🌅🐉Feast of the Dragonfish 🌘🌻Shading Flower Moon in ☀️♊ Sun in Gemini🌻🌇 02 Solstuary 2024 … CCXXXII ⛩️ Day 10214 ⛩️

the problem with sex work is the work, not the sex.

all work within a capitalist market is inherently exploitative; sex work faces the extra problem of (patriarchal) sigma and state violence, confined to black or gray markets alongside the drug trade, the pornography industry, etc.

when discussing a given industry, Marxist and feminist epistemology agree that the workers of that industry have the most direct insight. sex workers should lead the discussion on what they need. to this end I recommend Playing the Whore, by sex worker and journalist Melissa Gyra Grant. my own fundamental views on sex work are basically derived from her analysis.

so, what do sex workers want?

first and foremost, we want the cops out of sex work. the agents of the state have been responsible for making the conditions sex workers work under so horrible, rarely if ever protecting their interests. even states which have formally legalized sex work have often continued harassing sex workers in the name of "regulation," which claims to be for the good of the sex workers themselves but mainly serves as grounds to harass them.

to be clear, this does not mean that actual worker rights and protections should not exist around sex work. rather, those rights should be enforced not by police or the state, but rather by sex worker unions in partnership labor boards.

secondly, sex workers and our accomplices want what most workers in general want: control over their own work environments, in this case through collective ownership of their workplaces, online platforms for finding clients.

thirdly sex workers and our accomplices recognize that sex work, like all work, which is driven by the loaded gun of economic deprivation is necessarily more exploitative, precarious, and unjust. therefore sex workers want universal basic welfare to protect everyone from the need to engage in dangerous, stigmatized, and unpleasant work, be it sexual or not.

to this end, sex workers and our accomplices demand universal free healthcare, independent of one's income, pre-existing conditions, place of employment or lack thereof, etc.

we demand universal free education, Kindergarten through post-doctoral study.

we demand universal free shelter provisioning, since homelessness is one of the primary drivers of precarious work, sexual or otherwise. as the climate crisis makes heat waves, wild fires, hurricanes, and floods more threatening to the most precarious among us, our efforts to achieve universal free shelter should begin by providing safe sleeping quarters, bathing facilities, bathrooms, clean running water, and food.

we demand the emancipation of children. any child wishing to emancipate themselves from the family of their birth should be provided free room and board, since children imprisoned by abusive families or who are on the run from the same area under some of the most threat of exploitative precarious working conditions, sexual or otherwise. the rights of emancipated children should be protected by agents who are appointed by said child and overseen by the community of emancipated children.

we demand the right to work at ones chosen profession. this is completely distinct from the Republican so called right to work, which is to say, right to crush unions. rather, this right to work would guarantee a well paying job to anyone who wants one, full time or part time, in ones chosen industry, complete with free training in the trade. when beset upon by the regular crises of the market, rather then being laid off workers should be put to work on projects for the well being of the community.

we demand the right to roam, unencumbered by sweeping privatization and enclosure of land in the country and by city planning which requires ownership of a car in the city. public transit should be safe, free, and easily accessed.

we demand universal access nature. green spaces should not be the privilege of the rich but the common home of humanity. community gardens, parks, and wilderness retreats should be accessible to all.

we demand the right to form families of our own design, not only couples but trios and polyqules, of any gender combination, and to have these relationships recognized by law in such matters as medical care, non discrimination in housing, collective property ownership, etc.

we demand the right to representation unmediated by the financial power of the elites. to this end, the institutions charged with enforcing these measures should be headed by assemblies whose members are seen from the affected communities on the basis of lot, with the representation of sex workers, ethnic and religious minorities, young people, elderly people, disability unions, and other at risk populations guaranteed a quota of representatives.

assemblies should be large and numerous enough that any given person should have a greater than 50% chance of be within two degrees of separation to an assembly member at any given time. every resident should have the right to participate in policy development. finally, the decisions of the assembly should be subject to the oversight of the community as a whole.