Whores – Making American Great Again

Whores are part of the financial backbone that puts food on America’s tables and a roof over the head of millions. Yet, those who put their bodies and reputations on the line remain powerless. The majority of society looks down on them, while happily exploiting them, both sexually and financially.

By Hamilton Steele

There are 3 powerful and money rich industries who teach the public to view whores as social garbage. They are the banks, government /law and order industry and now big tech. Literal financial empires are being built on the backs of sex workers. Over $700 billion a year of business is created by marginalizing and criminalizing prostitution. Ironically, even the activist groups lobbying for the rights of sex workers owe their livelihoods to them.

The banks are the single biggest winner

Globally, the sex industry generates over $100 billion usd each year. (https://www.green.money/adult-report).

This amount of money makes you believe that it’s in a financial institution’s best interests to do business with the sex industry. Yet, a prostitute, providing incall from her home, will never be given the opportunity to accept credit card payments from a client. Instead, a 3rd party middle man is needed to help ‘legitimize’ the source of the earnings. Some are legitimate businesses, such as nail salons, who backdoor credit card processing by claiming the purchase was for a different service. Others, like massage parlors, exist in a legal gray zone. All that’s important to know is the hooker earns less and is now open to extortion by the individual(s) handling the transaction.

Banking institutions don’t want to directly deal with the sex industry and the question is why. The short answer is public image and potential legal costs. The more accurate response requires examining how a prostitute’s money finds its way into the financial system.

Using the nail salon as an example; it’s a verifiable legitimate business. The owner makes a deal with a prostitute, that normally sees them keeping 40% to 60% of the total transaction. For the bank, this deal results in more fees and greater amounts of money being deposited. Meanwhile for the owner, the salon is earning greater profits, which also increases her business’ market value, without the need of costly expansion or work. An ancillary effect of this agreement is that the government also benefits by being able to collect more taxes. (The 40% to 60% more then covers the increase in expenses).

Another, less complicated method is the sex worker takes on a 2nd but legitimate job. This approach has many benefits to the banks. Chiefly, it makes a prostitute eligible for loans, credit cards and mortgages, which are profitable products for banks. To the uniformed public, this might sound like a good solution. But these are never high paying, prestigious jobs, and they always offer less than could be made as a sex worker, so it becomes a balancing act. Unfortunately, one of the largest reasons many people chose the profession, is because of a single parent situation. And these legitimate jobs, mean less time spent directly raising their families and often increases in childcare costs.

It’s this type of situations which cause many modern prostitutes to accept the difficulty of not being able to fully access the banking system. Needless to say that in 2025 America, it can be very difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to rent an apartment, pay bills and access healthcare without a bank account.

Over 80% of sex workers have reported trouble accessing essential financial services. (https://www.ft.com/content/48e5d1a9-a132-4b11-8be8-47f63903f1c1). Nothing says exploitation and stigmatization more than having a pocket full of money and no one willing to accept it from you.

The legal system comes in next.

I don’t understand why prostitution is illegal. Selling is legal, fucking is legal. So why isn’t it legal to sell fucking? Why should it be illegal to sell something that’s legal to give away? – George Carlin

The American “Law and Order” industry totaled $762.7 billion USD in 2024 or, approximately 2.5% of total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States) It’s safe to say that tens of thousands of jobs in policing, courts, and corrections are justified by keeping prostitution illegal. It’s not difficult to see that without prostitutes, there would be a lot of unemployed people.

The four main job creation sectors are :

Police (patrol officers, vice squads and specialized units.)
Courts and Legal professionals (prosecutors, public defenders, judges, clerks and probation officers)
Corrections: (prison staff, administrators and private contractors)
Ancillary Jobs : (social services, bail bondsmen and the criminal records industry)

Unfortunately, these institutions force workers into physically risky and isolated situations. The fines, if caught, are many times what the sex worker is typically earning. And the amount demanded of a whore’s earnings, increases with subsequent arrests. This causes a vicious circle, where the system is pimping the girl to pay her fines, and hopefully avoid or reduce her time in prison. So it is in the interest of jurisdictions to continue to pursue criminalization of consensual adult sex work. Because it looks good to voters and the more they crack down, the more money is pilfered from the whores. Making a desperate or bad financial situation, worse.

Those who exchange sex for money are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement. It’s a sad and pathetic fact that the police are responsible for 33% of the abuse and violence against prostitutes. A very common tactic employed is to demand free sexual services from a whore in exchange for being let go with a warning. Without surprise, this also commonly results in situations where there is zero evidence of a crime, but officers use their positions to directly extort sex from whores. Or, in more vulgar and easier to understand terms, raping a whore is good for a nation’s economy, so a blind eye is turned the officers who do it. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_abuse_of_sex_workers_in_the_United_States).

Big Tech comes in 3rd place

It’s the illegality of prostitution and it’s difficulties, which drive many to attempt becoming content creators. Fear of arrests, having bank accounts ceased and possibly being blackmailed by law enforcement or others which makes many accept the long hours of work involved in this public and pornographic exposure. But, because it can be done from home, there’s a thin veil of legitimacy.

In the 21st century, many sex workers are increasingly turning to digital intermediaries; often camming or fan platforms. But, yet again they’re severely underpaid while the middlemen earn large sums from their work. These sites offer less physical risk, but there’s no promises of anonymity, no protection from online stalkers. Unlike pornstars in the past, who were effectively only a stage name on a DVD cover, today’s sex entertainer has their ID and other personal information in an electronic database and not on paper in a file cabinet. Their lives can easily be ruined by a single hacker, overzealous law enforcement or an obsessed fan. (And sometimes even an employee of the site).

OnlyFans has grown to be synonymous with online sex work. Their worldwide reach has made the owner a billionaire several times over. It is toted in the media as easy money by focusing on the top 10% of the creators, most of whom are established celebrities or influencers who grew a fan base on non-adult platforms like youtube and twitch. Having established themselves, they move over to a fansites. These platforms are little more than a webhost, such as weebly, with the ablility to accept paypal. Doing this only adds to the platform income, not their workload.
But for the other 90%, starting from scratch, they quickly find that themselves, one among millions. All offering the same sort of “allowed” content, all being exploited by freeloaders and game players, all being considered whores, even if they never touch anyone but themselves. What’s worse is, for all that, this vast majority endure, they would earn more in a day as a street hooker, than they will in a month on any fansite.

These platforms might collapse should it become common knowledge that vast majority of creators don’t earn enough money in a month to pay for groceries.

It’s highly unethical to advertise false promises of wealth just so these big tech corporations can mass harvest sex workers for their platforms. Skimming 20% of the meager earnings from literally millions of digital whores. In some advocacy and academic circles, it’s been argued that this is a new form digital slave labor. What’s happening here is exploitation in its purest forum. The people who, in various ways, exchange their sexual favors for an income, are proverbially screwed. Not by the johns or fans, but by everyone who’s positioned themselves in between the sex worker and their client.

Whores, and all other sex workers, are safest and earn the most when they’re allowed full control over how they manage themselves and their business. On the Internet, the various platforms change terms, throttle accounts and suspend payouts. Nullifying the creator’s hard work, and leaving her in a precarious position, because she can’t access the money needed to pay her rent, and utilities.

Comparing the past to the present

In contrast, the 1970s NYC street hooker’s pimp, might have been a violent and reactionary manager, but he wasn’t handling more than a handful of girls. Tasked with making each of them street smart while protecting them from bad tricks, his success was directly tied to theirs.
Ignoring for the moment, the controversy surrounding the violence and criminality, a sex worker of that era knew the score and how to avoid inciting her pimp. In return, the pimp provided protection and safe guarded the money. A series of nights with little to no income didn’t result in homelessness. Furthermore, a client’s complaints weren’t met with unconditional acceptance. More often, the pimp would take the side of the whore, or he’d have trouble keeping girls.

Today, by comparison, it’s the sex worker who is banned, has her funds seized, often with no adequate explanation, and certainly without recourse. All the while the platforms maintain ownership of content, and funds from recurring billing. Plus because they have the creator’s government ID, they can prevent her from starting over.

The moral calculus

Without a doubt, society financially profits from whores. Sex workers do the heavy lifting while risking arrest, abuse and facing stigma in an economy that depends significantly on their labor. Meanwhile intermediaries, platforms and government institutions pull in larger profits off of the backs of whores. These institutions are behaving like pimps who take more than they offer. But they remain free from public scrutiny, as well as legal and moral accountability. Willful ignorance, on the part of the general public, allows this institutionalized injustice to continue.

Regardless if the whore is a street hooker, an escort, pornstar, massage parlor attendant or a Fansite creator, we must ask: “Why are billions of dollars being transferred to platforms, banks, corporations and government, taken from those actually doing the work?” it’s time that we shifted the balance: from middlemen exploitation to worker empowerment, from stigma and shame to respect and dignity.
Real change happens by acknowledging that sex work is not a crime or shame, and that it should be recognized as labor.