Sex work and the abolition of capitalism
Green square with stylised light green writing & graphics that says Vee on sex work and the abolition of capitalism.
By Vee Holt
Sex work, the negotiation and conducting of sexual service for any type of remuneration, is a broad term. It encompasses performing for pornography companies, producing and selling erotic photos and videos, stripping and exotic dancing, phone sex, as well as one-to-one or group sexual services, including selling full-service penetrative sex and BDSM or fetish work.
The laws around sex work in England and Wales are somewhat piecemeal, inconsistent, and overly focused on full-service direct sex work (also known as ‘prostitution’). Despite the online sex work sector of webcamming and pornographic content production now constituting the largest sector of sex work, and despite most commercial sex being facilitated online, there seems to be limited awareness of online sex work reflected in law. Nevertheless, though always being legal to exchange money for sex between consenting adults, there is a partial criminalisation of the full-service sex industry meaning that while selling and buying sexual services is legal, it is almost impossible to do without breaking a number of laws. The current legal situation also leaves sex workers vulnerable in a number of ways, for example, the only way to work legally in the UK as a full-service sex worker is to work alone, in a solitary premise, with no security, no management, no colleagues, and no public-facing advertising or communicating. Sex workers’ power to negotiate for safety at work or labour rights is weakened by potential prosecution, and many sex workers fear reporting violent clients or bosses for fear of arrest themselves.
This vulnerability and heightened risk of violence and stigma means that the question of whether sex work constitutes Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), or Gender Based Violence (GBV) has informed a significant body of academic literature. Sex work, coded as ‘prostitution and pornography’ has been included in the England and Wales VAWG strategic vision; the VAWG action plan and the Conservative government strategy against VAWG, and the Conservative Human Rights Commission though in all of these, prostitution is referenced in terms of associated harm and exploitation, not as harm and exploitation. Clearly, prostitution, perhaps all sex work, is on the spectrum of violence, but it is not clear why, or which part of sex work is so dangerous.
Suggested criminal sanctions, such as the ‘End Demand’ Model, offer a ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ of sex work by way of a proposed change in legal regime. This policymaking framework, one favoured by the current Labour government, aims to reduce the demand for prostitution by ostensibly decriminalising sex work and criminalising the purchase of sex as an instrument to fight trafficking and sexual exploitation. Pressure is mounting at the governmental level to implement to the End Demand, with sex work activists pushing back claiming that such a move may address those buying sex, but not does help those selling it.
Within all of these policies, commercial sex is categorised as entirely separate from gendered economic injustice; poverty, low income and economic survival are not mentioned in these policies at all in reference to sex work or violence against women, except in passing to say that poverty’s existence undermines gender equality. Instead, sex work is understood as a de facto gendered crime against women, assumingly by men, entirely separate from income instability or poverty. With women bearing 86% of the austerity burden, and these same women still needing to earn a living, pay their rent, and feed themselves and their families, many work their way around financial hardship by selling sex.
Even for those employed in full-time, living-wage paying jobs, neoliberal fiscal policy has shaped the ongoing race to the bottom in international labour standards, seeing the fragmentation and cheapening of labour through casualisation, zero-hours, or lack of permanent contracts. The privatisation of necessities such as energy, water and food means that as time goes on, we are being charged more and more for less and less. Under the conditions of late capitalism, the instant cash and potential high hourly rates of sex work seems like a viable, and tempting, option.[
Sex worker activists have long argued that sex work is work: a method of earning a living through your own labour. It is highly gendered, stigmatised and often precarious work, but it is work that pays the rent, bills, and puts food on the table of thousands of families across the UK. Since the 1970s, the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) have argued that income through sex work allows economic freedom, and the only viable end to the sex industry is for the state to divert resources away from policing clients, and instead invest in housing, childcare and other resources to support women. The de-exceptionalism of sex work among other types of gendered labour was, and is, the cornerstone of the sex worker rights movement in the UK.
Feminist political economists, and feminist social policy work has gone some way to find the locus of gendered injustice and they highlight women’s particular economic struggles as a real, undeniable issue which need addressing. The Women’s Budget Group note high inflation along with the increasing costs of living as having a disproportionate impact on those on low incomes, the majority of whom are women, particularly women of colour. Instead of using the vulnerable status of marginalised people as a reason to criminalise the sex industry, many sex worker activists and academics instead advocate instilling workers with economic and social rights, giving workers greater freedom to choose how they work, when, and in which circumstances. Within the violence of poverty and the racialised capitalist systems which uphold it, workers are simply trying to negotiate their rights. Not for the right to work, but in a system where we are forced to work, to be able to do it safely.
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Even within such an oppressive capitalist system, radical feminists write off sex work activists, claiming that negotiating labour rights is a luxury of ‘middle class happy hookers’. Such a move positions sex workers as autonomous actors within the free market, complicit with what Rosalind Gill names as the “postfeminist and neoliberal discourses that see individuals as entrepreneurial actors who are rational, calculating and self-regulating”. This disdain for workers who ‘choose’ to sex work (and I use this term loosely), is borne from the radical feminist position that the purchase of sex is violence against women, and not just violence against women in the sex industry; violence against every woman.
Historically, the availability of violence to men as a resource in dominance over women is structured by the lack of state intervention to stop this and so, redefining activities such as prostitution, domestic abuse and rape as criminal activities was and is part of the radical feminist strategy to get the state to take women’s abuse seriously. As in other areas of men’s violence and objectification, clients of the sex industry then, ought to be treated as criminals. For these radical, or as we might think of them, carceral feminists, involving the criminal law is not contentious; it’s necessary. The patriarchal law can shift toward women’s favour and criminalise aspects of men’s behaviour which endangered women. Through law, women’s status as sexually subordinate could be eliminated.
But with the high cost of living and lack of income stability as key reasons why women move into the sex industry, it is nothing short of a deliberate political strategy by those in power to not consider poverty when writing policies responding to GBV. These economic facts don’t prevent radical feminists from regularly personifying sex workers as either idealised wounded victims, for whom they’re working to eradicate the sex industry; or as neoliberals par excellence; relishing in the rewards of capitalism, rather than victims of its cruel policies. Anti-porn feminist, Gail Dines, believes that the sex industry has been rebranded as female empowerment, emphasising what she refers to as “individualised, narcissistic sexuality, which is the kind individual neoliberalism creates”. As such, campaigning for sex workers to be empowered and respected through labour rights is the neoliberal approach of free individuals that are making free choices to sell sex. Similarly, radical feminist Julie Bindel separates herself from “neoliberal choice feminists who have absorbed the argument about sex-working being empowering”.
And yet, without wanting to suggest sex work as an advisable career move, it is undeniable that sexual commerce offers benefits not found in other labour markets, especially racialised and gendered labour markets such as nannying, hospitality and care work. Benefits such as comparably high earning power on entry, instant cash transaction, no necessary documentation and flexible working hours are tempting for those who struggle with long hours, structural discrimination, low wages and no right to work. Is it worth asking, why is sex work, a place where these benefits are found, so heavily policed and regulated?[3] While we live in a world where capital is power, it makes sense to want to remove that power from what Jasbir Puar names as ‘undesirable persons’ and keep women of colour, single mothers, migrant women and queer women poor; the desires of white heteronormative citizens clearly trump those queer alliances across race, class and citizenship. With a rise in neoliberal values, and a normalisation of progressive sexual attitudes, it would make sense for a sex worker to be regarded as both an enterprising, self-actualising individual, and symbolic of sexual libertarianism. And yet, neoliberalism is coalesced with neoconservatism and its strong, state-led and -legislated moral political vision. The result is a socially conservative, militarised, but grossly reduced welfare provision. Sex workers, particularly Black and trans sex workers, are hypersexualised to the point of being little more than body-objects, and the 'choice' to engage in such a risky profession is morally culpable. The provision of support offered by both radical feminists, and the state, necessitates sex workers recognising themselves as victims of individual bad men, and not victims of a racist, capitalist, morally vacant state.
Governing neoliberals have endorsed radical feminism’s ‘patriarchal force’ thesis, which provides both political fuel and theoretical justification for the reliance on criminal justice interventions as a primary means of addressing violence against women, of which sex work is often counted. Feminists opposing the individualising and responsibilising of the sex industry have long pointed out how convenient it is for neoliberal and neoconservative government to harness a criminal justice response, with criminalisation becoming the stand in for condemning male power, violence and control over women. Even if arresting and criminalising clients makes sex workers safer (and it doesn’t), this approach pertains to her and only her. Not an effective strategy for ‘helping all women’.
Sex work, crime, and poverty
The model of prostitution put forward by carceral feminists and the writers of governmental policy bears little connection to economic or structural factors and is wholly attributed to the actions of bad men. Perhaps this is why there has been little structural improvement or progress for women both in and out of the sex industry: the capitalist system upholding the sex industry is more entrenched now than ever. Srinivasan asks those who wish for harsher punitive responses to the sex industry to shift their perspective. Instead of viewing men paying women for sex as representative of relationships between men and women, rather view men paying women for sex as an economic and pragmatic response to it within the socio-economic context. We ought to then, feel compelled to strengthen women’s hand in their situation.
The growing emphasis on law-and-order responses in neoliberal contexts is “a reaction to, a diversion from, and a denigration of” the financial insecurity produced by inequality and decrease in living standards. The rollback of welfare which pushes people into poverty, and the concomitant increase in criminal justice policies are interlinked, and a strong carceral system is not a deviation from, but an integral part of the neoliberalism/neoconservative alliance. This is particularly clear in policies pertaining to the sex industry. Policies continually displace responsibility for welfare and safety away from the state and onto individuals. This privatisation of responsibility means that risks are supposed to be managed by individuals, ostensibly with a focus on their agency, rather than accountability on any structural or institutional constraints; but this both renders individuals vulnerable to abuse and limits their possibilities for safety. The ‘choice’ to sex work; the ‘agency’ that sex workers have, is structurally dictated and constrained. The opinion that the ‘bad thing’ in the sex industry is the clients allows the governments to displace responsibility as well as strengthening their carceral aim.
As abolitionists, we know the issues which arise when a ‘bad thing’ is perceived to exist in a particular place, and that ‘bad thing’ is located, criminalised, and punished. When the ‘problem’ of trafficking or the ‘problem’ of women being bought for sex can be located to the ‘bad’ men who pimp women and the other ‘bad’ men who buy sex, feminist campaigners and governmental bodies alike can be seen to be effectively tackling the problem by calling to further criminalise these actions. The convergence between radical feminists and neoliberal and neoconservative policy makers lies in the erroneous idea that the ‘problem’ of the sex industry can be so easily located in any individual, and further, such a move absolves the state from examining its own role in the construction and maintenance of the sexual labour market.
By emphasising criminal actions, and thus criminal solutions, state bodies can divert focus from their own policies of immigration and asylum, health, employment, economic development and austerity, education, and welfare. When radical feminists follow similar logic and argue against men’s demand for sex whilst making no mention of the role played by poverty in the global dynamics of trafficking and sexual labour, it performs a particular, myopic, kind of scrutiny; radical feminist activists can critique the police and policy makers for not doing enough to prevent women being sold into the sex industry and the response can be a performance of self-examination and a promise to ‘do better’ by the government in question who then enact more laws.
With much research and advocacy already available on the violent police tactics, particularly pertaining to sex workers, I won’t rehash them here. Suffice to say that the police are inconsistent, uneven and subject to bias in their handling of reports, reflected in the societal distrust in their effectiveness. Sex workers have pointed out that they often fear reporting to the police as this could lead to further fines or warrants against them, or the possible disclosure of their identity to their family, friends and wider public, as well as real risks of police-perpetrated sexual and physical violence. Simply put, misogyny and violence are built into the bones of policing. Instead of an increased police presence to help respond to the hate, stigma and violence that sex workers face, support from governments might look like provision of centres open throughout the night where they can get support, advice and something to eat, or meet other sex workers and build a community. Sex workers want real, viable economic alternatives, not more policing. Feminists of colour have long criticized radical feminists (and broader anti-violence work) for its focus on interpersonal violence at the cost of institutional violence.
The incoherent policy approach which slashes funding to public services, and then increases punitive responses means that harm reduction has been replaced with ‘tough on crime’ messages. This allows lawmakers to emphasise punishment of individuals as a solution to violence and inequality, rather than improving living conditions or access to the resources desperately needed.
This approach is what helps to neutralise critique that the state is not doing enough from other strands (namely radical/carceral) of feminism. The neoliberal rationale – that of slashing welfare – and the neoconservative strand of increasing carceral responses, are the dominant political discourses currently and so it makes sense that they would co-opt feminist praxis to further their aims. The feminist praxis being:
It is feminist to use the power of the state to help victims of gender based violence, of which sex work can be counted. It is not feminist to allow gender based violence, such as sex work, to continue
It seems that neoliberalism needs feminism in this way. Yet, as Decrim Now, a collective of sex worker rights advocates based in the UK, deftly argue:
If anti-prostitution campaigners want to support those who wish to leave the sex industry, they should find sex workers – particularly the most precarious workers, such as undocumented, disabled, and those who are single mothers – alternative modes of income, not attempt to take away the economic strategy that people are using to survive.
Rather than addressing the reasons why women are vulnerable to being trafficked, or the causes which enable others to earn money from forcing women to sell sex, or the economic precarity that women live with if they do not sell sex, the state and its arms are able to sustain criticism whilst also staying committed to the neoliberal, capitalist doctrine. This unholy alliance of feminism and the capitalist classes, means that, rather than seeing improvement or progress for women either in or out of the sex industry, the fragmentation and individualisation of neoliberalism and neoconservatism are further entrenched by individualising the cause of and solution to the sex industry.[4]
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In countries with the End Demand model – a suggested legal framework which is taking place across the Global North, there has been little to no investment in social programmes, support services or welfare. Despite the introduction of the End Demand law in Northern Ireland, there has been no investment in exiting support services and sex workers reportedly feeling less safe and more stigmatised than before. In France, a country with around 50000 sex workers, less than 350 have been helped out of the industry through the governmental exiting programme, with thousands of others dealing with increased violence, less clients, and more precarious working circumstances. Throughout all countries with the End Demand model, we’ve seen an expansion of law enforcement and the knowledge production of those who buy, and those who sell (or are sold for) sex. Supporters of the Nordic Model, or any kind of police intervention in the safety of sex work, must question the broader compliance with state militarisation and border control, and how care and compassion can and are militarised and weaponised.
In the world we have now, sex work is work. To build the world we want, it is not enough to argue for the decriminalisation of sex work alone. Part of decriminalisation is the tempting offer that we, as sex workers can go to the police when someone hurts us with no fear of being arrested. But as abolitionists, we know this is not, and never can be, the case. We don’t want to work toward a world where sex workers are so valuable as individualised capital-generating citizens that we can call on the police to be violent on our behalf. Abolition is not just an abolishment of physical or state institutions, but a social theory of change that aims to abolish the conditions where criminalisation of any kind is the solution. As ECP demanded 50 years ago, we want the safety to not have to work at all.
Vee is an activist and academic based in Brighton. She has been active in the fight to decriminalise sex work for over a decade, and has previously worked in front-line domestic abuse, sexual violence and sex work outreach services. She is currently a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, evaluating frontline sex worker-led services to improve the safety and mental health of sex workers.