"About a month ago, Arielle Egozi decided to post on LinkedIn about her decision to leave an in-house job as a brand director and about how sex work empowered that decision. That post would send shock waves around the globe and reignite conversations about sex work.

“I had just enough saved from selling and engaging my image that i could ask myself if i was happy. i wasn’t,” Egozi wrote. “Yeah, the few grand i’d stashed up over time helped, but the biggest reason i could walk away is because sex work shows me what my power can do when i own it intentionally.”"
Huh?

The article is from WaPo. Can quote more if there is interest.

I'm on the fence on this one. The "sex work empowers women" thing has been around for decades. That is what Christie Hefner used when questioned about whether Playboy was objectifying women. (I mean, yes, duh.)

So there are a few conflicting ideas I have:
1. For the majority (?) of sex workers, there is no female empowerment model to be had--it's closer to human trafficking, with pimps as the power brokers and sex workers as the pawns

2. For some segment of sex workers (high end escorts, Nevada brothels maybe, and the woman in the WaPo article), it is possible to view sex work in much the same way as we view non-sex work, where the workers have a say in working conditions. (Aren't the Nevada sex workers unionized, to make my point)

3. I suspect it is a very small segment of sex workers who can essentially become "free agents," and establish their own policies.

4. Ultimately, I think that sex work is degrading, despite people's assertions that it isn't. This is my own opinion, of course. But the customer still holds most of the power, and the sex worker is reduced to a subservient role of seeing to the customer's needs and otherwise shutting up. I honestly don't care about the sex itself - people can do what they want with their bodies. It's the idea that the power imbalance has somehow been solved that I disagree with.

5. There are all sorts of memes about this: the hooker with a heart of gold, the all-powerful hot and smart woman (like in this article) who turns away from a prestigious job to become a sex worker for the money? the power? the thrills? Ultimately, I think these memes are like the US cowboy stereotype, which is to say they really don't exist. But it allows everyone a convenient justification to either be a sex worker or a customer.

But given where we are today, if a sex worker can earn money in a safe way, and be in control of the work they choose to do, then I think that's a good thing. Frankly, I think the entire thing should be legalized, which would take care of a lot of the sex trafficking and horrendous conditions over time.

I suppose this is a secondary consideration in this discussion about the pros and cons of legalizing sex work, but one aspect that bothers me is its being overall time-limited. That's a major financial disadvantage.

Bad enough that despite the relative improvement in modern women's employability in more prestigious jobs, they are still held disproportionately responsible for child and house care. Furthermore, even in the higher ranking professions (medicine especially), women only earn a fraction of the salary as their male comrades in the same specialities.

When they retire, especially if set-back in job advancement and savings, by divorce or required time-off for elder care, so they are protected in old age by far lower retirement savings.

The supposition about sex-work is that it is one profession where women (at least, if self-employed) are able to earn a high salary and with that, protect themselves economically.

However, whether flesh to flesh and/or stripping or porn (worst perhaps), because their employability is dependent on their youth and nubility, their earnings don't last that of a usual work-force lifespan. (Besides which they are expected to spend a hefty proportion on upkeep!)

Of course, this is true to a degree of models and other looks-dependent work, but sex-work comes with far more liabilities and risks by way of STDs, violence, the effects of disrepute and unfair treatment by the police as long as their work is illegal.

I think these factors are rarely considered when defending the "merits" of sex-work as an advantage for women's independence. Even in Holland where prostitution is legal and their health is somewhat protected, the other drawbacks exist.

If women are going to be presented with sex work as a viable option for supporting themselves and dependents, I think they ought to be offered special investment/savings accounts to make-up for their limited employment life. Physical (legal) protection too, so they don't need to depend on pimps and (usually male) organizers to set up their work and (supposedly) protect them from abusive customers.

Of course, trafficking (especially of underage girls) should always be illegal and heavily punished. However, while I believe sex work should be legal, I strongly believe it should be carried out in some kind of economically and physically protected framework.

As things stand, only a limited number of self-employed women in sex work are able to protect themselves from the kinds of exploitation described above (and save and invest their earnings from their relatively short period of full employment). Otherwise, I can't help thinking sex workers are just kidding themselves about what they're getting out of it in terms of independence and economic advantages.

(And none of this even does more than pay lip service to their work-life long exposure to unpredictable violence, STDs and unprotected sex.)

The only exception I can think of are students moonlighting as sex workers: prostitutes, strippers, escorts or engaging in porn while studying. While they are taking advantage of their youthful appeal and still able to fit in their studies without going into immense debt, they are simultaneously preparing for what may be a lucrative profession with advancement potential.

There was one such woman at Duke when my son was studying there. She had found this atypical way to pay her expenses. I Exposing her sideline certainly didn't leave her in the position of a typical "coed" with the assumed student advantages of professional and marital networking. As long as such part-time work remains hidden, though, they are dovetailing their assets economically - voluntarily exploiting their time-limited asset of youthful beauty, for their overall gain. They can stop when they are ready to enter the "respectable" workforce for which they've qualified. (A sad commentary to today's exorbitant costs of higher education>)

Most other "working girls/women", though, are subjecting themselves to far more disadvantages than advantages in our present society.

Student highlighted above.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Knox

(I must say I think she mistakenly chose porn to pay her college expenses, because of its high visibility not only when it was being produced but because it lives forever on the internet!)