nordic model, from what I understand, is about eliminating sex work altogether, which would take jobs and business away from sex workers. The sex workers and activists that I have heard from would prefer the focus to be on safe working conditions. I know this is not the kind of sex work Shawna is focussed on, but I certainly felt myself getting defensive because of this privileged, generally white-washed and affluent level of sex work that I’m comfortable with understanding. I understand that Shawna is critical of the Nordic model as well, but I realized that today’s class was the first time I heard a nuanced understanding of what this model means for more marginalized sex workers. 

I’m realizing that I almost never think about survival sex work, or understand the reality that exchanging sexual services for money is not always an autonomous choice. For me, “choice” implies that there is more than one option to pick freely from. Clearly, the women that need Kindred House’s services have a lot less choice when it comes to how they make their money. Although I do not see sex work as a monolithically oppressive job, I understand that to think of it as exclusively empowering is just as damaging. I still believe the best response to sex work is to make it safer rather than to eliminate it, similar to my ideal legal positions on drug use. However, I have a better understanding of why some activists would want to eliminate the need for sex work. Shawna and Kindred House are already working to make sex work and drug use safer to do. But, in a legal system that is wholly unwilling to see Aboriginal, trans, sex working and addicted women as worthy of safety and autonomy, laws punishing johns rather than sex workers are certainly better than nothing at all.   

I’m feeling disappointed that in my fifth year of my Women and Gender Studies degree, today’s class was the first time we exclusively focussed on the voices and needs of survival sex workers. Part of this has been due to my avoidance of particularly emotionally heavy courses like this one, but I think this discussion needs to have a place in classes geared more toward sex positivity as well. I thought my unwavering support of sex work was enough to call my feminism intersectional. However, I was seeing sex work as a single identity rather than incredibly varied experiences. This is ironic, considering the same limited view of racial, gendered, or sexual identities is so clearly wrong to me. We need to make room to really unpack this “continuum” of sex work that Shawna spoke about, in every discussion about sex work, not just classes specifically about sexual assault. It’s alarming to me that this was not glaringly obvious to me until today.