The struggle over sex workers and their rights has been much on my mind since the WAM conference ended just over a week ago. As I wrote in this post, I went to Audacia Ray’s presentation on representations of sex work and sex workers in the media. As a Christian feminist deeply troubled by sex work, I came largely to find a way to alter my vocabulary: I wanted a way to speak about sex work and sex workers that was less paternalistic and stigmatizing. But I found many of my assumptions being challenged by Audacia and others in the workshop, including my fellow blogger Amber Rhea.
The model to which I am still attached is one that sees the act of paying for sex to be fundamentally at odds with feminist ideals. This is more grounded in intuition about the unique nature of sex itself than it is in an actual consistency. After all, my wife and I employ women to clean our home. We make sure we pay them above the prevailing wage, we make sure that they have comfortable conditions, we avoid agencies and deal with contractors directly. But we have no trouble renting, if you will, a woman’s hands to scrub our toilets. We also are fortunate enough to be able to afford visits to the spa once in a while. I have no trouble these days paying a woman to massage my shoulders and back, though it took me a while to get accustomed to being touched by a stranger.
The line between sex work and massage is a clear one, except it isn’t: in both cases, a consumer pays for physical pleasure that is delivered via the body of a working person. I don’t have a problem renting the hands, muscles, and elbows of a skilled masseuse: the idea of renting the vagina of a woman seems an utterly different thing. I’m troubled by surrogacy, as I don’t like “renting wombs”, but I’m willing to hire women to clean chinchilla cages and rub out my knots. Feel-good slogans like “Women’s bodies are not for rent” run into a whole host of problems and exceptions.
Even when I lack the power to describe it, I think sex is qualitatively different from all other activities. My acculturation leads me to maintain that there is something unique about the power of sex, particularly intercourse, to bind two people together emotionally. But is that really true? Or is just my heterosexist cultural programming that has taught me this? When I think about it, I’ve had intercourse that was lousy and distant. On the other hand, I had a massage a couple of years ago where the masseur who was rubbing me seemed to be pouring love into me. I felt hot light coming in wherever his hands were, and I wanted him to keep close to me forever. I didn’t know his last name, but, for sixty minutes, I loved him because I felt that for that precious hour, he loved me. I’ve had sex that was a hell of a lot less intimate! He was $150 an hour, this fellow, and worth every penny. Bottom line: learning to be massaged has taught me that radical physical intimacy is not always sexual, just as my colorful past taught me that sex is not always intimate. And radical physical intimacy that you pay for can be really, really good.
There’s an implication for sex work in all this.
I recommend this post that Amber linked to: Reaching the Media, Sex Workers Against Rape posted by Jill Brennemann at the work-safe “Bound, Not Gagged.” It’s got me thinking.
“I like to maintain that there is something unique about the power of sex, particularly intercourse, to bind two people together emotionally.”
Part of the power of sex is oxytocin.
“Oxytocin is a hormone produced naturally in the hypothalamus in the brain. Studies have shown that oxytocin is associated with our ability to mediate emotional experiences in close relationships and maintain healthy psychological boundaries.”
http://www.filly.ca/health/body/sexual_health/Oxytocin.asp
Good sex does release oxytocin, Fred; bad sex doesn’t. Good massage also releases oxytocin — it’s not a hormone that is uniqely connected to sex.
Hugo, you’ve posted in the past that you are opposed to renting “hands” for other, nonsexual purposes–specifically, caretaking. You’ve actually been very nasty towards anyone who suggests there is a contradiction between approving of paid housekeeping but disapproving of paid caretaking. Why is rubbing a paying customer’s back acceptable “radical intimacy”, but wiping up a disabled elderly person is more like buying sex (i.e. unacceptable to pay another to do)?
Uh, I did? I’m not saying I didn’t, but honest go God, I have no problem paying for caretakers. The hospice nurse who took care of my dying father did a far better job than any of us could ever have done.
I’m not playing dumb, can you help me find where on earth I said this? It’s not something I can recall ever feeling, much less blogging. Perhaps one of my poorly-expressed posts about autonomy?
When I get a longer break later, I’ll look.
One of the things that sets sex apart from other care taking/renting of hands sorts of activities is the lopsided risk that one partner incurs. If birth control breaks down, the female can get pregnant - creating new life is not a normal potential work risk. Women are also at a much greater risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease should the condom break/not be used. Any care taking job that involves skin to skin contact has the potential for disease transfer, but at a much lower risk level than sex.
Indeed, Kate, but surrogacy is legal — and that has whopping implications for women’s bodies.
Rather than look for a theoretical bright line between sex workers and masseurs or housekeepers, I’d say that it’s generally a good thing for society to declare some kind of intimacy “not for sale”, to create a safe space where people can potentially interact in an honest, vulnerable, non-commodified way. While not wholly different from other hands-on services, sex is for most people the most obvious candidate for this zone of privacy - that’s why we call them “private parts”. When a man really wants to humiliate someone, he rapes them, he doesn’t force them to give a back massage or clean the birdcage, because sexual connection goes to the core of one’s self in a way that these other activities don’t necessarily.
I agree with you, Jendi — but the problem is making that distinction in a way that is both secular and universal. And the larger issue of how we avoid stigmatizing sex workers themselvs is important, too. The reality that some women are abused and addicted while others are voluntary, even enthusiastic participants makes it difficult to develop a consistent vocabulary which neither is neither paternalistic nor blind to abuse.
Jendi,
I think you’re right to look at this from an economic point of view, although I think I’d come to the opposite conclusion. I believe that a lot of the practical problems of sex workers and many society’s dealing with them stems from the fact that many cultures try to put a “not for sale” label on something that in fact has a price, whether openly admitted or not.
I deeply believe that there are human interactions that are indeed priceless, and they are very likely “the best things in life”. But the view that only romantic love can justify physical intimacy is looking at things from the wrong angle, in my opinion. There’s value being transferred in every interaction and it’s easy to model every human interaction as an implicit contract. Often value is being transferred for sex. All kinds of things and emotions have been exchanged for sex. What kind of relationship structure would be exempt from the label?
The Pope wrote in his first encyclica about love that sex without love is, well, just sex. “Just Sex” can - and it does - exist outside of a romantic relationship, outside of emotional intimacy. Disallowing something just because it doesn’t live up to a perfect standard seems rather flawed to me.
We should really wonder if it’s truly logical to single out a relationship just because of its clearly defined scope and the monetary nature of the transferred value. The distinction can be explained historically, but it is logically flawed.
I like to maintain that there is something unique about the power of sex, particularly intercourse, to bind two people together emotionally
Fancy that! I guess I’d better call my girlfriend up right now and let her know we’ve been missing out and aren’t truly bound together, since we don’t (can’t) have “intercourse.”
Exactly, Daisy — which is why, if you read on, I answer my own question with a clear affirmative, when I write about my “heterosexist programming.” I’m sorry if it wasn’t clearer that I had tested and ultimately rejected that “primacy of intercourse” narrative.
Hugo, it was part of a long discussion about hiring housekeepers.
Here’s that post, Mythago, and I don’t see myself saying anything about caregiving: http://hugoschwyzer.net/2004/09/15/women-men-housework-money-time/
Hugo- I can’t figure out why but I’m really struggling with this post. In the broadest sense, I agree with what you’re saying but I keep coming back to the complicated concept of intimacy. A great massage has the effect of feeling incredibly intimate to the client, but ultimately it feels one sided - the therapist isn’t necessarily having the same intimate experience as the client. I hesitate to declare sex work is inherently immoral but my Christian identity rejects what feels like the inherently exploitive nature of sex work.
I’m also stuck on what feels to me like a false equivalency - which is paying person’s for their labor. Like you, I feel as if paying for sex is not analogous to paying someone to clean the house. But, most of my life, I have paid someone to clean the house. In terms of massage, I don’t think twice about paying a massage therapist $80 for a massage, I’m purchasing their skill and their time. The same with my housekeeper and my hair stylist and my doctor. There are some blogs by sex workers who argue that they are selling their skill and their time in they same way.
But I can’t get past the idea that sex is or should be an intimate act and that intimacy is created through an emotional connection that seems unlikely to be found when you purchase sex. And that seems to me the problem.
FWIW I think men perceive the act of penetration as inherently unique, moreso than women; I’m not talking about biological determinism, I’m talking about the way in which we know the world through our bodies and the way in which we experience the world through our bodies. The penis can be experienced as an extension of self in much the same way one’s hands are experience - “I know this because I touch it, I know this person because I am within her.” The many ways in which gay men respond to penetrative anal intercourse I think speaks to ideas about anatomy and the sense of knowing the world. Among many gay male couples, the question of who will be the insertive and who will be the receptive partner during sex often becomes emotionally fraught. There’s a sense that the partner who is penetrated is more vulnerable than the partner who penetrates. I guess my point is I’m not convinced it is heterosexist conditioning so much as I wonder if it an outcome of experiencing the world in a male body.
It wasn’t that post, Hugo, but one related to it. I’ll see if I can locate it. As I recall, you were very disdainful of paying somebody to care for an aged parent at a nursing home.
Hugo: re-reading it, your intentions seem clearer, but you did say (emphasis mine): “I like to maintain that there is something unique about the power of sex, particularly intercourse, to bind two people together emotionally.” That suggests that you continue to hold this view, in my mind. And your rhetorical questions thereafter seem like an insufficient disavowal to me, or at least they did the first time I read them.
Somehing no - one has mentioned yet is that the majority of sex workers, of all kinds, including those involved in porn, have a history of sexual abuse, most often child sexual abuse. Prostitution is an unhealthy way of reworking that trauma which compounds the shame and low self esteem felt by survivors. Even so called high class prostitutes are just as likely to be survivors. There may be some willing participants, but only in the way that there are willing participants of heroin addiction.
Sex should be a choice and even if a prostitute has chosen her way of life, most prostitutes still cannot choose who they have sex with. This is very close to rape - hence the attraction to those who have been so heavily traumatised and conditioned in childhood.
Many prostitutes in our age are kidnap victims and slaves and women such as these are udoubtedly being raped, repeatedly.
That’s my bad. Let me change it to — “my acculturation leads me to maintain that…”
Yeah, that would be clearer and less inflammatory.
Well, I’ve had a lot of massage work (mainly deep tissue) which I didn’t consider pleasurable. It was for the purpose of alleviating pain, yet I don’t see it as being intimate. It is in a sense, but no more so than a medical worker touching my body conducting an invasive procedure, because it’s necessary and their job. Sexuality on the other hand is something that I do equate very clearly with intimacy–the physical manifestation of emotional intimacy. Like Glendenb I cannot get past the idea that sex is or should be an intimate act and that intimacy is created through an emotional connection that seems unlikely to be found when you purchase sex. I had a girlfriend who was influenced into prostitution and she likewise tried to involve me (long story). I was also constantly propositioned in all areas of the sex industry. I simply couldn’t do it–I would have to feel emotionally numb and I believe harbor a sense of worthlessness to subject myself to such treatment. That is all I care to say on that subject.
I agree with Karen and have had several, great stress relieving massages and found them to be completely different experiences to sex. Sex is a mutual experience which is incredibly powerful, either negative or positive, for both parties. It speaks to our sense of self and identity.
Sex is also, always about some kind of emotional or intellectual communication, not just physical responses, wether its ‘I think you are so hot and have to have you right now even though we’ve just met’ or ‘You are amazing and potentially the father of my children/ have been the father of my children for 35 years’. It seems to me that all a prostitute can genuinely communicate is ‘you are allowed to do want you want to me for money’ and all his/her customer can say is ‘I can buy you, you are a thing and not a human being’. The fact that people turn to prostitution to survive makes this even worse, surely we can find a better way for those in poverty to feed themselves and their children. Prostitution denies the basic human right to share your sexuality with someone becuase you think they desserve it, and the basic human duty to earn, by one way or another, the genuine romantic affections of another.
The following isa quote taken from the ‘Prostitution research and education website:’Stockholm Syndrome often is the real reason for what others see as the “choice” to stay in the sex industry.’ (at
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/parker-how.html )
Stockholm Syndrome is where someone who has been terrorised in some way over a period of time comes to believe that this abusive treatment is bound up with love. A very simplified reason for this is that the person who terrorised them didn’t kill them, even though they had the power to do so, and therefore has given them the gift of life. It is a survival mechanism which although often life saving can linger for decades, or lifetimes and causes destructive behaviour such as ‘choosing’ to be a prostitute. Stockholm Syndrome gets its name from an incident in Stockholm during the 1970s where a group of benk robbers strapped explosives to hostages for three days. After their release, some of the hostages helped the bank robbers by supporting them financially with the legal costs of their trial. One of the hostages got engaged to one of the robbers.
So, although prostitutes may be making a choice it is hard to see a man who pays for sex as anything other than a quasi rapist, in deed, if maybe not in intention, and to feel the natural gut wrenching disgust associated with that.
Hugo, your instincts are spot on.
Juat in case anyone is under the illusion that prostitution can cause anything other than life long misery for sex ‘workers’ [sic] / rapees please read the following:
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,,2260967,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/11/gender.socialexclusion
legalised prostitution feels like legalised rape and there’s nothing wrong with seeing a victim as a victim
Which is a wordier way of saying the poor dears are just fucked-up in the head and don’t realize they’re trying to get past their own abuse. Stop patronizing and insulting the people you pretend you’d like to protect.
Mythago
I don’t know if you were ever sold for sex or raped as a child but I suspect from your comment that you weren’t. I was, that is why I use a pseudonym on this site.
All us survivors find ways of reworking and often it’s prostitution, I’ve seen it in the many survivors’ groups I’ve attended.
I am not patronising people I am speaking from personal experience. I am not protecting them, my point was about protecting me. I can’t and didn’t say wether I liked them or not, that is not at all relevant.
I know it is patronising to collude and not challenge the normalizing of women for sale. It is not patronising to speak the truth as you know it from personal experience.
It took alot for me to write this post, my hands are shaking, so please be gentle in your reply.
Matey
For what it is worth, I don’t think your post was patronising. I often find feminist positions about prostitution and porn very confusing. In fact, at times I’ve found it very alienating–a problem I see it can create for other people. It’s not patronising to speak out against the normalizing of women for sale or to speak the truth as you know it from personal experience.
Karen
Thank you for that. I’ve found the double standard between porn and prostitution on this site confusing, I was quite shocked that feminists could see that porn actors can collude in their own exploitation, but not that prostitutes could. All the arguments that hold good against porn which are being supported on another recent thread translate to prostitution, but people are unwilling to apply them. Nobody is concerned about patronizing ‘willing’ porn actors.
Maybe it’s down to fashion, I hope that changes soon. We all need feminism.
Oh, and to clarify: I think it is extremely patronising (and dangerous) to sanction prostitution and avoid challenging those who collude in their own exploitation. If it is so alright to be a prostitute will they be encouraging their daughters down that path, and why isn’t Mythago turning tricks?
matey, I am genuinely sorry that you were abused. But if you do agree that it is important to speak the truth from personal experience, my personal experience is that most sex workers who aren’t prostituted (that is, forced into sex work by someone else for profit) pick their work because it’s the best-paying job they can obtain. When I worked as a stripper (I’m sorry, did I mess up your “mythago is an outsider” routine?), most of my co-workers were women from working-class or poor backgrounds. Many were single mothers. Sex work paid better than checking groceries or secretarial work for them, and unlike prostitution, it was legal.
The fact that women often don’t have other options, and that sex work is the best way for them to feed their kids? THAT is the problem. So yes, it is patronizing and slap in the face for you to insist that a woman who picks a job that pays x10 more than she could make at menial labor is ‘colluding in her own exploitation’.
Funny that you assume Mythago *isn’t* turning tricks and has no idea what sex work involves. Does it get lonely up there on that high horse?
So glad we agree Mythago! That is exactly what I was saying - we are not thrird world, there has to be a better way for women to escape poverty.
I didn’t say you were an outsider, I could just tell from your comment that you’d not experience child rape of any kind. I think maybe you originally thought I was an outsider though. I notice you stuck to stripping and never took the plunge, there must have been a reason for that.
I m not judging women who ar forced to prostitute themselves to escape poverty in the porn industry, or prostitution, but i will not collude and pretend it is not damaging.
I grew up around strip clubs and know that that is an extremely unpleasant culture (not where I was raped though) I’m glad you got out.
BTW Muthago, I said that about turning tricks because I wanted a response from you - I found your original comments pretty strong and wanted you to answer my defense, and you have. Although you never have turned tricks. It’s interesting that,as you point out, the women who have to do this are working class and not educated; but there are plenty of educated middle class people who do have choices contributing to the normalization of their exploitation. Mmmm, maybe, just maybe, another double standard.
Also, did you know that the use of capitals is equivallent to shouting?
Matey,
You’re welcome. I agree about the double standards and some of the confusion. I find that somewhat typical though of other feminist sites (confusion about issues) as well as what seems like lack of empathy from people who respond. I don’t know why–denial, poor communication to name a few. Maybe some people are just very unwilling to discuss abuse and the connection of complicit behaviors. When people talk of sex work being empowering I’m just speechless. Sometimes I feel like I’d like to respond in more depth (this would of course be from personal experience), yet I hold back because it doesn’t feel emotionally safe. I stopped going to another site completely because of the contentious, malicious commentaries were alienating. I understand why it would take a lot for you to write the post that you did…I know it took courage to do so and that is why I responded as I did.
Karen
I only visit this feminist site so I have no idea what is said on others. I visit here because I like Hugo’s style and it’s important for me at this stage in my recovery (a 25 year process) to engage with men and Hugo’s writing is usually a good way for me to do this. I am trying to be able to trust them. This post is off putting though! The idea that selling sex could be likened to a massage seems out of character.
I am very passionate about views of prostitution and the effects it has on the women and men involved for personal reasons, reasons which I think are obvious to you. I’m very glad to have this forum, and saying what I did has empowered me to some degree, I’d love to just broadcast the whole crappy mess to the world, there seems to be so much ignorance. I am shocked by what sometimes seems like naivety about the effect of prostitution on the emotional lives of those involved.
There is so much secrecy around the impact of child rape and abuse and how that translates in survivors lives - prostitution is a major area of this. Most prostitutes will report emotional damage before they start, often derrived from sexual abuse. All of them will leave the ‘profession’ (sic) with damage.
I appreciate your solidarity, thank you
matey, again: patronizing isn’t going to win you any converts.
Patriarchy hurts all women. Some women have class privilege that helps offset that. Don’t come sneering in about how women ‘collude with their own oppression’ because they are doing the best they can to survive in a patriarchal system. Either they’re oppressed or they’re not. When you blame victims for ‘colluding’ in their oppression, you sound like one of those people who blames victims of domestic violence if they don’t leave immediately after the first time they’re hit.
Turning tricks is illegal and frankly wouldn’t have paid as well as stripping did, so it was a pretty no-brain choice there.
Matey
I get what you are saying and yes your reasons are obvious to me. I think other people struggled with the post. Even Hugo says, “Even when I lack the power to describe it, I think sex is qualitatively different from all other activities.” I’m glad that saying what you did has helped you to feel empowered to some degree. I don’t believe it’s naivete, although right now I too struggle with the right words to describe it. Some people just lack empathy and ignorance is willful. I also think that some of Hugo’s writing’s offer a positive way to engage with men–he’s willing to put himself out there, instead of the usual BS, which is a refreshing change of pace. I agree with you about emotional and sexual abuse. I personally haven’t been exposed too, or maybe a better way to say this is that I haven’t known people who have picked sex work who were not forced, subtly coerced or indoctrinated to some degree. I’ve only known people who after the fact, are more willing to discuss the emotional damage it creates.
Mythago
Yes, we are all in this together so I’m not against you, but I get the feeling from your use of sarcasm towards me that you don’t like me posting here (saying things like ’sneering in’ doesn’t help with that) this is an open forum. I am certainly not sneering, I m quite shocked that you are allowed to use such personal and insulting language to an individual, where are you Hugo???? and thank you for making my responses possible Karen.
The comment you keep repeating about ‘colluding in their own exploitation’ is certainly not about blame. Of course it’s down to patriarchy, but often, as is also true of battered wives (something else I know about from personal experience - it’s happened to me twice - that god for the anaonymous pseudonym) when a person is traumatised they will find ways to repeat the trauma and ‘re-work’ it. This is an established fact of psychology. That is what I did with violent and sexually abusive men and also what alot of survivors do with prostitution.
We collude, and it takes facing up to that fact for it to stop. I won’t pretend otherwise. Maybe these women never told you they’d been raped as children - only two of my closest friends know what happened to me. This is hard right now and maybe the difficulty I’m finding in engaging with this is also why no - one talks about it.
Mythago
Also, if stripping is better paid than prostitution, why don’t the women you speak of who need the highest paying job stick to that?, surely the logical thing to do if gaining the highest earnings is your goal. Higher earnings is the reason you gave for them going from stripping to prostitution, why did that not apply in your case?
I won’t be replying to any more of your posts, I gave up engaging with aggression a few years ago. However, you won’t stop me posting on this site.
matey
I don’t think this forum provides an emotionally safe zone to discuss these issues. I’m cetain it stimulates deep emotions, but many of the people who respond are not accessing those emotions and instead are intellectualizing. That is why some of the responses seem so cruel and distancing. There’s an interesting book which discusses intellectualizing of emotions (emotional unavailability). It allows people who intellecctualize a way to keep everyone and everything at a distance all the time. They manage the emotional impact of feeling by discussing it from the safe, distant perch on which they sit. They cannot make the connection between who they are and what they do. I’m certain that some people don’t even realize how their style is emotionally damaging for whatever reason and intellectualize away the pain they cause to others. And for some people, if they do recognize, they may not care. From a cultural standpoint we respect intelligent people. We assume if someone is smart, he or she is a whole evolved person, because they may sound whole and evolved, until you crack the surface and recognize the astonishing interpersonal cruelty they exhibit both to strangers and towards their more intimate relationships. I get that you are speaking from personal experience and I also get that you are coming from a feeling place. If you look at some of the responses, people quite clearly are NOT. They probably don’t even recognize how cruel some of their responses are. Yes, it’s an open forum unless Hugo decides to block what he feels are inappropriate responses and personal attacks.
Yeah, you’re right Karen, but I’m glad I said what I did. My personal beleif is that thought and discussion of feminism should be related to real life, I see it as something which is there to improve real life. I am a researher, but I’ve also taken time out to commit to healing myself and life always comes first for me. I will recover, I’ve been through much worse. Although, just so people realise this episode has triggered a whole bunch of flash backs for me, unpleasant and tiring , but worth it. I’m suprised Hugo allows all
Oh dear, I must have pressed submit by mistake, I meant to say I’m suprised Hugo allows such personal attacks on the site.
I would appologise for the multiple postings but flashbacks and the shakes are an innevitable consequence of such personal attacks on disclosing and discussing such painful memories and experiences. I’d also have been better at spelling and grammar without the shakes etc too.
matey
I don’t know what his criteria is for what he considers personal, acceptable and not acceptable. It’s his blog and he appears to be a prolific writer. I’m certain some people just respond to what interests them for whatever reason and time constraints. I’d also be surprised if the subject matter didn’t trigger memories and responses. Not everyone would openly admit this at least not in the way that you have. Given some of the responses I would be reluctant to be so honest. People don’t open up when they have little incentive to do so and in some circumstances it’s best not too. I’m glad you feel empowered to say how you feel. You’re speaking your own personal truth and I wouldn’t judge you for that. In theory, one would hope that discussions of feminism would relate to real life and improvement of women’s lives–I would hope men too. Sadly, I think it suffers an image (stereotype) problem. I think a good many people may feel alienated by the language and confused by the issues such as porn and prostitution.
Karen
I am pretty far down the path of my own healing process and I certainly do see feminism as something which relates to real life which is why I just stuck my neck out. I’m very glad I did, I live with flashbacks alot of the time anyway and this was worth it. These issues can never just be an abstract intellectual debate for me so I would do this again, no problem. I’m curious to see what kind of comments people will make about what I said in the future. Maybe one day I will be strong enough to tell the world about who I really am.
I know how hard people find hearing this - that’s why so few people in my own life know my real story (and the real stories of many women & men). That too, I think is why I did this, current figures say something like 1 in 5 people live with the devastating after effects of child sexual trauma throughout their adult lives, so I know there are far more people than just me reading this site who are effected. But so few of us are able to talk about it. I also know that pretending these things aren’t happening always makes them worse.
For me there is little point to feminism if it isn’t about making life better. We have postmodern theory to satsify the need for intellectual excercise for its own sake (no offence meant to any postmodern theorists out there). That is a big reason I’m not a gender specialist in my own writing, work involves compromises which I don’t want to make in this area.
And I am very, very glad Mythago pushed me into doing this, it’s been something of a breakthrough for me!
And yes, the shakes have gone now