SEX WORK IS WORK
"Sex work is work" it's a documental project that started in 2019 after more than fifteen years of sex work experience delivering an intimate immersion and a portrait of the sex industry from within.
Questioning the stigmatizing ways that depict sex work, these portraits come from a sensible gaze into the everyday life, the simple, beautiful and real day to day routine, how they interact and coexist, portraying friends and coworkers who consent to show these images which result from a shared life experience.
Based on those shared experiences and thoughts, these pieces stand for the reality of those who choose erotic capital as a way of living, acknowledging desire and pleasure as valid assets based on an ancient lifestyle that survives despite all the prejudices against it.
This invaluable documentary material that is just a glance into the intimacy of sex workers inside the sex industry covering from Companion (Full Service), Professional fetishism, Erotic Masseuses and Strippers as part of this ongoing project, in constant evolution and examination of the dynamics inside this business, affirming sex work and offering an embodied sight of it.
Night Shift.
Miami, USA.
"Satin Dolls", "Irene Houses", more commonly called Brothels. Maria Teresa.
Punta Arenas, Chile.
"Vacío legal". Nightclub.
Santiago de Chile.
Punta Arenas, Chile.
Brooklyn, New York.
Domination.
Miami Beach, USA.
Fetish Professional.
New York, USA.
"Storyville, New Orleans", legally established red-light district, existed from January 1, 1898, to the fall of 1917, when it was closed by the United States Department of the Navy.”
Basin Street, the main avenue.
It generated so much profit that it became the city’s second industry, it had about 200 brothels that could be simple rooms to luxurious and extravagant mansions with a wide range of activities for its clients. “In New Orleans, prostitution was accepted as a reality, as well in both France and Spain, and also the Latin governors of the New World, who were not religious fanatics unlike their New England counterparts who were more morally strict than the rest of Europe. Prostitution was a favorite avocation, and for many the profession, of an extraordinarily large proportion of the earliest female residents of New Orleans.”
New Orleans is the birthplace of Jazz, although contrary to a widely held myth, it was not born in Storyville specifically, but it’s saloons, brothels and bars did provide performance spaces for the emerging Jazz musicians. As Billie Holiday would acknowledge… a brothel was the only place where black and white people would meet naturally.
Shortly after, it was demolished, replacing it with an urban development project called Iberville. This meant, naturally, the closure of most of the establishments and the disappearance of work for a large number of musicians. Precisely at this time, the great emigration of Jazz musicians to Chicago and New York took place, which produced important changes in the development of traditional Jazz.
I was documenting what is today Storyville with Blue, a Sex Worker who works in the city and she generously allowed me to take photos of her.
May 2024, New Orleans.