I've been in online sex worker communities about five years now and something keeps bothering me, which is the way the political debate on decriminalisation gets dominated by everyone except us.
There's a model that gets pushed a lot, the Nordic model some call it, where the client is criminalised but the worker isn't. Sounds like a compromise. Sounds like it protects workers. In practice a lot of workers say it makes things more dangerous, not less, because you can't screen properly, you can't work with others for safety, you move faster and take more risks because clients are scared of being caught.
I'm not asking anyone to take my word for it. I'm asking people to look at the research, actual research from actual workers, and weigh that against what's being claimed by people who've never done this job. Some of the loudest voices in the decrim debate have very strong feelings about my life and zero experience of living it. That's frustrating.
For what it's worth I think full decriminalisation is the right answer. New Zealand did it over twenty years ago. The evidence from there is broadly positive. Workers who want to leave can access services more easily, there are legal protections, health checks happen, and it didn't produce the explosion of trafficking that opponents predicted.
I didn't start out with political opinions about any of this. When I started I just wanted to pay my rent. But eight years in, having talked to a lot of other women, having seen what happens to people who get into trouble without legal protections, aye, I've got opinions now. Pure cannot help it.
What I'd like, practically, is for the conversations happening in Holyrood about this to include women who actually do the work. Not just academics who study us, not just ex-workers with one particular story to tell, but current workers with a range of experiences. We exist. We have phones. We're not hard to find.
Right. That's the politics done. Something lighter next time, I promise.