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Hey, everybody. I had a rough day today. One part was extra awful. I want to talk about it in this thread. It’s about why it matters how you regard, talk about and treat sex workers. (There’s some hard stuff in here from someone being fairly awful about women and sex, just FYI.)
A user came into our text line today saying he felt ashamed about being in his 20s & hasn't had sex with anyone else yet. I tried to help them offload that shame in a few ways, but they ultimately just felt the answer is for them to have sex. I disagree, but it’s not my decision.
They said they wanted not to "waste their 20s" and wanted to have sex with several women. I said a few things to counter some of the yuck in that, then also affirmed it was totally okay to want sex and sexual partners.
I asked them if they had sexual interest in anyone in particular. They didn’t. I said, then, that meeting people was the way any of this starts and talked about that a bit. This led to them telling me they didn’t want to deal with women at all aside from wanting sex with them.
They asked how they could manipulate women by “faking” care about or interest in them so they could “just get what I want.” I said the things you probably would imagine a good sex educator who works to help people have healthy relationships and interactions would say.
I shared a link to this fantastic piece we published by Thomas MacAulay Miller: Ethical Horniness, Or How To Find A Partner In An Enthusiastic Consent World https://www.scarleteen.com/article/relationships/ethical_horniness
But ultimately, they told me they weren’t interested in any of that. They didn’t want to have to care about people (they asked why they even had to care about other people after I had set a boundary with them and logged off for the day).
You may be unsurprised to know that in the context of all this, they told me they’d “been thinking about just paying for it.” The why is right there: he doesn’t want to have to care about people he has sex with. He thinks he does not have to care about people who are sex workers.
There are many reasons why sex workers suffer so much violence and other kinds of harm. But this — that at the crux of things, people, lots of them, believe that what sex workers provide is sex where you do not have to treat them like people — is at the heart of most of them. 
This is not at all the first time I've heard/seen something like this in the decades I have done this kind of work (or when I was doing sex work). I've heard a range of this very common idea in our direct services, and not just from dudes, or dudes that sound this maladjusted.
I hope I don’t have to tell you this is wrong. This is NOT what sex workers provide. Sex workers provide sexual opportunities, but still absolutely should be — and must be, if you're not engaging in abuse — treated w/courtesy, care and consideration like, I hope, everyone else.
This guy didn't come up with this on his own, or likely get this message from one person (or porn, etc.). He got this message from EVERYWHERE, which is where so many people get it from. How could he miss it? How could anyone?
I'm going to be real clear: if you do not want to treat anyone like a human being in the most basic ways but want to have sex, seeking out a sex worker is NOT what to do. Because sex workers ARE PEOPLE. Sex workers must be treated like people.
(If that's what you want, then what you should do is stay in your own room without interacting with other people until and unless you can treat them like people. I also vote for treating yourself like a person, but that's your choice.)
Here's my ask: this guy got this from so many people's words and actions. It's omnipresent. And you can perhaps see, I hope, how this idea is totally fuels violence against sex workers, fuels and sustains all kinds of inhumanity about and against sex workers.
If this is anywhere inside of you, this idea that sex workers are not people, are less than people, or that it's okay to treat them with any less care and consideration than other people? BURN IT DOWN. Be done with it utterly and completely.
Make sure in the ways you talk about, regard or treat sex workers (and vote!), your words and actions all contain and project the clear, unwavering message that sex workers are people that everyone needs to care about deeply and treat with that care as we should all people. 
Thanks for listening and passing this (or things like this) around. This is personal for me -- including the sex workers in my life and world I care about and am often so scared for expressly and only *because* of this crap. This matters to me. This just matters, period.
