Sex at Work: How we make the industry safer.

 

There is nothing wrong with sex work. Having said that, there is a lot wrong with the sex industry, particularly regarding safety. Women and men in sex work are routinely molested, raped, even killed. Even in the “regulated” industries of porn and stripping, women are frequently abused. Misconduct runs rampant and relatively unchecked.

Obviously, the first step is to legalize all sex industries, to ensure that they are properly regulated. Where prostitution is illegal, prostitutes are unlikely to turn to authorities with a problem, for fear of getting in trouble for selling sex. Because of this, customers are more likely to beat and abuse them, since they know there are no consequences.

However, even in industries that are legal, workers experience many injustices. Strippers, for instance, report being sexually harassed, degraded, and touched against their will, with no repercussions to the patron harassing them. Managers may not take their dancers’ complaints seriously; other patrons seem to think, “Well, they’re sex workers - they’re asking for it.” We need a societal change in attitude. It is not acceptable that we view sex workers as inferior simply for doing their job. We must respect them. Unfortunately, many people who frequent strip clubs have a sexist mindset that degrades sex workers. We need to find a way to spread the message of anti-sexism and stopping sexual violence to them.

When sex workers are abused, hurt, or killed, society overlooks it because they were “just a stripper” or “just a hooker,” not to be looked at as a real person deserving of compassion. Society looks down on sex workers as scum, rather than as people trying to make a living. A shift in attitude would do wonders for the safety of sex workers. Once we start caring about how sex workers fare, the repercussions of violence against them would be greater, as well as cultural motivation to treat them with dignity and respect. No one deserves to be abused. Once we recognize that all people are equally worthy of protection, then we will be able to improve working conditions for those in the sex industry.