# Sex Work Is Good Work
I'm going to say something that some people will disagree with.
Sex work is work.
And the women I meet who do it are not lesser women because of the work they choose to do.
There.
Perhaps that is controversial.
Perhaps it shouldn't be.
I've met women through sex work who are incredibly attractive, funny, warm, fun-loving and remarkably easy to connect with.
Sometimes you meet someone and conversation simply happens.
No awkwardness.
No elaborate performance.
You sit down, you talk, you laugh, and somehow the walls disappear.
And that is what I think people sometimes forget.
They forget the person.
They see the profession.
They see the transaction.
They see the sexuality.
And somewhere beneath all of that, they forget there is a woman sitting in front of them.
A woman with a personality.
A history.
A sense of humour.
Dreams.
Fears.
Bad days.
Good days.
People she loves.
People who love her.
A life outside whatever interaction brought the two of you together.
And I refuse to speak down to her because of how she earns her money.
## The Woman Behind the Work
I've never understood why someone's occupation should give other people permission to treat them as though they're somehow beneath them.
We don't do this consistently with other professions.
We don't meet an accountant and assume we know their entire personality.
We don't meet a lawyer and decide that their job tells us everything about their character.
We don't meet a chef and think their profession means we understand their private life.
So why do people suddenly believe they know everything about a woman because she does sex work?
The answer, I suspect, is uncomfortable.
Sex makes people uncomfortable.
Money makes people uncomfortable.
Women making choices about their own bodies makes people uncomfortable.
And when you combine all three, society seems to become particularly eager to pass judgement.
But judgement is easy.
Understanding is harder.
## They Are Not Less Than Anyone Else
I want to be very clear about something.
The women I meet aren't charity cases.
They aren't broken objects waiting for somebody to rescue them.
They aren't tragic characters in somebody else's morality tale.
They are women.
That's it.
Some are ambitious.
Some are hilarious.
Some are incredibly intelligent.
Some are shy.
Some are confident.
Some are complicated.
Some are guarded.
Some are extraordinarily open.
Some are people I could talk to for hours.
And yes, some are incredibly attractive.
But their attractiveness isn't why they deserve respect.
Their humanity is.
That distinction matters.
Because I don't want to romanticise sex work either.
Not every experience is positive.
Not every person enters the industry for the same reason.
Not every situation is safe.
Exploitation exists.
Coercion exists.
Trafficking exists.
Violence exists.
Those things should be confronted without hesitation.
But acknowledging those realities doesn't require us to assume that every person involved in sex work is helpless, incapable of making decisions, or waiting to be rescued.
Two things can be true at once.
Exploitation is wrong.
And people who sell sexual services deserve dignity.
## “But Isn't It Illegal?”
This is where things become rather more complicated than the sentence often repeated in casual conversation:
“Sex work is legal in the UK.”
That isn't quite accurate.
The law differs across the UK, and different activities surrounding prostitution have different legal statuses.
In Scotland, for example, the Scottish Government identifies offences including running a brothel, trading in the prostitution of others, procuring, and certain forms of public soliciting or loitering.
So I don't want to make a sweeping legal claim simply because it sounds good in an argument.
The reality is more complicated.
And perhaps that is appropriate.
Because sex work itself isn't a simple subject.
It sits at the intersection of consent, money, sexuality, safety, exploitation, personal choice, poverty, gender, law and social attitudes.
There is no single sentence capable of explaining all of it.
But there is one principle I keep coming back to.
Whatever the legal framework, the person involved remains a person.
## Don't Speak Down to Them
This is probably the part I care about most.
Don't speak down to them.
Don't laugh at them.
Don't call them names.
Don't assume they're stupid.
Don't assume they're damaged.
Don't assume they're desperate.
Don't assume you know their story.
And don't assume that because money changed hands, basic human respect somehow became optional.
I have met women through sex work who have been easier to talk to than people I've known for years.
There can be an immediate openness.
A strange ease.
A sense that the usual social performance has been temporarily removed.
You talk.
You laugh.
You discover things about one another.
Sometimes the connection is fleeting.
Sometimes it feels surprisingly genuine.
And sometimes you walk away thinking:
She's actually brilliant.
That shouldn't be shocking.
It should be obvious.
## Attraction Isn't the Whole Story
I'll admit something else.
Yes, the women I've met have often been incredibly attractive.
But I don't think we should pretend attraction is irrelevant.
Human beings are attracted to one another.
That's part of life.
The problem begins when attraction becomes entitlement.
Someone being attractive doesn't mean you own them.
Someone selling sexual services doesn't mean you own them either.
Payment doesn't erase consent.
Payment doesn't erase boundaries.
Payment doesn't erase dignity.
And payment certainly doesn't give anyone permission to behave like an arsehole.
Perhaps that should be the simplest rule of all.
Treat the person in front of you as a person.
## I Will Stand Up for Them
I've used the word “protect” before, and I understand why that word can be complicated.
Women don't necessarily need men to swoop in and save them.
They have agency.
They have voices.
They can speak for themselves.
So perhaps the better word is this:
I will stand beside them.
If someone speaks about them with contempt, I will challenge it.
If someone tries to humiliate them, I won't join in.
If someone assumes that their profession makes them inferior, I'll disagree.
If someone thinks that buying a service gives them permission to demean the person providing it, I'll tell them they're wrong.
That isn't heroism.
It is basic decency.
## The Shakespearean Bit
Perhaps the world would be kinder if we judged people less by the garments they wear and more by the humanity they carry beneath them.
Judge not the woman by the trade whereby she earns her bread, lest thou mistake the garment for the soul beneath it.
For what is a profession but one chapter of a much larger book?
A woman may sell a service.
She does not sell her humanity.
She may choose to share her body.
She does not surrender her dignity.
She may accept money.
She does not become the property of the person who paid it.
And there is wisdom in remembering that.
## Sex Work and Morality
I know some people will disagree with me morally.
That's okay.
You don't have to approve of sex work to respect the people who do it.
That distinction seems increasingly important to me.
You can believe that sex belongs within a particular kind of relationship.
You can have religious beliefs.
You can have personal boundaries.
You can decide that sex work isn't something you would ever participate in.
All of those positions can exist.
But disagreement does not require cruelty.
I don't need to believe that somebody's choices are identical to mine in order to believe they deserve kindness.
Perhaps that's where adulthood is supposed to take us.
Away from:
“I don't understand your choice, therefore you are wrong.”
And towards:
“I don't understand your choice, but I still recognise your humanity.”
## The Women I've Met
The women I've met aren't abstractions.
They're not statistics.
They're not political talking points.
They're people I've actually encountered.
And the thing that has stayed with me isn't simply that they were beautiful.
It's that they were people.
Funny people.
Interesting people.
Warm people.
Confident people.
Complicated people.
Sometimes vulnerable.
Sometimes incredibly self-assured.
Sometimes wonderfully ridiculous.
Sometimes unexpectedly profound.
People with whom conversation could begin almost instantly.
That matters to me.
Because once you've actually sat across from someone, laughed with them, listened to them and experienced them as a human being, it becomes considerably harder to reduce them to a stereotype.
You stop seeing “a sex worker.”
You see Sarah.
Or Emily.
Or Sophie.
Or whoever she happens to be.
And that's when the language changes.
The category disappears.
The person remains.
## What Does “Good Work” Mean?
When I say sex work is good work, I don't mean that every circumstance surrounding sex work is good.
I don't mean every workplace is safe.
I don't mean exploitation isn't real.
I don't mean everyone who enters sex work is doing so under identical circumstances.
And I certainly don't mean we shouldn't have difficult conversations about the industry.
I mean something simpler.
Work does not determine someone's worth.
A person should not be degraded because of the way they earn money.
And someone who performs a service for another adult does not cease to deserve respect.
That's what I mean.
Maybe “good work” isn't even really about the work.
Maybe it's about the person.
A good person can do work society doesn't understand.
A complicated person can do work society celebrates.
A terrible person can have an impressive job title.
A wonderful person can have a job that other people judge.
Occupation is not morality.
Job title is not character.
And a profession is not a soul.
## We Can Do Better
I think we can talk about sex work honestly without turning sex workers into either saints or victims.
They don't need to be romanticised.
They don't need to be condemned.
They need to be seen.
Seen as adults.
Seen as people.
Seen in all their complexity.
And where exploitation occurs, we should confront it fiercely.
Where coercion occurs, we should protect the victim.
Where trafficking occurs, we should pursue those responsible.
Where violence occurs, we should take it seriously.
But where two adults are making choices, the conversation should still contain dignity.
Because the answer to exploitation isn't contempt for everyone who works in the industry.
The answer is protection from exploitation.
The answer to stigma isn't silence.
It's understanding.
And the answer to someone's profession isn't to decide what kind of human being they are.
## So Yes, Sex Work Is Work
I know this won't be everyone's opinion.
That's alright.
I'm not writing this because I expect everyone to agree.
I'm writing it because I've met women who deserve better than the way society sometimes talks about them.
I've met women who are beautiful.
Women who are funny.
Women who are fun.
Women who are intelligent.
Women who are easy to connect with.
Women who have made me laugh.
Women who have made me think.
Women who, for whatever reason, have chosen sex work.
And I will not pretend that choice makes them lesser.
I will not speak down to them.
I will not allow somebody else's prejudice to become their identity.
And I won't confuse disagreement with disrespect.
For beneath the transaction there is a person.
Beneath the profession there is a woman.
And beneath the label there is a human being.
Perhaps that should have been obvious all along.
So yes.
Sex work is work.
And the women who do it are not disposable.
They are not jokes.
They are not stereotypes.
They are not less worthy of kindness.
They are people.
And people deserve to be treated as such.