A Cross-Section of All Problems in Sex Work: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

YESTERDAY – The Balkans Between Honey and Blood

Everyone allowed to read this text is of legal age. This means you don't need a recap of the basic history of our region. The Balkans – or in other words: the space between honey and blood – has always been a space of intersections. Of cultures, empires, trade routes, religions, wars, and interests. And with them, sex work.

Every country, every city, and every region of the former common state has its rich, often silenced history of sexual culture. If we go back far enough, we speak of sexual rituals, concubines to powerful leaders, animated ladies in taverns along transit routes. Later, these became streets, parks, railway stations, casinos, bars, hotels. Thus – slowly, organically, inevitably – one of the oldest subcultures in our lands developed.

If the proverbial truth holds that prostitution is the oldest profession, then pimping, management, and intermediation are undoubtedly the second oldest profession. Due to the nature of the work, the people involved, and power relations, this symbiosis – or parasitism – has existed for centuries and continues today. As the preacher in the Bible says: “All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it.” Sex work is no exception.

The pimp did not emerge from a void. He emerged as a response to real dangers. His “role” was clear: concern for safety (a key problem in the past), logistics and accommodation (women alone were easy targets for abuse and fraud), marketing and work with supporting members (at a time when classifieds did not exist).

But the line between protection and exploitation has always been thin. You could quickly end up in slavery. Or at the stake. Or in prison. Or erased from society. Besides violence, diseases were also a constant – related to hygiene, ignorance, and lack of health care. It is ironic that we still face this problem today, despite all progress.

TODAY – Between Digital Freedom and the Gray Zone

Today, sex work has incomparably more genres. They have developed either due to changes in demand or due to technological progress. Somewhere work is legal, elsewhere regulated, and elsewhere pushed into complete illegality. But where there is a will, there has always been a way. The supporting member – regardless of repression, stigma, or obstacles – has always found an offer.

Pimping has transformed. Physical violence has given way to psychological manipulation. Assistance, management, “support” – all these are new terms for old patterns. Safety is often sold as an illusion. Marketing is today accessible to anyone who is at least basically digitally literate.

Society, which once reached for sexuality for power, prestige, or rituals, today does so out of woundedness. Out of loneliness, trauma, lost identities. Due to consumerism, aggressive marketing, the disintegration of community, and the paradoxical “equality of everything” that erases meaning. Technology, which was supposed to make our lives easier and connect us, simultaneously isolates us and shortens paths we did not know before – and for which we were not built.

Stigma has not disappeared. On the contrary – today it is even more visible because we are all more visible. Sexually transmitted diseases remain, mostly due to negligence and lack of systemic solutions. Sex work is still pushed into the gray zone because as a society we are not mature enough to face our own contradictions. It is easier to accept that “victims exist somewhere” as long as it is not us.

Despite all development, culture, and technology, the community of workers in the adult industry has still not truly connected. Why? There are several answers. But one thing is clear: if we do not propose solutions ourselves, state apparatuses will shape them in their own way – and not in our favor.

We live in societies where something is mostly illegal either because it harms society or because they don't know how to tax it. Sex work, however, existed on this soil long before any state, government, or law. That is precisely why we have a legitimate starting point to take an active, not a defensive position.

Technology has enabled us to taste a digital golden age. This same technology today threatens to replace certain genres of our industry.

TOMORROW, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW – Adaptation or Disappearance

Almost imperceptibly, but with the power of a demographic wave, reality is approaching us: the population is aging and dying out. Every year more. If we take these data seriously, then it will be clear that the adult industry will have to adapt – just as the entire society will have to adapt. Not only here, but globally.

What will this look like? Honestly – no one knows. But one thing is certain. The industry will have to further digitize. The virtual part of the adult industry is already leading in digitalization today. However, genres remain that are still “old school” – physical, local, analog. This is precisely where Dobra Družba sees its role.

By developing web tools, mechanisms, and protocols, we want to create a community that will organize part of its operations differently. The GoodCompanion platform represents a basic framework that we will build exclusively based on the needs of the community. Digitalization means optimization. Optimization means automation. And this means the end of intermediaries who have been taking the most for decades while offering the least.

Our goal is clear: for workers to become independent, sovereign, legally recognizable, safe. We want to build legal frameworks for transparent, healthy, and safe operation of sex workers. But time is not unlimited.

That is why we need you. Your experiences. Your suggestions. Your solutions. If we do not connect now, the future will be written without us.