Mx. Warren’s Profession: The Need for Sex Workers’ Rights
As children, we get asked to think of our future careers, and our answers are influenced by our parents/guardians or what our favorite TV show characters do. However, these “choices” of careers fall under the “acceptable” or “dignified” jobs within society. To understand the violence behind these boundaries of “dignified” labor is to understand how society has constructed the idea of labor and what is considered labor within patriarchy. Angela Davis, in Women, Race, and Class, describes the ways that domestic work has historically been devalued and has maintained an oppressive grip on women. “Since housework does not generate profit, domestic labour was naturally defined as an inferior form of work as compared to capitalist wage labour.” Davis seeks to explain how domestic labor is a vital part of every person’s life, however as it does not produce a profit, it is not valuable under capitalism. Along with being essential, domestic work is also labor assigned to women from a very young age; This adds a layer to the exploitative nature of equating the value of labor through the amount of profit it can produce. This idea Davis is attempting to communicate can be applied to the confusing (and almost hypocritical) perspective on sex work as a part of the market.
In 9th-grade, my history teacher introduced our first unit for the year, “Ancient Civilizations.” We discussed the ways that groups collected themselves around rivers and found ways to sustain their communities. But one question has stuck with me since then, and he asked us, “What is the oldest job in human history?” Guesses from hunting, making clothes, farming, my teacher sat back and let us explore all the possibilities. He cut us off. “The oldest job humans have had has been sex work.” While some might find this introduction very crude and inappropriate, my teacher, intended to humanize a profession. By placing it within our history and setting a critical thinking lens over what we had been taught to understand as “labor.” And considering how Davis emphasizes the importance of the decolonization of the gender binary within our definitions of labor; It is critical to include sex work within our understanding of unpaid and undervalued forms of labor.
As a 14-year-old, I was never taught to look at sex work as an actual form of labor, and the idea of it being the oldest form of profession amazed me. I was fascinated that we had ignored an entire industry that has existed for centuries, especially one dependent on women, femme, and trans* folks. In the new age of the Internet, we have all either consumed or benefitted from certain forms of sex work. As I’ve gotten older, the Internet has only grown exponentially, and with this expansion, sex work has found its way into entering the digital space. Websites such as Reddit, Tumblr, and Twitter have been notorious for being the first frontier to many folks’ exposure to online sex work. Pages dedicated to pornographic videos and pictures, links to private chatrooms, and subscription-based private pages. All these outlets can be considered part of the internet’s “red-light district,” where the boundaries of physical space and censorship laws did not apply. However, this “limitless” nature has slowly begun to be cut back as recent legislation has already started to shut down many outlets for sex workers. In 2018, the Trump administration introduced FOSTA-SESTA the “Fight Online Trafficking Act” and “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act.” While these pieces of legislation may perceive that the admin was attempting to prevent the spread of nonconsensual sex work and child exploitation. It instead placed more red tape over websites that allowed independent consensual sex work to have a platform and the ability to create content.
While the rise of child exploitation on the internet is an extremely pressing issue, the Trump administration did not apply these policies correctly. Popular pages such as Backpage were investigated for survivors’ claims that nonconsensual acts committed to them were posted and advertised on the website. FOSTA-SESTA would not only allow them to sue these companies for allowing that, but it blurred the lines between consensual and nonconsensual sex work. The lack of responsibility and research of the bill’s supporters contributed to ways FOSTA-SESTA arguably worked against and furthered unsafe practices for consenting sex workers. What is needed within many of these forms of legislation is a comprehensive understanding of what sex work truly means and differentiates it from exploitation.
Davis’s understanding of labor can provide us some knowledge of how many of the misconceptions of sex work stem from capitalism. In her piece, she uses domestic work to contextualize the ways that capitalism not only benefits from domestic work while actively devaluing it. She states, “… beyond the physical separation of home and factory — a fundamental structural separation between the domestic home economy and the profit-oriented economy of capitalism.” Her understanding of the need to hold a public and a private space impacts what can be considered an industry versus a “domestic home economy.” And as there is no actual “profit” within domestic work, it does not contribute to capitalism’s hungry monster. However, Davis’ analysis also can be applied to sex work and how it has created its own space outside of the “fundamental structural separation.” When considering how sex work can involve the intimate act of having sex, it places it within the private space or “the home,” as Davis describes. The added layer of the exchange of money for services places within the definition of the “public” or rather the capitalist marketspace. So the question remains why is sex work not considered actual labor?
FOSTA-SESTA is a contemporary example of how sex work has been criminalized and disregarded within primary labor legislation. The policing of sex work comes as a direct response to this industry, depending heavily on the labor of womxn, femme, and trans* folks. With Davis’ understanding of how domestic work is not considered labor, we can understand how capitalism is a tool of patriarchy and misogyny. What is important to consider within the movement towards sex workers’ rights is that they require healthcare, regulations on policing, and legal status with a comprehensive understanding of consensual sex work and exploitative nonconsensual sex work. Similar to Davis’ call to provide wages for domestic work, organizations have begun to sprout into the political sphere calling for the decriminalization and legalization of sex work. Within the United States, there has been a push by organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union fighting on the state level to get sex workers some kind of legal status. States such as Nevada have been a ground zero for research on how legalization actually supports sex workers and prevents sex trafficking. Sex workers in Nevada have more access to healthcare services through programs that allow for employer-based health insurance, along with STD testings and other reproductive care.
The ACLU, like many organizations, understands the value of legalization also in the policing of sex work, particularly for transgender womxn and femme folks. Risks of sexual assault, contracting HIV and being wrongfully incarcerated rise significantly for Black Trans Womxn in sex work. A comprehensive set of policies to decriminalize and/or legalize sex work should also apply equally amongst all sex workers. If there is to be an understanding that sex work is work, then that does not only apply to sex workers who are deemed “acceptable” and “dignified.” Davis would support the idea that these policies would have to apply equally, especially to Black people whose labor has historically been devalued. So the conversation around who is a sex worker not only stops at the top 1% of OnlyFans content creators but the sex worker who is working on the streets as well.
As a point of reflection, as sex work begins to redefine itself within a COVID-19 world, consider how sex work has been a part of your daily life. Let this be a reminder that sex work can take so many various forms, and anyone who is consensually participating should be respected. We have all benefitted from the work that sex workers have done, and they deserve to be treated as essential parts of labor movements. And there is still so much more work to be done to ensure the safety and prosperity of sex workers worldwide.
