Sex workers in the UK are by now just another part of the online, freelance, customer-reviewed digital economy. Their story of how they got there exposes a dangerous shift. This project is supported by the Ford Foundation but the viewpoints expressed here are explicitly those of the authors. The foundation's support is not tacit endorsement within. On 8 October we published the BTS Round Table on the Future of Work , in which 12 experts explain recent changes to the nature of work and offer new ideas in labour policy, organising, and activism.
This piece has been written in response. For decades, the British sex industry has straddled both informal and illegal work. This is because while the buying and selling of sex is technically legal in the UK, everything that produces the exchange of sex for money β advertising, employing support staff, renting premises, working collectively β is criminalised.
There has never been any job or income security in the sex industry. However, up until recently, the way the system usually worked was that the flat manager would cover overheads.
Buildings come with rent, utilities, and maintenance costs. Venues also need interior decorating, furniture, bedding, towels, equipment, and cleaning, and in our corner of the service industry also condoms and lube. Bosses would produce and place ads in newspapers and cards in red telephone boxes. They would provide security and often a receptionist, who would screen clients either on the phone or at the door. While we were never paid for the hours spent waiting for clients, and while we had to cover the cost of our own work clothes and grooming, sex workers were not expected to invest time, money, and skills into our work when we were not on the job.
Our only investment in marketing was the construction of a work persona. This persona existed in clearly demarcated ways. It appeared when we came into direct contact with clients β either in the room, when actively earning money, or when introducing ourselves to potential clients β and disappeared just as quickly. This meant that sex work was clearly defined as a labour practice within time and space.
