✏️ I skimmed through the last 200 pages and probably skipped 2 articles. The reading was interesting and challenging. It was interesting as most of the information here was new, and challenging because it was difficult for me to ascertain my own opinion on the industry. While I agree on decriminalizing sex work, I still see sex work as an economic transaction derived from infringement on bodily rights. I read this collection of interviews between Chizuko Ueno and Suzumi Suzuki 2 years ago and formed the impression that although sex workers can declare all actions are born out of their own agency, “the personal is political”, and the statement can’t exempt that we’re all living in a system - namely, patriarchy.

The idea is also echoed by Lola Davina in this collection, in her essay “The Belly of the Beast”:

“p273 After all, I was profiting from a racist, misogynist, transphobic, fatphobic, ableist, ageist system perpetuating impossible standard of beauty - hard to call that life-affirming labor.

Racism and patriarchy define which bodies are full citizens and which are conditional, under threat from cradle to grave. Nowhere is this more blatant than in the sex industry, where the color of skin and the size and shape of body parts regulate marketability. Relentless dictates determine who "gets to" and who "has to"; who gets to screen clients and who has to service everyone who walks through the door. Who gets to charge thousands of dollars, and who has to take what they can get. Who gets to set limits, and who has to do as they're told. Lorde and other feminist and queer thinkers made it so I could no longer work with one eye open, the other closed, only half-awake.”


✍️ Back to the book, my biggest takeaways from skimming the essays are:
1. Intersectionality is pervasive.
2. A common thread is writers' criticism of law enforcement and incarceration.
3. And how the industry lacks labor law protection.