Make it Legal!

The term sex worker – why not just call it what it is – prostitution?

Why not?
1) sex work is work and should be recognized as such. Words, titles have meaning and resonance, don'cha know.
2) the term prostitute is laden with moral judgment and castigation.

Sex for pay is a profoundly complicated issue – it’s one I won’t fully dive into here beyond noting that:
A) not all sex workers are there out of dire economic desperation.
B) not all sex workers are drug addicts.
C) not all sex workers have sub-basement self-esteem, seeing this as their only option.
D) not all sex workers have johns to whom they're no more than slaves.

Also too, LEGALIZE IT...dammit! 

What percentage of sex workers fall into one or any of those categories? Given current research, it’s impossible to really, truly know. Check out Maggie McNeill’s column, Lies, damned lies and sex work statistics, in the Washington Post.

“…many of those who represent themselves as sex work researchers don’t even try to get good data. They simply present their opinions as fact, occasionally bolstered by pseudo-studies designed to produce pre-determined results. Well-known and easily-contacted sex workers are rarely consulted . There’s no peer review. And when sex workers are consulted at all, they’re recruited from jails and substance abuse programs, resulting in a sample skewed heavily toward the desperate, the disadvantaged and the marginalized.”

Here’s a snippet from an interview with “Bubbles,” a 52 year old sex worker in New Zealand (where selling sex was fully decriminalized in 2003).

"Because my work is legal, if anything goes wrong, the police have to help. Before the law changed I had a panic button and a cricket bat under my bed. I once broke a client’s finger because he tried to take his condom off mid-sex. Looking back, I shouldn’t have worked with him. We were at his house and the first room he took me to had bunk beds. I said, “I am not having sex in your children’s bedroom!” Then he took me to another room and it had Jesus Christ all over the walls — talk about warning bells! Now if a client takes his condom off I can go to the police and report it, and if I want to take it further and go to court, I’m most welcome. I can also call the cops if a client robs me. A couple of years ago, a woman took her parlor owner to court for sexual harassment — isn’t that awesome?"

Yes. Yes it is.

I want to meet Maggie and Bubbles – I think we’d get on molto grandly. These are folks living loud, proud and sagaciously outside of society’s approved mainstream and, boyhowdy on ice, I respect the hell outta that.

And, gosh, that gets me back to Stormy Daniels.

What she, Maggie and Bubbles have done for the Benjamins was and is not my choice BUT this has NOTHING to do with "morality." Nope, this has everything to do with me wanting to only do sexy tarantella time with people I’m genuinely erotically drawn to. Doing the deed with anyone else just squicks me clean out.

That’s me.

Stormy’s been mega successful at her chosen trade. Starting as a Louisiana “dancer,” going on to become a porn actress and now directing – clearly a canny, intelligent mind. This Rolling Stone feature on her is fab. Looks like she’s got, amongst myriad other assets, a wonderful sense of humor.

One very funny bit – her assistant Paige asked (presumably in relation to 45) "Who hasn't gone and fucked someone we regret?” Hah! Yeah…eyeroll – tell me about it.

On being legally threatened by Trump’s lawyer Daniels says:


"I was fine with saying nothing,” Daniels tells me when we catch up over the phone a few days later. “But I am not fine with being bullied into lying, or being bullied at all.

"Standing up to bullies is kind of my thing," she says, cheerfully. "They started it.”

I’m pretty damn sure I'd like this young woman a LOT. Yup.