(11-06-2015, 04:08 AM)Verad Wrote: And now they know another one. Is this one less effective somehow? Or are we appealing to linguistic tradition?
I can't recall if this part of the conversation took place in this thread or on skype, but Nat said earlier that "sex worker" is an excellent umbrella term (even if some would object to being under the "same umbrella" with other subsets of it), but it doesn't really work (no pun intended) for the subsets. Some people might not even consider themselves "sex workers" if they don't engage in actual sex. Others might object because they feel it places them in the same strata as prostitutes (who, yes, are seen by society as being "less than" because they are perceived to sell physical sex, and also, while phone sex, cam sex, etc, are legal, prostitution is not).
However, as I pointed out in a previous post, I know other people in the industry, at least one of whom is also a phone sex operator, and she honestly found the entire thing laughable when I spoke to her about it. So why should I put Umi's opinion on the subject above that of my friend of over a decade?
I understand that it offends Umi, and that's fine. I don't think it would ever come up in casual conversation. But I'm not going to change my nomenclature based on one person's demand on the internet. With all due respect, she does not represent the industry as a whole, nor do the five blogs she linked.