Contractarian Arguments Against Sex Work

Something often considered ‘wrong’ with selling sex is that it is ‘degrading’, especially towards women. Due to the current gender demographic within the sex work industry, sex work tends uphold women working under the power of men. The current system in which sex is being sold, within the UK, makes it difficult to defend against this criticism through contractarian argument. Contractarians argue that sex work “contracts out a certain form of labour power for a given period in exchange for money”. If this is true, selling sex is only as degrading as most other professions. However, the contract drawn when selling sex has a very different power dynamic in the UK compared to most other professions. Unlike other professions, in selling sex, albeit
Generally speaking, men are stronger than women, which means that with no protection, clients can easily beat or rape a sex worker without any repercussions. Furthermore, clients can refuse to pay for services that were deemed unsatisfactory. On the other hand (whilst it is illegal), a sex worker could opt to have a pimp. However, this leads to a third party being personally invested in keeping a girl in work, and instead of being at the hands of her client, the worker is now at the mercy of her pimp. The power dynamic, either way, being completely governed by men. As asserted by Ericcson a worker should “'not [sell] her body or vagina, but sexual services. If she actually did sell herself she would no longer be a prostitute but a sexual slave'. With current legislation, however, ensuring that this does happen is exceptionally more difficult. There, therefore, seems to be a major issue surrounding selling sex as it can currently be easily turned into sexual slavery, making it very
If this is the case, the contractarian can still not claim that there is nothing wrong with selling sex. The first issue could be that in selling sex, one is selling their body. However, selling one’s body is commonplace in most professions, especially in manual labour. An objection to the notion that one is ‘not selling themselves, but their body’, is that we are inherently attached to our bodies and so one is essentially selling themselves. However, the same occurs in every profession. In manual labour professions, one needs to be strong, they need to be able to lift things and utilise their body effectively. Nevertheless, to say that a manual laborer like a builder or carpenter is essentially a slave would rely on the assumption that we are all slaves under capitalism. If this is the case, then what would be considered wrong about selling sex, would not be an issue in selling sex but in capitalism in and of itself. However, there could be the objection that unlike selling sex, a builder creates something of permanence, that is a benefit to all, as opposed to fulfilling a short lived hedonistic please which fulfills gender roles. However, there are physical professions that also fulfill these conditions. Consider a masseuse in a spa, unlike the manual laborer, they are using their body and skill for