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(11-06-2015, 04:42 AM)LiadansWhisper Wrote:(11-06-2015, 04:35 AM)Verad Wrote: Are there any hidden stipulations in this? I do not mean to accuse of goalpost shifting, but it gets really annoying posting a statistic that meets criteria and then find out, "Oh, well, that doesn't really count because . . . "
I can't remember (sorry, it's really late and I'm very tired) if it was you or someone else who sort of compared the situation to the way LGBT people were treated before the gay rights movement. Â But then LGBT people organized into activist groups that got together and acted as a large organization. Â Remember that being gay was illegal, too, for a very long time. Â I'm talking about groups like ACT UP, GLAD, Lambda, National LGBTQ Task Force, etc. Â As a group, their representatives could and can definitively say, "We represent more than ourselves." Though, of course, there are a literal plethora of groups representing LGBTQ people. Â But since they're all organized, how convenient if you look to see what they are advocating for, you can start playing matching games. Â When every single organization is advocating for similar or the same things, it's pretty easy to say, "Well, it would seem the majority of LGBTQ people feel this way."
Additionally, I know you mentioned earlier that actually putting studies and surveys together is difficult, but I don't think it's impossible. Â LGBTQ people weren't seen as a significant enough population to pay attention to and actually survey or study on a wide scale until they began to organize and demand rights.
So yeah.
Well if you're looking for a sense that they are organizing in large numbers and demanding similar rights, that doesn't even require a survey. Here is a by-no-means exhaustive list:Â http://www.swaay.org/groups.html. A number of these are specific branches of the larger Sex Worker's Outreach Project.
Now, are these a majority? Do they represent 51% of all active sex workers in their stated regions? Couldn't say. Take that for what you will. But it is definite evidence of organization.
I mention the difficulty of studies not to say none exist - people have been engaging in sociological studies of sex-workers for some time - but the fact that sex work has been so consistently criminalized and stigmatized has until recent decades led to a specific ideological bent in these studies, often along the lines of "What would drive these poor wretches to this, and can we rescue them." The connection of sex work to trafficking in recent decades has also muddied the data - we don't have a clear definition of who is a consensual worker and who is being trafficked.
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