More thoughts on Manet’s painting… Olympia is fascinating because it’s such a good example of kyriarchy in European art. Olympia is clearly the subject of the painting, she dominates it, she’s in the light. And then the Black woman is over to the side and in the shadows. And it’s like, Well, who is *that*? I’m always torn, too, about whether Manet could have had any awareness of kyriarchy and how both women were seen as disposable commodities. But I doubt it… (Not that I know anything about Manet or have formal art training, heh.) The fact that the Black woman, who is a servant, is delivering flowers that Olympia ignores or “scorns”* and the Black woman’s gaze make the Black woman seem more like a prop, just like the cat. (*I’ve read that the flowers are supposed to be from a client, and Olympia’s scorn or indifference to them is another sign of her independence and/or independent personhood since she clearly isn’t wrapped up in them and what they symbolize.) She’s there to inform us about Olympia. All of the directional focus of the piece is on Olympia. In a different time and with a different artist, this could be an intentional statement about kyriarchy, but probably not here.

Also, I agree with everyone that it’s not sexist just to acknowledge the racism, sexism, transphobia, and other human rights issues involved in the majority of sex work. Sex workers’ rights groups can be of the human rights or sex positive kind, but I’m far more concerned with the former and doing things like ending human trafficking. This doesn’t mean that breaking down stereotypes about all kinds of sex workers isn’t really important, too. And it’s just as important to change a society that encourages many, many more women than men to engage in sex work as an option (when it’s undesired) before seeking out other alternatives first because our society doesn’t provide adequate socioeconomic safety nets for marginalized people even in cases when the women are well formally educated and “should” (of course, all women should, regardless of social status) have other options. I definitely don’t think that privileged sex workers should stop speaking out and deconstructing the public’s stereotypes about them. But I would hope that privileged sex workers who are consciously choosing their choice and have other options available to them would support – or at least stop erasing – the voices and rights of more marginalized sex workers who aren’t part of the lucky few. I think it’d be really easy for privileged sex workers to put a disclaimer in front of their statements about their own sex work to acknowledge that they are privileged, that not all sex workers enjoy the same rights, and that they don’t speak for all sex workers. And if you’re a privileged sex worker, don’t take it as a personal assault on your choices when more marginalized sex workers relate their negative experiences and desire to not do sex work. Instead of going against one another, recognize the common enemies of racism, sexism, transphobia, dehumanization, exploitation, etc.

Of course, the biggest problem is about how we get (mostly straight & cisgender) men to stop exploiting sex workers and/or supporting human trafficking. I’ve read wonderful things about Somaly Mam and her foundation (the Somaly Mam Foundation – http://www.somaly.org/programs). Somaly Mam is a survivor of human trafficking and childhood sexual slavery. I’ve also read a few negative things about the foundation, mainly that sex workers are sometimes rounded up along with victims of trafficking and that they’re forced to “rehabilitate” against their will. For the record, the positive reviews outweigh the negative ones, and I think that this problem could be fixed with policy change and better planning/awareness. However, I don’t think that we can dismiss claims from sex workers who say that their right to self-determination has been denied. That’s certainly disturbing and a serious concern. Does anyone know any more details about this issue? I’ve had difficulty finding much about this problem online.

I’ve also heard about DNA (http://www.demiandashton.org/action-center), which is Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s organization against human trafficking. Their tagline packs a little punch – “Real men don’t buy girls”. And they’re raising awareness, which is great! But I fear that DNA might just be the pretty celebrity spokesperson, so to speak, for the issues of human trafficking and childhood sexual slavery. I don’t know how impactful they are. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with being an organization that just focuses on raising awareness, but they definitely don’t appear to be doing in-depth, on-the-ground work if that’s what you’re looking for. Still, publicity of human rights issues is beneficial, yes? I don’t know. Opinions, anyone?

There’s also Free the Slaves (http://www.freetheslaves.net/), which focuses on ending human trafficking/slavery in general.

Does anyone know of any other organizations against human trafficking, sexual slavery, and/or the exploitation of sex workers? Especially if they’re run by current or former sex workers and/or survivors of trafficking?

Just about every time we post something critical in any way of sex work, a self-identified sex positive sex worker shows up and calls people out for being prude, judgmental, and not recognizing that women really do have agency and choose sex work as their career (or as an erotic kink, which I was lectured about the last time around.)

The truth is, as has been mentioned here, there’s a continuum of sex work, and it’s heavily weighted in favor of exploitation by the patriarchy and the kyriarchy—i.e. men and usually white ones. If you remove from the continuum all the victims of racism, poverty, war, abuse, addiction, coercion, etc, you’d be left with a vanishingly small number of women. So it seems ridiculous and disingenuous to keep saying “don’t forget that there are women who like sex work!”

I’m not saying that such women don’t exist, merely I am so fucking sick of the “Ivy League hooker” stereotype that seems to be constantly perpetuated on TV and in movies: upper-middle class educated white woman who hooks to pay for their law school or whatever. Whenever I run into these women—frequently in comments on feminist websites—it strikes me as totally absurd that they’re demanding I pay attention to them and want to dominate the debate about sex work. It’s such a function of their privilege: they’re literate/computer-literate, and they have a computer and time to spend on the internet arguing these things. I’m not worried about them—I don’t need to be an activist for them. I’m focusing my attention, instead, on the 99.9% of sex workers who aren’t like them, and who deserve attention and support from us that they will never get from a society that sees them as disposable or invisible.