Rights, Not Rescue! Socialist Solidarity with Sex Workers
Today, April 11, is the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump signing into law two bills that further marginalized and endangered the lives of sex workers. The “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) and the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA) enjoyed wide bipartisan support and have for the past year harmed some of the most vulnerable workers under capitalism by depriving them of ways to vet clients, work from saf(er) locations, and thereby avoid exposure to violence. And of course, as with all carceral interventions, those at the lowest rungs of the class system bear the brunt of this injury.
These bills were largely applauded by the political establishment — including Bernie Sanders, who has still not changed his position — because of the widespread conflation of all sex work with trafficking. Sex work (where consenting adults trade sex for money) and trafficking (the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labor) get confused by claims such as “sex work would not exist without economic coercion,” making it by definition “forced labor.” Of course the same could be said about all wage labor.
The sex trades span the full spectrum of legality, evolving notions of morality, and interpretations of individual agency. Debates have raged for a long time but have largely ignored the voices of sex workers themselves. Socialists should fight for these workers’ right to self-determination as we do for all workers, and what sex workers demand is for their work be decriminalized. They demand rights, not rescue.
And the tide is turning.
Amnesty International came out in favor of sex work decriminalization as opposed to the Nordic “end demand” model. Julia Salazar, the Queens DSA member elected to the NY State Senate, ran on a platform of universal rent control, Medicare for All, the abolition of ICE, guaranteed access to abortion services and decriminalization of sex work last year.
Shamefully, it took several months after the passage of SESTA/FOSTA for DSA as an organization to speak up in solidarity, and to this day, DSA has not taken a public position on the issue of sex work. This is something the Feminist Caucus of the Portland chapter, together with many other locals, is working to change. We hope you join us at this month’s general meeting on April 14th to learn more about the effects of keeping sex workers criminalized.
This statement was prepared by the Portland DSA Feminist Caucus and endorsed by the Portland chapter of DSA.
