I'm sharing this despite my usual policy of not giving air time to harassment I receive because I think it's an opportunity to discuss a specific type of whorephobia that's extremely pervasive against sex worker parents. It's rarely discussed because it's so upsetting.
Warning: This post shares harassment mentioning CSA.
I only share a tiny fraction of the harassment I receive for being trans and a sex worker on this website, but I do want to talk a little bit about the way that whorephobia and transphobia like this can limit people's choices and make us hide ourselves away. Particularly when this bigotry intersects with us becoming parents.
The accusation being laid out here is that I'm somehow endangering my unborn child by mentioning being pregnant and posting a picture of my own pregnant body. That even acknowledging my pregnancy and daring to post a picture of it, whilst complaining about the ways I am fetishized, is equivalent to allowing pedophiles to sexually abuse my kid. It's vile to read and it's vile to talk about, and it's also rhetoric that sex workers have thrown at us the second we have children.
This user is essentially fantasizing about the idea of other people wanting to sexually abuse my baby, frothing at the mouth with their hopes that my kid will be taken from me before they're even born. They're not actually taking steps to make that happen, but instead trying to intimidate sex workers into silence. No report was made to any authorities (that's why they vaguely say "local" because they haven't bothered to try and find out where I roughly live) and no message was sent to my book distributor (because it's a crowdfunded project where I act as the distributor myself). The purpose is intimidation.
Those who are anti-sex worker, whether they're conservatives who view us as sinful or they're SWERFs who see us as reinforcing the patriarchy by existing, want nothing more than for activists and advocates to be quiet. Since a lot of sex workers are parents, one of the most effective ways to force that silence is to threaten our kids. They argue that being a sex worker means we must be exposing our kids to sexual content or selling access to them, that simply mentioning that we have kids or are pregnant poses a threat, and they leverage this to argue we're all unfit parents.
Many sex workers sell sex so that we can provide for our children, to give them all the resources and stability they need so that they can grow up safe and happy and do whatever they want with their lives once they reach adulthood. Sex workers are also disproportionately likely to have been sexually abused ourselves, making many of us far more protective than average and extra cautious about who we let near our children or what we share about them.
If we're scared our kids will be taken away because of whorephobic assumptions that being sex workers means we're allowing predators access to them, we're less likely to seek support when we're struggling. If we're accessing services to support single parents, we're less likely to mention being a sex worker and get support related to that. If we're accessing services to support sex workers, we're less likely to mention having a child. We're pressured into hiding and that cuts us off from community support when we need it.
During this pregnancy, my health has declined and because I lost the additional job I had alongside sex work I was stuck selling sex much later into pregnancy than I wanted. I was terrified of having to find someone to babysit my newborn and go back to hooking within weeks of giving birth, as my body was still recovering, because I had no financial safety net and no right to parental leave. It is only because I was open about being a sex worker and being pregnant that I was able to seek support from my community and crowdfund to give myself 8 weeks of parental leave and afford to stop selling sex in my last couple of months of pregnancy too. If I'd been too afraid to admit to both at the same time, I'd be selling sex right up to my due date and immediately after giving birth. A horrific outcome for me and one that would absolutely not benefit my baby.
I'm not going to be sharing any identifying info about my child online, on accounts where I do sex worker advocacy or otherwise. I recommend this policy to anyone who has a following online, not as advice specific to sex workers, because children deserve privacy and should be protected from potential predators. What I will not do is cease talking about parenthood as a sex worker, regardless of what harassment I face, because it's an important reality to acknowledge and I want more sex workers to feel seen and understood.
All that being said, this sort of harassment is obviously deeply upsetting and any kind words are appreciated. Thank you to those who've supported me during this pregnancy and who are wishing the best for my baby rather than the worst.
