Hi all, I hadn’t really planned to respond to this thread again, but I think there are some points I’d like to add my personal perspective on. This is just me and I’m just one person : )
If you were trafficked it might be different. If you had to pay for your sister's lifesaving cancer treatment like that...it might be heartwarming and might be a signal of poor boundaries.
Agreed - unless she had done so in order to save her life or that of another.
I understand where you’re coming from and that the specific circumstances around sex work are often nebulous, I just wanted to throw out there that in my personal experience full service work is coercive in nearly all cases. I see very little distinction between the social threat of starvation/homelessness and an individual threat of violence. I believe both of those should be understood as r*pe.
That may be a contested take and I understand it is not the typical understanding, it’s jut my thoughts. : )
That said, your point about the way either story will read to a typical faculty of medicine is well taken!
Let’s put this another way. Sex work is illegal in most locations. Would you write about how you were a bank robber or drug dealer?
I take exception to a couple of implications here, but the primary one is that this implies a person who sells their body is to be understood as a perpetrator of harm rather than a survivor of systemic sexual violence. I think it is empathetic and also largely socially agreed upon that selling one’s body is not on a level moral footing with bank robbery or selling drugs (another crime i believe is socially viewed with a level of stigma that reflects systematic bias but that’s neither here nor there.)
Breaking the law at all (some schools even ask for misdemeanors) or engaging in grey area activities is an indication of where you stand with regards to rules and regulations.
To be entirely clear, this is where I stand with regards to rules and regulations: When the rule is that a sixteen year old girl without a family must sleep on the street with no way to keep herself safe that rule is wrong and should be broken.
By all means, write about it then....... It's illegal in most places and it's a controversial topic. Why would you want to take that chance? It's certainly not going to help your application.
I think this tone is needlessly combative, and I don’t particularly appreciate it.
I would certainly view it in a different light compared to a conviction for violent crime or some kind of theft/fraud.
I understand where you are coming from and I do agree that these are substantially different moral acts, but as a person who is an advocate for the rights of the convicted I just want to throw out there that a debt to society that has already been paid should be considered settled. Human beings are capable of change and I count myself as proof. Nobody reading this thread is, in their essence, different from anyone convicted of any crime. The capacity to commit harm exists within all of us and is brought out largely by circumstance. This is mainly me making the point that we as a society need to be more compassionate and far slower to “throw away” people who have done wrong. : )
At this point, it's more informational in the general sense for folks who were curious enough to read this thread.
I am a specific real person who asked a specific question. I’d prefer for my life not to held up as some kind of example good or bad.
Sorry to take such a tone, I hope I’m not coming across to harshly. I just thought it might be appropriate to share my perspective! : )
