"sex worker" is an inadequate term for a Marxian analysis of the sex trade. It is far too broad and lacks the granularity necessary to address the specific kinds of labor performed by the variety of men and women who the term is used to describe. /1

prostitute and its various synonyms are inapt for a few reasons. the most important is that its overly narrow. specifically it excludes workers whose labor is the public performance of sex whether for a commercial production with another worker, or in so-called "reality" or /2

"couple" or "cam" pornography. In reality, the sex trade involves various kinds of labor which do not have a material connection. on a basic level a camera operator for a pornographic production does labor similar kind to any other camera operator in other labor markets /3

and the same is true of people engaged in a variety of roles that are not unique to the sex trade. I assume that these workers interests cannot differ significantly from the interests of workers who perform the same kind of labor other sectors. labor singular to the sex trade /4

exists in only two general categories: direct sale of sexual compliance to a sex buyer, and the sale of a sexual performance where there is no contact with the consumer, and sexual labor is performed individually or only with other workers also engaged in the trade. Each type /5

contains within it a variety of activities both sexual and non sexual in typical employment. Cam workers, for example, are often both engaged in sexual performances that are sold to consumers, but also engage in the production work of capturing and distributing the video of /6

their performances. Escorts not only sell sexual compliance to sex buyers, they also perform labor to promote and market their labor in ways that are similar to petit bourgeois contractors in any modern industry. The work of nude dancers is extremely various & cam include both /7

direct and indirect forms of sexual labor along with forms of labor in common with both performing arts outside the sex trade as well as work common to the hospitality industry. nude dancers also regularly engage in the direct sale of sexual compliance by means of sex acts /8

designed to avoid legal definitions of prostitution like "lap dancing." It is not uncommon for nude dancers to also engage in acts that would meet statutory definitions of prostitution. This variety of labor necessary for the sex trade obscures the underlying nature of the /9

commodity the marketing and sale of which distinguishes the sex trade from other sectors of the economy. It is tempting to call the commodity "sexual gratification" but that is so broad as to be inchoate. after all there are a variety of psychosexual fetishes the /10

existence of which can render all manner of mundane commerce the sale of sexual gratification for a given buyer. In addition to such literal perversions, the other problem for an account of the sex trade as commodifying sexual gratification is that the vast bulk of sexual /11

gratification experiences by humans is either non-commercial or only transactional as a form of reproductive labor. These forms of sexual gratification are in such common supply that it is not possible for the commodification of sexual gratification alone to generate prices /12

and revenues of the magnitude (pop pop) seen in the sex trade. my working hypothesis is that the actual commodity produced in the sex trade is an informal warranty against reproductive risk for the buyer. Consider the heterosexual vaginal intercourse, the sex /13

act paradigmatic of the sex trade. The social entailments of non-commercial mutual sexual gratification in heterosexual are broad and unpredictable. Most consequentially, they include the risk of unintended/unwanted parenthood and a duty to perform years of reproductive labor /14

as well as diverting the parents income from productive employment to the reproductive costs of child rearing. That is a significant risk that can be commodified and transferred for a fee. Even for sex where there is no risk of parenthood--including gay sex, autoerotic sexual /15

performances, and heterosexual sex acts like dry humping or fellatio that completely eliminate the risk of pregnancy--sexual gratification still entails mutual socio-legal obligations of care, emotional commitment, and mutual deaire. It is this last, mutual desire, which /16

i hypothesize plays the most significant role in transforming sexual gratification into a marketable commodity. What the workers labor produces is not the sexual gratification but the cancellation of the mutual desire obligation, transforming the sex act from something each /17

participant values to a commodity that has value for only one participant, the buyer, allowing the obligation of consent to be exchanged for money by the seller in place of desire. This holds for the indirect sale as well. sexual performance for mutual gratification is /18

very common & new methods develop all the time. Almost immediately after the advent of photography amateur photographers began taking erotic photographs of sexual partners in erotic performance. couples separated by long distances perform sexually via telephone, sms message, /19

and videoconferencing. noncommercial sex partners perform stripteases and wear clothing specifically designed to sexually excite their partners and themselves. much of social dance practices and other arts are regularly eroticized in rituals of courtship or seduction. /20

What is different for the nude dancer, cam girl, or pornographic film performer is that they are not motivated by their own sexual desire for their audience. the voyeur wants to watch, but the performer is not similarly a motivated participant. the audiences gaze pierces /21

norms of modesty and privacy, and while there are many performers for whom the exhibitionism attendant with performing might play a role in their choice to pursue sexual labor, even then the mutual desire remains inchoate as a generic desire to be seen without any attendant /22

desire to be seen by a specific person in particar, a common component in erotic non-commercial exhibitionism (see eg story of O). there is no meeting of the minds between buyer and seller in the sex trade regarding mutual desire, and in its place the sex trade creates a /23

financial transaction. It is in this sense, I think, that radical feminist critiques of prostitution and pornography of the sex trade as a form of rape make the most sense. sexual consent is not merely a contractual nicety, it is a substantive /24

consequence of mutual sexual desire. without that desire, consent is a hollow, formal technicality. Sex without desire is semantically equivalent to unwanted sex. Conceptually, unwanted sex bears a striking family resemblance to rape and sexual assault. It follows, therefore, /25

that the commodity exchanged in the sex trade, unwanted sex, while maybe not the same as rape in all aspects, nevertheless exists on a continuum with rape as an expression of disdain for women and plays a structural role in reproducing the subjugation of women under /26

patriarchy. Commercial sex, then, far from being the oldest profession (which in reality is probably midwifery or nursing) is instead a fairly novel capitalist institution which although having historical precedent in other economic systems only takes shape under capitalism /27

once the employment relationship makes possible the commodification of unwanted sex as a form of labor that serves the same role for members of the working class, ie fulfilling the need to reproduce oneself materially, as wage labor. further, if I am right that the sex trade /28

is merely a mystification of the commodification of unwanted sex, this is a suitable framework to describe the unique labor the differentiating the sex trade from other sectors having recognized the inadequacy of "sex work" as a concept. instead we can look at the /29

nature of the unwanted sex involved and recognize the way that various labors produce the unwanted sex. this identifies the role of capital in the sex trade as being the means of producing unwanted sex for sex buyers. Sex buyers, then, are always already demanding unwanted /30

sex whenever they enter the market. The sex trade exists to meet the demand for unwanted sex, and as such is fairly analogized to a market for rape, although not identified woth it strictly. to the extent that the sex trade is compatible with socialism, although maybe not w/ /31

socialist feminism, it can only be in those areas where unwanted sex can be produced without exploitation and where the person selling unwanted sex is doing so for some analog to desire that adequately differentiates the sexual contract so created from a transaction used to /32

justify/compensate the seller for a rape. I suspect that this is where the line between erotica and pornography might meaningfully be drawn by a theory of art. it may leave open an avenue for sexual labor of a sort for individuals who genuinely prefer it to other work. /33

elucidating a metatheory of how to draw those distinctions using marxist methods, and then proceeding to deduce from that theory what policies about the sex trade are compatible with socialism remains. I guess thats what I have to do next if i convince myself that my unwanted /34

sex hypothesis is correct. work work work. /end