"this is messy."

radical love letter #90 | on sex work in media

Hello readers. I haven’t done a lot of media criticism lately, but it’s one of my favorite things to do, and it was a treat to think about movies instead of brain tumors for a bit. Without further ado, a reflection on sex work representation in a handful of recent movies and TV shows. Content note for sex things!

In a scene in the new film Sanctuary, a sex worker named Rebecca (Margaret Qualley) removes a coiffed strawberry-blonde wig to reveal a mess of naturally curly hair. The shot is nearly identical to Julia Roberts’ hair reveal in Pretty Woman, the mostly beloved romantic fairytale about the hooker with the heart of gold who is rescued from a life of trick-turning by a knight in shining sports car (but not before being a conduit to teach him a few life lessons). This subtle nod (accidental or intentional, I’m not sure) turned out to be entirely appropriate since Sanctuary ends just like Pretty Woman – the hooker and the trick live happily ever after. 

There is a lot about Sanctuary that I loved — primarily the smoking hot depiction of psychosexual D/s play, which I’ll talk about more in a bit — but when it became clear (or increasingly likely) that Rebecca (Margaret Qualley) was in love with Hal (Christopher Abbott), I gave an audible sigh of dismay. It didn’t help my annoyance that, in an interview, Qualley admitted to doing “no research” for the part. The director, Zachary Wigon, and the writer, Micah Bloomberg, said they did research the profession, but I am skeptical that it involved actually talking to pro-dommes. The chances of a professional sex worker blurring lines enough to recklessly fall in love with a client is slim to none (which I say confidently, though admittedly anecdotally and experientially, not scientifically), and the fact that this ostensibly edgy film decided to tell the same story as Pretty Woman is….frustrating. 

But what exactly am I hoping for from sex work representation? Is there a significant difference between Pretty Woman and Sanctuary, Working Girl and The Menu? Does it matter? The problem with representational politics is that it’s a trap—in this case, it’s problematic to represent sex work as a glamorous fantasy, but it’s also problematic to represent it as destitute trauma-porn. (For the vast majority of us—sex workers, not trafficking victims, and it’s bullshit that I even have to type that!—it’s somewhere in the middle.) And whatever end you land on, the anti-sex work crowd will try to use it as fodder for their cause. In Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility, Eric Stanely, Tourmaline, and Johanna Burton explain, “we know that when produced within the cosmology of racial capitalism, the promise of ‘positive representation’ ultimately gives little support or protection.” Which is to say, “better” representations of marginalized people — Black folks, trans folks, sex workers, etcetera — doesn’t at all determine how marginalized groups will fare off the screen. 

Additionally, the focus on representation suggests that audiences need “correct” representation—as though there is One Correct version—  and erases critical thinking skills. “The idea that one movie or TV show is the only version of sex work people ever see, and that people who enter the sex industry have no critical thinking skills, is really insulting,” Jo Weldon told Bitch for a piece on sex workers’ reactions to Pretty Woman. Weldon is right, of course, touting the British Cultural Studies line of thought that audiences are not dupes. But still, media give us terrain to dig our hands into, ground to say ‘let’s use the soil to talk about the weather.’ And that’s what I want to unpack today, the weather surrounding depictions of sex work, and tangentially, of kink, particularly in a slew of recent media featuring sex workers: Sanctuary, Good Luck to You Leo Grande, The Menu, Zola, and The White Lotus.  

Take this headline for example: “Margaret Qaulley’s BDSM movie is actually a love story.” 

First of all, spoiler alert, second of all, this framing is enraging. It is a BDSM movie, that’s not wrong. Hal and Rebecca are in a professional D/s relationship that Mistress Olivia Snow calls “#dommegoals.” The dynamic is hot, and Qualley’s performance demonstrates a command of skills that makes me more forgiving of her lack of research (maybe she’s born with it, etc. etc.). That Hal scripts his own scenes takes nothing away — it is common for subs to take that kind of lead in both sex work and non-sex work relationships. Abbott is as good at portraying sub space as Qualley is at domming. There is this moment that I think every sub watching will clock — Hal gets a look on his face when we see he’s been able to step outside of himself, when he gets free. (Here, freedom happens to be attained on a bathroom floor, mostly naked, scrubbing tile, and hearing how pathetic he is.) After devastating and perfect humiliation and a little edge play, Hal finally comes, and Rebecca holds him. For anyone involved in D/s, the only thing getting in the way of this being an incredibly romantic scene is that their relationship (we think) is professional. The USA Today headline foils kink to love, when really the foil should be work to love. Of course a BDSM story is a love story, the real contradiction is that a sex work story is a love story. 

We experience similarly blurred lines in The White Lotus when the character of Lucia (Simona Tabasco) befriends (?) Albie and spends time with him off the clock. We suspect that she’s running a long-game scam, but as Natalie Hepburn writes for Tryst, this also reifies a stereotype: “We’re either good-hearted, hapless damsels in distress, a la Pretty Woman’s Vivian, or we’re crafty con-artists a la the ‘girl boss’ style sex workers of Hustlers and The White Lotus.” Am I chill with the fact that Lucia robinhoods 50k euros from a shitty rich guy? Yes. Am I frustrated that it has the potential to entrench the stigma that all sex workers are swindlers? Also yes. Am I extra frustrated that we have to distance ourselves from swindling to gain rights and respect, when we live in a capitalist system that swindles us all everyday?! Also also yes! 

working girls.

On the other hand we have nearly angelic representation of sex work in Good Luck to You Leo Grand, in which Leo (Daryl McCormick) is hired by retired school teacher and widow, Nancy (Emma Thompson). Nancy had a long marriage with an unpleasant man, rote sex, and, as far as she’s aware, nary an orgasm. She hires Leo, a young male escort, to help her catch up. But she’s neurotic and freaks out and crosses boundaries several times before actually engaging in sex that helps her find confidence and pleasure for the first time in her entire nearly 70 years of life. Importantly, Leo is not white, and as writer Prairie Miller puts it: “Leo's character perpetuates the 'black mammy' stereotype that has historically plagued movies - the 'happy slave' in this case the sexualized black male caricature, who exists only to serve and fulfill the white protagonists - whether physically, emotionally or dramatically.” It could be considered a happy hooker meets magical negro story in which both sex worker and Black man become a vehicle for a white woman’s self-discovery. 

poignant tale or tropey racism?

But for some sex workers, this tenderness is what’s missing from too much media — for many sex workers, they understand the job as more of a calling akin to teaching or therapy. One of Hepburn’s goals, she writes, is to “leave our clients better than we found them.” Writer Jessie Sage has a similar view: “I care about my clients, I care about my work, and I strive to be a source of positive energy in my clients’ lives,” she says. So some of us relate to Leo, some of us relate to Lucia, and some of us don’t see ourselves represented at all. It is almost as if — now hear me out — sex workers are not a monolith! 

The complexity of sex work perspectives is made very clear in the 2021 film Zola, which, as far as I know, is the only widely released film since the excellent Tangerine (2015) that involved real-life sex workers in the process. Zola was based on a viral tweet thread written by stripper A’Ziah King (aka Zola, played by Taylor Paige) and follows her on a harrowing trip to Florida with another dancer, Stefani (Riley Keough), under the guise of picking up extra cash at different clubs. Soon Zola realizes that her new friend is being pimped out as an escort. Stefani’s pimp is extremely violent towards her and others, and although she tells Zola over and over that she doesn’t mind doing this work, she is also participating in an iteration of sex work that borders on trafficking. It’s abundantly clear that both Zola and Stefani choose and usually enjoy dancing (and definitely enjoy the money), it is less clear if Stefani would be an escort if the pimp weren’t in the background, and it’s absolutely clear that Zola has no interest in any kind of sex work besides dancing (she does not have sex that weekend, though Stefani’s pimp makes it clear he would be happy if she did; she is able to refuse the proposition). Unsurprisingly, a film that is based on real life sex workers stories is a messy, unsanitized, complicated view of the wide range of experiences people may have in the industry. 

My personal favorite depiction of sex work came from the aesthetic comedy horror, The Menu, in which an escort who goes by Margot (Anna Taylor-Joy) winds up at murdery restaurant dinner party. Margot is clocked by the deranged line-cook-turned-celebrity-chef, Julian Slowick (Ralph Fiennes), as someone clearly in the service industry, setting her apart from “those who take” as someone “who gives.” In a poignant scene, he asks if she likes her work. She says “yes” that “she used to,” in this hesitant way that anyone with a complicated relationship to their work will understand. Sex work is work and work is bad, but also sometimes work is interesting, fulfilling, financially rewarding in a way that outweighs some of the bullshit. Margot would probably rather be doing something else, but she doesn’t express flat hatred for a job that undoubtedly pays even better (at least hourly) than that of the fancy chef to whom she’s speaking. I appreciated the comparison to a service job, whereas others prefer comparisons to therapists, whereas others prefer comparisons to accountants. The best part of The Menu for me, though, was the end (obviously this is a spoiler): rather than the sex worker being the first to be killed (a historically common media trope), in this story, the sex worker is literally the only one who makes it out alive. Reader, I clapped!

service workers with high hourly rates.

There’s not a lot of talk yet about Sanctuary, but my guess is the discourse will pick up when it becomes available on streaming. My hope is that audiences will be able to discern the conflicting themes in the film — love, work, D/s, and how they do or don’t overlap — and also understand it as one among many, many versions of experience that sex workers can have. And if we want to make use of the soil of sex work representation by analyzing what it offers us, let us do it alongside efforts to decriminalize the industry. The bottomline is that — regardless of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ representation — it’s a real boner killer to rely on sex workers for entertainment without also being in solidarity with movements to keep us safe.