On 2 June 1975, more than 100 sex workers occupied Saint-Nizier Church in Lyon, France, to express their anger about their criminalised, exploitative, and inhumane working conditions.
Today, more that 45 years later, the fight has still not been won.
National Sex Workers’ Day, also known as International Whores’ Day reminds us to do our best to help improve conditions for sex workers and ending the stigmas against them.
Someone asked me the other day if I would be interested in a cam position.
A few days before that, I was offered money to meet someone.
And hundreds, probably thousands of times before that, I’ve been given the opportunity to trade my body and my sexuality for cold, hard cash.
Unfortunately for me, the idea makes me go cold. It shuts me down, and I just can’t even stomach the thought.
But you know what? I feel the same way about radishes.
And I don’t judge the value of the people who eat radishes. Or love eating radishes, or who feed radishes to others.
I just don’t, can’t eat radishes (they make me gag).
Sometimes I’ve wondered what it would be like to be able to trade that part of me for money.
It SEEMS like it might have been easier than a few paths I’ve taken.
But I also know it’s not easy not for all.
And while for some it is the best choice they could ever have made, for others, it’s no more than a job, and yet still others are in the life against their will, or being forced into conditions that are deplorable, no matter your morals.
Unfortunately, since we legislate against the work, and not against the conditions, there is no improvement in sight.
And that’s what needs to be said. And thought about.
