Thanks for catching that typo! I'll definitely fix it in the final version.
I'm on the fence about the inclusion of sex workers myself. They don't usually spring to mind for me, either, when I think of sexual minorities, and I definitely wouldn't describe sex work as a sexual orientation. But I think that it's possible to make a strong case that becoming a sex worker, while not inherent to a person as many people consider orientation to be, has a transformative effect on someone's social identity. It's hard to deny that sex workers are a marginalized social class, whose identities are marked and considered inherently sexual. Based on the experiences of friends who've engaged in sex work and then left it, it seems that identity isn't easily discarded -- they may keep it "closeted," but it continues to mark and sometimes marginalize them in contexts where people who don't know them well as people know about it. When I think about it from that perspective, describing sex worker as a sexual minority identity has some merits.
I think a distinction you draw between inherent/innate identities and assumed/voluntary identities is a very pertinent one, but it's one I'm trying very consciously to avoid using. The debate about how sexual preferences and identities form -- what's ingrained, what's learned, what's culturally shaped -- has been going for a long time (decades, centuries, or millenia, depending on what you count). Because people have extremely strong feelings on it and very different reasons for supporting different views, I think invoking it in this context could get really sticky. It's so unlikely to reach a consensus, and there's a significant potential to derail the comm even if everyone engages in the conversation with the best of intentions, you know? It's one of the reasons why I've been stressing these definitions as functional and meant for this context only -- I'm trying very hard to steer us all away from assertions of how things "really" are.
All this by way of explaining why I'm partially skirting the point you raise. It's not that it's not good or relevant, but it's one of those conversations I'd cheerfully have over dinner with friends but would try to avoid in a discussion I was moderating unless that was precisely the topic we'd shown up to discuss and had no agenda of trying to reach consensus.
I want to thank you for weighing in with a dissenting opinion, and for doing so in such a well-framed and respectful way. I need to mull this over the inclusion of sex workers a bit more myself, and perhaps call the attention of the larger group back to the question. If you've got any thoughts in response to this comment, I'd love to hear them.
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Date: 2009-07-10 03:52 am (UTC)I'm on the fence about the inclusion of sex workers myself. They don't usually spring to mind for me, either, when I think of sexual minorities, and I definitely wouldn't describe sex work as a sexual orientation. But I think that it's possible to make a strong case that becoming a sex worker, while not inherent to a person as many people consider orientation to be, has a transformative effect on someone's social identity. It's hard to deny that sex workers are a marginalized social class, whose identities are marked and considered inherently sexual. Based on the experiences of friends who've engaged in sex work and then left it, it seems that identity isn't easily discarded -- they may keep it "closeted," but it continues to mark and sometimes marginalize them in contexts where people who don't know them well as people know about it. When I think about it from that perspective, describing sex worker as a sexual minority identity has some merits.
I think a distinction you draw between inherent/innate identities and assumed/voluntary identities is a very pertinent one, but it's one I'm trying very consciously to avoid using. The debate about how sexual preferences and identities form -- what's ingrained, what's learned, what's culturally shaped -- has been going for a long time (decades, centuries, or millenia, depending on what you count). Because people have extremely strong feelings on it and very different reasons for supporting different views, I think invoking it in this context could get really sticky. It's so unlikely to reach a consensus, and there's a significant potential to derail the comm even if everyone engages in the conversation with the best of intentions, you know? It's one of the reasons why I've been stressing these definitions as functional and meant for this context only -- I'm trying very hard to steer us all away from assertions of how things "really" are.
All this by way of explaining why I'm partially skirting the point you raise. It's not that it's not good or relevant, but it's one of those conversations I'd cheerfully have over dinner with friends but would try to avoid in a discussion I was moderating unless that was precisely the topic we'd shown up to discuss and had no agenda of trying to reach consensus.
I want to thank you for weighing in with a dissenting opinion, and for doing so in such a well-framed and respectful way. I need to mull this over the inclusion of sex workers a bit more myself, and perhaps call the attention of the larger group back to the question. If you've got any thoughts in response to this comment, I'd love to hear them.