Our cause…isn’t just ours after all, but rather a vital part of the rights of all individuals to control their own voices, bodies, and lives without the interference of violent busybodies. – “Sex Worker Rights Day 2020”
The landscape of sex worker rights activism looks very different from the way it did when I wrote my first essay for this occasion ten years ago; then almost nobody outside of Asia celebrated the day, and now it’s observed worldwide. Sex worker activism in the US is no longer the domain of a small number of activists; vast numbers of sex workers now speak out online, belong to various activist groups, and politically mobilize to oppose prohibitionists, who not so long ago could count on their lies going unchallenged by any but a vocal minority. The War on Whores has alienated enough people that a majority now support decriminalization, and support for sex worker rights is no longer the kiss of death for politicians. The evolution of “sex trafficking” hysteria into a new Satanic Panic has many of the hacks who once eagerly spread prohibitionist wanking fantasies distancing themselves from the mythology and even debunking the tales they until-recently represented as facts. As I wrote last year, “The younger activists, those in their twenties and thirties, have got this, and they are more than capable of carrying it; it’s time for older activists like me to move into a more advisory role…” As part of that shift, I think it’s time for me to stop writing new essays on this topic, lest I grow irrelevant due to repetition. Besides, I’ve already written plenty:
2011: “International Sex Workers’ Rights Day”
2012: “Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs”
2013: “International Sex Worker Rights Day”
2014: “Sex Worker Rights Day”
2015: “Hands On”
2016: “The ‘Active’ in ‘Activism’”
2017: “Out and Proud”
2018: “365 Days of Activism”
2019: “More Than Ever”
2020: “Sex Worker Rights Day 2020”
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, or fear that our cause is hopeless, I suggest you read all of those in order; you may be surprised just how much things have changed for the better over that short span, and just imagine what the political landscape will look like in 2031 if things keep developing at the same rate as they have for the last three years. We still have a very long way to go, and the fight will never be completely over until we as a species discard the wicked dogma that consensual behavior can somehow be a “crime”, and the pretense that inflicting violence on people is somehow “helping” them. But it’s important to recognize the progress we’ve already made, and to draw from it hope for a better future.
