"Just because a job is bad does not mean it's not a "real job". When sex workers assert that sex work is work, we are saying that we need rights. We are not saying that work is good or fun, or even harmless, nor that it has fundamental value. [...] People should not have to demonstrate that their work has intrinsic value to society to deserve safety at work. Moving towards a better society - one in which more people's work does have wider value, one in which resources are shared on the basis of need - cannot come about through criminalisation. Nor can it come about through treating marginalised people's material needs and survival strategies as trivial. Sex workers ask to be credited with the capacity to struggle with work - even to hate it - and still be considered workers. You don't have to like your job to want to keep it."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 55
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Revolting_Prostitutes%3A_The_Fight_for_Sex_Workers'_Rights
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights
73 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights →
Related Quotes
"Both sex workers and drug users face discrimination in the media, in courtrooms, in healthcare, in dealing with socia…"
"Who are prostitutes? Ideas seem to lurch between contradictory stereotypes, perhaps unsurprisingly for a group more o…"
"Sex workers - not journalists, politicians, or the police - are the experts on sex work. We bring our experiences of …"
"The hatred of sex work is rooted in very old and misogynist ideas about sex."
"Sex workers are associated with sex, and to be associated with sex is to be dismissible."
"Sex, in these discussions, is positioned as something intrinsically too special to be sold - something intimate reser…"
"As sex workers, we sympathise with the wish to over-emphasise pleasure, freedom or power. This narrative may feel muc…"
"A sex worker may describe a bad experience as a labour-rights violation, sexual abuse, or simply a shitty day at work…"
"Sex workers' rights [...] should hinge on workers' rights to safety, not on the purported social value of the work."
"Ending the war on drugs is a sex workers' rights issue."