How Anti-Sex Work Arguments Misunderstand Sex Work and Labor

The sex industry has long been one of the most criminalized industries in the United States and many other nations of the world, joining the drug industry and other such criminal enterprises. However, this has not gone unchallenged; just as in the modern-day, drug legalization and decriminalization have become prominent political ideas, so has the legalization and decriminalization of sex work. In reaction, however, many conservatives have consistently argued for the maintenance and affirmation of the criminalization of sex work. These arguments, however, fundamentally misunderstand sex work, the effects of its criminalization, and labor generally.

One of the main ideas of anti-sex work argumentation is that sex work reduces people to the equivalent of machines, just bodies to perform sexual labor. As such, this argument posits, sex work should be banned. This argument is correct for sex work under the capitalist mode of production but misses a vital fact: This is the case for almost all work under capitalism.

Yes, sex workers may be reduced to machines made to perform labor, but such is also true for warehouse workers performing back-breaking labor for less than a living wage or office workers toiling for hours in a soul-crushing job. Workers being reduced to mere bodies to perform commodified labor is not exclusive to sex work but rather is the nature of most work under capitalism. As such, sex work should not be treated any differently than other forms of labor because, in reality, it isn’t in any meaningful capacity.

In short, the problem isn’t sex work; the problem is the economic system of our society.

Furthermore, the criminalization of sex work actually leads to further degradation and general detriment to sex workers than would otherwise be the case. According to research authored mainly by Lucy Platt, an associate professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, published in PLOS Magazine, which studied 130 scientific studies over 33 countries, this sentiment is supported.

The study, titled “Associations between sex work laws and sex workers’ health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of quantitative and qualitative studies,” found that, in the words of Umberto Bacchi in an article on the study, “Sex workers who had been exposed to repressive policing like arrest or prison (as a result of criminalization) were three times more likely to experience sexual or physical violence by clients, partners and other people. Those who had not been exposed to such practices were instead half as likely to contract HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and 30 percent less prone to have sex without a condom.”

The study concludes, “There is an urgent need to reform sex-work-related laws and institutional practices so as to reduce harms and barriers to the realization of health.” There is no doubt that the continued criminalization of sex work is more deleterious to sex workers, the people its criminalization is supposed to help, than the practice being legal.

Anti-sex work arguments, whether they relate to the dehumanization of the sex workers or the idea that the criminalization of sex work is generally more beneficial, don’t reflect the realities of sex work and labor more broadly. Under our current capitalist economic system, sex workers are exploited, but so is almost every other worker. The only difference between sex workers and almost all other workers is that the criminalization of their industry makes their exploitation even worse.