Erika Long Shows Another Side of Sex Work

When you think of fine art or popular portrayals of sex workers, what comes to mind? Maybe it's Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers, full bravado and minimal morals; maybe it's the beautiful, dejected men of Philip-Lorca diCorcia's Nineties series portraying male prostitutes or Larry Clark's teenage addicts in Tulsa. Rarely are the subjects framed as empowered or full of nuance, people you trust, people with joy whose decisions you respect. "I was thinking about photography and how that relates to sex work and I was like, 'I can't think of any projects in which people portray sex workers in a positive light,'" recalls photographer and filmmaker Erika Long. "Everything I can think of was some gloomy street corner where someone is standing. While that is a reality for some sex workers, it's not a reality for all sex workers."

Long set out to change this representation, inviting sex worker friends and other professionals in the field into her New York studio to create images that speak to their own vision and experiences, separate from those so often imposed on them. The result, shot over the past two years, is the zine SXWRKER, a prideful, confident celebration of sex workers and the possibility within the work they do.

Initial references ranged from Mapplethorpe to film and fine art. But, "I just wanted to put the ball more in their court," Long says. "When they would come into my studio, I had ideas, but they brought a ton of ideas to the table. It was really fun." The images reflect this joy and collaborative spirit. A portrait of a woman smiling, self-possessed and radiating; a man nude under leather chaps, a pack of matches reading "Big America" on the belt loop; a jeweled cross over a woman's vagina (a favorite of the whole team); two friends, posing in tandem—the photographs may be intimate, playful, subversive, composed.

"I learned so much working on this project," says Long, who sees sex workers as vital to more open understandings and relationships to sexuality. "I just want people to be aware of all of the challenges that sex workers face and that it is not a negative thing. There are a lot of ways to make money and they've chosen to do this. They really enjoy what they do and you need to be respectful of that and cognizant of that. I'm not out here changing the world, but I'm just trying to do what I can, do my part in my tiny little bubble to do what I can do to help."

With the zine already sold out, Long plans to continue the series, donating one hundred percent of the proceeds from sales of SXWRKER to the Sex Workers Outreach Project, an organization dedicated to fundamental human rights advocacy for sex workers and their communities.