After blogging seemingly non-stop about prostitution last week I said I was going to take a break from it here. And I was going to stick to my resolution against severe temptation. But I just gott a say that Holly over at Feministe has the most intelligent, wide-ranging interview I think I could imagine with Sienna Baskin, of The Sex Worker’s Project an organization that provides legal services to criminalized sex workers and victims of trafficking.
What’s so great about the interview is, first of all that it’s an interview — not unheard of but still pretty unusual for the blogging format. Secondly it’s a brilliant interview! Holly asks hard question. Baskin provides hard answers. Holly provides hard follow-up questions. Baskin provides more hard information. I haven’t been in journalism since my first quarter of college (I took lots of classes in high-school) but if I was writing a textbook I’m pretty sure I’d want to use hers as an example of the amazing benefits of doing your homework first, preparing questions everyone wants to know about, digging right into the heart of controversies instead of skirting or fluffing around them, following up when you’re not sure you got the expected answer but also following your interviewee’s ambulations instead of trying to stay on (your, personal) script.
That’s all just cool! What else is cool, though, is how clearly the two dissect the complexities of different legalization strategies, of the problems with trafficking, (You bet there’s trafficking and yes it’s it’s a huge, dehumanizing, and tragic problem — but it’s not, evidently, a simple problem since, for example, once rescued from pimps and traffickers trafficked women often return to sex work on their own terms! ) It’s cool how they dissect the benefits and costs of different approaches to coping with prostitution locally, globally, philosophically, and pragmatically. Baskin even provides a persuasive definition of what does or would constitute an ethical john, although she also slips on the unfortunate “maybe some people just can’t get laid” meme.
And oh please don’t get me started quoting either questions or answers or I could be here all day. Instead?
