The Feminist Failure to Denounce Sex Work

Throughout our history, there has always been a coterie of careers that support the upper-class folks making Excel pivot tables in cubicles. Many of these jobs are honorable: truck drivers, janitors, hotel staffers, seamstresses, construction workers, waiters, and the like. Others are akin to slavery.

Jobs that ride this line include DoorDash and Uber drivers, and similar types of low-paid gig work that come with no insurance nor healthcare benefits. But the clearest form of dishonorable work is so-called “sex work.” More properly known as selling oneself or prostitution, the “world’s oldest profession” has, quite recently, lost all sense of stigma.

This is clearly expressed by the movie Anora winning five Oscars this year, including Best Picture. Anora is a movie about a prostitute who inadvertently falls in love with and then quickly marries her young, Russian oligarch client. The movie overall is not really about prostitution per se, although sex scenes are omnipresent throughout the film. At its core, the movie is about insurmountable class divides.

Still, I want to focus on the role that sex plays in the movie. Anora is a somewhat refreshing Hollywood take on prostitution because it acknowledges that Ani – the titular character – uses sex to manipulate and exact power over her clients. She is not a “stripper with a heart of gold” who “had no other option.” She is a deeply flawed woman who enjoys wielding sex, and her use of sex leads to consequences that are familiar for many women i.e. “catching feelings.”

At the end of the movie, when Ani attempts to soothe herself and reclaim her power by initiating sex with one of her now-ex-husband’s appropriately lower class bodyguards, she breaks down in tears as he attempts to tenderly kiss her. Despite the inherent intimacy of the sexual act she is engaging in, a simple kiss is too much, too close for her. Her “sex work” is not “working” for her anymore.

This is certainly a more honest take on prostitution than the “sex work is real work” propaganda we have been fed by movies, culture, and political wonks these past 50 years. However, Anora still glamorizes “sex work” with its portrayal of danger-free glitzy clubs, erotic dancing, and camaraderie among strippers. It does not portray the world’s oldest profession realistically enough.

The original script of Pretty Woman, however, does condemn prostitution in all its brutality. The script had a much different ending than the final cut we all know and love. In the original, Edward did not end up with Vivian. At the end of the movie, Edward drops Vivian off right where she began – a grimy boulevard in Los Angeles – with a few boxes of fancy clothes and an envelope with 3,000 dollars. On the way there, Edward returns a 20,000 dollar coat he rented for Vivian, symbolizing her descent from high society and Edward’s favor. She weeps in response.

The final night before Vivian returns to her old life, she is brutally assaulted by Edward’s lawyer friend before Edward saves her from further beating. Later that night, wrapped in Edward’s arms, she utters this heartbreaking line:

“Why do guys always know how to hit a girl? Wham, right across the cheek. Nice and high so it feels like your eye is going to explode. Pimps, cops, even little asshole lawyers in suits and ties. They all hit you the same. What do they do, take all the boys aside in high school and show them how?”

Edward replies, “No one's going to hit you anymore.” They fall asleep and in the middle of the night, Vivian squeaks out a quiet “I love you” to Edward’s sleeping form. But, according to screenwriter J.F. Lawton himself, Vivian knows that Edward doesn’t love her. Vivian attempts to fill this emptiness with sex, rousing Edward from his sleep to cajole him into making love with her, one last time.

The original script is appropriate. It is heartbreaking. It shows that men have immense power and that casual sex benefits them, not us. Though it is far from true that all prostitutes everywhere fall in love with their clients, we can at least acknowledge the brute fact that the sexual act is designed to foster lasting bonds for both women and men. We should not be surprised when inevitable affections arise.

The final scene of the original movie, which was titled “3,000,” shows Vivian and her friend, Kit, headed to an all-expenses-paid day at Disneyland. The excursion is funded by Edward’s cash that he gave Vivian for her “services.” Kit, a fellow prostitute, is thrilled by the trip. Vivian, on the other hand, stares blankly ahead as her bruise from the prior day smarts on her cheek. Her Cinderella-like fantasy of being cherished by Edward is dashed.

As if it needs to be said, these movies along with real-life experience prove that prostitution – whether it takes place in a no-tell motel or on OnlyFans – is not empowering in the slightest. It is nowhere near equivalent to men lending their physical strength to construction projects, as many advocates claim. Unlike construction, prostitution violates the human person’s body and pollutes the soul, while also manipulating natural drives for connection.

Humans are not objects, but prostitutes are objectifying themselves to appeal to the opposite sex and get cash anyway. Because liberal, third-wave feminism encourages this promiscuity and objectification by calling it empowering, regular women like you and I may embrace similar promiscuity ourselves. We will then be confused when sex with a stranger leaves us feeling dissatisfied, dirty, unloved, and disempowered. And to think, we don’t even get paid!

This is why movements like #MeToo are only possible in a liberal feminist society that emphasizes choice, consent, and bodily autonomy above all else. Many of the stories we heard during that time were heinous - stories of genuine rape and male depravity. They exhibited what can happen when feminists give up on the once-foundational demand of their movement – chastity of both sexes.

But many of the #MeToo stories were less black and white. They involved women consenting to sex with powerful men only to regret their choices weeks or months after the fact. We heard tales of the casting couch and the vilification of Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari. There were no key takeaways from this time. Modern feminism has no words of comfort for women who “consented” to sex but felt violated after the act was over. The feminist rebuke? You didn’t object hard enough.

On the other hand, traditional feminism – which unfortunately lost out in the marketplace of ideas – is based on a sacramental and whole understanding of the person. It has answers for these confused women. Traditional feminists acknowledge the inherent differences between men and women – the disproportionate burden women face in conception and childbearing, the bonding hormones that tie women to their sexual partners, the desire in every woman’s heart to be cherished and accepted.

They also acknowledge that verbal consent to sex is not enough. They demand that men embrace sexual continence and that it is expected in the social order, so that women are protected from psychopaths and rapists. They insist that sex takes place only in a committed, stable relationship where the man agrees to support any offspring that may result from the sexual union. They call this relationship “marriage.”

There is a distinct irony inherent in the fact that modern feminists decry marriage while also genuinely suggesting that men and women write out a physical contract (downloadable here!) before they have sex. But for modern feminists to admit that marriage was a good idea after all would be to admit defeat. It would mean that 1) conservatives may be right and 2) the Sexual Revolution is an abject failure, along with its pills, coils, and dating apps.

Third-wave feminists will never admit defeat, of course. But Generation Z and Alpha know better. They understand the tainted fruit of the Tree of “Sexual Liberation.” This is why dating app downloads are stagnating and most people I know are fed up with them. Many members of my generation are nostalgic for eras where courtship was the norm, where men had restraint, and where cell phones and Tinder were nowhere in sight.

It is thus no surprise that shows like Bridgerton, Hallmark movies, and Jane Austen novels still loom large in the public consciousness. Despite what women say, we don’t want to have to save our prince. We don’t want to have to verbally and explicitly consent to a first kiss with said prince. We want a Mr. Darcy, a Colonel Brandon, a Mr. Knightley. Perhaps we can inspire men to be princes again. But first, we must echo our first-wave feminist sisters with a new twist: “Votes for women, chastity for all.”