Diary #294

Two weeks ago, I wrote “my friends [and I]…are being quoted in the mainstream media so often now, the week doesn’t pass that one can’t see one or the other of us (and often more than one) in a news article.  Our clout has increased so dramatically that at least one news outlet will interview sex workers for any given story involving sex work…”  Well, just in case you thought I was exaggerating, here are links to three articles published since that diary entry appeared, and only the first one is for a current event story (debunking Super Bowl “gypsy whores” nonsense, in case you couldn’t guess).  It’s in the form of a round table with Violet McLean, Tara Burns, Blanche Almendras, Margaret Corvid and me, and shorter statements from ESPLERP and Kate D’Adamo.  The second one was a general article on the Law Street site which not only quoted me, but embedded my Reason video and linked both this blog and my Cato Unbound series. But in a way I liked the third one best, because it wasn’t a debunking or a legal analysis, but just a straightforward piece about one of the mundane aspects of sex work, namely how do we deal with taxes, retirement and other personal finance stuff?  Tracy Clark-Flory wrote that one, consulting my pals Mistress Matisse and Savannah Sly besides me (plus Kate D’Adamo and the Tax Domme).  In the long run, I think it’s that kind of article – the sort which demonstrates that we’re just people and our work is just work – which is going to do the most for sex worker rights.  Debunking can win over well-meaning but ignorant folks who are misled by prohibitionist lies, and legal arguments may sway well-meaning but ignorant lawyers (about which the less said, the better).  But articles which normalize us and demystify our trade in the public mind will help to break down the us vs them wall in the public mind which politicians and cops use to justify treating us like criminals and/or imbeciles, and once that happens laws against sex work, like laws against queer sex before them, will be recognized by the majority of the population as the moral abominations they are.