I will probably regret posting this but I feel like I have to.

As women, we are appalled and enraged when men try to speak for us as though they know what is best for us.

Most reasonable people don’t think it’s appropriate for white people to speak for black people when they have no lived experience as a black person.

Please explain how it is in any way appropriate, acceptable, or helpful for people who are not sex workers or trafficking victims to speak on our behalf.

This continually blows my mind. You do not have the first clue as to how criminalization affects our lives.

So many of you go on and on about trafficking victims, but have you ever so much as spoken to a trafficking survivor in person? I have. Because many of them are now consensual sex workers and criminalization hurts them too.

Do you think it’s fucked up that they continue to do sex work when they’re not longer forced? Why don’t you let them tell you why they do it?

Are you going to give me the tired argument that people who do sex work because they have no other options are effectively victims of “economic coercion?” Fine. Then fix the economy. Give people opportunities. Oh, it’s not that simple, you say? Then maybe check your privilege and allow people to earn a living the best way they can without constant fear of arrest.

The Nordic model (which criminalizes buying sex but decriminalizes selling sex) is NOT a solution. While this “solution” is championed by feminists worldwide, you won’t find virtually any sex worker who supports this model, and here’s why:

1) It criminalizes our clients. Despite what so many of you think, our clients are not bad people just because they want to buy sex. Some are lonely, some have disabilities, some don’t have time to date...and yes, some are assholes. Regardless, there is nothing wrong with buying sex from a person who is consensually selling it. Period.

2) It increases supply and decreases demand. Think that’s a good thing? This is our livelihood! This drives prices down and makes it hard for us to earn a living. In what universe is that helpful or beneficial to us? When supply is greater than demand, who has the power? The buyer. Which brings me to...

3) When the buyer has the power, they get to make demands. Like unprotected services, for example. Should be pretty obvious why that is a bad thing.

4) Our clients are afraid of getting arrested, so refusing to “screen” becomes the norm. Here in the US, many sex workers have a complex process of determining whether a potential client is safe to book. This often involves obtaining identifying information. It’s hard enough to get them to cooperate when both buying and selling is illegal. It’s damn near impossible to get them to comply when only buying is illegal. And when clients won’t screen, it makes it that much easier for rapists and murderers to book us.

I won’t get too deep into trafficking here, but I will say this: don’t take everything you read about trafficking at face value. Look for the sources. Click the links. Find out who funded the studies. Do your due diligence. Go down that rabbit hole. It’s not pretty.

Almost all these trafficking “statistics” come from anti-trafficking organizations, almost all of which are faith-based. And many of them have a nasty track record of forcibly removing consensual sex workers from their jobs and literally imprisoning them in textile factories aka sweatshops. They will say and do whatever they have to do to raise money, and their ultimate goal is to further criminalize prostitution. They are successful because the idea of women and girls being kidnapped and forced into sex slavery is sensational and horrifying. The public eats it right up.

I am not here to say that trafficking does not happen. As I said at the beginning of this post, a couple of my friends are trafficking survivors. It almost never happens how you think. It’s not little suburban girls getting kidnapped from the playground or the Target parking lot. Trafficking victims tend to be kids who grew up in foster care or other unstable home situations. Kids who ran away from abuse and were preyed upon by pimps. Is that any less disgusting? Of course not. But why do you think the solution to this problem is criminalizing prostitution and not fixing the broken system that fails children and allows them to end up in these horrible situations?

If you are a sex worker or trafficking survivor and you disagree with me, please do comment and share your experience and opinion with me. If you’re a civilian woman who has never had sex for money, it’s your turn to listen.

Nothing about us without us.

Edited to Add: Since this wasn’t clear, yes, you can have an opinion. But your opinion should be informed, which means you’ve read up on both sides of the argument. People parroting the same tired crap on the thread about Mexico City are clearly only getting their information from anti-sex work sources.

More importantly, your opinion holds considerably less weight than those of us with lived experience.

Please understand how patronizing it is to tell a group of people what is best for them when they have clearly explained why that is not the case.