ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the concept of social reproduction in order to later analyse the care provided by the workers, workers not normally considered care workers by feminists who use a nurturance or relational perspective in their definition of care work. It discusses some of the art historical precedents for the work and traces the way that care and emotional labour are shown to be significant aspects of sex work in Maintenancer, as well as the unorthodox ways in which care is manifested in the work. A woman in light blue jeans kneels over a sex doll. Its synthetic, rubbery legs are splayed across a bed, as she casually probes its mouth with her fingers. In a revealing segment of the video, Evelyn Schwarz’s assistant discloses that in the past she worked as a doctor’s assistant and as a disability support worker in a care home, skills that she finds readily transferable to her role in the brothel.
