Body Count at SoHo Playhouse Examines Sex Work Without the Usual Tropes

SoHo Playhouse is not one to skirt taboo, which is part of why it remains one of the most compelling venues in NYC theater. But Body Count feels different, and to me, better. Where most taboo material is staged in the trauma register, heavy, emotionally complicated, and designed to leave you depressed, horrified, or wrung out, this play leaves you laughing hard while thinking seriously about the realities of sex work.

Not the old Victorian fantasy of the prostitute abandoned by her lover and throwing herself into the river, or its modern update: the drug addict who hurts and hates herself and eventually takes drastic measures to escape her reality. That stereotype is more culturally convenient than it is true, and Body Count challenges it head-on.

Upon approaching the door at SoHo Playhouse, we are handed blue gimp masks, balaclavas, and instructed to pull them on before sitting. Then we are handed a condom and sent inside. For those unfamiliar, a gimp mask covers your face to keep your identity a secret, often used in porn or BDSM contexts when someone is performing. So we are all anonymous, holding a branded condom as we sit down to watch the show, making us both the audience and active participants in the world of the play, both online and in person.

As the show unfolds, one lucky audience member is airdropped a “special treat” they can save to their phone. Pollie, our performer for the evening, greets us as her “subscribers” and begins to rev up the room. It works perfectly. We are with Pollie, and we all know exactly what we came for.

Before going any further, it is important to say this clearly: Pollie is not written as someone who was forced into sex work through trauma. She is not framed as raped, trafficked, abused, or broken in some singular way that pushed her into this life. Not because those experiences are not real, they are. But this NYC play is not about that narrative.

Instead, Body Count presents a character who chooses sex work because she finds it fulfilling in some way, emotionally, physically, financially, or socially. The play explores what that choice looks like in practice, and what realities remain even when the choice is hers.

Pollie enjoys sex, pure and simple, and that is where her path leads. That matters because so much writing about sex work still centers on a woman who has been “broken” by someone else. Once that happens, she stops being a person and becomes a vessel for politics, pity, and projection. Pollie resists that entirely. She is a woman in control of her life, doing work she does not hate. None of that makes her less human, before, during, or after.

That is also why Body Count stands out in NYC theater for how it portrays the labor of sex work. “Sex work is all emotional work, period. Like a therapist,” an anonymous sex worker shared for this piece. “Yes, it might look like me being horny, but I actually just want connection.” Or, even more simply, “More than physical, it’s emotional.”

The play understands that. For many of the men in Pollie’s queue, she is therapy. They want her body, but they also want her empathy, attention, softness, and presence. They want to cry, to be held, to be seen, and then to leave, their needs satisfied while her humanity is pushed aside.

This is the core of Body Count: the extraction of a person from their own body so they can be used, cleaned off, and discarded.

In an interview with creator Issy, we discussed the idea of separating the female body from the self. Inspired by Haghighi’s 2021 drawing Just Take Them and Leave Me Alone!, which depicts a woman without breasts or groin, freed from the demands placed on her body, Issy described imagining what it would mean “to just walk home safely at night, to just take them off and be free for a moment.”

That idea sits at the emotional center of the play, set against the backdrop of viral OnlyFans trends involving “100 men” or “1000 men” challenges. The play asks: what happens before the stunt, and what happens after?

By the end, when Pollie removes her body parts, it does not feel triumphant. It feels like grief. It feels like someone trying to remove the parts of herself the world has consumed all night. It is painful, like shedding skin.

The play also introduces a voice of God, constantly speaking to Pollie about what she is doing and why. The concept is strong, though at times slightly unclear in execution. As Issy explained, God represents the patriarchy, an ever-present male authority that cannot be escaped. That idea lands, even if it could be sharpened structurally.

Still, the play insists that this is Pollie’s life, and we must meet her on her terms. “If you want to speak to me today, you’ll have to join the queue” is one of its strongest lines, funny, blasphemous, and deeply honest. Access to her is conditional. It always has been.

While Body Count feels closer to a Fringe production than a fully expanded piece, that is not a flaw so much as part of its energy. It has speed, nerve, and bite. Still, an additional fifteen to twenty minutes could clarify certain character distinctions and deepen its impact.

What keeps the play from collapsing under its weight is its humor. Not just clever lines, but genuine, uncomfortable, human comedy. The men in the queue are not faceless villains. Each wants something different: sex, comfort, absolution, reassurance, or simply to be held. That specificity makes the play sharper, because it reminds us what is actually being bought and sold.

By the time God joins the queue, the message is clear. Even after Pollie removes the obvious, detachable parts of herself, the demand does not stop. What is wanted is not just the body, but the person still standing after the performance.

That is what lingers. Not just that men want women’s bodies, but that they want far more than that, while refusing to acknowledge it. Body Count understands that the real violence lies not just in desire, but in the expectation of total access disguised as nothing at all.

Body Count runs at SoHo Playhouse through March 29. For those interested in bold, thought-provoking NYC theater that examines sex work, power, and performance, it is worth seeing before the run ends.

If you are in need of support, please reach out to https://rainn.org/ or https://humantraffickinghotline.org/. If you are interested in supporting advocacy work, visit https://www.equimundo.org/ and https://www.beyondequality.org/.