Read on Twitter
I co-authored one of the first large-scale studies on people in the sex trades to ask this question about relationship between chronic mental + physical illness in relation to trading sex (at my urging). And guess what we found? https://twitter.com/GISELLE_HGC/status/1373289052917600257">https://twitter.com/GISELLE_H...
The relationship was often violence--> mental illness--> inability to work 9-5-->sex work, which, bc it& #39;s criminalized-->more violence + cycle continues. Solutions would be UBI and full decrim, which I& #39;m sure you& #39;d call "normalizing".
Oh PS @GISELLE_HGC I& #39;m also a crazy whore
Oh PS @GISELLE_HGC I& #39;m also a crazy whore
The way you all can& #39;t hold back yr hatred of mental illness long enough to pretend to be concerned! Idk that kind of internal conflict + cog. dissonance is what seems nuts to me @GISELLE_HGC, meanwhile I& #39;m living life free of hatred, hypocrisy+ shame, which is p mentally healthy
There& #39;s actually quite a lot more to mental wellbeing than whether or not you have a diagnosed mental illness and can function in a 9-5. Your ability to live your values, reduce your risks+ live in community are critical to wellbeing + many sex workers have that over @GISELLE_HGC
You know, all of this "sex workers are damaged" shit that is, unfortunately, common among therapists as well as Twitter SWERF commentariat and "mediapreneurs" is based on a phenomenological understanding of unwanted sex + violence that they just assume is universal.
Like, "the experience of having sex when I wouldn& #39;t want to in order to pay my bills is something I would experience as damaging TO ME, and so I assume everyone would experience it that way". It& #39;s not like that for everyone.
It& #39;s like that for some of us! It& #39;s like that for me! I fucking hate it! But you know what? Even for me, it& #39;s more the material conditions that produce the violence I& #39;m concerned about. If we only look at the phenomenology, then I must be hurting myself for no real reason!
But if we look at the circumstances under which I first did sex work when I really didn& #39;t want to and hated it-- uhhhhhh I was about to be evicted + my PTSD was part of what was preventing me from getting other work.
I& #39;ve since learned to work in ways that feel less bad but also things have improved for me financially. That says a lot more about the relationships between sex work, mental illness, and violence, but it would be unpalatable to either a woman who might conceivably find herself...
...in that position or a & #39;mediapreneur& #39; or other high-income, upper-class individual who is complicit in the violence of capitalism.
So it& #39;s easier to be like "Idk those bitches must be crazy" than to be like "Oh actually those bitches are poor". Sorry, breaking news, poverty is violence.
I say this often, but in our society, unless you& #39;re lucky, you pick the type of violence you prefer. Picking survival sex work over homelessness isn& #39;t crazy. Capitalism producing that kind of no-win scenario is crazy.
But in order to understand that, you& #39;d have to have the kind of moral courage to do more than yell about crazy whores on Twitter, or make your money off of diagnosing them. You& #39;d have to re-evaluate your values, your hobbies, your career, your philosophy, your relationships.
