“Prostitution is nothing but the microcosm of a society where exploitation is a general rule. It is a symbol of the contempt men have for women.” Sankara.

the sex trade is male violence. virtually all sex buyers are male. they often become violent and request violent acts. they are not paying for an expert service in most cases, just to have an economically vulnerable woman (especially of the global south, refugees, and trans women) at what they perceive as their mercy. many sex buyers have incest, necrophilia or rape fetishes. many want to outright torture women.

and even the ones who ask for fairly standard sexual encounters, the power difference is usually a very real turn on. men who can easily find women to hook up with fully uncoerced go to brothels in germany (cough, hasan) for the thrill of exotic eastern european women. i wish i had never read those quotes from berlin sex buyers.

and yes, men can be sex workers too. they are almost exclusively marginalized gay men, then trans men, then some tiny amount of cisgender heterosexual men. women are sexual beings but don’t drive the sex trade. that speaks volumes.

porn is also very bad. you don’t know what you’re watching in many cases, it fetishizes the marginalized, it fetishizes violence. porn is the teen boy brainrot they said video games were. 1/3 women in the UK report being unconsensually slapped, choked, or gagged during otherwise consensual casual sex. it’s why many of my straight and bi friends have stopped hooking up with cishet men despite otherwise enjoying casual sex.

**decriminalization under capitalism so that police don’t interact with sex workers and they can screen their clients, who are extremely likely to harm them. under socialism, the creation of conditions where no one will find this necessary as a way to survive. perhaps some would still want to offer actual expert luxury services such as dominatrixes or arthouse porn or whatever. but that’s not what happens in brothels, on the streets, or on porn websites. **