The Controversial World of Sex Work
How many of us have ever joked about dropping out of school to start stripping?
“Honestly? I’m better off dropping out of high-school and becoming a stripper, at this point.”
We’ve all either heard someone say this exact thing or have even said it ourselves.
Maybe due to a failed class, crappy test score, or an overall distaste towards school as a whole — regardless, we’ve all witnessed something similar being said.
I feel like it’s always been considered a joke. Joking about dropping out of school and becoming a stripper with this idea in mind that it’ll be easy. You just go to a strip-club, immediately get hired, and just dance on stage and have the money just roll in. (And who knows? Maybe it is like that — I have no experience in the matter so I’m not the one to ask.)
Regardless, people will laugh in response to the statement or even agree before things return to normal. I almost feel like we forget that there’s a whole field out there of sex work that is honestly quite profitable.
Yet, despite the large industry, sex workers still get looked at as nothing more than ‘whores’ by both males and females alike online and in society as a whole. Of course, there are plenty of people who are supportive but there are still more that think they can provide such judgment.
So, what is ‘sex work’?
Sex Work is “the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation”.
To me, examples of sex work would include things like porn, prostitution, escort services, camming, stripping, and professional dominatrixes.
The whole idea of using things of a sexual nature in order to make money was something that’d always intrigued me. Especially when it came to the overall stigma around it, which is something I never understood.
Everything is an industry.
Literally everything.
If people are willing to pay money for it, it’s a viable industry.
And there are plenty of people who are willing to pay money for sexual enjoyment, hence it is an industry.
(I am aware that there is a sort of split in regards to whether stripping should be considered sex work. To me, sex work encompasses anything that leads to sexual gratification. And having a scantily clad person dance suggestively for an audience that is receiving any kind of physical, ahem, ‘enjoyment’ counts as a type of sex work. It’s not all prostitutes and porn stars. To me, at least.)
Yet, for whatever reason, there is this almost distaste towards those who work in the sex industry.
It has never sat right with me, considering a lot of the time, there is this almost entitlement to it all. Especially in regards to men.
From what I understand, a man can look and lust after you and picture all sorts of perverse things about you. However, if that same man later that day, saw pictures of you online scantily clad or fully nude, it’s all of a sudden an issue. All of a sudden, you’re a slut or a whore and maybe there’s something wrong with you.
Or maybe that man partakes in pornography every night and has a favorite girl he comes back to time and time again. But then, one day, he sees the porn star out in public at the grocery store. He decides to try and hit on her as this is wish fulfillment at it’s finest. She respectfully declines his advances and he gets angry and calls her all sorts of derogatory names and slut-shames her!
Have you picked up on the oddness of it all?
If you do nude modeling or camming or porn, it’s alright for men or even women to sexualize you and use you for carnal pleasure. But, the moment they’re outside of their own bubble or aren’t looking to use you for pleasure at that time, you become this sickening thing.
They’d have sex with you if given the slightest chance, but then they’d burn the sheets afterward, that kind of thing.
Who knows why? Maybe you’d been sexualized to the point where you aren’t necessarily a person and are instead are just this object of lust. And there are both men and women who are guilty of this, let’s not forget that. I’ve seen primarily men do this but I want to make sure it’s clear that gender has nothing to do with it.
Maybe you’d been sexualized to the point where you aren’t necessarily a person and are instead are just this object of lust.
On the other side of it, there is jealousy. Mostly from females.
Whether they’re jealous because they know others clearly find you attractive enough to masturbate to or because they wish they could do what you do but are simply too scared to actually do it.
Regardless of which side it is, they’re always lurking online. Whether it be on Twitter or Instagram or even Snapchat. I’ve especially come to witness it due to a platform called OnlyFans.
OnlyFans is a site where those with a fanbase can connect with their fans and post specialized content just for the platform and their fans pay a monthly fee in order to be able to see this content. It’s a lot like Patreon, only OnlyFans has become pretty well-known for having a primarily sex-work based demographic. Plenty of sex workers or even just women who are bored and don’t mind showing their bodies are on there and are making quite a profit.
But, just type in ‘OnlyFans’ on Twitter and the tweets you see (Primarily from men, mind you.) calling out people for using it are honestly frustrating to see. I wonder to myself, ‘What does it have to do with you?’
Seriously, what does it have to do with you?
It’s not your body and it’s not your money, so what does it matter?
If someone wants to do porn, it’s none of your business.
If someone wants to cam, it’s none of your business.
If someone wants to take nude photographs, it’s none of your business.
If someone wants to make an OnlyFans, it’s simply none of your business.
But, there is this sense of entitlement towards this industry. The idea that they can call people these horrible things and that they are somehow ‘just saying the truth’ as if that absolves them from being a crappy person…even though most people in the world watch porn.
Seriously, it is a large number of people. (There were over 42 billion visitors to Pornhub in 2019 alone.) And a good chunk of people who call sex workers, specifically porn stars, horrible names are the same people who will masturbate to said porn that same night.
Now, you may be wondering what I’m trying to do with this post.
Am I trying to call out people who talk crap about sex workers?
Am I trying to give a proper definition of it?
Am I trying to get the words ‘sex work’ out there and make it more mainstream?
Honestly, yes. Yes to all of it.
I’ve considered sex work in my life, and have even dabbled here and there. And it was through that experience that I was able to get a new perspective and see just how much hypocrisy there was towards sex workers.
So, here I am, in a bad mood and slightly stir crazy, ready to defend because SOMEONE has to say something. Why not me?
Sex work is a job. A career path. A means to an end. A dream job, whatever.
Sex work is just another job.
Repeat it after me folks! Sex work is a job.
People get paid for it, have days where they don’t want to work, have bills to pay, taxes to do, and are actual people.
Sex workers are just people, okay?
Some of the nicest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, actually.
And if you have been thinking about potentially dabbling in camming or stripping but have held off because you’re scared of what other people will think?
Screw them.
Seriously.
Those other people are literally nobodies with no real baring over your life and have zero control over your body.
So, if you feel comfortable with your body and your sexuality and actually genuinely want to do it? Do it! I would do something like that myself, but I just don’t have the time. So, go for it girl! (Or boy! We respect all genders here.)
Now, let’s repeat this one last time just for good measure:
Sex work is a job.
