Sarah Jones’ documentary narrative feature “Sell/Buy/Date” won’t help if you’re looking to go headlong into “for” or “against” the sex work industry. And that’s good.
Jones, who wrote, directed and starred in the film, does not treat the tension between exploitation and empowerment, personal agency and systemic brutality as binary. Instead, they’re riveting, confusing, and personal, as the correspondence between Jones and her mother attests: Jones’ journey with her late sister’s diary. It also has a lot to do with why you do it.
In 2016, Jones’ eponymous solo show hit Off-Broadway. However, her announcement that she would be making a film was met with a storm of criticism on social media. A lot of it was from sex her workers who wanted ownership of the story. (Laverne Cox stepped down as executive her producer, and Meryl Streep remained.)
Instead of scrapping the project, Jones embraced its blistering chapter, inviting sex work activists more fully into her complex and comedic reckoning. Amy Bond, pole dancing instructor. Alice Little, a prostitute at the Chicken Ranch Brothel, Nevada. Adult Her Social Evan Seinfeld, founder of her platform IsMyGirl.
On her quest, Jones checks in with friends like Rosario Dawson, Ilana Glazer, and Bryan Cranston. Bella, a sex work studies major. Rashid, an Uber driver. Nereida, a women’s rights advocate. The quartet provides Comic Her Relief and more.
After Jones enjoyed a tour of the chicken lunch, Nereida showed Jones around a hotel room in Las Vegas, claiming to have met Esperanza Fonseca, an anti-trafficking activist working on complex issues at the agency. As model girlfriend Terria Xo puts it, “If you have to do it to survive, it’s a no-brainer.”
sell/buy/date
Unrated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. at the theater.