Sex Workers Giving Beauty Advice in Allure Mag

Readers not thrilled

On November 16 Allure magazine posted this on their Instagram:

“Sex work, famously the world's oldest profession, is just like any job: The people doing it can fall victim to burnout. Unlike most careers, however, these professionals are often on their own, subject to unfair labor laws, violence, and moral policing that can further contribute to that exhaustion. "In a system that offers little to no protection, sex workers often have to figure out their own models of care," writes sex columnist @drvarunasrinivasan. As one person she spoke to put it: "If we don't take care of our bodies and minds, this job is not sustainable." At the link-in bio, eight sex workers share the beauty and self care routines that help them unwind.”

The response was almost unanimously negative – and not from those who read the article, but from those who refused to. The comments ranged from whorephobic to very whorephobic.

“The Onion buy Allure too?”

“Glorifying sex work is wrong. Allure? Please stop.”

“Disgraceful that Allure is giving positive attention to sex workers in an article that young females read.”

“Realllyyyy? Time to unfollow”

You can read the full Allure article here.

My purpose here isn’t to scold these commenters but to remind myself that, in spite of the fabulousness of people inside my bubble, there are still plenty of people out there who don’t want to hear from or about sex workers unless they can measure themselves against us in some way – usually to feel superior to us, so they can feel disgusted by us, or safer than us, so they can feel pity. 

People who want to “save” sex workers usually are masking one of these motives. It’s not the same as simply offering help out of empathy, in a response to what sex workers ask for when they ask for help (better financial options, less policing, affordable childcare, human rights, etc.). They may feel such disgust that they can’t imagine being us and need us to cease to exist so they won’t have to think about us, even though often their sense of themselves as superior women relies upon not being us. On the other hand, it might be important to them to maintain a false sense of security about the differences between what can happen to us and what can happen to them. Sure, we may be more vulnerable to certain things, but those are almost all things they’re susceptible to to some degree. The savior complex, when the thought of helping a sex worker gives them a sense of relief, comes from coddling a sense of difference rather than a more realistic sense of shared opponents. 

When Dressed posted excerpts from their interview with me on IG, there were many similar comments that were resistant to “glorifying” or “normalizing” prostitution. I was particularly fascinated that when I pointed out that some of the blonde prisoners in brothels in ancient Rome were spoils of war, and that wealthy Roman women gilded their hair with real gold to emulate them, some people commented along the lines of, “See? Sex work is slavery!” They were arguing with a straw-sexpositiveperson who wasn’t there. If they were paying attention to what was actually being discussed, they would have realized that, in a time when a slave’s freedom could be purchased, the price of gilding their hair could easily have set one of these people free. Their outrage was at modern sex workers who want to be recognized as contributors to society and culture, rather than at the people who imitate the style of those they exploit. There isn’t much of a line between the wealth of those matrons and the wars that brought these involuntary immigrants to their city. Likewise, there’s a palpable connection between the money that goes to policing, including wars, and the poverty that drives the financial decisions of marginalized people.

Above: Detail of a mosaic showing blond scantily-clad athletes, from Villa Casale. Athletes, like people in brothels, were sometimes prisoners of war whose freedom could be bought and sold.

There’s more to discuss than whether sex work makes people feel empowered or not. I’m working to make this message more visible in my future work. I’ve already participated in or listened to a million discussions about whether or not sex work should be respected as work, and I know what I think. I’m ready to get to the next level, the bigger picture, and the truth of where sex workers have always been in communities and cultures.

https://www.allure.com/story/sex-workers-beauty-wellness-routines