Noting that “organizations and advocates working to prevent sexual violence often assume that the sex industry fuels abuse, and that consent can’t exist in sex work,” Free Speech Coalition Industry Relations Advocate Lotus Lain and award-winning adult performer April Flores led a workshop last month at the 2023 National Sexual Assault Conference to push back against misinformation and stereotypes frequently voiced about sex work.

In the workshop, Flores and Lain focused on intimacy coordination and consent using strategies built by adult performers and content creators, showing activists that sex workers are actually leading the way on consent and worker safety.

“Sex workers know the complexities of consent better than anyone, and we need to own our expertise,” Lain said. “This isn’t a theoretical issue for us, and it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. As trained intimacy coordinators and sex workers, we’re constantly thinking about boundaries, safety and consent. This was a chance to share that knowledge with a mainstream audience.”

During the workshop, titled “Concepts of Consent from Intimacy Coordination and Sex Work,” Lain and Flores brought the experiences of and strategies developed by sex workers to an audience of police sexual assault investigators, youth sex educators trafficking survivor intake counselors and others who work to combat the harms of sexual assault and violence.

FSC noted that Lain and Flores are both “certified in intimacy coordination and use their experience as sex workers to inform the larger discussion over consent — a perspective that’s often missing.” In addition to her work in the industry, Lain has consulted on mainstream projects to create change around the portrayal of sex workers, and works with the ACLU toward decriminalization of sex work. Flores, a writer and advocate for positive body image, has been published in multiple anthologies and journals speaking on her experience as a fat performer, artist, activist, and sex worker.  Last year, the pair conducted a similar workshop for Valor, California’s state sexual assault coalition, at the ValorUS statewide conference.