The “Equality Model” Under the Magnifying Glass

The Illusion of Advocacy: Who Really Shapes Decriminalization?

There’s a growing movement around sex work legislation that claims to support survivors and protect the vulnerable. On the surface, its mission sounds noble—offering services, housing, and support for people exiting the industry. But scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find a complex web of nonprofit branding, moral paternalism, and billionaire-backed ideology.

These organizations often frame themselves as empowering and transformative, offering therapy and social services. But critical questions remain: Who's really behind these organizations? What’s their relationship to the decriminalization debate? And how much influence do their wealthy donors have on their agenda?

Who’s Behind the Push?

One prominent model pushed by many of these nonprofits is the so-called “equality model” (also known as the Nordic model). This approach seeks to eliminate demand by criminalizing buyers and brothels, while offering services to help workers leave the industry. It’s an emotional appeal—who wouldn't want to help people escape exploitation?

But sex work cannot be eradicated—only managed. Human mating and exchange behaviors have existed for millennia and cannot be legislated out of existence. Efforts to “end demand” are as unrealistic as they are paternalistic.

What’s worse, these models rarely address the true nature of coercion in the sex industry—commercial coercion. While they may fund housing and therapy, they make no serious attempt to regulate labor outsourcing, the private ownership of client and worker data, or the tech platforms and brothel cartels that profit from all of it. They call it “empowerment,” but it’s simply a mechanism of capitalist exploitation.

Brothels as Labor Outsourcing Machines

Many modern brothels function as labor outsourcing operations. Often, the front appears to be a massage parlor or spa, while the back is a residential space where workers sleep and live. The line between workspace and home disappears.

This is not normal in other industries. Imagine being required to live at your job.

And yet, these nonprofits do not advocate for ending this outsourcing model. Instead, they focus only on offering services to people already in these conditions, without addressing the structures that make them necessary. It’s a harm-reduction approach that reduces harm only after the harm has already occurred.

Power and Autonomy

The underlying vision promoted by these groups assumes that sex work is inherently unnatural or immoral. But the issue isn’t whether sex or money is exchanged—it’s who controls the terms of that exchange.

Economic necessity pushes many women into sex work because of structural inequality—childcare, unequal pay, job precarity. But when a woman chooses to trade sex for rent or groceries, who are we to criminalize her survival?

The person who owns the body should also own the business. Not a brothel owner. Not a manager. Not a nonprofit claiming to know what’s best.

This is a deeply libertarian belief, but also a feminist one: bodily autonomy includes the right to economic self-determination. Supporting women doesn’t mean removing their choices—it means increasing their power.

The Pathologization Problem

Some survivor-centered programs focus heavily on addiction, trauma, and recovery. But many healthy, sober, adult sex workers simply don’t fit this mold. There’s no need to pathologize people who do not experience sex work as a problem.

These programs can still provide real help to people who want to leave sex work—and that’s worth acknowledging. The people involved are often passionate, kind, and deeply committed. But good intentions are not the same as political clarity.

In a world shaped by corporate interests and private wealth, even the most heartfelt nonprofits often operate within frameworks set by the powerful. The result? They become part of the very system they claim to resist.

On Techno-Feudalism and Data

In the modern era, data is power. Sex workers operate small businesses, but those businesses are increasingly subject to the whims of platforms, surveillance, and unregulated brothel cartels.

These advocacy groups never seem to mention data privacy, even though sex worker and client behavior is a goldmine for tech platforms. Without protections, people’s most intimate choices are being mined, tracked, and monetized.

This is techno-feudalism in action: a system where your livelihood—and your body—can be governed by invisible corporate landlords.

A Convenient Definition of Trafficking

Another major concern is how these groups define trafficking. Their focus on “ending demand” often leads to a redefinition of voluntary sex work as a form of trafficking, regardless of the worker’s own perspective.

But trafficking, historically, was about the labor movement—the organized transportation and placement of workers. These groups rarely ask: Who are the brothel owners? Who is benefiting from these underground systems? Who are the bosses, and who are the workers?

These are the questions that should be guiding any serious attempt at decriminalization.

Red Flags and Political Blackmail

Despite their political reach, many of these organizations have not invited major women’s groups or labor advocates into the conversation. That’s a red flag.

Their vision opens the door to other dangers: data abuse, political blackmail, and the further criminalization of marginalized communities. Instead of protecting sex workers, they end up protecting the brothel cartels and criminal enterprises that can now operate without oversight under the guise of “partial decriminalization.”

They offer no challenge to the underlying economic system. No effort to regulate exploitation. No support for independent workers or their clients. Just more moral policing disguised as care.

Final Thoughts

These organizations say they want to protect people. But their frameworks often undermine the very autonomy they claim to support. They ignore the economic realities of sex work, fail to regulate exploitative labor practices, and leave tech billionaires and brothel owners free to profit.

We need legislation that centers workers. One that protects resources allotted to women by nature, not moral purity. One that challenges capitalism, not just the visible symptoms of it.

Call your local women’s organizations. Ask them who wrote your state’s decriminalization bill. Ask who benefits. Ask who’s excluded. Ask them to study this bill and weigh in. How do they like being left out of a bill that regards women’s bodies?

A final note: I did receive one-on-one counseling with RIA. My therapist was kind, intelligent, and incredibly helpful, genuinely the best therapist I’ve ever had. She didn’t push me to political action; she actually cared about my body and my mind.