Disclaimer: this piece reflects the opinion of the Contributor and not The Siren Magazine or the UO Women’s Center.
This should be obvious, but sex work can’t be empowering under a patriarchal society. Words by Hadass Leventhal With the rise in popularity of online sex work platforms such as OnlyFans, Smooci and Peppr, I can’t help but wonder who is being empowered by these softwares, especially during times of an almost exclusively mandatory quarantine. After a forty percent growth in OnlyFans influencers, we should all question if these apps are as harmless as they brand themselves to be. Seemingly a means to sexual liberation and financial independence, these services appear to be beneficial to all parties, except for their deep political and psychological implications. Said apps encourage the commodification and objectification of the female body under the fallacious veil of empowered choice. As long as there are marginalized women forced to somehow sell their bodies to make a living, sex work, whether online or
in person, is not to be considered an accomplishment worthy of celebration. Today’s trend of glamorizing online sex work is extremely dangerous because it naturalizes, and, above all, glamorizes selling one’s body under the backdrop of a “progressive” rhetoric. This phenomenon encourages to prostitution and contributes to its inherently unbalanced power and money dynamics. Rather than empowering women, commercial sex increases gender-based violence. Considering that mostly male customers pay the predominantly female sex worker’s bills, men are clearly put in a position of social dominance and financial authority over the women. In addition to that, I think that, ninety percent of sex workers depend on their pimp, who makes a living solely on controlling the prostitute’s actions. Besides the clear