Benjamin Weil’s article, despite its focus on inequality, precarity, and platform economy hierarchies, remains firmly within the realm of bourgeois reformism. Its goal is the ongoing survival of capitalism, presented more benignly with an “inclusive” regulatory approach. Using the language of solidarity and rights, Weil’s suggestions essentially amount to requesting that the capitalist state better oversee the exploitation it already oversees.[1]
To grasp why this framework remains politically sterile, it is essential to start from the Marxist view that the commodification of human intimacy is not an anomaly but a fundamental aspect of capitalist social relations.
The Commodification of Intimacy: A Product of Capitalist Social Relations
The article’s core slogan—“sex work is work”—is viewed as a political goal, meant to be recognised through legislation and state support. However, while this view helps defend against criminalisation, it hides a deeper truth: under capitalism, all things are transformed into work because they become commodities. The real question isn’t whether selling sexual services counts as “work,” but rather the social system that forces people to sell their bodies, time, emotions, and innermost abilities to get by.
Marx and Engels vividly outlined this dynamic. In The Communist Manifesto, the authors argue that the bourgeoisie has reduced human relationships to self-interest and monetary exchange, converting all human worth into “exchange value.” The rise of OnlyFans does not signal a democratisation of pornography. Still, it continues this logic into the most personal areas of life, driven by algorithms, payment systems, and the global economy. The platform economy doesn’t free people; it monetises their activities. It doesn’t give power; it extracts it. It doesn’t promote democracy; it creates stratification.
The Pseudo‑Left’s Framework: Reform Without Revolution
Benjamin Weil accurately points out the incoherence of the “sex worker” label and the absurd spectacle of celebrities using the slogan for their own branding. However, his proposed solution — “solidarity from top to bottom” and “permanent protections” provided by the capitalist state — leads to a political dead end.
The capitalist state does not serve as a neutral protector of rights; instead, it functions as a tool for class domination. Its laws—such as FOSTA-SESTA and the Earn It Act—have repeatedly increased efforts to criminalise, monitor, and marginalise sex workers. Asking this state for protection is like requesting the arsonist to control the fire.
This represents the typical approach of identity-based reformism: recognising a genuine social harm and attempting to fix it within the existing system that causes it. It struggles to conceive of a world beyond capitalism and advocates only for kinder management of capitalist exploitation.
What the Article Cannot Theorise: Inequality as a Structural Feature, Not a Distortion
The article criticises how earnings are concentrated among the top 1 per cent of creators, highlights the racial biases embedded in platform algorithms, and discusses the gap between celebrity “sex workers” and those pushed into online sexual labour out of economic necessity. However, it views these issues as distortions within an otherwise legitimate industry.
This is a significant misconception. These inequalities are not exceptions but rather the usual operation of capitalism. The gig economy—exemplified by OnlyFans—is capitalism in its most current and pure form: removing employer responsibilities, fragmenting workers, and transferring all risks to individuals.
David Walsh’s analysis of singer Kate Nash’s shift to OnlyFans highlights a broader social issue: a society that marginalises its artists, pushing them into pornography out of shame and neglect. This also reflects the millions who, during the pandemic, turned to online sexual work—not because they felt empowered, but because capitalism provided no alternative for their survival.
The pseudo-left uses terms like “agency,” “choice,” and “bodily autonomy” to mask underlying coercion. It presents economic pressure as a form of self-expression.
The “Sex‑Positive” Industry: A Pseudo‑Left Apologia for Capitalist Degradation
Today, few ideological groups are as reactionary yet as skillfully marketed as the NGO and academic “sex-positive” industry labelled as “progressive.” Operating under the guise of empowerment, autonomy, and liberation, this scene acts as a political cleanser: it disguises capitalist exploitation as a colourful array of “choices.” This sector serves as the ideological extension of a large commercial system that gains from turning intimacy into a commodity, fragmenting social life, and capitalising on the desperation of millions.
Rather than contesting the social pressures that force people to commodify their bodies, the sex-positive industry instead celebrates this tendency as a form of self-expression. It serves as an ideal ideological partner to a system that has turned every aspect of human capability—physical, emotional, and sexual—into a marketable good.
The Ideological Function of “Sex Positivity”
The sex-positive framework didn’t arise as a bold critique of capitalist morality. Instead, it functions as a market-friendly rebrand of sexual commodification. Its main principles — “agency,” “choice,” and “empowerment” — are directly borrowed from neoliberal ideology. These same ideas are applied to defend zero-hour contracts, gig-economy insecurity, and the reduction of social protections.
When NGOs, academics, and media personalities promote “sex positivity,” it often comes across as a moral obligation: people are expected to embrace the commodification of intimacy, or else be labelled prudish, conservative, or “anti-sex,” which is a severe criticism in this context. This does not represent true liberation. Instead, it acts as a form of censorship against dissent, all in the interest of capitalism.
The NGO‑Academic Complex: A New Clerisy of Capitalist Morality
The sex-positive industry depends on a complex network of NGOs, foundations, university departments, and media outlets. Their funding comes from sources like corporate philanthropy, tech companies, and state-aligned foundations, underscoring their class affiliation. Instead of opposing capitalism, they act as its ideological subcontractors.
These institutions primarily perform three roles: They depoliticise exploitation by presenting sexual commodification as just another form of ‘work,’ thereby concealing the underlying coercive structures that force millions into it. They individualise systemic issues by framing poverty, unemployment, and social neglect as personal “choices” that lead to entry into the industry. Additionally, they lend moral legitimacy to capitalist platforms, with companies like OnlyFans and Pornhub described as “empowering tools’ instead of profit-driven entities that benefit from human desperation. This creates an ideological framework that turns capitalist exploitation into a lifestyle brand.
The Academic Wing: Postmodern Apologetics for Exploitation
Scholars supporting the sex-positive industry—mainly from gender studies and postmodern theory—have developed a language that obscures exploitation. Their terminology mixes Foucauldian micro-politics, intersectional terms, and neoliberal voluntarism. For example: coercion is called “choice,” economic desperation is labelled “agency,” alienation is described as “self-expression,” and platform exploitation is termed “entrepreneurship.” This is not genuine scholarship but ideological obscuration.
These scholars view the capitalist market as a neutral space where people negotiate meaning, identity, and pleasure. They are unable to imagine social relations beyond the commodity form because their entire theoretical framework rests on rejecting the concept of class.
NGOs and the Business of “Empowerment”
The NGO sector has realised that promoting “sex positivity” is a profitable brand. They offer numerous workshops, conferences, “empowerment” seminars, and consulting services. Although they claim to “support sex workers,” their true role is to divert discontent from class struggle, focusing instead on seeking state recognition, regulatory changes, and philanthropic funding. Their political outlook is rooted in sustaining capitalism, masked with an inclusive, rainbow-colored image. Rather than fighting exploitation, they tend to manage it.
The Pseudo‑Left’s Role: Sanitising the Market
The pseudo-left, which includes the DSA-influenced scene in the US, the NGO-Labourist groups in Britain, and similar organisations worldwide, has fervently embraced sex-positive ideology. This change is deliberate. These groups have abandoned their socialist roots and now prioritise lifestyle, identity, and personal expression over the goal of dismantling capitalist property systems.
For these individuals, turning intimacy into a commodity isn’t seen as a social tragedy but as a form of “resistance.” They praise the entrepreneurial “creativity” of OnlyFans creators, ignoring broader problems like unemployment, declining wages, and weak social safety nets that push people toward these platforms. Their viewpoint promotes recognising, regulating, and even celebrating exploitation instead of eliminating it.
What the Sex‑Positive Industry Cannot Admit
The sex-positive movement often overlooks the essential fact that prostitution, pornography, and the commercialisation of intimacy are rooted in a class society. Engels showed that these issues emerge alongside private property and the oppression of women. They are not timeless, natural, or solely expressions of freedom; rather, they are manifestations of alienation.
Accepting this would mean recognising that true liberation depends on dismantling capitalism, which would immediately cut the sex-positive industry off from its sources of funding, institutional backing, and ideological roots. Therefore, they hold on to the illusion that the market can be made more humane, that exploitation can serve as a form of empowerment, and that commodification can lead to liberation.
The Marxist Position: Abolition, Not Celebration
Marxists oppose the core idea of the sex-positive industry: that turning intimacy into a commodity aligns with human freedom. Their goal isn’t to sanitise or destigmatise exploitation but to eliminate the social relations that enable it.
A socialist society, characterised by collective ownership and democratic control of the means of production, would remove the economic pressures that push people into commodified sexual labour. It would establish the material basis for truly free human relationships, free from monetary influence. The sex-positive industry struggles to envision such a society. Marxists are actively working to create it.
Conclusion: The Pseudo‑Left’s Moral Bankruptcy
The NGO-academic sex-positive industry does not truly promote liberation. Instead, it acts as a complex ideological tool that justifies capitalist exploitation by masquerading as empowerment. Its role is to persuade individuals to accept their own degradation, turning structural coercion into a matter of personal choice, and to frame the commodification of intimacy as a victory for autonomy.
Marxists oppose this reactionary politics by advocating for the struggle for socialism, which is the only way to create a society where people no longer have to sell their bodies, emotions, or intimacy to get by.
The Historical Materialist Perspective: Prostitution as a Product of Class Society
Engels, in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, argued that prostitution and the sexual double standard are not innate aspects of human existence but are shaped by class society — particularly the monogamous family structure that emerged alongside private property. The commercialisation of sexuality is inherently linked to the broader commodification of labour.
Viewing sex work as a fixed, natural category means abandoning the perspective of historical materialism. Alternatively, seeing it as a legitimate industry in need of improved regulation implies accepting the enduring nature of capitalist social relations.
The Real Solution: Abolition, Not Sanitisation
The working class cannot attain liberation by simply regulating how their bodies are commodified. The fight is not just for a “safe home to sell” sexual services, but for a society where nobody is forced to sell intimate access to their body.
This calls for more than just legislative change; it necessitates dismantling the capitalist system that equates all human interactions with exchange value. A socialist overhaul — including ending private ownership of production means and empowering the working class with democratic control over the economy — is essential for ending prostitution and the commercialisation of intimacy. Only in such a society can human relationships be freed from the cash nexus and reconstituted based on equality, solidarity, and genuine freedom.
The article’s call to “instate the obvious” flips reality. What needs to be established is not just acknowledging that “sex work is work,” but realising that a society based on the commodification of everything — including human intimacy — should be dismantled. Reform efforts cannot resolve capitalism’s contradictions; they can only contain them. Marxists’ role is not to humanise exploitation but to eliminate it.
[1] Sex Work is (Gig) Work: Assessing the OnlyFans effect: Benjamin Weil The Baffler, MAY-JUN 2022, No. 63 (MAY-JUN 2022), pp. 78-86
A Trumpet of Sedition 