I’m still struck by the slipperiness and utter substancelessness of “sex work is work,” which is so often passed around in repeat-after-me tones.
It’s impossible to pin that assertion down, to fix its meaning so it can be evaluated, rather than just chanted mindlessly. Bring your own meaning, as long as you agree.
“Sex work is work” serves whatever purpose the moment or the speaker requires. One moment it’s an engine of normalization and expansion of the sex trade ("Sex work is work... have a lotta fun"). But ask uncomfortable questions (about supply and demand and trafficking, about mortality rates, about the inequality between the sexes and between rich and poor that is the global sex trade's rotten, racing heart) and “sex work is work” can just as suddenly shrink to a statement of near-nothingness: how could you possibly object to recognizing that there's work involved in sex work? Of course there’s work involved in sex work. This is just about workers’ rights. Never mind that it's specifically about the 'rights' of ‘workers’ to sell or be sold, so that they can be bought.
More than anything "sex work is work" obscures, bringing together things that have little in common, painting over a face with heavy bruises: pimps and prostitutes into the same 'sex workers’ unions' (I wonder whose interests the union represents?), researchers who refer to child sex-trafficking victims as 'child sex workers' (as the researchers point out, it’s less stigmatizing if we don't refer to child sex-trafficking victims as such, it gives them back their agency), and the rare woman who chooses freely from a wealth of options who now can speak for (or over) her fellow 'sex workers' and reassure us “sex work is work.”
With mantras, sometimes I find it helpful to think not about what they mean but WHAT THEY DO and you said it -- "sex work is work" normalizes (which can be harmful when abuse and systemic oppression are involved), reduces, and obscures. We might also ask "WHO STANDS TO BENEFIT from normalizing, reducing, and obscuring the story of girls and women being bought for sexual use?" And if we accept that mantras like this are meant to stop us from thinking -- who stands to benefit from us not thinking?
And, murder-for-hire is also "work" if you assume that work is money for services rendered, regardless of the consequences for the individuals involved in that exchange and society at large. But, even if prostitution is work, so what? There are many types of services rendered for money that are immoral and even illegal (assasination, kidnapping, theft, etc), as they should be. So, the question isn't whether "sex work is work": the questions are, "Is it moral?" and "Should it be legal?" The whole "sex work IS work" mantra and framing of the question is meant to sew ambiguity and distract us from the real questions. We should NOT be distracted.