On Thursday night, the College hosted Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St. Louis Heather Berg to give a talk entitled “Porn Work: Sex, Labor, and Late Capitalism.” The lecture, which was held on Zoom, was the first in a fall series put on by the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Program (GSWS).

Berg’s work focuses on the intersection of sex work and the labor struggle and has been featured in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Given Berg’s area of expertise, Associate Professor and Program Director of GSWS Keona Katrice Ervin saw her as a fitting speaker for the series, which focuses on rethinking sex work as labor in the context of existing norms and taboos.

“Sex work is an increasingly important topic of political interest,” Ervin said. “We’ve invited Professor Berg to give a lecture on her work that studies porn work as labor—to think about it in such terms.”

Much of the talk examined ideas in Berg’s 2021 book “Porn Work” and the variety of sexual labor experiences it touches on. Berg posits readers view sex work as labor that parallels “conventional work” as a capitalist means to an end. She laments the capitalist practice of achieving the highest efficiency for the lowest cost of production and how it ties both conventional and sexual labor together.

“Part of my interest in writing this book is to encourage any readers who think that that is unethical or shocking to imagine what that looks like in a context of their own work,” Berg said.

She extended her sentiment by highlighting the nuances and complexities that surround the politics of sex work. Porn workers are further victimized and made vulnerable by societal stigma and lack of state protection.

“[Porn workers] tend to demand freedom rather than state intervention or better protection because the state has historically treated sex workers as threats to be controlled rather than workers deserving a right,” Berg said.

Later, Berg drew attention to how state policies that seemingly aim to reduce trafficking and exploitation are largely anti-sex work. Berg said that these policies do not actually aid in combating exploitation, as many porn workers are victims of trafficking themselves, paradoxically due to circumstances that arise from state hostility and stigma.

“These policies that are sold as ways to reduce exploitation actually make it impossible to get your rent paid without going through a middle manager,” Berg said.

When asked about the conditions required for ethically consuming porn workers’ labor, Berg said that anti-sex work policies make that reality nearly impossible.

“The most ethical option is to pay people directly for their work,” she said. “Work over which they have the most autonomy that they possibly can, from which they profit to the maximum ability possible.”

For students present at the talk, a general interest in the politics of sex work dominated the conversation. In particular, students from the Sex Work is Work first-year writing seminar expressed interest in how porn workers encounter and deal with misogyny intersectionally with racism. Berg also touched on a range of other issues such as fetishization in the industry and the role of digital platforms, like OnlyFans, in the recent rise of parasocial relationships through digital porn labor.

As a closing note, Berg emphasized the relationship between capitalism and discrimination in the porn industry. She stated that combating discrimination is largely sidelined by a grander focus on making a livelihood.

“People who have to exist in the working and sexual world under the weight of racist sexual culture or trans-fetishizing sexual culture may not want to fight that fight in their workplace,” she said.

Ervin is excited to continue the lecture series, and she stressed that sex work provides an important lens through which to think about larger societal issues.

“The idea is to provide a space for thinking about how the issue of sex work in particular engages very critical questions about the role of the state, about the economy, about labor, coercion, notions of coercion, consent, legal systems, carceral systems,” Ervin said.

Next month, the program will host Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Williams College Gregory Mitchell to give the second and final talk in the fall series. His lecture will be on international sex trafficking and is set to take place on October 23 at 5 p.m. in the Visual Art Center’s Beam Classroom.