I wanted to write a quick note about my issues with the phrase “sex work is work.” It is one of the most common rhetorical devices used by sex trade expansionists. I’m increasingly seeing people responding to any critical take on the sex trade by blurting out “sex work is work!” It’s as if that one single phrase, if taken to be true, is supposed to absolve any criticism of the sex industry. It’s supposed to automatically convey a whole set of policies we should adopt. …

Dear Kate,

I am deeply sorry to hear what happened to you. The experience you describe is truly terrifying and I think there is something to be said in that we both became politicized, and not simply victimized, from our experiences. Your letter infuriates me. Not because you disagree with me, but because male violence in the form of rape and beating permeates our existence as women. I hear stories of women in the sex trade nearly weekly telling me how they have been raped, beaten, and traumatized. …

CW: Rape

Dear Sister Comrades at Red Canary Song and the NYC DSA Socialist Feminist Working Group,

My name is Esperanza and I am a socialist, a feminist, a transgender Latina woman, and a survivor of the sex trade. I am writing to you as comrades in the struggle for socialism and as sisters who have presumably shared the experience of being prostitutes. I prefer the term “prostitute” to “sex worker” because the latter is too vague to describe my experiences. “Sex worker” can include porn actors, cam girls, sugar babies, strippers, prostitutes, and others. I wasn’t a porn actor and I can’t relate to that experience. I was however a prostitute: my first “date”…