Is it possible to be a sex industry worker and have good mental health?

I do a lot of work with sex workers both as colleagues and as fellow community friends. The notion that all sex workers are doing sex work because they’re ‘not right in the head’ is factually wrong and hurtful. There are economic and social factors that lead people into sex work which have nothing to do with trauma. Some sex workers like all people have experienced trauma and might feel like they’re not good enough to do something other than sex work but that doesn’t mean sex work is inherently problematic or below other jobs, in any way. Opinions vary and plenty of people consider it to be a perfectly normal job. I know I do. My organization just co-sponsored the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers vigil here in NYC and that room was filled with hundreds of people (some sex workers, some not) and they were from every walk of life, every race, every age group and when they presented their open mic pieces, you couldn’t have been more inspired by their wisdom and intelligence and you would never in a million years think ‘oh clearly they’re mentally disabled’. Not that there is anything wrong with that, either. Or with having experienced trauma in the past, for that matter. And p.s.: for some, sex work is ‘basic survival skills’.

that may have been the case back in the day but with the changing tide of culture + its phallocentric proclivities, i think that society or institutional power holds more sway than parents or other individual authority. that’s not diminish the role that parenting + child-rearing play in the development of children which is quite critical. being that society is as it is with the promulgation of sex on the screen, advertising + other media outlets, individuals can’t escape the bombardment of the sex factor. so whether there is a negative or positive catalyst may depend largely upon social mores + the state of capital.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Thanks. I live in a small town and don’t know any sex workers. Outside of pornography you only see two depictions of sex workers: either the abuse victim, or the hooker with a heart of gold. You never see a sex worker depicted as a confident, well adjusted, 3 dimensional person.

@stump I’m sure there must be some kind of a sex worker support group/organization in the area that you can look into if you want to get to know real sex workers as real people.

Would the sex industry just dry up? No.

There will always be a supply of abused or traumatized individuals or those who think they have no other option to go into sex work

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I’ll take your word for it. I just want to allieviate my guilt for spending money on pornography. If you say the sex industry is no more abusive to its workers than any industry, I will believe you.

@stump Those are two completely separate questions. I am speaking to the fact that a sex worker isn’t someone who inevitably experienced trauma in order to be a sex worker. Whether sex work as an industry is a healthy field to be in (given its potential for abuse and people not giving a shit if a sex worker is in trouble) is a completely different issue. Pornography, to add to the mix, is a highly contested area because in many ways it disproportionately affects young women and poor people. You have to look at the bigger picture here with what drives sex work and who ends up doing it and why. There is no easy way to alleviate your guilt unless you know you’re spending in on local porn companies and that their actors aren’t coerced or treated poorly. It’s very hard to find porn like that out there.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Darn. I thought I was in the clear. Back to feeling guilty.

@stump Well, you should care more about all of this than just your own guilt, you know? This is a big dirty game. Thankfully, many sex workers have figured out how to safely do their work and enjoy it without horrid consequences.

Here is what your money is supporting @stump:

“Between 66–90% of women in the sex industry were sexually abused as children.”

“Compared to the general population, women in the sex industry experience higher rates of:
Substance Abuse Issues, Rape and Violent Assault, Sexually Transmitted Diseases,
Domestic Violence, Depression & Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”

“There are 10 million Children in the Sex Industry right now.
• Every minute 2 children are forced into the sex industry.”

“One study of violence against women engaged in street prostitution found that 82%
reported being physically assaulted in prostitution, and 68% reported having been raped
(Farley & Kelly, 2000).”

A study of exotic dancers found that 100% had been physically assaulted in the clubs
where they were employed, with a prevalence ranging from 3–15 times over the course of their involvement in exotic dancing. Violence included physical assault, attempted vaginal penetration, attempted rape,and rape (Holsopple, 1999).”

“In another study, 51.2% of women working as exotic dancers were threatened with a
weapon (Raphael & Shapiro, 2004).”

Source

@marinelife It is disheartening, isn’t it? However, I do think that sex workers experiencing all of this misfortune doesn’t equal sex work being inherently wrong.

Many similar statistics are used to say there’s something wrong with being queer. In neither case do they equate causation.

I can’t be sure, but if we lived in a more pro-sex society, I bet that you wouldn’t see any real statistical difference between the sex workers and non-sex workers, queer and non-queer in any of the above situations. The damage comes from people telling you that you should be ashamed, and people taking advantage of that to make sex workers and queers feel more powerless.

@marinelife As tragic as those figures are, they don’t make the case regarding sex workers.

Did you stop buying factory produced products because the majority of the world’s factories have despicable, mind numbing conditions? I doubt it. Might you seek to improve the lot of factory workers? I hope so.

I agree there is a link between sexual abuse and choosing a job in the sex industry. But the fact that women were abused as children will not be erased by preventing their entry into the industry. It seems pretty obvious that girls who have been through this may well say, “It can’t be any worse.” Or at least, “I’m not giving up something they haven’t already taken.” The problem is the abuse; not the work.

And yes, women who are addicted to drugs often turn to streetwalking as a last resort. It’s awful, it’s tragic. But the desperation comes out of the addiction in that case. Prostitution is not a choice they made because they were attracted to the glamor. It was because they felt it was the least awful alternative presented. If you remove that choice, are you going to give them another BETTER choice? Or excuse your reducing their options on the basis of moral outrage you have on their behalf?

Bravo to @6rant6 for this statement:

If you remove that choice, are you going to give them another BETTER choice?

This is perhaps the question we should ask ourselves when our government makes something, particularly something that involves a moral or healthy choice, illegal. Have we offered a better choice? Do they have another choice? If not, we’re just making more criminals for no reason.

I work next door to a brothel. (I have a legitimate job in a seedy area).

The women who work there drive nice cars and wear designer clothing. My heart doesn’t bleed for them. I work a legitimate job, can’t afford a car and wear thrift store clothing.

Of course, sometimes I will also observe their clientele. Most of them are over 50, fat, greasy, disgusting wastes of humanity. The ones that aren’t like that are little shithead gangbangers.

So if I feel any sympathy for them, it’s the bottom of the barrel, stinky, pathetic, disgusting, men who use there services. I can’t imagine one could enjoy pristine mental health when you have to deal sexually with people like that.

But as I said this is a seedy part of town. There are homeless people sleeping in doorways in the winter. There are people who work legitimate jobs and still can’t make ends meet. So my heart does not bleed for a prostitute who works in a warm building, wears designer clothes, and drives a nice car.

They may not have good mental health. However I’ll save my concern for people who really deserve it.

They may not have good mental health. However I’ll save my concern for people who really deserve it.

And that’s why it’s difficult to have good mental health and be a sex worker. Judgmental bullcrap like this.

Check where you are before you start claiming that certain people are at the bottom of the barrel. You may actually be looking up and think you’re looking down, just because you’re too upside-down to see what’s really going on.

Did you even read my response before you fired up your righteous indignation? Look again sweetheart – I described the CLIENTS as bottom of the barrel. I guess you have a lot of sympathy for gross 60 year old men who pay money to fuck women the age of their granddaughters. I don’t.

I work in part of town where homeless people sleep in doorways and people with legitimate jobs such as myself ride the bus to work. Why the fuck would I feel sorry for someone who can afford designer clothes and a car?

You want some judgmental bullshit, read your own post.

@syzygy2600

The entire thread was about the problems with mental health that people in the sex industry face. It’s because people have no sympathy for them. It’s because people think they’re in “legitimate” industries. It’s because people have some idea that there’s something wrong with sex, and therefore people who pay to have it are in some way disgusting.

Everyone has a fantasy. I find that there is often more demeaning and dehumanizing behavior in “legitimate” industries – but since people think it’s okay, they don’t have the long-term judgment from the outside world because they did “demean” themselves in that manner – never feeling like they can leave their jobs…being talked down to by the boss…having to be bitched at about a five minute wait for a two-dollar shirt.

My post was totally full of judgment. But it was aimed at you and the fact you felt entitled to judge a group of people as the bottom of the barrel. That’s where we differ. I call you out for judging a group of people for doing something that you don’t like. I say that’s bullcrap. But I’m only judging you, remember. And saying you’re part of the problem.

I stand by that.

1) I never said there is anything inherently wrong with paying for sex. Yes, I think a stinking, fat 60 year old paying money to fuck a woman in her early 20’s is fucking disgusting, and I stand by that.

2) People who work in legitimate industries and can barely afford to live and homeless people, are at a bigger disadvantage than a prostitute who works in a warm building and can afford designer clothes and a fucking Mercedes.

3) Maybe the reason why people don’t have sympathy for them is because they see people every day who are FAR worse off and nobody gives a fuck? Just a thought.

@syzygy2600

There’s always someone who’s worse off, period. So when we’re talking about sex work generally, you attempting to single out the successful ones and say why there are “more important things to worry about” is exactly the problem.

There are people who work in the sex industry who, generally, are way way worse off than anyone in the “legitimate” industry. There are many in the sex industry who are also homeless. When you start talking about those who are best off in any one group, you distract from the issue at hand.

Just a thought.

Yes. I believe the decriminalization of comfort providers would solve many of the anti-social issues that are prevalent today.

@syzygy2600 I don’t get why you don’t see that your problem is jealousy and bitching about others having a mercedes as you perceive your own station in life to be somehow worse (talk about materialism) isn’t limited to sex workers. In this question, we’re not discussing whether you need to show concern to sex workers (and given your comments, please don’t), it’s about people’s mental health. I understand you’re dissing the johns more than the sex workers but, overall, you’re sounding embittered and holier than thou which, oh my gosh, you are not.

I remember my friend and I talking to a young woman on the bus: early 20s, very attractive, very intelligent. We were discussing university and student life in general. She said she was attending Warwick university (a very prestiguous school) and the conversation gradually developed to talking about work to which she mentioned she was a prostitute.

Now, I have no issue with people’s work, from drug lords to (worse) lawyers, I’m generally fine with most peoples occupations initially. But for her to have stated this with such confidence and finesse. We were taken aback. But we got to discussing the whole matter and she mentioned that she had people who took care of her and just considered it to be like any other job. It was quite insightful. I then bought a pack of dorittos. It was a good day.

@Nially_Bob

Lawyers are great. Much like most jobs, it’s the people who do the job that may make it problematic.

And especially in the service industry, it’s more often the clients that are the issue.

@iamthemob Hahaha, I know lawyers aren’t evil by definition. That was just a little jab at the stereotype. And I understand what you mean, I just always felt it was an odd but insightful story.

@Nially_Bob – as I am a lawyer, though, you understand that I’m compelled to defend the many truly caring people in the profession. ;-)

I would think, in order to get into this field (pornography) one has to have extreme confidence, and a large pair of cajones (figuratively speaking of course). To put yourself out there for anyone to see, and never being able to erase or take it back, honestly I don’t know how they do it. I guess it takes certain qualities (exhibitionist maybe?) to have the desire to enter this field. Is it wrong, no—but all the same I wouldn’t want my kids growing up to do that. That said, mental health (with the exception of serious diagnosible disorders like schizophrenia) is dependent on what is considered acceptable behavior in society, so if you go to California, people might look at YOU as being mentally unhealthy for making such assumptions. Elsewhere might be a totally different story. Of course, if you were brought up a certain way you might be more inclined to view certain behavior as ‘crazy.’ But to that person it can be totally normal or at least acceptable.

@iamthemob A lawyer on a debate site? Who woulda thought :P

And a lawyer who hates debate…that’s an actual rarity.