Students for sale: Tools for resistance

Are you disturbed by the mainstreaming of pornography and recent trends that have seen students and even schoolchildren being sold the idea that prostitution is a normal job and a good way of making loads of money?

“Sex work is real work” they say. But is this really true? Who benefits from this ideology? Who pays the price?

What does being paid to have sex with men you don’t fancy really feel like? Where does that leave the understanding of sexual consent?

What does it mean for men, if “sex work is real work”? Is buying “sex” really no different from getting your hair cut?

Why do so many women get trapped in the sex industry and find it hard to get out?

This event will hear from women who have lived experience of the sex trade about its reality once all the euphemisms and propaganda have been stripped away. We will also hear from people who are working in a variety of ways to bring about change.

Come along to hear a feminist take on these issues and how we can resist.

PROGRAMME

MORNING SESSION (11am – 1pm)

FIONA BROADFOOT: Introduction to the problems caused by the normalisation of the sex industry and its promotion as a viable option to financially marginalised students and young people.

CHELSEA GEDDES: A look back at being a homeless teenager and buying the lie that “sex work” is an easy way to make money and how this led to more than 20 years trapped in New Zealand’s legal brothels.

LULU: OnlyFans and “sugar dating” as common routes into the sex industry, especially for marginalised girls and young women who were failed as children.

TSITSI MATEKAIRE: The impact of the “sex work is real work” ideology on migrant women and women in the global south.

Q&A.

ROBERT JENSEN: Prostitution and the entire sexual exploitation industry as cornerstones of patriarchy, neoliberal capitalism, racism and white supremacy.

LUNCH BREAK (1pm – 2pm)

AFTERNOON SESSION (2pm – 4pm)

FIONA BROADFOOT: Informed by her own experience of prostitution, her many years of campaigning alongside other sex trade survivors, and her current work with sexually exploited girls and young women, Fiona will invite the audience to consider what involvement in the sex industry really feels like.

MICHAEL CONROY: The impact of the normalisation of the sex industry on boys and young men, and ideas for change and resistance.

GEMMA KELLY: A brief introduction to the Nordic Model approach to prostitution policy and legislation.

CAJSA: Experiencing prostitution in Sweden under the Nordic Model.

KATHLEEN RICHARDSON: Key takeaways from her work studying “sex robots” – why they are harmful and how we must develop a new politics of empathy.

Q&A.

POST-CONFERENCE SOCIAL

We have booked space in a nearby pub so that people can continue the conversation in a relaxed environment afterwards.