Please Listen To Sex Workers
The 2015 Netflix documentary Hot Girls Wanted told a pretty typical story about women entering porn. These women are young, it said. These women are vulnerable, it said. While I have no doubt there are women who enter the industry and quickly find it unpleasant, and there are women who are coerced into participating, this documentary diminishes and disregards women who enter the industry of their own volition. It diminishes those who enjoy working as a sex worker. Instead of portraying these women as women who make their own choices, the women portrayed are relegated to a roll of young girls, even though all of them are of legal age.
This documentary is not alone. There is a plethora of media out there trying to demonize an entire industry and disregard the choices of the men, women, and non-binary performers. Pornography is not the only avenue of sex work that feels the burden of a society that does not understand it, does not want to understand it, and wants to vilify the women who participate.
The popular television show Parks and Recreation often targets women’s issues, but in the episode Tom’s Divorce, even protagonist Leslie Knope seems to feel pity for the women in the strip club.
In the episode, one of the film’s main character’s, Tom, gets divorced. In order to cheer him up, Leslie takes him and a few other members of their crew to the Glitter Factory, Tom’s favorite strip club. Leslie openly objects to the idea of stripping and encourages the strippers to change their lives. Ron Swanson, Leslie and Tom’s boss, also goes to the club with them and is referred to by Leslie as “one of the good ones” when he states that he is not a strip club guy. He expresses an interest in women who are at the top of their career, and women who are strong and powerful, suggesting that the women working in the club are not strong, powerful, or at the top of their chosen careers. The actual strippers in the episode are relegated to side-characters, existing only to give opportunity for Leslie to make known her disapproval of the profession despite using their bodies to cheer up a co-worker.
This was not a story written by a sex worker, or someone who cares about them. We do not get to hear from actual sex workers in the media. We do not hear their voices, their words, or their plights. We do not care about them, we only care to keep them from making their own choices. Despite Amnesty International calling for decriminalization of sex work, opinions in the United States are slow to change, and the media reflects our current attitudes.
This is a plea. Listen to sex workers. Portray them positively. Consult them, talk to them, respect them. Sex workers are people trying to survive, just like everyone else. They want to buy groceries and pay bills and afford rent. They have hopes and dreams and aspirations. They are human, and they deserve safe working conditions. Until we as a society recognize their work as legitimate, they cannot be safe.
Sex workers perform so many different types of labor. They perform physical and emotional labor, all while navigating a legal world that punishes them harder than it punishes the people who buy their time. Sex workers are at risk for a whole host of human rights violations, including but not limited to:
- Rape
- Violence
- Trafficking
- Extortion
- Arbitrary arrest and detention
- Forced eviction from their homes
- Harassment
- Discrimination
- Exclusion from health services
- Forced HIV testing
- Lack of legal redress
Decriminalize sex work. Let sex workers make their own decisions, and allow them to work safely. That is all anyone wants — to work, and make it home.
For more information on sex work decriminalization, please check out the following links: