Please do some research on the subject Sam. 98% of trafficking victims in the United States do not work in the sex industry.

I have done some research on the subject – a couple of hours Googling, which isn’t a vast amount, but still more than 98% of drive-by commenters. I haven’t been able to find any figures worth a damn. That said, the sex industry does seem to be the destination of a significant proportion of trafficking victims in the US. See this article for example:

Government officials define trafficking as holding someone in a workplace through force, fraud or coercion. Trafficking generally takes two forms: sex or labor. The victims in most prosecutions in the Washington area have been people forced into prostitution….

I would be the last person to discount the possibility that victims of non-sexual trafficking are under-acknowledged. But the claim that they amount to 98% of all trafficking victims would seem to be implausible.

delphyne:

Sam, the 2% figure could be 2% of all trafficked people into the US, including for example, migrants who pay someone to help them across the Mexican border and who are then free of their traffickers when they get to the other side

People smuggling is not the same as trafficking..

Right, and that’s exactly why–contrary to your claims–radical feminists do give a shit about not only sex trafficking, but also capitalist exploitation, racism, and imperialism. It is you, not the radical feminists, who keep saying “at least x is not as bad as y.” How does that pass for progressive thought, anyway?

Sam, with regard to what Bob Herbert, as a progressive, should have said about prostitution? I think that what some people here are saying is that he should have acknowledged that, while most women are exploited by prostitution, some women aren’t. Now, this would apply only in the case of prostitution, mind you. If he were writing about the US military, he wouldn’t be expected to throw in “some people like it.”

So I think Bob Herbert, unlike other progressives is being consistent. What is the position of progressives, radicals, etc? You stand with those who are most marginalized. Say a corporation locates their headquarters in a rich, white community, and dumps toxic waste in a poor, Black community. Do we side with the people being poisoned and dumped on? Or do we need need to make sure to be “balanced,” to listen to those rich, white people, with greater access to the media, who say,”I work for that company and they treat me just fine”?

With regard to prostitution:

“Different actors in the sex industry do not have the same interests, and it would be irresponsible and inaccurate to group them together having one homogenous voice. Those with more power – the pimps and madams, the customers, and those in ‘upper-tier prostitution’ – have always advocated strongly, and for the most part effectively, for their own interests. Their interests, however, are diametrically opposed to the interests of those with the least power – the majority of prostituted and trafficked women and children. The former population uses their elite and empowered positions to collect the vast profits from within the sex industry or to maintain their access to buying women and children at will. The latter population comes almost invariably from marginalized populations . . . The position of the left must be standing unwaveringly with those who are most marginalized.” (From The Polaris Project Testimony on Germany’s World Cup Brothels)

Lemme see, I’ll call up that woman run union that I’ve been ignoring and have them give me a hand. Or possibly, I’ll just quit, live under the bridge and beg for food while attending university to attain my master’s in women’s studies.

I can then offer to educate on feminism for quarters. In the meantime real woman who are holding up the capitalist system I am attempting to scum from, are dying, but hell, what matters? At least I know my feminist history. Give me a fucking break.

Its almost funny if not just tragically stupid.

Yeah, I am privileged compared to many sex workers. Yet in even blogging, I take a risk. I am not a “former sex worker”. I am in the here and now. Ranting up a storm, and well aware of the fact that anything and everything I’ve said could and would be used against me in a court of law.

I make rough porn and like rough sex…if I got raped, even BEAT TO SHIT, what chance would I have? I sell it? What chance would I have?

None. None at all. Hell, I’ve been outed to my family and blackmailed.

MAYBE THAT is a big reason a lot of sex workers do not blog.

just something to consider.

But really, saying something is wrong and ill-informed and then being pissed off because you are corrected is incredibly childish. You stated pretty clearly that labor organizing struggles were something women were not a part of and so are irrelevant to feminist discussion.

First off, your apology means nothing when you take it back a few sentences down, so I would have accepted, but oh, I guess its off the table.

If you had read the point I was attempting to make, which you have NOT addressed yet in your two replies, was that certain work, mostly work that has traditionally afforded a decent living without requiring years of education is still considered in the realm of men’s work.

Secondly, I was not ‘backed in a corner’, I was highly offended. Apparently your arrogance seems to give you the impression that you are still correct in how you read my comment. Instead of discussing the core issue I brought up and expanded on, you have chosen to nit pik me about whether or not I am familiar with women in unions. I never brought up traditionally woman’s unions, because as far as I know, women have not formed unions to protect themselves in any trades not traditionally associated with women’s work. And might I also add that my primary focus is the last fifty years.

I imagine that the only reason you cannot directly discuss what I’ve brought up in my comments; the core theme of what I am trying to say, is that you have either decided on your own to troll me about something as silly as whether I know all woman labor leaders from a hundred years hence or not. So tell me, how does that tie in with the broader point I made?

Can you please name me a woman organized and lead union that organizes women around work traditionally considered of the male domain? I named a few examples of trades that have always been easy ways for men, especially men in marginalized groups, to earn a decent income to support their families in middle class decency. Can you name electrical, carpenters, laborers and the other myriad examples I through out there that are still male dominated but have offshoots of organization for women?

No you can’t, because there are not enough women entering those fields to form their own union.

Which was a part of the point I made which I don’t think I need to restate here. I you didn’t get my point, or was hung up on something other than my failure to give a random Feminist History Knowledge Show here, then fire away.

My assumption was that you were ignorant of women’s involvement in the labor movement and the way women’s centrality to labor has been ignored and censured in the popular imagination. My intention was not to be patronizing but to correct that because damn if women’s role in workers’ rights struggles haven’t been downplayed enough that’s it’s depressing as hell to hear them downplayed in feminist space.

And you know what, that’s part of my point and a very large part of why I come onto blogs. I am really fed up with so many activists whining about how:

1> They can’t understand why so many people don’t see their point of view.
2> They are activists only out of an interest for self aggrandizement, often by performing, on a micro-scale, the same type of power play that poor and marginalized people must dodge from everywhere everyhow everyday.
3> They blame their lack of action and their own unwillingness to step outside their own privilege to truly know and understand the ‘other’ — usually the ‘other’ they attempt to save by pulling them into a capitalist model.

Evidently that’s not what you were saying or where you were coming from so…I’m kind of drawing a blank here.
Are you saying that women dominated labor groups somehow don’t count in your statements about the labor movement? Why?

Ok, even though I said I wouldn’t repeat myself, I will attempt to clarify.

Women have not made substantial inroads into sectors of the working world where women have traditionally not been accepted. Possibly it is because today the union model does not work well anymore — although I’d certainly say that male dominated unions seem to be humming along quite well for the most part.

Are women able to enter into non-female dominated work and still be safe from harrassment? No. Can a women enter into non-female dominated work and except to get a promotion like a man can? No, not expect it. Can a woman choose professions still dominated by men, such as fireman or CEO’s? No. Is the criticism and mistrust of H. Clinton reflective of how most women who enter non-traditional completely gone?

What part of that point did you miss?

Are you saying that labor organizing is irrelevent for women because of sexism? Are you saying that labor organizing is irrelevent for sex workers because sex work isn’t really work? (I’m not grasping at straws here, this is actually a really common feminist argument)
I got nothing.

You know, I don’t think my points were really that difficult to understand in anyway, in fact I really didn’t think what I said was any trouble for anyone to understand, but in consideration of your blank mind, I’ll have a go at assisting you in understanding mine.

Labor organizing has been dominated by men. That doesn’t mean there were or are no women doing labor organizing. That doesn’t mean that women’s labor organizing doesn’t count, at least I’m not saying that. The fact that the rest of society says is my fault how? And by the way, how in fuck’s name did you divine that I said that sex workers organizing is a irrelevant? My god, the first time I mentioned sex workers organizing I said I was all for it. Last I knew that type of language means supportive.

Why in the hell would I not be supportive of women sex workers organizing? The hell I wouldn’t! Or any women for that matter. My point is that until women are able to reach access in all areas controlled and dominated by men wherein women can choose whatever career they wish, then nothing will change. The rights of the laborer and the rights of the sex worker, when both are basically the same are they not? Both players in these roles are people are they not?

My point was that traditional woman’s work falls into two categories; low paying or no paying and thus that work is less rewarding economically and affords little rights of redress in case of wrongdoing on another’s part toward these persons.

Traditionally women are not accepted into the role of self supporting earner as their independence would/will upset the current power structure. Not much has changed in the last hundred years, not as much as I would have liked to thought would. Are you going to call bullshit on that as well?

That there are no women anywhere fighting the ways that sexism and economic oppression interesect?

I don’t know, I’m not attending a fucking quiz show here. If you know the answer tell me and others like me so then you make a whole lot of smarter people wouldn’t you and wouldn’t that be helping the movement people like always bleat about wishing it were more broad? I didn’t say I knew did I? If I don’t see any down here on the filthy fucking ground what should that tell you? Why do I have to make this point over and over and over again? What is the matter with you people? What have you got to lose?

Are you saying that labor organizing is irrelevent for sex workers because sex work isn’t really work? (I’m not grasping at straws here, this is actually a really common feminist argument)
I got nothing.

Now you are really drawing, really digging deep, but more into your own mind and arguments possibly with others? I never made such comments, NEVER. Do not revise my comments. You got nothing because there is nothing there in my statements relative to ever saying sex work is not work. Believe me, that’s absolutely not a comment I’d ever state or write, ever as I do not ascribe to that. At. All.

Geeze Marie, what next? Grasping at straws? No, you’re fricking chiseling them out of the stick you picked out of your ass.

That’s why you got nothing.

But really, saying something is wrong and ill-informed and then being pissed off because you are corrected is incredibly childish

I never said anything wrong or uninformed. What I have said you have failed demonstrably to address or even recognize as a part of my comment. If you had trouble understanding me, then ask for clarification, but to bully all the rest of your issues with other people is uncalled for and again, you need to back off.

I am not childish and I’d thank you also to withdraw your condescension, which I do not deserve. My views are valid as I can tell just by your comments, that you haven’t a fucking clue what life is like for a working class woman of any stripe. You have a serious issue with my point and instead of addressing that, you assailed me on a target point you figure will make me look small and insignificant, will point up your privilege against my presumed lack thereof.

Uncalled for really by people (I say again) who profess with such vain sincerity to really have the interests of all women at heart.

If it’s classist oppression to correct a factually false statement then….I don’t know…call me classist.

No, its classist to use every opportunity you have to use the symbolism of institutional classism of which higher education is one marker. Another marker beyond that is being well schooled in such instruction that does not afford one an improved economic condition.

People don’t learn to be welders because everyone among the elite is so awed at how they can run a good bead down a piece of flat stock. No. But that welder can get a good paying job with which he can buy a house, possibly the first in his family, or possibly just a little better than his parents’ (or so it once went).

People who have the money and resources study feminist studies and art history, advanced drawing, nineteenth century literature, etc. ad infinetem, because it looks good socially; it conforms to a social ideal of higher learning, it puts one above the throng or gives at least the illusion that one is above them does it not?

If you gave a damn about teaching people and improving the movement, you’d teach and guide and let me run at that, to add to it or whatnot. Instead you use what you perceive to be my ignorance and turn it against me. Then I am honest and out your bad tactics and you scorn and mock. What gives?

Again, people like you use these behaviors as means to dismiss the working class and the many among them who to you simply exist as a convenient means to boost your own shaking standing with yourself and others.

Young feminist women are having a very hard time identifying with second wave feminism and I’m not lost as to why. Poor and marginalized women are having a hard time as well, harder than I imagine you’ll ever know.

In fact, my day starts early, so I’m done here.

I’m really glad I missed this thread earlier.

By all means these discussions are tough, and they do get people riled. But to answer some stuff. Yes, I like my job. Like anyone, however, I have crap days. Like most people, I have had times when money has been damn tight and I’ve done things I’d rather not do because the money was good. I think that is true of a lot of people, in a lot of professions. I also know a lot of people, especially in prostitution, who have to do that, often, and do not like it at all. Those are the people I’m interested in helping. As for me bringing up working then helping other sex workers, I did so because so many people (not meaning you, but people in general) think that sex workers who have some privilege never talk about, have concern for, or try to help those who do not, and that simply isn’t true. I realize I am lucky wrt to my business, I most certainly realize that. I also have no idea what other people may or may not have been through, in regards to sex work or past abuse…but you know, the reverse is also true. I am not going to deny the truth of your experiences or the pain and thoughts they’ve cause in you, but I appreciate the same consideration. What I hate the most about my job? It’s all the other assumptions people have about me and anyone else who does it, especially those who claim not to hate it. It’s a dance I’ve done one too many times, and my feet are tired, you know?

As for my blog…well…as childish as this might sound…it’s my blog? It’s not “Feministe”, or one of the other big feminist blogs? Hell, it’s not even a feminist blog. I write about feminism there sometimes, but I also write about other things of interest to me, from football to history to sex work…and yep, my job, my feelings, and what’s going on with any and all of that. And well, that’s what I do, and no, you are not the only person quite horrified by it, but I do have my reasons, and I do it by choice. And all too often, that overshadows anything else I might ever say about anything, including disucssions on how to help sex workers, and yeah, it makes me angry. And it makes other people who have seen this same dance play itself out over and over again angry too. No one has to like what I do, but that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally have something of merit or note to say, you know?

But yep, this is a hot button issue, and I can understand how it makes people emotional and angry, people on both sides. I’d be happy to discuss further with you if you want, or not if you don’t want, that’s up to you, but I certainly understand how it can make people angry and emotional.