This Body Works For Me: Stories of scorn and pleasure

© Showmax

Reality shows about the lives of adult entertainers aren’t new. Not so long ago, Joseline Hernandez, the self-proclaimed Puerto Rican Princess, left Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta to produce and star in her own Zeus network show, “Joselin’s Cabaret.” 

The latest reality TV show out of South Africa follows the same demographic, young sex working women in Johannesburg. “This Body Works For Me”, brings the lives of young sex working women, pushing the lives of sex workers from the fringe to the mainstream. The show features adult film performers, erotic dancers, and sex content creators. 

The ladies of the show often refer to themselves as hustlers, reminiscent of the similarly titled film starring Jennifer Affleck, aka Jennifer Lopez. In my review of the film, I concluded that, “With no security, no fallback plan and no protection, sex workers are left with little to no options when it comes to the type of sexual acts they perform.”

The same can be said for the women of “This Body Works For Me.” 

Xoli for “This Body Works For Me” © Showmax

For Xoli Mfeka, the most notorious cast member, a career in sex work was the aftermath of revenge porn, a sex crime. 

It’s alleged that an ex-boyfriend leaked their sex tape when Xoli worked in the fitness industry as an Herbal Life salesperson and influencer. Before being sexually exploited, she had a life that was “societally respectable,” and sex work wasn’t in her plans. That changed once she had been exposed online, leading her to pursue financial gain from her newfound notoriety.

Gina, an exotic dancer, arrived in Johannesburg to make money, not necessarily to become a sex worker. When she began working as a dancer, the money she made went towards her children. 

Both women have different paths into and motivations for working in the sex industry. Respectability politics would offer a childless woman less grace and empathy than a mother trying to provide for her children. However, sex work is work; moralizing the profession places little to no scrutiny on the consumers and clients, while the sex workers bear the shame. 

Pornography and exotic dancing are explicitly understood and categorized as sex work, but what about transactional relationships? 

When women were treated as little more than accessories to their male custodian, a father or husband, romantic relationships were predicated on whether or not a man could provide.

Women of today have more rights than the women of medieval times, Woodstock Summer of Love, or Apartheid; discrimination against women keeps us unemployed or underpaid. All of these are the product of patriarchal ideas that suggest men should lead/work while women should “tend the home”. 

I find it surprising that being a sugar baby is so scorned…when it’s understood that every relationship is transactional in one way or another. Wandi, the OnlyFans creator and sugar baby of “This Body Works For Me,” is very clear about the financial nature of her relationships. 

Wandi for “This Body Works For Me” © Showmax

Noting that she’s not interested in a serious relationship with one boyfriend, how much she enjoys men in general, Wandi’s only rule is, “As long as I get money.” General society would label this as prostitution, and perhaps an argument could be made that it is. 

However, when women of educated and/or well-off backgrounds say they don’t date or won’t marry men who cannot provide, we don’t consider the shared similarities between them and women like Xoli. What’s the difference between Xoli caring for, or loving any one of her sexual partners, and the women whose primary requirement to wed was a man’s financial capabilities?

© Showmax

“This Body Works For Me” confirms that sex work wasn’t necessarily each woman’s initial life plan. This doesn’t change the fact that the cast members are adults making the best decisions they can with the information they have in the moment. 

Perhaps the better conversation to have interrogates the grave social issues pushing once-uninterested women into the sex industry.

Regardless of one’s moral perspectives, the following remains true: All bodies perform work and, for some, that work is rooted in the business of pleasure.