In a blog called Is Prostitution Just Another Job by Mac Mclelland I read the testimony of a Chelsea Lane who became interested in sex work after reading a classmates Tumblr about being a sex worker. On her first anniversary of escorting, in February 2015, she wrote that, at 20 years old, she is less isolated, better paid, in contact with “wonderful” people, and “getting laid on the regular.” While it may not be the ideal job for anyone and must make feminists who are pushing for better human rights for everyone especially women, cringed in their sleep, I have to admit that this Chelsea Lane seems happy and appreciated. I wouldn’t advise anyone to go into this field of work but as an open minded person who doesn’t like for anyone to tell me how to live my life I think it would be hypocritical to judge this woman in any other way. I just wanted to add that since this life choice is obviously paying off for her I say amen to that and the minute it becomes negativity to your life I would encourage her to get out. Selling your body for sex because you want to for personal reasons and having to or being forced to sell your body is a totally different thing however.
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I have to admit that the idea of a world where sex work is not illegal, but regulated, safe, and a legitimate business is an interesting theory. Though this is not the world that we live in, and it if often very unsafe. Fortunately for the person that wrote that post, they seem to have found a way to enjoy and feel safe in sex work in this society. I also like your point about selling your body for personal reasons versus being forced to do so.
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I loved Chelsea Lane’s perspective on prostitution! I’m sorry, but if anyone I was intending to sleep with offered to pay me for sex, I don’t think I would turn it down. It’s a completely natural function of the body, and if someone is willing to pay me and I’m interested in that person, then hell yeah, pay me. I think the cringeworthy part comes in when you’re dealing with pimps and not getting to choose who your clients are, that’s when it becomes a problem.
We read a book in high school, I can’t remember the title, but it was about this Muslim woman who became her own pimp and made money off of prostitution. I think that’s where my views on it come from, because she was so adamant that the men were idiots for paying for her, but since she could refuse customers, that made her all the more attractive. Just an interesting concept.
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I think about this often of how many girls and women are sold into the world as sex slaves. I find it repulsive and horrible that men are using their power to control another humans body. Thank you for sharing!
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I think we too as women need to respect ourselves in order for others (men) to as well.
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You highlight some really important issues here! I posted this reading with intent to be controversial- as not even the feminist movement(s) have an agreement on whether or not sex work (including porn, pole dancing, stripping, etc) can be feminist. While yes, I agree that sex trafficking and indebted sex work (working for a pimp) is problematic, we need to think of a few important things: (1) economic and racial vulnerability (meaning, what are the contexts in which women choose this work), (2) choice (is this something someone freely chooses to do with their body? if so, okay, if not, problem… but also remember that the media over-sensualizes trafficking and sex work. Often people are not kidnapped, but rather enter these contracts willingly but without full knowledge of their situation.), and (3) safety (part of the argument for legalization/decriminalization of sex work is that sex workers, in our current system of illegal sex work, thus punishes the women doing the labor. Thus they cannot access health care and other safety systems that could make sex work safe!)
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