‘You could get good money for that…’
A couple of days ago I was out with friends when someone jokingly mentioned their predeliction for cleaning the house in their underwear. The almost knee-jerk reaction of our other friends was something along the lines of ‘you could charge good money for that’, which obviously got laughs all round. It was a harmless joke - attempt at connection, and one entirely devoid of malicious intent, but it got me thinking: Why are we still so okay with making light of sex work, in the year of our lord, 2026? Is the joke even about sex work? Or is it about the types of people that fetishise the naked housework/smelly socks/dirty underwear, etc. that often precede these types of comment in conversation? Either way, it got me thinking about how little people understand the work part of sex work.
Actual footage of me hearing ‘sex work is easy money’ for the 100000th time
Whatever the intention, conscious or otherwise, behind comments like ‘You could get good money for that’, or the more nefarious and far less PC dead/drug addicted hooker punchile, the impact can vary. The latter type of comment has largely been dismissed as outmoded and decidedly unPC by my peers, but the former is one I hear often, especially from my female friends. While some see these types of comments as a way to normalise sex work by letting it take up space in casual discussion, others have different opinions about how it affects attitudes to sex work, and the understanding of what it entails. And I can’t help but notice, jokes about sex work are almost always made by people who don’t do sex work.
Delegitamising sex work through language use is nothing new. Our most reached for insults are often words used to synonymise women or parts of their bodies: whore, cunt, pussy, slut, skank... In the English language, we have a plethora of synonyms for someone who fucks for money: lady of the night, escort, companion, working girl, call-girl, hooker, tart… the list goes on. The use of humour and euphamism serves to make light of a taboo topic and the societal fears therein, be it the fear of needing to rely on sex work, or our patriarchal society’s ingrained response to the horrifying fact that some women, able to monetise their sexuality, are not reliant on men for their security. Female sexuality has been the cause of much fear and attempt at control for millenia. As Kirerkegaard put it: "The only intelligent tactical response to life's horror is to laugh defiantly at it." There’s a possibility that by laughing about it, can we ease the horror of realising that women can own their sexuality and make their own money? Does it soften the blow of noticing that sex work is the only viable option for many young people trying to eek out a living in today’s harsh economic climate? Are we that afraid of women making decisions about their own bodies? Maybe. However, I think it’s slightly more complex than that: by delegitamising the complexities of sex work and making it seem like ‘easy money’, it becomes much easier for us to dismiss the hours of labour, skill, and dedication many of us put into our jobs. But not only does it misunderstand the ‘work’ part of sex work, it also oversimplifies the ‘sex’ part.
Recently Euphoria has been slammed for its take on sex work, particularly Sidney Sweeney’s protrayal of Cassie as she embarks upon her Onlyfans career. Former Boy Meets World star Maitland Ward called out an age play scene as ‘troubling’, and said it“serves to perpetuate stereotypes that sex workers have no moral compass and that they will do anything for money”. She continues: “It’s portrayed that if you just dress up and do crazy shit, you’ll instantly make money, or you just have to be hot and have big boobs and you’ll instantly cash out, and it doesn’t work like that. You have to really grow and nurture a fan base.”
Being a successful companion isn’t just about tapping into a market that’s ready and waiting for you. Often, clients are particular about who they see, and there isn’t really a ‘unique selling point’: there will always be someone younger, hottler, kinkier, cheaper, or more available than you are. To describe the client-provider relationship as ‘just sex’ is a fundamental misunderstanding which I think does both parties a disservice. We may flippantly tell friends we make money on our backs, but to tell the truth, there is a level of emotional intimacy, presence, and carefully held space that goes into sex work, and this is especially true where any type of kink or power exchange is involved. We learn lots about the types of sex we have with clients. We read up on their interests, we know how to hold emotional space, tend for and articulate our boundaries, engage in mutual aid and support networks with our peers. Sometimes, for riskier types of play, we undertake medical education to make sure we’re keeping ourselves and our clients as safe as possible. When you book a date with a sex worker, you are paying for their time, but you are also paying for the hours of learning and skill honing that has lead them to become the reputable provider they are today.
Sydney Sweeney as Cassie in HBO’s ‘Euphoria’. CREDIT: Patrick Wymore/HBO/PRESS
But the problem doesn’t start and end with Sam Levinson, although he’s been widely critiised for his attitudes to and portrayal of sex workers in this season of HBO’s Euphoria, he is a symptom of a wider problem with how society views sex work. Sex workers can’t just turn on a camera, do ‘anything’, and make piles of cash instantly appear. Tapping into a market like Onlyfans, whilst treading the fine lines of what the platform deems acceptable and what banks will pay out for is tough stuff. Even if you play by the rules, some payment playforms like Paypal, Stripe, and Tide can block payments if they realise you’re doing adult work. There are often extortionate setup costs, monthly subscription fees, and, on platforms like Adultwork, you have to pay £10 in ‘credits’ just to perform something as simple as changing your location. Platforms such as Throne and Onlyfans have a minimum payout service, some take chunks of your earnings, and many allow customers to request ‘chargebacks’, meaning they can claim a refund for services already received. In online sexwork, the law is very much on the side of the buyer, making it a financially risky operation from the getgo. Even if an enterprising young sex worker (or mature sex worker, for that matter, shoutout MILFS) manages to clear all those hurdles, tapping into an oversaturated market can be really tricky. There are hundreds of thousands of performers online, and standing out from the crowd requires savvy marketing skills, hours of labour, and true dedication to the work. It’s not like someone could just stick a pair of used underwear online and expect the tips to roll in. So, not exactly ‘easy money’.
Camming: not as easy as it looks
For many of us who do in person and full service work, a lot of the admin we do is to keep ourselves safe: screening, deposit taking, hotel booking, etc. And then there’s the marketing, photo shoots, content creation, writing bios, manicure, waxes…and that’s before we even show up to a job! I’m not saying it’s harder, or more labor intensive than any other line of work. I’ve had vanilla jobs, and they all take a great deal of work to be successful, it’s just that sex work seems to be the only one we’re comfortable saying is easy, or that anyone can do it, and I think we need to investigate that a little bit.
It’s not only sex work that suffers from the myth of ‘unskilled labour’. All labour requires skill, and arguements to the contrary only serve the ultra rish in justifying poverty wages. If you think stacking shelves or cooking food is easy work, then you’ve clearly never done it. And if you think marketing, communications, screening, accounting, legal education, photography, writing, emotional support, and blowjobs are easy money, well… you’re wrong. But if we make it look easy? Then we’re doing it right.