I suspect that the mental health problems “stemming from” sex work (according to SWERFs) are largely

1. Conditions sex workers had before doing sex work—Perhaps making other work difficult hence the decision to do sex work which has flexible hours etc.

and/or...

2. The result of stigma and criminalization rather than the work itself

Obviously sex workers can and do have traumatic experiences at work but much of this can be attributed to the unsafe labor conditions created by criminalization

A huge % of sex work research is done on a tiny % of the sex working population which results in really misleading data

Also I wonder how stigma impacts how mental health workers perceive sex workers. I would suspect certain conditions are overdiagnosed in sex workers who disclose!

I don’t see any reason why the actual work of FSSW is damaging that doesn’t rely on some highly personal metaphysics of sex that is hardly universal. (Those who espouse all sex work = rape are enacting violence—It’s a disgusting insult to sex workers reliant on wacky...

Freudian ideas about false consciousness—We know when we are having consensual sex or not and people have sex for all kinds of reasons other than or in addition to sexual desire)

Our current mental healthcare system is largely about determining how good one is at capitalism—For a worker, how good one is at being quietly dominated and exploited. It’s an EXTREMELY racist system that pathologizes, for example, Black resistance. “Science” doesn’t mean...

unbiased. And this stuff is often a combo of science AND philosophy. So there’s plenty of room for bias, assignment of metaphysical qualities to sex, etc.

Trying to function in a society where the majority of people have truly disgusting ideas about you, and see you as a symbol of bad women rather than a person, is traumatizing. Sucking dick for cash itself is not inherently traumatizing.

This is compounded w other trauma —for ex. racism is traumatic, misogyny is traumatic, sexual violence is VERY common in general. Many of us have inherited trauma (transgenerational / epigentic trauma).

There are effective treatment modalities for trauma-related disorders but many of these clinicians seem more interested in seeing sex workers as non-human subjects than in trying to treat us. Most people see us as sub human / non human, as not having internal lives.

THAT is very hard on ones psyche! Being thought of as less than human / not human at all IS inherently damaging.

This is also going to play out really differently for, for example, a high earning cis white indoor escort vs. a poor Black trans woman doing street based sex work.

Dehumanization is also one of the defining features of colonialism

You know what else is inherently traumatic? Poverty.

Want to add that having sex for money in and of itself may very well be a traumatizing experience for SOME. The problem is when this is universalized instead of taking into account the huge range of experiences of and attitudes towards the work

Everyone should have other options, options that aren’t criminalized and stigmatized. But unfortunately this isn’t the case, and here in the US there is next to no social safety net.