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Sex Workers and Proud

Sex Workers and Proud

The market economy has generated the proliferation of erotic fairs and pornographic video companies, on behalf of the so-called freedom of the consumer. The sex industry has spawned a whole range of occupations now which fall under the category of "sex work."

The classic sex worker is the prostitute, and prostitution was more or less tolerated in most countries. Called the world's oldest profession, prostitution remains a "dark object of hatred and desire" — branded the symbol of the exploitation of women by men in all societies. But some women and men have asserted their freedom to be able to rent their bodies and to defend their sexual practices. Prostitution, they claim, is work, and as respectable as any other job. Thinking about sex work as "work" is considerably complicated because it involves sexuality, and more explicitly than most work male-female relationships, power, money, and the definition of a job.

Sex Workers and Proud probes this unique corner of the market economy through the lives, practices and stories of men and women who work in the sex industry. Shot in France, Belgium and Switzerland, the film provides in-depth discussions about the relationship of power and submission, while questioning the fantasies that stir men and women.