Why does legal sex work carry a scarlet letter?

By The Big Story

In today’s Big Story podcast, OnlyFans nearly banned the content that drives the vast majority of its revenue. Sex workers who sell photos or videos online speak in code on social media and sometimes call themselves “accountants.” Both are responses to the same issue: if identified as someone who sells adult content, you may find yourself frozen out of the financial system. Even simple things like banking or buying airline tickets could become exponentially more difficult.

Maggie MacDonald is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto with a research focus on pornography platforms. She joined us to discuss how and why banks and payment processors tend to discriminate against those involved in the legal sale of pornography, and why it should matter to all of us.

“It sets a precedent that vague, private companies can make moralizing decisions that impact Canadian citizen’s ability to engage in financial infrastructure even when they are doing legal work,” she said.

A new case that will make its way to the Supreme Court of Canada may decriminalize all sex work in this country, but it’s unclear if even that will put a stop to the prejudicial treatment. So what will it take, in the year 2022, to put a stop to the discrimination?

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