why do people say sex work in quotation marks? like "sex work"
Good question. “Sex work” is written like that to indicate criticism of the term. There are five main reasons why I think critics of the sex trade don’t like the term "sex work":
1) The term "sex work" sanitizes the frequently non-consensual and exploitative aspect of the sex industry.
It is a known fact that the vast majority of women in prostitution are not there willingly and want out [x], but lack the resources to do so. We also know prostitution is inextricably connected to sex trafficking [x] [x] to supply women and girls for men to buy access to. Calling prostitution or pornography "sex work" waters down how most people don't want to do that "job", how they would do something else if they could, how they are there because they have no other options, or how they had to actually be trafficked [x] to meet demand and keep the sex industry going. “Sex work” functions as a euphemism to hide what actually happens to people in prostitution [x] and tries to frame it as if it were simply a matter of career choice.
2) “Sex work” is a very vague term that welcomes confusion when discussing the sex trade.
“Sex worker”. Are we talking about a Romanian woman who was trafficked as a child to the UK? Or a 17 year old girl working a corner in Brazil? Or a drugged up woman being raped on camera for PornHub? Or a “luxury escort” for rich men at parties? Or a receptionist at an “erotic massage parlor” in Germany? Or are we talking about a girl who sells foot pictures on OnlyFans? Calling all of these different people by the same name conflates different areas of the sex industry and frequently hides the darker aspects of prostitution in favor of seemingly harmless versions of the sex trade.
3) “Sex work” is wildly different from any other sort of work.
While in jobs like construction you’re selling your physical labor and manual skills, in caretaking jobs you’re selling your time and attention and in consultant jobs you’re selling your knowledge; in “sex work”, women are being paid to give sexual access of their bodies to men. Men are giving women money to get unrestricted access of their bodies. Men are paying women to be able to rent women’s organs - vagina, anus, mouth and breasts - to do whatever they want to them in a sexual setting. There is no equivalence to prostitution in any other work area [x]. There is no other job in the world where customers pay to obtain sexual access to the worker’s bodies [x]. There is no other job with as high a mortality rate [x] and STDs [x] like in prostitution. There is no other job where an unwanted pregnancy is an occupational hazard. This explanation as to why “sex work” is not normal work by Sabrina Valisce, a new zealander woman who exited the sex trade, is very interesting and highlights the uniquely sexual nature of the exploitation taking place.
4) “Sex work” normalizes prostitution as an employment option.
At prostitution’s core, there is the buying and selling of women as commodities for male sexual satisfaction. The vast majority of sex sellers are female and the crushing majority of sex buyers are male [x] [x]. Prostitution exists because male sexual entitlement [x] exists: men believe they are entitled to buy women for sex [x] [x]. In order for prostitution to happen, there needs to be a class of women that men can purchase sexual access to: why should we normalize the idea that a man can pay money in exchage for being able to sexually penetrate a woman’s body? Why should we normalize that women are products to be bought and sold by men?
5) The term “sex work” shifts the attention to women’s “choice” to be in the sex industry.
In discussions about the sex trade, people often debate about whether women should have the right to choose prostitution as a “career”, and we often neglect to discuss whether men should have the right to purchase women for sex in the first place. Also, by calling women “sex workers” we shift the focus to women’s “choice” to be in the sex trade rather than on the economic and social vulnerabilities that might lead them to consider this occupation - like poverty, abuse, inequality between the sexes [x] [x] and racism [x] [x] [x] [x] to begin with.
So in conclusion, calling prostitution and pornography “sex work” and saying “sex work is work” ends up being more about protecting the interests of the sex industry and of the men who buy sex and less about protecting the women forced and coerced into prostitution. It tries to legitimize prostitution as a business and a career, hiding it’s exploitative nature. I hope this answers your question
