Pole Dancing, Square Dancing & Sex Work

12/11/2020 10:28:56 AM

Talk to most people and you’ll find they are quite uncomfortable with pole dancing but not with other types of dancing, like say square dancing or the pasa doble. And you’ll soon come to realize people are uncomfortable with pole because of its stripping origins and, therefore, they are uncomfortable with sex work.
Well, duh, you might say. OF COURSE I’M UNCOMFORTABLE WITH SEX WORK! SEX WORK IS BAD! Right? Well, that’s a matter of opinion and we all know the saying about opinions...
Sex work has always been part of our culture and society, from the writing of the bible to now. Sex workers have been depicted as (more often than not) women at a last resort, poor, abused, trafficked, either temptresses or victims or drug addicts. Sex workers, according to contemporary "wisdom", are not in charge (as one of the sex workers in the sorry, shameful affair that was Louis Theroux’s BBC documentary on sex work argues). The documentary is a perfect example of how Theroux’s own judgement and beliefs completely eclipsed what the sex workers were trying to say.
While trafficking is an issue, and sex work can be exploitative, this narrative erases the many women who have chosen sex work as a career, turning themselves into entrepreneurs who sell one of their assets: their body. And their body is a one of a kind that cannot be duplicated or replicated. How's that for one of a kind? No other outlet can offer what you can :-)
If you are uncomfortable with people selling their bodies, think about who buys from them and profits from them: more often than not, men. Yet, men aren’t often the ones judged. It’s the women. So if you’re uncomfortable with sex work, you are uncomfortable with women taking charge of their bodies and reversing something that has been happening for centuries: objectification. You’re essentially saying that it’s fine to objectify women, as long as they don’t enjoy it / profit from it / take charge of it.
I’m not saying women should drop the office job and become strippers. What I’m saying is that sex work is work, responding to a demand in society and profiting from it. People that engage with it consensually should not be judged or pitied, and that art, sport, entertainment, fashion that are inspired by sex work should not have a negative connotation.