QUESTION: If a woman, say a teacher or a computer programmer or a nurse, decides to moonlight on the side in order to supplement her income – is this wrong? Don’t lots of people hold down second jobs or supplementary part-time jobs? Nothing wrong in that, right? In this economy it is also entirely plausible to think that such a woman might need the extra money, times being what they are.
OK – so here’s wrinkle – if the moonlighting, supplemental income job involves selling sex, is it suddenly wrong? And, if so, why?
Within this given scenario the woman doesn’t seem like your “ordinary” prostitute, does she? She’s not walking the streets. She’s not strung out on drugs. She’s not caught up in a cycle of abuse with a pimp. She’s not bringing loser Johns back to her apartment which she shares with her destitute kids.
So…… then what’s the problem with such moonlighting?
I read a news story recently about a sting operation by cops against on-line prostitution. The story recounted how the cops were surprised by the “otherwise respectability” of the women they arrested. This caused me to raise an eyebrow. On-line pornography implies that the “prostitutes” own computers or at least have easy access to them and know how to use them. Street-walking prostitutes most likely don’t. Everything about the operation described in the news story clearly seemed to point to the fact that the cops knew, or should have known, that they were dealing with a different “class” of women.
This gender inequality was repeated with this on-line sting operation. The “Johns” were the cops so only women were arrested. Hint to the legal authorities - Supply & demand. Arresting prostitutes does not stop men from seeking to buy sex.
I do not know all of the particulars of this recent event. Perhaps there were abusive pimps involved – something that arguably these prostitutes needed to be “saved” from. All I know is that when I read the story it bugged me somehow. Made me twitch. Mostly women getting arrested. Again. For a crime that involves male perpetrators.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not personally contemplating a career change in the direction of prostitution nor am I declaring that I think it’s a great idea. It’s not. In most instances I do think it exploits women badly – very badly. However – I also think that the way our country legally handles the situation also exploits women by not fairly going after Johns – the exploiters - as aggressively as the prostitutes. Also – wouldn’t it be nice if societal attitudes towards women & sex changed so that men would no longer be preying on the prostitutes who truly are down & out & desperate in the first place?! In other words – if we as a society truly believe that prostitution is a practice that needs to be shut down, can we at least PLEASE stop punishing only half of the problem?
Gender Biased, Morality Policing always makes me twitch.
Prostitution is not the oldest profession - that prize, I think, goes to the priest or shaman, which is the same thing, but it does not necessarily involve sex.
ReplyDeleteWe look down on it for religious reasons alone - every other objection is a rationalization. For that reason alone I oppose making it a crime. The reason it often involves criminals is that we made it a crime. In countries where it's regulated and permitted, it's not the problem it is here and sex crime rates seem to be much lower.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the gov has any business outlawing much to do with sex or drugs, apart from practices that just about everyone would agree are abusive and dangerous. Putting people away for nonviolent "offenses" is stupid and tremendously costly to us all. Of course, it works to the advantage of the mommy-daddy state: "produce" hordes of offenses--name them, talk up their parameters--and then control them with ideological and police measures. (See Foucault, especially The History of Sexuality. He's quite good at pointing out how "repression" isn't really the mechanism of oppression here; rather, discursive production and definition make it happen)
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, this simple dino will leave it to the poets:
"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion." (William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 8)
Fogg - that's very well put - that by making it a crime we invite criminals to be a part of it. Is that what you meant?
ReplyDeleteB-Dino, I appreciate the Foucault reference, I do. Many feminist theorists have been all over this for years as well. The problem is that such subtleties of thought rarely make it past the gates of academia. Not because the rest of the world is too "stupid" to understand - no - but because the rest of the world, society, is governed by deliberately NON-subtle thinking. Thinking that is required by culturally constructed & accepted absolutes, many of which are grounded in puritanical notions of morality.
The problem is two-fold. First is the issue of legislating morality regarding human sexuality.
Second - the sexist codifying & enforcing of such legislation. To me personally, this is the most egregious part of the problem. By prosecuting women for this "crime" so much more aggressively than men we are continuing the tired, age-old stereotype of Woman As Dangerous Seductress. Eve, Circe, Calypso, Helen, Phaedra etc etc etc
Not to make a speech - but at the heart of my post was a continuing frustration with the institutional sexism that continually goes unchallenged in our society. Sexism masked by "morality."
Thanks for listening!
(love the Blake quote)
Yes, that's sort of what I meant. They're constantly telling us drugs should be illegal because there's always crime associated with drugs. It's not only a tautology, it's a self fulfilling prophecy.
ReplyDeleteThere is abuse and disease and other things associated with prostitution because it's illegal, but they tell you it's illegal because of the problems.
There is a large body of evidence that correlates sex abuse during childhood with prostitution during adulthood. Some background data: it is estimated that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will experience sex abuse before age 18; 34% of all victims are under age 12; 40% of sexual abusers were themselves abused as children; victims of child sex abuse are 28 times more likely to be arrested for prostitution as adults; the incidence rate of child sex abuse among prostitutes is 87% and more, depending upon researcher.
ReplyDeleteSome clinical data: For victims of child sex abuse, the consequences are many – lower self esteem, chronic depression, and a range of anxiety and dissociative disorders such as PTSD, flashbacks, nightmares, depersonalization, and derealization. In addition, there are outright medical consequences such as physical injury and sexually transmitted disease. In general, victims may have a difficult time relating to others except on sexual terms. Certainly, victims who have been sexually compromised at an early age are far more likely to engage in the sex trades.
So what is my point? Prostitution is NOT a victimless crime as conventionally understood. Prostitutes are victims themselves, and our puritanical and draconian legal system fails to take into account the preponderance of clinical data that supports this view. When prostitutes are singled out for arrest while johns get away scot-free, it underscores a fundamental injustice: Prostitutes get victimized twice. First, there is the child sex abuse that impacted their lines. Second, there is an inherent gender discrimination that refuses to recognize the role of men in a two-sided transaction.
But what about the small minority of prostitutes who do not have abuse histories? For this population, as Squid suggests, perhaps a form of delimited prostitution may be a valid life-style choice.
I recall a classmate in college whose father was a violent drunk and was forced to seek room and board away from home to finish school. There was a businessman of means who paid for her studio apartment in exchange for conjugal weekends. There are similar arrangements with coeds on virtually every college campus. Is this really prostitution? Who are we to judge, and why are women always the ones who get stigmatized?
squid -- ah yes, the gates of academe surrounding the groves therein. The Foucault stuff simplifies easily enough, but you're right. I would agree that prostitution (at least of the traditional sort, anyhow; I don't know about the other kinds mentioned) isn't by any means victimless -- the factors leading to it and the conditions in which it's practiced make that impossible, I should think.
ReplyDeleteProbably the best that can be done in our "US & A" context is something like "decriminalization" rather than simple legalization.
The same might be said of people using really powerful narcotics like heroin -- we need to stay between casting addicts into prison (which is crazy) and telling them what they're doing is acceptable (also crazy). I have seen what this stuff can do to a person -- it is the ultimate zombie/capitalist drug, restructuring one's entire existence to serve a pernicious commodity (whatever its market rate).
B-Dino - "Decriminalization versus legalization" - maybe. It might be too fine a point of distinction to be effective. I don't know. As Fogg pointed out - legalization has had an interesting effect in other countries.
ReplyDeleteOctopus - bless you!! for that comment. It should be it's own post!
Blogging Dino: we need to stay between casting addicts into prison (which is crazy) and telling them what they're doing is acceptable (also crazy).
ReplyDeleteSquid: "Decriminalization versus legalization" - maybe. It might be too fine a point of distinction to be effective.
In my previous comment, I tried to point out injustices about our attitudes towards prostitutes. Yes, they are often victims of early sex abuse, and their abuse histories predispose them to risky behaviors in adulthood. Societies have a tendency to engage in victim blame, i.e. blaming prostitutes for being victims of sex abuse, or blaming the poor for their own impoverishment, or blaming a rape victim for encouraging an attacker. There is a lousy “blame the victim” mentality within our culture, and a disconnected chain of causality in how we understand these issues.
Regardless, I see also Blogging Dino’s point. There is a difference between prostitutes versus prostitution, and the later degrades the former in so many ways - risk of further damage to self-esteem, risk of violence and physical injury from johns, risk of more abuse and trauma, and the ever-present risk of communicating or spreading a sexually transmitted disease.
Criminalizing prostitution, in my view, is another form of victim blame, which is why I favor mental health approaches to rehabilitation if possible and legalized control of prostitution to protect sex workers and minimize the health impacts to society.
Sorry, Octopus - I did see your point. In fact, I was overwhelmed & a bit depressed by all of your statistics.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me about what you said was the incredible pervasiveness of sexual predators in our culture - usually men? And that our culture's problem of men sexually preying on women goes well beyond prostitution into the issue of rape - another crime that punishes women, NOT men.
As for legalizing & controlling the sex industry - I agree that much good could come from it in all of the ways that you cite.
However - I am still hung up on the fact that our culture still refuses to come to grips with the ROOT problem - some men's sexual attitudes towards women that lead to prostitution & rape. This problem runs deep - does it not? Our popular culture, advertising etc - oh I could go on & on - glorifies STILL the sexual objectification of women. If anything - I think this is on the rise - I know it sounds like I am going off the feminist deep end here - but like all problems - it has it's source somewhere.
BTW - My thanks to all of you for talking with me today about this troubling issue.
Hello squid and all,
ReplyDeleteI suppose part of the problem with "objectification" is that in terms of commodity culture, sex sells; it moves products of all sorts. One might even say only a bit tongue-in-cheek that businesses aren't so much selling products as selling sex because it's what drives profits. We know that there are powerful market forces perpetuating the hypersexualization of our culture. Seems to me that the time-tested Simone de Beauvoir line of reasoning about women being treated as the "inessential other" makes a lot of sense -- it is easier to objectify people one considers "inauthentic" and "inessential." However much things may change, it still seems like women get subjected to this kind of unconscious or semi-conscious bias.
I just have to make the comment that where Prostitution is legal and controlled, rape is all but non-existent.
ReplyDeleteOk, one last thing - if you think it's just men who objectify women, this will be amusing.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/10/09/tf.friends.with.benefits/index.html
B-Dino - your comment has sent my mind into follow-up post most. There are many layers developing in this discussion.
ReplyDeleteFogg - really? That's interesting about rape rates dropping when prostitution is legalized. So interesting.
As for women objectifying women - oh yes they do, sadly - you are very right - in fact, women also objectify themselves - not just other women. Such a prostitutes who "moonlight."
I meant follow up post MODE - I need to proof-read.......
ReplyDeleteSquid -- on "objectification," seems to me that at some point human relations always involve object-relations, don't they? We probably couldn't do without it altogether, but I suppose the idea is that everything depends on the extent of such an operation. (At least, that's my semi-Hegelian take on it.) Modern capitalist society seems to demand near-total and perpetual objectification of others, and indeed of ourselves. "Uncle Carl" was right at least about that, no? "Capitalism: Attack of the Killer Widgets!"
ReplyDeleteSorry about the typo -- I meant "Uncle Karl."
ReplyDelete