The brief analysis sketched out below uses a nineteenth-century European painting as a point of access into a discussion of sex work as a concept, unpacking why it is disruptive to a white bourgeois worldview that persists today… ahem, cultural hegemony (the worldview of the ruling class comes to be accepted as the cultural norm). It is only a brief engagement with the highly complex question of sex work. It does not address different types of sex work, nor does it delve into a nuanced intersectional analysis that would address demographics, race, sexuality, disability, gender expression, and age. The reader should keep in mind that racial and ethnic minorities are overrepresented in the sex industry in North America because of the violent legacies of colonialism.  Finally, the decriminalization of sex work is a racial justice issue, a feminist imperative, and crucial to the protection of vulnerable members of the queer community.