I’m watching this ballet documentary abt how like underfunded most companies are and it’s vaguely touching on the topic of ballet dancers (specifically freelance ones who aren’t signed to a company) being majorly underpaid, and there’s this scene with like 3 girls who you just know literally have everything paid for them by their parents well into their 20s and one of them is saying “I’ve heard of some of these girls………..getting…..second jobs” and then the other equally naive girl is like “What you mean like at a cafe?” and the first girl is like “No….like…….sex jobs” and they all gasp and laugh.
And it’s meant to be like this big scandalous secret but like literally every ballet dancer I know is also a sex worker, the only ones that ever aren’t are the rich ones who have their parents paying their rent or like super famous soloists signed to companies and making bank. It’s just so fucking skeevy how often anything that talks about the intersection of performing arts and sex work often does so with like a really disgusting voyeuristic tone as if they’re uncovering some ~dark secret~ about it, it’s almost funny how naive they are if it weren’t also incredibly boring. Like how many girls do you know of that actually earn a decent living doing ballet?? Ofc the industry is gonna be full of sex workers! No one makes any fucking money. You’re not Edgar fucking Degas for realising this.