Pornstars: Doin It For the Money

I wrote recently about Belle Knox, and whether or not porn can be a form of female empowerment. She recently wrote a post for HuffPo which should have been common sense, except that when it comes to porn we tend to throw common sense out the window. (I really want to make a pun about “throwing things out the window” when it comes to porn, but I can’t think of one that wouldn't be really, really gross.)

She’s writing about the fact that, when it comes to making a living as a sex worker, people only allow one of two “valid” responses:

1. I’m doing it because I love to fuck – I’d still be doing this even if I wasn’t getting paid! Or:
2. I hate being exploited for the sake of porn but I’m doing it for the money, and obviously I’d be doing something else if I could make this kind of (or any) money. (This is called the “desperate exchange.”)

Any other kind of response just doesn’t seem to compute in people’s heads, but Ms. Knox raises the point that we don’t have this kind of dichotomy for any other kind of work. Pick any random person on the street and ask them what they do; doctor, lawyer, plumber, stockbroker, nurse, teacher, musician, circus acrobat, whatever, and then ask them if they’d still do what they were doing if they weren’t getting paid for it. Chances are they’d say no; I may love my job (in fact I do), but if I wasn’t getting paid for it I’d have to go and do something else. Bills need to get paid, food needs to be purchased, porn needs to be purchased (just kidding, I don’t pay for my porn), there are all kinds of reasons I need money. Hell, I’m so wasteful that sometimes I even spend money on things I don’t need, like going to the movies or going to a concert. All of that is made possible by the fact that I have a job.

So no, almost nobody that you’ll ever meet would still be doing what they’re doing if they weren’t getting paid for it. But better yet, ask them if they’d still be doing that if they became independently wealthy: suppose you won the lottery today and were set for life, would you still go in to work tomorrow as a lawyer / plumber / stockbroker / whatever? Many would say no, many others would say yes, and there would be a diversity of reasoning behind the answers.

My point is that we all work “for the money,” because that’s the nature of work. I do what I do for 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week, sometimes I love the hell out of what I’m doing and sometimes it’s a drudge and I hate going in in the morning. Every two weeks my employer deposits a bunch of money into my account in exchange for my services. (Part of my benefits includes vacation time, so there are weeks that I don’t go in to work at all and still receive that deposit in my account.)

So why is it that we create this mental dichotomy when it comes to sex workers, where they are either pro-sex (porn, prostitution, camming, dominatrixing, escorting, sripping, whatever) advocates who do it for the love of the fuck, or they are down-on-their-luck women taking this “desperate exchange” because it’s the only choice they have other than starvation? (Yes, I know there are male sex workers, but as usual we only seem to talk this way when it comes to the girls. You don’t have to be “desperate” to do sex work if you’re a dude, apparently.)

As Ms. Knox says in her post,

I was lecturing at a class last week and taking questions when I was asked by a female student, "Would you still do porn if you didn't need the money?"

I replied, "No."

She looked shocked. The entire class was buzzing. I felt puzzled. It all seems so intuitive. I wouldn't do labor for free. No one would.

Duh.

But it’s more than just “would you still do this if you didn’t need the money” thing, there’s a whole facade that needs to be maintained by sex workers. It must be difficult for them to have to maintain the illusion that everything is wonderful all the time. Personally, when I come home from work at night and my wife asks me how my day was, I can tell her the truth, regardless of what that truth is: “Today was awesome, I was so productive and everyone at work thinks I’m a genius!” or, “Today was shitty, I couldn’t get anything done and everyone I work with is a moron!” or, “Meh. It was OK. Nothing special, just a normal day.” And even aside from the day-by-day up and down nature of my enjoyment of my job, there are also structural things that I like about my job and things that I don’t like about it. No job is perfect, and although I happen to like my job overall it doesn’t mean that I love every single thing about it. But people aren’t going to hear that and immediately try to “rescue” me from my job.

“Do you like what you do?”

“Yeah, most days, but there are some people I work with who are idiots.”

“Oh my god!!! We need to get you out of there! If only you didn’t need the money you wouldn’t be trapped in that job!”

“Wait, what? I just said I work with some idiots. I’m fine. You don’t need to go start an organization to rescue 9–5 office workers!”

But if I were a [female] pornstar, and had any kind of public forum to discuss my life I’d have to hesitate before writing almost anything approaching honesty; I’m sure pornstars (and dominatrixes and cam girls and escorts and …) also have good days and bad days, and there are things they like about their jobs and things they don’t like about them, but the problem is that as soon as they mention any of the downsides of what they do people immediately put them in that “desperate exchange” category.

“Do you like what you do?”

“Yeah, most days, but sometimes the shoes they make me wear are uncomfortable.”

“Oh my god!!! We need to get you out of there! If only you didn’t need the money you wouldn’t be trapped in that job!”

“Wait, what? I just said the shoes are sometimes uncomfortable. You don’t need to go start an organization to rescue pornstars!”

To be clear, I’m not saying that there aren’t sex workers who are trapped in their “jobs.” Some definitely are. Some are, literally, slaves. (The slave trade is just as big today – if not bigger – as it was in the eighteenth century, this is a huge problem.) And even aside from literal slavery there are definitely a number of sex workers who do need to be rescued, or at the very least need some help. My only point is that we shouldn’t put a pornstar or an escort or a dominatrix into the same category just because she “does it for the money.” You do your job for the money, too – whatever that job might be.