Chris Ash
Chris Ash
#ListenToAllSurvivors human trafficking sex work stories and essays

#ListenToAllSurvivors 3: Circumstance Is Not Unique to the Sex Trades

by |Published
Leah, a femme-presenting woman with blond hair, stands behind a podium on a stage. She is wearing a green skirt suit. She says: "I read a study that said over 80% of people would leave the sex trades if they had better options. How is that anything other than exploitation?"
Image shows a cartoon of the street outside of a courthouse. Caption reads: “A 2018 survey by the Florida Bar showed that 70% of lawyers want to leave their profession. According to the American Bar Association the lawyer suicide rate is double that of the general population. 18 percent of lawyers are alcoholics, double the national average. Lawyers are 3.6 times more likely to suffer severe depression. One-third of lawyers are diagnosed with mental disorders.”
Image shows a cartoon drawing of a hospital. Caption reads: "A 2015 study by Hanover Research found that over half of physicians were considering leaving their job. A 2018 systematic review found that physicians have double the suicide rate of other professions. A 2021 study found that female nurses are twice as likely to die by suicide than the general female population and 70% more likely than female physicians.”
Image shows a cartoon of customers and workers in a cafe. Caption reads: “A 2021 survey by Monster.com found that 95% of workers were considering leaving their jobs. Especially in low-wage jobs, burnout and mental health impacts are extremely common, and research on increasing the minimum wage even by $1 suggests it could significantly reduce suicide deaths (Nat'l Bureau of Economic Research 2020, & Journal of Epidemiology & Community Mental Health 2020).”
Image shows a cartoon of a manufacturing plant. Caption reads: “And for those who lose their jobs, impacts are even more dire: a 2019 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that overdose deaths rise by 85% when work options are taken away. Many people, especially those with children or who have disabilities that make finding work harder, land in precarious work as a way to survive failing economic systems.”
Image shows a group of people who have lived experience in the sex trades across the spectrum of consent, including survivors of trafficking. They are standing on a crosswalk on a beautiful night, looking powerful. Caption reads: "Taking that away doesn’t fix failing systems. Taking that away because “people would choose different work if they could access it” doesn’t make it possible for them to do different work. It doesn’t feed their families, fix communities that have been marginalized from access to safety and resources, or end misogyny embedded in rigid gender norms. You can’t increase autonomy by decreasing choice."
Image shows a chart by Joel Quirk showing the conventional "pyramid" assumption that the majority of labor is freely chosen and only a point at the tip of the pyramid is trafficking. Caption reads: "We like to think that most work is freely chosen, which makes it easier to think of commercial sex as something entirely different from our normal economic choices."
Image shows a chart by Joel Quirk showing that only a small percentage of work is either truly free or truly forced, but that most work exists in the middle and is "precarious." Caption reads: "But the reality is that there is a range of exploitation inherent in most precarious work, and that worker safety and protections are the only sensible solution."
Image shows a group of people who have lived experience in the sex trades across the spectrum of consent, including survivors of trafficking. They are standing on a crosswalk on a beautiful night, looking powerful. Caption reads: "In reality, very few people in the US today could afford to leave their jobs if they wanted and still be able to pay their bills. Economic necessity is the norm for most work, not the exception. Staying in work because of economic necessity is not unique to the sex trades."

For more on the range of exploitation that is common (and legal) in many jobs, especially those that involve precarious labor, see: “Are You Better or Worse Off? Understanding exploitation through comparison” by Joel Quirk.

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