I was very surprised and really quite overwhelmed to see an article from Novara Media promoting decriminalisation of the sex industry. I thought with all their previous talk of “exploitation” and “violence” under capitalism, they were against industrious young entrepreneurs like me, but when I saw the headline “5 Reasons We Must Decriminalise the Sex Industry – And Fast”, I realised they must have had a change of heart.
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I am not a pimp or a trafficker. I am neither a rape apologist nor
someone who excuses violence against women. I do not believe men have a
right to buy sex, or that anyone, of any gender, should be forced to
sell sex. One might have thought these things go without saying, and yet
they are examples of some of the vitriol levied at us – those that
advocate for the decriminalisation of the sex industry. 

Your struggle is mine, dear author. I also get very upset when people assume that by saying my clients should be decriminalised, I’m therefore saying that my clients have a right to buy my services. I’m not saying that at all, I’m just saying that if they choose to hire me or any other sex worker, they shouldn’t face any negative consequences for that choice. It’s a clear distinction.

In recent weeks, the establishment media has provided a platform – an
‘everywhere-you-turn’ kind of platform – to anti-prostitution feminists.
Julie Bindel does, after all, have a new book to publicise.

Well, that explains why she magically cares about the sex industry all of a sudden. My old agency said she was a really mean SKERF and banned her work from our premises and I’ve continued that ban as a sole trader so I admit I’m not too familiar with her output. But come on, I’m nearly 35 and in my lifetime, when has she ever cared about sexual violence?

Underpinning the arguments of many anti-prostitution feminists is the
idea that the purchase of sex ought to be criminalised and sex workers
understood as victims of male violence. They argue we should be doing
more to eradicate the sex industry and rescue the sex workers within it. 

The author doesn’t dignify these SKERFy prejudices with a response, so neither shall I.

These anti-prostitution advocates are right about one thing: our sex
work laws require reform. Yet as the English Collective of Prostitutes,
SWARM, and other sex worker-led organisations have said time and again,
it’s only through the decriminalisation of all consensual aspects of the
sex industry that sex workers can be adequately protected. Here are some of the reasons why.

Absolutely. I mean, these sex worker-led organisations are largely run by managers and agencies, but the managers represent the workers after all, so they do indirectly represent us. I’ve been saying for a long time that our managers and clients need to be decriminalised, and Novara Media gives some great additional insights to it.

1. Migrant sex workers are being targeted by the police.
…Decriminalisation would allow (migrant) sex workers to work in
collectives, to look out for one another in an indoor market that is far
safer than its street counterpart. It would mean less fear of the
police and of other agencies.

I don’t know much about this because I’m British, but my foreign colleagues say this is true. They keep getting hassled by the police – though they say it was even worse when they were trying to make a living in legal industries where the employers wanted “paperwork” and “documentation” and “proof of residence” and all that stuff, in fact that’s part of the reason they were contacted by managers and made the free and entirely rational choice to enter the industry.

2. The Modern Slavery agenda is causing more harm than good.
There are, of course, people who are trafficked into and exploited within the sex industry… [But] under this agenda,
voluntary migrant sex workers are being mislabelled as victims of
trafficking and deported under the ‘noble’ guise of rescue.

This is what I’m always saying! I’m a voluntary sex worker and I love my job, and I’m getting really tired of all these thousands of trafficking victims erasing my lived experience with their lived experience.

3. Violent clients are being allowed to act with impunity.
If all laws criminalising consensual sex work are removed… the minority of violent clients would
not then be able to attack sex workers with impunity.

I’m very glad to see journalists acknowledging that only a minority of our clients are violent. Extremist radical SKERFs say that the sexualised murder industry is inherently violent and non-consensual, which isn’t true at all. I mean, we get paid, so that’s consent right there. Only a minority of our clients threaten to break our legs or “silence” us after the job is complete. And I think that in itself is a product of criminalisation: if you criminalise hiring assassins, only criminals will hire us. If it were decriminalised, nice people would want to pay for kinky murders.
In fact, I recall a case where one of my former colleagues eliminated a target who was severely clinically depressed and suicidal and put a hit out on himself! If that’s not consensual, I don’t know what is.

4. Sex workers’ rights are not being recognised.
At TUC conference two weeks ago, delegates voted to reject Motion 39
on the decriminalisation of sex work put forward by ASLEF and supported
by GMB. Harriet Harman spoke at the conference, claiming the sex
industry is exploitative. It seems counter-intuitive that unions would
refuse to offer protection to exploited workers precisely because the industry in which they work can be exploitative.

I posted about this at the time, I was very upset! Harriet Harman sounds like she wants to destroy the whole industry and get all of us out of it rather than support the workers in it. We should have the right to join one of the sex workers unions instead of only our managers and agencies joining them. (I didn’t know the unions offered protection, though – how does it compare, price-wise, to Big Dave and his security services?)

It seems some people remain unwilling to accept that the vast majority
of sex workers have made a rational choice to sell sex. After all, 70%
of female sex workers are thought to be mothers and, like all mothers,
they want to provide for their children. 

That’s certainly a rational choice. Some might say “but if it’s a choice between sex work and not providing for your children, surely that’s no choice at all?”.  Well, perhaps they’d make that choice too, and that’s perfectly rational. All choices are valid! Not everyone would choose the same way, though, and you have to respect that choice. For example, back in his days in the KGB, Dmitry assumed a fake identity, married a local woman and had kids with her as part of his cover, and after he’d gathered the information he needed, he had no qualms whatsoever about walking out on his wife and children and never contacting them again! The Child Support Agency chases him every few months, he told them he was dead years ago but they lost the paperwork.

5. Anti-prostitution advocates are wilfully misrepresenting the sex workers’ rights perspective…
But the majority of sex workers today tell us that criminalising the purchase of sex will not make sex workers safer.

This is also true. These anti-sex work bigots keep saying prejudiced things like “but Gaspar, you’re privileged compared to other sex workers” and “what about all the thousands of survivors who exited the industry and advocate the Nordic model of criminalising the clients and managers”. That’s why it’s nice to see this article cite a study based exclusively on empowered, independent sex workers like myself and not on anyone employed by a manager or  who has since left the industry (although only 52% said they did “feel able to stop sex working if they so wished”, so perhaps they could’ve chosen the sample a bit better). And it focuses on the workers’ beliefs instead of empirical data or crime statistics! Finally, my thoughts and feelings are being treated with the respect they deserve, bwim they are considered empirical facts!

The article finishes with an inspiring message:

What has to happen before the government listens?

Well, I have some hope for the future. It has been suggested that lots of MPs are former clients – none of them has hired me, but I can tell it’s not their first rodeo! ^_< (incidentally, I had nothing to do with the former member for Eastleigh, that was wayyyyy before my time, I was just a schoolboy, I was far too busy committing minor acts of arson and animal cruelty, so stop asking me) Either way, a lot of them are rich assigned-male-at-births, which tends to be the demographic of my client base, and they do vote in their own self-interest. Fingers crossed!

So in summary, a big thank-you and hugs to Novara Media, from your favourite extreme BDSM specialist sex worker
ヘ(^_^ヘ)