We Need to Talk About Sex Work
For many of us, sex work has become a more widely accepted career choice for adults. We see a rise in work on OnlyFans, a content sharing platform used primarily for adult entertainment. On TikTok, my For You page often shows me dancers giving tips to “baby strippers” looking to navigate their new careers. To me, there isn’t much of a stigma surrounding this type of work, as I believe sex work should be celebrated as an acceptable and promising career direction for anyone who chooses to follow this path.
However, there are still many people who hold onto the stigma surrounding sex work of all kinds, primarily due to the lack of visibility surrounding the topic. There are so many layers to what sex work is exactly, and without proper knowledge it is easy to view it as something dirty and morally wrong, as people often do.
Sex work, as defined by Merriam Webster, means “a person whose work involves sexually explicit behavior, especially prostitutes.” Going back as far as the very definition of the term, there is an apparent stigma as it only includes prostitution as an example. I found that the synonyms for sex work further emphasized the negative thoughts surrounding the topic. Words such as hooker, hustler, tart, and whore are considered synonyms for the term “sex work.” With this in mind, it’s easy to understand why there is such controversy tied to this line of work.
To resolve the issue of sex work and its stigma, it’s crucial to understand what it entails and why it is an important, integrated part of society.
Sex work, as an umbrella term, includes far more than just “prostitutes.” Think of dancers, OnlyFans and other online content creators, adult movie stars, and others who are able to make a living in the adult entertainment industry. It is incredibly unfortunate that sex workers are so often written off as villainous, self-hating and dirty, when their work is consumed and enjoyed by so many men and women.
“It is not Pretty Woman: Rethinking Sex Work Stereotypes,” from Humanity in Action, discusses sex work as it is criminalized in the United States. While stripping, pornography, and online content creating is considered legal sex work, any form of street work is a criminal offense. The article highlights the hundreds of thousands of women who find themselves in a cycle of arrests and encounters with the police.
Known as the Revolving Door, sex workers are often in and out of jail, as they choose to return to their sex work rather than seek out alternatives. As the article also states, criminalizing sex work does not work. Rather than leading sex workers toward a safer career path, arresting them for their work prevents them from moving forward.
The article cites an alternative program in Connecticut that provides sex workers with services that help lift them up, rather than imprisoning them for their work. It states that 98 percent of the 286 women in the Paul & Lisa Program haven’t been arrested since completing program, demonstrating that alternative resources like education, health and wellness services, and mental health services are far more beneficial for sex workers looking to move forward than criminalizing their work.
What I find so interesting regarding sex work as a taboo subject is that sex work is consumed daily by so many men and women. How is it possible that sex workers are often criticized for their career choices, while viewers consume their content daily and continually fetishize their work?
The topic of fetishization leads to, specifically, the fetishization of the Asian community. “For Asian American Women, Misogyny And Racism Are Inseparable, Sociologist Says,” an article by NPR, features an interview with sociology professor Nancy Wang Yuen regarding Atlanta’s recent mass shooting.
The article and interview discuss the integration of misogyny and racism as a part of the Asian experience, which is further emphasized by the gunman’s intentions. He described his reasoning for the shooting as ridding his temptations, and as Yuen states, this motive is entirely dehumanizing as the victims were not even seen as human beings in the eyes of the gunman.
Yuen says, on the topic of Asian stereotypes, that Asian women are meant to be, “I think submissive. And I've actually gotten—this is, you know, really personal, but—I've actually been asked if my anatomy is different. So, a kind of very fetishized, exoticized, that we're somehow even physiologically different from other women. And I think that goes back to a history of fetishization of women of color in this country.”
There is a fetishization of the Asian community that goes back throughout history, as sex work goes back as one of the first existing forms of work. Racism, misogyny, fetishization, and sex work are all deeply rooted parts of society that are thrown around but not often associated with one another.
Here is a list of resources to explore for further education:
Decriminalize Sex Work Petition
Sex Workers Online Voice Petition
By Maddy Fink