Skdadl said in this thread:

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Michelle, to be frank: I have never known what to think of the (or one kind of) feminist argument about "sex workers" in North America.

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Rebecca said above: it is commodification of human beings -- and Rebecca is right. The ideal would be to reject that everywhere. We can't. We know we can't. We even know that some women -- especially in downtown Toronto -- are better off letting themselves be commodified.

And yet ...

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Of course prostitution is commodification of human beings. We prostitute ourselves every day when we go to work at whatever job we do. Anyone who is working at a job that they wouldn't choose to do if they didn't have to work for money is being exploited and commodified.

I have a friend who used to want to be in gay porn films. Why? Because to him, sex was no more sentimental than blowing his nose, and so why wouldn't he want to get paid a few hundred to blow his nose? To him sex would be a much nicer way to spend his workday than, say, filing copies in triplicate.

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We prostitute ourselves every day when we go to work at whatever job we do.

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That having been said it's a whole different realm in terms of labor standards, legislated minimum wages, and so on, and so forth.

I'm of the (iffy) opinion that prostitution ought to be regulated in much the same way as now-illegal drugs should be regulated - i.e. with standards and oversight by competent people who can step in if something goes wrong.

My physical freedom means so much to me. Having someone invade my personal space seems to me quite a different thing from having someone demand that I spend six or eight hours a day producing something for him/her that I can pass on anonymously.

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Originally posted by DrConway:
The line of argument, pax, has some validity, though. After all, a company "rents" your body when you take a job that involves physical labor, or it "rents" your mind when you do a job that involves number-crunching and/or paperwork-filling-outage.

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That's very sloppy use of language, Doctor. I have signed no lease. I am neither property nor property owner.

Yes, I am paid for my labour. But I see my work as my calling.

I believe that Marx was right in many respects when he wrote about the exploitation of workers. That doesn't make us all prostitutes.

The horrors facing sex workers go far beyond anything I have yet to experience in my work place. We do need to continue to draw attention to that. Saying that we're all "rented" or "prostitutes" doesn't help.

And, if fortunate enough not to get murdered, when burnt out to the degree that they are no longer profitable, they are routed into the dingy gang-affiliated strip clubs that can be found in just about any town or city in North America.

It is dangerous and unfair to maintain that the larger sex trade, as it functions, can be fit into a feminist framework, or has anything to do with self-empowerment.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
[QB]My physical freedom means so much to me. Having someone invade my personal space seems to me quite a different thing from having someone demand that I spend six or eight hours a day producing something for him/her that I can pass on anonymously.

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Then you're not cut out for prostitution. Or being a massage therapist. Or being a chiropractor. Or being a doctor who physically examines her patients.

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Seriously. I cannot equate editing a manuscript with having sex with a stranger, however bored I might be by editing -- and that is quite a lot, actually. I just can't. I couldn't equate filing with such sex either. Or flipping a burger.

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Then you'd probably be better off editing a manuscript or filing or flipping a burger.

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Why would I care as much about their suffering if they're work is just a variant of mine?

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Just so.

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Originally posted by paxamillion:
I believe that Marx was right in many respects when he wrote about the exploitation of workers. That doesn't make us all prostitutes.

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No, not all of us. I qualified my statement by saying that unless our work is something we would choose to do even if we didn't have to earn money by it, then we're being exploited and commodified.

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The horrors facing sex workers go far beyond anything I have yet to experience in my work place. We do need to continue to draw attention to that. Saying that we're all "rented" or "prostitutes" doesn't help.

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I think it DOES help to draw parallels in order to draw away from the stigma of what these women do for a living.

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Why would I care as much about their suffering if they're work is just a variant of mine?

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That said, there are a couple of things I think about this:

The general conditions in our (global) society that make it possible/necessary for a woman with no other options to sell her body for money are serious and should be addressed.

That there are so many people who do turn to prostitution in desperation is not right. Better social networks and stronger social programs might help to catch the people who end up in prostitution against their own will for reasons of poverty and dire need.

That there is always a market for a woman's body is also not right. Just as advertising and crappy corporate junk tv keeps us all primed as consumers for any number of consumable, disposable goods, so does a lot of it prime folks to think it's perfectly reasonable to buy sexual satisfaction.

I can't help but feel like deep-rooted sexism and misogyny are both bouyed by and responsible for the trade in women.

I try really hard to think about my values and prejudices about sex and women's bodies and purity and all that, and do my best to not let puritan mores color my assessment of things, but I have a really hard time with the indignity of prostitution. I can't help but feel that prostitution is not just about selling sex, but about selling the whole woman, and commanding her, having her at one's (sexual) whim. I also feel pretty sure that prostitutes are often subjected to far worse treatment and degradation than any other labourer except maybe plantation slaves, and that this degradation and abuse is part and parcel of the sex that they sell.

And it's really hard to take the value judgements out of the thinking about prostitution because regardless of idealistic labour assessments of the industry, those value judgements still do exist and most likely play into the prostitute's estimation of herself, and her ability to move from the sex trade into other forms of work, or other social positions. Once a prostitute, always a prostitute, in effect.

I actually don't hate my job. What I'm saying is that not all prostitutes hate their jobs either, or at least some claim they don't. Unless you're willing, from your bored middle-class perch, to tell them that they're lying.

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Why would I care as much about their suffering if they're work is just a variant of mine?

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Maybe because society spits on them and it doesn't on me. That's society's response to the specifics of their job, and it shouldn't be so. But that doesn't change the fact that we all do something we (probably) wouldn't otherwise do, in order to live, nor the fact that there is nothing about sex, other than our social mores around it, which makes it a categorically different way to earn a living than, say, rubbing people's back or carrying luggage.

I think that massage therapy is a great illustration of this. Massage the back, legs and neck to make someone feel amazing and you're a valued health care worker. Extend it a little into the naughty regions so that they feel even more amazing and you're a whore. But that's our society for you.

[ 05 January 2004: Message edited by: Mr. Magoo ]

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we all do something we (probably) wouldn't otherwise do, in order to live,

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Oh, yawn. We all have a tough time. We all have the same tough time. Yeah, sure, Magoo.

Look, you guys. We do not all have the same tough time. Magoo sitting at his desk is not facing the same thing that a sixteen-year-old sucking cock for a living is facing, capice?

I recognize that some of you are reacting, most morally, to the immorality of stigmatization.

But that is a separate issue. Of course, the victims should not be stigmatized. Let's have a thread on the Puritan mania for stigmatizing people.

Here's what I said before:

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Not every prostitute experiences "horror", which suggests to me that horror is not inherent in the job. The fact that it's prevalent in so many prostitute's jobs, however, suggests to me that those who are being mistreated need help.

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We all have the same tough time.

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Is this going to turn into one of those "because there's some difference it's all different" things?

I don't think anyone is trying to make the case that anyone who works goes through the same kind of awful a prostitute does. But I, personally, am pointing out that the awful comes from society's reaction to their job (a reaction mine's free from) and not from the fact that they have sex and get paid for it. I don't think it's meaningful to discuss this without making that distinction. And as Michelle points out, if the nature of having sex for money was inherently horrific then we'd expect all prostitutes to experience this horror. In fact that's the same reason you assume my job isn't horrific: so many other seem to be able to do it and survive, so presumably there's nothing inherently intolerable about my job. Same with prostitution. I don't want to do it, and you don't want to do it, but there exist individuals who apparently do.

Remember Gerald Hannon? He used to advertise oral sex services for $50, flat rate. That was one of his little things. He didn't need the money. He wasn't forced by a pimp. And clearly fellating a stranger wasn't all that horrific to him.

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But I, personally, am pointing out that the awful comes from society's reaction to their job (a reaction mine's free from) and not from the fact that they have sex and get paid for it.

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No, the awful comes from being drug addicted, murdered, beaten and forced into a position you cannot escape from.

I am reposting my earlier post from this thread for your edification:

Some women do in fact work their way through college and/or support children through stripping or prostitution. But far more common are the fourteen, fifteen year old girls, "run-aways" from rural communities who have been targetted by motorcycle gang members or hangers-on, hooked on narcotics, forced to trick for years as virtual slaves and transported all across North America as they are traded as property in various drug deals, etc.
And, if fortunate enough not to get murdered, when burnt out to the degree that they are no longer profitable, they are routed into the dingy gang-affiliated strip clubs that can be found in just about any town or city in North America.

It is dangerous and unfair to maintain that the larger sex trade, as it functions, can be fit into a feminist framework, or has anything to do with self-empowerment.

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
I think that massage therapy is a great illustration of this. Massage the back, legs and neck to make someone feel amazing and you're a valued health care worker. Extend it a little into the naughty regions so that they feel even more amazing and you're a whore. But that's our society for you.

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To be forced to walk rows of crops all day stooping over and picking weeds would be horrific. To chose to wander up and down the rows of your garden doing the same would be retirement. It's all in the forcing, and not in the activity.

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and I know that prostitutes are murdered, but even here in Toronto, the largest city in Canada, it's not like prostitution killings are running rampant.

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Yeah, and when prostitutes disappear there is such an immediate uproar.

In case you aren't aware, Vancouver has recently seen dozens of bodies exhumed from a Port Coquitlam pig farm where a man with deep connections to the world's argest motorcycle gang was killing prostitutes and disposing of their bodies.

Um, MrMagoo, you question about "adding credibility" suggests that you have no familiarity at all with the nefarious machinations of the underworld. Congratulations.

I don't have statistics, which is what you are asking for. But I know what I'm talking about.

[ 05 January 2004: Message edited by: swallow ]

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In case you aren't aware, Vancouver has recently seen dozens of bodies exhumed from a Port Coquitlam pig farm where a man with deep connections to the world's argest motorcycle gang was killing prostitutes and disposing of their bodies.

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Yes, and perhaps you're also familiar with another murderer who killed women in a classroom. But one sensational murderer doesn't prove classroom learning to be inherently dangerous, now does it?

Don't get me wrong here: what Pickton (presumably) did was a horror. But he's the centre of it, not the type of victim he chose. If he preferred to kill masseuses, would we be arguing that massage is an inherently dangerous living? Probably not. A guy like him can skew the numbers just by his choices.

And Tackaberry:

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Its that it is forced underground, by the morality seen above in many posts such as skdadl's that surrounds prostitution and marijuana with immoral acts.

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First, I considered whether it was wise or worth my energy to respond to an unwarranted personal attack.

Mostly, I think it's not. But I think I must correct factual errors.

Where the HELL do you get the notion that I am concerned about prostitution because it is "immoral," a word I cannot believe I have ever used -- and above all, why the HELL did you toss marijuana in there?

I have been campaigning for full legalization of grass since before you were born, you sloppy writer and thinker, you.

I don't think that prostitutes are "immoral." I think that the people who exploit them are jerks and worse, but I am much more interested in a critique of the society that forces children to survive that way.

And I think that you are an uncivil jerk for equating the desperation of those children with the kind of work that you do, and also for glibly misrepresenting other people who are trying to have a civil conversation here.

[ 06 January 2004: Message edited by: skdadl ]

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Anyway, you still haven't separated the hazards of prostitution from society's moral attitude towards it. What is it about selling sex that is inherently exploitive or dangerous? INHERENTLY.

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This kind of question is just so theoretical and abstract that it's utterly useless in our current social context.

In a perfect world, maybe prostitutes would get similar training to that of massage therapists. Maybe they'd be schooled in history, technique and ethics and there would be codified measures to keep the client-prostitute relationship a safe and professional one. Maybe if abuse happened on the job in this perfect world, the authorities and police would care, maybe they'd even do something.

But the fact of the matter is that prostitutes are an extremely marginalised and disempowered group of people who suffer all kinds of abuse, both physical and psychological, at the hands of their clients, their "supervisors", the authorities, and society at large--whether they "choose" the profession or are forced into it. That's the part that makes it inherently dangerous--prostitutes can't get no respect. There's something about our conception of the profession, whether it needs necessarily be so or not, that makes it an inherently marginal, desperate, and dangerous line of work. That's a solid fact; denying it is plainly delusional.

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We can talk about how to move it from the reality it is today to the more ideal arrangement where it's a respected profession, but arguing that prostitution is not inherently dangerous or degrading or what have you is really just idealistic blather.

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Originally posted by Tackaberry:
Well, I haven't been to East Van but I have been to Texas street in Pusan, Kabukicho and Ikebukuro in Tokyo. I feel very confident suggesting that at least Tesax street and Kabukicho have more prostitution than East Van.
And most of them have no problems. They have chosen the profession. Why? Because there are different values about sex in Asia.

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I also pointed out that I did not believe prostitution in its current form represented a voluntary choice for those who are the sellers of their bodies.

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quote:Why would I care as much about their suffering if they're work is just a variant of mine?

Just so.

Could all the bored middle-class North Americans look at that line really hard and admit that however much they hate their jobs, being bored is NOT the same thing as being a prostitute? Even being married is NOT the same thing?

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I think I was fair infering you think prostitution is wrong, because commodification of humans, and victimization is wrong. Have I misrepresented you? You don't think victimization and commodification of human beings is immoral?

This attitude about prostitution drives it underground where it can be controlled by gangs, where all the bad stuff can happen.

In this way it IS analogous with marijuana. Both marijuana and prostitution are not inherently bad. but the attitude that prostition is wrong and that marijuana use is wrong drive them both underground. And once both are underground you end up with a host of problems, the kind of problems many associate with prostitution above, and the likes of Chief Fantino associate with marijuana. They are analagous and this is why I made the comparison. both (prostitution and marijuana) are not inherently immoral, at least not until they are driven underground and get controlled by gangs.

To Rebecca- I was talking about S Korea and Japan, not Thailand. Child prostitution is not a problem in Japan. And the reason I brought up the examples of Japan and Korea, is because it provides an opportunity to examine the issue of prostitution without the illegal/underground stuff. I brought it up as a case study of sorts, so we can seperate prostitution from the illegal activities that surround it when it gets pushed underground. My point was when prostitution is not underground, and doesn't have all of those things associated with it, you may conclude as I did that there is nothing inherently wrong with it.

Back to Skdadl,
What is this about?

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And I think that you are an uncivil jerk for equating the desperation of those children with the kind of work that you do

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To Rebecca- I was talking about S Korea and Japan, not Thailand. Child prostitution is not a problem in Japan. And the reason I brought up the examples of Japan and Korea, is because it provides an opportunity to examine the issue of prostitution without the illegal/underground stuff.

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Both marijuana and prostitution are not inherently bad. but the attitude that prostition is wrong and that marijuana use is wrong drive them both underground.

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Tackaberry, although I don't think that I've ever put anything quite that brutally, I certainly don't disagree with the general drift of the argument. I have always been opposed to driving anything underground, and I don't make arguments in terms of "morality," whatever you imagine that means. (The word means little to me.)

What astounds me about the flailing way that you write is the way that you attribute to others thoughts and conclusions that simply are not to be found in what they have written. It's as though you think you are some kind of super-Freud, able to extrapolate from fairly simple and straightforward comments here much deeper and darker thoughts.

Screw that. Get over it. People here say what they have to say, and deserve to be taken at face-value. Deal with the words on the screen, Tackaberry, not with your own private extrapolations and over-reaching theories.

In other news:

I find it interesting that the international courts in the Hague have recently accepted that rape is a distinct and separate kind of war crime.

Yes, that is a tangent, but relevant, I think, to the arguments that several posters to this thread have been trying to make.

Our courts have always accepted that there are degrees and degrees of criminal culpability.

Yes, exploitation is exploitation. Wage-labour is a drag. Slave labour is an execrable thing. But is there something particularly worse about sex-slavery? Or about gang-rape by an invading army?

Is there something historically peculiar about the gang-rape of women by invading armies? Or the use of the women of societies in crisis as sex-workers?

Gee, the international courts seem to think so.

And so do I.

[ 06 January 2004: Message edited by: skdadl ]

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Hasnt anyone considered places like Amsterdam? Where prostitution is legal, regulated and the job of choice for many who do not have to do it. They may be exploiting the system (the desire for sex) but are not being exploited themselves.

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Originally posted by Bacchus:
Hasnt anyone considered places like Amsterdam? Where prostitution is legal, regulated and the job of choice for many who do not have to do it. They may be exploiting the system (the desire for sex) but are not being exploited themselves.

I mean, I do know a few prostitutes personally and several of them do it for spare cash even though they have a 'normal' day job and regard it as just a nother for of job and others who feel they were forced into it by society (but refuse to contemplate any other type of work) and one who has become a damn good social worker for abused women in Toronto and utilizes her experiences to help others

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Originally posted by Rebecca West:
A number of us have acknowledged these aspects of prostitution. Since this thread is looking, largely, at the commodification of people through the sex trade, what's your point?

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Originally posted by Michelle:
My argument being that while in many cases that's how it turns out, it doesn't HAVE to be that way, and that selling sex is not inherently commodifying humans, any more than selling other services where you physically interact with people, such as massages, etc.

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I think it's important to be able to visualize the possibility of prostitution as a respectable and even empowering profession, even if it is not that way now, because I think that's the only way perception about the worth of prostitutes is going to change. I think the first step in demanding respect and fair treatment of prostitutes is respect for the work that they do.

[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
In any case, it's probably better to be respectable about it. It's probably a lot more aesthetically pleasing for a woman to fuck the same guy night after night for years while he pays the rent and the bills. I know lots of women who do that for a living.

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Which women would those be? I assume you are not talking about married women in general, who bear and raise children, run households, and just generally free up the partners who, according to you, "pay the rent and the bills."

Feminists fought very hard for a very long time, you know, to establish the principle that women were not just parasites on their male partners, and that family holdings were not entirely the triumphant achievements of big strong men.

The farm wife who was impoverished after her husband of twenty years divorced her and left her nothing, since she had never contributed any capital to their operation? He "paid the rent and the bills"? She was just "fucking" him for "a living"?

Using "farm wives" as an example really isn't fair because if the wives and husbands work on the farm, then they both work outside the home.

I realize there are lots of other things that homemakers do to "free up" their husbands to work, such as cooking and cleaning. Poor men with stay-at-home wives get a bargain that way. Rich men, however, do not.

How do you explain what a woman who has the same lifestyle as her millionaire husband, who has a maid and a cook to do the heavy work, and has no children and also does not work outside the home, does to earn her living?

Michelle, you are giving me flashbacks to the Soviet Union.

Behind your anger, there are so many unexamined assumptions about who earns what for why that I wouldn't know how to begin answering here.

But I agree with skdadl; Michelle, if any of us opposed to the idea of sex work as a career choice spoke of street prostitutes in those terms people would be up in arms.

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Let's not even talk about a millionaire's stay-at-home-wife. Let's talk about the childless wife of someone who earns $70,000 a year. She's getting a 70 grand lifestyle by housekeeping? Nope, because if she were the guy's housekeeper, she wouldn't be living anywhere near that kind of lifestyle, even if she were a live-in housekeeper (i.e. she wouldn't have access to half his assets). Throw in a diamond ring and some nooky though...

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Ummm, that would be me you're talking about now. I don't have a job or kids and my partner has his own business where we take in about that amount yearly.

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Let's not even talk about a millionaire's stay-at-home-wife. Let's talk about the childless wife of someone who earns $70,000 a year. She's getting a 70 grand lifestyle by housekeeping? Nope, because if she were the guy's housekeeper, she wouldn't be living anywhere near that kind of lifestyle, even if she were a live-in housekeeper (i.e. she wouldn't have access to half his assets). Throw in a diamond ring and some nooky though...

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Regardless, I don't think a marriage is on the same footing as a brief transaction -- because that is what the compact between prostitute and customer (or whatever other term you prefer to use) is.

Perhaps there are marriages that are simply a money/sex transaction. I wouldn't think it's all that common, though, and frankly, it's none of my business even if I do find the idea repugnant.

And some of us are obviously saying yes, we think so. As it happens, I am a critic of essentialism, so I'm interested to hear from people who don't feel at all the same commitments that I do. I'm prepared to believe that we are talking shades and degrees rather than essences.

But we don't live in an ideal world, which is what the essentialist argument is about. We live in a world in which prostitution is overwhelmingly (as many have testified above) exploitative.

Teen-aged girls are the main traffic, everywhere -- although they're especially attractive if they come from South-east Asia, yes? But boys are victims too. The numbers are overwhelming. The toll is overwhelming. And the smug, relativistic rationalizations for this trade come overwhelmingly from smug white North American males who pretend to be liberal thinkers. (See above.)

In my life, has having sex felt a lot different from typing? Well, yes, it has, but I am prepared to believe that others have had other experiences.

What I was feeling pretty bitter about was this thread, because I saw it as a case of some of us trying to see the potential for prostitution to be different, and then being wilfully misinterpreted as bored, middle class people who couldn't care less about the plight of forced sex slaves who get raped every day of their lives until they were thrown away. And no matter how much we tried to explain ourselves, we still got pummelled by some pretty sanctimonious posts.

So in a fit of pique, I wrote what I did, not because I necessarily think married women who stay at home are selling sex for security, but because I felt that what I was trying to say was being purposefully twisted into something really offensive. So I thought, what the hell, if some people can't see the difference between trying to envision a prostitution profession that is a respected choice, and saying that prostitutes have it as easy as everyone else, then screw it. The kind of willful misinterpretation and histrionic responses I've received for what I've written here has pissed me off and has been as offensive as what I wrote above.

Shenanigans, I can see that I've upset you and I'm sorry. I don't think women who stay at home sit around and eat bon bons all day. But I am going to respond with the following: if you weren't married to someone who made that kind of income, would you have the time or the money for all that self-empowering work you describe? I've never claimed that women who are financially supported by their husband sit home and drink tea and eat bon bons all day. I'm not saying that the work you do is not important - it's vitally important.

My problem isn't with women who are financially supported by their husbands. My problem is with women who get up on their high horses and look down on prostitution as "sucking cock for a living" and equating the desire for prostitution to become an empowering profession and a legitimate career choice with not giving a shit about 16 year old girls who are beaten into submissive sex slaves by pimps.

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Originally posted by Zoot Capri:
One thing that sticks in my mind about prostitution, even for those who choose it as a career choice, even under systems such as that in Amsterdam, is this: Introducing purchase into the equation means that you have an unequal balance of power in the sex act. The one doing the purchasing has the greater power, and that is usually the male (in heterosexual transactions, anyway). To, and this is strictly my opinion (which may be moralistic in its own way), there is something endemically sick about a purchaser who seeks out that kind of situation -- and in a society that promotes it as perfectly okay to do so.

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The fundamental difference between a couple in a 'straight' or 'vanilla' relationship and, say, a transaction between a prostitute and a john, or a couple enacting bondage, dominance and submission scenarios is that the whore, the john and the BDSMers all agree what form the exchange of power is to take before they sexually engage each other. The 'vanilla' couple does not.

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What are you on about here? I'd say that the "vanilla" couple has a pretty firm agreement on what form the exchange of power is going to take, and they probably also have terms whereby that exchange can change forms or cease altogether if either of them wishes.

The power dynamics between a john and a prostitute are never even remotely equal, and there's very little the prostitute can do if she doesn't like the way the transaction is proceeding. There's no sense of mutual respect or caring in this 'relationship', where there most often is in a "vanilla" relationship.

Just because they agree on a price, doesn't mean they've balanced or reconciled the unequal distribution of power. Not by a long shot.

[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

At least, that is what you are admitting. Why do you insist on making some women the target of your critique when the logically obvious target is class relations in a capitalist society?

Damn, but feminists -- even middle-class feminists -- fought this battle so hard for so long. How can that have been forgotten so fast?

So: nobody else feels that having sex feels different from typing?

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Shenanigans, I can see that I've upset you and I'm sorry. I don't think women who stay at home sit around and eat bon bons all day. But I am going to respond with the following: if you weren't married to someone who made that kind of income, would you have the time or the money for all that self-empowering work you describe? I've never claimed that women who are financially supported by their husband sit home and drink tea and eat bon bons all day. I'm not saying that the work you do is not important - it's vitally important.

My problem isn't with women who are financially supported by their husbands. My problem is with women who get up on their high horses and look down on prostitution as "sucking cock for a living" and equating the desire for prostitution to become an empowering profession and a legitimate career choice with not giving a shit about 16 year old girls who are beaten into submissive sex slaves by pimps.

Yeah, I wanted to ruffle some feathers. I wanted to shake up the people who see prostitution as an illegitimate career by seeing how they like it when an occupation they CAN sympathize with is denigrated as illegitimate.

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I'm not terribly upset to be honest. I admit I used some sarcasm in my post, but I'm not so much upset with you, moreso with the attitude that women staying at home are lazy, not doing anything productive, selling sex for security, which is the definite impression I got from your post, whether that was your intention or not.

Quite frankly, my volunteer and self empowerment work began when I was 14, going to high school, holding down an afterschool job editing a youth paper (the money going into supplementing the family income), doing my usual chores and homework, dogwork and then finding time to volunteer, write and self empower. There was less time for it (or sleep rather), but it was being done and with gusto. In fact I can probably say I was doing more volunteer work then than I do now!

I can see prostitution as a choice and even in a weird thirdwave view of feminism see it as empowering. However I think that that is only one-sided and while the woman who is doing the work may see it as a choice, I think what Lima Bean mentioned about prevailing attitudes and patriarchy, if it were a world where women were equal, I think it would then truly be a more equal-sided choice.

Where it becomes blurred (I think) is that many of the prostitutes working aren't doing it as a choice. And I'm not referring to a 16 year old, a sex slave or situations where implicit non-consensual acts are being committed. I'm talking about equal opportunity. Women who are doing it to feed their kids. Sure, they can work at McDonalds, but they might have never had the opportunity to go to the UofT and get a degree based on her sex and all the ism's that go with it, and therefore is she really making an equal choice?

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Power is rarely equally balanced when people engage sexually. I don't think we're made that way. Whether it's acknowledged or not, sexual intimacy almost always involves a complex exchange of power, with one partner assuming a dominant or controlling position over the other. Soemtimes one partner dominates throughout the act, sometimes it goes back and forth. The fundamental difference between a couple in a 'straight' or 'vanilla' relationship and, say, a transaction between a prostitute and a john, or a couple enacting bondage, dominance and submission scenarios is that the whore, the john and the BDSMers all agree what form the exchange of power is to take before they sexually engage each other. The 'vanilla' couple does not.

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I personally don't believe trying to ruffle feathers by alienating other women is a good way to encourage solidarity. But that's just my opinion, take it for what you will.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lima Bean:
What are you on about here? I'd say that the "vanilla" couple has a pretty firm agreement on what form the exchange of power is going to take, and they probably also have terms whereby that exchange can change forms or cease altogether if either of them wishes.

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The power dynamics between a john and a prostitute are never even remotely equal, and there's very little the prostitute can do if she doesn't like the way the transaction is proceeding. There's no sense of mutual respect or caring in this 'relationship', where there most often is in a "vanilla" relationship.

Just because they agree on a price, doesn't mean they've balanced or reconciled the unequal distribution of power. Not by a long shot.

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Someone obviously hasn't witnessed my relationship, or the many relationships of wonderful "vanilla" couples I know.

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[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

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Do you and your lover talk about who is going to be on top, when, how, whether one or both of you will be orally gratified, etc.? Do you discuss this and agree to it before you have sex, every time you have sex?

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I don't think I'm very comfortable with equating power dynamics to the positions taken during sex or the various acts performed, nor with the assumption that having agreed to the terms or machinations of the sex beforehand offers any assurance that both parties are happy with the balance of power that's been struck.

The "vanilla" couple may negotiate throughout the act of intercourse, but they both have a far more sturdy footing from whence to make suggestions or refuse them than the prostitute has with the john. And what about when the pre-arranged terms are not upheld during the act? The prostitute has little or no recourse, where the offended party in the 'vanilla' couple has any number of ways to express their dissatisfaction or anger etc. and have it addressed. More often than not, if a prostitute doesn't like the way things are going, she probably doesn't say anything, or risks not getting paid at all, never mind the risk of being beaten or raped.

[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

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Same as above. I'm not implying any kind of value judgement here. I'm not saying one thing is better/worse than another. I'm just saying that where the term of reference is sexual "power", or "control" as it were, there is an exchange between two people during a sexual act. Any sexual act. In so-called "vanilla" couples, it is spontaneous. In the sex trade, or in "alternative lifestyle" couples, it is negotiated beforehand.

---

Without getting into a tonne of details, I do know plenty of BDSM people who don't negotiate before each and every act. They have been together for a while and are thoroughly aware of limits, boundaries and places for experimentation, but they don't lay our a blueprint of the scenario each time they have sex.

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I can't help but feel like the money is the reason the power dynamics are so skewed. One person has the money while the other needs/wants the money. For that reason alone, one will feel entitled and the other will feel obligated, and this is codified in the very nature of prostitution.

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That's the same thing I'm wrestling with Lima Bean, but you also mentioned the possibilities of being raped which is so very real for prostitutes, without much of a hope of the law applying to protect them, which started those wheels a turning again.

quote:

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Originally posted by Lima Bean:
I don't think I'm very comfortable with equating power dynamics to the positions taken during sex or the various acts performed, nor with the assumption that having agreed to the terms or machinations of the sex beforehand offers any assurance that both parties are happy with the balance of power that's been struck.

---

As for the other, whether the parties are satisfied that the terms of their agreement were met is irrelevent to the point I was making. You seem to think that I'm trying to make some kind of qualitative comparison between a transaction between a sex trade worker and her client, and a conventional sexual relationship between two people who love each other. I most assuredly am not.

I am not attacking conventional sexual habits in any way, nor am I attempting to promote the sex trade or non-traditional sexual relationships in any. I am simply stating that all sexual relationships have a power dynamic, whether you like it, admit to it or feel comfortable with it. Or not.

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Without getting into a tonne of details, I do know plenty of BDSM people who don't negotiate before each and every act. They have been together for a while and are thoroughly aware of limits, boundaries and places for experimentation, but they don't lay our a blueprint of the scenario each time they have sex.

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[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

On the other hand, pre-negotiating sexual power arrangements--which is the communication equivalent of checking off a list, or reading a map and agreeing on the route--is definitely a simple concoction. Va-ni-lla. Which is right tasty, if it's made with the real bean, eh?

The money is the most tangible and concrete signifier of this power.

Whatever you might think about sexual power dynamics, the positions or acts performed, or the agreement to such at any time before or during sex, or how such an agreement is reached, that is only part of the actual balance of power between a prostitute and a john. The very fact that one is a prostitute and the other is a client puts them on vastly different planes of power and self-determination. This disparity of power in the real world (not just in the sexual act) means that the prostitute is at a constant and marked disadvantage when it comes to the negotiations, whether they occur explicitly before the transaction begins, or happen in a more nuanced fashion during the act.

RW, you asked:

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Is it the exchange in power that you find sick, or the acknowledgement of it and its terms that you find repugnant?

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And I think what's repugnant is that there is such disparity of power and self-determination among us at all, and further, that the exploitation of those who have so little power is codified and sanctioned within the sex trade (whether legal or illicit)--that, in fact, it's the very foundation upon which the sex trade is built. That's repugnant.

[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

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I haven't said they do. But at some point they certainly had a discussion about who was the top, who was the bottom, what was acceptable, how far was too far, what their safe word would be, etc. A sex trade worker who offers her service to the same client every Thursday probably doesn't have to negotiate the terms of their arrangement each and every time either.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
Shenanigans wrote:

quote:
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I personally don't believe trying to ruffle feathers by alienating other women is a good way to encourage solidarity. But that's just my opinion, take it for what you will.
-----------------------------------

Solid gold.

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And I think what's repugnant is that there is such disparity of power and self-determination among us at all, and further, that the exploitation of those who have so little power is codified and sanctioned within the sex trade (whether legal or illicit)--that, in fact, it's the very foundation upon which the sex trade is built. That's repugnant.

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What I find quite interesting is that when I try to draw parallels between the sex trade and other forms of sexual relationships, y'all behave as if a moral attack has been launched against your personal and intimate relationships, or worse, as implicit support of the sex trade and all its appalling characteristics.

I had no idea that ideas about sex and sexuality were so sacrosanct that they couldn't stand up to a little scrutiny, or comparison to some of the seedier aspects of human nature.

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Fine, fair enough, but so do vanilla couples.

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[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

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What I find quite interesting is that when I try to draw parallels between the sex trade and other forms of sexual relationships, y'all behave as if a moral attack has been launched against your personal and intimate relationships, or worse, as implicit support of the sex trade and all its appalling characteristics.

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Who is "ya'll" in this, because if it includes me, I'd like to disagree.

[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Shenanigans ]

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Really? Then your definition of "vanilla" is alot broader than that of the community who coined the term in the first place.

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I mean. Honestly.

I am a democrat.

At the beginning of the thread, in response to something I wrote, pax asked

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Why would I care as much about their suffering if they're work is just a variant of mine?

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Skdadl quoted his response to me and added the following (which I assume was also aimed, at least in part, at me since she was expanding on pax's original response to me):

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Could all the bored middle-class North Americans look at that line really hard and admit that however much they hate their jobs, being bored is NOT the same thing as being a prostitute?

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Then, a couple of posts later, skdadl wrote the following, and I assume that since only two people in the thread up until that point were defending prostitution as a legitimate and potentially empowering career choice, that it was aimed at Magoo and I:

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Oh, yawn. We all have a tough time. We all have the same tough time. Yeah, sure, Magoo.

Look, you guys. We do not all have the same tough time. Magoo sitting at his desk is not facing the same thing that a sixteen-year-old sucking cock for a living is facing, capice?

I recognize that some of you are reacting, most morally, to the immorality of stigmatization.

But that is a separate issue. Of course, the victims should not be stigmatized. Let's have a thread on the Puritan mania for stigmatizing people.

But you all seem so sure that teenagers who suck cocks are not being victimized. Where do you get that assurance from?

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I understand what you're getting at, highlighting that no relationship (intimate or otherwise) is free from disparities of power, but beyond that, I'm not sure where you're going, or what point you're trying to make.

If you're trying to suggest that sex-trade transactions are no more or less exploitive than other sexual relationships, I think you're dismissing too many other factors and nuances.

Edited: sorry for implicating you in this line of the discussion Michelle, my lazy, lousy short-term memory asks you to excuse me.

[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

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Originally posted by skdadl:
To me, this has become so awful.

I negotiate nothing with the man I love. Nothing. I never did. Rebecca, I do not know what you are talking about.

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This is what I posted:

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I had no idea that ideas about sex and sexuality were so sacrosanct that they couldn't stand up to a little scrutiny, or comparison to some of the seedier aspects of human nature.

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[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
I fail to see why any aspect of my personal life should "stand up" to any kind of "scrutiny," Rebecca.

I mean. Honestly.

I am a democrat.

You guys. We have to stop this. Does anyone know how to stop it?

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But this is just it. Where did Rebecca say that she wanted to put your personal life to scrutiny? What she actually said was:

quote:

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I had no idea that ideas about sex and sexuality were so sacrosanct that they couldn't stand up to a little scrutiny, or comparison to some of the seedier aspects of human nature.

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Nothing to do with you personally at all.

Prostitution as commodification of human beings:

I was thinking about this, and I wonder if we can draw a line between prostitution and other forms of labour where it's more what your body does, the actions it performs or the knowledge it contains than the body itself that's for sale.

It's a bit sticky, and probably not a clear line, but if we want to try the most oft-mentioned comparitor, massage therapy, we could see it thus:
A massage therapist is trained in anatomy, various pathologies and techniques for their treatment. He or she will assess their client or patient using a number of measures including an interview and physical assessment and will perform the treatment based on their acquired knowledge of the client's needs, and using the years worth of knowledge they acquired while studying massage therapy. Here, in this understanding, it's not simply the massage that's being bought and sold, not simply the touching and physical manipulation, but the whole body of knowledge and training that informs it.

With prostitution, and particularly the kind where the prostitute has been forced into it, child prostitution etc., it's more about just the body to f*ck, various available orifices, if you will, than the experience or knowledge of the prostitute. I think this assumption is held up by the high trade in young girls, and presumed virgins etc.

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By all means, disagree. Maybe you have another explanation as to why you've personalized this discussion in a most defensive way.

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What can I say?

This ain't personal. It is seriously political.

You and Rebecca are trying to personalize it, but it ain't personal.

And if prostitution were considered a respectable, skilled trade, it would also have a body of skills and knowledge behind it - in fact, it probably already does. I can imagine a really excellent prostitute who is dedicated to doing her (or his!) work well and sees it as a profession, learning a lot of psychology as it pertains to sex, as well as a lot about the sensual response of the human anatomy.

I think lots of us have slept with people who have varying degrees of skill in bed. Some people are amazingly excellent at gauging response and sexually stimulating their partners, and others are mediocre at it, and then there are some downright bad lays.

I think that prostitution could be a really empowering thing for the prostitute. Say you're a professional who takes pride in the knowledge and skills you have, and some guy wants to pay you a hundred bucks for an hour or two of your time (I have no idea what the going rate is, btw, so that might be wildly off). You're saying that because he has the money, the power dynamic is skewed. But if I were that prostitute, I wouldn't think so. Who has the money at the end of it? Who is the person who has the ability to provide exactly what this fellow is willing to pay to receive? Who is the person sought out for her excellents at the sexual arts?

quote:

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Originally posted by Lima Bean:
RW, we're clearly not using the same understanding of the terms 'power', 'power dynamics' or 'exchange of power'. I don't know how you're defining them, but in my mind, what you've written about them is not representative of my own personal intimate relationships OR what I know of prostitute-john relationships either.

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I didn't think I would have to lay that all out. I thought we were a fairly secure bunch here, who could engage intellectually, without anyone having a big hissy fit over perceived slights and personal attacks.

Clearly not everyone is ready for the idea that there is a human propensity to dominate and control others, and that each and every one of us sexual human beings plays this propensity out in highly varied ways in all our sexual relationships with people.

I'd really like to know what the fuck is so threatening about that?

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You and Rebecca are trying to personalize it, but it ain't personal.

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[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

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In an ideal situation with an "empowered" prostitute, the body is not for sale either. You're not selling your body. You still retain your body afterwards and it remains fully your property before, during, and after the act.
And if prostitution were considered a respectable, skilled trade, it would also have a body of skills and knowledge behind it - in fact, it probably already does. I can imagine a really excellent prostitute who is dedicated to doing her (or his!) work well and sees it as a profession, learning a lot of psychology as it pertains to sex, as well as a lot about the sensual response of the human anatomy.

I think lots of us have slept with people who have varying degrees of skill in bed. Some people are amazingly excellent at gauging response and sexually stimulating their partners, and others are mediocre at it, and then there are some downright bad lays.

I think that prostitution could be a really empowering thing for the prostitute. Say you're a professional who takes pride in the knowledge and skills you have, and some guy wants to pay you a hundred bucks for an hour or two of your time (I have no idea what the going rate is, btw, so that might be wildly off). You're saying that because he has the money, the power dynamic is skewed. But if I were that prostitute, I wouldn't think so. Who has the money at the end of it? Who is the person who has the ability to provide exactly what this fellow is willing to pay to receive? Who is the person sought out for her excellents at the sexual arts?

This is why I'm saying it doesn't have to be degrading. It all depends on the attitude behind it, and the willingness of the participants.

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What, now you can't hold ideas up to scrutiny anymore without you taking it personally and claiming it's the end of democracy as we know it? Give me a break. People have been holding "ideas" up to scrutiny for millennia now, whether ideas about sex, religion, philosophy, or science.

YOU were the one who personalized it in this thread right from the start by accusing those of us who could envision an empowered prostitute of being "bored, middle class North Americans" who "seem so sure that teenagers who suck cocks are not being victimized".

quote:

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Clearly not everyone is ready for the idea that there is a human propensity to dominate and control others, and that each and every one of us sexual human beings plays this propensity out in highly varied ways in all our sexual relationships with people.

I'd really like to know what the fuck is so threatening about that?

---

I don't disagree with you at all that there are complex power dynamics in all relationships. And this isn't limited to sexual ones at all. I couldn't agree with you more on that. What I disagree with is the insistence that every relationship is a struggle for dominance. I know that that's a fairly common conception, but it's a little too freudian or just plain cynical for me. I don't really believe it's like that.

And further, I'm with you and Michelle both on the notion that prostitution doesn't have to be degrading. I just resist the urge to idealise the profession because there are so many very real and very serious problems with it. I agree that one of the best ways to make changes is to work towards something better rather than simply griping about the nasty reality, but I think maybe you're both just jumping too fast and too far into what it could be, and appearing to dismiss what it really is.

[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Lima Bean:
What I disagree with is the insistence that every relationship is a struggle for dominance. I know that that's a fairly common conception, but it's a little too freudian or just plain cynical for me. I don't really believe it's like that.

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quote:

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And further, I'm with you and Michelle both on the notion that prostitution doesn't have to be degrading. I just resist the urge to idealise the profession because there are so many very real and very serious problems with it. I agree that one of the best ways to make changes is to work towards something better rather than simply griping about the nasty reality, but I think maybe you're both just jumping too fast and too far into what it could be, and appearing to dismiss what it really is.

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The idea of conservatizing a discussion about improving the conditions under which sex trade workers seems anathema to this entire discussion board.

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I think maybe you're both just jumping too fast and too far into what it could be, and appearing to dismiss what it really is.

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For the zillionth time, the horrors of prostitution are well known and well discussed. How does a vision of eliminating those horrors diminish their importance? It doesn't. So, why the insistence that we all dwell on the horrific to the exclusion of all other lines of inquiry and discussion? What purpose does that serve?

[ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

We were talking about whether or not prostitution is commodification of human beings. I say, in it's current configuration and context, yes, it most certianly is. But I also think that it doesn't necessarily have to be so, and that if it were as Michelle described it, then it may simply be commodification of specialized labour.

But in the context of the debate that opened this thread, I don't think I was off base in sticking to the reality of the present. That's the only purpose, I think.

Janice Raymond: Legitimating Prostitution as Sex Work : UN Labour Organization (ILO) Calls for Recognition of the Sex Industry (Part One)

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Contrary to the benign picture of prostitution painted by the ILO report, the violence that prostituted women endure is more acute and much more frequent than that experienced by other women. In a study of Nepali women and girls trafficked for prostitution into India's brothels, Human Rights Watch/Asia documents that "Most girls and women start out in these cheap brothels where they are 'broken in' through a process of rapes and beatings"(Human Rights Watch/Asia, 1995, p.34). In another report on Burmese women trafficked for prostitution into Thailand's brothels, Human Rights/Asia states that "the brothel owners are profiting off the repeated rape and sexual assault of the Burmese women and girls sometimes over long periods of time..."(Asia Watch, 1993, pp.62-63). The report makes clear that rape and sexual assault were not restricted to under age girls or to the girls' or women's initial seasoning into the brothels. "The combination of debt bondage, illegal confinement and the threat or use of physical abuse force the women and girls into sexual slavery...for the duration of their time in the brothel." (Ibid., p. 65)

This picture of extreme violence is not restricted to developing countries. In a study of English street prostitutes, 87% of the women had been victims of violence in the past 12 months. The abuse ranged from verbal assault by clients to stabbings, beatings, and rapes. 27% had been raped ; and 43% suffered severe physical abuse. Nearly all (73%) of the 87% were multiple victims of abuse (Benson and Matthews, 1995, p. 402). In another U.S. study of 55 survivors of prostitution, 78% were victims of rape by pimps and buyers an average of 49 times a year ; 84% were the victims of aggravated assault and were thus horribly beaten, often requiring emergency room attention and hospitalization ; 49% were victims of kidnapping and transported across state lines ; 53% were victims of sexual abuse and torture ; and 27% were mutilated (Susan Kay Hunter, 1993, p. 16).

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On the economic aspect of prostitution:

quote:

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Arguments and answers:

1. Prostitution is "mainly economic in nature (p.2)...The stark reality is that the sex sector is a 'big business' that is well entrenched in national economies and the international economy...Especially in view of its size and significance, the official stance cannot be one of neglect or non-recognition"(p. 213).

As an economic activity, prostitution institutionalizes the buying and selling of women as commodities in the marketplace. It further removes women from the economic mainstream by segregating them as a class set apart for sexual servitude. It reinforces the definition of women as providers of sexual services, thereby perpetuating gender inequality. And it legitimizes and strengthens men's ability to put the bodies of women at their disposal.

Because the sex industry is integrated into the economic, social and political life of many countries doesn't mean we should passively accept this state of affairs as a kind of economic law. The ILO's dispassionate recommendation to recognize the sex industry as an economic sector capitulates to a conservative laissez-faire market ideology prevalent in many countries. That the sex industry contributes significantly to the economy and GDP of many countries should be taken as a cause for alarm and action against the industry rather than an excuse for acquiescence to it.

3. The ILO report argues that "All the country studies confirm that earnings from prostitution are often more than from alternative employment opportunities open to women with no or low levels of education" (p. 207).

Rather than accept the unexamined premise that some women earn more in prostitution than anyplace else, the ILO should question why prostitution is the only place where mostly women can turn when all else fails. The ILO report acknowledges that "A striking finding from the survey is that although many women indicated that they would like to move to other jobs, they were conscious of the income loss they would face" (p. 207). It is a gendered reality that prostitution may be the best of the worst economic options that many women have, and it is understandable that women turn to prostitution in these circumstances. However, the fact that there are often no better job options for women shouldn't be manipulated to turn many women's desperate economic plight against them by institutionalizing their exploiters as entrepreneurs. This is to surrender the political battle for women's right to decent and sustainable work, and to tolerate that women's bodies are increasingly bought for sex and used as merchandise in the marketplace.

6. "For those adult individuals who freely choose sex work, the policy concerns should focus on improving their working conditions and social protection, and on ensuring that they are entitled to the same labour rights and benefits as other workers" (p. 212).

In countries that have taken a labor approach to prostitution regulating/legalizing it as work, recognition of the sex sector has caused prostitution to flourish more than when it was illegal. There is good evidence that countries such as Holland and Germany, both of which have recognized prostitution as work and as an economic sector, are precisely the countries which have higher rates of women illegally trafficked into the country for prostitution (de Stoop, 1994 ; Barry, 1995 ; Benson and Matthews, 1995). For example, in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, women from Latin America, the Philippines and Eastern Europe are reported to comprise 40%, 65% and 50% respectively of the prostituted population in these cities (Golding, 1994). Earlier evidence from Germany indicates that only 12% of prostituted women work in the state-regulated eros zones because the majority "would rather live in illegality than accept the state's working conditions, wages and control" (Jaget, 1980).

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quote:

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8. "A major difficulty [to economic recognition of prostitution as work] is that measures targeting the sex sector have to consider moral, religious, health, human rights and criminal issues in addressing a phenomenon that is mainly economic in nature. (p. 2)...A stance focusing on individual prostitutes tends to emphasize moralistic and human rights concerns, which are undoubtedly important, but which will not have a major impact on changing the sector" (p.213).

"Moral, religious, health, human rights and criminal issues" have served as the only brake on the expansion and exploitation of the sex industry. Prostitution is sexual exploitation and violates the human rights of anyone subjected to it. Particularly, it victimizes the women in prostitution but also all women, justifying the sale of any women, and reducing all women to sex

In the year when Amatya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize because his economic theory was credited with restoring an ethical dimension to economics, we think it particularly important to counter the economic determinism of the sex industry and the ILO report by pointing out the relevance of ethical and human rights values to any policy on prostitution. Sen's guiding principle is that the well-being of any group or country cannot be evaluated only by per capita income or size of the GDP (gross domestic product). As measured by the Human Development Index which Sen helped create, countries must quantify the quality of life of their citizens looking at other indicators such as health, education, longevity and "opportunities" rather than just economic growth.

In his famous work on famines, economist Sen reminds us that famines are not caused by food shortages but by the failure of governments to make social choices to eradicate famine and intervene on behalf of those most affected by lack of food. The fact that prostitution is a flourishing industry indicates the failure of governments to make the necessary social choices to eliminate it. Any economic theory that chronicles the way in which prostitution is entrenched in the economies of many countries could encourage governments to make the social choice to eradicate prostitution and provide economic alternatives to assist women out of prostitution, thereby restoring an ethical dimension to the discussion of vital economic and social problems.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Lima Bean:
I can't help but feel like the money is the reason the power dynamics are so skewed. One person has the money while the other needs/wants the money. For that reason alone, one will feel entitled and the other will feel obligated, and this is codified in the very nature of prostitution.

---

Sure, you can look at it that way. Or you can look at it another way.

To use a somewhat base metaphor, it's like people who think oral sex is "gross", or that a woman giving a blowjob is "degrading". You can look at it two ways - you can see a woman giving a man a blowjob as a woman debasing herself for his pleasure. Or, you can look at it as a woman having the upper hand, because the power to pleasure is hers, and the guy who is receiving that pleasure only gets it as long as she's willing to offer it to him.

Same with money for sex, in my mind. Before the act, the guy's horny and she has what he wants. After the act, she's still got her body intact and his fifty bucks. During the act, she's got the power to give or withhold pleasure.

It IS possible to look at it that way. I'm not saying the power dynamic is always or even usually like that in prostitution exchanges. But I'm saying that if prostitution were a respected profession where the women are respected professionals and experts in their field, it COULD be like that.

As for your earlier argument that the difference between a married couple and a hooker-john couple having sex is that a married woman has recourse if the agreement about what sexual relations are to take place is violated by the john or the husband. Um, in which world? In the world where husbands never rape their wives or pressure them to engage in sex or sexual acts that they don't want?

See, I would think that a hooker would have LESS reason to stay quiet about a rape, especially if her work was validated as a legitimate profession. Women who are married have a million reasons to stay silent about being sexually assaulted by their husbands. If a married woman reports her husband, she loses everything. If a hooker reports her john, she loses her wages for that trick.

Becuase of societal values as outlined by Bittersweet prostitution gets pushed underground.
The 16 year old straw girl sucking dick, as well as the others in the thread in various forms of degradation and violence are confusing the thread title question.

No one is defending prostitution as is in North America.

The question is does prostitution necessarily have to be this way? Is the violence and other shitty things intrinsic to prostitution, or inherent to the underground economy in which it lives? Are there systems, (Japan or Amerstderdam have been offered as examples) in which prostitution
is free of these things? And if there is no system currently, Is such a system conceivable?

No one here approves or rapes and beatings and children sex workers and addiction and violence. What we are trying to say is that these things are not part of prostitution, they are part of the underground system in which it abides.

Some are suggesting (and I agree with them) that it is the morality modelled by some posters above, and in society at large in the west, that is the root problem, becuase it is the morality that gets it pushed underground in North America, while it isnt pushed underground, by and large, in some other moral systems.

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No part of it, no organ, whether it be a kidney or a vagina (the womb is an exception--an interesting situation there) is supposed to be traded.

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The idea that a man or woman being economically coerced into prostitution is basically the same as a man or woman being economically coerced into a job at Tim Horton's has a fundamental flaw.

Nothing hits closer to our concept of individuality, of self, than the way in which it expresses itself sexually. So it's a world of diffrence from working at Tim's.

Going back to the original article, it seems to me that the issue here, as it always is and should be on matters sexual, is consent. Not just the technical presence of it, but also the quality.

The article paints a picture of the complete absence of consent. It's rape. It's slavery.

It gets murkier when we look at prostitution in our society. Yes, there's economic coersion. But, there's always welfare, always, it seems, a job at Tim Horton's. There are rehabilitation facilities.

So, for most prostitutes here, there's an element of choice at work, but this view surely stretches the deffinition of consent and choice to the very breaking point.

It's easy to me. No matter how you engage in sex with another person, are they sharing this with you because they want to, for it's own sake?

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Nothing hits closer to our concept of individuality, of self, than the way in which it expresses itself sexually.

---

This may be some people's opinion, and for what it's worth I think it's the very opinion that makes any discussion such as this very thorny, but it's not a fact. It's an opinion.

Back to Inga Muscio: She was the first writer I read (I know there are tons of scholars on the subject, but I've read Cunt a coupla times so I'm most familiar with it), who made the connection between the power of a woman's body to provide pleasure and nurture a growing baby etc., and systemic patriarchal misogyny that seeks to control that power. And we've talked about the relationship between christianity/catholocism and patriarchal misogyny in numerous threads.

So perhaps the road to a safer, more respectful and non-degrading configuration of prostitution has to do with wrestling that power back from the patriarchy. I think, really, that until all women are properly respected and valued, prostitutes will continue to be among the most powerless members of society.

[ 08 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

Lets just leave aside the kidnapping and coersion of women and children for a moment. Firstly, you have economic conditions that coerce people into selling their children or themselves into the sex trade. Look at it as a particularly brutal kind of endentured servitude, not unlike the kind that flourished during the 18th and 19th centuries. Combine this with gender and class issues, and you have a whole set of economic, social and equity standards and quality of life issues not being addressed by governments in countries where impoverished people sell their female children into sexual slavery.

In addition, we have to look at the role of wealthy countries in participating in a global economic system that is increasingly exploiting impoverished countries with far lower standards for labour practises and gender equity for the purpose of building on their current wealth. The West exploits the East, the North exploits the South, and the poorest multitudes becomes slaves to the appetites of the affluent few (relatively few, that is), they being, well, us. Those are the evils of globalization, and they flourish under the patronage of the WTO, with help from global trade agreements that enslave the poor multitudes to satisfy the goals of a particular few.

Then we have the working conditions themselves. Recognition of the sex trade as a viable profession does not, in and of itself, ensure safe working conditions, nor does it in any way discourage the global trafficking of women and children. Much like the conditions under which women and children worked in 19th century England (and continue to work in less affluent countries today), labour standards are low to non-existent, the work is largely unregulated, and exploitation is rampant. Even where there are exists a set of laws and higher standards of labour practise, there isn't adequate enforcement. Hence, in a city like Amsterdam, you still have women and children from Eastern Bloc countries and places like Burma and Thailand who have been brutally enslaved and trafficked across borders.

And finally, you have the enormous roles of organized criminal activity, and the huge client base, the market for underage girls, children and women who are brutalized and exploited for the purposes of satisfying the needs and desires of that client base. Setting aside the economic, social and gender inequities that allow the activity to flourish, what kind of individual buys and sells human beings? What are the social conditions under which such a vast market for brutalized and exploited women and children exists? Who are these men, and why do they buy these services? I suspect their thought process is not entirely divorced from the thought process you and I may engage in when we knowingly buy a product manufactured by underage workers under appalling conditions. Much of it has to do with an underlying sense of privilege, the lies we tell ourselves to free ourselves from responsibility and feelings of guilt.

(Not that I'm suggesting that any of us is personally responsible for slavery - be it in the manufacturing sector or the sex trade - but I'm trying to draw some parallels to bring a few points home)

Most of the problems underlying the horrors of slavery and the inequities inherent in the sex trade are linked to vast economic and social inequities that are too huge and complex to be tackled all at once. The huge network of organized crime, one of the perks of globalization, is growing, as there aren't enough resources currently to contain it. And those charged with containing it frequently indistinguishable from those directly involved in the criminal activity.

So what do we do?

We start small, work locally, to decriminalize and properly regulate the sex trade and its partner in crime, the drug trade. We actively work to destigmatize the sex trade and create an environment where it is seen as a profession, with a code of conduct, labour standards and practices, etc. We ensure those standards and practises are adequately enforced. We can do this when resources aren't squandered on relatively inoffensive yet previously illegal activity, and focus on the gross violations of individual rights and the abuses of people. We create a model of how these things should work, locally, and build on it.

I'm not leading here (although I suspect the answer is along the lines of a Soapland or a kyabakura).

the nevada bordellos might give you some insights on how a local initiative could work.

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Originally posted by Tackaberry:
If you peeled off the johns looking for gratification (by going to a safe clean site) from the ones looking for depravity and/or children, would the police turn a blind eye on the first and concentrate resources on the second?

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But you must be aware that here in North America, in particular, we are very prudish and hypocritical about sex and sexuality. We seem to think it our personal business to decide who can love and marry whom, what consenting adult may have sex with another consenting adult, and how they may have sex, etc. We seem to think our bigotry, hatred and narrow-mindedness is enough to warrant the criminalization and illegalization of personal or intimate activity that hurts no one and brings happiness or contentment to many.

I think it's interesting that this ritual raises a body's owner to sacred status only when his/her body serves as an image to enhance trade, and only so long as it's still able to do so. Because trade is obsessed with youth, it wants youthful bodies. So, there are supermodels, with their relatively brief claims to Goddess-like stature. Even the image of the skank, or prostitute--Madonna, Aguillera, et al--is elevated. But just the image, not the real thing. It's okay to pretend to be a whore. Some women even imagine it to be "empowering", which is a word too often used to justify crude narcissism. Narcissism could be seen as an attempt to resurrect the sense of self as sacred--a pathetic, growing consequence of having only profane means at one's disposal.

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I don't think that prostitutes are "immoral." I think that the people who exploit them are jerks and worse, but I am much more interested in a critique of the society that forces children to survive that way.

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PS: Unless this stops, I personally am going to turn my attention to the Middle East Forum for the next few days.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
But I do believe the body is sacred, and trade profane. This ancient belief--I would say, intuition--has been perverted into its opposite: the body as profane, trade as sacred. And that's a problem, because it has allowed for commodification of the body and degradation of the spirit.

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Ancient belief my holy arse. Maybe in some rarified circles, but we women have always lived in the shit, we eat, crap, fuck and have babies, and if we're lucky we do those things because we have the freedom of choice, because no man has narrowly proscribed what our bodies are and what we should or should not do with them.

As for the content of the "rebuttal", it's a case of a righteous parroting of banalities--an easy stroke requiring no nuanced thought, but an unlimited chance for grandstanding and misinterpretation, therefore offering no reason to engage with it beyond the level of a good-willed, democratic, open-minded, and dare I say lusty, Bronx cheer.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
Prefacing a counter-opinion with the phrase "While you are certainly entitled to your beliefs" suggests good will, a democratic attitude, and a potentially open mind, but, as predictably revealed in the surly tone of subsequent remarks, it actually implies that the writer thoroughly resents not only the opinion, but its entitlement.

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Part of the problem, from my perspective, and perhaps I missed this in my fairly quick perusal, is that the terms in use were not defined so that everyone could agree at least on what they were talking about.

I define prostitution in 2 ways:

a) The exchange of sexual activity for money or some other benefit.

b) Temporary slavery, with the legal fiction that because money changed hands, the abuse heaped on the slave is not criminal.

The second case goes farther, like so many other examples in my culture (white, western, affluent), where the victim of abuse is blamed by the abuser for 'asking for it', or 'making 'X' do it'. The prositute is the one with the low morals, because they need money, and trade a period of abuse for some amount of cash. Pimping, human cargo, sex slave rings, etc just make it worse.

I would think that someone who likes to hurt people would hire a prostitute before progressing to picking up a child off the street to get their kicks. Anyone who hires a prostitute to be their slave should be charged with assault. Maybe it wouldn't stick in court, but the record of the arrest, and therefore the previous history, would be there.

I have no problems with the first definition, where it exists. But it is something of a legal fiction that allows the second definition to exist. I don't know enough prostitutes to be confident in the ratio between the two, but if it were as good as 50%/50%, which I doubt, it would be far too much.

Prostitution should not be illegal, as there is nothing inherintly wrong with trading money for sex. But a transfer of cash does not make assault legal, and substantially better efforts need to be made all around the world to protect people from becoming slaves.