AF3IRM
AF3IRM, out of all the organizations and people I'll be highlighting on this site, is probably one of the best at appearing to be "woke"/progressive. Just like how bigots like to reduce the immigration conversation to purely "economic terms" (to be more rational they claim), SWERFs reduce our existence to "supply and demand", which makes our elimination seem very simple. We are reduced to economic property in this viewpoint. Arguments like this tend to focus on the worker's/victims's motivations (victim blaming) rather than any kind of systemic oppression. Very little attention is paid to what "exist services/programs" are, and what impact they have. Very little to no attention is paid to what policies they actually promote. The argument is that most sex worker's don't want to be in the industry as a first choice, and that most of us are poor or marginalized. If we were all rich and privileged...then they would respect sex work. SWERFs will often claim to be against carceral solution even though that's the main thing they champion. If all the money is going to put people behind bars, how much money/resources are left for sex workers? SWERFs will have you believe that in order for ANY POOR WOMAN to access basic resources like housing, or healthcare...she must first do everything she can to persecute her abuser regardless of the turmoil, additional trauma, possible legal trouble/death and money it could cost her. Despite the ongoing evidence that most victims of abuse don't actually want to press charges, SWERFs continue to sell the narrative that the prison/policing exists to protect women/children, to protect vulnerable communities. Even as migrants, POC, and black people make up most of the people behind bars.
Here's a post from AF3IRM from 2019:
Action must be taken to end the commodification of bodies but we cannot incarcerate our way out of prostitution. We will prohibit sex buying without relying on the predatory prison system but with consequences such as progressive fines, loss of gun ownership and employment, and community accountability. Police involvement must be reduced because they are poorly trained and often engaged in sex buying, sextortion, or profit-making from the sex industry. Sex buyers will not be granted access to our precious communities.
AF3IRM makes the claim that "we cannot incarcerate our way out of prostitution". But they champion the Nordic Model/Equality Model which seeks to increase penalties for sex work related charges for that specific purpose. Keep in mind that they claim that their policies wouldn't impact sex workers. They say this because their viewpoint is that sex workers are actually just sex objects, not real human beings. They couldn't imagine sex workers selling drugs, assaulting people, being migrants, or committing other crimes on top of being a just a sex object that is bought and sold without our consent. That's why they believe sending the police to "save slaves/trafficked victims" is a great thing to do. They make the odd statement that they will "prohibit sex buying without relying on the predatory prison system but with consequences such as....."progressive fines" [but who would impose those fines, and could police impose those fines without interacting with sex workers?], "loss of employment" [this is the punishment they've already have been giving to anyone caught in a vice (prostitution) stings. As someone who has DACA, who is an undocumented immigrant, and former child migrant, the proposal to take away someone's right to work...is literally a death sentence. AF3IRM says they will ensure that "sex buyers will not be granted access to our precious communities". As a sex worker within the sex worker movement to decriminalize sex work, I can say that AF3IRM doesn't represent us at all. "Sex buyers" have done more to support us, then any government, non profit, SWERF organization has ever done. Most sex worker's (like myself and many of my friends) will actually hire other sex workers as security, partners, to help us manage our phone calls, etc. We will share our apartments/homes, and resources. All of these safety resources we create for ourselves are illegal by law. The best way to think about this, is like drug, immigration, or homeless policy. . If you fed, house, or help a undocumented immigrant....you are a felon... you are a "trafficker. You are "incentivisng" or aiding a criminal in "improper entry" (crossing the border). That's the reason/justification for why child migrants are separated from their parents at the border, their smugglers/parents/relatives/friends might be potential "traffickers". Putting them in concentration camps in this viewpoint or even selling them off to adoptive families without the families consent is seen as an act of kindness.
Most importantly, we will increase community engagement and resources for exit and prevention to address the vulnerability of women, especially transgender girls. Womankind is a caste — a special sector of the population from which rights are deprived. And unlike the vast majority of those bought and sold in the sex trade, the majority of sex buyers are middle-aged, middle-class white men. We know too well that when the purchase of sex is protected and the demand for paid sex rises, it is we who become targets of sexual exploitation because we are the easiest, cheapest “supply.”
White supremacists/Alt right groups will often vandalize places where marginalized groups tend to gather to send a sign to them, that they aren't welcome into the community. SWERF arguments are barely different from incel culture's hatred of sex worker's, and often they support anything that is done to silence, or harm sex workers.
AF3IRM not only vandalized a place where Asian migrant women worked, but they bragged about it on social media...no women were "saved" from this. As an undocumented sex worker myself, I can tell you that someone putting graffiti of a witch's hex's symbol on my workplace wouldn't make me feel safe. It would make me feel hated.
Carceral Feminsim is word coined by Elizabeth Bernstein in 2007 in a paper where she criticized the anti- trafficking (anti-sex work abolitionist movement) specifically. She was criticizing feminists that were SWERFs (sex worker exclusionary feminists) who promote the Nordic Model/Equality Model criminalization policy. SWERFs will often use this word because it's popular. Groups like Exodus Cries that are anti-LGBTQ will claim and pretend to stand for transwomen, even through they don't believe transpeople are real. They do this to convience the public that being against sex work is actually really progressive. It isn't.
