It is a post-Enlightenment, rights-oriented outlook that tells us it is not appropriate for a businessman to tell his secretary to dress sexy for the office, or to do his holiday shopping for him; we draw a basic distinction between the kinds of services that are appropriately exchanged for money, i.e. 'what is in my job description,' and those which are, or should be, a reflection of intersubjectivity and reciprocity. We look down on people who use sexual favours to get ahead in academia or the workplace. We don't want to work for bosses who grope the staff, or make pay raises conditional on a quick shag in the storeroom.
If we take a classic laissez-faire neoliberal approach to prostitution and say that there are no services which it is inappropriate to exchange for money, and that therefore performing sex for money is no different from typing or canning fish for money -- hey, it's just supply and demand, rational actors completing a transaction like any other in a free market -- then how do we at the same time maintain that the secretary should not be required to fellate the boss? After all, if there is nothing shaming or demeaning about performing sexual acts on persons for whom one has no intimate affection, no basis of trust or love, then why should this not be in her job description right along with shorthand and typing?
But instinctively we know that using the lever of money-power to coerce sexual service is a qualitatively different type of transaction from paying for 8 hours of someone's time to translate documents or wash cars. Permitting extreme physical intimacy from an untrusted and unloved Other or stranger, on their terms, according to their demand, requires a renunciation of fundamental human boundaries, the acceptance of a profound violation of personal space and bodily/emotional integrity. Having at the same time to maintain a pretence -- an artificial persona -- only adds to the alienation. Anyone who has ever worked Reception for 8 hours a day can tell you how wearying and crazy-making it can be to smile brightly and make nice with often obnoxious strangers all day, even when you are having trouble at home or not feeling very well -- to have to put on an act all day long; imagine having to provide them with the most intimate sexual services as well.
We can judge the depth of our attachment to personal integrity by the shock, outrage, and/or fear that we feel when we read about (or heaven help us, experience) male/male prison rape and prostitution. When men in prison must submit to sexual service in order to survive or to get along or to earn money, we consider this a tragedy and a horror, a dreadful indictment of an inhumane prison system, a damaging and traumatising experience -- even when some degree of (constrained) choice is involved, we know that rape and the threat of rape are forever hovering to sway that choice. And we know that vanishingly small numbers of men would make those choices if they were free, on the outside.
But we are supposed to believe that women and girls -- who live in a society not so different from prison society for men, where an unprotected female without wealth is at high risk for rape, and where the protection of one man (however exploitative) may seem better than being "thrown to the wolves" -- take no harm from the same experience. To believe this, seems to me, is to believe that men are somehow more real human beings, with more dignity and sense of self and self-worth, than women; which, if I may speak strongly for a moment, is the fundamental assumption of a bigot -- whether racial religious, or sexual. To assume that another person's self-respect and dignity are inherently of less worth or importance than another's is surely the base assumption of anti-democracy, the root of caste and feudal class and race slavery.
When men are treated as sexual merchandise by other men in prison, we are deeply shocked and understand that this experience could wound and scar an individual's soul and pride for life. We understand the same when men are coerced into playing out pornographic scenes in Abu Ghraib. When the coercion used is money rather than guns (or money and guns and fists in many cases), and the coerced or constrained person is female, for some reason we collectively believe that she is miraculously resilient and tough and ultra-balanced enough to take no harm from relinquishing her physical boundaries and allowing the occupation and use of her body by an untrusted other.
Right. And the Iraqis will run to greet the invading US troops, throwing rice and flowers. There's more than one kind of exceptionalism and double standard in this world...
There's a good paper on this very issue -- why "sex work" is qualitatively different from most other kinds of paid labour -- from, I think, Journal of Ethics. I'll try to track it down when I have access to my home library. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
I can not say them all..
So I will focus on one: the problem is not interchanging money for sex. I personally think is a wonderful idea (I just can not imagine this world without prostitutes, I love them because of the service they provide to te wordl peace).
The problem is the way our society looks at sex. How many societies put sex and violence as the things children should not see?? I will tell you, only us.
Sex, in most places, is fun, sometimes not even fun, just neutral, like going to sleep, or cooking.
It is our perception (some say jew-chrisitan perception) that the body is bad and the soul-mind is good. This is why if you prostitute your brain for a big company, there is no problem, but prostitute your body and there IS a problem.
So the ideal enlightment is that the things that come into your job from your pay should never excess a certain threshold. In principle it does not matter what is your profession. So, a secreatry should do the work of a secretaary: She can be a secreatry and a prostitute and get paid accordingly for both. But you can not join them. this leads to the slavery zone.
And this is what the present system does. Because we have this look at what sex is we generate thousands of women who are salved and treated in the most awful ways.
It is time to look for sex in another way. It is time to fill the airwaves and TV with histories of love followed by ral and visual sex so that the new generation can understan it in another way.... it is time to link sex with a neutral thing...and now you can call the police so that they come put me in jail...(snark) In the meantime, legalize it once and for all, give social security, collect taxes. You advance int he health problems, reduce slave adn change the overall vision of sex...
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Do you honestly believe that women's life in Western society is equivalent to a prison?
Do you believe that wealth is all it takes to protect women from rape?
And as for shock/outrage, I'd argue that society is more outraged about prostitution than about prison rape (which in any case affects women as well as men). Prison rape has been a known problem for decades, but there has never been a serious attempt to stop it. Instead, incarceration rates have skyrocketed in recent years, by a society knowing full well the people it imprisons stand a good chance of being raped. Meanwhile, police continue to sweep the streets for prostitutes.
The worst irony is women sent to prison for prostitution and raped while behind bars.
Permitting extreme physical intimacy from an untrusted and unloved Other or stranger, on their terms, according to their demand, requires a renunciation of fundamental human boundaries, the acceptance of a profound violation of personal space and bodily/emotional integrity.
This is a subjective judgment - most women do feel this way, but there are a few exceptions. Decriminalization would allow women to make that choice themselves, instead of having it imposed on them.
Having at the same time to maintain a pretence -- an artificial persona -- only adds to the alienation.
Only the higher-fee, upmarket prostitutes maintain such a persona. The downmarket ones, who face the most exploitation, are not. Again an issue that could be solved with decriminalization.
After all, if there is nothing shaming or demeaning about performing sexual acts on persons for whom one has no intimate affection, no basis of trust or love, then why should this not be in her job description right along with shorthand and typing?
Because women (and men) should have a choice. If all professions (because that's basically what you're getting at right?) would have 'performing sexual acts' as part of their job description, everyone that doesn't have enough money to start their own business would be forced to be a prostitute.
i appreciate all your comments i really do
but when i was reading this...the light bulb went off in my head.
you wrote;
"But instinctively we know that using the lever of money-power to coerce sexual service is a qualitatively different type of transaction from paying for 8 hours of someone's time to translate documents or wash cars. Permitting extreme physical intimacy from an untrusted and unloved Other or stranger, on their terms, according to their demand, requires a renunciation of fundamental human boundaries, the acceptance of a profound violation of personal space and bodily/emotional integrity. "
what you are missing is that not everyone experiences this the way you describe....in my case i feel the power....at the end of the day im giddy with the pile of money i have on the bed....the money is the power and im the one getting the money...no one is in control of me except me....the money gives me the power to do alot of things....to live the way i want, to help the people i want to help....i suppose if i were a politician who got bribes for access i would feel the exact same way....and beyond the money its the feeling i am giving a gift...some people may feel they are being used but i feel very strongly that i am performing a very spiritual service...my clients cry....i realize im not a normal prostitute but that is my point...we arent all doing or experiencing the same things and you are putting us all in the same box....the other thing you are missing is the level of control i feel....i dont ever feel a violation of personal space with my work....i have boundaries....the client is there for a specific experience....if he gets more it will be because i want more...i make the rules...and i have to honestly say that i have never had a client try to break the rules or overstep the boundary...unlike in real life where men do try to overstep my boundaries all the time.....i think the basis of what you arent getting is not everyone comes away with the same feelings about an event...some people transform their feelings and empower themselves from an experience...for example my sister and i have very different reactions to the way our parents treat us...she takes everything personally and literally and thinks every comment is a personal attack on her....i dont experience it that way at all....i think she needs meds and therapy if for no other reason than to just be able to chill and find some serenity in situations she cant change.....she isnt necessarily wrong in her perceptions....she just processes it different than i do and as a result her life is miserable....im not blaming her....im saying its her responsibility to deal with life, accept what she can, change the things she cant....the serenity prayer if you will.
im not sure i communicated precisely what i am thinking....im off to a session right now but i look forward to continuing this discussion.
