After reading Gendergeek on prostitution, I have the need to explain why I think pro-decriminalization and feminism do go together despite what other feminists have to say about it.
For starters, I think sex work is no more inherently worse for women than any other form of labour. It seems to me that the idea that sex work is inherently detrimental extends from patriarchal thought. How else do we explain why sex is considered something women own and that we loose something (our honour?) whenever money exchanges hands prior to sexual relations?
From where I stand, the complaints about money, which party controls it and what conditions the sex worker works in are secondary in nature when it comes to why prostitution should remain illegal. We do not do this with any other industry – only the sex industry. No one clamours about how people are inherently exploited in food services and the food service industry must be criminalized for example.
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