When I was 15, I started working at a local café​. While the job was pretty much as expected, like cleaning sinks and trying not to spill hot coffee, elements of customer service were completely new and shocking to me. I dealt with constant sexual harassment. From passive comments about how I did not look 16 to verbal harassment and old men calling me their “girlfriend” in front of their children, I was well versed in biting my tongue and crying in the bathroom.

When I chose to endure those conditions in order to save money for college, no one described the service industry as exploitative and degradative.

Frequently, however, the job was just that. Labor laws allow tipped workers to be paid a fraction of the minimum wage, their income being highly dependent on the tip a customer leaves. This means if you need the money, you also need your customers to like you, no matter what. You should do everything the customer wants, and look attractive while doing it. I read articles online about how anything — from wearing a ribbon in your hair to touching your customers — could increase your tips.

And I vividly remember my coworker telling me of an experiment she did. “My tips are always higher when I don’t wear a bra.”

Having to endure uncomfortable and even dangerous circumstances in order to pay the bills is common. Yet despite the degrading and exploitative conditions faced in different industries, sex work is typically the only kind of work described as such.

There has been a harsh pushback against sex work globally, despite being a vital source of income for so many during a pandemic and the economic recession.

“Thousands of people have turned to this type of online sex work to feed their families, and this move is affecting those moms who just want to buy diapers and milk,” said Alana Evans, president of the Adult Performers Actors Guild.

Recently, the New York Post outed a paramedic who turned to “Only Fans,” an online content subscription service, to make ends meet during the pandemic. The woman never consented to have her name published, yet the newspaper included it anyways. Besides violating her privacy, the piece also continued to propagate the narrative that the work she was doing was problematic. The fact that she was using sex work as supplemental income seemed to concern people more than the fact that she was in this financial situation, even as an essential worker in a pandemic.

“The actual scandalous headline here is “Medics in the United States need two jobs to survive”.” tweeted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, U.S. congresswoman. However, that did not stop the backlash against the medic, with her employer contacting her and threatening her with possible termination for unprofessionalism.

The attack on sex work was also exemplified in recent moves by U.S. credit card companies to cut ties with a large adult streaming platform. While this was done in response to the site hosting abusive material, the decision to remove payment options came after the concerns had already been addressed. New regulations by the site “restricted uploads to verified users,” deleted thousands of videos that were found to be potentially harmful, deleted the download option and increased content moderation. These regulations exemplified a move toward less harmful content and were celebrated by creators as it removed competition that was often illegal and abusive.

However, credit card companies still chose to discontinue ties with the site days after the new regulations were announced. One major company stood by their moves citing “unlawful content”. Given that the unlawful content had already been removed and vigilance raised exponentially, this move is not a progressive step towards a safer online sphere for survivors of violence. Rather, it is an attack on adult content creators who are in desperate need of income.

“Attacking an industry that is largely composed of people who occupy marginalized identities is always shameful, but it’s particularly awful in the middle of a pandemic when a lot of people are turning to platforms…in order to pay their bills,” said one adult performer

I find that stance shameful. As Ocasio-Cortez said, the scandal should not be what consenting adults choose to do with their own bodies. It should be that we live in a system in which a medical responder, working full time during a pandemic, does not have enough money to pay the bills and put food on the table. The issue of women turning to pornography as a means to feed their children would not be an issue if there were proper safeguards in place. But particularly, I find the idea that sex work is always exploitative to be ignorant and tone deaf. I have been sexualized since before I can remember. At 15, I was choosing between telling the old men flirting with me to stop, or letting it pass because I needed to make sure I got a good tip. I spent hours anxiously crying in the bathroom because one customer memorized details about me and my family, and would constantly move to my “section” so I could be his server. Was that work not degrading? Was that work not exploitative? Women have been sexualized, harassed and tormented by society for simply existing. Consensually taking back our sexuality is not the scandal.