Sanitising “sex work”

It was just a few years ago that Hollywood A-listers turned the spotlight on the casting couch, exposing the powerful men who promised careers in exchange for sex. But as last night’s Oscars showed, sexual exploitation is now back in vogue.

Anora — a tragicomedy about a Brooklyn lap dancer who marries a Russian oligarch’s son — bagged five Oscars. Accepting her Best Actress award, 25-year-old Mikey Madison pledged her support for the “sex worker community,” vowing to continue “be an ally”. This was predictably met with much celebrity gushing and applause.

It’s tempting to wonder what exactly it was that Madison learned from her role, and from the “sex workers” with whom she “allied” during the making of the film. She made no mention of the millions of women trafficked to keep brothels and strip clubs stocked with new girls nor did she condemn the men who profit from their suffering. Instead, she spoke of a “community” — as if those risking violence, disease, and addiction to service sex buyers belong to some cohesive and fashionably marginalised group. The twee conceit of “community” doesn’t change the brutal reality of the sex trade, it simply makes it easier to ignore.

It is true that “happy hookers” tend to have louder voices, more palatable stories and of course the weight of a well-funded lobby on their side. Doubtless it’s comforting for ignorant celebs to believe that people renting out their bodies are just “different”, that a fistful of cash can buy consent and erase physical revulsion. But the numbers tell a different story. Around 70 per cent of women in prostitution suffer from PTSD, a rate on par with combat veterans. A disproportionate number were sexually abused as children, and most want to leave prostitution. While some make a decision to enter the sex industry, vanishingly few make a genuine choice.

Madison’s speech was typical Hollywood conformity masquerading as courage

Yet the story of the “empowered sex worker” is being woven deeper into the progressive narratives championed by a cossetted Hollywood elite. Some activists are even pushing to include “sex workers” in the ever-expanding LGBTQIA+ acronym, with the red umbrella — long used as a symbol for sex trade advocacy — now appearing on versions of the progress pride flag. The implication is clear: that selling sex is not only a legitimate profession but an identity, a type of sexual minority. In light of this, what rising star would dare to point out that “sex work” is neither sex as most of us understand it, nor is it a job like any other. To do so is to risk the taint of “whorephobia”.

Madison’s speech was typical Hollywood conformity masquerading as courage — demonstrating a tiresome, pseudo-edgy commitment to “allyship” that is every bit as choreographed as red carpet poses. But the young women to whom she is a role model are now more acutely vulnerable than ever — a click away from pornography and new versions of ancient exploitation, such as sugar daddy “dating” sites and OnlyFans. The uncritical celebration of the “sex work community” can only serve to further sanitise and legitimise commercial sexual exploitation.

Hollywood remains what it always was: a place where image trumps substance, and where saying the right thing is more important than doing the right thing. Claiming to have learned from women in prostitution is easy, a way to poke a designer-shoe clad foot into the margins of acceptability while remaining unscathed. But for privileged celebs to hide behind the happy hooker, to invoke the mythical “sex worker community”, is to whore out morality to the lowest bidder. Time’s up, indeed.