It’s Time Art About Sex Work Was Made By Sex Workers
TEXT BY: STONESS
Roxy Lee, Cold Lunch, photograph, 2022.
I sit up straighter, peeling my back away from the cushiony cinema seat, ghost heels slightly arching my feet. I consider glitter more seriously. I wish I was going to see a client. There is asurge, a full body warmth, the power of feeling hot, feeling wanted, connecting Annie and I.
Henri Gervex, Rolla, 1878, oil on canvas.
Art depicting sex work has evolved over time to appreciate experiential wisdom. There is a growing willingness to have a sex worker be the creator, rather than solely the subject. Shows displaying work from earlier decades like Splendour and Misery: Pictures of Prostitution, 1850-1910 at the Musée d’Orsay, are all portraits painted by an outside eye. They rarely feature undeniable settings or actions. Within that, there is an overlap to contend with.
There are unverifiable debates about whether a historical figure or the subject of a painting was a sex worker or not. By 1986 rawer whore-led photography had arisen with Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency featuring self-portraits of her time working at a New York brothel. Laying somewhere in between would be Storyville Portraits by E.J. Bellocq circa 1912. It is explicit in its sole location of the Storyville whorehouse, including both informal moments and staged photos with props. But, the distance remains, as Bellocq had no personal experience as a sex worker himself.
Unsurprisingly, I find the best work to be made by sex workers themselves. If the goal of art is to gain proximity to the truth of something and cultivate empathy, we are best served to do so by getting as close to firsthand knowledge as possible.
Nan Goldin, Trixie on the cot, New York City 1979 from The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, photograph, 1979.
A singular viewpoint or piece is never going to reflect the breadth of existence. Particularly as those who are given the space to speak candidly and create work based around their history are largely inhabiting privileged identities. There are more books, shows, and think pieces written by white, cis, “higher class” workers than their BIPOC and trans colleagues. Sex work, like other careers, is not free of the predjudice sewn into the general public.
Ellie English, Does Monday Work?, photograph, 2022.
There is a type of auto-selection via accessibility of different mediums. For instance, photography and visual art are easier to produce on an individual level. Due to a lower barrier to entry, you find more sex workers creating photography like; Ellie English’s Does Monday Work?, Roxy Lee’s Cold Lunch, Poppy Pray’s budding Instagram account @whoretographer, or one person stage shows like Stacey Clare & Gypsy Charms’ Ask a Stripper and Kaitlyn Bailey’s Whore’s Eye View, present at Edinburgh’s most recent Fringe Festival.
Roxy Lee, Cold Lunch, photograph, 2022.
This November I attended an exhibit put on by Decrim Now, an organisation campaigning for the decriminalisation of sex work across the UK, in co-operation with King’s College, London, titled Decrim Funfair. It employed a carnival veneer to guide the participant through interactive displays featuring the observations of former and current sex workers, focusing on how current laws obstruct our safety and autonomy. The curator is a sex worker with a background in theatre.
I entered a room with several videos illustrating interactions with authority figures outside of work. Featuring a landlord evicting a worker, a dismissal email from a company who found out that the employee engaged in sex work, as well as an American immigration officer cancelling someone’s visa and deporting them due to finding a post online dated from years ago. Even as a member of the community, I found myself learning legal and practical nuances while playing fair games to win condoms and stickers.
Decrim Funfair, 2024. All rights reserved to the artists and King’s College, London.
I used to think that art including sex workers stood firmly in an attempt to either humanise or sensationalise the subject. In that to sensationalise was to separate the audience, to bring us further away. Though I’ve come around to the possibility that a piece can do both. One can in fact lead to the other if done well. Anora uses heightened reality, music, aesthetic and violence as a pathway to humanising the character. She is not soft but she is gentle. By which I mean, there is a fluidity to her movement, her vocal lilt, the ease with which she expresses her emotions. This stands in contrast to the harsher technical elements, spectacular in nature, that surround her. A variation on this are pieces that use matter of fact documentation, pared down physically, yet almost jarring in their simplicity. Examples include; a plinth in the Decrim Funfair set with items titled “things I put inside myself” or Nan Goldin’s casual photography of herself and fellow brothel workers. Perhaps anything with sex work cannot escape an inherent element of shock given that it is out of the purview of most people’s own lives.
Sean Baker, Anora, feature film, 2024.
We do not exist in a time where nuance is rewarded. As such, art is often forced to streamline in order to be viable. I appreciate the instances we get that allow for simultaneous spectacle and subtlety. I feel most seen in the quieter moments like when Constance Wu is walking around the club in Hustlers saying hi to a man with a specific intonation, hoping it branches into more. When he politely defers her face drops, but only for a fraction of a second, it shows near-instant professionalism, detachment from the rejection, while begging the question of whether or not that’s possible. Can we overcome the sensation of rejection if it’s built into a profession? If we expose ourselves enough to anything do we become immune? I know the feeling of panic at not making a floor fee back that night, it’s the same feeling of sending out pitches for writing, trying to cobble together enough work to plan your finances for the month. It’s the minutia, the specifics that become general, that create connection with the viewer. Is this exclusive to me having familiarity with the subject matter? I don’t think so.
Can we overcome the sensation of rejection if it’s built into a profession?
If we expose ourselves enough to anything do we become immune?
Even those closest to me struggle to concede my varied takes on my own participation. Ten years ago I had conversations with friends where I felt I shouldn't speak broadly about any negative encounters because it would entrench a wounded caricature seen in films like Pretty Woman or Showgirls. But in more recent years it's shifted, where I feel constricted to share the negatives because it contradicts their infographic fed idea of “girlboss feminism.” Like many topics, we have little ability to entertain shading within a pre-determined image. In discussions with leftists who valorise the "centring voices of those with lived experience,” when I talk about struggling with compassion for a sex addicted client who didn’t pay what we agreed upon, or that the mind numbing admin is not a straight line to buying a house from simply making videos in my room, there is a palpable discomfort as it contradicts their own narrative. We have progressed from the staunch views of harlot or victim, but the ability to actually listen to those involved and what would help them remains evasive. This is where art with a directive like Decrim Now or the sex work section of the Hard Graft exhibit at the Welcome Collection are useful. The curators worked with local organisations made up of and supporting sex workers like Red Umbrella Fund, English Collective of Prostitutes and S.W.A.R.M. They both use the exhibits to channel education and ornamental delivery into action.
Gary Marshall, Pretty Woman, feature film, 1990.
Films on the other hand require you to have more connections, more social capital to be taken seriously. This may be why those that get critical acclaim, have wider reach, or are able to get made at all, are often by those outside of the communities they portray.
I have a slight prickling at the notion that Sean Baker is fixated on this subject, he has made several films featuring sex work, without having personal involvement in it. Though I am always wary of fetishisation, I understand the draw, and he is far from alone in his fascination. He consulted with sex workers on the script, making it a priority to speak with current, local workers. I don’t feel the need to congratulate him on this, as it should be the norm when creating art about a group you aren’t a part of. Furthermore, I would appreciate if he was more involved in grass roots organising, if he actively lobbied for safer sex work laws. He has said on record that he agrees with decriminalisation, but it is not a featured point in the press tour. If someone has public attention and is in fact making money off of the lived reality of others, I don't think it's an unrealistic ask for them to use some of those funds to bolster the ongoing work of local organisers in the fight for their own liberation. I am however, excited to see Baker leveraging his position to get projects with sex workers at the helm made. Andrea Werhun announced that he will be an executive producer on the upcoming film adaption of her book Modern Whore, in which she will play the lead role.
It’s interesting how the audience can find peace with the work if they fall in love. We have not all given a blowjob to pay our phone bill but most of us have been in love. This aspect of film portrayal stays fixed from Pretty Woman in 1990 to Anora in 2024. Is it the fact they are capable of loving someone, subverting the cold, calculating, money obsessed figure? Are we implanted into Annie’s psyche, learning that sex workers also experience love, and joy, and heartbreak? Otherwise, it is the evidence that someone can love them. We are substituting ourselves as Vanya in order to prove that sex workers are deserving of love. Where I’m meant to appreciate the intent of seeing sex workers as human, I can only find frustration that it is a necessary distinction. We are not showing an accountant quipping with their sister, or making dinner for their kid in order to see them as similar to ourselves. In any case, I don’t think it serves our over arching humanity well to only permit respect and care for those we can identify parts of ourself in.
When I see sex work on screen, or canvas, or […] a zine, I feel privileged. And hungry.
I’m pleading for the expansion of patience and appetite for variety and detail. In how we discuss things inside our communities, on how we create and take in art on the topic, on how we moderate our info and emotional response in ways that immediately impact the laws that are made and the lives that are shaped as a result. When I see sex work on screen, or canvas, or the one ply paper that a small batch zine can afford to print on, I feel privileged. And hungry.
Roxy Lee, Cold Lunch, photograph, 2022.
I want to be inundated, to be flooded by art created by sex workers and direct members of their own communities. I want to have such a myriad of lives represented by those living them that our choices are limitless, that niche content reigns supreme. The communal goal is being able to search “cam girl, fuchsia nails, has a dog named Billie” and find three sculptural exhibits in your area at any given time. Let’s start with changing short sighted legislation so people feel safe speaking and making art about their work. Let’s demand participant authentication and show up for them vocally and financially when they create so we can witness the evolution of new and continuing artists. Let’s have the next Anora be written and directed by a sex worker.