World Without Exploitation Claremont (WWE 5C), the 5C branch of a national anti-sex trafficking organization, gave its first presentation of the semester on Feb. 18. Presenters Reese Rosebeck PO ’25 and Nayla Dayal SC ’25 delivered a clear message: “Sex positivity” is not a term that should be associated with the sex trade.
During their hour-long presentation, entitled “Sex Positivity And The Sex Trade,” the presenters discussed the pornography industry, OnlyFans and stripping. At the start of the event, attendees wrote down words that they associated with “sex positivity,” such as “healthy,” “consensual” and “destigmatized.”
WWE 5C follows the protocol of its parent organization, World Without Exploitation, in using the term “sex trade” as opposed to “sex work.”
“If someone were to self-identify themselves as a sex worker, then of course, we would use that terminology,” Dayal said during the presentation. “But I think to assume that everyone is a sex worker or would choose to identify that way erases the sort of structural physical and emotional violence that occurs within the sex trade.”
The presenters began by playing three clips highlighting male producers and actors in the porn industry. One video displayed a porn director stating that the spread of STDs was not a concern and that performers knew what they were getting themselves into.
“That line that they knew what they were getting themselves into implies a level of agency that, when talking about the sex trade, we don’t necessarily believe,” Dayal said. “Compensation is a form of coercion. It’s hard to leave when that’s how you’re making your living.”
According to Rosebeck, out of 4,000 porn videos, 80 percent depicted verbal or physical violence towards women.
Rosebeck said that there’s a science to violence demanded by the porn industry: The brain receives dopamine from watching it; watching repeatedly reduces the dopamine intake; viewers ultimately seek out more “exciting” material.
“That ‘exciting’ material that’s available to people to watch — for men to watch, specifically — is increasingly more violent, more kinky,” Rosebeck said. “And usually kinky in the context of porn means physically aggressive towards women; domination over women.”
Attendee Katie Fullerton, SC ’28, who attended two WWE 5C meetings last semester, compared the addiction of violent porn to smoking, allowing her to ultimately walk away with some hope for solutions.
“At first you feel the buzz of it, and then the buzz fades,” Fullerton later said in an interview with TSL. “So then you need more. But I think if we start to see that as an addiction, not judge people for getting sucked in … there are ways to get at the core of the problem. Now, I feel like there are solutions.”
During the presentation, Dayal reminded attendees that while watching porn often feels like watching a performance, the violence the women are experiencing is real. She said that people often accuse her of not being sex-positive when she questions someone who watches porn.
“It’s not one individual’s fault for believing that [watching porn is sex-positive] because it’s being marketed as ‘something’ porn,” Dayal said. “People label porn as sex-positive. It’s not.”
Dayal and Rosebeck went on to debunk common misconceptions about the OnlyFans industry, including the idea that OnlyFans is a safe alternative to the commercial sex trade.
“This alternative to selling sex appears distinct from that in-person, physical violence that you would experience in the commercial sex trade, for instance, which is why a lot of people opt to do it,” Dayal said.
According to Dayal, OnlyFans takes 20 percent of the minimum wages that content creators make. While the CEO of OnlyFans has a net worth of $3 billion, Dayla said that only five percent of OnlyFans creators are making more than $100 a day.
“It’s operating like it’s a digital pimp,” she said.
Rosebeck said that the competitive sex market in OnlyFans forces women to objectify themselves so they can keep up with the market on the platform.
“That is what a competitive sex industry market makes you do in order to make money,” Rosebeck said. “They must compete. They must engage in this process of self-objectification.”
The presenters concluded with a conversation on violence in the stripping industry, using the example of the film Anora to highlight the normalcy associated with the stripping industry. But according to Rosebeck, experiencing empowerment as a stripper is the exception, not the rule.
“The sex trade cannot be sex-positive because what occurs within the sex trade is not sex,” Rosebeck said. “It’s something else corrupted entirely. It’s not, by any definition, consensual.”
Fullerton said the presentation made her realize that the sex trade was worse than she initially thought.
“There’s so much I don’t know about it and there’s so many underlying evils in it … I feel like the more you dig, the more complicated it gets,” Fullerton said.
She added that she wished there had been more men at the meeting and that more of these discussions took place in classrooms, adding that “This needs to be common knowledge.”
Facebook Comments