I think queer people might have a weird relationship with this topic because we’ve been dependent on sex work to simply be allowed to exist for…a really long time. Taking it away almost feels like chopping down your safety net for when discriminatory hiring prevents you from getting a “real” job. There was a time when I would’ve fought tooth-and-nail to be allowed to do sex work because I was scared to death of ending up homeless. It would’ve felt like taking away my right to eat and have a roof over my head.

But that is kinda the central point of what we’re discussing. I think it’s fine as a ‘hobby’, but being able to have a hobby like that in the first place already connotes a certain level of privilege. When it comes from a place of necessity, I think we should help people get out without condemning them (like your friend didn’t do it forever, she worked long enough to get out).

But imo straight/cis dudes don’t really seem to have the…finesse to talk about this sort of thing in a way that doesn’t sound like conservative moralizing. They go off on hate the sin love the sinner tangents but go full paternalistic when outlining their justifications. And tbh it rubs me the wrong way like anti-queer patsocs just being “concerned” about the direction society is going. And talking about women and queer people being “duped” into it like we’re children, it’s just so fucking demeaning. Like, omg, she was too much of a bimbo to realize that getting naked for people might be invasive.

I’d prefer if the conversation were spearheaded by former sexworkers, women, and queer people (basically anyone with skin in the game) rather than observers who are using the rhetoric to feel morally superior to libs. I appreciate the links to actual SW blogs in this thread, even, but at this point I don’t even want to talk to men about it because it’s exhausting.