Mike Licht
After attending a court hearing last month for President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels—an adult film star who is suing Trump and Cohen over a $130,000 “hush” payment—made a downright revolutionary statement.
“[Michael Cohen] has played by a different set of rules—or should we say, no rules at all,” she told reporters on the courthouse steps. “He has never thought that the little man, or especially women, and even more, women like me, mattered. That ends now… My attorney and I are committed to making sure that everyone finds out the truth and the facts of what happened, and I give my word that we will not rest until that happens.”
Her powerful words drew praise from many who are excited by the prospect of a porn star bringing down an inept and dangerous President. But much of the public remains ill-at-ease with supporting the rights of sex workers like Daniels, and even sex work itself.
Daniels filed a lawsuit in March seeking to nullify a non-disclosure agreement under which Cohen paid her just before the 2016 U.S. presidential election to keep silent about a sexual relationship with Donald Trump. She filed another lawsuit this week, this time for defamation, alleging that Trump attempted to sully her reputation when he tweeted “total con job” regarding a composite sketch of a man that she claims threatened her. Her aim is to speak publicly about her alleged affair with President Trump and “defend” herself.
Though Daniels has been adamant that she is not a victim of sexual assault, many in the the #MeToo movement have supported her case. But others, even feminists, remain explicitly anti-sex work and anti-sex worker. SWERFs or “sex worker exclusionary radical feminists,” insist that sex work is not work, but merely an objectification of women. SWERFs further the idea that sex workers are forced or coerced into sex work. The language they use never includes the sex worker’s own agency. Calling these women who choose sex work “trafficking victims” does a disservice to sex workers and actual victims of human trafficking.
Sex work happens “in secret,” leaving sex workers particularly vulnerable to criminal behavior. But open attacks on sex workers’ rights also regularly take place in the halls of Congress.
The stigma around sex work perseveres in the United States because much of it remains criminalized here. Sex work happens “in secret,” leaving sex workers particularly vulnerable to criminal behavior. But open attacks on sex workers’ rights also regularly take place in the halls of Congress.
Take, for example, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act—passed by Congress in March. The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act makes it a federal crime (with up to a 10 year prison sentence if found guilty) for any website to host content that promotes sex work. Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act holds websites accountable if they “knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking,” explicitly conflating human trafficking with sex work.
Both pieces of legislation are harmful to sex workers in a myriad of ways. They forced the closure of several prominent web sites from which sex workers make their livings, including Backpage, Craigslist personal ads (which were noted to have assisted in a drop in female homicide rates by 17 percent), and Reddit escort groups. As a result, sex workers lost an avenue to screen clients, and thus, are forced into less safe working conditions. Though human trafficking is no doubt an issue, the removal of sites used for this (which are also used for sex work), pushes both human trafficking and sex work further underground.
High-profile cases involving sex workers and politicians is nothing new. We saw this in 2007 with former Louisiana Senator David Vitter, and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer in 2008. Republicans and Democrats alike use sex worker services, and yet they continue to pass anti-sex worker laws. This hypocrisy shows that those in positions of power believe that the best kind of sex worker is an invisible, silent one.
Sex workers may be receiving more media visibility, but this doesn’t eliminate the social stigma attached. Stormy Daniels’s experiences on the television talk show circuit demonstrate the enormous stigma sex workers face. TV hosts have asked her questions like, “So how did we get to this point where one of the hottest guests on The View is a porn star?” and “Do you feel guilt towards Melania?” Daniels is presented not as a professional but as a one-dimensional stereotype of a “hot” person engaged in a job about which she should be ashamed. A quick scan of Daniels’ Twitter feed, full of her gracious responses to name-calling and death threats, proves this.
But perhaps we are beginning to reckon with our hypocrisy on this issue. The political embrace of another former sex worker, rapper Cardi B, is a good sign. A 25-year-old Afro-Latina woman from the Bronx, Cardi B stripped to escape poverty and domestic violence. She made it big and left stripping behind. She found new fame as a chart-topping rapper, and new fans, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Cardi B frequently uses her platform to discuss politics—recently telling GQ that Franklin Delano Roosevelt is “the real ‘Make America Great Again,’ because if it wasn't for him, old people wouldn't even get Social Security.”
Sanders retweeted her quote adding, “Cardi B is right. If we are really going to make America great we need to strengthen Social Security so that seniors are able to retire with the dignity they deserve.” How momentous to see a white man in power visibly support a former sex worker.
But Sanders voted in favor of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, and he may not know that Cardi B was a professional stripper (although she is hardly reticent to speak about her previous profession). It seems we will support sex workers when they catch some political limelight, but denigrate the profession as a whole. And as an Afro-Latina woman, Cardi B is already part of a demographic that’s often overtly sexualized in a way that white women are not.
It seems we will support sex workers when they catch some political limelight, but denigrate the profession as a whole.
“People want me to be so full of shame that I used to dance. I would never be ashamed of it,” Cardi B told The Guardian in 2017. “I made a lot of money, I had a good time and it showed me a lot . . . about hunger and passion and ambition.”
People in the U.S. have a problem with the idea that women can choose sex work, whether out of the necessity to make money or out of desire. Being a sex worker is not even considered a valid job by most, and if you hate it, that must mean you’re being “trafficked” or otherwise forced into it.
For centuries, sex workers have been at the forefront of social justice movements. Their activism goes back to ancient Greece and Rome where they worked to advocate for the education of women. The Stonewall Riots in 1969, a catalyst for LGBTQ rights, were led by Sylvia Rivera, a trans sex worker. Today, sex workers are still speaking up about the need for decriminalization of sex work, prison abolition, drug decriminalization, and more. They’ve furthered this important work even under constant threat of violence or arrest.
As Stormy Daniels and Cardi B demonstrate, antiquated beliefs about sex and sexuality do us no favors. Sex work is called the “oldest profession” for a reason, and as with any job, workers should be supporting workers.
Lachrista Greco is a curator, educator, and maker. She is the founder of Guerrilla Feminism. You can follow her on Twitter.