Its not a glamorous life but someone gotta live it

Basically: if you come in to this job supporting it’s legality purely on the idea that it’s empowering and feels good and/or will make you a millionaire you’re ripe for the swerfs taking. Realistically, it’s a job. It will not be good all the time (and for some not even most of the time) so if you think it should be legal bc it’s fun, well, when it stops being fun you’ll stop thinking it should be legal. Then boom: you’re now a swerf

All communities are complex with individuals that are unique. When your support of human rights is based on how nice or mean someone is to you, you’re gonna end up on the side of bigots bc there’s always gonna be someone who’s an asshole. Sw isn’t any different-if you want the industry decriminalized bc it’s empowering and fun, what happens when you meet someone who doesn’t feel that way? I’m not empowered and I’m not having fun, so do I suddenly deserve to go to prison? Or do I suddenly deserve to die bc I can’t work a normal job?

That’s fucked but that’s what’s happening. People are entering sw under the idea that it should be legal/ decriminalize *bc* it’s fun. The reason it should be decriminalized (fuck legalization, but that’s another post) is bc people should have the right to chose the job that works for their needs so long as we are required to work to earn the right to live.

I’ve watched so many swers go from baby swers to swerfs getting out of the industry bc they started bc it’s fun/cool/girl boss wtfever and the moment they feel like shit the swerfs jump on in and they’re ready to be radicalized bc they never understood whorephobia and the politics around it in the first place. The worse part is that swerfs elevate these voices bc they’re “ex swers” and centrists gobble that shit up bc centrists/dems never learned how to untangle someone’s identity from how community minded they are.

What I mean by that is not every swer is community minded, the same way not everyone woman is a feminist. Some people are marginalized and have politics that are actively threatening to their own community bc they’re self hating. Case and point? Roe vs Wade is about to be overturned with the help of women, specifically Amy Coney Barrett. It’d be bizarre and ignorant to claim that outlawing abortion is feminist just bc she’s a woman right? Well similarly someone being/having been a swer doesn’t inherently mean they have good sw politics. But you’re not gonna get people to understand that.

So anyways we have people coming in to a marginalized community with false pretenses, many of whom don’t even need to fucking be here, then will pop on out and help further stigmatize and criminalize it. Covid a just exacerbated this, as has the hyper visibility of the job.

There’s not much we can do to stop that-I’d argue that the biggest things we can do are push more efforts towards prison abolitionism (prisons are the ultimate reason for making things criminal after all) and shut down arguments focused on personal feelings in favor of human autonomy.

Sex work shouldn’t be decriminalized bc it’s sexy and fun and empowering and a small business etc. Sex work shouldn’t be decriminalized bc we’re all highly educated millionaires (that’s classist and false). Sex work should be decriminalized bc folks should have the right to decide for themselves what jobs/careers are best suited for them. Plain and simple.

To do that though more sex workers gotta get comfy being associated with “undesireables”. You can’t effectively argue for sw rights while looking down your nose at poor folks, undocumented folks, disabled folks, queers, people with abuse backgrounds and parental issues, houseless folks, folks with addictions etc bc we’re sex workers too. We deserve autonomy too.

Anyways y’all should read:

playing the whore by Melissa gira grant

The new Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Like if you thought I was too extreme or exaggerating when I said they target these mentalities because they don’t politically hold up when put under pressure, they’re here liking this shit going “yeah we DO do that!”

One: You don’t understand the root of leftist politics, and havent thought/analyzed shit beyond slogans. Or two: you only know how to communicate in a public brand-corporate speak. Both are depressing for different reasons.

We’re sex workers. Companies use us to get big, they take our money, then they band us. Its a tale as old as the internet.

It should be called out, but the hemming and hawing of “oh! I’m disappointed in the ceo! Oh, I’m disappointed in this company! I thought this company believed in us! I thought this company cared!”

Not only is it bizarre-leftism regarding workers rights 101 is that companies aren’t people, and the people running companies are don’t give a shit. They’ll use you and throw you out. That’s why we have to fight for legal protections, and walk away every time we receive a better offer. This is why we have guilds, and unions. Like cmon.

So like, politically speaking, it just shows a lack of understanding. No company, no matter how good “believes” in you, or “cares” about you. The purpose of all companies is to gain as much political power, and money as possible, for as little as they can manage-that’s it.

But it also makes for a piss poor argument, because no one gives a shit. No ceo is feeling bad because one of the nameless people they exploited is “disappointed” in them.

Anyways, the stronger argument to make is critiquing what they’re doing and their ulterior motives. For example:

“Complying in advance has been shown to work to the benefit of censorship. Before censorship becomes law, everyone is socially pressured to go along with it, and doing so makes it easier to become law because the companies and politicians see compliance as agreeance turning the issue in to an easy win. These practices ultimately aren’t about safety, but rather the erosion of privacy for the benefit of companies that feel entitled to profitting off of the public’s general existence.

Sex workers built this site, and the ceo has marketed the site off of her identity as a sex worker: to turn around and try to erase sex workers from the platform we built, is doing all the same whorephobic things all those other sites run by non sex workers have done. Its become apparent, that her identity as a sex worker is nothing more than a plastic bargaining chip to be used entirely for self gain. This shows her concern and support for the community was never anything more than a marketing tactic. Regardless, expecting more work while taking the same cut is absurd. Complying with censorship laws without a legal mandate is cowardice, and pawning off the responsibility and work of managing that on us while threatening to deprioritize us in the algorithm is despicable. Ultimately this is burning a bridge for momentary gain and long term loss.

The wiser way to have handled this would have been to hold, and not participate in censorship before legally required too. And to listen to those who have fed and clothed you, for advice on how to move forward. People are more than happy to talk, as you already know since you’ve been removing and blocking their comments.

We as sex workers will recover. It will be difficult-it always is-but we will find other sites, other avenues, other ways to make things work as we always have and always will. But your site? Your site probably won’t. We were here before your site, and we’ll still be here after.”

moving to algorithm based did away with that: the moment youre not posting you lose visibility, the moment your shit isnt selling you loss visibility.

companies do this because it forces the contractors to put out more content, so then the company goes to their share holders and investors and goes “look we have xyz pieces of media added DAILY! Heres our GROWTH!” and then they get a big pay out.

the burn out the futility of it all isnt a flaw, its the fucking point. Customers also dont really benefit from this: its infuriating searching for shit and it all being stuff youve seen or that doesnt hit the mark because the algorithm is prioritizing that. Getting recommended videos youve already bought, creators youre bored of, etc is annoying. I wont say it runs them off site or anything that dramatic but I mean it makes for a less enjoyable experience.

"Sex work is real work, unlike being a landlord"

The brutal reality is that when you adhere to a set of beliefs that say sex for pleasure, sex for fun, is sinful because sex should only be for procreation with your married spouse, you’re going to be ravaged with conflicting emotions when you go against that. The reason? Cognitive dissonance. It’s very hard to hold one set of beliefs and consistently act against them without feeling like shit.

And feeling like shit, it should be stated, isn’t interchangeable with fucking addiction.

Anyways, it works great for two reason:

1) It allows the equally christian spouses to excuse their spouses “hellish behavior”-by making your husbands porn interest a medical issue you can reframe yourself as a good wife (you’re sticking with him through “thick and thin! Good health and bad!”) and justify continuing to be with him. If, on the other hand, he was actually just a perverted, sexual deviant, it would be your fault for not keeping him on the righteous path. By making it “medical” it save face for both parties. (Sometimes.)

2) It gives legitimacy to hating sex workers. Because hey, if porn is a real addictive, harmful thing then the people making it are now evil doers-intentionally going out there and endangering the masses through perversion!

This is typically used against the pro sex worker argument “if you don’t like it don’t engage, but you don’t get to tell other adults what to do”, because the states has made many drugs illegal under the guise of it being bad and dangerous* so by framing sex work in this same context it taps in to that history. And for people who aren’t informed on this, the argument seems sound-“well, if it’s harmful, maybe it shouldn’t be legal?”

*drugs are illegal because the prison industrial complex is incredibly profitable and it’s how we kept slavery legal and humans love having fun with substances so by making using substances a punishable offense you ensure a constant huge prison population which is great for enforcing systematic oppression and social hierarchies while making share holders ever richer it has fuck all to do with health but this is a different discussion*

If you’re reading this and you’re like, “but stereotypicalstripper, this WAS an issue for me!”

Your issue was probably cognitive dissonance. What beliefs do you have about sex? What beliefs do you have about masturbation? Were your actions in line with that?

If the answer is no, get it aligned!

The cool thing about beliefs and actions is that we can change them. Sometimes we have unchecked shit that we didn’t know we needed to wrangle until it bites us in the ass.

Which sucks. It does.

But the cool thing is that that bite in the ass does present us with an opportunity to do something about it.

So get your views aligned. Maybe that’ll mean watching porn. Maybe it’ll mean not watching porn. Maybe it’ll mean watching one kind of porn. I don’t know, and frankly it’s not my business, I don’t personally care. But you do owe it to yourself to figure your shit out, even though it can suck, so that you can better enjoy your life, however that looks for you!

“But stereotypicalstripper I was shown porn early in life and I became addicted!”

Im sorry your were assaulted and made uncomfortable and developed a poor coping mechanism. The adults in your life failed you both by not being there for you and also by denying you the tools to best look out for yourself. You deserved better.

That said, what you have is trauma, not an addiction. Calling porn an addiction is a scapegoat, it doesn’t actually address what happened to you in any meaningful way and outlawing sex work will not prevent what happened to you from happening to others.

“But stereotypicalstripper, porn gave me unrealistic expectations for sex which made me an addict!”

Im sorry the adults in your life didn’t give you sex education and that you weren’t aware/didn’t know how to seek that information out as an adult.

This is a cultural issue that many people, sex workers and not, would like to be addressed but to be honest it’s an extreme struggle to even be allowed to utter the word “condom” around kids bc of all the fucking laws that have been passed and are continuing to pass so we are probably pretty far away from reaching a point where we discuss that porn is a form of entertainment and is about as realistic (most of the time) as a James Bond movie.

That being said, it’s never too late to learn! Seek out sex education today. If you’re having kids make the sex talk an ongoing conversation that matures and ages with them, not a one time singular talk, and talk to your friends about doing the same. Be the change you want to see!

Still not an addiction, though.

Anyways, don’t take my word for it, here’s some continued reading on the topic (no paywalls):