The Lies I Once Believed About Sex Work
By: Lara Mills
Tags: Sex Work, Sex Workers, Feminism, Sex Worker Rights

“How did I get here?”

That was the thought going around my head as I arrived at the office to start my new job. It was a steady job, one that required a lot of the experience I already had. On paper it was perfect for me, and just what I had been looking for. The challenge was the industry it was in.

Photo by Charlie Howell on Unsplash

I thought I understood sex work. Newspapers put prostitution on the front page, shedding a light on the poor unfortunate souls who found themselves doing this work. TV shows painted a picture of escorts living the high life, but it wasn’t so simple. Escorting had a dark and dangerous side to it, as the escorts always ended up as the victims in dramas. The stigma around sex workers was the story I bought into.

It didn’t take long for me to realise that everything I thought I knew about sex work was a lie.

My role included moderating the forum where escorts and clients frequently talked, moderating reviews, and submitting ugly mugs reports. The first day on the job challenged everything I’d ever assumed about sex work and now, nearly six years on from my first day, I’m looking back on the lies I once believed about sex work.

It’s easy money

When I thought of sex work, the phrase “lie back and think of England” came to mind. Sex was easy, the sort of thing that required little effort. I’d think of the women involved in the industry (because it was always women in my mind) as wanting an easy job and a quick way to get money. Sex was it.

At least, that’s what we’re supposed to believe about sex work. Being a moderator on the forum meant actually getting to know the people I was stigmatising. The belief I had that sex for money was an easy thing to do was shattered almost instantly. I tried vainly to cling to the broken fragments of my beliefs, because if I didn’t see sex work as easy money, what else could it be?

How about work?

The sex workers I got to know made it obvious that sex work is work, a lot like anything else. There would be days when it was hard, but there would also be days where it was great. The key difference between sex work and any other work is the rights that the workers have.

Last year, Juno Mac and Molly Smith released the book ‘Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights’. I was fortunate enough to attend one of the launch events, where they spoke about the book. They highlighted the fact that they were focusing on the ‘work’ aspect of ‘sex work’, which is often overlooked. I overlooked it when I first began working in the industry. In an extract from the book, they point out why seeing it as work is so vital.

“Just because a job is bad does not mean it is not a “real job.” When sex workers assert that sex work is work, we are saying that we need rights. We are not saying that work is good or fun, or even harmless, nor that it has fundamental value. Likewise, situating what we do within a workers’-rights framework does not constitute an unconditional endorsement of work itself. It is not an endorsement of capitalism or of a bigger, more profitable sex industry.”

Sex workers are all women in need of rescue

Remember the escorts I saw in TV dramas or in newspaper articles? They were all women. As a result, the ignorant Lara Mills from six years ago believed that all sex workers were women. Not only were they women, but they were women with no better options open to them, and no way of getting out of the industry. They needed to be rescued, much like the entire plot of ‘Pretty Woman’.

My work on Escort Scotland quickly proved otherwise. I spoke to female, male, transgender escorts on a regular basis. None of them matched the rigid idea in my head of who is a sex worker. The largest UK online sex work survey showed that it wasn’t simply the directory I work for where this was the case. Their results showed that the majority of sex workers are female, but there were still plenty of male, transgender, and non-binary or intersex escorts.

As for the dangerous side we constantly see on the TV? The results show that “81% of those involved in the survey stated that they ‘had experienced at least one form of work-related crime’.” It wasn’t just a plot point to make a story more dramatic. It was a very real part of the industry, but sex workers don’t want rescuing. Sex workers want rights — rights which will help to protect them as workers, much like other workers get.

End the demand and the supply will follow

Since coming to the realisation that everything I believed about sex work was a lie, I’ve been an advocate for decriminalisation… but I didn’t used to be. I held the naïve and frankly damaging view that ending the demand for sex would mean that the supply would follow, and those involved would magically become a part of society once more. It didn’t take long when I first began working for Escort Scotland for me to learn that this approach was already in place in a number of countries.

Sweden had been the start, putting the law in place in 1999 and so the law became known as the Swedish Model. When other countries adopted the model, it became better known as the Nordic Model. In theory, the model decriminalises sex workers while criminalising the client. Clients won’t want to visit sex workers for fear of being prosecuted. The demand for sex will diminish, and more sex workers will seek exit strategies. Sex work would cease to exist.

Except the model doesn’t work that way. Clients become more reluctant to share information with sex workers. They don’t want to get caught! This makes the screening process more difficult, forcing sex workers to take greater risks. The industry is pushed further underground and made more dangerous by this law that will apparently ‘save’ sex workers. Sex workers do not want this law.

The best way to address the purchase of sex is by full decriminalisation. Decriminalisation makes it a job like any other. It means that the workers can have rights and stay safe while they work, instead of having to sacrifice one for the other. Two sex workers sharing a flat for safety wouldn’t be prosecuted for brothel keeping. Street workers wouldn’t be forced to make snap decisions to avoid drawing attention to themselves. The stigma surrounding sex work kills, and decriminalisation would help to end that stigma. Barriers that prevent people from exiting the industry would be removed with decriminalisation, and the lies that we believe about sex work would be shown for what they are.

When it comes to the truth about sex work, the only people we should be listening to are sex workers.