Editors Note: This essay contains mention of rape
It’s no secret that sex work is frequently considered more exploitative than other work, whether or not that’s actually true. Sex work is shameful and stigmatized. Sex work is “selling your body.” So many people have ideas about sex work who have never done it. The question for me, that I want to attempt to answer here, is: how do I apply my own anti-capitalist and anarchist praxis to my sex work, both online and as an escort? I believe that it is very possible to figure out how and I wanted to share what I’ve figured out personally.
Before I address my own experiences, it is necessary to recognize that the abolition of the prison industrial complex is inherently tied into anti-capitalism. In the United States before the civil war, the police previously existed as slave patrols in order to protect the property of the ruling class. The police also existed to break strikes during industrialization. Prisons and carceral systems exist to maintain the status quo of the ruling class.
Rather than do the work that writers more talented than myself have already done, I’m going to link to a few sources at the end of this article for those of you who want to read more about police abolition and anti-capitalism.
To dive into my own experiences, I try regularly to consider my own values and to embody them in both how I sell my labor and how I relate interpersonally to the people around me. At my core, what drives my choices is the abolition of all policing, from institutions to the ways we police ourselves and each other. Many years ago, when I became politically active, I began questioning in what ways can we reduce our reliance on the state. I sought out mutual aid networks and began reading about transformative justice at that time, and what I realized was that the sex workers I knew had been building support systems for themselves all along. When your livelihood is punished by the state, what other option is there than to question the legitimacy of that state?
People who like to have opinions about sex workers being victims who need saving often tend to envision the police themselves as saviors. We can see this is true when we look at anti-trafficking, carceral feminists. However, anyone who is not part of the status quo that the prison industrial complex seeks to uphold knows that the police are not to be relied upon. Instead, we post on forums about raids to protect each other and engage in mutual aid. The violence against women in sex work is a small piece of a larger image and I do not believe that sex work itself is the problem.
The world that I envision is free from carceral structures, a world where we seek to reduce harm. Does sex work exist in this liberated future? I don’t know, but I do know it would be my own choice to provide that labor. I do know that ending violence and the harm sex workers experience necessitates abolishing policing and capitalism.
I don’t want to speak for everyone’s experiences with being a full service provider when I say that doing sex work has caused me to feel more ownership over my body. I am a rape survivor and a queer woman, but I am also white, cis and able bodied. I can choose when I don’t want to see clients. The wealth that I create is not being stolen from me. These facts are a privilege. The choices that I make are born from the world I currently live in as much as the world that I imagine.
I am not attempting to glamorize sex work or to say it’s the least exploitive form of labor. Sex work provides a means of income for some of the most marginalized people, those who are left behind by capitalism.
As for me, I work in an emergency veterinary clinic as my day job, and I’ve cried there many more times than while engaging in sex work. Having a second job as a sex worker, both full service and online, allows me to engage in more mutual aid than I would otherwise be able to. Escorting allows me to stop being terrified that I will fall through the cracks of capitalism. I’m not going to make a broad statement like “sex work is empowering” but I do feel awesome and hot driving home from a good booking.
I love when sex work allows me to genuinely connect with people, both other sex workers and even clients. There are times when clients feel safe to be vulnerable with me, and I do embrace those moments. Capitalism thrives when we are alienated from each other and not committed to each other’s liberation.
Occasionally, I consider my online sex work presence and I wonder if I should stop describing myself as an “abolitionist anti-fascist slut”. Am I turning off conservatives? The truth is, while I would like the money of the people I am turning off (money that was probably stolen from actual workers), I don’t have the energy to engage or pretend to hold different values than I do.
I dream of a world where we can all be our truest selves without fear of state sanctioned violence or poverty. Until we create that world, it is hard for me to know how capitalism and policing has truly altered my relationship with sex and my own body. We can start building that world now by not policing each other’s bodies and the ways we choose to use them to survive. We can start listening to sex workers when they speak about sex work.
More sources about anti-capitalism, abolition, and sex work:
- The Fight to Abolish the Police Is the Fight to Abolish Capitalism
- Hands Up: A Systematized Review Of Policing Sex Workers In The U.s.
- Three Part Abolition 101 syllabus
Are you a sex worker with a story, opinion, news or tips to share? We'd love to hear from you!
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