For roughly the same length of time that I have been selling sex, anti-capitalism has been central to my core values. There are many people who find my identities as an anarchist and anti-capitalist to be in conflict with my identity as a sex worker, but I find them to be in perfect alignment.
We cannot escape the capitalist system without dismantling it, which requires a group effort. Whilst we still live within a capitalist society, we are all forced to participate in it. This is one of the principal critiques made by anti-capitalists; we do not have a choice regarding whether we earn and use money, because we need it to live.
Selling sex opened my eyes to the transactional nature of many relationships which do not frame themselves as involving money or trade. It also made me more aware of the injustices that workers face, particularly when we do not have access to workers’ rights. Since my teens, selling sex has constantly reinforced my belief that it is wrong that anyone must rely on money to survive.
The supposed contradiction between “sex worker” and “anti-capitalist”:
Clients in particular seem to believe that I am experiencing capitalism on easy-mode by being a sex worker, or they think that I am abusing the system to take money from weak men without effort. For these reasons, they cannot imagine why I would dislike a system where they picture me as coming out on top in the transaction.
Some committed communists and anarchists believe that I am commodifying sex by selling it; many also believe that sex is special in some way, distinct from other services and acts that a person might charge for.
Both of these positions result in sex workers being framed as being immoral for the nature of our work, either because we’re supposedly taking advantage of clients or because we treat sex as acceptable to sell. As a sex worker, I am ultimately treated as the capitalist who benefits from this commodification of my own body. When I claim to oppose the very system that I am seen as benefiting from, I am viewed as a hypocrite.
Many actions which we consider to be basic functions of interpersonal relationships are also performed within various jobs. People have jobs as carers, in place of solely family members and friends looking after each other, and people sell sex in place of people seeking it from partners or friends or strangers. There is no reason to put sexual contact on a pedestal and treat sex work differently from other kinds of work.
As for whether I am unfairly extracting wealth from my clients and taking advantage of them, I dismiss this idea outright. My clients choose to spend their disposable income on a service they do not need, which takes a physical toll on my body as well as being mentally exhausting, and I take on both risk and stigma while I do it. The work is not easier than other jobs I have had, though I have often found it preferable because of the shorter and more flexible hours.
Working independently allows me to avoid having the surplus value of my labour stolen from me by my employer, but I barely earn enough to pay my bills each month and I’m in debt rather than so much as dreaming about owning any form of property one day. Still, among sex workers, I am reasonably fortunate. I have a part time civilian job that is considered respectable and I have a network of friends to support me when I don’t have enough money to afford food after I pay my rent. We are not a privileged class of capitalists.
What clients think of my politics:
I don’t necessarily recommend advertising your politics to acquaintances or clients. You’re safer if you can remain vague and mimic the positions of the client you’re speaking to. After all, when you admit to being an anti-capitalist in front of a rich client, it’s not hard for them to deduce what you think of their job or their hoarding of wealth. As is often the case, this is advice that I give and yet do not follow. I have a tattoo that says “smash capitalism”.
Clients don’t always ask me about the tattoo, or sometimes only question what piece of media the character is from or ask if the ripped jeans look on him is a choice (it’s not, my skin just didn’t hold the ink well there). When they do, I can occasionally laugh it off as a youthful mistake and pretend I’m not a radical leftist if the client is oblivious enough.
I’m more open about my positions because of the fact that their written on my skin for the client to see, but I still avoid political talk for the most part. Why start an argument with someone I want to like me, so they keep paying me, when I know it’s very likely their politics won’t align well with mine?
On occasions that clients do push me to talk about it, or comment on my anti-capitalist tattoo, it’s clearly that they view me as a misguided child. An interesting view to have of someone they’re fucking, but I can’t describe it any other way. They talk down to me, as if I’m a kid who doesn’t understand basic economics instead of a person who opposes capitalism on an ideological basis. They think I’m naïve about how money works, instead of someone who’s repeatedly being screwed over by it who knows the intricacies of how it’s screwing me. Capitalism is fucking me much more effectively and deeply than my clients are. They’re the ones who are ignorant of that fact.
I’ve had businessmen try to pull me into a debate on the merits of anarchism or communism whilst we sit at our table in an expensive restaurant, before we go back to a hotel I could never afford to stay in. I wonder if they see the humour in lecturing me on how capitalism is fair and rewards hard work whilst I debase myself letting them talk down to me because I have to keep them interested enough to pay my rent. I think they’re well aware that it isn’t fair, that I’m the one struggling and working harder than they are for less money, and it gets them hard to condescend to me.
I am told that when I get older, I will change my mind. I am told that I oppose the system because I am currently at the bottom of the heap and don’t have property or savings worth protecting. At only 25, I can’t yet prove that I won’t lose a grip on my morals with age… but I can note that these clients have been saying the same thing to me since I was 17 and that I’ve only gotten more radical over the last 8 years. I’m still no closer to owning any property or having savings and I don’t see that changing. My reasons for being anti-capitalist wouldn’t suddenly be invalid if I did change my mind, and I notice that clients don’t usually even ask for my reasons – they argue that I, too, would become selfish if I had any wealth of my own to hoard.
How the sex worker community breeds anti-capitalist thought:
It’s a common claim that the people who have the least are the most likely to give. I find this to be especially true of sex workers. We’re rejected by payment processors and banks, have our income cut into by advertising websites and managers and abusive partners and regulations which seek to lower our client pool, yet we consistently give what we have left to others in our community who are struggling.
When a sex worker in my community gets sick and can’t work, I’ll scrape the last few pounds from my bank account to send something. Others in my community would do the same if I needed to fundraise in an emergency. A huge proportion of those who donated to help me fund my top surgery were sex workers, when my dysphoria was so bad I wanted to die. We help each other to find civilian jobs when we want them, particularly in roles where we can work towards improving the sexual health and legal standing of sex workers from paid positions. If one of us needs somewhere to stay, someone will find a room for us to crash in.
I adore the sex workers in my community who’ve supported me, most of whom are friends of mine; I’m also not going to claim this is some sort of innate trait they all have to be selfless and kind. We all support each other because if we don’t, we’ll have no-one to turn to when we need it ourselves. That isn’t to say that we help each other with any expectation of reward, but it’s that need for support for ourselves that stops us becoming selfish and burning bridges in moments of weakness.
We are forced to understand that the system is broken, leaving us with only each other to rely on. That makes it a lot easier to accept the critiques of financial institutions and the government and capitalism itself.
In addition to the fact that sex workers are often poor and don’t have access to things like sick pay or parental leave, we are also denied a plethora of other workers’ rights because of the criminalization of aspects of our work. To improve our conditions, we must work together as a collective to demand those rights. Building a workers’ rights movement requires an understanding not just of what rights you’re being denied, but of why.
Why are sex workers denied workers’ rights? What interest do governments and financial institutions have in making our work illegal and therefore more difficult to engage in, removing ways for us to place that money into banks where we can be more easily made to pay our taxes? It seems bizarre, until you realize that our ability to earn money is being suppressed so that we can be forced into lower paid jobs where more of the value of our labour can be taken to us and kept by our employers. Sex work is used by the marginalized as a way to support ourselves and try and claw our way out of poverty, so it must be suppressed to keep the poor in a state where they can be forced into undercompensated labour that benefits the rich.
Not every sex worker is an anti-capitalist. It’s just a hell of a lot easier to turn a sex worker into one, because of the nature of whorephobia and how entwined it is with capitalist interests.
(If you’re interested in reading about the spectrum of experiences that transmasculine sex workers have, including our experiences with poverty and struggles for workers’ rights in this capitalist hellscape, please check out my current project Working Guys: A Transmasculine Sex Worker Anthology!)
Jack Talks About Sex Work 