Rudyard Kipling’s 1888 line about Lalun being a member of ‘the most ancient profession in the world’ helped cement a long‑standing euphemism for selling sex. That indirect language made the subject easier to mention and easier to contain: naming the work in veiled terms reflected and reinforced moral discomfort.
The Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn explores this history in its exhibition ‘Sex Work: A Cultural History,’ bringing together art, archives, legal records and contemporary testimony to show how societies have represented, regulated and experienced sex work. Curators call the field ‘terrain permeated by moralizing and highly political discourses’ — a reminder that public debate often shapes, and distorts, perceptions of the people who do this work.
A central thread of the show is language. A glossary of terms traces how labels have changed over time and what those words made visible or hidden. Co‑curator and sex worker activist Ernestine Pastorello points out that shifting labels make historical research difficult: legal and official documents commonly used euphemisms, and the 19th‑century label ‘prostitute’ might be applied to any woman judged ‘too visible’ in public life, regardless of whether she sold sex. The term was often broadened to include women in poverty, those with addictions or anyone seen as socially deviant, leaving a legacy of stigma that complicates both historical records and modern debate.
Language also served state power. In the Soviet Union and other Communist Bloc countries, authorities prosecuted some people under laws against ‘social parasites’ — a category for able‑bodied adults allegedly not engaged in ‘socially useful work.’ Labeling people this way let police and officials decide who counted as legitimate laborers and who could be punished for existing outside official employment systems.
Placed side by side, the glossary’s entries reveal assumptions about class, gender and worth. Some words explicitly mark marginalization: the derogatory German term ‘Stricher,’ mainly applied to men selling sex, comes from ‘auf den Strich gehen’ (‘walking the beat’) and became associated in the 1990s and early 2000s with street‑based male sex work around Berlin’s Bahnhof Zoo, carrying connotations of urban exclusion and stigma.
The digital era added new vocabulary and new economic arrangements. Terms like ‘porn performer’ and platform names such as OnlyFans capture how performers increasingly create and distribute work directly to audiences. Some people embrace the label ‘sex worker’; others prefer terms such as ‘performer,’ ‘escort’ or choose not to identify with occupational language at all.
Language is also a site of political struggle. The term ‘sex work’ itself was coined in the late 1970s by US activist Carol Leigh to describe an activity without moral judgement. That shift from moral labeling to occupational framing helped create space for organizing, representation and rights claims. Pastorello supports the term because it names ‘nothing more and nothing less than what is actually being discussed’ — an economic exchange that provides support — and because it offers a clearer basis for arguing for protections and collective bargaining.
But ‘sex work’ is contested. Critics focused on trafficking and exploitation, including groups such as the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women and scholars like Gunilla Ekberg, warn that occupational language can obscure coercion and the socioeconomic pressures that push people into selling sex. The dispute illustrates a broader truth: words can illuminate some experiences while rendering others less visible.
For Pastorello, calling it work is a practical step toward rights. Recognizing sex work as labor opens conversations about safety, social protections and unionization. She argues that demanding empowerment as a precondition for recognition is backward: rights should not depend on subjective judgments about whether a job is empowering, but on the principle that people who sell sex deserve the same protections as other workers.
Taken together, the exhibition frames sex work as a cultural and linguistic problem as much as a legal or moral one. Understanding begins with noticing the power of words — which lives they include, which they exclude, and how those choices shape policy and public perception.
The exhibition ‘Sex Work: A Cultural History’ runs at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn through October 25, 2026.
Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier