I’m late to this party, but better late than never. In my defense, the article I missed in late March when it came out is on a site I don’t read about a show on a streaming service I don’t subscribe to. Only it’s much more than that! A dominatrix explains why documentaries about sex work never get it right is media criticism about depictions of sex work, by our own Mistress Matisse, who in her varying roles (sex worker, blogger, porn model, activist, columnist, Twitterer) has about fifty mentions in the back pages of ErosBlog. It would be unfair to describe her article as a rant; it’s too controlled, as befits somebody who hits people for a living and makes them like it. But it is… shall I say “pointed”?
A single mother of color, quitting her minimum-wage job and choosing instead to support herself by making porn videos of herself at home, while her children sleep in the next room? That is simply an intolerable idea to people whose wealth depends on obedient low-wage workers…
You may laugh at the notion that patriarchal capitalism is that worried about people having alternatives to low-wage service jobs – but patriarchal capitalism has no fucking sense of humor. Women profiting from their own bodies is both a social and economic threat to the system, so it must be punished.
Did I say media criticism? Well, yeah, that too. But as I read her, Matisse’s main point is a trenchant social criticism. “We” (our society and the media that voices for it) can’t talk about sex work with honesty and kindness because sex work threatens too many comfortable hypocrisies. A just society would have nothing to fear from sex work, nor any need to horribilize sex workers.
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