Sex worker-exclusionary radical feminism

Sex worker-exclusionary radical feminism (abbr. SWERF) is a flavor of feminism that negatively impacts sex workers, as a result of its view that any sort of sex work is part and parcel of the evil patriarchy."SWERF." Dictionary.com, https://www.dictionary.com/e/acronyms/swerf/. Accessed 16 October 2021. Since sex worker-exclusionary radical feminism opposes pornography and prostitution, it overlaps with sex-negative feminism. 
The term used to refer to adherents of this pseudofeminist ideology are better known as SWERFs. The designation "SWERF" is quite similar to TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminism), as both labels serve to identify self-proclaimed "feminists" who prop up outdated, conservative views on gender and sexuality while assailing disadvantaged groups in society, via purporting them and liberal attitudes towards sex to be detrimental to the cause of feminism. SWERFs are those who believe that sex workers are both victims and enablers of patriarchy. This ideology is quite present in radical feminism, hence the name.
It's not certain when the term "SWERF" came to be, but likely within the past decade. It flourished in sex workers' rights blogs (such as Everyday Whorephobia) for some time.
== Examples ==
In 2018, the federal government of the United States passed a set of bills known as Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA)."H.R.1865 - Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017." Congress.gov. FOSTA-SESTA is in violation of rights to privacy and jeopardizes sex workers, rather than sex traffickers.Romano, Aja. "A new law intended to curb sex trafficking threatens the future of the internet as we know it". Vox.House, Briq and Andrews, Alex. "SWOP-USA stands in opposition of disguised internet censorship bill SESTA, S. 1963." Sex Workers Outreach Project USA. Accessed 16 October 2021. Despite sex workers perpetually speaking out against these laws, they have yet to be abolished. Consequently, those who supported FOSTA-SESTA were referred to as SWERFs.
New Zealand decriminalized sex work in 2003 when the Parliament of New Zealand passed The Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (PRA), which seemingly is an anti-SWERF bill — till you realize it only was meant to aid sex workers with citizenship. If you are a migrant sex worker on a temporary visa, you aren't protected by PRA, thus you're subject to criminalization and feasible deportation if the police find out you're doing sex work. Putting on the no-bullshit goggles, this means that a lot of sex workers of color have their services criminalized."Who can do sex work?" Community Law NZ, 23 Dec. 2021.
== Criticism ==
=== Prostitution ===
While SWERFs may argue that they simply want to help sex workers to find a life outside of sex work, the policies they advocate to do this often harm sex workers instead of even achieving what's intended. The exception is poverty reduction, which many SWERFs and sex workers seem to agree on, at least. Things would be a lot better off if SWERFs just went ahead and focused on that instead.
====Prohibitionist model====
The World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and The Lancet, for instance, recommend the decriminalization of sex work due to the impact that criminalization has on HIV/AIDS cases; sex workers who need not fear law enforcement will tend to experience better health conditions and safer sex.Sam Wong (24 July 2014). "Decriminalising sex work would cut HIV infections by a third". Imperial College London. Quote: "Calls for removal of all legal restrictions targeting sex work have been supported by international policy bodies, including WHO, UNAIDS, UNDP, and the UN Population Fund."
Prostitutes may also face fines, jail time, and even sexual harassment from police. In places where selling sex is illegal, prostitutes may even find themselves added to sex offender registries if caught (their offense, after all, was sex related!), which has devastating life consequences.Christina Lynch (December 8, 2022). "How Georgia's Sex Offender Registry Traps People in Debt and Homelessness". The Appeal. They can also face blackmail.
====Neo-abolitionist model====
But many SWERFs don't advocate criminalization for selling sex, merely the purchase of sex. This model goes by various names, such as the neo-abolitionist model, or — a title that's sure to lure in some social democrats. But the Swedes can't have everything right. This model is harmful as well, though significantly less so than a full criminalization model. Criminalizing buyers still contributes to the stigmatization of sex work, for example, which will have a negative cultural effect on women who do this for a job. Human Rights Watch puts it thusly:
There is also significant evidence that criminalizing clients will increase violence against sex workers, as perpetrated by clients.(December 11, 2018). "Criminalisation and repressive policing of sex work linked to increased risk of violence, HIV and sexually transmitted infections". London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Quote: "Research in Sweden and Canada showed that criminalising sex workers’ clients did not improve sex workers’ safety or access to services. In New Zealand, following decriminalisation, sex workers reported being better able to refuse clients and insist on condom use, amid improved relationships with police and managers. However, migrants continue to be excluded from this system. Studies from Guatemala, Mexico, Turkey and Nevada (USA), showed how regulatory models exacerbate disparities within sex worker communities. They enabled access to safer conditions for some but excluded the majority.""Is Sex Work Decriminalization the Answer? What the Research Tells Us". American Civil Liberties Union.Frankie Miren and Laura Watson (22 January 2020). "The false feminism of criminalising sex workers’ clients". openDemocracy. The mechanism by which this is the case isn't necessarily intuitive, so to explain: by criminalizing clients, prostitutes are then pressured to cover for their clients. This can involve threats, or violence, to keep the prostitute from reporting the client to the police, if the client suspects that could happen. In one 2013 study, it was found that when clients were criminalized, prostitutes often had less time to negotiate sex conditions; they had to do so in shadier areas (e.g. dark alleyways) to avoid police detection. Beyond the increased risk of violence this poses, it was also found to recreate many of the health risks that come with a general criminalization of prostitution (i.e., rushed negotiations for sex meant less safe sex). Susan Nembhard, Kierra B Jones, and Jahnavi Jagannath (April 15, 2021). "Partial Decriminalization of Sex Work Could Cause More Harm Than Good". The Urban Institute. Police in Sweden have seized condoms as evidence in prostitution cases, which has disincentivized their use.Sukthankar et al. "Sex work: European legal frameworks". International Union Rights 12 (4), Sex workers organising (2005), pp. 8-9.
====Contradiction by sex workers====
By the way, sex workers and their advocacy organizations are largely opposed to the neo-abolitionist model (and, in fact, some are opposed to full legalization as an alternative to simple decriminalization; legalization implies stringent government regulation they'd rather not deal with). This, for some reason, doesn't seem to be very important to SWERFs. Perhaps they simply aren't aware; such is a good example for why listening to those most affected by any given policy, to see if they have some significant insight that you don't, is probably a good idea.
Some more conspiracy theory-oriented SWERFs sometimes suggest that these advocacy groups for sex workers are merely controlled by Big Porno: brothels, pimps, and pornography companies. This claim does not appear to be well-founded. Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE), for example, is a chapter-based group that has even had funding issues obstruct its campaigns in the past.Heather Lee Miller. "COYOTE: American organization". Encyclopedia Britannica. They aren't the only ones: other sex worker organizations often lack the funds to lobby Congress.Chris Mills Rodrigo (May 30, 2021). "Sex workers gain foothold in Congress". The Hill. That isn't the mark of a network funded by big porn companies.
But it's hard to argue that it's all a Big Porno conspiracy when it comes to individual sex workers themselves telling you that the impact neo-abolitionist policy has on them is negative.Elian Peltier and Emma Bubola (September 29, 2018). "A Prostitute Was Killed in France. Is a New Law Partly to Blame?". The New York Times. (Archived). Quote: "Forty-two percent of prostitutes in France say they have been exposed to far more violence since the 2016 law took effect, according to a survey of 583 prostitutes conducted this year for Médecins du Monde and other nongovernmental organizations." In 2010, the Swedish government accepted prostitutes' testimony to the fact that the neo-abolitionist model was negatively impacting them. However, it openly viewed this harm inflicted against prostitutes as a good thing, stating that it "must be viewed as positive from the perspective that the purpose of the law is indeed to combat prostitution."
====Misrepresented evidence====
While research has pointed to the benefits of decriminalization and the pitfalls of neo-abolitionism, SWERFs do have some academic papers that they like to tout. As it happens, many of these papers are written by radical feminist activists themselves, such as and Janice Raymond. (Open access version here) . Much of this research was also funded and promoted by the George W. Bush administration, including papers by Donna Hughes and Farley.Emily Bazelon (May 5, 2016). "Should Prostitution Be a Crime?". The New York Times Magazine. (Archived).Melissa Gira Grant (August 13, 2018). "Beyond Strange Bedfellows". Political Research Associates. a sociologist who specializes in criminology, has been critical of the "theory and methodology" behind such prostitution research, which he characterizes as tainted by a moral panic fueled by unscientific, absolutist ideology. A group of 18 academics wrote a 2008 commentary criticizing how this sort of research bias is, in practice, ethically and empirically unsound.Sanders et al. (Archived).(February 24, 2017). "Exploring available knowledge and evidence on prostitution in Scotland via practitioner-based interviews". Justice Directorate. Government of Scotland. Quote: "Although this was an exploratory study, it was strongly criticised by a number of academics, 18 of whom produced A Commentary on 'Challenging Men's Demand for Prostitution in Scotland collectively arguing that the study did not meet standards of academic rigour, nor was it grounded in empirical research ethics (see Sanders et al, 2008)."
Susan Hidel, the presiding judge in (in which Raymond and Farley were called as expert witnesses), found similarly. She stated:
Commenting on research published by Raymond, Weitzer points out her use of "horror stories to arouse the reader's disgust and anger". He adds that one should "recall Rubin's (1984) criticism of those who present the worst examples of abuse as typical." Raymond claims:
Another paper, for which Farley (who is a psychologist) was the lead researcher, was published by the Journal of Trauma Practice in 2004: "Prostitution and Trafficking in Nine Countries". (Open access version here) . To give you an idea of the kind of objectivity we're dealing with here, Farley (being in every other typical way a sex-negative feminist) has been arrested multiple times for destroying porn magazines in bookstores.Debra J. Dickerson (July 22, 2011). "If You Want To Outlaw Prostitution, You're Going To Have To Do Better Than This". Slate. She founded the anti-prostitution website Prostitution Research & Education, which she has for some reason also used as a platform to complain about "transactivist woke imperialism" despite the apparent irrelevance to the topic."Mission & History". Prostitution Research & Education.Melissa Farley (February 13, 2023). "This is woke imperialism and this harms women". Prostitution Research & Education.
This perhaps serves as an explanation for the slanted language present in the 2004 paper. That paper reached the conclusion that decriminalization of prostitution won't reduce violence, despite the fact that it only ever discussed legalization, not decriminalization. They also only asked respondents about "legalization", not "decriminalization"; these are different legal models. Despite that, a significant sum of respondents (who were all current or former prostitutes) still said that legalization would make them feel safer. Somehow, there was no given number for how many respondents would feel less safe with legalization; perhaps it was intentionally omitted or not asked at all. It is somewhat hard to know, since Farley's research transparency has often left something to be desired. As Weitzer comments, it's "especially important to know the exact wording of questions, especially on this topic, because question wording may skew the answers." This isn't provided.
Weitzer was critical of Farley's "very selective" referencing style, often citing herself or other radical feminist academics, such as in her 2004 paper "Bad for the Body, Bad for the Heart: Prostitution Harms Women Even if Legalized or Decriminalized". She has also been accused, including by one of her research employees, of explicitly misrepresenting research results and skirting ethical review.Calum Bennachie (2010). "Comment on Melissa Farley's claims regarding decriminalisation of sex work in New Zealand" via Academia.edu.Maggie McNeill (October 6, 2011). "The Pigeons Come Home". The Honest Courtesan."Melissa Farley and complaints against her for fraud". Police Prostitution and Politics. One former sex worker discusses Farley in an interview with Reason:
==See also==
*BDSM § Feminist schism
*Contagious Diseases Acts
*Sex-positivity
*Sex trafficking
*NoFap, the other end of the horseshoe.
*Pornography
*TERFs
==External links==
*"Sex Work Facts: Literature Database"
*"No model in practice: a 'Nordic model' to respond to prostitution?", Crime, Law and Social Change.
*"The Effect of Adult Entertainment Establishments on Sex Crime: Evidence from New York City", The Economic Journal (Oxford)
*"Amnesty International publishes policy and research on protection of sex workers' rights", Amnesty International
*"Brothel Jobs in Germany" — an old Torygraph myth parroted by some SWERFs is dissected by Snopes
*"The Nottingham Women's Conference, only 'good' women welcome", Everyday Whorephobia
*"What Feminism Can Learn from Sex Workers", Sex Work & Feminism
*"Why 'In this moment' are appropriating whorephobic shits", Everyday Whorephobia
*"It's Not Selling Your Body, It's More Like Controlled-Access Rental", Mother Jones
*"FOSTA Backers to Sex Workers: Your Work Can Never Be Safe", The Appeal
*"Anti-Online Trafficking Bills Advance in Congress, Despite Opposition from Survivors Themselves", about FOSTA-SESTA, from The Appeal
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Censorship
Category:Feminism
Category:Law
Category:Moral absolutism
Category:Political terms
Category:Social justice
Category:Sociology
Category:Porn
Category:Purity culture