Just Sociology Tings: Sex work is real work

It’s hard to open up an article like this because, admittedly, I had almost no knowledge about sex work besides what is portrayed in the media. 

From what I have read online and in articles, most people talk and complain about it like any other job or profession. While the risk for violence is much higher considering how clients often violate the boundaries and consent of providers, I’ve heard people acknowledge that it doesn’t deter them from continuing their services. 

In this article, I want to have an open mind and acknowledge that I am speaking from an entirely outside perspective. While there are many service providers that resort to sex work due to their circumstances/poor financial situation, I know that is not the entirety of the industry. Not all sex workers were forced into prostitution, abused, or trafficked. 

Yet, I want to remain respectful to anyone who has experienced these things. 

With that being said, I wholeheartedly believe that sex work is real work. Not in a girlboss feminism way, but in a way that acknowledges all the work that goes into maintaining appearances, cleanliness, and safety while the industry remains under constant scrutiny. 

Even though working in the sex industry does have many cons — the risk of sexual assault, abuse, trafficking, ostracization, etc. — the thought and care that goes into providing these services is no different from almost any other job in the service industry. 

That isn’t meant to diminish the greater risks and responsibilities involved because, in many ways, the adult entertainment industry takes a much greater toll on workers than regular service jobs. 

I feel the lack of recognition sex workers get is due to society's harmful obsession with purity culture. 

Purity culture revolves around the belief that people should abstain from sex until marriage and should try their absolute hardest to maintain their purity and virginity. It originated as an Evangelical movement in the 1990s as a direct response to the mass production of birth control and the subsequent sexual liberation movement of the 1970s. 

All over the world, we’ve seen the influence that religion can have on politics, societal norms, and trends. The U.S. is no different. 

According to Pew Research Center, an estimated 64% of Americans identify with Christianity in some way or form, making it the most popular religion in the nation. 

While people practice their faith to varying degrees, I don’t think it’s a stretch to make the assumption that some of the beliefs at the center of that religion  are one of the main reasons why our society has such an aversion to sex. Because of the correlation between the Christian religion and virtuous morals, society automatically labels any opposition as inherently unethical or dangerous. 

With the adult entertainment industry heavily relying on people’s feelings of lust and desire in order to turn a profit — feelings that are explicitly called out as being unholy in the Bible — this leaves a line of work viewed as inherently bad. As a result, the character and motives of the people who actually perform these jobs are completely disregarded.

I don’t like normally using legalese terms because I think they’re pretentious, but prostitution falls into the category of crimes called mala prohibita. These are acts that are only considered crimes because the law says so. They differentiate from mala in se crimes, which are acts that are criminalized because they’re inherently bad — murder, rape, theft, kidnapping, etc.

While many people would cite public safety and health as a legitimate reason to criminalize prostitution, I don’t necessarily think this is the right approach. A lot of people in favor of keeping prostitution illegal often cite numerous different reasons why it should remain that way, including the association of other crimes such as drug dealing and theft, as well as the increase of STDs that would be spread otherwise.

State and municipality governments that prohibit prostitution on the basis of cracking down on crime and maintaining public health don’t address the underlying socioeconomic factors that drive people into careers like this in the first place.  Prostitution — much like many other crimes — stems from poverty and necessity. Simply making it illegal doesn't actually help in the long run. 

Criminalizing prostitution doesn’t crack down on it. It just makes it more dangerous. While the two aren’t fully comparable, we can see the positive effects of legalization in allowing the use of recreational marijuana. 

Here in Alaska, we have allowed licensed businesses to sell marijuana in a similar manner to alcohol. This makes the substance more accessible to everyone. It allows safer strands of the drug to be grown and distributed, decreasing the demand for strands off of the street that could be mixed with more harmful and illegal drugs. 

I know it sounds idealistic to say that prostitution would work the same. However, if the right precautions are taken and applied by law, it very well could. 

Allowing establishments to operate without having to remain undercover or below ground would facilitate more efficient means of running the business. That calls for better protective measures to be applied to workers, and protocols that allow people to reach out to law enforcement in the event that abuse does happen. 

People who are self-employed would also have an easier time reaching out to law enforcement in the cases of assault and rape, since the risk of being arrested due to their job wouldn’t be as high. 

It would also allow for more efficient health screenings and STI prevention if state laws require establishments to ensure that their clientele don’t carry harmful diseases and provide adequate protection for workers. 

This isn’t a perfect solution by any means. Studies have shown that in countries where prostitution is decriminalized, the rates of human trafficking increase, and many attribute that to the issue of supply and demand. This is one of the many problems that people in support of decriminalizing prostitution tend to overlook. 

What makes it worse is that there aren’t many elaborate studies of the effects of prostitution on human trafficking in the United States. Because of the industry's illegal status, there doesn’t seem to be enough of a public interest for the government to invest the time and resources on the matter. 

The optimist in me likes to think that extensive research and elaborate laws would help minimize these issues, or at least prevent them from becoming worse than they already are. 

The reality of the situation is that the issue is much more nuanced than people on both ends of the argument acknowledge. While I have heard of many people in opposition of full legalization, I’ve heard just as many people in support of it. 

In the Q&A I conducted alongside this article, all three of the participants interviewed said they supported decriminalization due to its potential to make the industry safer. 

I want people to walk away from this article and take time to think about how we view the sex work industry. All institutional and societal problems start at the psychological level. 

Creating a big enough cultural shift that would make the sex industry safer requires us to check our own biases and reshape the way we view it.