Title: I Asked 3 Women to Talk About Sex Work & Trafficking in the U.S. | HuffPost
Headings: I Asked 3 Women to Talk About Sex Work & Trafficking in the U.S.
I Asked 3 Women to Talk About Sex Work & Trafficking in the U.S.
What’s the difference between sex work and sex trafficking?
Lexie
Mistress Matisse
Rachel
Should sex work be decriminalized or legalized?
Lexie
Matisse
Rachel
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Content: The terrifying numbers and statistics quoted by anti-traffickers have been debunked over and over. ‘ Sex trafficking’ is the boogeyman of our day, just as ritual Satanic child abuse was in the 80’s and 90’s. So saying “I’m an anti-sex trafficker” simply means “I’m anti-sexwork.” “Nonetheless, the myth of “sex trafficking” is a very useful idea. Non-government organizations (NGOs) who claim to be fighting it—we call them “the Rescue Industry”—get lots of money from government grants and private donations. The myth of widespread, organized sex trafficking also dovetails neatly with America’s love affair with mass incarceration.” “It’s easy for police to arrest lots of people for prostitution, mainly low-income women of color, who are in no way “trafficking” anyone. So police, politicians, and Rescue Industry NGO’s work hard to conflate ‘sex work’ with ‘sex trafficking,’ because it suits their purposes,” explains Matisse. Rachel offers yet another perspective, accepting that sex trafficking is a real issue, but careful to remind us of the differences between sex work and trafficking: “Conflating voluntary sex work with sex trafficking has serious negative implications for women who voluntarily enter sex work.