(11-06-2015, 03:37 AM)synaesthetic Wrote: No, you're right, ultimately it's the whole concept of trading sex for money that grosses people out and makes them think bad things. No matter what you call it, it's going to always have that connotation (at least unless we manage to uproot all this puritanical nonsense in our culture).
My faith in humanity dropped several points as I thought about this, but oh well, not like I had much to begin with.
My point was more that the issue is how we view sex, not the words we use to describe it. Now, some are clearly pejorative and always have been, and are currently still used in that manner. But not all of them.
Quote:It's good that you don't think bad things when you think about sex workers. I don't automatically think those things, either. But I grew up in the South, surrounded by a crapton of religious regressive right-wing wingnuts. My whole family is full of them.
If there was a bad thing to think about anyone who wasn't exactly like them, they sure thought it. I'm so used to the neutral position being impossible, much less a positive position even existing (though that's changed now that I've met people, including voluntary sex workers).
Well, I live in the South and I grew up here, in a very religious family. My mother's family is devout Roman Catholic, and my mother herself converted to Protestant and is currently a member of the Assemblies of God. I was raised very conservative and religious. Thing is, people who fear say and think terrible things about other people. People who are not afraid are not threatened by things they don't understand, and can look past what society sees as "less than" and see the person. I would be lying if I didn't say that the reason I don't look at prostitutes as bad people, or dirt or scum is because I believe God loves them, and that every life - no matter how much I may disagree with it - has an intrinsic, priceless value. That people are the most precious thing the world has, and everyone deserves to love and be loved.
But that's just me, and, being that I live in the South and I grew up here, I actually do know what you are talking about and I have the relatives and friends that do that all the time. I really do get where you are coming from.
Quote:wrt your statement about trans women and the assumption of sex work: it mostly happens to POCs. In a lot of places, especially red states, trans women of color are assumed to be prostitutes by law enforcement and are often arrested and detained for nonsense charges like "manifesting prostitution."
https://www.aclu.org/blog/arrested-walki...nica-jones <- this is a good read on the subject of "walking while trans."
I mean, that's transphobia and racism. They're calling it "prostitution," because they don't have another "legitimate" way of arresting that person. They don't like what they're seeing (or they're personally threatened by it - and I'll be honest, I don't really get why!), and so they're making up what they can to justify their behavior.
Quote:I'm white and I live in the SF bay area, so I don't automatically have problems with law enforcement. Even the Oakland cops are usually smiles and waves when I walk past. But because I'm both extremely poor and have lived in poor neighborhoods, I have gotten a lot of the general cis male creepers harassing me, but so much of it to the point where I just wouldn't leave the house after dark.
I had a female friend who lives in Jersey now and she was talking about being street harassed in NYC and creeped on on public transportation, and it was just so damn foreign to me. I've lived in poor/lower middle class neighborhoods all my life, but I can't recall ever being creeped on here. I asked her if guys up north are just unmitigated creepers, and another friend who lives in NYC said that they're just exceptionally blatant there. I guess that's true in SF, too. It's just so damn weird. ._. I don't understand how parents can raise their kids to be so rude in public.