The White Lotus and the Girlbossification of Sex Work

The White Lotus and the Girlbossification of Sex Work

. 4 min read

This article contains spoilers for The White Lotus season two finale.

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Irene is a content creator at Old Pros where she writes about sex worker rights related news for our weekly newsletter, Twitter, and Instagram

The first season of The White Lotus had almost everything I could ask for in a television show – an absolute bop of a theme song, commentary on how the uber wealthy deserve the guillotine, Jennifer Coolidge acting insane while wearing a collection of chiffon dresses, and a looming murder mystery. So, when they added sex workers to the ensemble cast of season two, I prepared myself to be either surprisingly delighted or regretfully disappointed by the way they were depicted.

In episode one, we meet Lucia (Simona Tabasco), a seemingly experienced full service sex worker who has landed herself a dream booking: a week long arrangement with one of the White Lotus’ filthy rich guests. She brings along her friend, Mia (Beatrice Granno), who is at first wary and slightly judgemental of this line of work but eventually embraces it once she realizes she can use it to get what she wants. (Mia’s somewhat judgey civilian friend to baby sex worker suddenly conducting business with wild abandon journey is an actual example of realistic representation.)

These characters – particularly Lucia – were presented as likable antagonists, and after watching the first episode, I was hopeful that maybe, just maybe a mainstream show would get this right. Throughout the first episode, Lucia proved herself as a force to be reckoned with, and truly won my heart when she responded to a demeaning comment about being paid for sex with, “Who would pay to have sex with you? Uptight, ugly bitch!” Seeing a sex worker get the last laugh in an argument with a SWERF? Maybe the show’s creators really did consult actual sex workers! Imagine that.

The White Lotus season 2 promo poster in which two core sex working characters are absent for no apparent reason?

However, as any sex worker knows, having hope in mainstream society is a fickle game that often ends in disappointment. After the first episode, it quickly became clear that sex workers were most likely not consulted for developing these characters. The first red flag actually came from episode one, when Lucia revealed that she had no idea what the client she was meeting at the White Lotus looked like. Had she not screened him at all? That didn’t add up with her level of experience as an escort, but I chose to look past that because I was so enthralled with her tenacity and charm (Let this be a reminder to us all to never, ever ignore red flags). What really sounded the “a civilian wrote this” alarm was when she didn’t get her money upfront. Lucia’s client paid her the morning after, and she doesn’t even ask for it – he offers it up. How does this savvy, quick witted sex worker not know to get paid beforehand – and for an overnight, no less! This might have made sense for a first timer like Mia, but it was made obvious that Lucia had done this before. To make matters worse, she didn’t learn her lesson after the first time, and instead continued to never get paid before getting to work, and this inevitably ended with her getting shorted by a client. And still, she continued to work without being paid first. I grew tired of yelling, “GIRL.” at my television screen every time she did this, and my hopes for the authenticity of this character began to dissipate.

Another instance that gave me pause in my suspension of disbelief was Lucia doing a complete one-eighty from being a proud and unapologetic sex worker to suddenly feeling deep shame about her job. In the scene, she sulks by the pool and tells Mia, “I can’t keep living this way.” She was coming down from MDMA in this scene, but it still felt to me like the writers’ way of telling the audience, “Don’t forget, sex work actually is bad and will make you feel bad!”

Although the accuracy of these characters didn’t fully live up to their potential, I’m still pleased to see sex workers represented in a way that persuades the audience to root for them. And if the viral tweets about The White Lotus are any indication, viewers are certainly stanning Lucia and Mia. But even this kind of societal praise gives me some concern. Lucia and Mia have been turned into symbols of the female hustler who scams men to get her coin. This girlbossification of sex workers allows viewers to more easily digest the fact that these characters that they love are selling sex. They have become iconic meme queens, and the “yas queen, scam men!” mentality overshadows what could have been a deeper look at what it’s actually like to do sex work. Furthermore, the online praise sounds eerily similar to when civilians gush over how “cool” and “brave” our jobs are, only to turn around and use whorephobic language to their friends.

All in all, I was happy to see Lucia and Mia dominate the screen in this season of The White Lotus, but I really wish the writers had done their homework better and created more believable situations and characters to represent sex workers. Lucia and Mia ended up on top (I was terrified they were going to be one of the dead bodies from the flash forward in episode one and play into the tired trope of dead hookers), which was refreshing. Although, Lucia was able to secure fifty-thousand euros through an elaborate scam that once again required some serious savvy and experience that one wouldn’t expect from a sex worker who doesn’t know to get her money up front. Ultimately, the representation of these sex workers is a step in the right direction, but I am tired of being grateful for small steps. It’s time for TV writers to take the leap and listen to and consult sex workers. It’s too easy to simply write “badass bitches” that inspire fans to profess their obsession for online and then abandon any sort of actual support for sex workers once they turn of their TV.


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