Halfway to solidarity with sex workers

Image: sex workers' protest in Adelaide, Australia, 2001

Nancy Holmstrom’s chapter “Sex Work and Capitalism”, in her book From a Marxist Feminist Point of View, left me genuinely puzzled about the underlying message she intends to convey about sex work. She opens by acknowledging her own frustration with the topic, though she maintains that engaging with opposing positions can generate productive debate. Holmstrom notes that many feminists argue that criminalising sex work does more harm than good, yet she believes the stance of full decriminalisation carries its own set of problems.

Although she recognises that all forms of sex work should be understood as work, she focuses the chapter specifically on prostitution — the aspect of sex work that provokes the sharpest disagreement across the feminist political spectrum. Much of this disagreement stems from moral concerns about implying that it is morally acceptable for a person’s body to be used in the absence of desire or erotic attraction on their part.

Holmstrom then turns to the question of freedom and choice within capitalism, arguing that in a system where every human need is monetised, the very conditions that shape “choice” are already constrained. Drawing on Capital, Holmstrom concludes that prostitution is a form of exploited labour shaped by the coercive pressures of capitalism and mediated through exploitative intermediaries such as pimps, brothels, and even multinational corporations.

This point aligns with her broader analysis of freedom elsewhere in the book. However, when she applies this framework to sex work, the argument becomes more difficult to parse. Holmstrom seems to suggest that women enter sex work primarily out of desperation, and that the work is uniquely humiliating. She delves onto the question in the next section named "Is Sex Special" where she states that prostitution is a “domination at the most intimate level,” where sexual satisfaction — and by extension consent — becomes a one-directional transaction. This, she argues, is fundamentally different from other forms of labour where capital hires workers to use their bodies to produce commodities, and where those bodies can eventually be replaced by machines. Not so, she claims, in prostitution.

This is only semi-convincing now. With current developments in artificial intelligence — including AI dolls and brothels, such as the first one established in Berlin — it is increasingly unclear whether any job is immune from technological replacement.

The mechanisation aspect of Holmstrom’s argument is interesting for another reason. Marx notes in Capital that mechanised industries often pay higher wages than non-mechanised ones. And emotional-care work — from nursing to childcare — remains largely irreplaceable by machines (although, given the pace of technological development, even that may not be guaranteed).

By extension, we might ask: are these women violated in the same way as sex workers? Perhaps not. But they still provide comfort, intimacy, and embodied care. People — overwhelmingly women — who look after the elderly or other people’s children perform intimate acts such as hugging, holding, and soothing.

Where, then, is the dividing line? It is blurry and murky. We can argue the two sorts of work are not the same thing, but still question Holmstrom intentions in this chapter. Holmstrom goes on to state that sex work in her description is the "ultimate alienation… similar to sex in patriarchal marriage" once again showcasing the fogginess of the argument at hand.

Although Holmstrom insists that her position does not stem from sexual prudery, romantic sentiment, or Victorian moralism — and that she does not view all prostitutes as victims — her concern is framed as political, grounded in the epistemological values she outlines in the introduction: mode of production, rationality, freedom, and human nature/women’s nature. Yet it is difficult to avoid the sense that a Victorian moral undertone still lingers.

What is even more troubling is her growing sympathy toward the Nordic Model of regulating sex work. This model, which criminalises the purchase of sex rather than its sale, has been controversial on many fronts. Its consequences have not granted sex workers full rights; instead, it has pushed them into deeper socio-economic precarity by attacking their source of income and driving their work underground. In these conditions, clients become harder to screen, and sex workers are more vulnerable to abuse — the very harms the law claims to prevent.

Holmstrom acknowledges these objections, stating that she is only “sympathetic to their goals,” yet she still proposes a variant of the Nordic Model. In her version, both selling and purchasing sex would be decriminalised, while pimps and brothels would be criminalised, with all financial gains going directly to sex workers.

The immediate question is why criminalising pimps and brothels would be beneficial, given that many sex workers rely on these structures for protection. Criminalising brothels also invites police raids — a practice already well-documented in the UK. Raids conducted between 2006 and 2008 under the banner of anti-trafficking resulted primarily in arrests for prostitution and immigration offences. Rather than protecting anyone, these operations entrenched cycles of abuse. One study found that raids increased the likelihood that sex workers would resort to behaviours that left them more susceptible to exploitation and rights violations. Police also routinely seized sex workers’ earnings, with no meaningful avenue for reclaiming confiscated assets.

Holmstrom’s answer is that sex workers could organise collectively and provide these services themselves — hiring bodyguards, drivers, and renting apartments together. Yet this proposal sits uneasily with the legal reality she does not address. Brothels in the UK are illegal under the justification of preventing trafficking, but the majority are in fact run by sex workers themselves and provide safety, affordability, and stability.

Research from Ireland shows that 85% of those convicted of brothel-keeping are women. This raises an obvious question: does Holmstrom’s model oppose brothels, or does it inadvertently align with the very structures sex workers already use for collective organisation?

Even when brothels are not run by sex workers, many still rely on them for protection. Holmstrom’s suggestion that sex workers simply organise their own infrastructure overlooks the material realities of the labour market. Renting premises, hiring security, and establishing safe working conditions all require capital — an upfront investment most sex workers do not have. People entering any form of work rarely possess the resources to build an entire workplace from scratch. Holmstrom’s proposal therefore risks assuming a level of economic stability that fails to account for the structural precarity of the people it aims to support.

What is most concerning, however, is that Holmstrom arrives at this conclusion without including any testimonies or perspectives from sex workers themselves. She even concedes, “I am far from an expert,” and admits that the crucial question is how such a model would work in practice. Yet she proceeds to outline a legal framework without engaging the very people whose lives would be shaped by it.

Her suggestion that laws must be carefully crafted to minimise arrests, and that police require better training, amounts to an appeasement with capitalist policing rather than a challenge to it. Historically, police have never been allies to sex workers; their institutional role is to protect property and enforce social order, not to deliver liberation. Trust in the police among sex workers remains and will remain extremely low, with many unwilling to report crimes committed against them. Those who do often face further harm, lack of legal representation, or even prosecution.

Sex workers in the UK continue to fight for the removal of Section 21 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009 and other provisions such as brothel-keeping laws which make it an offence for sex workers to work together. Holmstrom opposes criminalising sex workers for working collectively, yet simultaneously advocates a model that would continue to criminalise brothels — the very structures through which sex workers already organise for safety.

This contradiction undermines her claim to support sex workers’ autonomy and raises serious questions about whether her proposed model can meaningfully contribute to liberation. More troublingly, the chapter reveals a tension between Holmstrom’s stated commitments and the policy model she proposes, raising doubts about the internal consistency of her argument.