The Waffle Party Is Not What It Seems: Sexual, Reproductive, and Labor Exploitation in Severance

Severance uses bodily autonomy to tease out the implications of power and capacity in the context of consent. The company uses sex as a reward, and reproductive labor is outsourced to people who cannot reasonably consent to pregnancy or birth. Consent and knowledge of one’s full spectrum of identity means that coworker relationships are of dubious consent. In Severance, labor exploitation, sexual exploitation, and reproductive exploitation all work together to oppress the people who are created by the severance procedure. While the “outies” voluntarily allow their bodies to endure anything they experience at Lumon, the “innies” have consented to nothing and, through these various forms of exploitation, are completely disenfranchised from anything resembling agency or autonomy.