@jo that depends immensely on the kind of work

but with that said, we're not trying to pass judgement on the nature of the work, we're saying to stand in solidarity with the people who do it

@jo @ireneista Back in the 1980's and 1990's I used to do sex work myself. Gay and bi male sex workers in that era were known as "hustlers" and believe me NOBODY got away with trying to exploit us.

The "hustler" culture was one of independence and self-determination. Pimps were unheard of save for "so and so tried to pimp guys and ended up in the hospital." I heard of that happening twice, a third lesson apparenrly was not needed in my circles.

There was even a wildcat dancer's strike at the Chesapeake House after a new manager tried to get rid uf us hustlers but still have dancers. We all walked out-and most of the customera followed. . The offending manager was fired in a week but it took the club a year to recover. La Cage aux Follies and the Follies Theater took up the slack.

I both worked as a stripper and sold sex directly, hoping to pay for drag racing the modified car I had entirely on the proceeds as well as covering the cost of getting into the exact same spaces to meet partners for my own needs.

I never made enough to cover racing that old car as shit was always breaking wirh it, but I got enough to cover all my own club expenses and more.

Note that since I am aro/autistic, sex is just sex for me and nothing more. The cost to me of adding a few paying partners to an already long list of casual hookups was for me exactly zero.

Oh yeah, some (not all) of us hustlers used to quite routinely fuck oneanother for pleasure. The old joke from John Retchy's book " City of Night" was offsetting fees. Anyone could fuck us, but nobody could fuck us over.

From all this I know 100% for certain that it is possible to do sex work wirhout being exploited, as I have done it myself. Therefore, exploitative conditons elsewhere in the industry (e.g stage fees women strippers get charged) are labor issues just like the sweatshops in the garment industry. Note that sex workers in San Francisco started a unionizarion drive some years ago. In the IWW this is occupational code 690 for obvious reasons.

In the 1980's rhe term "outlaws" was applied in some places both to hustlers and to women aelling sex who worked independently for themselves.

When I was in college, a guest speaker from a "srcond wave" feminist group spoke in front of my philosophy class. She made a key logical mistake that I pounced on: she said ALL porn exploits women. I raised my had and asked "what about Gay male porn?" leaving her entirely outside he field of expertise trying ro answer.

Everything in life has an exception though: I have no problem wirh the Wimmin's Fire Brigade because the Red Hot Video outlets they burned down were selling rape porn under the counter. The sex industry of that time should have cleaned up that mess themselves but they didn't. Cutting off deliveries of everything else would have been enough.

Things have changed: a doxxing website harassing sex workers was bought out and shut down by a major porn studio a few years ago. They earned a lot of respect wirh that move. From what I hear it wasn't cheap.