Could Sex Workers' Rights Be Wrong?

First, before you balk at the headline, please read the post.  Guest blogger Michele Clark has a powerful conversation with her friend "Kathy", who was trafficked as a child and is still in the commercial sex industry.  Kathy wants to leave, but she can't find another job because of her criminal record, despite having two Magna Cum Laude undergraduate degrees and a graduate certificate (making her much better educated than me).  And yet, she also doesn't want the industry to be legalized.  This conversation is a reminder of how deeply complex these issues are, especially for the women facing them on a daily basis.

As the debate on sex worker's rights unfolds across this very site, I've followed much of it with interest.  But, I wondered, was I seeing the whole picture?  So I got in touch with a friend of mine who remains in the life, and asked her opinion.  Because her words are so powerful, I asked her if I could quote her and she said yes. She also said that we could call her Kathy. Without mincing words, she jumped right in and told me how she felt about her circumstances.

Kathy: My life has totally been destroyed by American traffickers. Because of my legal issues I am not able to license in anything or find a job that will hire me.  I am now only able to remain in the industry that I was forced into.

I asked if she thought that rights for sex workers would improve her situation.

Kathy: I live each day with the threat of rape, murder, abuse, robbery, and social shunning that no woman should have to endure.  Not because I chose to go into it like these women wanting rights.  I want rights so that I can get out of it.  Before I get killed.

But what about those sex workers who claim that rights would make their lives better?

Kathy: So far as women getting any rights so far as the sex industry I think these people need to get a grip on reality.  There are the few who get into the business because they are sex addicts or because they think money will be good.  And it can be... I have also  known women robbed every time they turned a date and beaten so badly that they had to turn to a pimp to protect them out there.  That is the law of the streets.  You will be harassed, beaten, robbed, even killed if you refuse to get with someone because you are considered a street renegade and the men are protecting their investments and their business.  What rights are these women talking about?

There is no easy way in life.  There is no fast way to money.  It all takes hard work.  These women asking for rights want an easy way out.  They want to justify doing something illegal and have it legalized so that they can claim legitimate taxes and not have property confiscated when they are arrested.  These are the same women that would open an agency and gain money from another's sexual work.  That is called pimping and pandering.  And whether they want to admit it or not that is illegal.  That is what the men go to jail for when they are caught.  Why should it be different for women abusing women?

And those that just want their cake and eat it too?  Shame on them for capitalizing on the millions of women that are suffering out there in the industry and trying to make it through another day.  Shame on them for not having the common decency and respect for women that would mean they want to stop this type of activity at any cost.  Shame on them for being so self absorbed and greedy that they can push society into accepting their warped viewpoint only because they are self indulgent and not willing to get an education and a regular job.  I have no compassion for them.  I have nothing in common with them.

Kathy has raised a child who is going to graduate school and takes care of an elderly parent.  She put herself through college and then a certificate program at a major university, to find that doors are slammed in her face. She has a record.  The charges are for "moral turpitude."  She has turned to women's advocacy groups to help her but her e-mails have remained unanswered.  What about Kathy's rights?  To leave a life she hates?  To work in a field she is interested in? To use her good mind and her street smarts for the common good? Those are the rights we should be talking about.

Image from illegaleconomy.com