Stop the woman who is speaking

More righteous enraged outraged indignant furious huffy anger:

!!!!! OPEN LETTER FROM A MELBOURNE SEX WORKER TO READINGS RE: HOSTING JULIE BINDEL. PLEASE SHARE !!!!!

Dear Readings,

I am a Melbourne-based sex worker writing to express my concerns about an event that is being held at the Readings store in Hawthorn on Thursday, the 26th of July: the launch of Julie Bindel’s book The Pimping of Prostitution. This event involves a Q&A between Bindel and Mary Crooks, the Executive Director of the Victorian Women’s Trust.

Where to begin.

Bindel is a whorephobe, plain and simple. She has spent decades doing her utmost to stigmatise sex workers, misrepresent and demonise our peer organisations, and campaign for the Swedish Model, an approach to sex work regulation that has been proven to undermine our labour rights and human rights. Where it has been implemented, the Swedish Model has led to increased violence against sex workers and other negative impacts on sex workers’ safety, health, and wellbeing.

Blah blah blah all the phobias blah blah well documented blah blah opinions blah blah platform blah.

Her (incoherent at best) writing is regularly featured in high-traffic news publications such as The Independent and The Guardian. She is regularly invited to speak on television programs and at public events. She travels the world to plug books she has the time to write and capital to get published. When she does, books shops are more than happy to profit from the ‘buzz’ created by her hatespeech.

It must be stopped!!1

And now Readings is one of them.

This is the point at which I’m accused of stifling ‘debate’. Surely, a bookshop is a place in which diverse views about controversial topics can be expressed and challenged?

I am actually quite comfortable with diverse opinions, and as a reader, writer, and heretic, I am grateful that stores like Readings stock texts that Dymocks won’t touch. I’m also a fan of debate, but only when it is fair — that is, when both sides have the platform and resources to make their case on their own terms.

Yes, that’s very clear – big big fan of debate.

She went on in the same vein for several more paragraphs. As far as I can tell the event went ahead as scheduled.

Also, this happened:

Social justice, eh?

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