Sex Worker Rights Are Human Rights with Chanelle Gallant

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In this week’s episode we are joined by lovely guest Chanelle Gallant, who has been a sex worker rights activist for 20 years. We begin the episode by hearing how Chanelle got into sex work activism, and why sex work activism is so important, not just for sex workers but for wider society too (hint— sex workers rights are basic human rights!)

We get deep into why sex work organising is so important, and how it is a truly feminist space that is more intersectional than any other. Chanelle tells us of the optimism she has for grassroots organising, and how everyone can get involved in sex work activism. We then move on to what sex work means to sex workers, and how the money it provides them with often gets them out of situations that the government wouldn’t. Chanelle explains how the very criminalisation of sex work creates unnecessary stigma around sex acts that doesn’t exist when it’s unpaid, and how that stigma is fed by larger systems of oppression at work. Chanelle tells us how sex is often a form of unpaid work that people perform as a service to men, and we theorise what sex worker rights would look like if rich white men were doing it.

We then get into the policing of sex workers, from the physical use of police forces during ‘anti-trafficking raids’ to the more subtle ways state power restricts sex workers’ rights. We touch briefly on OnlyFans, and how the activism and organisation surrounding the platform was largely focused on white and cisgender sex workers, and Chanelle explains how the same level of organisation can, and should, be easily applied to all sex workers, regardless of gender, race, and citizen status.

We end the episode by discussing whether sex itself can be liberating, and whether our sexuality defines us (essentially— can we fuck ourselves to freedom?).

We really hope you enjoy this episode, we’ve been really looking forward to you guys being able to hear it and to meeting Chanelle! Please sign up for Chanelle’s newsletter to hear more about the work that she does (www.chanellegallant.com), and go find your local or national sex worker rights organisation to fight for the decriminalisation and protection of sex workers, which you can do on https://nswp.org/. We would also highly recommend you read 'Pleasure Activism' (particularly Chanelle's chapter!) and check out Chanelle's 'Protest and Pleasure' series here: https://xtramagazine.com/series/protest-and-pleasure.

As always you can find more of us or reach out to us with any questions/ stories/ comments on Instagram and Facebook @sextraspodcast, email us on sextraspodcast@gmail.com & find all our episodes and resources on our website www.sextraspodcast.com.

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Produced by Mable Productions

Original music by Sacha Puttnam

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