Why Do So Many Leftists Want Sex Work to Be the New Normal?

[sugarglider]

I really like this article. I think it addresses a lot of aspects of the sex work debate that I wrestle with. I'm tentatively a fan of the Swedish model, after hearing Catharine MacKinnon speak on the topic last fall. Of course, I also tend to side with MacKinnon's anti-porn stance, which this piece declares has long been decisively defeated.

www.thenation.com/article/179147/why-do-so-many-leftists-want-sex-work-be-new-normal

Why Do So Many Leftists Want Sex Work to Be the New Normal?

Yes, let’s erase stigma. But feminists, please: let’s not forget to talk about male privilege.

Katha Pollitt

On the left, prostitution used to be seen as a bad thing: part of the general degradation of the working class, and the subjugation of women, under capitalism. Women who sold sex were victims, forced by circumstances into a painful and humiliating way of life, and socialism would liberate them. Now, selling sex is sex work—just another service job, with good points and bad—and if you suggest that the women who perform it are anything less than free agents, perhaps even “empowered” if they make enough money, you’re just a prude. Today’s villain is not the pimp or the john—it’s second-wave feminists, with their primitive men-are-the-enemy worldview, and “rescuers” like Nicholas Kristof, who presume to know what’s best for women.

The hot new left-wing journals are full of this thinking. Right now on the New Inquiry website, for example, you can take a satirical quiz called “Are You Being Sex Trafficked?” Of course, if you are reading the New Inquiry, chances are you’re not being sex trafficked; if you’re a sex worker, chances are you’re a grad student or a writer or maybe an activist—a highly educated woman who has other options and prefers this one. And that is where things get tricky. Because in what other area of labor would leftists look to the elite craftsman to speak for the rank and file? You might as well ask a pastry chef what it’s like to ladle out mashed potatoes in a school cafeteria. In the discourse of sex work, it seems, the subaltern does not get to speak.

Melissa Gira Grant’s Playing the Whore, published by Verso and co-edited by Jacobin, is a good example of this phenomenon. It’s got a lot of Marxist bells and whistles—OK, OK, sex work is work, I get the point!—and is much concerned with the academically fashionable domains of language and representation, the portrayal of sex workers in movies and ads. “Sex workers should not be expected to defend the existence of sex work,” Grant writes, “in order to have the right to do it free from harm”—whether arrest or violence or the stigma of a fixed identity that can never be escaped. School teacher Melissa Petro discovered that when she lost her job after the New York Post got hold of an essay she had written about her time as an escort.

All fair enough, but the real world is more complicated. Grant has a great time beating the dead gray mare of 1980s anti-porn feminism but doesn’t seem to notice any difference between those vanished crusaders against smut—was any cause ever so decisively defeated?—and today’s campaigners against commercial sexual exploitation, who include former sex workers. Supporters of the “Swedish model” of outlawing the purchase but not the sale of sex—arrest johns, not sex workers—are “carceral feminists.” Women who fight sex trafficking are in it to build nonprofit empires, “jobs for the girls,” and are indistinguishable from paternalistic rescuers like Kristof.

Tellingly, Grant says barely a word about the women at the heart of this debate: those who are enslaved and coerced—illegal immigrants, young girls, runaways and throwaways, many of them survivors of sexual trauma, as well as transwomen and others cast out of mainstream society. Poor people, like the Chinese- and Korean-speaking women who are bused every morning from Queens to work in Nassau County massage parlors, or drug addicts doing survival sex in the Bronx, or the Honduran teenagers trafficked by a popular, politically connected New Jersey restaurateur—these girls and women are nowhere to be found in her pages. Nor does Grant concern herself with women like those Liberty Aldrich of the Center for Court Innovation told me she works with, the vast majority of whom would like to leave sex work but need help to do it—to get a GED, a place to live, connections to people who care about them.

The “sex work is work” cliché is that prostitution is much like any other service job—being a waitress is the usual example. I dunno how many waitresses would agree with that, and I don’t think anyone at Jacobin is asking them. But seriously, is it just prudery or fear of arrest or attack or stigma that keeps the vast majority of women working straight jobs? Maybe there’s a difference between a blowjob and a slice of pie—one that is occluded when all types of service work are collapsed into one, a difference that today’s young left feminists don’t want to think about. To acknowledge that sex work is exploitative—that it involves a particularly intimate form of male privilege, which bleeds into other areas of life—would be too sentimental, and too disturbing. It would mean, for example, thinking not just about the exhilarating figure of the sex worker but about the customer. This faceless man could be anyone: your colleague, your boyfriend, your father, your husband. Theoretically, if it’s OK to be a sex worker, it’s OK to be a john—after all, sex workers would be jobless without them. Do pro–sex work feminists really think that, though? I’d like to see an issue of Jacobin devoted to first-person accounts of buying sex. But men of the left seem content to let women fight the commercial sex battle for them. It’s chicks up front all over again.

It’s one thing to say sex workers shouldn’t be stigmatized, let alone put in jail. But when feminists argue that sex work should be normalized, they accept male privilege they would attack in any other area. They accept that sex is something women have and men get (do I hear “rape culture,” anyone?), that men are entitled to sex without attracting a partner, even to the limited extent of a pickup in a bar, much less pleasing or satisfying her. As Grant says, they are buying a fantasy—the fantasy of the woman who wants whatever they want (how johns persuade themselves of this is beyond me). But maybe men would be better partners, in bed and out of it, if they couldn’t purchase that fantasy, if sex for them, as for women, meant finding someone who likes them enough to exchange pleasure for pleasure, intimacy for intimacy. The current way of seeing sex work is all about liberty—but what about equality?

I thought the left was about that, too.

[Deleted]

Good article. I see too many women involved in prostitution to listen to anyone even hint that it should be a enviable job opportunity.

[NewOrleans]

:-#

[heyjude]

Um so much this. It's basically what I said in that epic thread of yore:

"It’s one thing to say sex workers shouldn’t be stigmatized, let alone put in jail. But when feminists argue that sex work should be normalized, they accept male privilege they would attack in any other area. They accept that sex is something women have and men get (do I hear “rape culture,” anyone?), that men are entitled to sex without attracting a partner, even to the limited extent of a pickup in a bar, much less pleasing or satisfying her. As Grant says, they are buying a fantasy—the fantasy of the woman who wants whatever they want (how johns persuade themselves of this is beyond me). But maybe men would be better partners, in bed and out of it, if they couldn’t purchase that fantasy, if sex for them, as for women, meant finding someone who likes them enough to exchange pleasure for pleasure, intimacy for intimacy. The current way of seeing sex work is all about liberty—but what about equality?"

Does Katha Pollitt read here?

Anyway, sugarglider fess up. Who are you?

[lasagnasshole]

Somebody get arbor back here. I need to know if we can get more pages than the makeup thread.

[sugarglider]

Apr 4, 2014 23:20:18 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Um so much this. It's basically what I said in that epic thread of yore:

"It’s one thing to say sex workers shouldn’t be stigmatized, let alone put in jail. But when feminists argue that sex work should be normalized, they accept male privilege they would attack in any other area. They accept that sex is something women have and men get (do I hear “rape culture,” anyone?), that men are entitled to sex without attracting a partner, even to the limited extent of a pickup in a bar, much less pleasing or satisfying her. As Grant says, they are buying a fantasy—the fantasy of the woman who wants whatever they want (how johns persuade themselves of this is beyond me). But maybe men would be better partners, in bed and out of it, if they couldn’t purchase that fantasy, if sex for them, as for women, meant finding someone who likes them enough to exchange pleasure for pleasure, intimacy for intimacy. The current way of seeing sex work is all about liberty—but what about equality?"

Does Katha Pollitt read here?

Anyway, sugarglider fess up. Who are you?

haha. So I guess you and I share more than just an appreciation of stoner comedies.

I am curious, though, what the flip side of this is. Do people analogize it to a SAHM being a valid choice type argument?

[heyjude]

Apr 5, 2014 10:01:42 GMT -5 sugarglider said:

Apr 4, 2014 23:20:18 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Um so much this. It's basically what I said in that epic thread of yore:

"It’s one thing to say sex workers shouldn’t be stigmatized, let alone put in jail. But when feminists argue that sex work should be normalized, they accept male privilege they would attack in any other area. They accept that sex is something women have and men get (do I hear “rape culture,” anyone?), that men are entitled to sex without attracting a partner, even to the limited extent of a pickup in a bar, much less pleasing or satisfying her. As Grant says, they are buying a fantasy—the fantasy of the woman who wants whatever they want (how johns persuade themselves of this is beyond me). But maybe men would be better partners, in bed and out of it, if they couldn’t purchase that fantasy, if sex for them, as for women, meant finding someone who likes them enough to exchange pleasure for pleasure, intimacy for intimacy. The current way of seeing sex work is all about liberty—but what about equality?"

Does Katha Pollitt read here?

Anyway, sugarglider fess up. Who are you?

haha. So I guess you and I share more than just an appreciation of stoner comedies.

I am curious, though, what the flip side of this is. Do people analogize it to a SAHM being a valid choice type argument?

Oh I am so dumb. I know you. Der. So embarrassed!

[sugarglider]

Apr 5, 2014 10:22:50 GMT -5 @majorwife said:

sugarglider if you can turn this into a SAHM AND SEX WORKER debate, then your break was well worth it.

(devil)

[NewOrleans]

Apr 5, 2014 6:24:50 GMT -5 lasagnasshole said:

Somebody get arbor back here. I need to know if we can get more pages than the makeup thread.

I really miss her.  I respected her contributions and knowledge feminist topics such as abortion.

I (we) just disagreed with her about sex work, and she made that into a character defect.

I have tried to reach out to her since, but no dice.  And she blocked me on Facebook.  I didn't do one single thing to that woman.  Not a thing. 

[origami]

Apr 5, 2014 10:39:20 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Apr 5, 2014 6:24:50 GMT -5 lasagnasshole said:

Somebody get arbor back here. I need to know if we can get more pages than the makeup thread.

I really miss her.  I respected her contributions and knowledge feminist topics such as abortion.

I (we) just disagreed with her about sex work, and she made that into a character defect.

I have tried to reach out to her since, but no dice.  And she blocked me on Facebook.  I didn't do one single thing to that woman.  Not a thing. 

ok that's strange. You really didn't do anything to her. I can totally understand her blocking me. But YOU?!

[NewOrleans]

Apr 5, 2014 13:03:03 GMT -5 origami said:

Apr 5, 2014 10:39:20 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

ok that's strange. You really didn't do anything to her. I can totally understand her blocking me. But YOU?!

It really was.  This is how it went down.  The 3rdish sex work thread was on.  In the middle of it, she limited what some people here could see on her fb.  There were also a few she did NOT do that to, me included.  Then like a day later she did it to me, and another member informed me that if I wanted to be friends, I was going to need to pm her.  I was like Whaaaa? I'm not going to apply to be her friend. What is this?  I defriended her figuring in a month when the smoke cleared I could reach out, find out what had happened, and start over.  She had blocked me when I tried.

[origami]

Apr 5, 2014 13:31:29 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Apr 5, 2014 13:03:03 GMT -5 origami said:

ok that's strange. You really didn't do anything to her. I can totally understand her blocking me. But YOU?!

It really was.  This is how it went down.  The 3rdish sex work thread was on.  In the middle of it, she limited what some people here could see on her fb.  There were also a few she did NOT do that to, me included.  Then like a day later she did it to me, and another member informed me that if I wanted to be friends, I was going to need to pm her.  I was like Whaaaa? I'm not going to apply to be her friend. What is this?  I defriended her figuring in a month when the smoke cleared I could reach out, find out what had happened, and start over.  She had blocked me when I tried.

[lasagnasshole]

Apr 5, 2014 13:03:03 GMT -5 origami said:

Apr 5, 2014 10:39:20 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

I really miss her.  I respected her contributions and knowledge feminist topics such as abortion.

I (we) just disagreed with her about sex work, and she made that into a character defect.

I have tried to reach out to her since, but no dice.  And she blocked me on Facebook.  I didn't do one single thing to that woman.  Not a thing. 

ok that's strange. You really didn't do anything to her. I can totally understand her blocking me. But YOU?!

Wait, who are you?

AAAAHHHHH!

[IIOY]

Apr 5, 2014 13:31:29 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Apr 5, 2014 13:03:03 GMT -5 origami said:

ok that's strange. You really didn't do anything to her. I can totally understand her blocking me. But YOU?!

It really was.  This is how it went down.  The 3rdish sex work thread was on.  In the middle of it, she limited what some people here could see on her fb.  There were also a few she did NOT do that to, me included.  Then like a day later she did it to me, and another member informed me that if I wanted to be friends, I was going to need to pm her.  I was like Whaaaa? I'm not going to apply to be her friend. What is this?  I defriended her figuring in a month when the smoke cleared I could reach out, find out what had happened, and start over.  She had blocked me when I tried.

You are trying to make sense of BSC. Those threads made her spin off into LaLa Land, like Darth Vader at the end of Episode 4, after her sex worker Death Star logic was blown to smithereens.  Then she trash-talked us to the rest of the world on social media.  Even Vader knows when to leave town and just STFU for a while. 

[iammalcolmx]

Apr 5, 2014 14:55:11 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Apr 5, 2014 13:31:29 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

It really was.  This is how it went down.  The 3rdish sex work thread was on.  In the middle of it, she limited what some people here could see on her fb.  There were also a few she did NOT do that to, me included.  Then like a day later she did it to me, and another member informed me that if I wanted to be friends, I was going to need to pm her.  I was like Whaaaa? I'm not going to apply to be her friend. What is this?  I defriended her figuring in a month when the smoke cleared I could reach out, find out what had happened, and start over.  She had blocked me when I tried.

You are trying to make sense of BSC. Those threads made her spin off into LaLa Land, like Darth Vader at the end of Episode 4, after her sex worker Death Star logic was blown to smithereens.  Then she trash-talked us to the rest of the world on social media.  Even Vader knows when to leave town and just STFU for a while. 

Forreal. I seriously hope she has found some Zen and happiness. However this coupled with the assertion that children can make the choice to be sex workers made me permanently dismiss her.

[tef]

Apr 5, 2014 10:39:20 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Apr 5, 2014 6:24:50 GMT -5 lasagnasshole said:

Somebody get arbor back here. I need to know if we can get more pages than the makeup thread.

I really miss her.  I respected her contributions and knowledge feminist topics such as abortion.

I (we) just disagreed with her about sex work, and she made that into a character defect.

I have tried to reach out to her since, but no dice.  And she blocked me on Facebook.  I didn't do one single thing to that woman.  Not a thing. 

Agreed (and no one did). But, I think the long thread of disagreement was the straw (and he who shall not be named...I think that was horrible and did it. Gah ahole, him(.



Sent from my SCH-I535 using proboards

[origami]

Apr 5, 2014 14:39:22 GMT -5 lasagnasshole said:

Apr 5, 2014 13:03:03 GMT -5 origami said:

ok that's strange. You really didn't do anything to her. I can totally understand her blocking me. But YOU?!

Wait, who are you?

AAAAHHHHH!

I PMd you

[Deleted]

Apr 5, 2014 10:39:20 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Apr 5, 2014 6:24:50 GMT -5 lasagnasshole said:

Somebody get arbor back here. I need to know if we can get more pages than the makeup thread.

I really miss her.  I respected her contributions and knowledge feminist topics such as abortion.

I (we) just disagreed with her about sex work, and she made that into a character defect.

I have tried to reach out to her since, but no dice.  And she blocked me on Facebook.  I didn't do one single thing to that woman.  Not a thing. 

That really sucks, voodoo. I'm sorry.

[iammalcolmx]

I am seriously a person who used to not care about sex work and was of the mindset "you do you". However sex work is unable to exist without people being abused, As a result I am against it. I apply the same logic to my pro-choice stance. If you ban abortions, women are going to risk their lives to have illegal ones. I can't stomach that thought hence my pro choice stance.

[origami]

Apr 5, 2014 16:11:06 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

First of all, this article is nearly a straw man, as very few in "the left," which is not a monolith, are pro-sex work.

Second, while I don't enjoy sex work, I don't want to participate, and I don't hope my daughter becomes a sex worker, that doesn't mean there aren't women out there who are actively choosing sex work. It's a bit of a strange tack to take to say that some women are trafficked, therefore all sex work is bad. Yes, some women are trafficked and are forced into it. That's awful, but it's not the conversation that is being presented.
Third, there's something very wrong and anti-feminist in telling a woman who wants to be a sex worker that it's not okay and it's not feminist enough. That's like saying being a SAHM isn't feminist enough, even if it's what a woman actively chooses for her family. Obviously, these two things aren't the same, but the principle is. Women should be able to freely and safely make choices here.
And yes, it is fine for some men to be johns. Some men are single, some men have agreements with their wives. Some men are so disabled that the only women who they can get to have sexual relationships with them are sex workers. Some women purchase time with sex workers. Some men purchase time with male sex workers.

What we need to end is the underground nature of this business, and the horrors for the women and children who are trafficked and forced into sexual slavery. That has no place in civil society. But all kinds of things I find unsavory are legal, and I don't think it's my place to tell people happy performing those jobs that they can't do them.

At least I agree with the author on the point that sex workers shouldn't be criminalized.

I thought we decided feminism was not about validating any and all choices a woman makes. I'm drunk and medicated so pretend something coherent follows that claim.

[IIOY]

Apr 5, 2014 16:11:06 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

Third, there's something very wrong and anti-feminist in telling a woman who wants to be a sex worker that it's not okay and it's not feminist enough. That's like saying being a SAHM isn't feminist enough, even if it's what a woman actively chooses for her family. Obviously, these two things aren't the same, but the principle is. Women should be able to freely and safely make choices here.

And yes, it is fine for some men to be johns.

No.

[irishbride2]

Yeah I don't think we have to validate everything anyone does. There are careers and life choices I would discourage both my male and female children from making. I do not think feminism is simply about validating every choice a woman makes just because she is a woman. Nor do I think we should validate every choice a man makes. 

ETA: its actually funny. I used to be in favor of legalizing prostitution. I'm very libertarian about that sort of thing. but conversations on here (by the extreme left on this topic) have actually pushed me the other way. I no longer think it is possible without abuse, at least not in our society. 

[origami]

Apr 5, 2014 16:32:18 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

Apr 5, 2014 16:26:47 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

I am seriously a person who used to not care about sex work and was of the mindset "you do you". However sex work is unable to exist without people being abused, As a result I am against it. I apply the same logic to my pro-choice stance. If you ban abortions, women are going to risk their lives to have illegal ones. I can't stomach that thought hence my pro choice stance.

I mean, I get that on one level. But what about the women who say they like it and freely choose it? You can absolutely find those women. 

I think the feminist response is to say the nature of the work is inherently and inescapably anti-feminist. That should trump whatever feminism gains by the few women who freely choose to work that industry.

[IIOY]

Apr 5, 2014 16:33:43 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

Apr 5, 2014 16:30:46 GMT -5 IIOY said:

No.

Why not?

It kind of bums me out that this is how this conversation has to go on this board. Can't we engage and be cool? I'm trying to state a case here. Let's discuss for real.

Because feminism is absolutely not about validating whatever choice a woman makes just because she has a vagina.  That's absurd.  We don't validate any and every choice a man makes, so why would this be the case for women?  That's a terrible and frankly embarrassing distortion of feminism.  

Moreover, I am in 100% agreement with iammalcolmx.  You cannot have sex work without abuse.  There is a power dynamic in play when it comes to sex work that makes it inherently misogynistic, full stop.  The extraordinarily tiny minority of women who may *claim* to actually want to be in that line of work is far outweighed by the abusive aspects of the "profession."  As a feminist in the proper sense of the word, I cannot tolerate that, period.

[iammalcolmx]

Apr 5, 2014 16:32:18 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

Apr 5, 2014 16:26:47 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

I am seriously a person who used to not care about sex work and was of the mindset "you do you". However sex work is unable to exist without people being abused, As a result I am against it. I apply the same logic to my pro-choice stance. If you ban abortions, women are going to risk their lives to have illegal ones. I can't stomach that thought hence my pro choice stance.

I mean, I get that on one level. But what about the women who say they like it and freely choose it? You can absolutely find those women. 

Since these happy hookers are the extreme exception and not the rule I am not willing to make it legal and easier for those who abuse sex workers. Kinda how we as a nation have demonstrated we don't know how to behave with our current gun laws so we are in desperate need of reform . There are plenty of responsible gun owners yet I am willing to sacrifice
my second amendment rights for the greater good

[irishbride2]

I don't think there is one definition of feminism. However mine is pretty simplistic. To me feminist is the belief that women and men are equal and should be treated as such.

I'm boring though.



I'm not pro criminalizing prostitution, I'm just not in favor of teaching my daughter its a wonderful profession that she should consider equally to potentially being an architect or doctor or teacher or whatever. I admit I'm still a bit scarred from the last convo on this.

[iammalcolmx]

Apr 5, 2014 16:46:14 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

Apr 5, 2014 16:39:59 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Because feminism is absolutely not about validating whatever choice a woman makes just because she has a vagina.  That's absurd.  We don't validate any and every choice a man makes, so why would this be the case for women?  That's a terrible and frankly embarrassing distortion of feminism.  

Moreover, I am in 100% agreement with iammalcolmx.  You cannot have sex work without abuse.  There is a power dynamic in play when it comes to sex work that makes it inherently misogynistic, full stop.  The extraordinarily tiny minority of women who may *claim* to actually want to be in that line of work is far outweighed by the abusive aspects of the "profession."  As a feminist in the proper sense of the word, I cannot tolerate that, period.

No True Scotsman makes an appearance!

So it should be criminalized, then? These women should go to jail? I don't know if that's the most feminist outcome.

What definition of feminism are we permitted to accept on this board, by the way? It looks like you guys decided this at some point and I missed it. What is a True Feminist?

I want the Johns in jail.

[IIOY]

Apr 5, 2014 16:46:14 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

Apr 5, 2014 16:39:59 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Because feminism is absolutely not about validating whatever choice a woman makes just because she has a vagina.  That's absurd.  We don't validate any and every choice a man makes, so why would this be the case for women?  That's a terrible and frankly embarrassing distortion of feminism.  

Moreover, I am in 100% agreement with iammalcolmx.  You cannot have sex work without abuse.  There is a power dynamic in play when it comes to sex work that makes it inherently misogynistic, full stop.  The extraordinarily tiny minority of women who may *claim* to actually want to be in that line of work is far outweighed by the abusive aspects of the "profession."  As a feminist in the proper sense of the word, I cannot tolerate that, period.

No True Scotsman makes an appearance!

So it should be criminalized, then? These women should go to jail? I don't know if that's the most feminist outcome.

What definition of feminism are we permitted to accept on this board, by the way? It looks like you guys decided this at some point and I missed it. What is a True Feminist?

I will gladly own No True Scotsman in this case.  I don't think anyone can claim to be a feminist and support work that is unquestionably, overwhelmingly harmful to woman and children in both a micro and macro sense, and that undercuts feminism on every level and at every turn.

[IIOY]

Apr 5, 2014 16:51:25 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

Apr 5, 2014 16:47:53 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

Since these happy hookers are the extreme exception and not the rule I am not willing to make it legal and easier for those who abuse sex workers. Kinda how we as a nation have demonstrated we don't know how to behave with our current gun laws so we are in desperate need of reform . There are plenty of responsible gun owners yet I am willing to sacrifice
my second amendment rights for the greater good

Most people don't propose removal of all gun rights, though. They propose restrictions and regulation for greater safety, but still wish to allow citizens to possess guns.

I would assert it is the illegality that has made sex work more dangerous and abusive than it needs to be. There is no oversight or regulation to keep those who perform it safe. Women who are hit or abused by johns or pimps are not freely able to even go to the police. 

Have you read about how legalization and regulation have worked for prostitutes in Germany?  Spoiler alert: they haven't.

[iammalcolmx]

Apr 5, 2014 16:51:25 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

Apr 5, 2014 16:47:53 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

Since these happy hookers are the extreme exception and not the rule I am not willing to make it legal and easier for those who abuse sex workers. Kinda how we as a nation have demonstrated we don't know how to behave with our current gun laws so we are in desperate need of reform . There are plenty of responsible gun owners yet I am willing to sacrifice
my second amendment rights for the greater good

Most people don't propose removal of all gun rights, though. They propose restrictions and regulation for greater safety, but still wish to allow citizens to possess guns.

I would assert it is the illegality that has made sex work more dangerous and abusive than it needs to be. There is no oversight or regulation to keep those who perform it safe. Women who are hit or abused by johns or pimps are not freely able to even go to the police. 

Prostitution is legal in Brasil they still have serious issues and the women are not kept safe. Also I think Amsterdam is having issues and have seriously restricted the profession.