Another point of observation, both among my predominantly white vanilla circle and purely among the politics regarding our profession, is that upper-class, civilian white women are among the most vocal who attack our trade – they are the ones who speak out on new regulation, who fund political organizations, who pushed for the formation of SESTA/FOSTA in the first place, and ultimately, proclaim a false sense of authority over the issue – when they, in fact, have none.
What I noticed is that they never do so out of a holistic basis of understanding or out of genuine empathy: they do this because they feel threatened. They do so out of base instinct, the perception that there is additional competition for limited resources. Above all else, they do this out of self-interest.
There are a number of reasons why there is resentment against us, but aside from male entitlement it comes down to:
- The perception that sex work is “easy”, as a form of unskilled, manual labor that does not require a formal education – and hence with the revenue it can produce, is a means of “cheating the system”. People do not perceive it as fair, and because they formulate their opinions on the basis of comparison, they opt to attack it because they perceive it as a loss of comparative resources. Rather than both profiting, people feel a sense of satisfaction from someone being beneath them, and because attacking this profession is an uncontroversial opinion, they do so.
- Acquisition of social status, in which women elevate their perceived value by degrading the value of another women – and hence, by attacking women in this industry on the false perception of morality, they hope to appeal to others. They do this in a multitude of ways, largely by proclaiming that they are more virtuous, that they would never do such inherently dirty labor, that placing such expectations is inherently wrong – all other methods of what we might call, being a “pick-me”.
- Appealing to outdated stereotypes, such as proclaiming that the women in this industry are uneducated, helpless, or unintelligent, which attempts to evoke pity, but is really an attempt to strip us of our agency on the basis of misunderstanding.
Wealthy white women especially, are the most threatened, because in this realm, neither their whiteness, their virtuous femininity, nor their wealth, are valued here. White women dictate the social norms for female beauty, but in this industry, women of color can be just as successful, if not more successful, than white women. Remember, white men have never had any qualms about engaging with women of color, they’ve simply had issues marrying them – except now, in this world, we can benefit from their engagement, instead of holding it solely as a burden. They also perceive it as competition from men that they feel entitled to – wealthy, successful white men. When they compete with women like us, who place a ruthless focus on self-improvement, beauty, and sexuality, they know that they will likely be outdone. Since they cannot compete with us on the basis of appeal, they do so by attempting to proclaim morality, when in reality, it is a desperate attempt to continue to reap the benefits that their whiteness and their socioeconomic class have given them.
