An explorative piece on how sex workers have long combatted the issues of privacy retention and sex trafficking ahead of the rest of the world.
Researchers cannot define the oldest profession in the world. Despite being a common euphemism for sex work, researchers have debated other professions, too. But sex work is the oldest one — and here’s why. The unpaid labor of women historically extends to sex. Until modern day, marrying for emotional security and genuine love wasn’t a common concept. Women married out of obligation, duty, security… the list goes on. Marriages were arranged or at minimum, coerced for centuries. What is a part of the unpaid labor that women were doing for all of that time? Sex.
Changes to laws on marital rape did not begin until 1974.
There are about a dozen states that currently have lesser or near-nonexistent sentences for marital rape, even today. Changes to laws on marital rape did not begin until 1974, the year my stepmother was born — for some perspective. Yes — our grandparents and even our parents lived through a time when it was legal to rape your wife. In 1993, marital rape had finally become illegal in all 50 states. Unfortunately, some states left loopholes that abusive spouses could take advantage of. For example, in my state, Connecticut, rape is a Class A felony, while marital rape is Class B — thus offering abusive spouses a reprieve for raping their wife instead of someone else. In Mississipi, the only way to convict someone of rape is if it can be proven that the rape used force — technically illegalizing forcible rape, marital or not. Their law excludes coercion and substance-related incapacitation by omission.
How does this make sex work the oldest profession? Considering the lack of genuine intimacy between the majority of couples pre-modern day, sex was truly an act of obligation. If anything, sex made up a large chunk of the labor women did, due to societal expectations of conceiving large families.
The modern-day escort can easily be juxtaposed with the traditional housewife. While many escorts may take on multiple clients, there are quite a few who find one main provider — in exchange for whatever money, opportunities, and protection that provider can give, they get sex and companionship. Sound familiar? Because that’s what trad wives do — the opportunity for them in marriage is to have security and stability. Post modern traditional wives now have the ability to wait and find a husband they connect with and relate to. But when you look at certain trends, common themes begin to come out of the woodwork.
The transactional nature of that exchange is exactly what makes it non-monetized sexual labor, instead of an act of intimacy and companionship.
Over the years, one idea is consistently recycled into a variety of methods — performing sex in exchange for one’s husband to help raise their own children or clean their own house. I do genuinely empathize with the rhetoric that stay-at-home wives should perform the day-to-day tasks of running a home. Leaving parenting to fall squarely on women, however, is a tired tale as old as time. It shouldn’t take your wife giving you a blowjob for you to parent your own damn kid. Yet, the transactional nature of that exchange is exactly what makes it non-monetized sexual labor, instead of an act of intimacy and companionship.
So, yes, when we include that context, sex work is definitely the oldest profession in the world — sex was made transactional for women long before it was made optional. As we all do today to survive capitalist constructs, women performed sexual labor for years for their own survival.
In cultures across the world, sex work is respected — or even revered. Japan has parades that include oiran — highly respected courtesans (a fancy word for escorts) walk through crowded streets, proudly displayed in lavish kimonos with flowered ornaments in their hair. Oiran perform similarly to geisha, but the major difference was sex. While it wasn’t uncommon for geishas to create sexual relationships with their main sponsors, it wasn’t really what they existed for. Like geisha, oiran specialize in entertaining and hospitality, leading them to be more esteemed than the average sex provider in Japanese culture. In fact, most cultures, prior to the rise of the church and Abrahamic religion, adopted a similar reverence for sex workers. There were temples and shrines that not only worshipped sex workers but safeguarded them as well, and they could be found throughout regions of the world.
In Greece, women performed ritualistic sexual labor in the temples of Aphrodite. The same can be said about the ancient temples of Venus in Rome. In India, though the practice in itself has problematic connotations, young women and girls can be interlocked into ritualistic marriages with temples — where they are seen as giving the upper class contact with the gods through sexual and spiritual devotion. These girls and women are allowed to live separate lives from the men they perform for, with rights to inheritance, wealth, and influence. Though there are laws that ban prostitution in India and social culture surrounding these ritualistic marriages have shifted, it is still practiced in parts of the country. There are so many more examples of sex work being socially relevant throughout history and even in modern day.
What we know as the modern western world today has always been heavily influenced by the hand of the Church — to clarify, I am referring to post-colonial times, not the pre-existing norms of the indigenous people before. Despite being a country founded on the principles of religious and social freedom, America retained a core of traditional values from the Protestant influence of the colonial era. This has intrinsically shaped how western society views sex work.
In modern day, sex work is more commonly conflated with sex trafficking than actual labor.
In modern day, sex work is more commonly conflated with sex trafficking than actual labor, despite the two concepts existing separately. This is where the problem truly lies. Figureheads in current American society have made a mission to combine these concepts — thus opening the American people up to invasive surveillance under the guise of protecting sex trafficking victims.
When one domino falls, so do the rest.
Recently, the people behind a few major anti-sex trafficking organizations have come under fire. There’s Tim Ballard, chairman of Operation Underground Railroad, who stepped down a month after sexual misconduct allegations were raised by several women and even sex trafficking survivors. And I’m assuming we all know Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher was the chairman of Thorn, an anti-trafficking organization he founded with his ex-wife Demi Moore, until about two weeks ago. When one domino falls, so do the rest.
Ashton Kutcher has been a staunch supporter of law enforcement and the CIA. Problematically, the early days of the CIA lead them to accusations of involvement in child sex trafficking. Could we call that a coincidence and give Kutcher the benefit of the doubt? Sure. After all, it’s been nearly 30 years since the documentation on this conflict was released by the FBI, and those accusations were from decades prior. But then, throw in the fact that Thorn not only had a rape apologist for a chairman (and board observer — let’s not forget Mrs. Mila Kunis), but an alleged sexual predator in Joe Lonsdale, a tech investor who stands accused of raping and starving his ex-girlfriend.
Thorn is also tied to numerous Silicon Valley sponsors, leading to speculation that the organization is a front for providing surveillance technology to law enforcement, under the guise of protecting children — a legal loophole, since they technically cannot sell the technology. In a way, the theory makes sense. Silicon Valley investors put money into this organization that they will receive back in the form of tax exemption, and in return they partner with law enforcement to survey the general public and recieve backdoor data. These companies are also contracted with the CIA to provide them surveillance technology in other forms, which is a part of the reason why this theory has gained traction. Then combine that with Kutcher’s role as a lead investor in the organization Mark43 alongside Jeff Bezos and former CIA director David Petreas. Mark43’s mission is to provide weapons technology to government and state law enforcement.
How does this all tie back to sex work? It’s simple — sex workers were the first victims of surveillance technology. As previously discussed, Abrahamic influence has drastically shaped how sex work is perceived, and not for the better. Due to the inherent bias and stigma this influence placed on sex workers, they have been systematically criminalized for over a century in the west. Unfortunately, the age of technology ushered in the age of surveillance and privacy infringement like never before.
This wasn’t the catalyst of the western war on sex work, but it shot the conflict into the spotlight.
Though the stigma and silencing of sex workers began long before the existence of the internet, it became extremely evident in this era. They were the ones who initially used the web to build platforms and connect with clientele. As the internet became more regulated, sex workers were pushed further underground. The idea that sex work was linked with trafficking was also able to gain more traction, thanks to the ability to spread misinformation and propaganda on a wider scale. This wasn’t the catalyst of the western war on sex work, but it shot the conflict into the spotlight.
Sex workers began to vocalize heavily about surveillance issues following the closure of Backpage, a classifieds website similar to Craigslist that was commonly used between sex workers and their clientele. The website was shut down specifically due to that, under the guise that consensual sex work was a front for trafficking. Over time, the deplatforming of sex workers grew more rampant — even legal sex workers, such as exotic dancers and video performers. Social media platforms began adopting more stringent policies. The activities on websites such as Craigslist become more scrutinized and monitored, leading them to adopt stricter policies as well. Social media platforms use processes that combine technology with manpower to comb through their sites and censor or strike down explicit content.
There’s a noticeable trend, however, of graphic depictions of violence, gore, animal abuse, child abuse, rape, and all sorts of other problematic content not being censored on these platforms. Despite every single one of those factors being against the terms and conditions of each social media platform, this type of content goes wildly viral on a regular basis. Yet again and again, sex workers have their content repeatedly taken down or even their accounts and IP addresses banned from platforms for even lukewarm, inexplicit content — even content that isn’t technically against terms and conditions.
The free access to non-explicit partial nudity is not as restricted on these platforms — it becomes against policy when promoting sexual content.
On TikTok, automated filters look for users saying specific key terms in their content. Sex workers who post educational, safe for work content on our industry and the ramifications of stigmatizing it get their content struck down day in and day out — and they’re literally doing nothing but asking for the humanization of sex workers. Instagram and Facebook tightened their policies on sex work years ago, leading to a mass exodus of sex workers moving to Twitter and Reddit. Sex workers who use those platforms to promote their work must tread carefully. Ironically, the free access to non-explicit partial nudity is not as restricted on these platforms — it becomes against policy when promoting sexual content, such as an Onlyfans link. This led to sex workers going further underground on these platforms, using “lewdity” to attract attention from potential clientele into their inboxes where they could speak freely.
It just makes the conditions they have to survive under worse.
Speaking of Onlyfans, let’s not forget their scandal from just last year, when they attempted to strike down sexual content on the platform as a result of facing pressure from credit card providers Mastercard and Visa. Despite sex workers being the foundation of Onlyfans’s success, the card companies succumbed to the pressure of alt-right anti-trafficking group Exodus Cry to stop providing services to Onlyfans and other platforms used for adult entertainment. Exodus Cry is yet another anti-trafficking organization with a problematic history. This organization claims to be at the forefront of prevent child exploitation when they heavily promote traditionalist values. They’re religion-based, which is an interesting form of irony considering the Church’s long-standing history of known child abuse. Then, there is their staunch support of completely illegalizing abortion across the board — how does this help victims of rape and sexual abuse? Answer: it doesn’t. It just makes the conditions they have to survive under worse. These are the same people who believe a twelve-year-old should carry a pregnancy to term, despite the fact that said child is almost guaranteed to be a victim of rape. Yet, it is groups like these that claim to be leading the fight against trafficking by keeping consensual sex work at bay.
There’s also the issue of decriminalization versus legalization in terms of sex work. This has been a heavily debated topic by both civilians and sex workers alike — the majority of the civilian population believes that heavily surveyed legal sex work is the best option, despite the majority of sex workers asking that their jobs simply be decriminalized like anyone else’s. Supporters of legalization argue that Johns, a commonly used term for sex workers’ clientele, should be criminalized while sex workers do not have to face repercussions for their work. Nearly all sex workers inherently understand why this is problematic.
Criminalizing sex workers’ clientele is largely problematic. Currently, sex workers have vetting processes for taking on clients that allow them to screen out sexual predators or other clientele they do not want. Being able to operate this way, sex workers can protect themselves. If being a client of sex work is criminalized, then clientele won’t be so open to being screened, out of fear that their data and involvement will be leaked and used against them. There’s also the issue of sex workers, legal or not, having to go further underground to find clientele. Of course, legalizing sex work under the guist that sex workers can legally perform under surveillance is also an issue, because sex workers should not have to give up their privacy to perform their jobs. Criminalizing clients while legalizing sex work is a sugarcoated method of attempting to exterminate sex work. The statistics on how this negatively impacts sex workers is readily available, and I highly recommend you do a deep dive.
Nearly all sex workers inherently understand why this is problematic.
I can’t blame the general public for seeing this as a solution. I mean, yay! Sex trafficking victims can no longer be booked on prostitution charges and used as legal scapegoats by pimps. Except, sex trafficking is a separate issue from sex work. Trafficking victims are not sex workers, they are slaves. So, slavery is the issue. Not sex work. I beg a question to anyone reading this — do you actually think government agencies and law enforcement genuinely believe that sex work and trafficking are intrinsically the same? No, they do not, and repeated cyclical government involvement in covering up sex trafficking while simultaneously criminalizing consensual sex work proves that.
But Emma, how are they covering up sex trafficking? How about the millions of misplaced children at the border? How about the fact that it is technically legal for anti-trafficking organizations to inflate numbers and intentionally misrepresent themselves as martyrs to the general public. Thorn, for example, claims to have placed more trafficking victims back in their home than the actual number of known American trafficking victims. Now combine that with the heavy hand law enforcement, surveillance and weapons technology, and government in agencies such as Thorn and Operation Underground Railroad, and it all begins to come together.
In another twist of irony, it is sex worker led organizations that have proven to have the best impact on sex trafficking. Instead of simply providing numbers for consumers to take at face value, these organizations heavily involve themselves in community, giving sex workers and trafficking victims alike to feel more confident in vocalizing real life solutions to trafficking. Organizations such as Hacking/Hustling, the Sex Worker Action Project (SWAP), the Sex Worker Advocacy Coalition (SWAC), the Woodhull Foundation, and the Sex Workers Project have actively led the fight against sex trafficking. From behind the scenes, these groups operate by collaborating with consensual sex workers, trafficking victims, and civilian communities to educate people on the differences, provide resources for victims, and resources to stay safe as a consensual provider. It is through these methods that sex trafficking victims can be found and brought home. Surveillance technology, weapons, and repealing privacy rights from American constituents doesn’t just harm sex workers and trafficking victims, it affects everyone.
Organizations such as Hacking/Hustling, the Sex Worker Action Project (SWAP), the Sex Worker Advocacy Coalition (SWAC), the Woodhull Foundation, and the Sex Workers Project have actively led the fight against sex trafficking.
The spread of surveillance can actually be observed through it’s impact on minority communities. LGBTQIA people are censored for educating the general public on their human rights or even just basic relatable content. Like sex workers, their content often becomes struck down or shadow banned (in layman’s terms, more heavily surveyed and censored, without fully being banned). Platform policies that require users to operate under their legal name overexposes the trans community and puts them at risk, especially when legal documentation is part of those requirements. LGBTQUIA people and minorities are often censored for reclaiming terms that were used to hurt them, while genuinely problematic content using these same terms is left alone. People of color advocating for racial equity and equality get their content struck down every day for “inciting violence” or other such ridiculous critiques.
It’s time to stop speaking over sex workers, and start listening to them.
Sex work has always been existent throughout various forms in human history between both compensated work and domestic labor. Multimillion-dollar organizations are beginning to spill their dirty laundry in terms of how they’ve partnered with law enforcement to repeal privacy rights from Americans to “save the children”. All this time, while sex workers’ voices were silenced, they’ve been the ones working to find real time solutions with proven track records. While law enforcement was throwing victims of trafficking into prison under prostitution charges, these workers were listening and amplifying the voices of those victims. It’s about high time that the general population stops critiquing sex workers for performing the functions of their job, because the ramifications are dangerous for both consensual workers and trafficking victims alike. The ramifications of allowing sex workers to be surveyed by the government will end privacy rights for all Americans as we know it. Sex workers are among the first of marginalized communities to be targeted by law enforcement and government in terms of surveillance and privacy. Sex workers have provided a litany of resources to the general public on why legalization over decriminalization is not the solution to these issues. As we can see with other marginalized communities now getting the hammer, sex workers have been right all along. It’s time to stop speaking over sex workers, and start listening to them. Sex workers have been at the forefront of this conversation for so long — give them the visibility they need to have their voices heard and start listening.
