Unproblematic Prostitution/Analysis

Authors dealing with this trope have two negative audience reactions to defend against or ignore. These two positions are very different from each other in some ways, but they both agree that it's dangerous to portray a sex worker in a positive way because you run the risk of Do Not Do This Cool Thing. One position is about seeing sex workers as victims, thus despising the trope Disposable Sex Worker even more than this one. The other position is about seeing sex workers as immoral, thus tending to see the other trope as a valuable aesop instead.

One major issue is, depending on viewpoint, either "the myth of the happy hooker" or "the myth of the myth of the happy hooker". A lot of people believe that at least one of these two phenomenons is a real social problem, and many believe that both are.

"The myth of the happy hooker" is the whole thing with making prostitution look nice, giving customers a false reassurance that what they are doing is okay - and also seducing gullible young people into doing things they regret. Some social workers have met young prostitutes who blame the movie Pretty Woman for the mistakes they made in their lives.

"The myth of the myth of the happy hooker" is the whole thing about people screaming "the myth of the happy hooker" whenever a prostitute is portrayed as not being tragic and/or as at all having a mind of her own. These days, many sex workers speak out against a public discourse that they see as infantilizing them and looking down on them with a kind of pity that is actually contempt.

There's also the whole thing about talking about all different sex workers as being "the hooker, happy or otherwise". People take the liberty to discuss whether "the hooker" is happy or not, a liberty they would never take against any other group since it would then be obvious how patronizing and objectifying it really is. For example, talking about social problems in Africa or in urban areas of American cities in terms of whether "the negro" is happy or not would of course be unthinkable.

As for works having it both ways with social problems, this can be handled in many ways. We might have a character or group of characters in the eye of the storm, so to speak. They are sufficiently strong or lucky to live up to this trope, while other characters live horrible lives with trafficking and abusive pimps and all kinds of trauma. Another way is to let the character suffer social stigma and prejudice and all that kind of stuff, but keeping these problems externalized: She doesn't have a problem, her life isn't the problem - other people's bigotry is.

Generally speaking, a sex worker is more likely to find their experience of the industry generally positive and empowering if they have certain privileges including physical, mental and emotional health, education, independence and beauty. Unproblematic Prostitution narratives such as the ones listed on the main page are popular and palatable for the reasons outlined above but unfortunately do not often examine the factors that lead to an individual's experience of the sex industry being positive or otherwise.


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