Don’t act at sex workers’ expense
Brooklyn: Legislation pending in Albany proposes the full decriminalization of the sex trade. While sex trafficking, promoting prostitution by force, or the prostitution of minors would still be illegal, consensual sex work among adults would be free from the threat of incarceration for sex workers and clients. The Equality Model promoted in a recent op-ed by Rebecca Zipkin and Sonia Ossorio (“Keep punishing sex trafficking, N.Y.” Dec. 15) seems like a viable alternative on the surface — “end demand” by aggressively prosecuting clients while decriminalizing sex workers and connecting them to necessary resources. The reality is different. Every example we have of “end demand” shows no decrease in the violence against or poverty of sex workers, nor does it actually provide material services to help survivors and sex workers, who are often the same people. Stigmatizing sex work and differentiating it from other work fosters exploitation, legitimizes shame and makes it harder for those in the sex trade to leave if they choose.
This recent op-ed perpetuates the very stereotypes about sex work that make trafficking so difficult to stop. Sex workers and sex trafficking survivors are again pitted as total opposites — if sex workers win then survivors must lose. This Equality Model zero-sum game only serves to drive sex workers into scarcity and obscurity. The interests of survivors and sex workers are not diametrically opposed; in fact, caring for one is caring for the other. Until we acknowledge the nuanced ways in which the sex industry and human trafficking intersect and diverge, and find a way to support survivors without further stigmatizing sex workers, we will only continue to do a disservice to both communities.
Molly Simmons, SWOP Brooklyn Leigh Latimer, supervising attorney The Exploitation Intervention Project at The Legal Aid Society didn’t make you “woke” enough. Mary Manly
Jerome Becker
Last to be protected Another fee
Uniondale, L.I.:
No crossing
Brooklyn: My question: Traveling east on I-78, as you approach the last exit, there is not any sign indicating whether the Bayonne Bridge is open or closed. I took a chance one time only to find out that the bridge was closed, and I had to return to get on the New Jersey Turnpike to the Goethals
It’s in the mail
Brooklyn: I would like to wish President-elect Biden a very merry Christmas (if his party allows Christmas wishes) and hope he gets a truckload of Christmas cards — on Dec. 26. It would be appropriate, being the 2020 election had truckloads of his votes — mysteriously just enough — arrive the day after the election.
Lydia DiBello
Suspicious
Brooklyn: In addition to most Republicans believing there was fraud, most Democrats who oppose an investigation must believe there was fraud. Why else would they want a halt to the investigation? If you were accused of a crime you didn’t commit, wouldn’t you want an investigation to prove your innocence? Of course you would. Only a guilty party would oppose an investigation.
Allegiance legion
Ashburn, Va.: Dear Trumptrained seals, at his next rally, please flap your flippers and grunt your Nazi-style patriotic approvals as he tosses his malignant fish in your direction. Just swallow his polluted effluent and regurgitate it if it makes you feel superior. Seig heil, orc nation.