Belgium is working towards new laws regarding sex work, making the workers eligeble for pensions, healthcare plans, contracts and overall more legal status. This was done in corporation with sex workers, orgs surrounding sex work and my place of work, the Union.

Now, I worked with former sex workers and human trafficking victims myself and I am aware of their struggles. I am not going to outright deny their right to fight for improvement.

What bugs me is the normalization of an industry that is heavily, and I mean very heavily, infested with human rights abuses. For every one empowered sexworker there are a thousand human trafficking victims. Giving them a pension is not helping in the slightest.

And then there is the whole thing of tying things like unemployment benefits to you wanting to look for work. Here in Belgium your benefits can be cut as soon as you refuse a job that is offered to you through government instances. What if we further legitimize sex work and you refuse a sex worker position? There have been caes already of the instances offering unemployed actresses porn jobs, so why not offer them sex workers contracts? And why not cut their benefits of they refuse a fitting job? Right?

And everyone is so happy about it. As if the whole industry is one collective of happy people doing a fun job instead of the horror it is.

Sorry for ranting but fuck me what a mess

  • OpenDown@hexbear.netEnglish
    37·
    2 months ago

    I feel like this was the end goal of the liberal conception of “sex work”. Through the guise of humanizing sex workers they give legal recognition of rape as a “job” for the victim, legitimizing the industry and pimps (more akin to slave owners than your usual industrialist due to their relation to their victims based in direct violence) and allowing it to become a newly opened market for capitalism leading to increased human trafficking rates and sharpened patriarchal contradictions etc.

    Good thread on it by the Vice Chair of the Communist Party of Kenya (sorry for twitter link praying for a new twitter frontend)

    https://x.com/BookerBiro/status/1829881638937137390

    • FuckBigTech347@lemmygrad.ml
      38·
      2 months ago

      Here is the linked thread for people who don’t want to go to twitter:

      Booker Ngesa Omole ☭:

      There is no such a thing like sex work, period! Let’s address the misguided communists who claim “sex work” is legitimate labor. This notion betrays the fundamental principles of Marxism and aligns with capitalist exploitation rather than challenging it.

      In a patriarchal society, prostitution isn’t just about humiliation—it’s the highest form of exploitation, primarily affecting poor and working-class women.These women aren’t “workers” in the traditional sense; they’re victims of a system that commodifies their bodies.

      The relationship between those who purchase sex and those who sell it is not one of equality. It’s a relationship of oppression, where the powerful exert control over the powerless, perpetuating violence and exploitation.

      To suggest that prostitution is anything other than the grossest form of exploitation ignores the brutal realities these women face: physical and psychological violence, poverty, and a society that views them as disposable.

      Human beings should never be used as mere instruments for others’ ends. The commodification of women’s bodies contradicts the Marxist principle that people should not be treated as commodities.

      True communists must reject the capitalist narrative that seeks to legitimize prostitution under the guise of “sex work.” Our fight is for a society where exploitation is abolished and where women are free from the shackles of patriarchy.

      Anything less is a betrayal of our revolutionary ideals and a capitulation to the forces of reaction. We must stand firm against this dangerous rhetoric and fight for the liberation of all women from exploitation.

      imo. people (especially comrades) should really consider using the fediverse.

    • rainpizza@lemmygrad.ml
      27·
      2 months ago

      I completely agree here! I remember joining an org where an Ethiopian lady, who works for an org that saves victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, gave us a lecture about this. She said the following(I am paraphrasing):

      Sex work is not work. Let’s use an example of a job. When you grow old in the job, you gain experience and produce better value and services which in the end will be rewarded with more money. In other words, most workers earnings increase when they get more experienced. In sex “work”, it doesn’t happen that way. The time where you are paid the most will be when you start. In other words, the younger you are the better the pay. This contradicts fundamentally how most jobs and work goes. With this in mind, offering sex for money is not work but the most ruthless and inhumane exploitation.

      To this date, I still remember her words.

      • muzzle@lemm.ee
        44·
        2 months ago

        I agree with the sentiment, but by this definition any professional sport, or modelling, and most acting, is not work.

        I think there are other, better arguments to separate sex work from other forms of work.