Ashley Judd’s Anti-Prostitution Crusade Angers Sex Workers: ‘You Are Harming People’ (Daily Beast)
Read the full article by Amy Zimmerman at DailyBeast.com
The actress and #MeToo trailblazer has come under fire from sex workers for her broad anti-prostitution platform.
Ashley Judd is one of the actresses at the forefront of the recent reprisal of #MeToo and the Time’s Up movement. Judd’s activism predates The New York Times’ Harvey Weinstein exposé that upended the entertainment industry, but she’s perhaps best known for her 2017 Women’s March speech and her work on the board of Time’s Up.
In 2011, Judd joined the leadership council of the International Center for Research on Women. At the time, the ICRW applauded Judd’s “passion for empowering the world’s most vulnerable populations—especially women and girls—and focusing on grassroots solutions to transform their lives.” The actress is also a chairperson of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project: Curbing Abuse, Expanding Freedom. Her Twitter profile proudly notes that she is a Global Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund.
On Friday, the “feminist social justice humanitarian” promoted an event on Instagram, writing, “Join me LIVE in about 30 minutes from Paris, France for this powerful discussion on intersection of the #MeToo movement and prostitution.
”This is not a departure for Judd, whose anti-trafficking activism often seems to erroneously conflate sex trafficking and sex work. Judd also serves on the advisory council of Demand Abolition, which is “committed to eradicating the illegal commercial sex industry in the US—and, by extension, the world—by combating the demand for purchased sex.”Daily Mail coverage of the Paris panel reported, “At the meeting women from across the globe who identify as ‘survivors of prostitution’ met to share their experiences alongside Ashley.” Judd captioned a post-event Instagram, “Proud as hell and fiercely humbled to stand with #survivors of #prostitution who are saying #MeToo.”
“Listen to my HERO Rachel Moran in this short video absolutely break it down,” Judd continued. “Decriminalize girls and women, Criminalize men who purchase sexual access (which is different from sex, which is mutual and consensual. And btw, the presence of cash is the proof of coercion).” Moran is an “anti-prostitution campaigner” who has previously contested Amnesty International’s call for decriminalizing the sex trade. In a 2015 New York Times opinion piece, Moran claimed that “prostitution cannot be disentangled from coercion.”
Judd’s social media was quickly inundated with criticism, causing Judd to double down on her anti-sex work platform. Kate D’Adamo, a sex-worker rights advocate and partner with Reframe Health and Justice, called her out, tweeting, “Congrats, @AshleyJudd, on your hard work trying to make #MeToo a space where those most likely to face and harm are unwelcome and unsafe. #sexworkerlivesmatter.” Judd eventually responded to D’Adamo’s thread, writing, “Hi, Thanks for your perspective. I disagree. I believe body invasion is indeed inherently harmful, and cash is the proof of coercion. Buying sexual access commodifies something that is beyond the realm of capitalism and entrepreneurship: girls and women’s orfices [sic].”
D’Adamo summarized Judd’s platform to The Daily Beast as, “All sex work is inherently harmful, and increased criminalization of the sex trade, focused on buyers and everyone around sex workers is the response.” She continued, “This perspective only works if you think about the sex trade as entirely divorced from ideas about sex, bodily autonomy, capitalism more generally, and the impact of policing and surveillance on communities of color. It also only works if you don’t listen to the people who would actually be experiencing what you’re advocating for.”
Reacting to Judd’s calls to criminalize “men who purchase sexual access,” D’Adamo countered: “We have the data—in places where they increased policing of only clients/johns, violence increased, the level of violence people were willing to endure before they reported it to police increased, and people end up seeing more clients for less money. It’s not a question mark anymore. This is willfully valuing an opinion over someone’s life.”