From the Bookshelf of Reading with Comrades…

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights

Molly Smith,

Juno Mac

Start date: July 1, 2021

Finish date: July 31, 2021

Discussion: Group Reads - Nonfiction

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Group Reads - Nonfiction

November 2021 - The State and Revolution
By lindsi · 29 posts · 61 views

last updated Dec 09, 2021 03:52PM

September 2021 - Border and Rule
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last updated Aug 30, 2021 04:56PM

What Members Thought

Jan 17, 2021 Caroline Rose rated it it was ok

Smith and Mac propose an argument for the decriminalization of the sex trade. They claim full decrim will lead to better working conditions for sex workers. They describe the ways in which anti-buyer laws actually make working conditions more difficult for sex workers. Anti-buyer laws can work in practice to endanger sex workers themselves, who may be charged with pimping or running a brothel simply by allowing a sex worker friend to use their lodging, by engaging in "duo" services, or by helpin Smith and Mac propose an argument for the decriminalization of the sex trade. They claim full decrim will lead to better working conditions for sex workers. They describe the ways in which anti-buyer laws actually make working conditions more difficult for sex workers. Anti-buyer laws can work in practice to endanger sex workers themselves, who may be charged with pimping or running a brothel simply by allowing a sex worker friend to use their lodging, by engaging in "duo" services, or by helping other sex workers facilitate their business in a co-operative manner.

The weaknesses of this analysis include that the authors present their analysis as anti-capitalist but their analysis is anything but. In other words their major point is advocating for capitalist reform and a sort of free market sex trade. Additionally their conflation of work and labor is problematic; look to feminist socialist transgender survivor of the sex trade, Esparanza Fonseca, for more information on this.

Finally, throughout the book the authors conflate the experience of sex workers with the experience of buyers. For example:

"One anti-prostitution feminist organization comments, 'There are no advantages to sending the message to men that women and girls are commodities to be bought. The disadvantages to a society that sends this message, however, are severe and very difficult to reverse.' At the other end of this argument lies the unheard voice of sex workers like Pania, who speaks to the actual result of punitive 'messaging': 'I've had clients who have come from countries where it's illegal to be a client, and they have been on edge, scared, and difficult to manage.' Whose worries, then, are to be given more weight? The relatively abstract anxieties of non-prostitute women about 'messaging,' or the everyday, practical needs of working class people who want their work to be safer? The latter choice is the essence of harm reduction" (p. 205).

Upon examination, it can be seen that the authors conflate the client's feelings with the safety of the sex worker. They say "whose worries are to be given more weight?" but the only worries they have discussed are the client's worries. There is no indication that the buyer’s fear of criminalization makes the sex worker unsafe, and they do not discuss the sex worker’s feelings. Ultimately they are indicating it is the sex worker’s job to caretake the feelings of their client in addition to providing sexual services. This is a failure to differentiate between the experience of the seller and buyer. They make this conflation in multiple places throughout the book.

The authors are clear that they don't glamorize sex work, they won't make the "happy hooker" argument or claim that sex work is empowering, and that their demand is immediate improved conditions for sex workers via decriminalization.

Ultimately this analysis is not what they claim it to be - either anti-capitalist or an accurate examination of labor conditions in the trade. Research, both statistical and qualitative, of the sex industry in countries where the trade is decriminalized - does not point to safer or improved conditions for workers, less trafficking, or a decrease in violence. So the question is - is stigma what causes violence in the trade, or is the commercial exchange of the (usually woman’s) body as a sexual commodity an inherently violent exchange? I argue the latter. ...more

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