BY Lux Alptraum
July 8, 2008
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2 Comments

Add another file to the we’re all sex workers database: Bonnie Ruberg, of the Village Voice‘s Click Me, argues that getting paid to do hands-on cybersex research makes you a sex worker. Cause, you know, you’re getting paid to have sex.

Much as we appreciate the sex work solidarity, we’re going to have to call bullshit on her. Like Grant Stoddard before her, Ruberg seems to have a very poor understanding of what, exactly, sex work is. So let’s review: a sex worker is someone who gets paid to use aspects of his or her sexuality to titillate others. A sex worker is not a writer who gets paid to investigate the sexy sex (no matter how much sex they have on the company dime).

By that standard: phone sex workers, porn models, escorts, strippers, and dominatrices all count as sex workers. People who write about their sex lives, or some aspect of sexuality they’ve chosen to explore, or sex toys they’ve used, are not.

Are we clear?

[Photo by coreyann]