Celine Bisette: Sex workers unite

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[url]http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/08/05/celine-bisette-sex-workers-unite/[/url]

[QUOTE]Last month, Toronto sex worker Jessica Lee issued a statement on the Toronto Escort Review Board, a website for people who buy and sell sexual services in the Toronto area. In her posting, she urged her fellow sex workers to join her in a campaign to send letters to parliamentarians, informing them about the experiences of people who practice â??high end sex work.â? Her goal is to convince Parliament to reject Bill C-36, legislation that would, if passed, criminalize many aspects of the sex trade.

Lee christened her campaign the â??Happy Hookers of Canadaâ? and explained that her movement is necessary because it â??separates the experience of [those] choosing high end sex workâ? from â??those stuck in the survival sex trade.â? She argued that high end sex work is â??generally a free-will choiceâ? made by â??empowered womenâ? and contrasted it with survival sex work, which she claimed is entered into by people facing poverty, battling addictions or experiencing mental health problems.

As a sex worker of nine years and a fellow advocate of decriminalizing the sex trade in Canada, I was dismayed to learn of Leeâ??s attempt to divide sex workers into categories of either happy or unhappy. I was also disappointed to see her reinforce the myth that addiction and mental illness are problems faced primarily by so-called survival sex workers, and rarely by high end escorts. The reality is that people working in our industry have diverse experiences. Some enjoy doing sex work. Others do not. Some people are ambivalent.


It is also important to recognize that mental health issues affect sex workers across all tiers of the industry, just like they affect people in every segment of Canadian society. Addiction, too, is not restricted to street-based or survival sex workers; I know several â??high endâ? escorts who battle alcohol and drug addiction.

What troubles me most about Leeâ??s movement is the underlying implication that the perspectives of happy sex workers should be highlighted in the campaign opposing Bill C-36. No sex workerâ??s experience is more important than any otherâ??s, and happiness in oneâ??s chosen career is irrelevant to oneâ??s right to safety and security.

To the best of my knowledge, no other labour rights movement leverages worker happiness in the struggle to secure safe working conditions. The reason so many people are opposed to Bill C-36 is not because it interferes with anyoneâ??s freedom to choose a career that makes them happy, but because it violates sex workersâ?? Charter-guaranteed right to safety and security.

Jean McDonald, the executive director of the Toronto sex worker support organization Maggieâ??s, shares my perspective. On July 16, she issued a response to Leeâ??s campaign launch to announce that Maggieâ??s does not support the approach of the Happy Hookers of Canada. McDonald argued that the campaign will cause more harm than good, and urged Lee to take down her collectiveâ??s website.

It shouldnâ??t matter whether a sex worker is happy, sad, a drug user, sober, supporting children, paying for university or paying down debt. All our stories matter
McDonald explained that she views the initiative as â??divisive and dismissive,â? because it does not acknowledge the harms that criminalization causes to all sex workers, regardless of whether they are happy or not. She encouraged Lee to adopt a more inclusive strategy and abandon stereotypes that reinforce the stigma already faced by sex workers.

Unfortunately, Lee is as yet unmoved by critics of her approach. She recently complained that people who are speaking out against the Happy Hooker campaign are trying to silence her story of being happily employed in the sex industry.

What Lee fails to understand is that critiquing her political strategy is not an attempt to prevent her from sharing her personal experiences. Rather, it is an attempt to strengthen the sex worker rights movement by encouraging everyone involved to question their tactics and ensure that they are including the perspectives of everyone who will be affected by Canadaâ??s new prostitution laws.

It shouldnâ??t matter whether a sex worker is happy, sad, a drug user, sober, supporting children, paying for university or paying down debt. All our stories matter and we all have a right to stay safe. There is no need to highlight the experiences of â??happy hookersâ? in a fight against Bill C-36, because happiness is not the most important factor in this debate â?? safety is.

Criminalizing the sex industry will have negative consequences for all sex workers, and we should stand in solidarity with each other, not distance ourselves from those among us who do not measure up to some arbitrary standard of what a respectable, deserving sex worker looks like.[/QUOTE]