British TV host and prolific documentarian Louis Theroux returns to one of his favorite subjects on Monday: sex work. In earlier BBC documentaries—all of which star Theroux as the perpetually bemused, slightly awkward (in a very English way) interviewer—the now-49-year-old Theroux has explored the porn industry in Southern California and the legalized sex work business in Nevada, as well as other, even more outré sex-related subjects.
Theroux’s new film, Selling Sex, debuts Monday night in the United Kingdom on BBC2, and according to a review by Britain’s Independent newspaper, is based on the premise that is “social media has made it easier to sell sex online.”
"We discovered that the sexual economy seems to have been turbo-charged by the prevalence of new websites and social media that allow users to meet up more easily, to write reviews of each other, and swap information,” Theroux said, as quoted by The Express newspaper in England. "What we ended up with was a very intimate look at three very individual women and the different paths that led them to this field of work.”
In what The Guardian newspaper called “a fine exploration of a potentially sensationalist, exploitative topic,” Theroux’s new doc profiles three sex workers, including 23-year-old Ashleigh, whom the newspaper described as “a student with Asperger syndrome who streamed live sex shows from her home for several years before selling sex to pay her way through art school.”
Theroux also profiles a “sixtysomething former dental nurse” who claims to have entered the sex work profession despite a 44-year marriage because “a friend who had done the same joked that she should try it.” (Or so she told Theroux, apparently.)
Theroux’s third subject is a 33-year-old single mother of four who has been taking on four clients per day—during the work week, at least—for the past four years.
According to a report by Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, the sex worker identified in the film as “Ashleigh” has already claimed publicly that Theroux misrepresented her, and came into the show with an “agenda” to prove that “women go into sex work because bad things have happened to them.”
Unlike the Guardian and Independent, however, the Telegraph was less than enamored with Theroux’s Selling Sex documentary, granting it a paltry two of five stars, and dismissing it as “tired.”
The Telegraph reviewer also noted that Theroux’s ostensible premise, that social media has made sex work more accessible, is “hardly a revelation.”
Photo By BBC Studios Publicity
