#decriminalization

Montreal strippers are planning a strike for the weekend of the Canadian Grand Prix, hoping that withdrawing their ​labour on the busiest night of the year for ‌the city's strip clubs will help them move towards their goal of full employment rights.

The Sex Work Autonomous Committee (SWAC) have called the strike ​for May 23, the eve of the fifth race ​in the Formula One calendar, as part of a ⁠campaign to achieve recognition as employees with associated rights.

Their ​principal demand is the abolition of the "bar fee" which strippers must ​pay to perform in clubs, but they are also demanding safe and sanitary working conditions as well as an end to discrimination in hiring ​and scheduling.

"As strippers, we are considered independent contractors, this ​means that on paper we are treated the same as, say, an independent ‌plumber ⁠that you would hire for your home repairs," SWAC said in a statement.

"The independent contractor plumber is responsible to no one but themself, while the independent contractor stripper is responsible ​to club management, ​at the ⁠expense of their job."

SWAC said the Canadian Grand Prix weekend had been deliberately selected for the ​strike.

"The clubs are at their busiest, making ​it the ⁠most lucrative period of the year for our boss," the statement continued. "This is our chance to threaten that income and affect ⁠them ​when it hurts the most. During ​this time, despite management making more money, dancers have to put up with ... ​generally worse working conditions."

— Reuters, Article Link.

You can read more about the SWAC's demands and advocacy by visiting their official website [LINK], but in summary, the demands are as follows:

Abolition of the bar fee and recognition as employees.

End of workplace violence.

Healthy working environment.

End of hiring and scheduling discrimination.

Access to unemployment and CNESST.

The full decriminalization of sex work in Canada.

This strike also applies to all sex workers, not just strippers! Definitely give their site a read through, and share this around! Sex work is real work, and shouldn't be criminalized so that the women involved can have safety and autonomy!

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yessss i love talking about harm reduction!! harm reduction is a lot of things. firstly, it's a political movement led by people who use drugs and sex workers as a way to fight for our liberation. Harm reduction as it's practiced in the US today was really shaped by a bunch of different communities and activists during the 80s and the AIDS crisis, especially Black, poor, queer communities that were at the forefront of all of this work. A harm reductionist I really respect, Shira Hassan, talks about liberatory harm reduction as opposed to professionalized/co-opted/public health oriented harm reduction:

"Harm reduction is a philosophy and set of empowerment-based practices that teach us how to accompany each other as we transform the root causes of harm in our lives.

We put our values into action using real-life strategies to reduce the negative health, legal, and social consequences that result from criminalized and stigmatized life experiences such as drug use, sex, the sex trade / sex work, surviving intimate partner violence, self-injury, eating disorders, and any other survival strategies deemed morally or socially unacceptable.

Liberatory Harm Reductionists support each other and our communities without judgment, stigma, or coercion, and we do not force others to change. We envision a world without racism, capitalism, patriarchy, misogyny, ableism, transphobia, policing, surveillance, and other systems of violence. Liberatory Harm Reduction is true self-determination and total body autonomy." (Excerpt from Healing Justice Lineages by Cara Page and Erica Woodland, from Saving Our Own Lives By Shira Hassan).

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it's also a set of practical strategies to reduce harms associated with all sorts of actions--from drug use, to self harm and eating disorders, to sex work, and more. instead of mainstream rhetoric about drugs, that looks at drug use as a moral issue, or frames risks associated with drug use as an unchangeable fact of the drugs themselves, harm reduction locates those risks as caused by criminalization, and recognizes that risks associated with drug use are preventable.

some practical strategies of harm reduction that people are usually most familiar with is needle exchange as a way to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV or Hep C, where people can get new syringes/needles and dispose of old ones; overdose prevention, through distributing and training people on how to use Narcan, and safe consumption sites; providing safer smoking and safer snorting supplies; drug checking, through fentanyl or xylazine test strips or through technology like FTIR in order to get people accurate information about their drugs; providing condoms and bad date sheets as resources for sex workers; providing wound care supplies and safer cutting information to people who self harm, and more!

a lot of harm reduction is also based on the idea that all of us have agency in our lives, that we can make decisions about what we think is best for our lives, and that any positive change we make is valuable (and also that we don't need to solely define our lives based on "positive change!"). harm reduction doesn't view abstinence as the best or only option, but instead makes room for the wide variety of roles that drug use or other actions might play in our lives. i view harm reduction as a deeply relational practice, where we respect each others autonomy while still being in community with each other. it requires us to put in a lot of work to think about how to nonjudgementally show up in each others lives, and requires all of us to view ourselves as people who can make choices and are empowered to do so.

harm reduction is opposed to carceral and coercive treatment, and harm reduction is also an abolitionist movement that advocates for complete decriminalization of drug use and sex work.

and i was talking to my roommate abt it and she says it's to deal w trafficking but i don't see how it does. she also said that the majority of sex workers are trafficking victims and that the workers for whom it's just a job are a minority? is that true?

Hi, and thank you so much for your question!

This form of "legalized sex work" is known as the Nordic model and is actually not what sex workers want or advocate for! Sex workers push for decriminalization! Let's go over what the differences are!

The Nordic model: "[aka] The Entrapment Model refers to the theory that criminalizing clients and third parties (e.g., managers) will reduce demand in the sex trade, thereby “freeing” sex workers, who are often seen as victims. This framework has vocal proponents among certain prohibitionist feminists, but its impact has been devastating where it has been implemented. Unambiguous data shows a clear correlation between laws that criminalize clients and an increase in violence against sex workers, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and exploitation within the sex trade. While the Entrapment Model may seem enticing in theory, it’s impossible to create a safe environment for sex workers and their clients when one side of the transaction is criminalized." (source: https://decriminalizesex.work/why-decriminalization/#:~:text=The%20Entrapment%20Model%20refers,the%20transaction%20is%20criminalized. )

What can legalized sex work look like in practice?

"Mandatory registration with the government as a sex worker

Licensing requirements for sex work establishments and sex workers

Restrictions on the number of sex work establishments allowed

Discriminatory zoning and location restrictions dictating where sex workers can work, excluding areas such as residential zones, and areas near schools and businesses

Mandatory HIV and STI testing and treatment in government health facilities

Restrictions on advertising These regulations undermine sex workers’ human rights by restricting where sex workers can live and work, violating their privacy and bodily autonomy, and placing extra burdens on them which do not apply to other workers. In this way, legalisation does not treat sex work as a form of work like any other, but as a special form of work that needs to be heavily controlled and monitored by the state."

(souce: https://www.nswp.org/sites/default/files/guide_to_legal_models_english_prf04.pdf )

Why should we decriminalize sex work instead?

"Decriminalizing sex work means that consenting adults who buy or sell sex are not committing a crime. With the decriminalization of prostitution, there would, of course, still be laws against trafficking, rape, violence, and sex work involving minors."

(source: https://decriminalizesex.work/why-decriminalization/ )

Now as far as the overlap between the number of sex workers and trafficking victims, it's important we know these terms are not interchangeable, and also why someone might be both a victim of human trafficking and choose to be a sex worker. Definition of a sex worker:

"Sex workers include female, male, trans and gender diverse adults, and young people (over 18 years of age) who receive money or goods in exchange for sexual services, either regularly or occasionally."

Definition of human trafficking:

"Trafficking means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation."

(source: https://www.nswp.org/sites/default/files/terminology_guide_english_prf03.pdf )

Sex workers participate in selling of consensual sexual services, while victims of human trafficking are being abused. This being said, some people who have experienced human trafficking do choose to become sex workers for many reasons, but even if their reason is linked to their past, consensual work does not equal abuse. There is no real way to know the exact number of overlap between these two groups of people, as collecting accurate data on either group is difficult to begin with, not to mention the conflation of the two muddies the waters further.

If you'd like more reading/resources on this here are more links:

https://www.nswp.org/sites/default/files/en_challenging_the_nordic_model.pdf

https://www.nswp.org/sites/default/files/guide_to_legal_models_english_prf04.pdf

https://www.nswp.org/sites/default/files/10-reasons-decriminalize-sex-work-20150410_0.pdf

https://www.nswp.org/sites/default/files/terminology_guide_english_prf03.pdf

i stop saying my no’s

waiting in silence, eyes staring at the ceiling

he comes and he goes

cry in the bathroom alone

this is the life you chose

clean up, put a smile on

hi! this is reaux (she/they)! as many of you know, BFP is slowly waking up and will be undergoing a full makeover in the coming months. in the mean time, to help get back into the pattern of posting and to continue to share resources, i want to start posting what i read each week!

without further ado, here is everything i've been learning from and engaging with so far just between last saturday night [nov 9, 2024] and right now [wednesday afternoon, nov 13, 2024]! i tried to post this on tiktok @/edgeofeden.17 (go check me out for cool political talks and reading recs!) with my reactions as well, but they said it violated community guidelines :(

journal article: The House on Bayou Road: Atlantic Creole Networks in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

wikipedia: Plaçage

wikipedia: Signare

paperback book: Africans In Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth-Century

article: Why Is Gen Z So Sex-Negative?: A prehistory of the Puriteen.

article: Policy-makers must not look to the “Nordic model” for sex trade legislation

article: Sex workers face unique challenges when trying to unionize: Anti-sex work stigma and labor status create roadblocks in sex workers’ fight against the industry status quo

wikipedia: Decriminalization of sex work

short youtube video: "Decriminalization of sex work does not mean the decriminalization of human trafficking."

short youtube video: What About Legalization? Decriminalization is the only solution

short youtube video: Dis/Ability and Sex Work Decriminalization

short youtube video: "Helping people through police is inherently coercive." - Gilda Merlot

wikipedia: Page Act of 1875

essay: Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power by Audre Lorde

wikipedia: Erotic Capital

long youtube video: KATHERINE MCKITTRICK: Curiosities, Wonder, and Black Methodologies // 09.14.20

journal article: Black life is Not Ungeographic! Applying a Black Geographic Lens to Rural Education Research in the Black Belt

journal article: Black matters are spatial matters: Black geographies for the twenty-first century

journal article: Unspoken Grammar of Place: Anti-Blackness as a Spatial Imaginary in Education

short video: Chicago Works | Andrea Carlson: Shimmer on Horizons

zine: Evaluating What Skills You Can Bring to Radical Organizing

diagram + workbook?: The Social Change Ecosystem Map (2020)

essay: How to Build Language Justice

guide: Anti-Oppressive Facilitation for Democratic Process: Making Meetings Awesome for Everyone

radical resource library: Center for Liberatory Practice & Poetry

short essay: The Short Instructional Manifesto for Relationship Anarchy

essay/blog post: Access Intimacy: The Missing Link

i think that's everything? whew. let's see how i finish off the week! if you need PDFs for anything i didn't directly link, lmk and i'll find a way to get it to you. might upload it to my google drive or something!

--

Yesterday, on 2 June 2025 (as any year) was International Sexworkers Pride Day! ☂️❤️

It's the anniversary of the church occupation and strike in Lyon St. Nizier (France) in 1975 when more than 100 sex workers and allies occupied it for 8 days in order to protest mostly against (police) violence and discrimination but also against stigma, oppression and criminalization of sex work. Still their actual request wasn't decriminalization but instead "Égalité, Liberté, Fraternité" (Equality, Freedom, Brotherhood/ Sisterhood) the slogan of the French Revolution.

50 years later this fight isn't over yet! Sex work is still criminalized in most countries worldwide by either prohibiting all aspects of it or for example by client criminalization which is often promoted as a "progressive model to help sex workers" (also known under "Nordic Model"). In fact, this isn't progressive at all as it not only furthers the stigma sex workers experience but also leads to eviction from homes, deportations of migrants, more police controls and violence (the opposite of ACAB kinda) and other discriminations which in total produce very unsafe working conditions.

The only country with full decriminalization of sexwork is Belgium where it was introduced in 2022 and now grants sexworkers full workers rights such as health insurance, paid vacation and sick days, retirement pensions etc.

In New Zealand sexwork is decriminalized if the sexworker has NZ citizenship.

Therefore: Rights not rescue! Only rights can stop the wrongs! Decriminalization now! ✊️

For more info you can check out the website of the European Sex Workers' Rights Alliance

https://eswalliance.org