Working with Student Sex Workers

I can’t wait to see the roundtable I participated in on being a sex worker and going into counseling or social as a profession, but in the meantime, Tits and Sass published this lovely interview with two social workers who work with sex workers: Discussing Other People’s Lives: Social Work & Student Sex Workers

Quotes of note:

 Programs like Project Rose send the message that you can only be a social worker if you are a) not a sex worker and b) see sex workers as people that need to be rescued.”

In social work right now and in dominant white feminism, we need to be really critical about how we think and talk about this issues, and how our ethnocentrism impacts how we think people “should” live their lives. I am deeply troubled with the way that we are discussing other peoples’ lives over and over again in these conversations.”

A really dangerous liaison is happening between evangelical trafficking organization and “radical feminists” and social work organizations. There is a history of this, it’s not new. It’s my opinion that in social work there isn’t a critical eye being turned to this work because we are so deeply uncomfortable with sex work and social workers are so deeply invested in their identities as “helpers” and “saviors.” Annie and I present to lots of different audiences and recently I heard some feedback that there was the impression we were “encouraging” students to enter the sex industry, simply because we did not “condemn” the existence of the trades. Moving away from theoretical conversations about “empowerment” and victim/agent dichotomies makes people deeply uncomfortable because you aren’t making an assessment about if you think the sex trades are “right” or “wrong”.”

PS: This interview makes me so much more excited about my potential MSW program since these women work at the school I applied to :)

4 thoughts on “Working with Student Sex Workers

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