Perhaps, but I fear that the cure is worse than the disease. It's a horrible thing that women are incarcerated in the United States for prostitution. One can acknowledge this without being pro-prostitution, just as one can acknowledge that it's horrible that people are incarcerated in the United States for minor marijuana crimes without being pro-marijuana. The bar for using incarceration as a means of punishing and deterring non-violent behavior which is judged to be anti-social should be much higher in the United States than it is. This is much more important than whether some academics have gotten carried away with irrational exuberance about "sex work."
On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 3:02 PM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > A much need corrective in my opinion on the recent meme on the Left that > "sex work is just work". > > Umm, no, it isn't. And acknowledging the very special issues that arise > with sex work as compared to, say factory work or office work, does not > mean that you support the likes of Nicholas Kristof. And it certainly does > not mean you are in favor of stigmatizing and criminalizing sex workers. > > > http://www.alternet.org/gender/why-some-progressives-want-make-sex-work-new-normal > --------------------------------snip > > On the left, prostitution used to be seen as a bad thing: part of the > general degradation of the working class, and the subjugation of women, > under capitalism. Women who sold sex were victims, forced by circumstances > into a painful and humiliating way of life, and socialism would liberate > them. Now, selling sex is sex work -- just another service job, with good > points and bad -- and if you suggest that the women who perform it are > anything less than free agents, perhaps even "empowered" if they make > enough money, you're just a prude. Today's villain is not the pimp or the > john -- it's second-wave feminists, with their primitive men-are-the-enemy > worldview, and "rescuers" like Nicholas Kristof, who presume to know what's > best for women. > > The hot new left-wing journals are full of this thinking. Right now on the > New Inquiry website, for example, you can take a satirical quiz called "Are > You Being Sex Trafficked?" Of course, if you are reading the New Inquiry, > chances are you're not being sex trafficked; if you're a sex worker, > chances are you're a grad student or a writer or maybe an activist -- a > highly educated woman who has other options and prefers this one. And that > is where things get tricky. Because in what other area of labor would > leftists look to the elite craftsman to speak for the rank and file? You > might as well ask a pastry chef what it's like to ladle out mashed potatoes > in a school cafeteria. In the discourse of sex work, it seems, the > subaltern does not get to speak. > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] (202) 448-2898, extension 1.
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