I don’t really play video games anymore. Maybe corporations are putting out inferior products, or maybe I’m just getting older. But one game series that will always be exciting is Grand Theft Auto. Each installment is full of action-packed gameplay and open worlds you can explore at your own pace. And even when you don’t want to move the story along, just cruising around listening to the radio is a good time. Playing GTA III growing up was even more thrilling because parents protested the game’s violent content. But it’s not like the media we consume influences us, right?
Video games don’t make people suddenly become violent; they do, however, shape our worldview. GTA games feature unrealistic aspects of world design. As the name implies, stealing cars and taking them for joyrides is a major part of the gameplay. You simply walk up to any vehicle, press one button, and you’re in. The police might try to arrest you, but they’re easily evaded—and even if you do get caught, you just lose a bit of your exorbitant in-game cash. In reality, stealing a car can ruin someone’s life, leading to heavy fines and actual incarceration.
GTA games also allow limited interaction with sex workers, but they’re treated as objects who boost the player’s health rather than as fully human characters like other NPCs (Non-Player Characters). It’s even beneficial to kill them afterward to get your money back—a fate that’s all too common for real sex workers.
It’s not just video games. When sex workers are depicted in any media, it’s almost always in a negative light. Shows like Law & Order use them as props—dead bodies that push the plot forward. Music often uses terms synonymous with sex work as insults. Even the Bible portrays sex workers as people who have done wrong and need to be “saved.” The framing of sex workers as passive objects is woven throughout our culture.
Even the language we’re taught to use when talking about sex work is derogatory and dehumanizing. Words like whore and prostitute clearly carry negative connotations meant to shame sex workers. It’s not the violence or drug use that makes GTA so culturally influential—it’s the way it shapes language and perception.
One thing GTA does get right, though, is that the police are the enemy. Real life anti–sex work legislation is rooted in stripping sex workers of agency while legitimizing state violence against them. Police officers often berate, humiliate, dox, assault, and steal from sex workers before locking them up—all while claiming to be “protecting” them.
Because of this anti–sex work atmosphere, the general public often adopts the same attitudes as the police. That’s why so many sex workers use aliases and hide their identities—not out of shame, but for safety. In some cities, the murder of a sex worker doesn’t even make the news.
There is a genuine hatred toward sex workers. Some people actively wish for them to be eradicated. That hatred doesn’t develop naturally—and it’s not just from one problematic video game. It’s cultivated by the collective influence of our society.
If we want to see a better world, it starts with trying to understand each other. When we truly study sex work instead of dismissing it, it becomes an essential piece in understanding human history. Wherever history was happening, sex work was happening too. From ancient Greek mythology to the Renaissance paintings, sex work has always been part of media—not always depicted negatively, either. Sex work played a significant role in primitive accumulation: the capital built up under feudalism that fueled the rise of capitalism. Sex workers won’t disappear just because some people don’t like them.
Sex work is often dismissed as lacking skill, but making ends meet as a sex worker requires far more than just lying in bed. In today’s world, it takes photography, modeling, web design, marketing, and resource management. We don’t associate those skills with sex work because the media only shows sex workers having sex—or being killed.
Grand Theft Auto games are fun. I like throwing sticky bombs out of the car at top speed in GTA V. I can’t remember any of the cheat codes from GTA III, but my hands do—I can give myself extra ammo without even thinking about it. The point of critiquing media isn’t to hate it. It’s so we can enjoy it more consciously, despite its flaws. And any game that lets you throw grenades at cops is alright in my opinion.
All media created by the bourgeoisie is meant to erode working-class consciousness. Yes, the police are the enemy in GTA games—but you still end up serving capital, starting with buying the game itself. Most in-game missions involve you performing labor that makes money for someone else. And along the way, you hurt your fellow workers—stealing from them, killing them, running them over. Even starting a fight just to see how long you can survive becomes entertainment.
We don’t see many able-bodied, cis, white men entering sex work. Instead, it’s often disabled people, trans folks, and women—those more likely to be excluded from the traditional workforce. So it makes sense that capitalists would exploit those divisions. They want us fighting each other. Anti–sex work rhetoric is just another way the bourgeoisie conditions workers to hate one another, preventing the proletariat from uniting.
Karl Marx wrote about how exploitative prostitution was under bourgeois control in his time. He never condemned sex work in general––and certainly wouldn’t under modern conditions that include third-wave feminism and the internet. Marx said, “Workers of the world, unite!” That includes sex workers. They’re part of the proletariat, and we won’t have a revolution in the first world without as many people on our side as possible.
We shouldn’t judge people for being conditioned by capitalism. The bourgeoisie has spent millions convincing us to hate our fellow workers. What we should do is understand propaganda better, so we can fight it more effectively. It’s okay to enjoy problematic content—as long as we’re willing to interrogate its flaws.
The revolution isn’t an action-packed thrill ride like in video games. It’s a long, slow process where one class builds itself up. And that begins with how we treat each other. While capitalists pump out propaganda to divide us, one of the most radical things we can do in our daily lives is treat one another better. It’s not just games like GTA that influence us—we influence each other.
