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Photos: SlutWalk Vancouver 2012
Katrina Kollman says she supports legalizing prostitution.
Charlie Smith
The second annual SlutWalk Vancouver had a distinctly different vibe today from the one that took place a year ago.
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The event today, which began at the Vancouver Art Gallery, was much more adamantly pro–sex worker, with signs on the steps promoting equal treatment for people who make their living in this industry.
This message was reinforced by Vancouver resident Katrina Kollmann, who proudly painted the word "slut" across her chest.
"I come here because one, I like to take back the word slut because I really want to support sex positivity in my community, as well as all over the world," Kollman told the Georgia Straight. "What better place to do it than the art gallery? Everyone knows where it is."
She said that prostitution should not be hidden. Rather, she maintained that it should be legalized and moved into safe locations.
"Keep the girls off the street; keep the boys off the street," Kollmann added. "That's the worst place for them."
Sex worker Sue Davis told the Straight that women should be allowed to wear whatever they want without any fear of repercussions or being judged.
"As a sex worker and notorious Vancouver slut, I’m definitely here to undermine the slut stigma," she quipped.
Sex worker Sue Davis explains why she attended SlutWalk Vancouver 2012.
Some women engaged in a chant to get their point across. You can see this in the video below.
Chanting helps get the message across.
There were about 200 people who attended SlutWalk Vancouver. Below, you'll see snapshots of some of the participants.
Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.
Yes it's good that the third wave is supportive of sex-worker's rights (80-90% are not street workers and most choose this line of work) and advocate for decriminalization because it makes them safer. However this wave is so problematic in other ways. For one thing, you can thank them for their activism in contributing to women’s peer pressure to be slutty and promiscuous. They may be pro-sex but I don't think this extreme is "sex-positive", liberating or empowering for women in general. It's just the other end of the spectrum of their second wave anti-sex radical feminist sisters. Both waves are at odds with each other and hopefully their energies spent infighting will bring the end of feminism in North America => which has outlived its usefulness.
This walk might have good intentions but it does a very poor job promoting "healthier attitudes towards sexuality". In fact, it does the opposite. It only reinstates all the discriminatory baggage to these words, which you allegedly are trying to erase and free yourselves from.
These costumes and scantly clad outfits are NOT the way to scrap these pernicious words (slut, whore, sex-worker, etc). If you want people to take you seriously, you have to act like a grown up and resolve this issue in a mannerly fashion.
For the love of God, put on some real clothes! I doubt you'd go to a job interview in a kermit and miss piggy costume.
When Aung San Suu Kyi starts attending global political forums in a mini skirt, high heels and a mesh halter top, I'll start taking these pathetic idiots seriously. Until then, all this is is a parade of homely, obese women and thoroughly whipped men who refuse to stop playing the gender card for their own bad luck in being born ugly, stupid and overweight.