Sex work inclusive feminism
Over the last couple of weeks I have noticed an uptick in women reverting back to sex work in order to afford the cost of living. Layoffs, inflation, and other factors have driven them back into OnlyFans and even street prostitution to simply get by. The Guardian reported on a woman in her 40s laid off due to Argentine government cuts whose only option was street work, and then reread Julie Bindel’s diatribe against sex work because it was exploitative of women. My personal flavour of feminism is very much sex worker inclusive, as much as it is consensual sex inclusive, yet I would never deny that underlying financial systems are pushing many women into sex work and sex adjacent work to pay the bills.
Sex work exclusionary feminism, SWERF, has been a mainstay of feminism since the French Revolution, yet as Kate Morgan points out in The Walnut Tree demonising sex workers rather than addressing the social causes of sex work leads to increased deprivation and risk for the sex workers involved. Much of the feminist critique of sex work misses the underlying point that all women have bodily autonomy and a right to be safe and secure in the work place. The Marxist observation that all workers sell their bodies to make a living, be it coal miner, steel worker of sex worker, highlights that selling your body to make a living is always open to abuse and trauma. Sex workers of all genders operate in…
