The Virgin and the Whore: Workers In Struggle Against Labor Invisibility
Interview with Leopoldina Fortunati
By Adore Goldman and Melina May
Paint by Zero

A&M: In The Arcane of Reproduction, you show how the domestic labor of housewives within the capitalist family creates surplus value by reproducing labor power. Indeed, cleaning, washing, caring for children, cooking – all this unpaid labor provided to the worker and to future workers – is appropriated by Capital. Thus, the capitalist saves on the reproduction of their labor power. Women, therefore, find themselves both subject to the capitalist and dependent on men’s wages to survive. Of course, this model has become more complex with women entering the labor market and the creation of social services, but the majority of social reproductive labor is still performed by women, and work within the family remains essential to the reproduction of the labor force.
In your analysis, what is the role of prostitution in the process of reproduction, and how does it relate to the unpaid sex work within the capitalist family? Are there historical links between the struggle of sex workers and the struggle for wages for housework?
Leopoldina: To begin with, I have always said that prostitution has a function on a productive, social, and political level. On a productive level because it is the same process that exists in households. The only thing that changes is the payment, but a payment for which women pay the high cost of social contempt.
The entire history of monetization predates capitalism by several centuries, back to the Roman Empire and even Ancient Greece. Prostitution arises with monetization. A friend of mine in Washington is currently researching this history. In their research, it’s clear that this process, for the first time, allowed women to build a dowry. Because monetization put the marriage market in crisis, it was [initially] adolescent women who were about to marry who prostituted themselves for a period of time in temples to earn money.
If we return to capitalism, there has always been great pride among the working class regarding the money earned in factories. It was money earned through blood and sweat. It was considered a sin for women to do sex work, to be proud of the money they earned. So, we understand that even if the material productive process of organizing domestic labor and the process of prostitution is exactly the same, there is this small detail that acts as a key to pit women against each other. It is a monetization that has always been used against the lack of monetization of domestic work. Of course, on the political and social levels, the two spheres, while identical, are set up to be played against each other.
For me, it was really clear when we started feminist struggles that the first fight to undertake was to be united because unity among women is fundamental. If we accept being divided, if we accept having these two spheres in opposition, we will never achieve anything. I must say that in the early 70s, the need to restore unity in the women’s struggle, to not accept being pitted against each other, was very clear, and there was a tremendous struggle during those years. For example, prostitutes in France occupied a church to protest the living conditions they were forced to endure 3. In my region, [Padua, Italy], there was a network of prostitutes’ committees fighting for independence, for autonomy in managing their bodies and their money, that is, to destroy the figure of the pimp. So, we always fought together. We were in the same mobilizations, meaning they even came to our mobilizations, those of the committee [for wages for housework], etc.
It has been different for feminist movements in general. Feminist movements have always had a lot of problems, in the same way that they now have problems with trans people – particularly trans women. It’s terrible. There have always been problems in the political vision of feminist movements in general because they thought that their struggle was different, and that naturally led to nothing. Simply to the weakening of each other’s struggles.
In our networks, we were fully aware of the necessity of this unity of struggles and of understanding how to organize a political program that united us. For example, the struggle for abortion rights was something we all had in common, as well as the struggle for the right to contraception, the struggle for the right to decide our sexuality, and the struggle for wages for housework.
The struggle for wages for domestic work was important, even for sex workers, because it is important for women to have money at home. Otherwise, they are always in competition downward, because if there is nothing [for the sexual labor done at home], naturally, even when you decide to do sex work, the prices are low. Whereas, if there is money, you have more possibilities to negotiate.
Similarly, in the sex industry, many of us work alone, isolated from our colleagues, and when we do have some semblance of a workplace, the criminalization and surveillance of it make organizing particularly difficult.
Moreover, nowadays, technologies play a predominant role within our households, social services, and our sexualities. As you write:
The power of men as a social group has been reassembled through these technologies, which function as tools of reproductive labor, enabling the direct penetration of capital into the immaterial spheres of individual reproduction.
For sex workers, technology has become indispensable: a significant portion of the work has moved online, through the use of social media, advertising platforms, or erotic content sales platforms like OnlyFans.
In your research, you explore, among other things, the impacts of technology on sexualities. How do these technologies mediate gender relations, particularly through the use of the Internet and other information technologies? What parallels can you draw between the organizational challenges faced by housewives and those encountered by sex workers? How can these challenges be overcome?
Leopoldina: Working in isolation is increasingly the norm. It’s either the brothel, like in the factory, or the profession, which resembles the condition of housewives, meaning each of us works at home or on the streets. But alone!
It’s clear that digital technologies have a significant impact on women: they push them backward in terms of communication. We’ve regressed after the advent of computers and the Internet. Men are still more knowledgeable than us because computers belong to their tradition.
A second factor is the terrible social isolation caused by all these technologies, especially in the home, where it has worsened. There are many families who sit around a table to eat, and each person is on their mobile phone. They are present and absent at the same time.
Work platforms have modernized the role of pimps. They are the [new] pimps. They are the ones profiting from women’s labor. They have modernized it through technology, but it’s the same role. They take the money, and since there is intense isolation, there’s no longer the physical security that pimps used to guarantee in some way. This marks a shift in the organization of sex work. We’ve gone from the division of labor in sex-factories to isolation. Now, it’s much harder to organize and act collectively because we don’t know where to find one another. On the other hand, we are controlled by these platforms. At the same time, if they were shut down, many would be impacted because they depend on them; these platforms hold significant power over the control and management of sex work.
At the same time, there is a sort of normalization of sex work because it is more accepted through technology and is treated differently, culturally and socially, within civil society. This issue needs to be studied seriously because there are academic articles that address these technologies but fail to understand the political significance of what is happening. How do you get in touch? How much money does the platform keep, and how much does it give you? In other words, it’s about studying the details of the contract.

A: It seems to me that there’s also something interesting regarding who works for these platforms, especially those who are directly employed, likely mostly male programmers. In comparison, we earn our income through the platform, which takes a share of that money, but we have no labor law protections.
Leopoldina: So, there is a lot more social isolation because a significant part of sex work has become immaterial and online. Massages and a few other activities continue. We need to understand the proportion of workers engaged in online versus offline work, as I don’t know, but I get the impression that many young people prefer online work because there’s no physical contact: it’s simply a narrative they create in front of the camera.
M: Yes, even when you do in-person work, you’ll have a whole online job to do to promote your services, then feeding your escort persona by doing social media, etc.
Leopoldina: And then there’s the idea that you, you’re free, you can do it whenever you want, whenever you have free time. Whereas [in-person] sex work has specific hours, it’s in the evening when people aren’t working or during times when people are on their work break.
There is also a lot of unpaid digital sex work. It’s built into the physiology of the internet. And many people don’t know the difference between activity and work; they think it’s a matter of personal expression. Above all, there’s a lot of confusion among young people, who do a lot of unpaid sex work, thereby creating massive competition.
And another important thing is that many states are shifting to the right. The right is about God, family, and social order. For example, there have already been terrible signs regarding abortion in the United States, but also everywhere else. There’s a step backward in this area, and I expect it will also impact sex work. That’s why we need to be even more united, all of us in the same political program, in the same struggle, etc. Because otherwise, we risk being really really weak.
A&M: In our workplaces, it is common to have colleagues who hold salaried positions in social services, such as teaching and healthcare. For many of us, sex work serves as a supplementary job to another that doesn’t pay well enough. The widespread lack of recognition for reproductive labor, whether it is performed at home, in massage parlors, or in hospitals, weakens the most marginalized populations and exposes those who perform it to exhaustion and various forms of violence.
In your opinion, how does the fight for wages for housework represent an important and necessary point of convergence today to unite women in struggle?
Leopoldina: This goal is fundamental, even for sex workers, because otherwise, they face competition. That’s why, afterwards, there’s a general weakness among women everywhere, whether in sex work or in jobs outside the home. We are always in the lowest-paid, most precarious professions, and so on. Naturally, who is the ideal person to accept crumbs instead of real money?
And so the issue is this: if someone organizes something, others must support them. That is, if you organize political initiatives, for example in front of massage parlors, we need to come and support you, and you need to support us, for instance, if we organize a women’s strike. In this way, the struggles of one become the struggles of the other, that they are united with each other politically. And gradually, they must become part of the political program of the network at the international level.
A&M: It’s a way to maintain autonomous struggles while bringing them together.
Leopoldina: It’s very important for each group to undertake their own struggles, but what’s equally important is that these struggles are part of the same program and that others support them.

Glossary:
Workerism: Workerism is an Italian Marxist current, active mainly in the 60s and 70s. This tendency advocates for workers’ autonomy from political parties and trade unions, prioritizing instead the organization of workers’ committees within factories.
Labor power: Labor power is the commodity that a worker sells to the capitalist, the only one they possess. It is their physical capacity to work. Labor power is a unique commodity because it is the only one capable of creating value.
Surplus value: In the Marxist tradition, surplus value is the value created by a worker that the capitalist appropriates. For example, in an 8-hour workday, a worker may produce a value equivalent to their wage during the first 4 hours, while the remaining 4 hours generate surplus value, which the capitalist pockets. Marxist feminists have argued that domestic labor and sex work, by reproducing the commodity “labor power,” are also sources of surplus value, as they are essential to the functioning of the capitalist system.
Capital, capitalist: Capital refers to an accumulation of money that generates more money. The capitalist is an individual or entity that owns the means of production and employs workers to generate surplus value.
Reproductive labor: Refers to all activities and services that serve to reproduce human beings as well as “labor power,” such as childcare, domestic work, sex work, and elder care, whether this work is paid or unpaid.
Monetization: The process by which money – in the era of gold and silver – is introduced as a means of paying for a commodity.
1. For all underlined words, please refer to the glossary at the end of the text to better understand the Marxist concepts. ↩
2. Leopoldina Fortunati. (1995). The Arcane of Reproduction: Housework, Prostitution, Labor and Capital. Autonomedia ↩
3. She makes reference here to the occupation of the Saint-Nizier church by the sex workers of Lyon in 1975. To learn more: Lilian Mathieu. (1999). “Une mobilisation improbable: l’occupation de l’Église Saint-Nizier”, Revue française de sociologie, vol. 40, no.3, p.475-483. in Luttes XXX, Inspirations du mouvement des travailleuses du sexe, 2011, Les Éditions du remue-ménage. ↩
4. Leopoldina Fortunati. (2022). Production et reproduction: l’apparente antithèse du mode de production capitaliste, Revue Ouvrage ↩
5. Ibid.↩
6. Leopoldina Fortunati. (2023). Les femmes et la communication numérique: où en sommes-nous?, Revue Ouvrage ↩