The Authenticity Cult in sexwork sucks.

Title says it all. There are plenty of other authenticity cults, such as the one that says you have to have been a drug addict or regular user to write about it. Or the one that says you have to have given birth to write about it. And so on.

It’s particularly frustrating with sexwork because all those authenticity police spend a lot of time invalidating the experiences of anyone who doesn’t share their opinions. This is true on both the pro and anti sides of the matter. Journalists interview their subjects, and that’s good enough to call news. Why can’t that be good enough when talking about the vagaries of sexwork? Why are the only ones allowed to speak ones with experience WHO ALSO AGREE WITH YOU?

It’s such a bizarrely modern notion that ‘ya gotta live it to talk about it’. These same authenticity cops are happy enough to pontificate on many other things they haven’t directly experienced. And that’s the whole problem with authenticity policing, or with first-person-only (who agrees enough with mememe) as the sole arbiter of validity.

I thought I was going to say more about this, but that covers it.