A Sex Worker With Agency? Say it Ain't So.

We can consider Emma Stone's Oscar winning portrayal of Bella Baxter a firm "win" for the advancement of the sex worker rights movement. Generally sex work, if shown at all, portrays women as pimped, abused, drug addicted, totally without agency and often just plain dead (insert dead hooker joke here). And while this is the dark reality for many workers due to the criminality and stigma around our work that makes many SW's unable to report abuse to police, the media's dehumanization of us simply makes civilians think even more negatively of sex work and the women who do participate in it willingly. This stigma, as perpetrated by wonderful yet flawed films like Leaving Las Vegas, heightens stigma around our work, forming a feedback loop that reinforces that narrative that sex workers are objects that need saving. Sex bad. Only have sex in heteronormative couple, where money is indirectly exchanged. Me Tarzan, you Jane.

So I was pleasantly surprised to discover the charmingly weird Poor Things and it's mostly accurate portrayal of modern sex work. Pimps aren't nearly as common or useful today because the internet exists. Sex workers also have a bit more freedom to go to the police if assaulted, depending on our location. Women do sex work because they're adults and they can. But I'll get down off my soap box because ya'll aren't here for that...or are you?

First you must understand the premise: Bella died and was brought back to life but with her unborn child's brain in her head (I told you it was weird). The film portrays her as a hypersexual Frankenstein, a metaphor for the role women are expected to portray in today's society, with men attempting to control and box her in at every turn. When she turns a trick at a Parisian brothel because her and her partner (Mark Ruffalo) were stranded with no money, his sassily spit response is the typical societal induced revulsion, "You are a monster. A whore and a monster. A demon...I look at you and I see nothing but ugliness"

Bella is perplexed as to why this would upset him. A man is a man to her, and she doesn't understand why "letting a strange man ride on me" would change that. She's the sexually liberated hero we need in a society that's always denied women sexual agency.

Bella doesn't adhere to societal norms because her brain doesn't yet comprehend them. She breaks up with him and returns to the brothel (He is heard hilariously screaming, 'CUUUUUNT!"). She informs the brothel owner that she intends to do sex work because a) she needs sex and b) wants to "study on the world and the improvement of it"

A lady after my own heart.

Sex work is initially portrayed as a key to freedom for intellectual, independent women. She attends medical lectures in spiffy black and white Victorian era-ish suit-dresses and is seen heading to socialist meetings. I appreciate that this film illustrates sex work as not simply for the brain dead. She runs into her ex outside of the brothel and he yells, "You're whores!"

She replies, "We are our own means of production"

I never understood this argument because don't athletes also use their bodies? Sure, a tennis racket or football is involved. Sex workers also use tools to do our work (makeup, hair, nails, a bed, outfits, condoms). Are athletes also their own means of production? Genuine question, leave a comment on my Xwitter.

This film is a fantasy and not to be taken too literally. The sex scenes are pretty hilarious, with the casting director choosing some very odd looking fellows to act as brothel clients. But that's just part of the film's charm. One scene features Bella bound and gagged, suspended from the ceiling while a man humps her leg. She looks extremely bored to emphasize what she says in a later scene, "I feel nothing. My empathy is creeping towards contemptuous rage"

This is where I have a bit of a bone to pick. Not all sex workers become apathetic, hateful people because they have sex for a direct monetary reward. Sex doesn't necessarily make all women hate men.

In fact, quite the opposite can happen. I, and many of my provider friends, express a feeling of increasing closeness with men due to sex work. When you understand their kinks and vulnerabilities, you better relate to the less-fair sex.

Bella is called home when her creator (the oddly charming Willem Dafoe) falls ill. She's forever a marked woman now, as all sex workers are. The housekeeper refers to her as "The Whore" and when she meets a new man (the General), he attempts to hold her captive and cut off her lady parts to relieve her "sexual hysteria" when he learn she was a sex worker. This is a metaphor for society's constant attempts to control women and our sexuality/bodies.

Eventually Bella wins the day and turns this evil General into a goat, but you'll have to watch the film to understand what the heck I'm talking about. All in all, although not totally accurate or amazing, I approve of this representation of sex workers, which isn't something I'm used to saying when it comes to Hollywood films. Do yourself a favor and watch it (Hulu is streaming it) because the costumes, set direction, and actors are top notch. The actor who plays the sub to a dominatrix in the BDSM inspired film Sanctuary (Christopher Abbott, he's so hot) plays the General. Mark Ruffalo is a comedic genius and do I really need to explain the awesomeness of Willem Dafoe?