02 Jun 11 Powerful Documentaries That Will Change the Way You Think About Sex Work Image
“Sex work” is such a catch-all term that it’s difficult to pinpo. int exactly what it means. It can be voluntary or involuntary. It can mean anything from pole dancing to stripping to prostitution to therapy. With a term so hard to pin down, forming an opinion about the definition becomes equally complex.
The 11 films on this list walk outside the boundaries of the industry and show us just how vast and diverse the world surrounding this occupation can be. The majority of sex workers aren’t fantastical bleached-blond porn starlets with larger-than-life boob jobs: They’re real working people who get frustrated with the constraints of their various jobs, lifestyles and microeconomies, just like everyone else. And despite sex-positive feminism’s tense efforts at wishing away the ugly parts, there are indeed many sex workers who are unwillingly trapped in prostitution as well.
What’s special about all of these documentaries is the way they manage to balance the pretty and the painful, the hopeful with the badass. Whichever way you currently lean when it comes to the often-divisive politics that surround sex work, watching these films will give you a long, entertaining look at the realness of the industry.
When the largely queer, educated, lefty dancers at San Francisco’s Lusty Lady peep show got tired of racial quotas and unfair firings and decided to fight for a union, they grabbed a couple of cameras and filmed the whole year-long battle.
2. ‘Stripped’
Jill Morley’s lo-fi grunge doc looks at the thoughts and motivations of a crew of down-to-earth Jersey girls who dance at a cluster of working-class bars and clubs. Through casual interviews at home and work, Morley sets the scene for these women’s lives.
3. ‘Buying Sex’
Few documentaries about the sex industry manage to reflect every argument the way this Canadian film does. Buying Sex is rare in its interviews with abolitionists and johns as well as with sex workers and politicians.
4. ‘Mutantes: Punk Porn Feminism’
This artsy French documentary visits with now-old feminist porn pioneers like Annie Sprinkle and Carol Queen; as well as Bay Area queer community heroes known for genderfuck and nudity like Del LaGrace Volcano and Lynne Breedlove.
The most cinematically beautiful sex industry documentary to be released yet, this film intimately follows groups of sex workers in Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico.
6. ‘P.O.P Magic City Strippers’
Where does one begin to describe the awesome power of this documentary series that follows the dancers of Atlanta’s famous Magic City black strip club? As 22-year-old Cali says, “Everybody can’t get up asshole-naked and dance in front of people.”
Get ready to be charmed by the adorable 70-year-old Fokken twins, who were Amsterdam’s oldest prostitutes until their recent retirement. The documentary itself takes an unusually lighthearted look at the lives of sex workers, which are indeed often filled with humor and absurdity.
This famous documentary about vogue balls and the black drag scene in New York City is best known for inspiring Madonna and the vogue craze, but for many it was also the first time seeing transgender sex workers onscreen. Petite Latina Venus Xtravaganza talks openly about her clients and how most drag queens at the time were prostituting.
This low-budget documentary goes inside a Korean spa in Rhode Island, the scene of a battle over whether to criminalize erotic massage parlors in the state. Featuring interviews with sex workers as well as police, politicians, customers and the various people linked economically to the sex industry by default (think newspaper classifieds), it’s an in-depth look at the never-ending struggle for power between sex workers and those who aim to control and regulate their business.
10.‘Private Practices: The Story of a Sex Surrogate’
Maureen Sullivan is a sex surrogate in the ’80s whose clients are referred to her by therapists and doctors because of their sexual dysfunction. Professionally licensed sex surrogate therapy as seen in this documentary seems no different than the underground, illegal industry we’re more familiar with, so why is one state-sanctioned while the other is criminalized?
11. ‘Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer’
Yes, it’s a bit of a fluff piece that appears designed to bolster the politician’s bruised image. But fast-forward through the boring parts and you’ll find priceless insight into New York City’s upscale escort service scene, mostly via interviews with former escort service employees who never quite appear to be telling the whole story.
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