Sex workers are the heroes in 'The White Lotus' Season 2

I feel like a whore when I ride through the lobby of fancy hotels.

This is a very good reason. I usually get access to such places when I meet a client there for a domination session. Like a whore, what I mean is confident, self-sufficient, and more than a little reckless, just like Lucia and Mia in the second season of The White Lotus.

Mike White's depiction of upscale escort is very nicely done. In the lounge bathroom, a person applies lipgloss. The bar is being broken for marks. Figuring out suspicious employees. The meals were to be charged to the client. When storytellers ignore the subjective experience of sex working characters, we rarely get these details.

There are secrets, lies, suspicion, and mystery in the series. Sex workers have become the story's triumphant heroes after the final episode of the season aired. We followed some questionable twists and turns regarding threatening pimps, envelopes of cash, and blurred lines of emotional labor, but more than anyone else Lucia and Mia were aware of what they wanted from the situation. They are not only surviving, but thriving in their happy end.

The White Lotus's binding agents

Lucia and Mia are in Sicily and watch a group of wealthy tourists arrive at the hotel. An American film producer on a family vacation has been corresponding with Industrious Lucia through her online profile. She alludes to getting started in the business of selling foot pics on social media. She claims that she can make a lot of money whenever she wants.

Mia was taken aback when Giuseppe assumed she was also available for rent. Mia learns the value of sexual attention after seeing Lucia in action.

These two women are the binding agents for the show's intersecting storylines and they come up in the background in miniskirts and heels. They are consistently loyal, compassionate, and encouraging of each other's dreams. They were able to get immunity from being kicked out of the pool club because they were given guest status at the hotel.

Lucia is sitting on a lounge chair looking at the Ionian Sea. She seems to think that the television audience thinks that all whores are punished in the end. The identity of the person who will die in Season 2 won't be revealed for a few episodes. Lucia was reminded by Mia that her Serotonin was not enough from partying. She says having sex knowing what you will get out of it is not bad.

Mia wants to pursue her dream of becoming a professional musician. She's more interested in access than cash. She knows that her talent will get her what she wants as long as she sings well. She seduces Giuseppe because he promised to introduce her to his coworkers. This farcical scenario ends with Mia singing a song called "The Best Things in Life Are Free" at the lounge. She wants to get the job because she dislikes the hotel manager. Mia realized that Valentina is gay and the manager offered to give her a birthday present of hot sex in exchange for a stable job.

Lucia and Albie are related to Dom's son. Lucia began a long con to get more money out of this wealthy family, as Albie wanted to save a wounded bird from her circumstances.

Albie (Adam DiMarco) thought Lucia (Simona Tabasco) needed saving. Credit: Fabio Lovino/HBO

Subverting the sex worker fantasy — and tropes

Sex workers understand fantasy better than anyone else. The embrace of a woman who tells you you've done alright is what Dom's father thinks will happen. Dom thinks he can get away with keeping a smart, respectable wife and pussy as long as he wants. Theo James surrendered to the power play of the other person. Jack is a sex worker who was hired to distract Portia from her desires by having a hot vacation fling with an assertive European man.

Albie doesn't know what to do when Lucia tries to collect her fee the next day. He doesn't mind paying, he's just not sure he would have to. Lucia mumbled, "there is a man who will ask me for the money and, uh, he's crazy." "I would totally fuck you for free, but you don't want to get me in trouble with my violent pimp, do you?" is the exact thing you say to a client when you're confused about how to settle up.

Lucia doesn't need a man. Even if she makes the mistake of not getting the money upfront, she is still a broker. The pimp scam props up a fantasy shared by many straight men that a fallen woman's sins can be forgiven by the love of a good man. Straight men love the chance to get dirty more than the chance to purify a woman.

I fell in love with Lucia's con for a few episodes, and was disappointed that the show was stuck in a rut. Sex workers in a poor region of Italy live in fear of traffickers. Sex workers can use internet platforms to connect directly with clients, cutting out the need for a controlling man to find clients and dictate her behavior. Sex worker rights movements have been fighting against American laws that make it difficult for sex workers to connect with clients and each other for safety.

Albie's wounded bird fantasy is a classic. Sex workers know that their clients need to believe that they are special, even if they don't have a blowjob. They think you would like them even if they were not paying. They want you to believe that they are as special to you as you are to them. One of the slogans of the sex worker labor movement is "rights not rescue!", which is why many of them want to believe they can redeem us.

Lucia knows that it's believable and exciting for Albie to think that she needs him because she has no agency. He's smarting from the fact that he may have been humiliated once or twice at Stanford. Albie is also committed to the ethics of consent and honesty, and all three of them are finding that in eros. Albie believes he can keep his good guy cred while also being able to rescue a girl and bring her home with him, which is why he thinks Lucia is dependent on him. He convinced his father to give Lucia fifty thousand euro.

Albie assumed that an exotic beautiful girl from a foreign island wouldn't have her own agency. Lucia used Albie's fantasy of her inability to help herself in her scam.

As the season comes to a close, Albie sighs and says he got his daddy to pay a premium rate for several nights of Aupair, and that Lucia earned every cent.

White Lotus made me smile because it dramatized the most honest and lasting relationships in the sex industry. It was reminiscent of the fellow sex workers I've been with in hotels, we could never afford a nicer place to stay, but we knew what we could gain from it. Sex workers are more than just window dressing and foils for more "respectable" women. Sex workers themselves being employed to create more fully realized characters with inner lives, complex relationships to their work, and a special talent to decipher the sexual mysteries that confound us all should be a result of this season's popularity.