I Heart Sex Workers by Scholl Lia Claire;

Author:Scholl, Lia Claire;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chalice Press

Very early in my years at Star Light, I had some interaction with the American Family Association. They were building a scheme to try to keep women from working in the sex industry. They would place advertisements in magazines about entering the sex industry—“Work here! Make lots of money!”—that had a toll-free number to call. When a woman called that number, she heard former sex workers telling awful stories of the sex industry.

I would be all in for a hotline that would give the explicit risks that someone is taking to enter the sex industry, but I do not believe in deceiving people to get that point across. The individuals I worked with from the American Family Association believed they should help women avoid the industry by any means necessary. But the way a message is delivered should be in line with the beliefs of the messenger, and Christianity teaches honesty. Shouldn’t our methods be honest?

The profamily and antitrafficking movements work to end the sex trade, but I don’t agree with their methods. Of course, the difficulty in being critical of these movements is that I may sound protrafficking and antifamily. I am neither. I think that trafficking in persons is bad and that families (in whatever form they take) are good.

My critique of both movements has to do with methodology and ideology. My number one criterion in ministering with the sex industry and the individuals in it is this: could I say this in front of the people I serve? The second criterion is this: Is my methodology one that is compatible with my walk as a Christian? Am I honest? Am I loving? Am I respectful? My third criterion is this: Am I doing good? I don’t want to do harm at all. The final criterion is this: Is the work I’m doing changing underlying reasons that people enter sex work?

I have a friend who works for a large antitrafficking organization. They raid brothels that employ children and take the children into custody, placing them in aftercare group homes. My friend confided in me that the organization was beginning to understand the negative impact they were having on the women working at the brothels by choice. When they closed a brothel, they were affecting the economic well-being of the women who were working there. The children from the brothels might thrive in their homes, but there were far fewer children in the brothels than women. This organization was just beginning to understand that the negative impact on the women had a huge negative impact on the next generation of sex workers, perhaps even causing more children to enter the industry because their mothers weren’t able to work.

I think the antitrafficking and profamily movements miss the real issues that keep the sex industry expanding and keep interested parties from impacting change. If they keep us distracted by horror stories of women trapped by traffickers, then we won’t pay attention to the fact that women still make less money than men.

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