Why Sex Work Should Be Destigmatized, Not Just Decriminalized
Kaytlin Bailey wants to decriminalize—and normalize—the world's oldest profession.
HD DownloadIt might be the oldest profession, but prostitution and other forms of sex work are also among the most prohibited and regulated around the world.
At the latest Reason Speakeasy—a monthly live event in New York City with outspoken defenders of free speech and heterodox thinking—Nick Gillespie talked with Kaytlin Bailey, the founder and executive director of Old Pros, a sex worker rights group and the writer and performer of Whore's Eye View, a one-woman show about 10,000 years of prostitution, female emancipation, and sexual freedom.
Bailey and Old Pros seek not just to decriminalize sex work but to destigmatize it too, arguing that sex workers have not only provided a much-in-demand service but helped to push the boundaries of freedom and liberty.
Produced by Nick Gillespie; edited by Adam Czarnecki and Justin Tuckerman; sound editing by Ian Keyser
Photo Credits: Fine Art Images / Heritage Images/Newscom; Jack Kurtz/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Daniel Bockwoldt/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom; Romy Arroyo Fernandez/ZUMA Press/Newscom; World History Archive/Newscom; Ingram Publishing/Newscom
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No, and this is where conservatives are right that libertarianism often becomes synonymous with libertinism.
Sex work should be stigmatized because it's immoral. It is so obviously wrong that you will (hopefully) never get normal people on board. Ask a father if he'd be happy with his daughter being a sex worker- every single honest father would say no. I would hate to live in a society where dads said "sure- I have no issue with my daughter having sex with random men for money".
If you want to make a pragmatic argument or even a liberty argument that sex work should be legalized, you may get some conservatives and moderates on board. But if you say we as a society should embrace sex work as something good that should have no social stigma, absolutely not.
Some desires deserve to be stigmatized- the desire of a man to pay for sex with a woman is one of those shameful desires.