sex studio¶

Carol Leigh was an academic and an artist who decided to take up employment at a "sex studio" as a novelty. In her own words: "I don’t want to work in restaurants. I’m an artist, I want to explore life. So for me, initially, prostitution was an investigation." https://t.co/3WIT4o8Jwo Her formulation of "sex work" was conceived as a way for her to square the circle of being a socioeconomically-advantaged second wave feminist concerned with petty bourgeois women's rights with an almost voyeuristic dabbling in a "bohemian romantic" notion of poverty. During her time there, she was raped and didn't report it because "it would have gotten the establishment shut down," a clear example of the exact dynamic we point to when we say sex work is NOT "just another type of work." It is an unparalleled form of abuse. The liberal conclusion of that is that, if only prostitution was legalized, she could have gone to the police without fear of economic reprisal. We assert that the rape SHOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED AT ALL and that the precarity of prostitutes gives rise to this omnipresent abuse. Prostitution is not illegal because "it's icky," it's illegal to deepen the conditions that allow for this wholesale abuse. But the material root is not the criminalization itself or the ostracism of prostitutes as an identity, but rather the economic precarity that precedes it. An economic precarity that is not experienced by the bulk of self-identified Sex Workers™️, who adopt a genericized moniker to simultaneously flex "moral solidarity" and shared experience with their precarious counterparts, while distancing themselves from the attached ostracism. It is akin to a personal chef referring to themselves as a "food service worker," to evoke formal continuity with bedraggled, overworked servers and line cooks, despite facing qualitatively different economic conditions.

"Sex work is work" erases context in favor of form. Yes, obviously prostitutes should not be criminalized and penalized for the lengths they go through to survive. But this liberal formulation ends up addressing anything BUT the material context of the abuse, by masking it within the realm of "respectable work." Respect prostitutes, the way you should respect any oppressed cohort. But do not position cultural normalization as a path toward liberation.