6. Sex + Work = Sex Work

On to sex worker views! Sex worker inputs to feminism feel more radical than mainstream feminism that continues to be a bit weird around sex.  The anti-prostitution camp’s ‘concerns’ around sex work continues to be the ‘sex’ (so let’s talk about it) when it should be the ‘work’ (so let’s talk about it).  What is it about women and sex that bothers the anti-prostitution movement so much that they refuse to acknowledge sex for a woman can be work?  Why is sex work, indeed, work? What is sex work really? Why is it so difficult to end prostitution despite criminalization. 

 This episode 6 summarizes sex worker views around the anti-trafficking/anti-prostitution movement.  

Warning: strong language, sexual content, other adult themes. Listener discretion is advised.  

Credits:
Host: Surabhi Chatterjee
Audio production: Pruthu Parab
Cover Art design: Rini Alphonsa Joseph

Music: The intro music is Wake up, Max by Axel Lundström. Music is from YouTube audio library and includes: Silver Waves – TrackTribe; Renunciation, Unrequited - Asher Fulero; Skatting on the Uppers, A truly dazzling dream – National Sweetheart; The Rainy Road, Entangled Life, Cosmic, Today remains sweet, Smoke - Lish Grooves; Gran Sentimiento, Luz Solart, Espeluznante - Luna Cantina;  Pelagic, Torsion – Density & Time; Stellar Wind - Unicorn Heads; Building Blocks, Growing Up, Quiet Nights - Nate Blaze; Jeremy Black - Broken Ladder; Good gig in the clouds – Joel Cummins. 

 Sources:
Juno Mac and Molly Smith (2018). “Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights”

Melisa Gira Grant (2014). “Playing the Whore”

Amia Srinivasan (2020). “The Right to Sex” 

DMSC (1997). Sex Workers’ Manifesto

Contrapoints. “Twilight”.  

Interview. “The Whore Stigma with Margo St. James and Gail Pheterson”. Youtube Video

Gail Pheterson. “At long last, listen to the women” 

Jo Doezema (1999). “Loose Women or Lost Women: The Re-emergence of the Myth of White Slavery in Contemporary Discourses of Trafficking in Women”

Scroll. “Centre bans 18 OTT platforms, 19 websites for obscene content”

The Quint. "India Porn Ban: Govt bans 67 more websites. Here’s the full list" 

Essays from ‘Prostitution and Beyond: An Analysis of Sex work in India’ by Rohini Sahni, V.Kalyan Shankar, Hemant Apte (Eds.), Sage Publications (2008)

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Transcript

Episode 6: Sex plus Work equals Sex Work

There’s something about sex. Especially, women and sex. Because for women – sex has been and continues to be complicated. It has included violence, force, and has been used to “show women their place”.  Because of this complicated history – even today, there is a lot of collective panic around how women experience sex in society. So, it’s no accident that sex has been so prominent in discussions around prostitution but women empowerment in general. 

Anti-prostitution feminism, for example, says sex work is exploitation mostly because of the sex and what it means; what it signifies – for women. Because of this meaning of sex - anti-prostitution feminism equates all sex work to sexual exploitation. They say prostitution just cannot be work because it is the exploitation of women. In fact – it’s not only discussions around sex work necessarily. When we discussed courtesan traditions, we saw how the colonisers looked at courtesan traditions as prostitution – so they reduced women in entertainment to prostitutes because the women had sex outside the institution of marriage, with their patrons, which the colonisers could only conceptualise as prostitution and hence, immoral. This captures the patriarchal and misogynistic views that exist around prostitution today. But let’s also look at the liberal, academic view around courtesan traditions. They will say the women had to sleep with their patrons and so they obviously were exploited. So interestingly, this camp believes that a courtesan sleeping with a man who isn’t her husband for her livelihood is exploitation because the man uses her for sex. This captures the anti-prostitution feminist view that exists today around prostitution. 

Now it is uncomfortable to think of a world where great female artists depended completely on the resources of their rich-upper class patrons for sustenance, but these conversations miss something very important. Because if you think about the alternatives available to women at the time – it was marriage which also contained a lot of exploitation and abuse. Historically – women have accessed power, status, wealth and resources through men. Whether it was – marriage – the more privileged institution; a courtesan tradition – a lesser privileged institution or prostitution – perhaps the most marginalised institution– women in all depended on the resources of men. 

So why do we look back at courtesan traditions as exploitation, insist it should not be “glorified” but not have the same anxieties around marriage? If a woman is celebrating her wedding today or if a movie ends with the lead couple getting married – people don’t usually say you should stop glorifying marriage, marriage should be criminalised, marriage is essentially exploitation; it is a patriarchal institution built for men which relies on the unwaged labour of women? Which is all true. 

Now, sex work is often not good work and is very often – bad work which we’ll get to. A lot of sex workers themselves are looking for ways out of the sex trade but does this mean what they do is not work. Today that is the issue sex workers face – the refusal to accept sex work as legitimate labour.  This is alarming. Because a lot of work under capitalism is bad work. Working class jobs are often miserable. So why is prostitution singled out.  Why is there so much moral panic and intellectual outrage around prostitution to the extent that it is criminalised. 

I’m not arguing that any exploitation is okay. It is amazing that we understand that marriage can become exploitative and abusive and have responded by giving women rights and protections. There are also other useful conversations to be had about work and exploitation in a capitalist society – the intersection of class, caste, gender and what work one has to do to survive.   But what I want to point out is that it’s the work women historically have done outside home – outside the institution of marriage - especially if there is some association with sex – not even sex work – just the association with sex like courtesan traditions - that is looked at as exploitation. The exploitation of women. Is this because we think of marriage as the only “respectable” institution that women have historically depended on?  

It is the ‘sex’ part of sex work that’s mostly the problem.Isn’t it. 

Hi, I’m Surabhi – a lawyer and researcher. Welcome to So Skewed. This is episode 6. 

Not recognising sex work as work is expected from a misogynist. A misogynist will think of a sex worker as an immoral women who like to sleep around. Recognising a prostitute as a worker may go against a misogynistic belief that this woman “wants it” because she’s “like this”. They don’t understand that sex workers do sex work as a job. Now some of the work of sex work is to promote this image among clients – not the immoral bit – that, unfortunately, is implied - but the image that a sex worker wants to have sex with her client not for the money but for the sex is part of the performance that sex workers have to put up as part of their jobs. Sex workers obviously won’t talk about the violence they face, their labour rights and police harassment to their clients. That would ruin this illusion which is very much part of the job. So, expecting a misogynist to say sex work is not work is expected. 

What is surprising is that even anti-prostitution feminism (which sets the theory for the practical work anti-trafficking organisations do today) agree with the misogynists but for different reasons. They say that sex workers have sex with clients under the force of money.  The money is used to coerce her into sex work and hence, prostitution is sexual exploitation. This is why today in international and domestic law – in the definition of trafficking – the paying and receiving of benefits to achieve the consent of the “victim” is a trafficking offence. It is assumed under law that if a woman is receiving money for commercial sex - then it is not consensual sex but sexual exploitation and hence, the woman is a victim of trafficking. Can you imagine any other job that makes criminal you receiving money for the work you do because you are the victim?

In a world where we fight for the recognition of women’s work; The work that women historically have had to do - which work has included housekeeping, cooking, childbearing, child- raising and sex, and in a world that outsources this work regularly, why is commercial sex work not work if domestic work is work?  Why is only commercial sex work then exploitation? 

It’s the sex outside marriage or love that everyone discreetly agrees for a range of different reasons is not good for women. This idea that sex for a woman is precious exists even in mainstream feminist discourses and anti-prostitution feminist discourses bring to surface this mindset and anxieties society has around women and sex.  Sex worker’s activism, discourses and their inputs to feminism including discussions around sex and women’s work are way more eye-opening and revolutionary than other feminist discourses.  

So let’s get into it. 

Part 1: Sex 

Feminist discussions around prostitution during second wave feminism, we saw in episode 2, becomes this battle between sex negative feminists and sex positive feminists. The sex – negative feminists that fall in this anti-prostitution camp (and so lead the anti-trafficking movement) see prostitution, rightly, as a sexist institution. But the reason they think it is sexist is because sex work is demeaning to the women involved.  If you dissect their arguments like sex worker activism has done, you learn that the anti-prostitution feminists assign the same value to sex as the patriarchal or misogynistic camp. The value usually assigned is that sex for a woman and this applies only for women - is special, precious and must be kept that way.   

In these discussions, there is an emphasis on what sex means to a woman and then a conclusion as to what sex can do to a woman. There’s this mindset that women’s feelings relating to sex are very fragile. Sex is seen as something that can hurt women unless it has social or emotional sanctity. For the Victorians – this was marriage. Today, for the anti-prostitution feminists – it includes love and desire. To them: sex work is “the wrong kind of sex”. Sex workers have too much sex - it is excessive for women; it is transactional sex so without emotional sanctity and with multiple partners so without social sanctity.

Another assumption about women and sex that comes out is that sex for a woman is innately connected to her entire personhood, her “essential self”.  This is why anti-prostitution feminism says: The selling of your sex is the selling of your entire body; your entire self.  Meaning – a woman loses so much of herself because she’s “selling” her sex so having sex in the “wrong” way that she loses her entire self. The misogynists: they think of sex workers as immoral women so women who suffer a moral loss because of all the sex they have. For anti-prostitution feminists: sex workers suffer an actual bodily loss. Sex work takes something AWAY from the women. Their bodies degrade. They change because of all this “wrong sex” they have – so she gets destroyed through sex. This logic is not extended to married women. In fact - a good wife is expected to give her husband sex.  There is no anxiety about this regular sex with the same man destroying this married woman. The man, of course, if he has sex outside his marriage may be considered morally questionable, no doubt; but there aren’t anxieties about what the sex can DO to the man. Anti-prostitution feminism discusses how sex workers deteriorate in the sex trade – the implication being: all this sex is causing her an actual loss. It’s causing her, her mental and physical health. Again, not the same with men. A male sex worker having a lot of sex with women clients – no one will think he is exploited or losing himself. A certain section of men will look at this man as a stud who gets money and sex; but even anti-prostitution feminism agrees with them. They say a man gains through sex; but the woman loses through sex and hence, sex workers are losing themselves. 

This also means that the underlying assumption is that women get degraded or demeaned through sex.  For a woman – her sex is looked at as something that is closely connected to her respect and dignity.  It is common to hear the anti-prostitution camp argue that sex workers are demeaned or degraded by men because they sell sex to them. But they never raise concerns about the male clients being demeaned through this transactional sex. This is why anti-prostitution laws target female sex workers the most. Their “concerns” are with women being degraded through sex work. This teaches us that women must “value” her sex. In India – it’s common to hear anti-trafficking activists being ‘concerned’ for sex workers because she has to do sex work for ‘so little money’ as if it’s about how much value the sex worker places on her sex and hence, her dignity and respect that determines her prices and not the forces of a criminalized market at play.  

To these people – the sex women have can damage them and women can only ‘handle’ sex when it is accompanied by love, desire (if you’re a bit modern) or marriage (if you’re conservative) which is why they look at sex workers as women who are getting damaged and degraded. This is from the book Revolting Prostitutes: The fight for sex worker rights - a major source for this episode and that I will from now on call ‘Revolting Prostitutes’: 

“Sex is positioned as something intrinsically too special to be sold – something intimate reserved for meaningful relationships. Implicit in this view is the sense that sex is a volatile substance for women and must be controlled or legitimised by an emotional connection”. 

Both the Victorian feminists during colonial rule and anti-prostitution feminists today argue that when men sleep with sex workers, it becomes demeaning to the woman involved. Here, they make it seem like this sex is harmful for the sex worker. It affects her mentally and physically, we are told. Sex workers are seen to be exploited but what is meant is that she’s subjugated by the men around her. This feminist argument of sex workers being permanently subjugated (and so exploited) in prostitution also has interesting roots.  During second-wave feminism, we saw how the radical sex - negative feminists made the argument that all penetrative sex is a form of domination and submission. So because the man in a typical heterosexual situation- penetrates – he’s the dominant. Because a woman is penetrated – she’s the submissive. And this, their argument was, is resulting in women remaining subjugated sexually and socially in society.  Today - we should challenge this argument. Yes, people who are penetrated during sex are at the risk of feeling vulnerable, uncomfortable but in a safe and consensual situation - again, in a typical heterosexual situation–– it is obvious that the person with the penis will penetrate, and the other person will be penetrated and you cannot just assume that the person being penetrated is essentially a submissive person; inherently comprised, degraded and subjugated. This is very patronising. To all women.  And no, sex workers are not inherently subjugated because of the sex they have.  

This idea of women being degraded through sex is engrained in the patriarchy. Women in society – all women – are divided into two categories and one of these categories is thought to be ‘degraded’ or ‘fallen’ because they get associated with sex. We see this most obviously from Victorian times. We know this as The Madonna Whore dichotomy. 

The Lady vs. Prostitute. 

The Good woman vs the Other. 

How are women divided into these fixed categories? 

Firstly – on the basis of social backgrounds. Women from privilege fall in the ‘good woman’ category and women from marginalised communities find themselves in the ‘other’ category. Middle to upper class - white women in the west and Savarna women in India will automatically fall in the ‘good woman’ category whereas working class women, Black women in the West and Dalit women in India will automatically get thrown into the ‘other’ category’. So caste, race and class have a role to play in how women are categorised by default into ‘good women’ and the ‘other’ and then women are expected to have the sexual characteristics of the group they have been assigned. This introduces the idea of “sexual purity”. 

The ‘good’ women are considered to be - respectable, innocent, now maybe, capable and basically “pure and chaste”. This means ‘good women’ are assumed to be women who don’t feel sexual desire; her sex is precious - she’s almost asexual except to the needs and desires of her husband. During Victorian times, it was said that good women were naturally pure, which meant – very sexually modest, feel no desire and who don’t want sex, which was seen to be dirty. 

Then comes the ‘other’.  Women who are considered to be hyper-sexual. They are looked at as fallen or degraded women just because they fall in this ‘other’ category and the ‘other’ category is associated with sex. The ‘other’ are assumed to be women who are lustful, immoral, not pure and chaste, not innocent and so not worthy of respect.  The ‘other’ can be exposed to men’s ‘worst behaviours’. Men will want to sleep with the ‘other’ women whom they don’t need to respect but will marry the good woman whom he treats with respect, i.e. not in a dirty manner, i.e. not sexually. 

So women learn: the ‘other’ are said to be degraded and fallen because they are associated with sex and so being associated with sex is damaging for women; it causes them to lose respect. 

This Madonna Whore dichotomy says some women are inherently good and some women are inherently bad. Those who are good are de-sexualised. Those who are bad are hyper-sexualised. Dalit women in India have historically and this continues, been viewed as ‘hyper-sexual’ or “unrapeable”. This explains why the rape of a Dalit woman doesn’t invite the same outrage as the rape of a Savarna woman; this is why prosecution in rape cases against Dalit women is taken less seriously. A Dalit woman is seen as the “other” – someone who is associated with sex and so who doesn’t warrant respect or protection.  

While these categories are fixed so women are born into social backgrounds that decide whether they will be treated as ‘good women’ or the ‘other’ - women from the ‘good category’ can very easily be thrown into the ‘other’ category if they do not behave like ‘good women should’. In India, online today - you will often see the shaming of women for drinking or smoking or having partners before marriage – so the implicit meaning is that these acts which are bad so characteristics of the ‘other’ can make women in the “good” category also worthy of being shamed and throw them into the ‘other category’. This explains slut shaming. You are called a bad girl which means you’re being associated with sex and hence, you are worthy of shame. This also explains the shaming of models, actresses, influencers. They get looked at as women associated with sex because of sensual poses or skimpy clothes or loud make up or anything not associated with modesty.  So women learn: if you want to be considered a good women – you cannot be seen to be associated with sex in any manner or do anything that ‘good women should not do’. And if you do – you become unworthy of respect.

While “good” women can be thrown to the ‘Other’ category simply by doing things that are not considered ‘good’; women who fall in this ‘other’ category by virtue of their social backgrounds – are never allowed entry into the ‘good women’ category. They continue to face the stigma of being the ‘other’ no matter how they act. Think about a recent case where the son of a politician murdered a woman working in his hotel for refusing to sleep with him and refusing to offer sexual services to other hotel guests. Here, the woman was acting virtuous, like a good woman should, she didn’t want to sell sex but in the eyes of the man – she was the “other” because she was socially “below” him and because she worked in a hotel at night. Because he thought of her as the ‘other’ – he associated her with sex and viewed her as hypersexual.  His rage which led to her murder came from the fact that she – a woman he thought of as the ‘other’ had the audacity to refuse sex to him. 

So the ‘other’ includes women from marginalised communities anyway no matter how ‘good’ they act and also includes women who do anything that starts associating them with sex or being “bad” like drinking or smoking or being loud, boisterous, argumentative – whatever behaviours ‘good women’ should not do.  In society – the liberal response to this Madonna Whore dichotomy is to stop the association of women to sex. This activism makes sense for women from marginalised communities. A Dalit woman will naturally challenge the stigma she faces because she’s put in this ‘other’ category. She’s viewed as hyper-sexual just because of her social background and faces stigma and violence because of this.  

However. In some cases, like in anti-prostitution feminism, this response solidifies the Madonna whore dichotomy. Anti-prostitution feminism demands - all women be good – act good and they can be worthy of respect to. So don’t have sex like the “other” is assumed to do and you can become a good woman too, worthy of respect. This is why, to them, sex worker activism is so hard to digest. 

Sex workers are women who are associated with sex and so they fall in the ‘Other’.  Sex workers are seen to be the epitome of the fallen women. They are the Whores. But sex workers refuse to be made ‘good’. Sex workers refuse to be shamed for having transactional sex, for being associated with sex and infact, challenge the idea that sex is something special for women - just by doing their jobs. A lot of the misogyny directed towards sex workers by both the misogynists and the anti-prostitution feminists is this anger that comes because of sex workers’ refusal to be shamed for being the “other” and their refusal to want to be ‘good women’. Anti-prostitution feminism till today accepts this Madonna Whore dichotomy. The laws itself calls for the ‘rehabilitation’ of prostitutes.  Again, been going on since colonial times where we saw Victorian feminists and missionaries do charity work to ‘save’ Indian prostitutes and courtesans. The focus of their work was to make women who are associated with sex and hence, in their eyes, fallen – turned into good women, i.e. pure, respectable, honourable and how? They tried to get women that theyassociated with sex – married - so what was considered respectable and ‘feminine’ at the time. This tradition continues – today anti-trafficking organisations rehabilitate sex workers by teaching them skills we attribute to the feminine and that are considered ‘respectable’ whether they pay well or not - stitching, knitting, beauty parlours skills, candle-making, bag making.  Anti-prostitution discourses talk about how sex workers need to be rescued and reformed – the language, tone used is that we need to ‘save’ women and help them ‘regain’ their dignity.  So we remove sex workers from the sex trade. We remove sex workers from their association with sex and they will become respectable. 

This Madonna Whore dichotomy is what sex worker activism in the west called the Whore Stigma. Melissa Gira Grant in Playing the Whore writes about how this ‘Whore Stigma’ is used to divide women in society; how women are pitted against each other. She argues that this whore stigma is actually used to keep the ‘good’ women in line. They are shown that if they digress from being and acting virtuous and good; then they will become unworthy of respect and will be treated like the whores.  The whore stigma basically is: be like the good women; not the whore. Good women are expected to be a little ignorant, helpless, dependent, keep acting good, shy, modest and keep your distance from the whores who are seen as the ‘bad women’ who will ‘corrupt’ them.  Even when I was working in field – we, college students, researchers were often told by the social workers and probation officers that sex workers lie; they drink, they smoke; they curse, so be careful – as if they were warning us, women they perceive to be “good women” (and so in the same category as them) against those ‘other’ women. They wanted to guard us from sex workers who they thought will ‘corrupt and scandalise us’.  

Anti-prostitution laws aim to strengthen this whore stigma. Margo St James, a sex worker activist, had said that the whore stigma works to keep the ‘good women’ in line – and sex workers are made an example of by the system. If you act like them – you deserve whatever comes to you. Violence, assault, police harassment, jail time. We think this is justifiable when it happens to sex workers. The ‘other’ - they are treated as disposable. 

This divide among women is also reflected in feminism. Why do we pit married women against sex workers? We know we should stand in solidarity with the married woman – the victim of her husband’s infidelity with a sex worker who is seen as immoral, lustful, someone who doesn’t care about the wives’ feelings. But we are never called to stand in solidarity with a sex worker – because she will corrupt ‘good’ women.  We are prevented for relating to a sex worker - even though a sex worker is a woman who is only looking to make a living; to support her family; she’s not responsible for this man’s infidelity; she faces tremendous violence in her job and in the hands of the police and state – simply to earn a livelihood.  But we are taught – support the suffering wife but don’t support ‘the whore’. If you support sex work – you’re against marriage. A good woman will never give away her sex; she is wronged by the ‘other’ who doesn’t value her sex and gives it away easily.   In fact – anti-prostitution feminism makes it seem like sex worker activists stand up for men’s right to sex. Anti-prostitution feminism has often accused sex worker activists of being representatives of men – clients and pimps. The tone being: sex workers are traitors who betray good women because they want what men want, i.e. sex.  This is another way to ‘other’ the sex worker – men and whores want sex; good women do not. 

This also explains the concerns with sexualisation. We hear complaints about the sexualisation of women, and we know that’s not a good thing. The conservatives complain that women are being demeaned, the liberals argue that women are being objectified. Porn was banned in India in 2015 and there have been continuous crackdowns on “obscene content” since then. Just recently, the government of India banned several OTT platforms by saying it was found to be ‘vulgar and portrayed women in a demeaning manner’.

The underlying meaning here is that women being sexualised is bad because she is being associated with sex which is not the characteristic of a ‘good’ woman and so she is being demeaned. We are told, sexualisation is bad for women. It is done for the benefit of men.  Good women, by default, do not like or desire sex and so feel disrespected by sexualisation. Here, the implication is: if a woman is sexualised – she will be ‘treated like a whore’ which is damaging to women. 

A sex worker in the eyes of BOTH the misogynist and the anti-prostitution feminist is ALWAYS sexualised.  Selling sex for a woman becomes her essence. It becomes her identity. The prostituted woman. It’s assumed - she always agrees to sex. She has no choice. She has no boundaries. She becomes indistinguishable from her job - She’s not selling sex for work; she’s just permanently sexualised – she’s the ‘whore’. To the misogynist – that’s her identity and if he asks her for sex even when she’s not working – she should give it to him. He doesn’t look at her as a worker who ended her shift – he looks at her as someone permanently associated with sex -  so it’s his right to get sex from her. The police have this lens to. This is why sex workers get harassed by the police even when they are not working. This introduces the idea that a policeman just has to think a woman is a prostitute for her to be thrown into the criminal justice system. Sex workers point out that to prove someone is a sex worker often becomes an exercise in targeting women who the police think could be a sex worker. Is she from a particular class or caste? Is she dressed like one? Is her make up like that? Is she drinking and smoking? Is she having casual sex which the police cannot fathom to be anything else other than prostitution? This is why the Police regularly assault and rape sex workers. Because he perceives her as the ‘other’ – the woman whose rape doesn’t count; who is available to all men as they please; who is just permanently associated with sex so if a sex worker refuses, argues, protests – she will be “shown her place”. 

But -even the anti-prostitution feminists argue that sex workers are demeaned, degraded and objectified by MEN who sexualise them. But aren’t they also objectifying sex workers. They are also assigning a value to this woman’s personhood (as being permanently exploited or degraded) just because she works as a sex worker. Just because she’s associated with sex. Both camps refuse to see sex workers as women with regular lives just doing sex work as a job. To both of them, sex is her identity - she is permanently in a state of immorality or degradation or exploitation because of all the sex she has. 

This is also why there is this almost ridicule towards sex worker activism. It becomes a personality thing for a woman to be associated with sex. We believe - a sexualised woman cannot be smart, cannot be capable, she cannot have political opinions, thoughts, feelings. Sex is used to disregard her because sex has been used to sum up women’s personalities and abilities. And sex for a woman, it has been decided, is not a good thing. And sex workers become the epitome of sexualised women. They are seen as immoral or frivolous, silly or too exploited. Just because of sex. This is why sex workers are never included in discussions in academic circles or in discussions around laws and policies.  From Revolting Prostitutes: “Sex workers are associated with sex, and to be associated with sex is to be dismissible.”

Sexualisation exists. There’s no denying that. But what are we so scared about? If we stop sexualisation – it won’t give women in society anything tangible. It’s not like women will get more social, sexual or economic empowerment. Only and only through economic empowerment will social and sexual empowerment happen – not vice versa. And constantly panicking about the sexual treatment of women in media to drive home the point that women are being subjugated through sex does not have much of an effect in the real life of a woman. It’s not like the Porn ban has changed the status of social, sexual or economic empowerment of women in India.   What if dancing in an “item number” in a Bollywood film or doing an erotic movie does not degrade the woman doing the dance or movie no matter how sexualised she is. What if her sexualisation does not impact gender equality or the treatment of women in society at all. It’s only because we think that being associated with sex is degrading that we project on women that sexualisation is not good; it’s not worthy of respect.  Melissa Gira Grant writes: 

“but what if being sexualised is neither dehumanising nor empowering but simply value neutral”

This is the problem with sex work. The sex worker becomes the woman at the lowest tier of this “women x sex x goodness” hierarchy and like I said, a lot of the misogyny against sex workers is because they knowingly cross this line – they agree to be whores; they call themselves whores; they agree to be sexualised; refuse to be shamed; they challenge this idea that all women would rather be ‘good’ than be called ‘whores’ and they cross this line for money and this does not sit well with both, the misogynist and the anti-prostitution feminist.   Because sex worker activism demands you take the whore seriously. That no woman, even if she is associated with sex, can be disrespected or disposed. Sex worker activism includes fighting for the rights of sex workers who face violence in the sex trade – rape, assault and which violence is still not taken seriously. A sex worker says – yes, I am associated with sex and I am still worthy of respect and protection, which pisses even the ‘good women’ off. 

For sex workers – just because she forms a transactional sexual relationship with a man and not out of emotions, why must it mean disrespect, degradation – why is it justifiable to treat the “whore” with disgust.  Why not instead say that just because you have sex with a woman or just because a woman is being sexualised – whether by herself or in media– it doesn’t mean you can disrespect her? 

This division in society among women based on social background and then sexual “purity” needs to be removed completely. There’s no virtue in being a good woman and there’s no shame in being a whore. There is no good woman and whore. Doesn’t matter who has sex, how many times, in or out of a relationship, which community one is from – there’s no distinction. Because when you believe that only “good women” who come from “good families” (whatever the fuck that means) deserve respect – you believe that there are some women who deserve to be harmed – like sex workers.  You theorise morality and feminism to somehow make discourses that say sex workers rape doesn’t count because prostitution itself is rape which basically says that men will obviously treat ‘these’ women ‘like this’.  

Even this argument that prostitution is rape is kind of weird that it still holds today.  Anti-prostitution feminism says that if a sex worker is paid for sex, the sex is forced sex and hence, rape. In the book revolting prostitutes, the authors argue that this argument is bolstered with a narrative that again, both the misogynists and anti-prostitution feminists seem to agree on. They both seem to believe that because a woman sells sexual services, a man is free to do as he wishes with her body. Sex workers, they believe, give up all boundaries during the act of sex. This is also why they say: the selling of your sex is the selling of your entire body. So - they believe typically during sex – women given up all autonomy to the man. 

This is misogynistic. Why can’t a woman sell sex and still draw boundaries with the man she’s having sex with and expect him to respect those boundaries – just as anyone would in any other sexual situation – casual or long term. Thinking a sex worker has no boundaries is also factually incorrect. Negotiations in the sex trade are common – they are part of the trade. Sex workers or their agents negotiate outside brothels, on the streets, over the phone.  They decide the price of every act; they inform their clients about condom use; they ideally would refuse clients they are not comfortable with. These are trade standards; sex workers across the world are candid with their clients about their own lists of can and can’t dos, which shows sex workers have their own individual and varied boundaries that clients are expected to respect.   In the sex trade – there is an honesty to how people talk about sex. A sex worker will ask what the clients wants, she will lay out what she can do, her price, negotiate it and then proceeds to execute. 

If a client violates her boundaries – the negotiated terms – it can be rape or sexual abuse or a contractual violation or a client she wants blacklisted – the sex worker will have to be given a voice to articulate the experience. This Prostitution is rape argument is dangerous for sex workers - because we refuse to hear sex workers; refuse to trust how they categorise and describe their experiences; and today, we allow for the actual rape of sex workers because of all this intellectual jargon. Cops don’t take the rape of a sex worker seriously even though sex workers are at a higher risk of sexual assault. Surprisingly, neither does the anti-prostitution or anti-trafficking camp who claim to care so much about the sexual exploitation of women. 

Sex workers assert that they do not sell their body – they sell a service. It just happens to be sexual in nature but should be treated like any other service – provider job. Also, if a coalminer, a farmer, a diver, a bouncer, a bodyguard, a physical labourer is not selling their body then why are sex workers? It is because of a moralistic idea of sexuality – sex for women should be justified with emotional feelings – otherwise it is rape?  

Consent during sex has been a conversation that has been coming up in feminist discourses today. Sex workers say: consent is nuanced. It is constructed. Rape is when consent is violated. But bad sex with consent is not rape. Pleasure also does not determine consent. Presence of pleasure does not absolve rape.  And absence of pleasure is not a withdrawal of consent and so is not rape. ‘Believe victims’ -  the slogan started in the context of rape – the idea that the criminal justice system hadn’t evolved enough to counter gendered crimes, and that a victim’s testimony of her rape, a crime which often went un-prosecuted in the light of lack of evidence- must count as evidence in court proceedings. 

But calling all prostitution as rape and sexual exploitation is doing the exact opposite of that.  It’s still refusing to believe women (sex workers) who keeps insisting that they are not victims of rape.  

In revolting prostitutes, the authors use the example of a massage therapist. She sells her time and services; her job involves touching another’s body in a one-on-one interaction - but saying that a client can do whatever he likes with her body for the duration of the massage would be horrible to say. Imagine a man going to a female massage therapist and demanding sex because she’s alone in the room with a man and so he has unfiltered access to her body.  Because if you force yourself on the massage therapist, it will classify as sexual assault, sexual harassment or rape depending on the crime.  The scope of work during a massage is clear so is it with sex work. 

A sex worker may consent to stripping or dancing for money even in a private room but refuse sex work with the same man. Sex workers consent, but not out of desire – there are other factors – there are conditions – the negotiated terms - that have to be respected, then there is money – consideration. It is essentially a contract.

So a private stripper or dancer’s consent is limited to the stripping or dancing and if a client forces himself on her – it is rape. If the sex worker has told the client that she cannot have sex without condoms, and he removes his condom mid-act – that’s rape. This is because the client violates the negotiated terms and so he violates consent. A client does not have ‘unfiltered access to a sex workers’ body’ simply because it is sex – that’s what a misogynist would say. 

In Revolting Prostitutes: the authors reconcile all this. 

Because regardless of what anti-prostitution feminism or the conservatives believe or want us to believe – today men and women do have casual sex; they do have sex with people they do not date or marry. It is even more hypocritical then, that liberal academic discourses defend a woman’s right to have sex casually but refuse to support sex worker rights.  

" for many people, sex can indeed be recreational, casual, or in some way “meaningless”. The meaning and purpose of sex varies wildly for different people in different contexts or at different times in their lives. The sense that sex is intrinsically, always special rebounds on women, who are disproportionately seen as losing something when they have sex that is ‘too casual’.  

Someone can have a lot of sex at some time in their lives and then no sex for a long time, or they can be intermittently having sex. It could be with different people or the same person. It could be casual or in a long-term relationship and the purpose/meaning will change for the same person over the course of their lives. Assigning a value to a woman based on her ‘sexual activity’ which makes it a woman’s permanent personality is just stupid and baseless and misogynistic.  So discourses around prostitution which focus on sex and then debate whether it’s good or bad for the sex workers and women is a ridiculous discussion. Sex workers are not doing sex work for the sex. They are doing it for money. Many have a different life outside the sex trade – sex workers have partners, husbands, whom they have a separate sexuality with. This is why the authors of the book Revolting Prostitutes also criticize sex – positivity in the whole prostitution discourse. 

Sex positivity went the other way from where the anti-prostitution camp was and ended up ‘over emphasising on the value of sex”  Sex positivity  said – sex work was empowering, it was pleasurable.  Not only is this line of argument not productive, it is also not true, it is not applicable to most sex workers.  Most sex workers do not experience this sexual pleasure or sexual empowerment and more importantly, they are just not looking for it in the sex trade. They are doing sex work as a job. When sex workers fight for their rights, they want to talk about working conditions, labor rights, workers’ safety and not about the sex – not even sexual pleasure and empowerment. That’s why it is useful to call it sex ‘work’. It is not about the sex. It is about the work.  When you keep talking about the sex – you purposely ignore that women sell sex for money that they do not have. When you keep talking about the sex– you can keep criminalizing prostitution as the sexual exploitation of women and create moral panic while ignoring that criminalization harms sex workers the most – even sex workers who were forced into the sex trade; even sex workers who want to leave the sex trade. 

Some sex workers may have good sex at work but its not that common. Sometimes the sex is bad, not pleasant and mostly – it’s tolerable. This is not cause for outrage. They still consent to it. They do it for the money. Someone else projecting their feelings about how women should have sex cannot take away the agency of a woman to consent to selling sex even if she doesn’t like it. Sex workers have a range of varied experiences which again will differ over the time she spends in the sex trade and may even differ over the course of a day. Sex workers should be able to describe their experiences and assign their own meaning to these experiences without it being used against sex workers.  And for cases of sexual violence against sex workers – we have to believe the victim – like in the case of any other sexual crime.

So the experiences of sex workers will not fall into either the sex positive or sex negative camp. 

Because the sex negative camp – the anti-prostitution feminist will say: if you are a sex worker and you hate your job – this means you want prostitution criminalised and want to be ‘rescued’. And many sex workers, even if they hate their jobs will tell you how prostitution being criminalised is making their lives worse, making it harder for them to leave the sex trade. The sex-positive camp will say if you are a sex worker, sex work empowers you. You are sex positive. But, From RP “a sex worker who is living precariously or in poverty, who is being exploited by a manager or lacks negotiating power is not likely to be particularly ‘sex positive’ at work. These factors are structural, not a function of the worker’s state of enlightenment” 

Most importantly, these discussions exclude a common perspective that exists among sex workers. “the perspectives of sex workers who hate sex work”. Because of these aggressive anti-prostitution politics - sex workers are not permitted to be honest. Because if she says – I hate my job – she will be ‘rescued’ out of the sex trade, which sex workers know will be the worst-case scenario for them. So she cannot honestly and without repercussions to her livelihood, discuss the violence and exploitation that does exist in the sex trade that sex workers want to address. This also contributes in pretending that both sex workers and clients want the same thing: Sex. But this is incorrect. The client wants sex; sex workers want the money.  Juno Mac and Molly smith in RP say – we assert the right of all women to be sex – ambivalent.

Not sex – positive or sex-negative.  Sex- ambivalent. It is not about sex. What a sex worker feels about sex might change and it cannot form the basis of granting her basic rights at her job. Sex work needs to be discussed through the framework of labour rights, safety and protections; not through this debate of what sex can mean and do to a woman.  This is why sex workers keep insisting – sex work isn’t about the sex.  It is about the work. 

Part 2: Work 

It is this anti-sex view within feminism that places SEX work as completely different from the other kinds of work that people do; they view sex work and only sex work as bad work.  What anti-prostitution feminism has intellectualised and presented as academic arguments against prostitution is basically their idea of morality around sex and women. To them: sex just cannot be work for a woman.  But sex work is work. And this makes people laugh, it makes people uncomfortable mainly because it is to do with sex; but it is work and here’s why: 

FIRSTLY: Not all work in today’s capitalist society is good. Work is often bad. 

Anti-prostitution feminism has this undertone that women must do “respectable” work. Again, women should aspire to be good. To them - it's better to have your respect and self- worth which they link to ‘valuing your sex’ than to want money. Apparently, even if you’re on the brink of poverty.  But what it misses of course is that for women empowerment – women  first have to get their material needs met and gain economic power. 

In the anti-trafficking discourses – it’s the middle-class women who are activists, who run academic circles theorizing prostitution, who work in anti-trafficking international organizations and NGOs – who are considered the ‘good’ women – they are the women who are “fighting prostitution” and so work for gender equality.  And sex workers are the working-class women who do ‘bad work’ which is not respectable for women. And so, in the anti-trafficking field, it is the ‘good women’ who control and monitor the ‘other’ – the sex workers. 

You have to already have some privilege to be able to do ‘good work’ where you are fulfilled, happy and paid extremely well, but this is not common. In fact – anti-prostitution feminists have often asked – would sex workers have this sex if there wasn’t money involved – and in this premise lies their privileged stance – it is expected that work should be so fulfilling that you would do it for free. Most of us would not do any work for free so why should sex workers? 

There is a lot of work that is bad but people still do it because they have to – for money. Doesn’t most work in a capitalist society, especially (but not limited to) working-class work, not contain some exploitation? Most working-class jobs exploit the labour and time of a person for very little money. Workers are underpaid. Face bad working conditions. Long hours. No overtime. Delayed payments. These jobs are not even considered prestigious even if they are essential. But even if a job is not essential, even if it does not have ‘social value’ – it is all still work. It is something a person depends on for a livelihood, and that is enough for that person to continue to want to do this job – no matter how bad it can get, and if there are viable alternatives – this person will take that up but until then – they will do what they have to for money. 

From RP: 

When sex workers assert sex work is work, we are saying that we need rights. We are not saying that the work is good or fun, or even harmless, nor that it has fundamental value…. It is not the task of sex workers to apologise for what prostitution is. Sex workers should not have to defend the sex industry to argue that we deserve the ability to earn a living without punishment. 

Sex work can be bad work filled with exploitation, coercion, force, violence, no recourse to justice - which is why sex workers fight for more rights and protection.  The sex trade is not inherently violent – the sex trade contains violence. But the laws today – do not allow sex workers to address this violence. And while sex workers work towards improving conditions in the sex trade – why do they have to pretend like there’s no issues; there’s no violence and exploitation; that it’s all fun.  Because if they complain – the first response they get is – yeah, that’s why prostitution is criminalised – just leave your job. 

The most overlooked thing about sex work is – people sell sex to get money. It’s made to look like they are bad, immoral, they seduce men or they’re traumatised, abused, they’re deteriorating; they’re degraded and exploited – but the most important aspect of sex work actually is - women need money and resources.  I’ve heard social workers and anti-prostitution activists in the field say and this is a common narrative you’ll hear – these women, sex workers sell their sex for so little. For 50 Rs or 100 Rs. This again falls into this fallacy of making prostitution about the sex and connecting it to the dignity of the woman. The implication is: She sells so much (her sex – her dignity) for so little (50rs/ 100 rs) so she’s disrespected, she’s made cheap – she thinks her sex isn’t worth much. But that’s just not the case – she’s just responding to the market. She knows her clientele; she knows the bare minimum she needs to earn; she also has to hide from the police so will take whatever client comes; her clientele might have lesser spending capacity – yes, she’s doing the work for lesser wages but she needs her daily wage and she depends on the men that make up her clientele and their extra income. It has nothing to do with her dignity; and it also has nothing to do with how she will be treated by the client. It’s not connected. This is just her responding to the market; her needs and acting accordingly – she is a very rational actor in her life. 

Also, what the anti-prostitution feminists conveniently refuse to acknowledge is that its because the sex trade a criminalised market that sex workers have lesser negotiation power; lesser rights, lesser protections; and low prices often indicate a lack of resources in this woman’s life. She is becoming desperate for money. When we refuse to call sex work work, we also don’t recognise that the months and years -  the sex worker spends in detention or rehabilitation – in jail or protective homes is a loss of income for her and a family fully dependent on her. It is made to seem like it is not a big deal – she’s a prostitute who got caught by the cops. 

And not emphasizing on the money aspect is convenient. Anti-prostitution discourses aim to cause outrage about how women have to value their sex for so little and get exploited through sex but there’s no outrage about poverty, homelessness, lack of shelters, lack of education, lack of skill training, lack of women’s jobs; how doing women’s jobs are often unsafe; how many women are still poor; how most women don’t have access to power; how many women have no access to basic resources and have to do sex work. And now we’re all outraged that men think they can get easy sex and so we oppose prostitution. But how is selling sex for a woman more degrading than hunger, poverty, starvation, death? It just isn’t.  Why should a woman just accept a miserable situation and do nothing about it - because she should value her sex like a respectable woman would? 

Second on why sex work is work: 

Among all this moral panic and outrage– there is this over- simplification of what sex work is. 

Think of just mainstream comments about sex work - whether it’s a misogynist’s comment about a “shameless lazy woman earning money through sex ” or the anti-prostitution feminist view about “sex workers being subjugated and exploited by men” – there is clearly this misunderstanding or rather, there is no attempt to understand the work of sex work.  Non-sex workers imagine that sex workers have to just be ready for penetration.   This is misogynistic and also factually wrong. 

Sex work is more than penetration. Sex workers have to put up an act. It involves hustling, seduction; fantasies and performing an illusion. This is again something sex positive and sex negative feminism doesn’t understand. It isn’t about the sex worker really enjoying sex – it’s about the sex worker PRETENDING to enjoy the sex. Mellisa Gira Grant writes “acting as if we share our customer’s desire is the work of sex work”. 

Performing a person’s sexual desire is labour. A sex worker puts up a performance for her client. Even before that there is work - she dresses up for her job and then hustles for clients. Once she finds a client, she then negotiates the deal and once the verbal agreement is in place – she plays a character.  This is part of the job. Often sex workers are accused of entrapping men – whores make men lustful – but this is like accusing an actress of being fake if she isn’t like the character she is playing. A sex worker may act like a seductress to secure the client and during the performance, but this doesn’t mean this is the sex she likes in her personal life – she may have different preferences.

Researchers who have studied sex work more holistically have concluded that it is regularly more than just sex. It’s not unheard of in the sex trade for women to provide companionship, non-penetrative sexual acts, physical comfort, emotional intimacy -  an escape from everyday life – so their jobs require a level of care and kindness; emotional intelligence, confidentiality – not very different from the emotional labour that is part of what a therapist does. Sociologist Elizabeth Bernstein says sex workers offer what can be called ‘bounded intimacy’ – a service which ranges from physical labour to emotional labour.  We see this in the Kolkata-based sex-worker collective DMSC’s sex worker manifesto published in 1997 – they said: “The sexual needs we meet for these men is not just about the mechanical sexual act, nor a momentary gratification of 'base' instincts. Beyond the sex act, we provide a much wider range of sexual pleasure which is to do with intimacy, touch and compatibility — a service which we render without any social recognition of its significance.”

This exists throughout in different settings; a client in a town in India may take a sex worker to a lodge and want her to stay the night – so it includes intimacy, connection and sexual labour without a social element but a monetary element. We also forget the activism sex workers are always doing – fighting for their friends in jail; negotiating with third-parties and the police; fighting violent clients even – trying to get them barred or arrested. 

Lastly. Why sex work is work: 

Much like domestic work, emotional work, reproductive and child-raising work – sex work-  has been one of those things that has existed in society and has historically been relegated to women. Not calling sex work – work, is the devaluation or non-recognition of women’s work in society. Sex workers have always been expected to exist. They’ve existed. Prostitution is often called the world’s oldest profession. But still, sex workers continue to be shamed, abused, stigmatised and criminalised. 

Not treating sex work as work – almost seems like an extension of not treating the work that women did and continue to do in society as valuable – as worthy of being called ‘work’.  Women should understand this. All the unwaged work that women do at home that is taken for granted and assumed to not be work. Domestic work is work. Child-raising work is work. And sex work is work. While woman in marriages were told that what they did was not work but things women do out of love and affection; sex workers are told that what they do is not work but things ‘fallen women’ do. 

So we build these reasons as to why sex is bad and how sex workers were exploited but so were women in marriages. Marriage has exploited women’s labour which was all unwaged. It wasn’t considered ‘work’ in a capitalist society. But things women were expected to do for men. Whether you became a wife or prostitute – the principal is the same, isn’t it. If we give rights in marriages to women today, then why not in prostitution? We stand up for domestic and child-bearing work because it is work that “good women” have done in marriages, but sex workers suffer from the whore stigma. We are told their work is not work. Again, stand up for the suffering wife – the respectable woman whose labour is taken for granted but feel no sympathy for the whore. Why?  Her labour is thrashed even more. She remains marginalised and stigmatised. Margo St James said: “Immorality is the arrest of women as a class for a service that’s demanded of them from society.”

In the 1970s, in the UK -  a section of feminists, the Marxist feminists, ran a campaign called ‘The wages for housework campaign’. Their demand: the reorganisation of society to value the work assigned to women, at home. They basically said that in a capitalist society – it just so happened that men worked for wages in factories whereas women work at home but not for wages, but apparently - out of love for their husband, duty for their family and their innate feminine caring nature. But the women did work. They were responsible for domestic work – cooking and cleaning; raising children – suitable for society and work; they were expected to provide their husbands with a feminine home environment, as respite from the capitalist economy, they were expected to not deprive their men of sex, they deal with his egos and frustrations that come from work. So, if a man’s waged work outside home depended on the woman’s unwaged work inside – capitalism also depended on women’s work but refused to value it and call it work.  The Wages for Housework campaign basically demanded that society start recognising the value of what was ‘women’s work’. They argued that because the work women did at home was not called work – women could not refuse to do it; women can’t go on strike demanding better treatment, better pay, more facilities like workers in factories do. The point of their campaign was not the exact value or cost of these services but the principle - the acknowledgement that the work traditionally relegated to women, is infact - work. And calling something work - makes the work visible – it gives someone the power to refuse to do it. 

To them, sex work fit in perfectly. It was one of those things relegated to women in society without attempting to value it or call it work.  

Women in general have been historically wronged – women’s labour has been unpaid; we have faced violence, assault, discrimination. Marriage and motherhood has been used to subjugate women. But still – today we do not call for the criminalisation of marriage or pregnancy. No – we acknowledge that marriage can become exploitative and address this imbalance by giving women rights. So why do sex workers not get the same respect? Just like women in marriages – sex workers deserve to have the wrongs committed to them, rectified. Sex workers are women who have constantly fought for their right to work outside home; for labour rights; for migrant rights; they’ve protested poverty, bad working conditions– they have fought a lot for the right of women to work outside home, free of harm. 

Sex workers getting their due – the acknowledgment of their work and rights and protection - is a huge win for all women. They stand in for the right of all women – no matter ‘good’ or ‘bad’ –  to not be taken for granted; to not be disrespected and to not have their work and labour - devalued. 

Part 3: Sex Work 

Across the world, It is common in the field to hear policymakers, politicians and activists talk about how harsher laws against prostitution will deter “traffickers” and so countries will become a less attractive destination for trafficking.  This is the carceral anti-prostitution feminist’s argument. They say: if we just criminalise and continuously crackdown on the sex trade, then these vile traffickers will not be able to exploit women and make them work in the sex trade and men, the clients, will not be able to demean these women through sex.  

This is an intentionally misleading argument. It promotes the narrative that the sex trade is driven by the sexual demands of men; their animalistic lust and a villainous urge to exploit women. But this argument blames everything on sex, exploitation and men and does not blame underlying economic conditions that actually drive women to the sex trade.  

Harsh anti-prostitution laws do not work (they have so far not worked across the world) because prostitution is not driven by the lust of men. It is driven by the material needs of women.  

At its core – sex work is a survival strategy. It’s a very practical way to make quick, not easy but immediate money. Sex work is “a rational survival strategy in a shitty world”. It’s a logical response to a bad situation. 

Pluma Sumaq, a sex worker, says: Prostitution is not what you do when you hit rock bottom. Prostitution is what you do to stay afloat, to swim rather than sink, to defy rather than disappear. 

A common objection to the sex trade is that it sees women from marginalised communities and continues to marginalise the women through sex work.  Many people in the sex trade do come from marginalised communities. Whether Dalit women, Adivasi women, hijras, transwomen in India and in the West – black women, women of colour, transwomen, people from indigenous communities and genders - all who have been marginalised due to casteism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, other discrimination in mainstream employment and society - are overrepresented in the sex trade. Many queer people or people from abusive homes who’ve run away or are thrown out; those who have faced trauma, illnesses, and have nowhere to go have also found their way into the sex trade. The sex trade is one of the only places that has provided employment historically to queer people – the sex trade has a history of gender non-conformity which has no parallel in any other industry. 

So seen through another lens – prostitution shows the failure of mainstream society to provide employment to marginalised people. It’s failure to take care of everyone. It shows us who is included in the mainstream and who gets chucked out. The sex trade has provided sustenance, not good work, but sustenance to a lot of marginalised people. The sex trade often becomes that last option for those with nowhere to go and despite the violence and exploitation that does exist in the sex trade – sex work sometimes serves as that last resort for someone who is on the brink of poverty or destitution. 

Should marginalised people be allowed to get a livelihood in only the sex trade, many will argue? NO – but until we do not help and support them the way they need – we cannot cut their access to existing resources, however little, by criminalising the one source of livelihood that they can rely on? How can you criminalise a marginalised person’s survival strategy; their last resort to get the resources they need when they have no other option. We should continue fighting for marginalised people’s access to resources, education, jobs, but sex work is not a hindrance to that. Both can continue until people automatically stop needing to do sex work. Prostitution need not be criminalised. There is no honour and respect in attacking the survival strategy of a marginalised person. 

Another thing prostitution shows us is the gender inequality that exists in society. It shows us that there are women who need to sell sex for money to survive and there are men who have disposable income for recreational sex. This is the gender inequality. This economic inequality. This inequality is met by the most marginalised women through prostitution but both the economic inequality or the marginalisation of the person does not find its root cause in prostitution.  Sex workers have no money for necessities while men, the clients have extra for recreational sex and their extra money is how sex workers make a living. Just like husbands in a traditional marriage with a wife who relies on his income; clients to sex workers bring in the resources sex workers need in their lives. The little money, the anti-prostitution feminists complain sex workers get for sex work, is the only money she can make. From Revolting Prostitutes: “In an important sense, clients are not the ‘demand’ but the supply; for sex workers. Clients represent the supply of resources into our lives.”  

Whether prostitution is good or bad is an inane discussion. Until women need to do it, they will and until you give them alternatives that they are happy with (not under force of the criminal justice system) - sex workers need safety, protections, and labour rights. They deserve to be able to do the work they have to do, free of any harm.  If everyone agrees that prostitution is a bad job but women still need to do it – the only way you can help the women is to empower them – empower the women who need it the most, those who are doing the most dangerous jobs.  

Again, from Revolting Prostitutes and I’m selectively quoting:  “To say prostitution is work is not to say it is good work or that we should be uncritical of it. To be better than poverty or a lower paid job is an abysmally low bar… People who sell sex are among the world’s least powerful people, people who do the worst jobs. But that is precisely why anti-prostitution campaigners should take seriously the fact that sex work is a way people get the resources they need. … People with relatively little are right to be fearful when their means of survival is taken away… It is when people’s income is low that reducing them even further is a terrifying prospect; it is when jobs are bad that workers most need worker’s rights. Outsiders think that selling sex must be a pretty horrible job and many sex workers would agree. However, these sex workers may locate the problem not in the sex but in the work” 

To this – many will respond that rehabilitation schemes are aimed to provide women with alternatives. But the alternatives offered are never viable. This is why anti-trafficking efforts fail. They become patronising. This assumption that women should do anything except sex work is out of touch – it does not acknowledge that many sex workers have tried other work and it wasn’t viable; it didn’t meet their specific needs - it was not convenient; and it was not less exploitative than sex work.  In the long history of sex work – we see how often sex work was seen as the more viable and less exploitative out of the few choices -  women had for work. Late 19th century studies showed half the sex workers in Britain used to be domestic workers but were so underpaid and hated it so much that they chose sex work which gave them significantly more money and independence. In India – researchers found that several women leave construction, factory jobs– where they make much less money than men – for sex work which offers higher pay and more flexible hours. Women labourers have often complained of sexual harassment, abuse and rape at work sites – so it’s not a ‘safe job’ for a woman. 

There are other justifiable reasons why other work does not provide the safety net that sex work does for a woman. Research out of the Global South including studies out of Ghana, Thailand, the Caribbean found that women turned to sex work to support their families or to gain capital – to buy houses – so they saw sex work as the only chance they had to stability. For many – it is the only option to support their family in really bad times – which bring sudden financial requirements. Sex work doesn’t cap her income – if she needs more money – she can meet that need by taking up more clients.  Some women have used sex work to get class and social mobility – they could get higher paying gigs and gained a lot of wealth or they supported themselves through college and got access to middle class jobs. Ancient and medieval history is filled with examples of courtesans, bar girls, prostitutes who traversed class. This is often looked at as immoral. It’s common to see on social media – the misogynists crying about shameless women selling her sex for money – implying disgust. Anti – prostitution feminism mirrors this mindset – these women exploit themselves for money, they say with pity. No other job under capitalism is so hated for allowing the people who do it to get money. Something everyone is looking for. But a woman selling sex for money is a bad thing, we are told, as if sex work is an easy job. 

In fact – rehabilitation efforts reflect this mindset. Women are taught ‘respectable skills’ in rehabilitation homes which pay horribly. Am example out of Cambodia and this will happen in other countries in the Global South: Sex workers are taught stitching in rehabilitation homes and then given jobs in garment factories. With long working hours, with horrible working conditions, no breaks, no overtime. Where they make much lesser money than they do in sex work but spend much much more time.  Is working in a garment factory – basically a sweatshop - a good job?  Cambodian sex workers and the factory workers say NO. They both think of sex work as the higher-paying, more attractive alternative because working conditions in factories are that horrible.  

A sex worker has flexible timings; can choose her shifts; can take days off; can care for her family, children which might including picking them up from school; giving regular food, medicines etc. A sex worker can decide she needs a certain amount of money per week and work accordingly to make this money – she may cover this in 2 days or maybe work at night everyday and that’s how she makes her income and looks after her family. But a factory job offers her no flexibility – she has to work those 12+ hour shifts and so now will need someone else at home to take care of the family. The money she makes in this factory is lesser than the money she used to make in sex work so not like she can employ somebody else at home. But sex workers are assured – at least, this is a ‘respectable’ job. 

This flexibility is another reason sex work emerges as a viable option for many. Caring for the home and family often falls on women. So women who are the sole caretakers of her family or even if a woman is traumatised because of abuse, has a mental disorder, has an addiction she needs to take care of – she will not be able to sustain a rigid, full day job.  The sex trade also sees women with disabilities who have no shot at mainstream employment or any social security. Many women may have children or family members with special needs that require more emotional and financial resources.  So in these cases also, sex work emerges as a practical option. She can care-give or heal during the day – and do some sex work at night to meet the economic needs.  

The main reason sex work is a very reliable survival strategy is because - sex work is a low-skilled job. A woman with no education or skills or experience who has been thrown out of her house or a woman on the run from abuse – maybe with a child – may find herself on the streets with nothing. This woman has to find a way to get money now. What will she do? Pray to God and wish her problems away? Apply for jobs and wait for a job where she has to work 12-15 hours a day? For this also, she needs a place to stay and food until then. She and her child are hungry now.  Even if prostitution is criminal – it won’t stop someone from trying to make this money by selling sex, no matter how she feels about her sex and respect and dignity and all that. She’s desperate. She’s not stealing. She will do sex work. And sex work will give her “breathing room” until she figures next steps. 

From Revolting Prostitutes: 

“ It is very difficult to prevent anyone from selling sex through criminal law. Criminalisation can make it dangerous but there’s little the state can do to physically curtail a person’s capacity to sell or trade sex.  Thus, prostitution is an abiding strategy for survival for those who have nothing – no training, qualifications or equipment. There are almost no prerequisites for heading out to the streets and waiting for a client. Survival sex work may be dangerous, cold, and frightening – but for people whose other options are worse – it’s there as a last resort: the ‘safety net ‘onto which almost any destitute person can fall. This explains the indomitable resilience of sex work’