“Sex Work isn’t real work?” Pshaw!

Every week or so, you see some comment in the blogosphere that says “sex work isn’t real work”.  I don’t know who comes up with such inane commentary.

Ridiculous.

Sex work ticks all the boxes of being very complex and challenging work.  Admittedly, I am a consumer, and my contact with Sex Workers tends to be in the D/s arena.  To me, however, the rules apply universally.

A female SW that is dealing with a man to fulfil some fantasy of his is first and foremost in a client service business.  If she does not provide good service, he will not come back and the income stream will dry up.  To do this, she has to understand him, and understand his needs.  That requires listening skills, often deep psychological insight, and also a great deal of indulgence and patience.  

These women also must possess extraordinary creativity, as much of their “service” is dispensed ad-lib, in the moment.  It is acting, but real-time, without rehearsal.  Making him feel big, feel good, feel better than he may naturally feel.  She’s a healer.

An SW’s body must also conform to a certain type, depending on the client, so too their clothes and entire aesthetic.  A woman SW must know these tropes, must invest in them, and must act them out.  That is expensive, requires discipline which may include beauty routines, equipment, diet, exercise, what have you.  In other words, lot’s of time and investment outside of billable hours where you have to be ready to be on your game during billable hours.

She most certainly also needs to worry about stalkers and violence.

In my limited experience with Dommes who I pay eye-watering sums of money to, blessed be they.  They are worth every penny.  A woman who provides to me a personal improvisational theatre experience is priceless.  I am lucky to afford it.  For those who cannot, there are phone lines, online chat, neither of which are too expensive, or sexting services where you can text away until you get off…for others there is the internet and porn films, and so on…all through which “you get what you pay for.”

What is certain, is that this business is an absolutely enormous industry.  Worth $ billions.  Perhaps one of the largest and most significant industries in the world.  And while I am talking about female SWs because that is my interest, women are the industry.  The female of our species at least in theory dominates the sex industry landscape.  Why, however, do they not dominate the financial side of this industry?  This is a horrific legacy of patriarchy.  

I believe that this trope of “sex work is not real work” is perpetrated by loser men who cannot believe the power that women have over them and who cannot believe how much money a self-empowered woman can make doing Sex Work.  At times it is shocking, particularly what the good ones make.

There is nothing more beautiful than a woman who gets rich and achieves total independence through sex work.  There is absolutely nothing to me that is more intoxicating than such a woman.  There is nothing more empowering in my mind than a woman who has that much control over her life and the world around her.  Sex Work is the most fundamental line of work that exists.

What a stupid notion that sex work isn’t real work.  It is bloody difficult.  That’s like saying sports aren’t real work, movies aren’t real work…but truth is, they are amongst the highest paid people in society.  Why?  Because money follows value add.  

I’m just some dumb lug who took a vanilla path to making a living, but when I pay a woman to give me something that I can’t get anywhere else, the money is the last thing I think of.  You want to know the first?  Respect.  The second?  Respect.  The third?  Respect.

And after we’ve established that, then maybe, just maybe, she will actually let me demonstrate that I respect her and her art.  And you know what?  It is art.  And it requires extraordinary talent. 

I also know, as we all do, that there are things that you just cannot get anywhere else, and in truth should probably not even try.  But that means scarcity, and scarcity means rare, special, wonderful, beautiful, and worth cherishing.

Please think of sex workers whenever you can and help to make their lives better.  Because today, no matter how noble their calling, they are treated worse than second class citizens.  And that is beyond unjust.