Honestly Ana, I was having this discussion with some other sex worker activists last night (I'm the only one that's out to everyone in my life) and I think that what you're saying is pretty unhelpful. We can't force most sex workers to become activists, they either will or won't partake in Twitter fights in their own time. This stuff takes so much out of you, it is excruciatingly difficult, and once you get into it on a really active level, the attacks and threats start, people link you with your work account, the media can even get involved (this is even if you've stayed secretive about your true identity, unlike me).
I'm currently in the process of convincing my student's union to support decrim and go against any university decision to kick out a sex worker - even with a student population who tend to be very liberal people, I am facing so much bullshit and hatred, it is immensely difficult and I don't blame anybody who just wants to do this job for a couple of years/months, stay quiet about it, and then never raise the issue again. Remaining quiet is understandable when you consider what is at stake.
Me personally, I just couldn't do it - I'm already politically active and it felt wrong not to shout about my work, I've now been elected onto several committees in part due to the fact that I am in most cases the only out sex worker in the organisation, so it has helped a bit, but I know that soon I will have to reign it in if I want a proper chance at a career. You may think that because you're not being explicit about your involvement that nobody can take you down for it - they absolutely can. Some people just aren't willing to risk that, and I do not and will never blame them.
P.S: Despite the fact that this kind of activism takes up probably 60% of my total life right now, I have never bothered to engage in a Twitter argument - I promise you, you are convincing a total number of 0 people. Twitter is a fucking shit medium for expressing views properly considering the character limit, though it's good for one-liners on political issues, and anybody that has made an effort to tweet so harshly on this topic has firmly made their mind up. For me, the most effective thing ever is sitting people down individually, telling them I'm a sex worker, asking what they think and then shooting their ideas about how to regulate/criminalise sex work one by one. On a wider level, it's giving workshops to whole rooms of people about decrim (can be extremely overwhelming and outright heartbreaking if the room consists of anti-sw feminists though, but you still might convince people that way when you're forcing them to listen to you for a solid half hour or hour). Twitter fights just don't seem worth it when nobody even cares what you say tbh, at least with more direct forms of activism you experience the same backlash but with greater reward.
Topic: The Women?s Equality Party would criminalise buying sex (Read 5438 times)