04 May What Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver Missed In His Sex Work Episode
In a recent 25-minute episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver argued for the complete decriminalization of sex work – both the buying and selling. Throughout the episode, he argued that criminalizing the buying and selling of commercial sex has not helped the most vulnerable actors involved and that legislators should start listening to sex workers’ perspectives on the issue. Shortly after the episode aired, many anti-trafficking and anti-exploitation organizations shared their outrage.
So… what went wrong here? Here’s what we see:
John Oliver’s Main Point on Sex Work
Full decriminalization (or the “New Zealand” model) means the removal of criminal penalties for both the buying and selling of sexual acts, specifically those categorized as prostitution. The episode highlights that New Zealand has taken this approach and has seen improvement. Furthermore, Oliver claims that this is the only model informed by sex workers.
Why Demand Disruption Feels the Need to Speak Up
While many other organizations have already shared their thoughts, we believe that there are still points to be made from a demand-focused perspective.
As the episode states in its opening minutes, “sex workers are not a monolith.” In other words, what is valid for some individuals will not necessarily reflect the experience of others.
Questioning the validity of a person’s experience conflicts with one of our values as an organization: that all people are created equal and deserve freedom and respect. Since experiences in this discussion are valid and varied, we will be careful not to discount what everyone thinks – especially those who have identified themselves as sex workers or people who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation. This is a nuanced conversation, and we are happy to have it. We strive as an organization to contribute to these discussions as best we can, but the impact of this issue reaches far beyond what we realize. With this spirit of humility, we choose to raise up the voices that were left out of the Last Week Tonight piece – those who have experienced exploitation.
Rachel Fischer, trafficking overcomer and Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, criticized the episode in a letter to Demand Disruption. She pointed out that Last Week Tonight “spoke on behalf of Human Trafficking victims without bringing on a survivor of human trafficking to give their side of it, which leaves the discussion to be very one-sided.”
Last Week Tonight disproportionately focused on willing participants in sex work and underplayed the importance of advocating for those who experience sex trafficking. If “sex workers are not a monolith,” as John Oliver himself said, we cannot have a good-faith discussion about this topic without also hearing from overcomers (also called “survivors”) of human trafficking.
Why Demand Disruption Advocates The Nordic Model
At the time of this article, Demand Disruption advocates for the Nordic Model. The Nordic Model (also referred to as the “Equality Model”) is a form of partial decriminalization, where sex buyers are criminalized, and sex workers are DEcriminalized.
This approach works two-fold. On the one hand, the continued criminalization of the buying of sex intends to reduce the extremely high demand for illicit sex, minimizing the exploitation of sex workers in the first place. Secondly, the decriminalization of the selling of sex empowers the sellers (who can often be vulnerable to exploitation, if not trafficked outright) to exit the industry or be supported by law enforcement or service providers if they so choose.
Last Week Tonight’s Critique of the Nordic Model
This example is the only substantiated critique of the Nordic Model in this episode. After this moment the episode immediately transitions into advocacy for the full legalization of sex work. This advocacy persists through the remainder of the episode.
At the end of the episode, Oliver says, “I’m not saying the New Zealand model is perfect… there are good-faith disagreements to be had over the finer points of a decriminalization policy. But if we basically agree -as I hope we do- that making sex work safer for the people that do it is a priority, it is the direction to strive toward.”
Listening to Overcomers and Survivors of Trafficking
An Ongoing Discussion
Demand Disruption (and Last Week Tonight, for that matter) are not the only groups who believe that nuance is necessary for this discussion. We thought it would be appropriate to let a survivor’s perspective be the last words on the topic for now:
It's a combination of a lack of resources and a lack of choices available to have to enter into a career of having to sell your body as a service in exchange for goods or money. It's also an issue that there is a demand to pay to utilize somebody else's body in a way to bring yourself pleasure at their expense and then you pay them back with a sexual currency. Just sad. And wrong."
No Comments