SEX WORK IS REAL WORK

With the recent rise of OnlyFans, discourse surrounding sex work has risen over the past couple of years with sex workers becoming either the punchline of jokes (see all the horrific “jokes” made about Mia Khalifa’s career) or the centre of a debate on whether sex work is liberating and feminist or demeaning and oppressive.

Many people who don't identify as feminist are shocked to learn that sex work activism is a key area of feminism. It is in support of sex workers’ rights and the decriminalisation of sex work which is, according to the ICRSE, “recognised as the best legal framework to advance sex workers’ human and labour rights by the global sex worker movement”. People seem to have this misguided notion that sex work is founded on, and contributes to, the objectification of women and femmes, which is simply not true. For feminists, sex work is valid and real work, deserving of the same treatment that we give to other forms of labour. 

There seems to be a commonly accepted idea that sex workers are oppressed, and sexualise and objectify their own bodies — let’s debunk this myth. Throughout this article, “sex workers” refers to those willinging entering into this kind of work, not those forced or coerced. Instead of being objectified and oppressed, sex workers actually reclaim their sexuality and bodies for themselves in a feminist act of agency and autonomy. In Florence Given’s book Women Don’t Owe You Pretty, she states “sex workers are not the enemy of progress, [...] they are exploiting the system built to oppress them, and that this alone is iconic as fuck”. This quote imprinted itself on my brain the day I read it. It truly encapsulates how sex workers reclaim the power away from the patriarchy by exploiting the ways the patriarchy continues to objectify people’s bodies and take labour for granted. Sex workers make money from the very system that wants to objectify and sexualise them for their own gain, an act of reclamation that — in Florence’s words — is iconic. It is a very clever act of reclamation, labour and agency that manipulates the patriarchy’s objectification of women and femmes in order to make money.

Clouding this community of autonomous sex workers are SWERFs — Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminists. SWERFs believe that sex work isn’t feminist or liberating and so exclude sex work activism from their feminism. They believe that sex work is founded on the objectification of sex workers’ bodies and works to continue patriarchy. The ICRSE states that “these discourses also portray sexist images of sex workers as vulnerable and powerless victims, a classic patriarchal trope which denies women power and agency”. Sex workers show the patriarchy that they are not powerless objects by reclaiming their bodies for themselves and for sex work and, most importantly, by charging for it. They exploit the patriarchal system that works to oppress them and depict them as powerless in an act of feminist liberation (SWERFs, take note). 

OnlyFans has had a massive boom over the past few years. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the site has amassed over one million content creators since launching in 2016, revolutionising the accessibility of modern day sex work. Some are not so positive about this rise of OnlyFans creators, though, and many people online take issue with sex workers charging for their content. What they fail to realise is that sex work is real work and deserves the same treatment that we give to other forms of labour. If we were talking about a different sector of work, would we expect labour and experience without any charge? Of course not — it would be unreasonable and unethical to expect free labour from anybody. So why do people expect it from sex workers? I have heard many people complain about women who create content on OnlyFans, stating immorality and lack of dignity as the main reasons for their objection. Not only do these people often conveniently forget that sex workers are not just women but men and people of other genders also, these same people probably have no problem consuming free porn. When sex workers actively reclaim their sexuality and bodily autonomy, and get paid in the process, some people lay claim to a moral compass that picks and chooses when sex work is immoral (hint: it’s when sex workers charge for it). They are mad that sex workers charge for their labour instead of offering it for free.

This expectation to consume sex workers’, particulary female sex workers’, labour for free uncovers a larger societal issue of patriarchy’s entitlement to the female body. This specific group of people don’t want to pay sex workers but want to consume their content anyway, an act of patriachal entitlement founded on the idea that they should have unlimited access to the female body. Sex work requires real labour and so should be considered as real work. And, like all work, sex workers deserve to be paid fairly, ethically and often for their labour.

For those of you still unsure on whether or not you’re in favour of sex work (or for any SWERFs still adamant that sex work is opressive and demeaning instead of liberating), it is not up to you to have any say on what a sex worker does with their body. Let them do their jobs and pay them for their labour if you consume their content or services. A core feminist principle is bodily agency and autonomy, and sex workers are a brilliant example of this.