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“Do you have any OnlyFans?”

“Would you consider porn?” 

“Do you work at a strip club?”

While the answers to the above questions are unequivocally no, I receive the questions pretty often. Usually, I just laugh it off, but sometimes I am surprised by the varying tones in which women’s sexuality is perceived by men.

Some are stereotypically bewildered, younger men are naive, some are shy, and others show a more sinister attitude toward women taking ownership of their sexual identities, showing aggression, aggravation, and hatred. Coupling these questions I am asked and my pole dancing experiences, I have thought a lot about the plight of women’s sexuality within society, even from a young age.

When I was a teenager I participated in my county’s version of the popular “Young Miss Beauty” type pageants. The winner and runner-ups received some scholarship money for college and I always loved performing and being onstage, so I thought I’d give this a shot. I wasn’t anywhere near “beauty queen” status, but I was definitely someone able to perform and put on an act, and that’s all this was, wasn’t it? 

I was sorely mistaken. Yes, there was a version of putting on an act, but it was an act I could barely keep painted on. I’m not someone who looks up to Martha Washington (the winner’s answer to ‘who do you admire)’, I’m someone who admires Alice Roosevelt, Laverne Cox, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Anyway, my county also held a similar pageant for the young men, but the tone was completely different.

While we were having dress fittings for the formalwear portion, learning a dance to perform as the introduction number, discussing our skincare or fitness routines, practicing how to answer on-the-spot interview questions, the boys got to perform a skit and even had a male fashion show, with a much more comedic and celebratory tone. I yearned for that. I wanted to be able to showcase my creativity, my actual skills, and my thoughts and ideas as a performer and creative visionary. What I got to do was look pretty and work on my interviewing skills (which hey, that wasn’t that bad, but come on). 

What I wanted to be able to do was what the boys were doing – having fun and earning some scholarship money in the process. I did not find being put under a microscope and scrutinized from head-to-toe fun. What I learned from that experience is that women will always be prided on and valued based on their looks, while boys will always be given something much more creative or playful when it comes to being judged on attractiveness. 

I wasn’t the only young girl who noticed that, either. Women nowadays are taking their own sexual identities and monetizing off of it, because hey, sex sells, right? What women find empowering, some men can become angry with, as they sometimes do regarding women’s sexuality and its place in society. 

Women’s sexuality isn’t a new phenomenon in society. Women have been sexualized since the dawn of time. What’s happening now is that women are deciding to take the power back by profiting off of their attractiveness, as men have been doing to women for a long time; however, now women are the drivers of this. 

It is imperative that women be allowed to express their sexuality under their own consent and on their own terms. If men are willing to go to strip clubs, why does society pretend it’s shameful or wrong to work at one? There is a clear need in the market for sexual entertainment that people are willing to populate, so why would women not seek this opportunity to profit off of their looks? Since it’s already something that we know happens daily, I’d rather have control over it. Women are taking control of their own sexual identities. 

So while the answer to the above questions is still unequivocally no, I’m an advocate. I’m an advocate for showing that none of that should matter. Here’s what should matter:

Sex work is real work. Prostitution should be legal. We need to regulate the porn industry. Stop letting men make decisions regarding women’s bodies. Abortion should be legal.

It’s about more than just me, it’s all of us.