If sex work is depicted everywhere in ‘Euphoria,’ why is it still being erased online?
You’ve likely seen the viral clips: Sydney Sweeney’s Cassie, in dog ears and a heart-shaped dog nose, saying “woof woof” as Jacob Elordi’s Nate pulls her leash. Or maybe you’ve seen the clip of Cassie dressed as a baby to shoot content for her OnlyFans — though HBO has apparently already altered it after intense backlash.
This is Season 3 of HBO’s Euphoria, which Mashable’s entertainment reporter Belen Edwards rightfully called gross rather than great. Euphoria seems to proudly showcase the salaciousness of sex work to gain viewers and viral moments, all while real sex workers struggle to maintain a voice online amidst censoring legislation.
What ‘Euphoria’ gets wrong about sex work
Mainstream portrayals of sex work are far from new, especially on HBO (See: The Deuce, Minx, and earlier seasons of Euphoria). But writer, director, actor, and OnlyFans performer Megan Prescott told Mashable she hasn’t seen a good portrayal of sex work or online sex work on TV so far.
“I think there is such a snobbery in the world in general around sex work,” said Prescott, who is also chair of National Ugly Mugs, a UK-based charity dedicated to sex worker protection and justice. “For some reason, we think that they [sex workers] don’t know their own industry better than anyone else.” She said mainstream shows often don’t have real-life sex workers as consultants.
Euphoria cast porn performer Chloe Cherry as Faye in Season 2, but it’s unclear whether there are any sex worker consultants behind the scenes. HBO representatives for Euphoria didn’t respond to Mashable’s request for comment.
It’s not a stretch to believe the show doesn’t. As Edwards said in her Season 3 review, “Cassie’s sex work has no depth to it, and in her ‘right-wing suburban bubble,’ everyone heaps shame on her, from her fiancé to her friends. Euphoria doesn’t interrogate these biases or examine the intricacies of sex work further. Instead, it’s happy to keep the shame coming,” in the form of the now-infamous clip of Cassie dressed as a baby.
“We’ve just had someone write a show about their fantasy of a type of sex work, and in doing that, the general public will be like, ‘Oh my god. On OnlyFans, you can dress up as a baby. That’s disgusting,’ which is just not accurate,” Prescott said.
OnlyFans’ Acceptable Use Policy prohibits “illegal activity including actual, claimed, or role-played: exploitation, abuse, or harm of individuals under the age of 18.” But Euphoria creators either didn’t consult actual OnlyFans performers to create the show, or didn’t care that they were portraying it inaccurately.
We don’t know the intentions of Euphoria creator Sam Levinson and the people behind the show; it can be provocation for provocation’s sake. But when inaccuracies about sex work are broadcast to the world, sex workers feel the brunt of the fallout. There are already campaigns to ban porn or at least severely restrict access to it, and this portrayal could fuel those calls. But banning porn would make performers turn to more dangerous forms of sex work.
“Portrayals of sex work in mainstream media such as Euphoria rely on reductive and harmful stereotypes, which often shape public perception of sex workers in ways that justify harmful policy,” said Diana Rotten, digital strategist for the campaign Scotland for Decrim.
Sex workers in the UK and beyond are facing increasingly hostile legislation, Rotten continued. This is partly due to the Online Safety Act, the UK’s age-verification law. Age-verification statutes typically require proof of age, like a facial scan or government ID, to access explicit content — and sometimes content that’s not at all explicit but still deemed “adult.”
Beyond age-verification, there have also been pushes to implement the “Nordic model” of in-person sex work, Rotten said, which criminalizes buyers of sex as opposed to sellers. But many sex workers highly criticize the Nordic model, saying it keeps them unsafe. For instance, Northern Ireland implemented the Nordic model in 2015, and from 2016 to 2018, there was a 225 percent increase in reported violence against sex workers. Sex workers often advocate for decriminalization instead.
The public’s first impression of sex workers shouldn’t be shaped through sensationalized and voyeuristic lenses, but grounded in the lived experience of sex workers themselves, Rotten continued. “Too often, the film and television industry is happy to create moral projections and spectacle on sex workers whilst failing to adequately demand improvement of their working conditions,” Rotten continued.
Maedb Joy, founder and creative director of Sexquisite Events, a performing arts company that platforms sex worker artists, said similar, that unless you have sex workers in the decision-making process, it’s not going