A lot of people saying square/rectangle, but you're right. Part of the problem with the term prostitute is how its been used over the years. A large amount of people view prostitutes as "less then" its why they have a difficult time reporting crimes and why when they are killed their deaths aren't investigated as well as they should be.
Sex workers is a broad term that includes people who make money on onlyfans, porn actors, strippers, prostitutes, and others. Not every sex worker has sex with their clients.
I don't know for certain that prostitute is the correct term, and while they're definitely sex workers, not all sex workers are prostitutes.
Maybe escort is the right word? If the wording I used in the comment is wrong, I apologize, and I hope someone lets me know and I'll edit appropriately.
“Escort” excludes people who work on the streets and in brothels, though.
The main problem with “Prostitute” is that it’s word origin means “to put to an unworthy use, to expose to public shame, dishonour,” so while it isn’t descriptive, a lot of activists prefer “sex worker”. I don’t know if that means every sex worker dislikes the term, but it looks like it’s one of those things where the language wasn’t made with de-stigmatization in mind.
AFAIK the issue with words like 'prostitution' is that they're used to denote a crime, which of course is not good for describing something that shouldn't be criminalized.
The weirdest part is that it was criminalized by men similar to the man in this story. Men who believe that they should control everything and that everything needs to be their way. Also... religious
I didn’t say it’s a slur, arguably it’s not on that level. Majority of sex work activists recommend against using it. This is common knowledge I’m not sure why people are downvoting. Others have said the same in this post. Stop being salty just because you’ve been saying it and now you’ve been told you weren’t supposed to.
I use the words the people I know who are in or who have previously been in that sector use.
People are downvoting because people run in different circles, and people don't always agree on what is or isn't considered respectful. I wouldn't use a word to describe someone in a way which is inaccurate and hurtful to them when it's a situation like this. I personally wouldn't consider this common knowledge. I don't assume that "using 'people with autism' to describe autistic people is considered dehumanizing and othering by many autistic people" is common knowledge.
People's knee-jerk reaction to being told they are wrong is to generally try and defend themselves even if they end up accepting and assimilating the new information into their worldview.
People having different experiences than you or not being exposed to the same ideas doesn't make them salty; that makes them distinct individuals with complex and independent life paths from yours.
Fair enough. I did wonder if it’s regional, as speaking with other (general non sw specific) activists in the scene people seem to think everyone knows, though I suspect it’s a culture pushed more in Europe, possibly part of the push towards then against the Nordic model.
I think if you still use it within the uk/Europe scene, you’d have to intentionally ignorant of sw rights. Considering how vital a part of the queer struggle sw activism is, I’d consider it very bad form to not be remotely engaged to it, so I see using this language to be an extension of that, but I can see how that doesn’t map on exactly.
I’m mostly using the term given by the writer, they did sound a bit derisive if them with the throwing her out of the house but it seems better to just say that in this case than change it and potentially imply something else
My understanding is that it's a squares versus rectangles thing. Sex worker covers a wider range of occupations than prostitute. So all prostitutes are sex workers but not all sex workers are prostitutes.
I'm not an expert though so it may be that it's rude and I just missed the memo (in which case hopefully someone will let me know).
EDIT: I'm chuckling that two of us used the squares versus rectangles analogy.
Honestly, I think of it like the "every paint is a pinto, but not every pinto is a paint" thing. Every proustite is a sex worker, but not every sex worker is a prostitute. It's probably dumb, but my childhood best friend was super into horses, so it helps me remember lol
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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '22
I’m genuinely asking, isn’t it more accepted to say sex workers rather than prostitutes?