SO-CALLED ‘moral crusades’ often have little to do with morality and everything
to do with power. This ‘war’ on sex work is tailored to disenfranchise folks that those in power want to keep down.
Be wary of the language around this. They make it about victims, children and trafficking. They don’t care about victims. They don’t know how this industry even works.
SESTA/FOSTA has actually resulted in more trafficking, because these policies made it harder for people to safely do sex work.
Many folks in the sex work industry get into it because they’re not qualified to do anything that pays better, or they use it to supplement their income because minimum wage is too low to live on. Internships made it so you don’t even have to pay new workers, student loans and medical debt are out of control in our country and there’s a pandemic that eviscerated entire industries overnight. Millions were left without aid, and people need to feed their kids and pay their rent.
The point is, if those in power really cared about the quality of life for sex work ‘victims’, they would focus on making sure people have other options for earning money, or on making working conditions safer. Maybe they would actually talk to some real life sex workers about what their job is like.
Taking sex work off the table as an option makes things way harder for people who are already struggling to earn enough money, and it does not make it go away - see the ‘War on Drugs’ as an example. This is a similar war on marginalized people.
There’s an obvious hypocrisy as businesses like OnlyFans, Playboy and PornHub have verified Instagram accounts and the unlimited ability to reach their fans and run ads no matter how risqué their content. Meanwhile, small and independent NSFW creators have their social media pages hidden, or removed entirely for posting even a link to their OF page, let alone a bikini photo that doesn’t even violate any Terms Of Service.
This has nothing to do with morality. This has to do with money and power structures. If you can pay, you can play, but if you can’t, you’re an easy scapegoat to villainize for how you earn a living. I say all of this without even getting to the fact that many people, once they find their niche in the sex industry, love doing sex work and find it less predatory and more empowering than working other jobs for less money.
The thing is, the people in charge need people to work exploitative, minimum wage jobs. Their wealth depends on it, and independent sex work is a threat to everything that they have built their wealth on.
When they talk about ‘victims’, they have likely never spoken to a sex worker outside of maybe hiring one to fulfill their own fantasies. They are saying nothing about the inhumane working conditions and impossibly low wages that are often the only other job options for those who choose sex work.
The sex industry isn’t some ‘Big Bad’. It isn’t some Voldemort or Disney villain, looking to do evil for the sake of being evil, at least not more so than any other industry under capitalism. There’s just a cultural taboo against it because of ‘sin’, which makes it a perfect issue for the rich and powerful to go to war against. Those in power would like people to stop selling nudes and go back to working for Amazon or Walmart or wherever.
While this pandemic rages on, they are going to say whatever they have to say and do whatever they have to do to make that happen because that is how they profit the most off of us. There’s also the added bonus of looking like they care about a human rights issue that they at best know nothing about, and at worst actively contribute to making worse. At the very worst, they are a direct cause of it.
People in the sex industry have been saying all of this for a long time. We saw all of this coming. I hope that you are inspired to think critically about ‘wars’ like this and about who profits from them and that you do your part to educate others and to ask for change.
Support Xena!
Instagram
OnlyFans
For an in-depth analysis of this issue, Xbiz.com have a great, well-researched feature here.
to do with power. This ‘war’ on sex work is tailored to disenfranchise folks that those in power want to keep down.
Be wary of the language around this. They make it about victims, children and trafficking. They don’t care about victims. They don’t know how this industry even works.
SESTA/FOSTA has actually resulted in more trafficking, because these policies made it harder for people to safely do sex work.
Many folks in the sex work industry get into it because they’re not qualified to do anything that pays better, or they use it to supplement their income because minimum wage is too low to live on. Internships made it so you don’t even have to pay new workers, student loans and medical debt are out of control in our country and there’s a pandemic that eviscerated entire industries overnight. Millions were left without aid, and people need to feed their kids and pay their rent.
The point is, if those in power really cared about the quality of life for sex work ‘victims’, they would focus on making sure people have other options for earning money, or on making working conditions safer. Maybe they would actually talk to some real life sex workers about what their job is like.
Taking sex work off the table as an option makes things way harder for people who are already struggling to earn enough money, and it does not make it go away - see the ‘War on Drugs’ as an example. This is a similar war on marginalized people.
There’s an obvious hypocrisy as businesses like OnlyFans, Playboy and PornHub have verified Instagram accounts and the unlimited ability to reach their fans and run ads no matter how risqué their content. Meanwhile, small and independent NSFW creators have their social media pages hidden, or removed entirely for posting even a link to their OF page, let alone a bikini photo that doesn’t even violate any Terms Of Service.
This has nothing to do with morality. This has to do with money and power structures. If you can pay, you can play, but if you can’t, you’re an easy scapegoat to villainize for how you earn a living. I say all of this without even getting to the fact that many people, once they find their niche in the sex industry, love doing sex work and find it less predatory and more empowering than working other jobs for less money.
The thing is, the people in charge need people to work exploitative, minimum wage jobs. Their wealth depends on it, and independent sex work is a threat to everything that they have built their wealth on.
When they talk about ‘victims’, they have likely never spoken to a sex worker outside of maybe hiring one to fulfill their own fantasies. They are saying nothing about the inhumane working conditions and impossibly low wages that are often the only other job options for those who choose sex work.
The sex industry isn’t some ‘Big Bad’. It isn’t some Voldemort or Disney villain, looking to do evil for the sake of being evil, at least not more so than any other industry under capitalism. There’s just a cultural taboo against it because of ‘sin’, which makes it a perfect issue for the rich and powerful to go to war against. Those in power would like people to stop selling nudes and go back to working for Amazon or Walmart or wherever.
While this pandemic rages on, they are going to say whatever they have to say and do whatever they have to do to make that happen because that is how they profit the most off of us. There’s also the added bonus of looking like they care about a human rights issue that they at best know nothing about, and at worst actively contribute to making worse. At the very worst, they are a direct cause of it.
People in the sex industry have been saying all of this for a long time. We saw all of this coming. I hope that you are inspired to think critically about ‘wars’ like this and about who profits from them and that you do your part to educate others and to ask for change.
Support Xena!
OnlyFans
For an in-depth analysis of this issue, Xbiz.com have a great, well-researched feature here.
