Anyone who has read at all deeply on this website knows that I am a strong supporter of sex worker rights and women’s rights.
As of Wednesday 6th of November 2024 the USA is facing another four years with Donald Trump and the right-wing of USA politics in charge of the country. And it is not going to be a good time for sex workers – or our clients.
Newsweek.com published an article on Nov 6th, 2024 with the following quote about “Project 2025”:
“Project 2025 makes it clear that they will be coming after porn under a First Amendment suit.
The introduction to the manifesto reads: “Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection.”
https://www.newsweek.com/project-2025-porn-ban-trump-presidency-1981587
While this comment from the Project 2025 manifesto only mentions “pornography” we can be sure that these people won’t differentiate between “porn stars” and any other kind of sex work. They hate it all and will suppress and prosecute it all equally when they have the power to do so.
So firstly – to all of my USA sex working peers: please stay safe. I really hope that things don’t get as bad as they look like they could.
Secondly – this is a moment for sober reflection. Here in Australia we have the best, most rational, and permissive sex work laws in the world. We have them because for decades people faught for them. And there is the justifiable belief that once we have a right it won’t be taken away. But the USA has clearly demonstrated how that assumption is fundamentally incorrect.
Our rights are only safe for the current election cycle – and make no mistake, there are plenty of people and politicians in Australia who would leap at the chance to criminalise sex work once again and take us back to the bad old days where police brutalised sex workers and controlled politicians who used sex work services.
All it takes is moral panic and populist politics to tear down decades of incremental gains. Just look at the USA and their ending of Roe V wade. If it happened there, then it can happen here too. If you value your ability to read this blog – let alone actually make a booking to see me – then you need to support the rights of sex workers because minority rights are also your rights.
John