Or so organizations (like Sisyphe, European Women's Lobby, Alberta Federation of Women United for Families,  ARC Community Services, and REAL Women of Canada) suggest when they say “all prostitutes are victims”.

I’ve always wanted to explore this concept that all prostitutes are victims, as it kept popping up at the parliamentary subcommittee hearings on Canada’s prostitution laws two years ago, and is still popping up today as Sex Professionals of Canada proceeds with its constitutional court challenge to decriminalize prostitution.

What bothers me most, as well as getting my stiletto heels bent out of shape, about the word “victim” is that it gives men power and takes away any control that a woman has over her livelihood. A victim has no choice over her circumstances, a victim is forced into her experience, a victim has no power of what is going on around her, a victim is in need of rescuing. According to this definition, there can be no such thing as ‘voluntary’ prostitution, as women are unable to chose whether they charge money, or who she sleeps with or why she sleeps with a person. It takes away a woman’s ability to give consent, to make decisions, and to be in command of her life circumstances. As well, the term “victim” takes away her dignity and silences her as a woman.

While some sex workers are most certainly victims (like child prostitutes), the majority have chosen this work - admittedly under many of the stresses that propel other individuals towards undesirable employment. Is a sex worker necessarily any greater victim than a telemarketer or a hotel cleaner? Can a male sex worker servicing female sex workers claim victim-hood as well? If not, why is only a woman converted to victim status upon taking a position as an escort, or any other kind of sex work?

The sale of sexual services per se is not all that different from selling other services. I don't think that sexual labour under the right conditions, as opposed to mental labour or physical labour, is about violation. Loads of sex workers have done professional jobs. A lot have been waitresses. They say they did far more dehumanising things as waitresses than in sex work. And they now have control over the hours they work

So what about violence and prostitution? The notion that prostitution is intrinsic to violence (since it is mostly men who are clients of sex workers), is on the upswing –  especially since Sweden declared prostitution as violence against women in 1999.  This reasoning came about as the result of  the amount of violence committed against people working in the sex industry, but rather than focusing on what safety machcanisms could be implemented.

I’m not saying that violence does not happen in sex work, sex work is one of the professions to face the highest amount violence (next to being a cab driver), but it’s not because of sex work itself that is violent, rather it is the circumstances that surround n -- all of them caused, perpetuated, and encouraged by the criminalization and stigmitization of prostitution -- which are violent. By arguing that prostitution is violence against women and is ‘abuse’, as opposed to recognising that it is usually associated with violence against women (partly because it is criminalised), is like saying that taxi driving is violence against men.