The Mia Khalifa Sex Work Paradox

Social justice warriors push sex work on young women like it’s some kind of “empowering” choice. Go be a stripper! A cam thot. A phone sex operator. A prostitute. A sugar baby. It’s something young women should try! Don’t believe me? Here are some titles I ran across doing nothing more than a quick Google search:

This Queer Rock Band’s New Music Video Honors Sex Workers

The sex work network we have been building is saving us during COVID-19

Sex Work is Real Work, and it’s Time to Treat it That Way

Trending: He Watched 9 Guys Run a Train On Her & Then Later Married Her

Why Sex Work Should Be Decriminalized | Human Rights Watch

Decriminalize Sex Work

Decriminalizing Sex Work: Some Activists Say It’s Time: NPR

How I Make $500k A Year As A Sex Worker

Swiss Say Sex Work Is OK But Not Judo in Virus Reopening

Sex Is Not the Problem with Sex Work

Incidentally, the links were almost universally positive. Nearly every article was either talking about how wonderful sex work is or urging that it be decriminalized. In other words, the basic message is, “If you’re a young, attractive woman, why aren’t you being paid to get naked right now?”

I find that to be an extremely interesting take given that one of the most famous sex workers in America is Mia Khalifia and she’s been making headlines recently because she wants to have it both ways on her career in pornography. What do I mean by that? This gives you a good idea:

Mia Khalifa may forever be stuck with her legacy of a short-lived adult film career, but she’s making it clear that that’s no longer who she is. Between her time as a sports commentator, a Twitch streamer, a YouTuber, and now, a TikTok star, she has made it clear that she’s more than just a porn star.

Then again, in the three months she worked as a pornstar, it’s clear that Mia Khalifa and her net worth were very much undervalued. Khalifa has been getting honest about her time with PornHub, and even opened up to the fact that she made a lot less money than you’d probably think while being a pornstar.

For how popular Khalifa has been on PornHub, even today, you’d think her royalties would be in the millions. But Mia Khalifa only made $12,000 for her three months in porn. Plus, she didn’t get any royalties for her videos, leaving her with only that for every video she filmed.

Keep in mind, Khalifa also got extreme death threats, hate comments, and just her reputation ruined after these videos, and she doesn’t see a penny even though she remained PornHub’s most searched performer for years.

Many claim that Khalifa still using her stage name knows the power audiences have. So even though she only got paid $12,000, she wouldn’t have the audience she has now if she didn’t do it in the first place. Now her net worth is estimated around $2 million, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that she was underpaid for the work she did.

Mia Khalifa is more successful than 99.9% of the women that do sex work and quite frankly, all of her success since then has been a result of that. Is that sugar baby or prostitute down on the corner going to benefit from sex work as much as Mia Khalifa has? Nope. Yet, Mia Khalifa incessantly complains about how her poor life choices are being held against her and how she is treated as a victim. Ironically, her fans, who #1) Probably tell women that sex work in empowering and #2) Almost certainly know her because she was a porn star, did a petition to try to get her porn videos taken down:

The 27-year-old urged people not to get into the adult industry earlier this week, claiming the films she made ‘will haunt me until I die’.

Khalifa – who has more than 20 million followers on Instagram – said the 11 films she made when she was 21 still play on her mind on a daily basis and she doesn’t want ‘another girl to go through that – because no one should’.

Now her fan base has launched a petition to get ‘justice for Mia’.

The petition reads: “The now 27-year-old Mia Khalifa appeared in the porn industry for a short span of three months in 2014 at the then age of 21. She was only paid $12k from the millions of dollars that Pornhub and BangBros make off her videos.

…”Mia and her team have provided countless financial offers to the current owners of her domain name and pornographic videos to no avail. Big corporations are not giving Mia Khalifa a fair chance to demand her content in court due to financial advantage.

“We are demanding her domain names be returned, her videos be removed and fairly discussed in court without putting Mia Khalifa into deep financial ruin. Mia has stated her regret for her decisions in the porn industry multiple times.

“Please consider signing this petition to support Mia Khalifa’s future endeavours and to bring her justice.”

Wait a second. If sex work is so empowering and is such a good idea, shouldn’t her fans be demanding that her videos be left up? Incidentally, even Mia Khalifa herself, who wants her videos taken down and says her career “will haunt her until she dies” is still talking up sex work:

“I’m not against sex work. I’m against the way the sex workers are treated, especially the young ones who want their lives back years down the line.”

Of course, that’s just it. The women that do sex work don’t get their “lives back years down the line.” They’re always going to have to live with the fact that they did sex work and that yes, people may remember it or find out about it and think worse of them for it. A lot of people are just going to treat you as persona non grata right out of the box if they know you did sex work and a good number of the ones that don’t are going to think of you as good for a lay and nothing more. This is why fathers don’t want their daughters to be prostitutes and why any guy would try to talk his sister out of being a sugar baby, even if he would use a sugar baby himself. The sort of people pushing sex work on young women don’t have their best interests at heart and Mia Khalifa is a great example of how that works, even if she’s too woke and hypocritical to admit it.