Amber Rose Made a Brilliant Point About Our Hypocritical View of Sex Workers
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Model and women's advocate Amber Rose, who hosted SlutWalk LA last year, just called out the hypocritical way people tend to view female sex workers versus male ones.
Rose told The Daily Beast in an interview that actor Channing Tatum doesn't receive nearly as much attention for his stripper past as she does. Tatum, of course, launched the popular "Magic Mike" film franchise as a result of his stripper background and received a lot of positive feedback from women for the movies. Rose, however, faced public shaming for engaging in this line of work by ex-husband Wiz Khalifa and former boyfriend Kanye West.
"No one gives a fuck that Channing Tatum was a stripper," she told the publication. "He’s an established actor who’s at the Vanity Fair parties and the Oscars, but for me, no matter how far I go in my life, I see these stories that keep referring to me as a ‘former stripper.’ No one says ‘former stripper’ about Channing Tatum, or ‘former McDonald’s worker’ about Brad Pitt. No one does that to men."
Rose referenced the contrast between Tatum's treatment and her own several months ago in an Instagram photo juxtaposing her and the actor:
"Channing Tatum #LegendaryTeenStrippers," she wrote. "The Double Standards are real tho."
At the time she shared this image, she also posted an Instagram photo calling out GQ for labeling her "Wiz Khalifa's baby mama" and a "teen stripper turned megalomaniac" in a subhead for its piece about her:
"I'm so much more [than] Kanye's Ex or Wiz's baby's mama," she wrote. "Damn, why the fuck did [you] guys reach out to me for this article and photoshoot? To dumb me down? I talked about feminism and my Slutwalk... Wtf nice title smh I expected so much more from [you] guys and I'm so disappointed. I was so excited to be featured in GQ not realizing I was shooting for a tabloid. My slutwalk was for ignorant shit like this. Oh 'Her beautiful dark twisted journey to the top'? Nice pun. Negative af. Thx for nothing."
During her speech at SlutWalk LA last fall, Rose cried as she revealed how hard it was to be shamed for her stripper past by West and Khalifa. In 2015, West claimed that he had to take 30 showers before current wife, Kim Kardashian, would date him because of his past with Rose. Earlier this year, West mocked her stripper background again in a series of angry tweets directed at Khalifa.
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“Unfortunately, I was extremely slut-shamed,” Rose said at SlutWalkLA. “I was called ‘nothing but a stripper.’ Why would he ever be interested in me, I’m just a bald-head stripper from Philly. I was a gold digger; apparently [West] had to take 30 showers after being with me."
She added that the stigmatization of her background continued when former husband Khalifa smeared her in one of his songs.
"[Khalifa] went on to make a song saying that he ‘fell in love with a stripper, but fell out of love quicker,’" Rose said at SlutWalk LA. "As you can imagine, him being the love of my life, regardless if we’re going through a separation or not, that was extremely hurtful."
