Our relationship with the sex industry has changed over the last decade. Thanks to the famous — or infamous — overnight success stories of platforms like OnlyFans, it seems modern feminism has started to forget about the echelons of the sex industry that spread much further than social media.

I spent four years researching the sex industry and sex-technology. But even before I started this research, I was always aware that the sex industry is a divisive subject. Feminists have long found themselves arguing between empowerment and exploitation. However, in recent years, the ubiquity of online porn has helped to blur the lines between entertainment and exploitation. It’s as if we’ve become accustomed to middle aged men waiting for young girls to become “legal” so they can subscribe to their content. Take Bhad Bhabie for instance, who reportedly earned a million dollars on OnlyFans, in just six days after turning eighteen. 

We have become too familiar with the glitz and glamour — the influencers who make the biggest money

We’ve also seen the rise of porn stars across social media, like Bonnie Blue. The 25-year old British woman, originally from Derby, has become infamous for having sex with school-leavers and engaging in porn duos with dads and sons. Her viral TikTok videos about her OnlyFans content have garnered massive global media attention. It’s another example of the normalisation of the sex industry. Thanks to social media, which is utilised by sex workers and pornstars, even when we aren’t actively looking at pornography or the sex industry, we’re still exposed to it. The issue is that we are only being exposed to one side of the industry. We have become too familiar with the glitz and glamour — the influencers who make the biggest money. 

Lots of feminist organisations have become pro-sex work in recent years. You’ll spot a “Sex work is work sign” at nearly every feminist protest in the UK. Anyone would think that before they took to the streets with their signs, nobody had been aware that sex work had ever existed before. News flash: it’s been dubbed the oldest profession in the world for a reason. 

I have been researching the sex industry for years, but I still find the slogan a bit empty and meaningless. Sex workers obviously deserve to be safe and protected. More should be done to stop women from being pushed into the industry through poverty. However, the “sex work is work” argument has been propelled by feminist organisations into popular culture, without the average person having a clue what it really means. 

John Oliver even dedicated an episode of his show to sex work, opening with the profound opening line that “sex work is inherently labour.” Well, yeah — and? This argument completely misses the point. Sex workers aren’t suffering because people don’t believe in sex work. They suffer because of occupational hazards in an industry awash with exploitation. Most of us, obviously, understand that sex workers use a number of skills to do their work. The issue is that the industry rests upon foundations of suffering. 

For example, many pro-sex work organisations argue that sex workers deserve more financial security. I couldn’t agree more. But where is the education and reform from inside the industry? I know first hand from some of the sex workers I have spoken with over the years that the knowledge surrounding budgeting, freelancing and being self-employed within the sex industry just isn’t there. Sadly, I have yet to speak with a woman working in a brothel or an escort agency, who has received advice or education on how to save and utilise their income from their “employers”, or national sex worker organisations. 

Perhaps one of the biggest problems that advocates ignore is that the global demand for sex far outstrips the supply. Think about it: would the demand for sex ever really be met with the individual rise of willing “workers”? 

Nearly half of all sex workers in the UK are from another country. Far-left organisations with a pro sex work stance tend to have a preoccupation with the rights of migrants, many of whom are exploited in the UK and find themselves doing the manual labor jobs that many Brits wouldn’t dream of. However, when it comes to sex work, the silence is deafening. The same can be said for Amsterdam, where the windows are full of poor Eastern Europeans.

Left-leaning pro sex work and feminist organisations seem willing to forget that the industries with the most underpaid, dangerous and physical labour are the ones which depend on foreigners. The sex industry is no different. Admittedly, there are many reasons people might prefer to engage in sex work abroad, like reducing the likelihood of being caught by someone you know, but it’s impossible to deny that the biggest push is down to economics. 

I spent years researching the sex industry, and have spoken to sex workers from all over the country. I can tell you that most sex workers don’t earn thousands each week. The majority of sex work is desperately underpaid. It takes place in saunas, massage parlours and brothels throughout the UK. Many of the women whom I have spoken with were independent escorts when they were younger, but now they rely on brothels for a living. We tend not to hear about brothels so much on social media, do we? It’s almost like we’ve been conditioned to forget that the world of Bonnie Blue and top earning escorts is only a small slither of the sex industry’s offerings. 

Rachel* is a 52 year old sex worker, who works in brothels across Manchester and Preston. She previously worked across a number of escort agencies in the North West of England. She left agency work due to childcare arrangements and wanting to move away from the “partying” lifestyle that comes with agency work, which predominantly takes place in the evening. However, since moving to brothels and parlours, she has faced other issues in the sex industry: 

The industry is a joke at the moment. I don’t know how much I’ve got left in me…There’s one place in Crewe offering a full service for £15…The parlours are taking most of the money. People think that sex workers aren’t being exploited if there’s no pimp, but we’re losing 30-40% of our wages to parlours.

Rachel* was open about the difference between the working conditions and clientele in comparison to agency work. Far from the glamour portrayed by pornstars and OnlyFans models, the reality of working in a British brothel is distinctly unappealing: 

Cheaper prices attract clients that don’t respect the product. I mean, if you had a Mercedes, would you take better care of it than an old banger you got second hand? The low prices demoralise us and it’s destructive. Girls take more drugs to cope with these situations…Some of the clients have strong fetishes that aren’t tolerated in more expensive establishments with higher prices.

The UK’s largest website for sex worker reviews run by “punters” is “UKPunting”. It requires bitcoin access, but I have been a member for a year in order to monitor and research the sex industry. The website contains a number of threads, discussions and reviews about British brothels. While many of the users express disgust at brothels harbouring trafficked women and discuss their efforts to avoid these premises, there are clearly some reviews which trivialise or ignore the poor working conditions inside brothels. Many of the users comment on the prominence of Romanians in brothels. Using Google Translate to communicate is common. There are comments about the filth and depravity that can be found in many brothels, too. One user offered input in a discussion about a Blackpool brothel: 

I went there once a couple of years ago, there were exposed electrical wires powering the lights, the water had been turned off, the floorboards felt like the joists had rotted through, there was rat shit on the floor and fleas on the bed. Heating was caused by a single bottled gas fire for the whole building, but “the boss” had refused by buy a replacement bottle because the girls hadn’t worked hard enough in the previous week. 

Interestingly, the brothel being discussed was the same place police found registered sex offender Leanne Gilder, who once helped pimp out a 14-year-old girl from the back of a van. Leanne was well-known to the police for selling sexual services to feed her drug habit. It says a lot about the state of supply and demand in the sex industry that someone dependent on drugs and on the run from the police had been accepted to work a shift in this Blackpool brothel. Does this sound like an empowering place of work? 

Only someone who understands the inner workings of the sex industry understands why the industry relies on brothels. First and foremost, brothels provide a place for someone to purchase sexual services easily, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The demand is there. Punters, aka, buyers of sex, don’t want to waste hours trawling through online adverts, negotiating prices and travelling to different locations. Brothels provide a reliable and cheap service. 

From a sex worker’s perspective, finding premises to sell sexual services can be difficult or costly. Independent escorts tend to rent hotels and AirBnB’s, but these can be expensive. They also require money upfront. Even relying on rented apartments is tricky because for obvious reasons, most people don’t approve of their premises being used by sex workers. Brothels provide a quick, easy, reliable price to turn up and sell sexual services. They don’t require you to speak with your own clients, or run a second phone. That’s particularly handy for people who can’t speak English. 

So yes, sex work is work, but it’s hard work and it’s dangerous and underpaid

Rachel used to earn thousands a week in agencies, but like many women, the emotional toil of long nights fuelled by drugs and alcohol took its toll. Ageing is difficult and unforgiving in the sex industry, but so is leaving the sex industry when it’s all you’ve ever known. If the statement sex work is work was ever more true, it’s when we refer to the darker sides of it, like underpaid brothel work in poor conditions. So yes, sex work is work, but it’s hard work and it’s dangerous and underpaid. Will that be included on a sign at a feminist protest anytime soon? Probably not. 

The simple fact is that the sex industry is reliant on its dark underbelly. Yes, there are many women who willingly enter, and if they wish to do so, that is their choice. The fact remains that the industry remains reliant on the labour of trafficked, coerced or desperate women. We see signs like “sex work is work” waved about by middle-class activists but they’ve rarely had to experience making a living in the sex industry. The women I’ve spoken to over the years who actually work within it tend to have a different story to tell. Perhaps if they had, we’d start to think differently about the links between female empowerment, pornography and the sex industry.

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[*] Names have been changed