Sex Workers Tell ‘Bustle’ How Politicians Can Actually Help Them

With sex worker rights at least beginning to emerge as an issue for legislators and even presidential candidates, sex workers say that their top priority when it comes to public policy is simply to be heard, according a new report by the site Bustle published on Wednesday. So far, only two of the current lineup of 2020 presidential candidates have stated their unequivocal support for sex work decriminalization. But neither New Jersey Senator Cory Booker nor Hawaii House Representative Tulsi Gabbard is polling well enough to qualify for the next Democratic debate on December 19.  California Senator Kamala Harris also expressed her support for sex work decriminalization, and was running strongly enough to make the debate stage. But Harris dropped out of the race on December 3 due to financial shortfalls. New York, Massachusetts and Maine are all now considering state-level decriminalization laws, while Massachusetts House Representative Ayanna Pressley has introduced a wide-ranging criminal justice reform bill at the federal level, that includes nationwide sex work decriminalization.  But according to RJ Thompson, who runs the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, what sex workers really want is for politicians to let them create their own policies. "Sex workers have to speak for ourselves whenever possible," Thompson told Bustle, noting that most national women’s rights groups not only ignore sex worker rights—they actively oppose sex work decriminalization. "When these advocates say that everyone is a victim and no one can consensually do sex work, that it's oppressive always to women, they're not speaking for thousands of people's reality, and they don't get to speak for our reality," Thompson told Bustle. Sex workers say that any decriminalization laws must avoid the “Nordic model,” in which selling sex becomes legal—but buying it remains outlawed. According to an Amnesty International report cited by Bustle, in countries that use the “Nordic” version of decriminalization, violence against sex workers actually increases—perpetrated both by customers and law enforcement officers. New York sex worker rights activist Nina Luo told the site that what sex workers really want is simply to be recognized—and treated—as workers. That recognition “does not mean that everyone needs to or wants to or loves to do sex work,” Luo told Bustle. “But that it is an actual form of survival and a living for a lot of people.” Photo By Simon Legner / Wikimedia Commons