Since I've been neglecting the blog - and in a fit of self-promotion of course - I'm going to bung it all on here too. I'm very pleased to say that most people who responded have been extremely positive, but I'd like whatever opinions you can give both about MJ's piece and my own.
First here's MJ's piece, without the comments because there are an awful lot. The original - comments and all - can be found here, assuming you're on Facebook.
Folks I’ve known on Facebook a while will recognize that this topic’s come up in
a couple of references before. Recently, it’s been resurfacing in a couple of
places and I’m hoping anyone with opinions, interest, suggestions of any kind
will contribute whether for the first time or again. I’m working these questions
through, and other people invariably offer such valuable perspectives…so please,
chime in if you have any thoughts!
Most people I know, given the types of acquaintances I tend to cultivate, feel that no one should be exploited. There is a particular disagreement, though, when it comes to how exploitation of sex workers should be addressed. Is sex work inherently exploitative? If so, why? What are the underlying conditions that tie it exclusively in any abstract circumstance to a power differential? Will that pertain in the absence of
patriarchy? How?
What is the evidence that legalized, legitimate sex work in society continues to require desperate, reluctant participants to operate? Since we are talking chiefly about women here, are women who live in societies with more legal sex work more exploited, more endangered, more dissatisfied than women in other jobs in those countries? Are they more at risk or exploited etc. than women involved in sex trades in other countries? What are the conditions that decide these factors?
There are two issues most predominant in my mind at the moment. One, the most pressing, is how we would work to make sex work safer. I feel strongly that the most immediate, most likely way to accomplish that is to make sex work legal. Operate businesses, license them, provide workers with services and recourses and employee safety legislation and benefits. The more open those transactions are, the less likely
workers are to be disappearing from dark streets in the middle of the night.
The second issue is the more abstract, simply: how can we envision sex “work” -- or, the experience of sharing sex at all, I suppose -- in an environment where little of the current prejudices and power imbalances were entrenched. “Come the revolution,” as it were, what will sex mean? And how can we aim for an ideal situation where it will mean everything it should, and nothing it shouldn’t?
It's a damn good piece, but too deep for simple comments boxes. So here's my bit:
My friend MJ Tallon posted this note yesterday:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=310669165606&ref=nf
I was going respond in a comments box but (firstly) I'm likely to write rather more than a box can take and (secondly) the response has been huge so far. So, I've decided to write a few opinions - that's all they are folks! - in the form of a note and tag anyone I reckon might be interested. Please read MJ's note first though, if you can.
I'm going to admit right at the start that I'm theorising wildly here. My experience of sex work and workers is very limited. I've never hired a prostitute because I've never felt the need and, frankly, I'd feel like some kind of failure if I ever did. I was offered a job when I was 17, stick thin, effeminate and wore PVC trousers but I ran for the hills.
I also don't like normal pornography. I find it cold, standardised and formulaic, and therefore boring.
I'm also generalising a great deal here. I hate to generalise because every generalised statement is untrue when applied to any individual - but short of looking at every single sex worker individually there's not much choice. So I'm going to assume the sex worker is female and the client (punter, porno-purchaser etc) is a heterosexual male unless I mention otherwise.
The first question MJ asked is probably the most important: Is sex work inherently exploitative?
As with all such questions the answer is yesnomaybe. The vast majority of it quite definitely is. It's exploitative both of the worker and the punter. I can't really speak for other countries because I've never lived in one, but in the UK it's pretty bad.
Here's an example:
I used to live in Cheetham Hill, just North of Manchester, which has a notorious red light district. It's rough. I used to see the "girls" working at all times of day and night and I used to see their customers. I was propositioned myself on several occasions, even once while I was taking my partner's kids to school.
The exploitation and corruption were rife here. The whole area was sordid, dirty and unpleasant. Many of the girls had very obvious needle tracks on their arms and legs and were haggard and malnourished. The cynical part of me wondered how they made any money, they were so hideous, until I saw the punters. They were worse.
These girls weren't doing this job as a chosen career, they were doing it as a guaranteed way of making some cash for the next fix. Their punters were some of the worst examples of humanity I'd ever seen, and this was the only sex (or possibly human contact) they were going to get.
All these people were involved in sex work for the simple reason that they couldn't do anything else. These are people who fell through society's cracks and need help to climb back up.
But does it HAVE to be like that?Well, no it doesn't. There are sex workers out there who do this because they want to and they don't feel demeaned at all. For something to be demeaning requires a person to feel that way and that's definitely a matter for the individual. Notice what I said about failure earlier on. Most of these women don't consider their job demeaning because of one simple factor - they are in control.
One of my favourites is a young lady called Sequoia Redd. Here's her blog:
http://sequoiaredd.com/blog/
Sequoia is a sex worker by choice. She's highly intelligent and in control and she works both as a prostitute and as a pornographic model (not entirely sure what the difference is, but nevermind). To put it crudely - it's Sequoia's cunt and who she chooses to fill it is entirely her business, whether that's by financialnegotiation or not. She looks young and gorgeous but has actually been turned down for porno work because her "tits aren't perky enough". Guess why I don't like normal porn!
Sequioa is part of a growing movement of feminist sex workers who are attempting to get past the exploitative standardisation and money-based control and allow female control of this societal aspect of their own bodies. Other examples would include Abbey Winters and the Suicide Girls.
Others have been known to occasionally provide a really important social service to those unable to help themselves. Many people don't like to think of the very highly disabled as sexual beings, but a 19 year old boy with cerebral palsy has exactly the same bloody painful erection as any other 19 year old boy. And the poor sod possibly can't even masturbate! There are those who can and will help him out, and thank heaven for that.
(Damn, I hate this generalisation! What about gay porn/prostitution, trannies, kinks? Since when were all women so perfect they never exploited anybody? There's so much more to the whole issue of sex work.)
How can sex-workers be kept safe?
The obvious answer here is legalisation, although that doesn't necessarily prevent exploitation. I've known men who have worked on production lines six days a week, 9 hours a day making 35 coffins a day for the CWS for 20 years and more - that's exploitation of poverty and it's perfectly legal.
Legislation may help too, but that can just as easily lead to a black market of non-legislated girls who'll do stuff the law doesn't allow. Legal protection has got to help though because it can provide health care, free condoms, holidays and so on. I don't think it's the answer, because there isn't one single answer, but it may be an answer.
I believe another answer comes in self-determination. I understand that there are websites which some prostitutes use to advertise themselves entirely of their own volition. They can vet clients and arrange meetings in safe places very easily and don't have to face them in the street.
I think what's keeping sex work in the dark, in this country at least, is of course the stigma. We see sex work as a "bad" thing, a dirty, sordid thing. I would see going myself to a prostitute as a personal failure, that's my stigma. It's going to take a lot more than legalisation and legislation to remove that stigma, to stop us considering sex for personal profit as demeaning.
It's possible in our utopian future of perfect equality and liberality (well, you never know!) that prostitution and other sex work may cease to exist because they've become unnecessary, but I doubt it.
For some punters it's the prostitution itself which is the attraction. It's the sordid illegality and risk which turns them on, and where there's demand there will be supply. Even if we had a society which had dispensed with money, there are other forms of remuneration.
And as for pornography - well there are those who simply like looking at pictures!
As a final note, someone in the comments said that "If people were 'balanced', no one would look for a sex trade worker. There would be just monogamous relationships."
I disagree with this statement entirely because it considers a balanced society to be restricted to a single viewpoint. I think that a perfectly balanced society would include monogamy, polygamy, non-gamy, and all the other -gamys as well as all non-exploitative sexualities (including prostitution in that sense). What would make it balanced is that nobody would give a damn. But that's a different discussion.
Love and freedom,
Seán
