Mary Mitchell, who seems like she would be my archnemesis, from some of the more uninspired and alarmist soccer mom tweets and articles she puts forth into the world (e.g. her gem of a tweet on July 15, 2015: ow.ly/PFaY7 I like to enjoy art, not be shocked by it.), wrote an opinion piece which posited that a sex worker who was raped at gunpoint shouldn't have been considered a rape victim, at least not on par with a girl who was raped during a home invasion, because she was asking for it. As if there weren't a shortage of cheap-shot jokes about "dead hookers" and shoplifting rape. I attempted to go to the comments to write a response, but there wasn't a field for it.
So, I'll post what I would have written, here:
First, what you MEAN is - Tom Dart waged a war on business transactions that should, for every reason, be perfectly legal. If you can sell your hair and plasma, and rent the space in your uterus for nine months - all legally - there's absolutely no reason someone who may give away sex for free should be banned from the sale of it. This is 2015, the Draconian laws on sex should start reflecting that. Ridiculous.
Second, your analogy fails. If a boxer goes to meet a fellow fighter and that other person ambushes him and beats him to death, you wouldn't suggest that his death is "lesser than" someone who was beaten to death who had never been in a fight. You wouldn't say a firefighter that stepped in to help put out a fire in a restaurant that resulted in something falling from the ceiling and killing him "lesser than" someone who died in a fire in their sleep.
This sort of divisive writing is spurious; it's ACTUALLY a joke. The punchline to rape apologist frat boy jokes ("is it shoplifting if you rape a hooker" hur hur hur). Lazy journalism. Furthermore, Tom Dart and his sex worker war are as pathetic as this piece. Get over it, Chicago. If someone can legally meet someone, have dinner bought for them, receive flowers, and then have sex with their admirer - there's zero reason they can't have a more direct cash transaction and skip the nonsense. Especially WOMEN who denigrate other women who engage in sex for pay seem like they're jealous they've had to give sex away all these years. Must be because I have no interest in it that my attitude is "treat all sex workers as people, perhaps they'll be seen as such by society, and they'll stop ending up face-down in ditches with bullet holes in their heads."
You're GRATEFUL that he wasn't charged with "snatching" an "innocent" woman off the street? How sick are you? This woman was RAPED at GUNPOINT and you're reserving judgment of HER rather than her attacker? It's at this point that the phrase "rape culture" seems especially poignant when you'd rather demonize a VICTIM than her ATTACKER. Get some psychological help re: your unresolved issues with women being able to turn a profit on sex. And until then, do yourself and everyone else a favor and don't write about it. Embarrassing.
Hopefully I'll live to see an age where sex workers can engage in legal business enterprise in Chicago. If you look at it neutrally, their service is ONLY beneficial. It isn't even akin to drugs, where one can make the argument that their usage is harmful and addiction is crippling. It's sex. When paid for, at least it's satisfying. At most, it's therapeutic. That women are legally compelled to give all sex away for free that they engage in, is borderline fascism. It's bad enough they aren't allowed full reproductive freedom, at least legalize the commercial utility of their vagina.
And I'm going to say something, now. By the end of the article, the reader is propositioned FOUR TIMES to "follow" Mary Mitchell.
Would it really be stalking if someone followed you to your house and pointed a gun in your face?
I mean, you were asking for it.
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