This is one of the finest posts I've read in a long time.
While it's true that by the time we come to a full mature understanding of our subjectivity as an artifact and not something that is "natural" to us, we are already quite made up with desires, attitudes, and attributes that are of common, vulgar, or politically suspect origin. The trick, I believe, in living authentically with these elements--many of which are so wrapped in our own narrative conceptions of who we are--is to find a way to enjoy them fully while still keeping an eye on their origins, and in the case of desires and self-images that are ideologically troubling, to imploy them in a way that is not slavish, but indicates a critique of the power structures from which they fare. All of us are composed out of bits and pieces from the world in which we find ourselves, but it's our choice, of course, how we employ them.
B - I am relatively new here, but I think I am up to speed. I think you are getting stuck on the word. The truth is the word "prositution" applies to so many different situations, relationships, and possible transacations - you can easily get lost in trying to drive scenarios in and out of the definition. Stop for a minute and thing in terms of the motivations of the people involved in this, and other, similar situations. Men (outside of an existing significant relationship) are most often more driven by the chase than the goal - they derive great pleasure when the object of their desire capitulates. Men who have many women interested in them - seek the ones that aren't. Money is very similar to force - it is a very blunt instrument to persuade a woman (see Indecent Proposal). While I concede a man who is desperately attracted to a particular woman might use money to try to move the process to conclusion, men far prefer to maintain the illusion and would instead "give" gifts, trips, etc. to try to achieve the same end. In your case, your suitor may have detected that the offer to pay you was actually a turn-on for you and he is using it the same way a guy might talk dirty or act dangerously if he felt that would turn on the object of his desire.
Sorry to be wordy, but go back to all the possible scenarios of why a man would want a prositute and combine that with the various motivations women would be interested in meeting those needs and you begin to see a little different picture.
Finally, read "Time Enough for Love" by Robert Heinlein - he kind of gets the sex is indepedent of relationship thing (also note the copyright date - you won't feel so alone).
Hang in their kid - regardless of what the world says...you have got it more right than even you may believe.
Having been a (gay male) prostitute myself several years ago in college, I have to agree with you: at the end of the day it comes down almost solely to agency. Personally, I found the act of offering my body up for money far more empowering than having to ask my family for it (prostitution of a different stripe, I suppose).
Lovely piece, really. It's refreshing to see an intelligent take on the issue.
I think you'll be surprised at how much agency you give up once you accept money for sex. For one, your agency to say no to sex you don't want, if that's what the "customer" wants. You may think you can choose to say no, i.e. exercise agency not really available to "regular" prostitutes. The truth is closer to this: whether you get to exercise the agency of saying no is up to the man paying for use of your body. If that were not true, men would be prosecuted for their rapes of prostituted women. Hell, prostituted women could report rapes.
You're drawing artificial lines to make yourself think that giving up ownership of your body for money is agency. You obviously can do or believe whatever you want.
But rather than mine or Funnie's posts being built on a narrow definition of prostitution, they're built on a wider definition of prostitution than you want to admit, because otherwise your arguments about "agency" wouldn't work. There's no difference between "regular" prostitutes and you, should you accept money for sex. You might retain your economic standing. You probably won't find yourself on a street corner.
But, when it comes down to it, by prostituting yourself you give up agency, you don't gain it.
I remember speaking with the woman who founded WHISPER, Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt. And she said, it doesn't matter if you're "high class" on "dates" in the best hotels or giving blowjobs on your knees in an alley for $5, it's all the same thing. And she knew, having been there herself. So, frankly, I think my definition of prostitution is probably broader and more coherent than yours.
But, as I said in my first post, what a position of privilege you occupy that you can play with, joke about, and spin ridiculous metaphors about, other people's pain and oppression. And funny how the popular face of "prostitution is about *agency*" is never the face of actual prostituted women, but is always the face of someone like you. I just don't see how we get from "gosh, wouldn't it be fun and sexy for me to take money for sex" to liberating women who actually sell their asses to survive.
I see nothing in this self-indulgent exercise in willful blindness to women's oppression that does anything to help any women who are actually prostituted by men.
Paige, I too have read things written by women who prostituted themselves and said it *was* empowering.
And I still don't buy your saying that "whether you get to exercise the agency of saying no is up to the man paying for use of your body." What you mean is, if I am alone in a room with a man and he wants to rape me, he can. But this is true in any number of situations, not just prostitution. I would not, and never have, put myself in a vulnerable situation with a man I did not trust. Maybe I'm just lucky, or maybe I'm smart, or maybe I'm a good judge of character, or maybe it's a little bit of all three. But I am going to hold firm to the idea that there is a distinction between prostitution and rape.
And let me just add to this, I doubt that any man who buys a woman for sex is making all these nice distinctions between the women they prostitute, you know, like those who exercise agency and those who don't, and those who are streetwalkers and those who aren't. The fundamental point of prostituting women is that prostituted women don't get to be agents. Because that's not what johns, and pimps even less, want and that's not what they pay for.
I'm not erasing distinctions between prostitution and rape. I'm saying: if you think that you retain the agency to say no while being prostituted you're delusional, and dangerously so.
How many prostituted women rely on just what you're talking about: I can tell who's dangerous and who's not. And how many prostituted women end up dead or raped or both?
And, frankly, I'd look a little closer at that idea of empowerment. Most often what it comes down to is believing you're now in control of your own abuse, be it past or present abuse. And I'd look a little closer at where that idea of empowerment comes from. Mostly from women who aren't prostituting themselves anymore, but have become shills and front men in order to get out of the system.
Paige: what makes you so certain that you understand the motives of other people? You do seem *awfully* sure that you are operating with, um, fundamentally complete information.
wow, they should make a movie about this! Hmm.. they could get demi moore.. and robert redford.. yes yes... oh wait..
"if you think that you retain the agency to say no while being prostituted you're delusional"
I suppose I am being naive, but if this is so, then isn't anyone working in any industry for any amount of pay also robbed of agency? Do secretaries have agency? Do lawyers? What about consultants? What about the guy who comes and puts his body behind my lawnmower every Thursday for $30 a pop?
Thanks for a smart and passionate post, B! When bloggers make posts like this, I start to feel like I'm back in grad school, working out the messy details of real and messy issues over pints of beer--outside of class, where the "real" ideas flowed.
To comment on the beginning of your post, it is great to be caught in the uneasiness of participating in a system that you simultaneously critique. Transformation requires something that is already being sustained. Nevertheless, we live in a culture of images and endless products, and we can't help but to live through these things (and partly understand ourselves in relation to these things and the system that spawned them).
So, just as being a feminist means to question if feminism is fully possible within the overarching structure of patriarchy, so too we may ask ourselves if (at some level) it is fully possible to not be a prostitute. I don't mean for this to be a theoretical blockade, but, rather, to point out the inevitability (and potential joy) of the struggling flow of subjectivity/identity as an inhabitant of culture.
When and how do we get to have the revolution where we can dance (etc.)?
Paige, you seem to be saying that it's impossible for a prosititute oto mitigate the risks of prosititution, and therefore it's a de facto losing proposition. I'm sympathetic to your emotional position on this issue, because people are being hurt and killed. I can, however, see a flaw in your reasoning.
I think one reason prostitutes end up raped or dead is that a certain segment of the prostitute-using population thinks of them as non-or-sub-human. Such people are sociopaths within the confines of the sex-work world. Those people are dangerous for prostitutes to be around. Given that it's dangerous for anyone to to be around a sociopath, it becomes a (sadly, reductionist) matter of risk management.
But here's the thing about risk management -- a person uneducated in the initially-bizarre pychology of risk management is likely to make the classic mistake of taking on more risk when they feel that they *need* more reward. Once that happens, it's a matter of time until they get hurt.
This is not to dismiss the average education level of prosititutes, but to say that unless they've survived a couple of years on Wall Street, they're unlikely to have the perspective I presented above.
I know of one prostitute who came to the profession slowly, rigorously screening potential clients, building up her client base over a number of years to a sustainable level. Not coincidentally, she'd previously worked on Wall Street, and approached it from a position of managing the risks associated in order to maximize safety and reward. Since one always takes the risk that the person they're alone in a room with is a sociopath and has no internal taboos against killing them, I don't see that the risks a prosititute takes are a priori different. From my perspective, they simply have to be more rigorously managed.
If we lived in a world with a much higher sociopathic population, I believe we would all engage in similar behavior, and that those who did not would suffer similar predation.
Thought-provoking, all of this. I think the part of prostitution that still gets to me is the idea of the woman’s body becoming a commodity. The man is the consumer and pays for this commodity. In our culture, that puts that man in the position of power. Sure, you could argue that it’s different if the woman chooses when and where and to whom she is going to sell her body, but it still seems like a power imbalance to me. I mean, many conservatives will argue that the lower-class kids who are fighting in Iraq right now CHOSE to go into the military, but I would argue that those kids from poor families who chose the military because they had few other options are getting exploited. The ones I know have not been empowered. As soon as a body – soldier or prostitute – is regarded as a commodity, I think there’s a power shift that does not favor the person whose body it is.
the afghanistan story does illustrate feminism in an incredibly admirable manner. the prostitution argument is interesting, but the story at the end is the kicker...i think.
jo(e), I agree that when a body becomes a commodity, it is dehumanized. What I'm trying to say, I think, is that prostitution need not be seen as commodification of the body. It can be seen, instead, as providing a service. The military analogy is very interesting, becauase I think there is a huge difference in terms of how, say, enlisted guys in the Navy and officers in the Air Force see themselves (and are seen): the former are pretty much commodities, often treated as inhuman under prison-like conditions, while the latter, in my experience, tend to see themselves as doing a job. A demanding job, to be sure, but a job nonetheless.
I think you and I are right along the same lines when it comes to our femme aspects. I know what I'm playing into, but I quite like dressing up and doing my hair.
IF one subscribes to the theory that sex for money is dehumanizing (which I don't), then surely this goes for the buyer as much as the seller. Oddly, standard discourse is all too willing to deplore the seller's loss of agency (usually because we assume the seller is female), whilst endowing the buyer with more agency than in pretty much any other transaction.
The power differential between men and women is real, but separate from the question of sex for love versus sex for money. Women who sleep with men engage in risk management all the time, whether they get paid or not.
Further to the point of women engaging in risk management every time they sleep with a guy: Women get raped and killed in marriages even when they never collect a dime for services rendered. Is that an argument for ending marriage? Maybe, though I don't see too many people drawing that conclusion.
... vis-a-vis the double-asterisk - perhaps "humanist" would fit as well as "feminist." Of course, one term might subsume the other.
People always want to subsume feminist under humanist, but I think that they're not quite the same. In a society where women are so oppressed that their own parents set them on fire, drive them out of the house, lock them in a room and refuse to feed them, and blame them when they are molested by relatives, I'm going to say that anyone who takes in a girl under those conditions is explicitly feminist.
"She died doing what she loved" has a very different ring than "she died trying to feed her infant," eh?
How about "Her pimp killed her because she tried to run" versus "he was hanged for desertion?" Does the latter read differently if the soldier was volunteered or drafted, if he was fighting what he thought to be a just war or otherwise?
Is danger per se a valid argument for outlawing *any* profession? Crabbing? Coal mining? Auto racing? Mountain climbing/guiding? Firefighting? Running a mom-and-pop store in a neighborhood where there are a lot of holdups? To name a few...
"Paige, I too have read things written by women who prostituted themselves and said it *was* empowering."
Which means absolutely nothing without some idea of context.
At the end of the day, I'd expect feminists to aspire to a better definition of agency than "I can choose the conditions under which men will prostitute me."
Another point: B. you're drawing a false similarity between yourself and prostituted women in order to draw a false distinction between "types" of prostitution. The truth is, having sex with this man for money does not make you "just like" other prostituted women. You have more resources. More education. More available choices. More money. In short, you're not prostituting yourself as a job, you'd be doing it as nothing more than a hobby. Dare I say it? In these circumstances, while you are engaging in prostitution, you are engaging in it from a wildly different set of advantages than women who actually are prostituted as their "job" or, more accurately, means of survival.
So, it's not that the prostitution differs, i.e. prostitution with agency v. prostitution without agency, it's that you simply aren't in the same position as actual prostituted women. That doesn't make prostitution itself different, or the prostitution you're doing different. The prostitution is the same. What's different is *your* privilege and advantages.
And from that viewpoint, I find it hard to take seriously any assertion by you about what prostitution "is" or "could be" by virtue of you practicing it as a hobby.
Sell your ass on the street. Make your living being prostituted by men. Then I'll take all this theory and fol-de-rol about "agency" seriously.
If you get to exercise agency *prior* to the act of prostitution - i.e., I'll prostitute myself to him, but not him; I'll only do it a little bit when I feel like it; I'll only do it with men I trust -- I'd suggest that's a function of your class privilege, rather than a statement about what prostitution "is". Because I still think that you're not taking the actual lack of agency *once you've been paid money or agreed to money for sex* seriously.
Try to get the guy to wear a condom if he doesn't want to, for example. And, in your case, I'd expect that he'd see whatever he paid you as the expense of getting a woman he could reasonably expect was a) clean b) disease free and c) taking care of the birth control. So why *should* he wear a condom if he doesn't want to, after all he'll be paying probably a premium price not to have to worry about a condom. Although I'd suggest that his assurance that he's paying for disease-free sex won't reassure *you* much, given that he's willing to buy women for sex in the first place.
Which brings me to my last point: on what basis do you trust somebody who would buy women for sex? Sure, only take money from men you trust. But I wonder how it is that you don't see that willingness to buy women for sex as a sign of their lack of trustworthiness vis-a-vis allowing them access to your body.
Like I said, Paige, you seem to be using the "what you're doing isn't really prostitution" argument, an argument I reject on general principles.
You're also making a lot of assumptions about both me and the guy I'm dealing with, assumptions that, as it happens, aren't true. You're going to say, "you don't know what he'll do once the transaction's taken place," which is true, since none of us can predict the future, but surely I know what will happen better than you do, since I both know the guy and have been the one doing the negotiations.
I don't see how your "you have choices that most prostitutes don't have" argument differs significantly from what I'm saying about agency. Agency = choice.
how much are you getting paid?
On the other hand. I've actually been thinking about this exchange with Paige, and I am wondering if what's going on here isn't, in fact, a sort of academic condescension. Paige's point, as I understand it, is that the exchange I'm enganging in isn't "real" prostitution--and while I might argue, as I'm doing, that there are different kinds and that part of the problem of prostitution is that the conditions under which most prostitutes work make prostitution a lot shittier and more demaning than it needs to be, she has a very good point nonetheless. Is it really valid to abstract prostitution from the conditions it's most often performed under/associated with? I'm not really sure--and the work of groups like COYOTE lead me to say that it needn't and isn't always as much about victimization as Paige is arguing, but that doesn't mean that she's not, on the whole right.
I also think the problem is one of tone. Most of us, including me, are using a more or less academic tone about this: it's largely an intellectual problem. Paige's objection is that for actual prostitutes, it isn't an intellectual problem, it's real life. This is part of the larger problem of academics theorizing about any kind of oppression, for sure, and I have to admit I'm somewhat ashamed to find myself doing it, especially in a feminist context, and I think that I owe Paige an apology for objecting to her tone on those grounds: Paige, I'm sorry I got high-handed about it.
I do think it's a valid topic to discuss, but Paige's point that I'm hardly an authority on the subject simply because I'm considering taking a lot of money to "prostitute" myself to someone I know socially anyway is, I think, correct.
Anon, that information is between me and the person I'm dealing with.
"He wants to turn that no to a yes, and he's willing to pay for it."
And you seem quite unwilling to include any further analysis of his shopping for sex in either post, or your comments. That's as far as you get - that he's not purchasing a body part, he's purchasing a service.
As if paying people for services they wouldn't do for free has the same moral weight across the board, from typing to fucking. I thought the only people who waxed on about how working for The Man is *exactly the same as* being turned into a whore were drunken graduate student assholes in bars, circlejerking over the idea that they're the first humans to be so radical.
Well, if all procurement of service is equal, value-neutral, you must not believe in sexual harrassment; if sex can be a legitimate part of a service-providing profession, a man who wants to procure the services of bookkeeping and dicksucking (and only has one "position" available) clearly has the right to fire someone whose no cannot be changed to yes with money, in favor of hiring someone who will perform the services he requests for the fee he will pay.
Sex discrimination gets tricky, too: when the CEO tells his female junior exec (and only the female one) to make him some coffee and pick up his drycleaning, who could point a finger at him for making improper requests or creating a sex-biased job description? After all, consumers/employers (how different are they, really, they're the people with money) discriminate on the basis of sex all the time when it comes to purchasing/employing "people" for the purposes of stripping, fucking, or other "sex work," as the value-neutral-service crowd terms it. Imagine if your john ordered himself a prostitute and had no right-of-refusal based on receiving a man instead of a woman! That would never do, and if sex is a legitimate workplace, it's arbitrary to insist other workplaces operate by different rules.
And frankly, I don't see how race-based discrimination could possibly exist, either, which brings me back to those poor beleaguered frat boys - clearly there's no implied motive, no inherent hierarchy, no unacceptable degree of degradation, no analysis to be performed on their "procurement of services" when they hired black children to pick cotton in the front yard of the house to add authentic atmosphere to the Antebellum Ball. It's not like it was *oppression,* they just had enough money to change no into yes.
"Funnie asked me in the earlier thread why I wasn't paying the guy, and I think her implication was that I'm not because the patriarchy gives men more power and agency and money than it does women. In general, this is of course true: but that's not why. I'm not paying him because, to be blunt, he wants to fuck me more than I want to fuck him."
Yes, that was part of my implication, and it IS true, regardless of who wants to fuck who more in your situation or anyone else's.
But the rest of the reason I wanted you to discuss it is to find out whether you've ever paid for sex, and if not, why not.
Well, funnie, analysis of his motives isn't my job: he can do that on his own blog, if he has one. What I'm exploring here is my own motives. Though for the record, I will say that I don't think that the motives of all men who pay for sex are as dark as it seems you and Paige think they are. I think there are men who pay for sex because they are lonely, they don't have access to sex, or simply because it is pleasurable. Strip clubs, for instance, have a lot of men in wheelchairs in them, ime.
I don't think it follows that because I'm saying that prostitution, in some cases, *can* be seen as providing a service--and that, in all cases, it *should* be seen this way--that I'm enabling sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is by definition unwanted. The situations you present are situations where someone has hired someone else apparently without making the job description clear, and is then trying to get them to perform "extra" "services" after the fact. No, that's not okay. Nor is it okay to presume that all women are willing to prostitute themselves for the right price. And yes, I am perfectly aware that context matters greatly: I would be offended by the frat boys in your fictional scenario too. But I wouldn't yell at the black people hired to pretend to be slaves about it.
I do think that if a woman is willing, and feels comfortable with her choice, that telling her she's oppressed is also a kind of power play and a failure to listen to women.
As to the question of whether I've paid for sex or not and why, it's a good one, but I'm afraid I'm not interested in handling it right now.
am I to understand that the amount of money involved has no bearing on the decision?
Oh, the scenario wasn't fictional, not that its reality is the most germane issue here.
I don't think you care to read me closely at all: I'm most certainly not yelling at any prostituted women for being prostitutes. However, yes, I do have a major problem with women, engaged in prostitution or not (and as Paige pointed out, the women who do this tend to be NOT currently engaged in traditional prostitution), who present the buying of women as a potentially neutral enterprise (AGAIN, note that I said "buying of women" and not "selling of sex").
Similarly, I think a black person from the community in my example has every right, and may also have what she herself considers a responsibility, to be outraged about the fact that someone (even a black someone, even a black someone who has done it herself) is running around promoting the idea that despite the long, painful, brutal history of slavery and the fact that its effects are still quite tangible *right now*, the only issues one needs to be concerned about are a)whether the kids are picking cotton against their will, b)whether the kids are being paid, c)whether the partygoers might feel something is "missing" if the fake slaves aren't there to add to their good time, and d)whether the kids understand what they're doing.
It apparently escapes you that it's possible to be outraged that such a thing would happen QUITE APART from all of the above?
Regarding "D," I'm not engaging in a power play against prostitutes, and you (not that you're alone in doing this) are twisting the concept of listening to women out of all recognizable shape.
Regarding "C," and by extension disabled men at strip clubs, spare me. Sex with anyone other than yourself is not an inalienable right; it requires the participation of another party. Feminists believe it requires the uncoerced participation of another party. These fundamentals aren't superceded by any man's loneliness, whether that loneliness has some relation to disability or not.
The motive of people who pay for sex is a belief that, independent of anyone else's desire to fuck them, they deserve to have sex. I can understand why you're not interested in positing that about your potential john, and I can understand why you're not interested in saying that about yourself (that's some powder you took on my question). However, it's irresponsible in the extreme to "analyze" prostitution in any form, at any time, by focusing solely on the thrill-factor and ethics of getting paid for sex while completely ignoring the other half of the equation, the half of the equation that drives the sex industry.
As to his motives for paying you to come out there and fuck him being his business, bullshit. Clearly you have spent at least some time ferreting them out, since you seem to have a clear belief that they're not "so that I have the situational opportunity to kill her." Which also implies some understanding that your mo
(cont)...Which also implies some understanding that your motives are not the only ones that should be relevant to you.
"The situations you present are situations where someone has hired someone else apparently without making the job description clear, and is then trying to get them to perform "extra" "services" after the fact. No, that's not okay."
So hiring an accountant/blowjob-giver is okay if you make it clear at the outset, even if it becomes an accounting industry standard that sex is part of the job.
HOW does that belief have no bearing on sexual harrassment/discrimination?
I think there are men who pay for sex because they are lonely, they don't have access to sex, or simply because it is pleasurable.
One way to look at what you are contemplating is taking advantage of the type of men you mentioned by charging exhorbitant rates for a simple service. When such a guy wants to get sex he has to pay an enormous amount of money for it. Why should such a service cost $300 or more an hour? You don't even need a PhD to do it well. It only costs about $60-80 an hour for a massage by a licensed therapist. So should legalized prostitution drive the price down for relatively low-risk men? Would you want that to happen?
On the other hand, most people care about price more than ethics. People would rather save money at Walmart buying products that might be made in swaetshops or with indentured servants than shop locally. I'd warrant that only a few men are going to care if the prostitute has agency or not. What they care about are the price, her looks, and what she's will to do. Even if they did care, like I do, there is no way to tell if they really do or not. Maybe in your situation yes, but yours is not the norm. Hell if I'd known you a few years ago, I might have made a different decision
This is more personal, so I know you might just ignore it, but is seems you are attracted to men with money or do just have people with a lot of money in your social circle? The BF can pay all expenses for you to visit & this guy is willing to pay all that & more. The husband used to make a pile too, right? Most men couldn't afford these expenses. How much does that factor in when you are deciding who your next sex partneer will be? I think it is very practical.
Lastly, one way to frame the situation is bewteen Hedonism and Feminism. On the Hedonism side you like alot of sex with different people and you like pretty, expensive things (Manolo Blahnik shoes for example). Prostitution gives you the opportunity to enjoy both. On the feminism side, prostitution is dangerous and degrading to the vast majority of women currently doing it & portrays women as objects to be rented, not as persons performing a service.
You're right, B, it is academic condescension ... like thinking that being a professional and working at a desk is not "real" work ... you can't be part of the laboring class that gets the label "whore" ... because whores are all victims, yo.
Like this "Try to get the guy to wear a condom if he doesn't want to, for example." You know what? You go hire a hooker ... doesn't matter that your a woman ... women hire hookers, too. Then tell her that you're going to do something unsafe to her and expect her to like it ... see whaat happens. Then when you get out of the hospital come back on here and let us know how it went.
Of course you could find a crack whore or somebody who would do anything, no matter how unsafe... but its not whoring that's the problem but the crack.
Funny this is, middle class people are so caught up in being middle class that they have to make hookers into victims even if they aren't ... When the Green River Killer was preying on hookers, the victims customers and boyfriends (pimps) went to the cops ... who didn't listen to them because they were just guys who paid women for sex or made money off them ... same attitude as on here ... it couldn't be these guys loved or cared about these women at all.
And all that because someone dares to say "prostitution hurts women."
So if I say "rape hurts women," am I making raped women into victims even when they're not in order to preserve whatever middle-class standing I might have? I lack an understanding that the men who rape those women might also love or care about them (they might, you know!)?
What a load.
Yeah, and I'm sure you've got evidence that pimps and johns went to the cops to complain that the women they prostituted were being killed by some random guy. And I bet the pimps and the johns took it upon themselves to provide safe working conditions for the women they prostituted. You know, like not letting them get in cars with strangers. Like neighborhood watch. Like checking i.d. of the "customers". Sure.
Actually, what happened is prostituted women, and the families of missing and dead prostituted women, went to the cops. And they were ignored because the missing and dead women were prostituted women.
And, BTW, pimp does not translate to boyfriend. It translates to pimp.
It floors me how women who call themselves feminists can be party to such lies.
It floors me how women who call themselves feminists can act like the best women should or can hope for is more or less pleasant working conditions for being prostituted.
And as for that part about "when you get out of the hospital blah blah blah" -- self-defense didn't work so fucking good for Aileen Wuornos. No, when they couldn't fuck her to death because she had a gun, they found some other way to exterminate her. *She* said she was raped. *She* said she was sodomized and brutalized against her will and after she said no. *She* said she didn't want it. *She* said she was in fear for her life. *She* said it was self-defense. But when she refused to let the johns kill her the state stepped in to help out.
"What a load."
Truly spoken by someone who doesn't know any actual hookers ... I would love to see you telling the boys and girls down at 5th & MLK Ave that they're all victims ... That would be very funny.
"So hiring an accountant/blowjob-giver is okay if you make it clear at the outset, even if it becomes an accounting industry standard that sex is part of the job."
That would be an interesting interview process though ... You know what would be worse is if prostitutes' customers started demanding they balance their checkbooks, too ... now *that* would be cruel and unusual.
"The motive of people who pay for sex is a belief that, independent of anyone else's desire to fuck them, they deserve to have sex."
And if I walk into the 7-11 with $1.25, I deserve to have coffee, too ... If the guy behind the counter doesn't want to make the coffee anymore, then he can go into another line of work ... What this all comes down to is disapproving other people's choices ... or is it just gender politics? Whoring is slavery because male/female sex is rape?
So, that statement of mine about motive that Mithras and Client just agreed with, let me repeat that and make it bold, so that there's no mistake:
The motive of people who pay for sex is a belief that, independent of anyone else's desire to fuck them, they deserve to have sex.
funnie, I would say yes. Everyone deserves to have sex. It's a basic human need. Everyone also deserves to eat.
Saying people deserve to have sex (men and women both) doesn't mean that they have the right to rape.
ronO, I swear to god that I don't give a rat's ass about money. When I married the husband, he was in a public-sector job; the money he made came later, when he switched careers. The boyfriend I knew nothing about his financial situation when I met him either, and he's had his ups and downs (as most business owners do). The client, well, his ability to pay what I'm asking surely matters, but as I said, we were friends before.
I think that part of the answer is that men at the age I'm at have usually had time to build careers; that I'm attracted to smart men (not that smart = money, but it helps a bit, maybe); that men makek more money in general than women (surely this is an issue in the present discussion, as funnie is pointing out); and that professional women tend, for various reasons that don't include conscious or deliberate bias but that surely do include unconscious bias and class identification issues, do tend to date professional men.
Though, for the record, of the three men being discussed, one is a h.s. dropout, one has a b.a., and one has a professional degree.
"Everyone deserves to have sex. It's a basic human need. Everyone also deserves to eat."
Clearly that PhD isn't in biology.
Ugh, how can you stand all these condescending comments from men telling you just how "right" you got it in your posts.
Feminists believe it requires the uncoerced participation of another party.
Yes. The question is whether money is the same as coercion. The strictly Marxist argument would, I suppose, be that all payment is a form of coercion; your argument is clearly that for the vast majority of prostitutes, money is coercion because they need the money. I agree. That doesn't, however, mean that there are not some cases where money is not experienced as coercion except, as you yourself are saying, in the most abstract of ways.
I still disagree about motives. First of all, I'm interested in what he wants to do, not why; and second of all, even though of course you are right that I do not think his motive is to kill me, I still maintain the argument that discusisng other people's motives--his, Mr. B.'s, my boyfriend's, anyone's--is not something I am willing to do in a public forum, on demand. Sorry.
So hiring an accountant/blowjob-giver is okay if you make it clear at the outset, even if it becomes an accounting industry standard that sex is part of the job.
I think this is so unlikely as to be not worth bothering to talk about.
Paige, on the question of violence against women, I still do not see why you think I am defending or condoning it. For the record, I don't. Prostitutes should neither be raped nor killed. Your argument, that it is impossible to separate prostitution as service from devaluing women and treating them as objects to the extent that people justify raping and/or killing them is one I'm willing to engage. Clearly, I think that separating the two is possible. This isn't, however, the same as defending rape and murder.
It floors me how women who call themselves feminists can act like the best women should or can hope for is more or less pleasant working conditions for being prostituted.
I am not saying this. I am saying that women who choose to be prostitutes--because they like sex, because there's money in it, whatever--should damn well have better working conditions and an expectation that they can say no. And I do think that that is a feminist position. Not the only feminist position, but feminist nonetheless.
Sheena, sex is not a basic human need in the sense that people cannot physically survive without it. Nonetheless, it is still a basic human need.
Lashauna, I am not finding most of the men condescending on this subject. I'm finding funnie and Paige and you a bit condescending, however. It's one thing to disagree, even strongly, with what someone says: it's another thing to tell them they are delusional, to question their feminism, to question their motives, and to insult them.
"Saying people deserve to have sex (men and women both) doesn't mean that they have the right to rape."
It does if one insists he deserves to have sex with other people (remember that part?) despite the fact that no other people want to fuck them.
Hey, maybe it doesn't have to be outright rape, though, which is where the coercion comes in, financial or otherwise.
Men pay women for sex because those women would not have sex with them otherwise, and those men believe they deserve to have sex with those women regardless of any lack of interest on the women's part.
It's a matter of entitlement, not "human need," and most certainly not a need on the level of food vs. starvation/death. No man at all has ever died of blue balls, much less a man capable of masturbation.
Especially since with prostitution, we're not even talking about "sex with [unspecified] someone else," since virtually everyone can find SOMEONE who will fuck them free of charge (as you are careful to point out that your john is able to do).
Regarding prostitution, we're talking about feeling entitled to
*not only sex,
*not only sex with someone else, but
*sex with a particular woman or kind of woman regardless of the fact that she apparently does not particularly want that sex.
No, not a right. Not something ANYONE "deserves" or is owed. No way.
So hiring an accountant/blowjob-giver is okay if you make it clear at the outset, even if it becomes an accounting industry standard that sex is part of the job.
I think this is so unlikely as to be not worth bothering to talk about.
You can't think of any allegedly nonsexual career where it is nevertheless commonly known and expected that women in that job will/should put out? Really? Even, historically, if you have to?
Oh. I hadn't gotten this far:
I am not finding most of the men condescending on this subject. I'm finding funnie and Paige and you a bit condescending, however.
How on EARTH am I condescending to you? I disagree with you - not only that, I'm ANGRY that you're perpetuating a bunch of happy horseshit about prostitution, the ill effects of which *you* will probably not be the first to feel. But condescending? This oft-repeated line that you don't know your own mind? No, I'm certainly not saying any of that.
[i]You can't think of any allegedly nonsexual career where it is nevertheless commonly known and expected that women in that job will/should put out? Really? Even, historically, if you have to?[/i]
The casting couch comes to mind, for one.
Ok, yeah, sure I can think of jobs where women are expected to provide sex. However, in general this is an unarticulated and unacknowledged expectation. No, it's not okay; however, I think the fact that it isn't usually explicitly listed as a qualification sort of points out that the scenario you provide isn't what happens. If people advertised for these positions honestly, doubtless there would be an uproar and a pointing out that sex isn't inherently necessary to filing (or whatever). Which might or might not put a stop to it, but I would be on your side there.
Regarding prostitution, we're talking about feeling entitled to
*not only sex,
*not only sex with someone else, but
*sex with a particular woman or kind of woman regardless of the fact that she apparently does not particularly want that sex.
#3 is, I think, the bone of contention here. What if the woman is willing to provide that sex for money? I'm willing to fuck this guy for money. If you want to define me as not a prostitute because I'm willing, fine; then this is an argument over definitions. If you want to argue that money = coercion, then that's the same argument you're accusing graduate students of making, and which you're objecting to. For the record, I think that sometimes money constitutes coercion and sometimes it does not. If you're arguing that sex is something that people can damn well live without, I'm going to say that they damn well shouldn't have to. Which doesn't mean I think they have the right to rape women. But I don't see what's wrong with men--or women--who want sex with another person and can't get it because they are unattractive, disabled, or whatever, paying a willing partner to help them out.
On the Green River Killings, here's an article that reports that two boyfriend/pimps did report the killings. It's by Tracy Quan, who like me is a privileged and exceptional prostitute (though not white, btw), so you may choose to dismiss it. Nonetheless, it does show that the killings were reported.
Funnie, you did imply that though I may "call" myself a feminist, I am not.
It's funny how you never here people claim that car salesmen, plumbers, cab drivers, and aircraft mechanics are just as exploited as grapepickers, "Cool it, hombre. I'm just as exploited as you are, amigo!"
Yeah right.
I *know* the killings were reported. They were reported overwhelmingly by prostituted women. Who were disregarded because the victims were -- guess what -- prostituted women. That's the point, not whether or not they were reported.
You seem pretty dedicated to misconstruing even the simplest of points.
Paige, you said:
Yeah, and I'm sure you've got evidence that pimps and johns went to the cops to complain that the women they prostituted were being killed by some random guy.
I provided the evidence that you doubted existed. That isn't misconstruing your point.
Except the article *you* reference wasn't clear, or couldn't determine if these two guys were actually pimps, or boyfriends who had been erroneously labeled as pimps by the cops.
So it's not much evidence that the johns and pimps were out there looking after the women they prostituted out of some caring for them.
This guy killed at least 48 women, maybe more. Your article says that two guys -- who may have been boyfriends, who may have been pimps, who may have been both, but it's not clear -- reported murders to the cops.
Yeah, those johns and pimps. They've got hearts of gold. They really see those hookers as real people. They were really looking out for them, all right.
Ah crap, no edit function. This doesn't seem like the kind of place where people call you out for typos, but please excuse my here for *hear.*
It seems like there are several different issues being run together here:
i) Is it ever possible to for anyone to freely choose to have sex for money?
ii) Is it possible for a woman to freely chose to have sex for money with a man in our society?
iii) Assuming it is possible, is it likely that any given individual can know from introspection whether she is capable of making that choice freely.
iv) Regardless of whether that choice is made freely, is such a choice likely to be psychologically healthy, unhealthy, or neutral for the woman? For the consumer? For society as a whole?
v) Is it morally acceptable to sell sex? If not, why not?
vi) Is selling sex categorically different from selling other valuable skills? If so, why?
vii) Is it fair to describe anyone who has sex for money as a prostitute, or should the term "prostitute" be reserved for an especially marginalized subset of the people who trade sex for material gain?
Lindsay, bless you and thank you.
Yes; yes; yes; depends on a whole lot of things; yes (but only if it's yours to sell, or you are acting as trusted and authorized agent for someone who fulfills i-iii, the latter being a rare-to-nonexistent condition); no; no.
(And no, the first three answers are not made with reference to Ulysses, and yes, I think that wearing Nikes, and yes, I have been known to wear Nikes and other garments probably made by child laborers from time to time, and heated my house with oil secured through wars of agression, and no, I don't feel so great about that...)
Paige says: "If you can't understand that I'm arguing outside of *your* paradigms about prostitution, sex, fantasy, and rape, then that's your analytical failure, not mine."
I think this says a lot and it's right on point. There's no reason for you to explain your analysis because it's drawn from the dominant puritanical and fascistic "paradigm". Those of us left with our jaws wide open, we'll have to figure it out for ourselves. You, Paige are in a similar :"privileged" position of say G.W. Bush who, with a flick of his finger, annihilates 100,000 Iraqi civilians and it is we outside the hegemonic "paradigm" who have to explain what's wrong with that. You and G.W need offer no explanation of your "paradigm"; our opposition to these "paradigms" is what needs tireless explanation.
I think Dr. B has shown amazing patience in engaging your arguments. Arguments which to me just seem to merely repeat that there is something in the essence of prostitution that is evil/wrong/bad/harmful to woman/etc. That Dr. B, ,Johns, Pimps, and prostitutes might bring a different understanding to these circumstances is simply a(nother?) defect in their characters. Because Paige almighty has the one True theory of prostitution. Paige speaks for all those oppressed in contrast to all those oppressors on this blog.
Dr. B at one point conceded that this might be an intellectual exercise in contrast to the reality of prostitution. However prostitutes themselves are in no god-like position to appropriate their reality in the absence of intellect. They too (and Paige) must apply their intellect to assessing the ethics, morality, risks, safety and implications to the act of prostitution. There's no way any of us mortals can step outside our intellect to understand our world independently of our theories.
In contrast to Paige, funnie seems to argue that the evil of prostitution comes from some comparison to the evil of fraternities. Yet funnie you seem to draw your ethical guidance from these same fraternities (just turned around).
From what I can gather of funnie's position (and the frat boys), there are certain men (women) who do not deserve to have sex. (In the opposite frat boy world they would call them skanks). These men (women) are too: ugly fat, smelly, obese, pizza-faced, unsociable, disgusting, greasy or otherwise putrid to ever have sex. Johns have somehow found a way around this unfuckableness and this loop-hole is the great ethical problem facing humanity. In funnie's view no one should be allowed to get around their god-given place as an unfuckable skank. (However, even the frat boys allow for the bag rule where you just put a bag over the skanks head or body and then they are made worthy of being fucked without even paying for it).
Then both Paige and funnie throw in a few morally charged words that within the hegemonic circles are supposed to get us all nodding our heads in agreement. So men "masturbate" and "pros
[continuation]
So men "masturbate" and "prostitute" woman and "fuck" and "rape" woman. Yet the status and meaning of those terms are precisely what's up for discussion in Dr. B's forum. For instance what's wrong with men masturbating? ... Blindness?
While Paige and funnie take clearly different positions, they both derive whatever rhetorical power they have from allying themselves with the wildly successful right-wing movements in the U.S. (hence no need to actually explain their positions, just keep repeating them; for example they could instead explain how rape and murder and mutilation and poverty and powerlessness are all inextricably linked with prostitution? The "answer" were given instead is that they just are and any time they aren't, well that's not "authentic" prostitution then). Attach the moniker of feminism to all this and maybe they can recruit some woman and other feminists into the right-wing movement's too.
Claiming it's unfair for me or others to call a fascist a fascist or a prude a prude because it avoids the deep insights that you claim to offer (but don't) is ludicrous. You've had countless opportunities/comments to explain the inseparable intricate connection between prostitution and society's evils and you haven't taken one step toward that explanation. Do bad things happen to prostitutes? Yes, Do bad things happen to non-prostitutes? Yes. Do some bad things happen to prostitutes more than those things happen to non-prostitutes? Yes. But none of this establishes a necessary unbreakable connection between bad things and prostitution. And if you're saying that prostitution in and of itself (without rape, murder, mutilation etc.) is wrong, then go ahead and explain it — so far you've only asserted it.
So if "everyone deserves sex" justifies "paying for sex", what happens for those who don't have the money to pay?
Because my post probaby got squashed between the repetions there, and because I forgot to add something, I'll repeat it (with the addition):
So if "everyone deserves sex" justifies "paying for sex", what happens for those who don't have the money to pay? Are they any less deserving?
Everyone deserves sex -- but not with ME!
Funnie, you did imply that though I may "call" myself a feminist, I am not.
I believe you are referring to a post by Paige.
(*sex with a particular woman or kind of woman regardless of the fact that she apparently does not particularly want that sex.)
#3 is, I think, the bone of contention here. What if the woman is willing to provide that sex for money? I'm willing to fuck this guy for money. If you want to define me as not a prostitute because I'm willing, fine; then this is an argument over definitions.
If you are being paid for sex, you are being prostituted. I've not said otherwise, and consider it problematic to hinge the parameters of "prostitute" and "not prostitute" on the deliberately-fuzzy question of the willingness of the purchased (prostitute), rather than on the quite concrete actions (purchase of sex) of the initiator (john).
If you want to argue that money = coercion, then that's the same argument you're accusing graduate students of making, and which you're objecting to.
No, it is not; I am not the one positing that sex can or should be a service/work in the first place. Clearly, then, I am not enamored of the idea that all work is prostitution. Further, I am not working from the premise that all paid services have equal moral weight.
Whether you want to use the term "coercion" or not, it is patently true that men only pay for sex because the women they pay would not have sex with them in the absence of that money. Since I do not believe that sex is work like other work and do not believe that sex should be a purchasable "service", I clearly do not believe that fucking a woman who does not want to fuck you unless you bribe (if it is not work, the money is not a "wage") her is in any way equivalent to paying someone to do your taxes who would not be motivated to do so otherwise.
If you're arguing that sex is something that people can damn well live without, I'm going to say that they damn well shouldn't have to.
I’m saying that whether a john "deserves" sex is a secondary consideration compared to a woman’s bodily integrity - HER sexual rights, including the right to have only the kinds of sex that she sexually desires. Not the kinds of sex that she can be talked into or guilted into, not the kinds of sex that she feels obligated to perform, not the kinds of sex she can be bribed to perform, not the kinds of sex she was not conscious during. The kinds of sex that she herself desires, free of external coercive influences. Which does not mean that she's entitled to have any kind of sex that infringes on someone else's bodily integrity (sex that her partner does not also desire), as I've already stated.
I'm sure you noticed the abortion-rights parallel to my terms. Whether a fetus considered on its own terms "deserves" to live or not, the reality is that to take it on its own terms is misogynist, for it ignores the
(con't.)
...to [consider the fetus] on its own terms is misogynist, for it ignores the very simple fact that a fetus' life is dependent on a woman carrying it to term. I believe, and you apparently also believe, that a fetus does NOT "deserve" life at the expense of the bodily integrity of a woman who does not desire to be pregnant. I also believe that women should have the right and the opportunity to determine whether or not they desire to become pregnant and whether or not they desire to REMAIN pregnant in the absence of coercive influences like persons who guilt them into conceiving and/or carrying to term, persons who focus on the rights of the fetus and what a fetus might "deserve" at the expense of the rights of the woman who must cooperate, and/or persons who believe renting out a woman’s womb is "work" or a "service" like any other and that it is value-neutral to "change [a woman's] no into a yes" with cash.
But I don't see what's wrong with men--or women--who want sex with another person and can't get it because they are unattractive, disabled, or whatever, paying a willing partner to help them out.
And this is what I meant about deliberately-fuzzy; you have a very strange definition of "willing." To me, if someone absolutely "can't" get sex, they must not be able to find a willing partner. Seems pretty basic to me.
v) Is it morally acceptable to sell sex? If not, why not?
vi) Is selling sex categorically different from selling other valuable skills? If so, why?
Lindsay, I very specifically pointed out in response to B's implication that I "yell at" prostitutes the fact that BUYING sex and what that implies are the germane issues, not the morality of selling sex. I suppose if some others are discussing that, it makes sense to put it in your list, but I insist that the question of the morality of BUYING sex is separate and much more important.
I flatter myself that I've been pretty clear on this point. Surely you're not deliberately reframing the antijohn sentiment here as though it were antiwoman. That wouldn't be very honest at all.
Similarly, I think a black person from the community in my example has every right, and may also have what she herself considers a responsibility, to be outraged about the fact that someone (even a black someone, even a black someone who has done it herself) is running around promoting the idea that despite the long, painful, brutal history of slavery and the fact that its effects are still quite tangible *right now*, the only issues one needs to be concerned about are a)whether the kids are picking cotton against their will, b)whether the kids are being paid, c)whether the partygoers might feel something is "missing" if the fake slaves aren't there to add to their good time, and d)whether the kids understand what they're doing.
B, I wanted to redirect your attention to this example of mine, to reiterate the fact that prostitution is problematic beyond (to keep the parallels in place):
a)rape or coercion,
b)classification as job/work or slavery,
c)johns' deserving to have a good time,
d)prostitutes' self-knowledge and supposed "choice"
You said, regarding the hiring of black children to emulate slavery:
And yes, I am perfectly aware that context matters greatly: I would be offended by the frat boys in your fictional scenario too. But I wouldn't yell at the black people hired to pretend to be slaves about it.
But you haven't explained WHY you would be offended or what you WOULD do about it. And given the fact that you have repeatedly refused to discuss, dissect, or impugn the actions and motivations of johns, I'm not sure you have the right to be offended by those fratboys. On what grounds?
Funnie, I'm not responding to the frat boys thing because it is a distraction and a digression from the main point.
Now, onto the other things. Apologies for confusing Paige's remark with yours. If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that there are two things on which we have a fundamental disagreement: (1) whether sex can be considered work/a service; (2) that prostitution is defined, in a sense, from the pov of the john--because buying sex is the central issue. I don't think I agree, or can agree, with #1, though I see (I think) what you are getting at: sex is and should always be freely chosen of desire, and anything short of that ideal is, well, undesireable (a form of coercion? Not sure on that point). Clearly we differ on this: I'm okay with people having sex with others in situations where they're not really all that interested, as long as they're willing (as opposed to wanting).
The point about buying sex/the john's motivations (and this does, implicitly, touch on the frat boy example) is something where I actually do probably agree with you. Is it possible for prostitution, within a sexist society, to ever really be a free choice (on the woman's part) or abstracted from power issues (on the man's part)? Possibly not. But as I'm saying in the post these comments are sorta responding to, the way I think about it is, we live in an imperfect world. People make compromises and adjustments to live with issues like sexism (or racism) in ways that are acceptable to them. It is probably imposslbe for *any* exchange between a man and a woman (or a white person and a person of color) to be unaffected by sexism/racism, because we don't live under rocks. Maybe come the revolution prostitution won't exist; in the meantime, though, all I'm saying is that it *is* possible to see it as paying for a service rather than "buying someone," and that that is a preferable way to look at it, because it necessarily implies a lot more agency and power on the part of the prostitute--to say no, to determine the boundaries of the service, and so forth.
Sheena, I'd stick with "everyone deserves sex." What people who can't get it, either through love or money, are to do about that, I don't know. It's a pity.
I'm okay with people having sex with others in situations where they're not really all that interested, as long as they're willing (as opposed to wanting).
So you have no feminist problem with "close your eyes and think of England." Interesting. And they say *I'm* anti-sex.
funnie, that is a total distortion of what I'm saying, and I suspect you know that.
As for point #2:
People make compromises and adjustments to live with issues like sexism (or racism) in ways that are acceptable to them.
No, not "people." Women and minorities make compromises in order to live with sexism and racism in ways that are acceptable to them. Men and white people who are just fine with sexism/racism need never compromise a thing in order to find life perfectly acceptable as-is. In fact, since we are encouraged to believe that sexism and racism ARE perfectly acceptable, men and white people don't have to bother thinking about them, ever, much less make compromises in order to live.
I'm saying is that it *is* possible to see it as paying for a service rather than "buying someone," and that that is a preferable way to look at it, because it necessarily implies a lot more agency and power on the part of the prostitute--to say no, to determine the boundaries of the service, and so forth.
There are more than two possible views, B; I've never said prostitution is buying someone. Buying people for sex (sex slavery) does happen, but is not the same as prostitution.
What you call paying for a service I have compared to a bribe at least once, and a bribe doesn't (until it is paired with blackmail, which regularly happens after someone takes a bribe) completely remove someone's ability to say no or set any parameters.
The question of agency and parameters is the red herring here; sure, women SHOULD have agency and the ability to set parameters around all aspects of their sex life. However, their ability to do so is decreased, not increased, by prostitution.
The only possible feminist leg you have left to stand on, here, is the "we all make our deals" defense. And I'm not going to put up with that from someone who is not merely cutting her own deal but is:
*promoting, particularly to an audience that includes men, prostitution as though it were a value-neutral exchange,
*encouraging comments that minimize the harm prostitution does to women (witness the fact that comments from my position are the only ones you've bothered to criticize), and
*consistently supporting the right of a predominantly male group to fuck in any way they feel entitled to over the right of a predominantly female group to fuck how they want to.
"funnie, that is a total distortion of what I'm saying, and I suspect you know that."
No, I do not know that. How so? How is it possibly "okay," much less feminist or empowering, for women or anyone to have sex they don't particularly want?
men and white people don't have to bother thinking about them, ever, much less make compromises in order to live.
Need not, true. Nonetheless, there are feminist men and anti-racist whites who do. (And btw, women and people of color are people, and on this blog I often, possibly usually, assume that "a person" is a woman.)
women SHOULD have agency and the ability to set parameters around all aspects of their sex life. However, their ability to do so is decreased, not increased, by prostitution.
I would say, in general, yes, I agree. On the other hand, I am still holding firm to the idea that if an individual woman chooses to become a prostitute, that is okay with me.
*promoting, particularly to an audience that includes men, prostitution as though it were a value-neutral exchange,
*encouraging comments that minimize the harm prostitution does to women (witness the fact that comments from my position are the only ones you've bothered to criticize), and
*consistently supporting the right of a predominantly male group to fuck in any way they feel entitled to over the right of a predominantly female group to fuck how they want to.
1. I think getting men to think through these issues is important. And I'm not saying it's a value-neutral exchange; I'm thinking about what the conditions and situations are under which it might be okay. Not the same thing.
2. I also don't think I'm encouraging comments that minimize the harm prostitution does to women; in fact, I've gotten a lot of comments (and email as well) from both men and women making exactly the opposite point. I'm engaging with your comments because you're actually arguing with my premises, and I'm doing so at length because you are arguing at length.
3. There is no way I'm consistently supporting the right of men to fuck and minimizing the rights of women to fuck how they want to. I assume that people are familiar with the blog as a whole, and this entire argument got started because I was asserting *my* right to fuck for money. In the present discussion, the right of men to fuck was questioned, so I argued with that. If a woman wants to fuck for money, that's okay with me. If she doesn't want to, she shouldn't have to, and she has the right to say no (I have said that, repeatedly).
On the lie back and think of England thing, since you insist: obviously a culture or society that expects women to accept sex they don't want is fucked up. However, even in a perfectly egalitarian nirvana where women are fully equal to men, I assume that there may be times when one partner in a relationship, say, wants sex and the other isn't really in the mood. I see nothing wrong with the partner who isn't really in the mood cooperating out of affection for the desiring partner. That is what I meant by "willing, not wanting." I also see nothing wrong, really, with a woman who is *willing* to have sex for money agreeing to do so
even if, without the money, she wouldn't really *want* to. Or, for that matter, a man.
Having said all that, I see your point. Prostitution isn't value-neutral in a sexist society. Agreed. I don't, at present, entirely agree with all the conclusions that follow from that premise for you, but that doesn't make me a poor feminist (as you seem to be implying): it just makes my feminism somewhat different from yours.
In most contexts, getting paid for something implies that you wouldn't do it unless you were getting paid for it. That is, you're not doing it out of some independent desire to do it.
However, when it comes to sex, women getting paid for it seems to mean -- at least to most of the posters here -- that women independently and affirmatively want to have the sex they're being paid for.
I really think that at the end of the day, as feminists we'd want a more empowering definition of consent than "I'll put up with sex I don't really want to have because I'm going to get paid for it." That doesn't really look like consent to me.
And agency doesn't really look like being able to choose the background conditions of your own oppression.
And choice doesn't really look like choosing between the most harmful form of oppression and a less harmful form of the same oppression because that's what male supremacy offers.
What we're really disagreeing about is whether prostitution, as prostitution, harms prostituted women. B. you seem to think -- from your privileged position as a woman who doesn't have to whore herself to survive or who hasn't been abused and fucked into whoring herself -- that there can be some sort of "reformed" or "redeemed" prostitution that expresses women's "agency" and "consent" about the sex they're engaging in for money. While trying to ignore that in every *other* instance payment of wages is understood as a being coercive vis-a-vis agency, consent, and choice.
I mean, when people work at crappy jobs, we don't think that their wages express their true desire to do crappy work. We understand that they're doing only because they're getting paid for it. But when it comes to sex, there's this idea that women who get paid for it are having sex that they really want to have, and the money they get is some indication of their true desire to get fucked 10, 15, 20, 30 times a day, or give 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 blowjobs.
What I'm suggesting -- and I think funnie is from another direction -- is that you are proceeding from rather impoverished definitions of agency, consent, and choice vis-a-vis women and "sex work". And those are definitions that will never lead to any woman's liberation or freedom from either prostitution or oppression.
Rather, they simply allow you, from your position of privilege, to dabble in other women's oppression as a sexual thrill.
Hmmm, I just noticed that you edited one of my posts without noting so, B.
I can't tell you how sorry I am that I was correct about his identity. Good luck with your new enterprise.
No, I edited it because your post implied that that *was* his identity, which it isn't, and I didn't want someone whose blog I comment on, to get hit with a bunch of people thinking that he was my client.
Paige, I agree. People do lots of jobs they wouldn't freely choose, because they need the money. I think you are, in fact, disagreeing with funnie, who is saying that there is a fundamental difference between working as, say, a migrant laborer and working as a prostitute. What I am saying is that working any job for money isn't, in and of itself, a bad thing. It is the other conditions under which the job is done (exploitative wages, the threat of arrest, the inability to choose to quit) that make a job a form of slavery.
I'm not disagreeing with funnie. I think you're conflating work with "sex work" in my posts. I don't think "sex work" is work like migrant work is work. One can pick strawberries and not lose one's right to personal autonomy. One can not be fucked for money and retain one's right to personal autonomy within that transaction.
The conditions of prostitution are bad and soul killing. The conditions of migrant work are bad and probably soul killing in some way.
But prostitution, even if done in "wonderful" conditions, is itself bad and soul killing in a way that picking strawberries isn't. If it weren't why, for example, are the people shilling for it so hard *not* themselves prostitutes, either ever -- you and the founder of COYOTE -- or not anymore, like the guy here who used to prostitute himself but doesn't.
"In one study, 75% of women in escort prostitution had attempted suicide. Prostituted women comprised 15% of all completed suicides reported by hospitals." (Letter from Susan Kay Hunter, Council for Prostitution Alternatives, Jan 6, 1993, cited by Phyllis Chesler in "A Woman's Right to Self-Defense: the case of Aileen Carol Wuornos," in Patriarchy: Notes of an Expert Witness, 1994, Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine.
And when the term is "escort prostitution" we know that those women aren't street prostitutes. And that their "conditions of work" are far, far better than your average street prostitute.
"For a great part of 1992 I lived in a beautiful apartment on Capitol Hill. I drove my expensive car. I bought lovely clothes and traveled extensively out of the country. For the first time in my 20 years as an adult woman, I paid my own way. There was no need to worry about affording my rent, my phone bill, all the debts one accumulates simply by living month to month. I felt invincible. And I was miserable to the core. I hated myself because I hated my life All the things I came to possess meant nothing. I could not face myself in the mirror. Working in prostitution lost my soul." Survivor interviewed by Debra Boyer, Lynn Chapman and Brent Marshall in Survival Sex in King County: Helping Women Out (1993), King County Women;s Advisory Board, Northwest Resource Associates, Seattle.
"[In the past, we had a women's] movement which understood that the choice to be beaten by one man for economic survival was not a real choice, despite the appearance of consent a marriage contract might provide. ...Yet now we are supposed to believe, in the name of feminism, that the choice to be fucked by hundreds of men for economic survival must be affirmed as a real choice, and if the woman signs a model release there is no coercion there." (Catharine A. MacKinnon, "Liberalism and the Death of Feminism," in Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice Raymond (eds), The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism, 1990, Teachers College Press, New York.)
"It has been assumed that decriminalization/legalization will
d
(cont)
"It has been assumed that decriminalization/legalization will decrease street prostitution and that prostitution will then move
indoors, where it will be physically safer for those in it. Those promoting legalized prostitution suggest that women will be safer in
indoor prostitution than they are in street prostitution. However,
women in Chicago reported the same frequency of rape in escort
and in street prostitution. (Raphael & Shapiro, 2002)."
"Like Plumridge and Abel in NZ, we (Farley, Baral, et al., 199
found more physical violence in street prostitution compared to
brothel prostitution in South Africa. However, we found no difference in the incidence of PTSD in these two types of prostitution,
suggesting that the emotional experience of prostitution is
intrinsically traumatizing regardless of its indoor or outdoor location. Documenting the profound emotional distress experienced
by women in two kinds of prostitution, a Canadian study compared strip club prostitution and street prostitution. The authors
found that women prostituted in strip clubs had higher rates of
dissociative and other psychiatric symptoms than those in street
prostitution (Ross, Anderson, Heber, & Norton, 1990). In a separate
study, we compared strip club/massage, brothel, and street
prostitution in Mexico and found no differences in the prevalence
of physical assault and rape in prostitution, of childhood sexual
abuse, or symptoms of PTSD (Farley, et al., 2003). We also found
no differences in the percentages of Mexican women in brothel,
street, or strip club/massage prostitution who wanted to escape
prostitution."
"Generally, it is class prejudice to
assume that street prostitution is far worse than what is called
high-class escort prostitution. Boyer, Chapman, & Marshall
(1993) suggested that women in indoor prostitution (such as strip
clubs, massage brothels, and pornography) had less control of the
conditions of their lives and probably faced greater risks of
exploitation, enslavement, and physical harm than women prostituting
on the street."
"For example, an organization in South Africa that advocates decriminalization of prostitution, SexWorkers’Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT), addressed the
dangers of escort prostitution by distributing a list of safety tips
for women. These included the recommendation that while
undressing, the prostitute should accidentally kick a shoe under
the bed, and while retrieving it, should check for knives, handcuffs,
or rope. TheSWEAT flyer also noted that fluffing up the pillow
on the bed would permit searching there for weapons. A brothel owner in the Netherlands complained about an ordinance requiring that brothels have pillows in the rooms: “You
don’t want a pillow in the [brothel’s] room. It’s a murder weapon” (Daley, 2001, p. 1). Familiar with how customers treated women in prostitution, this Dutch pimp understood that johns are regularly murderous toward women
"Familiar with how customers treated women in prostitution, this Dutch pimp understood that johns are regularly murderous toward women."
"A woman who was in escort prostitution (where customers call phone numbers listed in the phone book or advertising section of newspapers, and a meeting place is agreed on) stated that her driver “functioned as a bodyguard. You’re supposed to call when you get in, to ascertain that everything was OK. But they are not standing outside the door while you’re in there, so anything could happen”(Raymond, Hughes, & Gomez,
2001, p. 74)."
http://www.prostitutionresearch....m/
FarleyVAW.pdf
Brava, funnie.
Anyone can make their deals, yeah. But from a feminist perspective: does prostituting oneself and describing it in glowing terms of empowerment help or hurt women as a whole? I do not doubt your feminism, but letting someone bribe you into sex is not a feminist act.
And, last comment from me for today: B. your absolute refusal to engage in discussing the "motives" of johns is, well, ironic is one word for it, given your emphasis that, in the right working conditions prostitution can be all peachy-keen and empowering.
After all, it's the johns and their motivations who control the "working conditions" in prostitution. Everything from rate of pay, to where sex takes place, to how and what sex takes place, the content of the sex that takes place, to whether they're going to rape, hit, murder, the women they're prostituting.
But, you know, let's not talk about the "motives" of a guy who prostitutes women. Except to assume he's some pathetic, lonely, probably disabled, definitely unattractive shlub who can't get laid any other way. IOW, let's not talk about the motivations of johns unless we're going to assume they're benign. Because otherwise, all this flummox and hype about agency would be revealed as a sham.
" it's the johns and their motivations who control the "working conditions" in prostitutions... whether they're going to rape, hit, murder, the women they're prostituting. "
Ok, let's talk about motivations. Are motivations of raping, beating and murdering created by prositution? Are non-prostitutes never faced with murder, beating and rape? Approaching those from another paradigm and using something other than innuendo requires you explain how these motivatios are not the evil; but rather the prositution is the evil inextricately linked to these motvations.
I don't think you'll find anyone here championing rape, murder and beatings of woman. If prostituion makes those inevitable and the asolition of prostituion eliminates them, then please expalin how. Because then I think you'll get everyone on this blog at least on board the anti-rpostitution band-wagon.
1. A lot of migrant farmworkers are, in fact, enslaved. It's a serious problem.
2. I am not describing prostitution in glowing terms. I am thinking about the conditions under which prostitution might be okay. You say never, I disagree. I don't see the point in continuing to restate the same points over and over.
3. I don't discuss the motives because *my point here is not to provide a full-on analysis of prostitution*. It is only to think through my own situation. Several comments have broadened the discussion, which is fine. I reserve the right, however, to determine how much time I have to engage with it, and to define what I am willing to speculate on and what I am not. I also reserve the right to do that without having my motives called into question, thank you very much. You can argue that by not talking about johns, my thinking is incomplete. It isn't reasonable, however, to impugn my sexuality or my sanity or my committment to feminism on those grounds.
Paige said:
whether you get to exercise the agency of saying no is up to the man paying for use of your body.
Several people have pointed out that this is true whenever two people are alone together, but Paige goes on to say:
If that were not true, men would be prosecuted for their rapes of prostituted women. Hell, prostituted women could report rapes.
I think this difference between prostitution and other kinds of relationships/transactions is crucial: that prostitutes don't have recourse to the usual measures of protection that society offers non-prostitutes.
Prof B, imagine for the sake of argument that your potential client is a nutter who has hidden that fact very well. If he abuses you, will you really still have recourse to the usual processes of justice? You can go to the police, but it's no mystery what his lawyer will say of you in court (and how a jury might respond to that). Further, that he knows all of this directly lessens your ability, once you're in that room with him, to say no to sex that might not even be abusive but that you, for whatever reason, don't want.
I think that's an important aspect of Paige's point about agency: regardless of theory, in practice prostitution destroys or severely limits agency, even for you with all your class and personal advantages in this relatively safe situation.
letting someone bribe you into sex is not a feminist act.
I don't see it as "letting someone bribe me into sex." I see it as a mutual agreement. You don't, that's fine. Lots of people disapprove of lots of things I do, and lots of people think that every aspect of my sex life isn't feminist. I'm getting kind of used to it.
Sennoma, but as has already been pointed out, the reasons for that are that prostitution is illegal and heavily stigmatized. There is also a long history of martial rape "not existing" (for other reasons): peoples minds have been changed on that one without abolishing the institution of marriage.
And I've already conceded the point about theory vs. practice.
"One can not be fucked for money and retain one's right to personal autonomy within that transaction."
Please explain why?
"The conditions of prostitution are bad and soul killing. The conditions of migrant work are bad and probably soul killing in some way."
Please explain why those thinking within another pardigm that doesn't involve souls what you are talking about. Why is it important to me to think about my soul (or your soul). Is there a way to describe my soul to me and how it lives and dies?
"... why, for example, are the people shilling for it so hard *not* themselves prostitutes, either..."
If you told me about the evil's of drinking acholhol, I might "shill" for the benefits of alcholhol too (even if I don't drink acholholic beverages). So what? Tell me why this is important and wrong. Don't just imply there's some evil behind it.
Also, I think it needs to be said that people don't only get paid for things they don't like. Often people seek careers doing what they like to do and are thrilled to get paid for it in addition. Some prostitutes say they like sex and are thrilled to get paid for it too. Are these woman to be disregarded as hysterical, anti-woman or inauthentic women because they disagree with Paige (and perhaps the majority of other prostitutes)?
"... why, for example, are the people shilling for it so hard *not* themselves prostitutes, either..."
Partly because you insist on defining anyone who defends prostitution as "shills and front men" or as not really prostitutes. You seem unclear as to whether I am or am not actually a prostitute myself, if I take money for sex. As, for instance, here.
Paige, you said:
I see nothing in this self-indulgent exercise in willful blindness to women's oppression that does anything to help any women who are actually prostituted by men.
We are -- I am -- talking about Prof B and her potential client, not about all women everywhere. I think good points have been made here about prostitution as a general issue, but I fail to see the point of chastising Prof B by generalising from her case as though she intends that (which, as I read her, she does not). Just what is it you think Prof B is doing wrong? Your claims that she is
*promoting, particularly to an audience that includes men, prostitution as though it were a value-neutral exchange,
*encouraging comments that minimize the harm prostitution does to women [...], and
*consistently supporting the right of a predominantly male group to fuck in any way they feel entitled to over the right of a predominantly female group to fuck how they want to
are simply false on my reading, which agrees with Prof B's response to these charges. You responded to that response with a list of comments that don't, again on my reading, disagree with what Prof B is saying, but then this:
[Prof B is] proceeding from rather impoverished definitions of agency, consent, and choice vis-a-vis women and "sex work". And those are definitions that will never lead to any woman's liberation or freedom from either prostitution or oppression.
What, then, are some better definitions, and how will those better definitions lead to liberation etc? That sounds snarky, so I hasten to add that it's not: I'm genuinely interested in the mechanism by which you propose Prof B is doing harm. I understand how propagating a harmful viewpoint can do harm -- for instance, how telling jokes that rely on racial stereotypes can do racial harm even if you only tell them because you think they're funny and even if you're a member of the targeted minority. I understand how the prevailing attitude toward johns and prostitutes is harmful. What I don't understand is why you think Prof B accepts or is promoting that attitude.
You (Paige) said:
One can not be fucked for money and retain one's right to personal autonomy within that transaction.
As per my last comment and Prof B's response, I think you've made a strong practical point about loss of physical autonomy resulting from stigma/illegality. Are you making a broader metaphysical or moral claim as well? If so, I don't think your citations in support of the idea that prostitution is inherently bad ("soul-killing") will support that broader claim in its strong form. What's true for most women is important in understanding how prostitution works and how to solve the problems it presents, but it's not true of all women and may not be true of Prof B in her current situation.
Those bulleted comments are mine, not Paige's. We must be wearing the same outfit today, or something.
Shoot, sorry about that.
...but since I haven't directly addressed Paige's comments and that's the second time I've made certain to separate our words out from each other, let me hasten to add that her reading of my position (that we agree but are coming at the issue from different angles) is correct; I agree with what she's saying about the nature and practice of prostitution the intellectual dishonesty exhibited here, and the harm it's perpetrating.
As for explaining that concept further:
"I am -- talking about Prof B and her potential client, not about all women everywhere."
Then you're artificially separating B from women as a class by refusing to acknowledge that regardless of how she views her decision, what is done to her has some bearing on women in general. Even if it only affirms the actions of this one john (who is clearly a repeat offender), that has a bearing on women in general. Period. Regardless of what she believes about what she does. That is invisible to the next prostitute he buys.
Clearly? How?
I was just thinking about another analogy. Funnie, do you think that, say, S/M is inherently oppressive? Beating people in a nonconsensual situation is clearly not okay. Arguably, S/M is erotic precisely because we live in a society that eroticizes violence (especially against women). If this is the case, then are people who enjoy S/M perpetuating, directly or indirectly, this eroticization of violence?
Also I seriously don't see how it is that you can argue that my thoughts and feelings about the situation are irrelevant. I don't see--and this may be where our feminisms differ--why one woman's sexual decisions must be interpreted in light of the sexuality of women as a class.
Funnie wrote: "Even if it only affirms the actions of this one john (who is clearly a repeat offender),"
Offending at what?
Offending me, for starters.
I love how important it is whether or not I'm casting aspersions on the reputation of the "client" (whose name we will pretend not to know) even though there's nothing wrong with being a john. Please. Either he's a serial john, or he's talking out his ass. Which is it? Care to enlighten us, "Client"?
And you know, if you edited my post to protect HIS identity, well. He's the lackwit who made it clear in the first place. And if you did it for your own security, you might ask yourself why it is he's so flippant about that.
I can't tell you how uninterested I am in discussing SM.
I never said your thoughts or feelings are irrelevant, just that they're superceded by more powered actors and paradigms. OTOH, what on earth kind of feminism ignores the sexuality of women as a class? I mean, this world contains several billion "one woman's sexual decisions." If everyone took your attitude, there would be no "women's sexuality" at all, just a meaningless string of amazing coincidences.
No, as I said, I edited it because you made a mistake. Whether or not you believe me. Also b/c a mistake of that nature, I believe, constitutes slander.
It's fine with me that you don't want to discuss SM. I just wish you would show me the same consideration on, say, the race thing or the motives-of-johns thing.
Also, I do not ignore the sexuality of women as a class. I'm just trying to make the point that while women are members of a class, we are also individuals, and we don't all think/feel/fuck in the same way.
Oh, and btw, "irrelevant," in my mind, is more or less the same as "Regardless of what she believes about what she does." Which is what you actually said.
I don't see... why one woman's sexual decisions must be interpreted in light of the sexuality of women as a class
I read funnie's point ("artificially separating B from women as a class") differently, I think. Since you (Prof B) are a woman, whatever you do can impact that class in some way (even if that's unfair to all involved!). In this instance, funnie's argument (as I read it) is that you are reinforcing, in at least one john's mind, a set of values and concepts around women, sex, choice, consent and so on. If we posit that Mr Potential Client has a set of values/concepts etc that are harmful, then by reinforcing those values you are perpetuating harm. Your actions reinforce the views that led him to participate in your transaction, regardless of the views that led you to participate.
Where I get stuck is why Mr PC's values/concepts are *necessarily* bad (similarly, what makes it clear that he has done this before -- "repeat offender"?).
Funnie: is it *always* bad to buy sex? Is it *impossible* to buy sex without viewing the prostitute from whom one buys it as less-than-autonomous? Are there *no* values we could impute to Mr PC (for the sake of argument, without reference to his actual identity or motives) that are compatible with a feminist view? (That's the same question three ways, really.)
That's what, to me, it seems to come down to: can Mr Potential Client possibly be a feminist (view women, including Prof B, as equals) and still pay Prof B to fuck him? If not, then Prof B does harm to feminism by fucking him for money and thereby affirming his values; if so, then there is a subset of prostitution which does not harm either john or prostitute and Prof B does no harm by her actions within that subset.
(If that subset exists, there is still great harm in failing clearly to differentiate it from the harmful norms of prostitution, but I think this discussion does make that distinction.)
Prof B, I have no idea who funnie thinks Mr PC is, nor any interest in his actual identity -- nonetheless, my last comment may be too much of "the motives-of-johns thing". If so, please excuse.
Funnie, I'd be interested in your comments by email if our host prefers not to follow that line of discussion here.
sennoma, no, I think it's fine for you to talk about the motives-of-johns thing: I just don't choose to do so, in part because I think speculating about other people's motives with little or no evidence is silly.
As to the question of whether I'm reinforcing certain views of women, surely I am. I'm certain that there are people who could read this blog and come away with the idea that all women are whores, for example. I can't help that, and I choose not to make my own decisions based on what other people think. Insert fable of man/son/donkey here.
I will say that given the conditions and discussions I've had with Mr. PC (thanks for a usable pseudonym), I doubt that he could come away with the idea that prostitution involves surrendering choice and the right to say no. From dealing with me, anyway.
1. I don't think there is any such thing as "women's sexuality" as a universal, although of course that would explain how one can judge the consideration of prostitution as a viable alternative as "wrong" because it doesn't go along with the universal and liberating "women's sexuality." If there is such a thing as "women's sexuality," where is the room for the agency that not being a prostitute is supposed to protect (a) and how is this "feminist" version of a universal "women's sexuality" less oppressive than the Victorian version of "women's sexuality" in which women are frigid and uninterested in sex (b)?
2. I'm not sure it makes any sense to think of "women" as one class. In fact, I think that it very clearly demonstrates a very simplistic view of the many different determinants (class, sexuality, race, etc.)of women's situations in the world and the fact that just because I, for example, am a woman, it does not mean that I will have much in common with any other woman beyond basic biology. To think of women as a singular class is convenient for many liberal feminisms and for certain kinds of political action, but I think it also does a violence to those women who don't fit into dominant class/race/sexuality groups.
Prof B wrote: "No, as I said, I edited it because you made a mistake. Whether or not you believe me. Also b/c a mistake of that nature, I believe, constitutes slander."
How so, if in this situation, with this john, it's not actually problematic prostitution? Why are we friendly towards the poor man in the wheelchair who buys his necessary sex because he can't get it otherwise, whereas we want to keep the taint of john-dom away from this man in this thread?
I'm usually a very grey-area type, but I'm thankful to the arguers from both sides here, who've helped me come to a less ambiguous conclusion.
Portia, two reasons. Well, three.
1. The person funnie thinks is the john isn't; it's potentially slander against him.
2. Soliciting a prostitute is illegal.
3. It's also heavily stigmatized.
Yes, sennoma, I think ascribing a motive to a john that would make buying sex in any way feminist is categorically impossible (even if the only feminist problem with prostitution were johns' motives). I just don't know what more there is to say than that.
funnie writes: "(even if the only feminist problem with prostitution were johns' motives). I just don't know what more there is to say than that."
At the very least, you could start by saying specifically what you blieve the motivations of Johns to be and precisely what damge comes from those motivations. That's how you would begin to take a position on this that wasn't just steeped in innuendo
"If this is the case, then are people who enjoy S/M perpetuating, directly or indirectly, this eroticization of violence?"
Of course they are. How could they not be? How can that even be a question? A very good anthology on the subject is "Against Sadomasochism." I don't know if it's still in print and can't think of the editor or publisher at the moment.
Ok, then should they not do what gets them off on the grounds that their private, consensual sexual activity somehow perpetuates a larger social problem?
First, I want to say amazing, well articlulated, clear, and unambiguous posts from both Paige and Funnie in this thread.
Second, responding to something said much earlier in the thread by Bitch Ph.D., if exchanging money for physical sexual acess to a woman is not turning that woman's body into a commodity, then the word has absolutely no meaning. It is *definitionally* exactly the commodification of a woman's body.
Third, the idea that one can retain their bodily autonomy while literally and directly exchanging that autonomy for money is ludicrous. When a woman is prostituted she is literally and directly selling her autonomy (ability to say no, specifically) for cash. If this was not so (ignoring for a moment, the specifics of prosititution viz. other work) the notion of a contract is itself meaningless. One cannot enter into a contract to provide something (in this case a "yes" and thus necessarily precluding a "no") and then *not* provide that.
More specifically in the case of prostitution, this contract law is enforced by obvious ability (and demonstrated willingness) of men who pay for physical access to women's bodies without respect to consent or desire to *take* what they have paid for if it is not provided upon payment, and in many cases, regardless of whether it is provided.
Also, with respect to the possibility of a prostituted woman *not* necessarily being harmed by the transaction, if you believe, as I do, that that a loss of autonomy (and thereby humanity because humanity requires autonomy) is always damaging because human's strongly desire to be autonomous agents rather than the instruments of the will of others and are harmed by being made the instruments of the will of others, an assertion backed up by an overwhelming amount of evidence, a few of pieces of which Paige posted up thread, then no, it is not possible for a prostituted woman not to be harmed by that.
funnie writes: "Offending me, for starters."
What else offends you? Do gays offend you? Does S&M offend you? Do Jews offend you? How about communists? Whose houses and shops should we burn to the ground because you are offended — an offense that defies any explanation by you. Your innuendo is supposed to just move the mob to action.
Lorenzo, I can't blame you for not having read all the comments to this and the earlier post on the subject (last Tuesday), but if you did, you'd have seen that all the things you're saying are things I've refuted, and my reasons why.
I don't see where you've refuted what Lorenzo said, unless you mean where you say, "But I'm different, and it's different for me."
That not a refutation, its a hallucination.
I didn't say that, Gina. So I can only surmise that you haven't read through the posts and comments.
Lorenzo writes: "if exchanging money for physical sexual acess to a woman is not turning that woman's body into a commodity, then the word has absolutely no meaning. It is *definitionally* exactly the commodification of a woman's body."
Actually, if you had bothered to read funnie's comments which you praise as so clear you would have realized she has already dismissed these arguments. She told us that the problem with prostitution is that it is fundamentally different than the selling of one's body as wage laborers do.
Of course prostitution is the commoddfication of a body. But for those hot stuck in such competing essentialism, it is also the sale (and purchase which funnie imagines are separable) of a service. As with any sale of one's power to labor it always involves a service — a service provided through the application of one's body (including one's brain). Just as my body may be purchased (or rented) to assemble office furniture, that service relies on by body's own opposable thumb. If I sell a sexual service that service may rely on the application of tongue and lips and throat and mouth.
You are the first one to finally articulate this commodification of the body (whether for sex or for office furniture assembly) as the objection. Finally, we have something other than innuendo and lobbing of shame. Of course you'll have a difficult uphill battle articulating arguments against selling one's power to labor (to provide service with one's body and mind) compared to what Paige and funnie could achieve shaming everyone.
"this contract law is enforced by... men who pay for physical access to women's bodies"
Again if you bothered to read the comments you praise, you would have noticed that Paige has already rejected traditional societal adjudication and enforcement of these contracts through courts and the like. She tells us that this does nothing for what's really wrong with prostitution — which I think has to do with masturbation or fucking or something else that's supposed to be shameful.
"a loss of autonomy (and thereby humanity because humanity requires autonomy) is always damaging because human's strongly desire to be autonomous agents rather than the instruments of the will of others and are harmed by being made the instruments of the will of others"
Humans may desire to have sex simultaneously with the entire Denver Bronco's, and feel harmed if they can't. But we live in a society and there's just as much evidence to indicate human's are social and never as autonomous as they like to imagine they are. We live within immensely complex social formations, with a complex division of labor, voluminous legal codes, ubiquitous mass media, etc., that shape and constitute the very will that you claim is given to us at birth. Some even have a will to sell there bodily services (including servicing through their sexual and sensual body parts) autonomous of your narrow-minded will.
The very act of
[continued]
The very act of sex (even absent prostitution) flies in the face of your imposition of autonomy on everyone else. Sex, when it's done right, is always about acknowledging, entertaining and servicing the will of others. While another (again, if it's done right) does the same for you.
"it is not possible for a prostituted woman not to be harmed by that."
It doesn't seem possible for most of us to not be harmed by your imposition of autonomy upon us. What an Orwellian world you live in.
Answering one section at a time,
CP writes
"Actually, if you had bothered to read funnie's comments which you praise as so clear you would have realized she has already dismissed these arguments. She told us that the problem with prostitution is that it is fundamentally different than the selling of one's body as wage laborers do.
Of course prostitution is the commoddfication of a body. But for those hot stuck in such competing essentialism, it is also the sale (and purchase which funnie imagines are separable) of a service. As with any sale of one's power to labor it always involves a service — a service provided through the application of one's body (including one's brain). Just as my body may be purchased (or rented) to assemble office furniture, that service relies on by body's own opposable thumb. If I sell a sexual service that service may rely on the application of tongue and lips and throat and mouth.
You are the first one to finally articulate this commodification of the body (whether for sex or for office furniture assembly) as the objection. Finally, we have something other than innuendo and lobbing of shame. Of course you'll have a difficult uphill battle articulating arguments against selling one's power to labor (to provide service with one's body and mind) compared to what Paige and funnie could achieve shaming everyone."
First, I disagree with your characterization of Funnie and Paige's posts, but they can speak for their own views.
Secondly, I don't think you've noted the distinction I implicitly made when I said that prostitution necessarily is the commodification of a woman's body:
In wage-labour, it is, in my view, the work that is being commodified, not the body of the person themself. That is to say that in the wage-labor structure one exchanged their work for monetary wages out of the necessity to sustain their life through time. In prostitution it is the woman's body that is commodified, not work. Instead of being payed to do something, a prostitute is payed to allow something to be done to her. This distinction is critical in my view.
"Instead of being payed to do something, a prostitute is payed to allow something to be done to her. This distinction is critical in my view."
That distinction may be critical in your view, but you havne't made the case for it. I think you have to think of woman as passive recievers of male sexuality to imagine they don't perform service with their body's just as other laborers do. Sexual labor (whether paid or unpaid) requires the performance of labor service. It requires the use of one's body, mind, imagination and ingenuity (whether the laborers are men or women or some of each). I think I addressed some of this in my ealier comment.
I am not responding to your characterization of Paige's views because Paige can speak for her own views.
"Humans may desire to have sex simultaneously with the entire Denver Bronco's, and feel harmed if they can't. But we live in a society and there's just as much evidence to indicate human's are social and never as autonomous as they like to imagine they are. We live within immensely complex social formations, with a complex division of labor, voluminous legal codes, ubiquitous mass media, etc., that shape and constitute the very will that you claim is given to us at birth. Some even have a will to sell there bodily services (including servicing through their sexual and sensual body parts) autonomous of your narrow-minded will."
There are two points I'd like to make here;
1) I'd hardly disagree that the structure of society in general is obstructionist to the autonomy of the vast majority of people subject to it, depending on the class (economic, gendered, racial or otherwise) they belong to. However, that is not to say that the fundamental psychological harm to a person of being used as the instrument of another's will rather than as an agent with their own will and projects (which rely on *doing* rather than *being*) is any less obvious to me.
2) The idea that my will or perspective is being imposed on others here is a red herring. I'm arguing that the observable conditions of prostitution are x, not that no prostituted women could have a self-conception of prostitution that does not see it as x.
Finally, your notion that autonomy is an imposition or that I could impose such a thing on anyone even if I wanted to is silly.
Though I'll note that the word I should have used was agent and agency, which flows from the feminist-existentialist framework I was referring to.
"Instead of being payed to do something, a prostitute is payed to allow something to be done to her. This distinction is critical in my view."
Let me also add on this statement that I think it is naďive and one-sided to imagine that something isn't done to a laborer assembling office furniture. As some have said: "a man is what a man does." which alludes to the way our labor constitutes us as another object of the laboring process (along side the office furniture).
"1) I'd hardly disagree that the structure of society in general is obstructionist to the autonomy of the vast majority of people subject to it, depending on the class (economic, gendered, racial or otherwise) they belong to. However, that is not to say that the fundamental psychological harm to a person of being used as the instrument of another's will rather than as an agent with their own will and projects (which rely on *doing* rather than *being*) is any less obvious to me."
Our interactions with one another are not a defect. This is, like many of the arguments of Paige and funnie made, simply relying on the dominant perspective to assert something. Why don't you show how our division of labor, our sexual relations, our language and the variety of our other social interactions are something we as humans should be ashamed of.
"2) The idea that my will or perspective is being imposed on others here is a red herring. I'm arguing that the observable conditions of prostitution are x, not that no prostituted women could have a self-conception of prostitution that does not see it as x."
So if the observable conditions of prostitution are x why would a prostitute have a self-conception of prostitution that does not see it as x. Is it because she's hysterical, delusional, hallucinating, etc.? Or could it be that you see x where someone else sees not x. That x is not simply observable on it's own, but rather depends on the theories one bring to observing prostitution.
"Finally, your notion that autonomy is an imposition or that I could impose such a thing on anyone even if I wanted to is silly."
I meant to put it out there as an absurdity. You had paternalistically suggested we suffer from a lack of autonomy, where I see us as enjoying the cooperation of humanity. I suppose one way to pretend to be autonomous would be to masturbate instead of engaging in sexual relations with others. Or another way would be for a prostitute to cover herself with a blanket, leaving only a whole for the orifice to be penetrated. Then both the prostitute and the john could pretend they were not having sexual relations, but only involved in their own solipsistic fantasy where no one else exists except in their imagination (and they are therefore autonomous with a true agency to make the world however they see fit).
"Though I'll note that the word I should have used was agent and agency, which flows from the feminist-existentialist framework I was referring to."
I can understand there are all sorts of feminisms, all sorts of existentialisms and all sorts of radicalisms. However I think your (and also funnie's and Paige's) use of these terms in ways so far from where they began and reoriented toward the movements these ideas arose to criticize indicates a political move to subvert existentialism, feminism, and radicalism and not simply a move to deploy those ideas as others might.
I've pretty much given up on this argument, so y'all are gonna have to carry on--but I did want to note my own personal objection to the idea that prostitution *necessarily* commodifies a woman's body because something is "being done to her." Only if you view sex as something a man "does to" a woman. If you view sex as something that people do together, then what she is selling is a service. A service, yes, where she is using her body. Like massage. Are the masseuse's hands being commodified? No. Both hands and cunt are body parts. The difference is socially constructed--which is not to say it isn't real, merely to point out that *in and of itself*, there is no reason to get hung up with someone using her cunt to do her job than there is with her using her hands.
Now, of course, if rape is occuring, then that is different. And if prostitution is occuring under conditions that are tatamount to rape (and it seems to me that the central disagreement here is if prostitution is *necessarily* tatamount to rape, which I do not think it is), then that is also commodifying a woman's body (e.g., selling a girl to someone against her will or with only the passive "consent" of someone who is physically or psychologically enslaved). And, given the social context in which cunts and hands operate, there *is* a distinction between the one and the other, labor-wise. I've acknowledged that these issues of context are extremely important, and that they may justify pointing out that this argument is pretty much academic in nature.
But. If the woman is selling her service willingly, then it is not something a man is "doing to her." It can be something she does to him, or provides him, or that they agree to do together, but the only way you can say she is being commodified or "done to" is to deny that it is possible for a woman to willingly sell sex. Which is what funnie and Paige are saying. I disagree.
In order to construct "my" supposed argument, you have again ignored one of the fundamental principles of my argument: that sex that women do not sexually desire is problematic on feminist grounds. Quel surprise.
At the very least, you could start by saying specifically what you blieve the motivations of Johns to be...
I wrote out that motivation twice, once in bold print. You are a bit thick, aren't you.
I asked:
"At the very least, you could start by saying specifically what you blieve the motivations of Johns to be and precisely what damge comes from those motivations. That's how you would begin to take a position on this that wasn't just steeped in innuendo"
Funnie (who's not so much) replied:
"I wrote out that motivation twice, once in bold print. You are a bit thick, aren't you."
by which I assume she means:
"The motive of people who pay for sex is a belief that, independent of anyone else's desire to fuck them, they deserve to have sex."
Due to my thickness and despite my skankiness could you explain to me how this does what I asked rather than just lobbing more innuendo. This blurb reads to the thick one's of us as the conditions of one's motives rather than their motives. I may think I deserve to have sex and I may believe that desert is independent (dare I say autonomous) of others' desire to fuck me, but that doesn't motivate me to have sex, let alone buy sex.
In order to construct "my" supposed argument, you have again ignored one of the fundamental principles of my argument: that sex that women do not sexually desire is problematic on feminist grounds. Quel surprise.
Is "you" here, me? I understand your fundamental principle. I disagree with it. I do not think that "desire" has to mean "horny." A woman can desire money, and be *willing* to have sex to get it. Desire is not something that just magically appears. Often, in real life, sexual desire is something that one has to construct or build upon: you start out "not in the mood" but you get in the mood--because you love your partner, because you want to have sex but for whatever reason your mind/body aren't cooperating today (because you're on drugs, because you had a shitty day at work, whatever). And sometimes you do not *want* to kindle that desire, so you say no. We disagree. On feminist grounds. Feminism is not monolithic.
Oh, and by the way, I would say that you are now being condescending.
Nevermind. If I could delete comments I would. I'll no longer be participating here.
Yes, that was to you, B.
I said "sexual desire," not "desire." Unless you sexually desire money, you're talking about desiring sex for other reasons than sexual desire.
Yes, we've discussed the fact that we disagree on this, but the reason I pointed it out again is that you said:
...the only way you can say she is being commodified or "done to" is to deny that it is possible for a woman to willingly sell sex. Which is what funnie and Paige are saying.
I'm not denying that a woman can "willingly" sell sex, though I think the concept of willingness gets fuzzy, quick, when it comes to women in prostitution. I'm saying it IS entirely possible for a woman to willingly sell sex, as you are clearly doing (at this point, when you are willing and not forced). But I am ALSO stating that selling sex is a clear statement that she is not "willingly" having the sex that she sexually desires.
Yes, I am condescending now. You might find that's because you're putting words in my mouth.
And by the way, I understand that sexual desire does not magically appear, but I also disagree with what you said about no harm being done when women have sex they don't sexually desire just because they're in an LTR and they want to make their partner happy or comforted or whatever. I see BIG BIG BIG harm in that. Yes, you've said you don't. But I forgot to explicitly disagree with that, so here it is, for the record.
"my own personal objection to the idea that prostitution *necessarily* commodifies a woman's body because something is "being done to her. Only if you view sex as something a man "does to" a woman. If you view sex as something that people do together, then what she is selling is a service.
If the woman is selling her service willingly, then it is not something a man is "doing to her."
Then why don't you and the potential punter pay each other? Isn't the very acknowledgment that he has to give you money to compensate you for...something (what?)...belie what you're saying about mutuality? I know why maids don't pay wealthy people to clean their houses, but I don't understand why you're not considering paying him to be 'serviced' (such an awful way to speak of lovemaking).
Oops. That comment of mine was posted to the wrong comments thread.
Moving on,
CP said
"Let me also add on this statement that I think it is naďive and one-sided to imagine that something isn't done to a laborer assembling office furniture. As some have said: "a man is what a man does." which alludes to the way our labor constitutes us as another object of the laboring process (along side the office furniture)."
Some may have said that, but unless you have an actual plausible argument to support this assertion, I see no reason to take it seriously merely because you believe it to be true.
"Our interactions with one another are not a defect. This is, like many of the arguments of Paige and funnie made, simply relying on the dominant perspective to assert something. Why don't you show how our division of labor, our sexual relations, our language and the variety of our other social interactions are something we as humans should be ashamed of."
You're not even responding to what I actually said here. I never said anyone should be ashamed of anything.
"So if the observable conditions of prostitution are x why would a prostitute have a self-conception of prostitution that does not see it as x. Is it because she's hysterical, delusional, hallucinating, etc.? Or could it be that you see x where someone else sees not x. That x is not simply observable on it's own, but rather depends on the theories one bring to observing prostitution."
This is wholly in bad faith. I made no suggestion of the sort. Do you even understand the difference between individuals and class analysis? Of course the theory (and below it ontology) one uses to analyze the world necessairly impacts what you see. Your position equally so. In order to assume that how a person personally sees something *makes it so* regardless of the external observable conditions equally rests on an ontoloty and theory, sorry, your position is not neutral, theory free, or anything else.
the aptly named "you're missing the main point" writes:
"Then why don't you and the potential punter pay each other"
Of course we'll miss the main point. Of course words will be put in your mouths. If you enter a conversation and offer mostly innuendo (especially in regards to your main points), asking only questions and never spelling out positions no one is going to get your main point. Thousands of words have transpired and you can't bring yourselves to spell it out.
What shame are we to internalize from asking the question about who is paying whom. You'll have to spell it out for me.
"... I don't understand why you're not considering paying him to be 'serviced' (such an awful way to speak of lovemaking)."
I like being "serviced." I think it can also be great to "service" someone. Again the difference in opinions is not a surprise. It is obnoxious and arrogant however to use innuendo to shame those whose opinions differ from your own.
"I can understand there are all sorts of feminisms, all sorts of existentialisms and all sorts of radicalisms. However I think your (and also funnie's and Paige's) use of these terms in ways so far from where they began and reoriented toward the movements these ideas arose to criticize indicates a political move to subvert existentialism, feminism, and radicalism and not simply a move to deploy those ideas as others might."
The sky is not purple with polkadots merely because you say it is. Happen to have an argument as to how my application of femminist-existentialism is in any way not consistent with that philososphy?
Funnie, do you feel the same way about men having sex with their long-term partners (women, let's say) if they don't really want to?
An example: one of the sweetest things Mr. B. ever did was fuck me when I was 42 weeks pregnant in an attempt to bring on labor (some chemical in semen is supposed to help, with or without the added impetus of orgasm). I was huge, and very not in the mood, and neither was he. and my "let's just get this over with, service me" attitude was so very not helping. But he went through with it because I asked him to.
Was that exploitative of me?
"but I did want to note my own personal objection to the idea that prostitution *necessarily* commodifies a woman's body because something is "being done to her." Only if you view sex as something a man "does to" a woman. If you view sex as something that people do together, then what she is selling is a service. A service, yes, where she is using her body. Like massage. Are the masseuse's hands being commodified? No. Both hands and cunt are body parts. The difference is socially constructed--which is not to say it isn't real, merely to point out that *in and of itself*, there is no reason to get hung up with someone using her cunt to do her job than there is with her using her hands."
I wholly disagree with your main point here. It does not require *me* to view sex as something men to do women, merely that this view is implicit in paying a woman for physical access to her body without respect to any knowlege of her personality, sexual skills, desire to have sex with you, or any other factor than physical access.
This is necessarily implied becaust the John's pay without knowing, or caring, who the prostituted woman is, what her (to use you're terminology) "service skills" are, or that she doesn't sexually desire to have sex with that person. The only conditions the John cares about are looks. price. willing to let me do what?
Also, for a man to believe it is his right to pay for sex with women who do not sexually desire him and would not have sex with him otherwise, and then to go an pay for that sex with a woman without knowing what her sexual skills are and KNOWING that she will not be sexually into it necessarily implies the view that he is paying to do something to her, not with her. You have sex *with* someone when they are equally interested in having sex with you, when you know they aren't but you do it anyway, you are doing it *to* them.
I siad:
"Let me also add on this statement that I think it is naďive and one-sided to imagine that something isn't done to a laborer assembling office furniture. As some have said: "a man is what a man does." which alludes to the way our labor constitutes us as another object of the laboring process (along side the office furniture)."
Lorenzo responded:
Some may have said that, but unless you have an actual plausible argument to support this assertion, I see no reason to take it seriously merely because you believe it to be true.
You don't think we our constituted by the labor wer perform. Let me take Dr. B's example of a massage therapists. In performing massage labor, the therapists may build up strong arm muscles or suffer from repetative stress disorder. In manipulating the flesh of another with little verbal communication they may gain solitude or suffer from lonliness. All of this labor shapes the therapists performing it.
For academic laborers I would think it would be clear that your work (reading, research, colloquia, debates) shapes who you are. You (including your personality, your deires, etc.) are one of the objects of your labor.
You're not even responding to what I actually said here. I never said anyone should be ashamed of anything.
You implied that our autonomous selves are our authentic selves. This is a major point of disagreement between us. Yet you don't expalin why our interaction and dependence on one antoher and our subsequent constitution by the will of others is so wrong. You left it as understood, much like the other argfuments you praise. When left as understood it appears to me that you only want to rely on the pervasiveness of your ideas and the suggestion that anyone to thick to understand ti should be ashamed.
"So if the observable conditions of prostitution are x why would a prostitute have a self-conception of prostitution that does not see it as x. Is it because she's hysterical, delusional, hallucinating, etc.? Or could it be that you see x where someone else sees not x. That x is not simply observable on it's own, but rather depends on the theories one bring to observing prostitution."
Again, you say you are talking about the observable conditions of prostitution. And then you contrast that with what a prostitute might see. In the way you justaposed those it sounds like you think the prostitute sees something other than the true observable conditions that you can see. If that's not how you menat it, I think you should be more careful with your wording.
"This is wholly in bad faith. I made no suggestion of the sort. Do you even understand the difference between individuals and class analysis? Of course the theory (and below it ontology) one uses to analyze the world necessairly impacts what you see. Your position equally so. In order to assume that how a person personally sees something *makes it so* regardless of the external observable conditions equally rests on an o
Funnie, do you feel the same way about men having sex with their long-term partners (women, let's say) if they don't really want to?
In general, yes.
Specifically, did you, a woman, *sexually exploit* a man, particularly one of your race and class? No, I wouldn't use that term. But hey, I also wouldn't call it sweet of him to have sex neither of you wanted.
Lorenzo, my point is that your argument on this issue depends on looking at prostitution entirely from the pov of the john. His motivations are the only ones you're taking into account:
this view is implicit in paying a woman for physical access to her body
The active agent in your sentence is the customer. What I am saying is, the pov of the prostitute also matters: if she is willing to sell something that she considers a service, that is her business. A silly massage analogy: I may not *feel* like giving this total stranger a backrub, but if I am *willing* to do so for $60/hour, then I am not being exploited, even if he doesn't give a rat's ass about me as a person.
[continued]
"This is wholly in bad faith. I made no suggestion of the sort. Do you even understand the difference between individuals and class analysis? Of course the theory (and below it ontology) one uses to analyze the world necessairly impacts what you see. Your position equally so. In order to assume that how a person personally sees something *makes it so* regardless of the external observable conditions equally rests on an ontoloty and theory, sorry, your position is not neutral, theory free, or anything else."
I never suggested my position was neutral or theory free. In fact I've been arguing contra you and funnie and Paige that neutral and theory free observation is an impossibility.
Also I never said that how someone sees something makes it so. You're the one with the belief in the fundamental autonomy of humans from the conditions of their existence. I would insist that theory and non-theory (ontic) are always effecting one another: neither autonomous nor utterly dependent. (I would say the same thing for humans)
I don't want shame on anyone, I'd just like an explanation for why when the choices offered to look at this potential prostitution act are:
"view sex as something a man "does to" a woman"
and
"view sex as something that people do together"
the second option is the one that least explains why bitchphd would be the one paid while the first one accurately describes why it would be the prostituted woman who is paid and the male user who does the paying.
If bitchphd honestly viewed sex as something people do together, equally, mutually, how would she decide who to pay for "servicing" who in the prostituted act?
However, if bitchphd understands implicitly her womanly role is as sexual servicer and the manly role is as sexual servicee, then the first view of prostitution explains who gets the money and why, "sex as something a man "does to" a woman".
Not only does he "do it to her", but the doing to her seemingly makes her worthy of financial compensation for...something (what?)...and we're not talking bus fare vs, cab fare ranges of finanical compensation, which tells us something else about what's really going on.
Specifically, did you, a woman, *sexually exploit* a man, particularly one of your race and class? No, I wouldn't use that term. But hey, I also wouldn't call it sweet of him to have sex neither of you wanted.
Huh. Well, I think it's obvious that you and I are never gonna agree on what constitutes "free will" in sexual matters.
What makes you think Mr. B. and I are the same race and class, btw?
missing main point: It has nothing to do with my womanly role. It has to do with my free agency. I want the money, he wants to fuck me. He's willing to pay, I'm willing to fuck. It's a mutually beneficial deal, and we're doing it together.
Ok?
First off, despite this:
Procrastinate, you might learn something
which I love, I am here to bestow upon you the Annalee Newitz/retro-98 award of 2005. Lisa Palac and Susie Bright were too bogged down with domestic chores to serve as presenters, so I guess I will have to do. I mean, come on, how can you possibly make this claim:
"Least likely to pacify social conservatives."
while doing your darndest to pacify the staunchest defenders of one of the most enduring aspects of the status quo. What better example of a social conservative could you find than a defender of prostitution?
And what IS this trendy mainstream "alternative" press obsession with female graduate education and "sex" (in quotes because I mean nerve.com style anti-sex sex). This stuff is so hack. I would be embarrassed to take part in it with my easily won GED, so why in the world does it carry no dumbo stigma (huh, popular word with these types) among the more highly educated. Come on now, this was already old news when Newitz jumped on board, but a '98 award was all I had in stock, and I didn't want to REALLY humiliate you by offering you a Taormino '02. It's now longer 1992 and we're not all Narcotics Anonymous members who work in strip clubs and can't wait to go see the Cramps on Halloween. Can't we move on?
Lashauna, I'm laughing. Apparently, no, we can't.
Oh my friggin' god. That is the third time I have double posted without having any idea how? Is there something tricky about this interface that I should know?
Oh, and I'm not claiming that my personal life is politically advanced or sophisticated. Quite free to cop to being hopelessly idiotic and neurotic and not-at-all caught up with the rest of the world.
But I'm thinking most social conservatives tend to disapprove of prostitution. And surely the "prostitution is bad for women" argument is at least as old.
I dunno about the double post thing, but no worries. When I see those, I proofread to see if the poster added something new the second time, and if not, I delete the second post.
Well, I'm glad to get a laugh out of you, Professor, but make no mistake that I was referring not to this comment thread, but to the enduring focus in the mainstream pretend-alterna press on such fluffy (and yes, anti-feminist, but no need to bog down on this one because the fluff is bad enough) subject matter.
Don't you find it stifling to have to do that Raquel Welch playing a secretary in horn-rims and crossed legs circa-1963 kind of thing, literarily speaking?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/...2p-
178564c.html
No, maybe because I'm totally reactionary, bourgeois, and middle-class, I find it kind of fun. I knew what you were referring to, btw, I was just having a bit o' fun.
I really don't think it's anti-feminist. Truly. I get why people do, I just don't happen to agree. Can't we all just get along?
Having said that, I'm really glad that you introduced a bit of levity into the conversation (and the whole Susie Bright, retro-award thing was funny, come on). And I also gotta say, one thing I'm pleased about (sue me, I'm an egotist, I'm gonna take on myself a li'l credit for this) is that this entire conversation, while often heated, has been conducted with a lot more intelligence and engagement than most internet arguments.
Oh, hey, here's a thought on the multiple posts: maybe it happens because, having commented, you then reload the page to see new comments, and the thingy sends the form again. Try closing the window and then clicking again on the "comments" link.
It's a pain, I know. I didn't write the code.
I did it again Professor, but I think I figured it out. My text must have still been in the entry box (after I posted it), so that my refreshing the screen to see more comments had unintended results.
Funnie, looks like everyone knows how little difference there really is between the red and the blue. I wonder if they gear up like that for the Green convention?
"I want the money, he wants to fuck me. He's willing to pay, I'm willing to fuck. It's a mutually beneficial deal, and we're doing it together."
This proves my point about internalized gender roles.
I hope one day you address the real questions beneath this facile pronouncement that makes you come off like an adolescent who lacks critical thinking skills and empathy for women facing the most exploitive form of sexism- sexual slavery.
Looks like we were on the same wavelength. Yeah, I'm sure that's it, but now I can't see any comments made after 11:33.
missing the point: See the post that all these comments are attached to. I started off by saying, "hey, we internalize gender roles, that doesn't mean we can't critique 'em, but I have no problem with people operating within the social paradigm they find themselves in and I object to people who do." Anyway, I'd make the same argument about a woman hiring a man for sex (and see also my comment upthread about my husband fucking me, despite a lack of desire, when I was pregnant). It just so happens that in this situation the gender roles are traditional. Is that merely coincidence? Obviously not. Is it something I'm gonna lose sleep over? No.
Also, calling me adolescent and facile hardly demonstrates great critical thinking skills on your part. It's easy to insult people.
The main entry still says 136 comments and going in that way only takes you to CP's comment of 11:33. Is this happening to anyone else?
"No, maybe because I'm totally reactionary, bourgeois, and middle-class, I find it kind of fun. I knew what you were referring to, btw, I was just having a bit o' fun."
Okay, but why are the people in power, the publishers and editors of the corporate pretend-alterna press so stuck on promoting this stuff? You know, stuff you see again and again a million times over like the Bay Guardian assigning a fucking REPORTER to work in a strip club so she can write an article about it and making her frame it as something she was just DYING to do. And no, no, no everyone, you are not allowed to sidetrack by asking me how I know what Rosenbloom wanted to do. Irrelevant. Because, if I may remind you, THIS is my question:
Okay, but why are the people in power, the publishers and editors of the corporate pretend-alterna press so stuck on promoting this stuff?
you're missing the main point writes:
"?the second option is the one that least explains why bitchphd would be the one paid while the first one accurately describes why it would be the prostituted woman who is paid and the male user who does the paying"
I don't see that. What if Dr. B was providing tutoring services to this john rather than sexual services? Is she having something done to her then — because she's being paid for this service. Is the john the one actively taking Dr. B's precious virgin knowledge from her.
Woops! Is it doctor? I wasn't trying to be catty with the professor business, I thought I had seen people address Proffessor B and I just liked the way it sounded.
I'll bet CP knows why Meklin, Brugman et al. (where does the damn period go?) promote this stuff.
Lorenzo writes:
"The sky is not purple with polkadots merely because you say it is. Happen to have an argument as to how my application of femminist-existentialism is in any way not consistent with that philososphy?"
I thought I already had.For example, your critical distinction between prostitution and other labor service is that woman are inanimate objects in the act may have some perverse relation to some existentialism somewhere, but I'm having a hard time seeing the feminism.
Damn. I thought I had found a party.
Oh, I see. It was an Opera, not a HaloScan, problem. Sorry for all of that distraction. I can see everything now and am hoping for no more double posts.
:o
'll bet CP knows why Meklin, Brugman et al. (where does the damn period go?) promote this stuff."
Oh more innuendo 
I'd love to know what you're implying there.
I have a theory about it. I think they make great profit from it. But only because they and others have created the conditions of existence for that. To first sell sex (and here I guess we mean the image of sex) to people you first have remove other avenues for sex outside of selling. They are assisted greatly by the puritanical ideologies promoted by you and Lorenzo and funnie et al. To the extent you can be successful in alienating men from women, women from men, men from men and women from women so that sexual labor outside of monetized sexual labor becomes difficult or perhaps impossible, they're fortunes will rise.
You help create these conditions by promoting the age old ideals that sex and masturbation are wrong or that Dr. B's interaction with a friend is evil (simply because it involves sex and money will change hands) so that we preserve prostitution (at least in our imaginations) as strictly an unfamiliar anonymous and autonomous interaction between whores and whore-mongers.
Now this is not to say you provide all of their conditions of existence for selling this stuff to us, But you do your part with this conservation of traditional ideas about sex and the sacred properties of a woman's vagina.
What is more conservative than what funnie wrote (I believe it was her and not Paige, but it is hard to tell them apart wearing the same black shirts and armbands) that Dr. B has an obligation to the class of women to preserve the integrity of her sexual body parts (as if she's not following "The Rules"). You are all arguing for the preservation of traditional female rules as keepers of the gates of the vagina. And that's against Dr. B, who I see as willing to think about, challenge, play with, push and undermine social conservatives (like you) to the detriment of their widely achieved pacification.
Lashauna writes:
"Newitz jumped on board, but a '98 award was all I had in stock, and I didn't want to REALLY humiliate you by offering you a Taormino '02. It's now longer 1992 and we're not all Narcotics Anonymous members who work in strip clubs and can't wait to go see the Cramps on Halloween. Can't we move on?"
I only know vaguely what you're referring to, but are you saying that like the Cramps, sex (or it's portrayal) is something we should have gotten over already? That fad has passed? Again, if you don't spell out exactly the objections to Taorimino, strippers, narcotics anonymous, etc I'm to thick to follow what you're saying (my metal telepathy skills have faded from disuse).
The suggestion that prostitution harms women as a class is black shirts and armbands? Interesting association you have there.
And I have read this whole thread and found no suggestion by anyone that masturbation or sex is wrong. I am also unclear on how you think that prostitution will not alienate men from women etc etc; disassociation is a psychological hallmark of prostitution (see some of the articles linked earlier).
Also, what do you mean by 'sexual labor outside monetized sexual labor'? My understanding of labor may be different from yours; that's not a rhetorical question.
And most startlingly: you reckon that paying a woman to open 'the gates of the vagina' undermines the notion of women as the keeper to those gates. How so?
Okay, but why are the people in power, the publishers and editors of the corporate pretend-alterna press so stuck on promoting this stuff?
The simple answer is, for the same reason I've got 150+ comments on this post: because everyone's interested in sex, everyone has an opinion on it. And yeah, women are still sex objects, and the pretend-alterna press, as you call it, is more likely to talk about sex *as* sex.
The more complicated reason (or rationalization, if you will) might be that feminism has seriously changed a lot of things, including how we view/think about/practice women's sexuality and/or labor, and that talking about this shit explores those things. Obviously it isn't *over* or people really *would* yawn at my post and not even bother to comment.
On the other hand, that reason/rationalization begs another question; why are we not talking at length about other issues of women's labor and/or sexuality? Obviously because sex is more titillating, which obviously supports the argument that focusing on sex, especially at the cost of other, arguably more important issues, is pretty reactionary.
Now, for me, I'd say, "look at the sex stuff on this blog in the context of the blog as a whole"--where I talk about a lot of other stuff, more than I talk about sex, even. I actually do make a point of not getting into too much detail, precisely because of the titillation factor. OTOH, as I said, I'm perfectly aware that the sex stuff is a big draw and I've totally whored that to the blogads people. But the fact that these two posts have gotten a ton of comments doesn't mean that sex is all I talk about. And, also as I said earlier, I'm totally impressed that the discussion of this has been overwhelmingly feminist (of whatever stripe) and thoughtful; much less of the "you're a slut, and your husband is a fool" than I used to get when I blogged about open marriage.
Oh, and I don't care about professor or doctor. Either one. Just "B" is fine, too.
Helios! I wanted to say this when you responded to Funnie earlier, but I forgot. I once knew a very cool feminist poster who went by that name, but it's been years. You may not want to say so here, but does a discussion about misogynist t-shirts (inappropriate anywhere really of course) made wildly inappropriate by their environment ring any bells?
Oh, for the record (and b/c I've been accused of only jumping on the anti-prostitution people) I wanna say that I don't think that arguing that prostitution harms women is a form of fascism. I do have problems with the idea that all individual women should support women as a class in particular ways dictated by others--I would argue that my sex life is feminist, obviously--and I'm not a big fan of gender (or other kinds of) essentialism. But that's kind of an oversimplification, and I think CP is making quite a lot of hay out of Paige's remark about masturbation in the other thread.
Even though I disagree with the implication that women are passive vehicles implied in the description of prostitution as "hiring a woman to masturbate into" (or whatever the exact wording was).
But I'm not talking about mature and reasoned discussions about sex, I'm talking about what Claude McKay (that guy who wrote Banjo sometime early in the 20th century) would call Bawdy House. The outlets I'm referring to almost NEVER present any of the former. That's what I meant by my "anti-sex sex stuff like nerve.com publishes" comment.
It's dangerous and misleading to conflate discussions about sex with titillating crap.
Hey there! Yup, c'est moi. Do I get three guesses? Don't like to out anyones online IDs...
I knew it! :D
I'll bet you know, but no need to guess out loud. I'll have to come up with some sort of fairly generic email address to post here if you don't do so first. Wow, it's good to see you. I've been wondering how you were doing.
Lordy Be! 
c.n@mcrmail.com
Email snet!
"But the fact that these two posts have gotten a ton of comments doesn't mean that sex is all I talk about."
Looks to me like most of the discussion here isn't about sex but about how economic and cultural discrimination determine women's choices more than women do. That's not the same as talking about 'sex', just like alternormal weeklies don't talk about "sex" nearly as much as they talk about strippers, porn, escorts, phone sex, and other avenues of selling female sexuality to men. An article on actual sex, real human sex? How vanilla.
Likewise, you making the funny funny about whores, hoes, hookers, etc. all over this blog isn't talk about sex, it's talk about selling women as sexual servants to men. Pimp talk is like, so much edgier than plain old sex talk these days, as you evidence.
At least one women I know trying to come to terms with the brutal abuse she suffered in prostitution isn't helped by you joining in with the pimps & johns making the funny funny at their expense. One survivor in Seattle I know is deeply offfended by a local beer in the food store she works at advertised as "Naughty Nellie's" brothel beer. She'll never complain because "then they'll know", but the 'whores are funny' environment she's steeped in treats her years of sexual torture and addiction as a dirty joke.
Ask yourself if joining in on the pimp talk making jokes about whores all over your blog is part of the solution or part of the problem. Do you really think you're increasing the dignity of prostituted people with such cheeky weeky uses of pimping terms?
B writes:
"for the record (and b/c I've been accused of only jumping on the anti-prostitution people) I wanna say that I don't think that arguing that prostitution harms women is a form of fascism."
I also have not argued that arguing prostitution harms women is a form of fascism. Quit the opposite, I've feel I've been pleading with several commenters to present their argument. What I've been referring to as fascism is the treatment of anyone who doesn't recognize the obviousness of their position is shameful. Because several comments are relying on the hegemonic view that sexual behavior (including masturbation) is dirty disgusting and shameful.
They have done little to explain specifically how prostituion harms woman — instead relying on the knee-jerk connections we're supposed to have toward sex. I have my own ideas. And B, you've expressed some of your own (which have been ridiculed as privileged). But neither funnie, Paige nor Lashauna have done so in a way that isn't just steeped in innuendo.
Funny how you so love that word, innuendo. It's one I associate with the the very sort of pap the alternormal (! I love it, Missing) weeklies put out. Risque innuendo, just like the joke column in an early-60s issue of Playboy.
Ooh, we've whipped out the FemiNazi tag! Rush, I had no *idea* you were coherent enough to type...admit it, you're dictating, right? (Punny!)
Honest, above-board disagreement is a wonderful, healthy thing, as B. has noted a couple of times now. One of these days, though, and I hope in my lifetime, we're going to declare it Not Cool to fall back on INNUENDO that women frigid, prudish, FemiNazi bitches because they think...whatever it is we don't want them to think, today.
"Funny how you so love that word, innuendo."
I do love words that help me describe my position. You should try them out sometime.
Staunch. Disgusted. Somewhat philosophical, but more pragmatic.
Impatient with dishonesty and tricks (!) of the trade.
Oh yeah, and impervious to pervs, and proud of it.
Likewise, you making the funny funny about whores, hoes, hookers, etc. all over this blog isn't talk about sex, it's talk about selling women as sexual servants to men.
I haven't used the word "ho" at all; I find it stupid. Nor have I made jokes about hookers.
I have used the word "whore." In applying it to myself. Look at the name of the damn blog. The entire point of what I'm doing is to talk--using humor sometimes, yes--about the very issues you're pointing to. Which are, in some way, related to sex. As these issues (including sex) relate to my own goddamn life.
That's a far cry from a restaurant menu. And yes, I do think that by enabling this discussion, I am being "part of the solution." Although my primary purpose is to figure out my own life, not to serve your (or anyone else's) agenda.
"The suggestion that prostitution harms women as a class is black shirts and armbands? Interesting association you have there."
Well first of all, I understand the ideas of monolithic unfragmented classes as drawn from fascist social theory. Again I never said that the idea that prostitution harming woman is fascist. There is no doubt in my mind that there are women severely harmed by prostitution.
"And I have read this whole thread and found no suggestion by anyone that masturbation or sex is wrong. I am also unclear on how you think that prostitution will not alienate men from women etc etc; disassociation is a psychological hallmark of prostitution (see some of the articles linked earlier)."
This is one of several sub-thread that had simultaneous posts by multiple people. I entered it in process and my first post was an attempt to synthesize and then criticize the sentiments I found across those threads (I think the posts were "Sluttier than you think", "There are Worse things" and "Whore"; there may be others that I missed).
Also, what do you mean by 'sexual labor outside monetized sexual labor'? My understanding of labor may be different from yours; that's not a rhetorical question.
My working definition of labor is: the deliberate human application of brains, muscles and other human body parts toward the transformation of nature. By monetized I merely meant the performance of such labor from the sale of such laboring ability (such as wage labor or prostitution).
"And most startlingly: you reckon that paying a woman to open 'the gates of the vagina' undermines the notion of women as the keeper to those gates. How so?"
No, I don't. However in trying to understand the position taken by so many commenters, it seems there is much more concern with the sexual integrity of a woman and the shame of sex, etc.
As I (and others) tried to understand the positions that contend with B that the harm of prostitution doesn't come from what B has suggested (the working conditions, the income class, wealth, legal options, etc), I've tried to push those critics to articulate their own position on the harm done to prostitutes (in part because B's articulation sounded good to someone as thick as me).
Instead of articulating a position on the harmful effects of prostitution, flippant statements about the shamefulness of sexuality were more often the reply (there have been some exceptions). That is what I think does harm (along with some prostitution) to the prospects for broader sexual (and other less intimate) relations among people.
hey, i just wanted to express my thanks to y'all for this discussion. i've learned a lot and been given a lot to think about here. i feel like the good doctor has given me a lot of valuable things to think about as a young feminist academic-in-training (not all of them good, but hey, what are you gonna do?). but i mean it, this has been a very rich discussion and if it's a draw then dude, it's just a draw.
my only substantive comment comes from an annoyingly crit-theory perspective that is centered around the distinction between prostitution understood as the making of women into commodities, and prostitution understood as service. as we have moved towards a service economy, from an economy based on material production, i would not say that overall this has been good for workers. so maybe we should be suspicious to so easily prefer the language of "providing a service." those who provide services are generally marginalized, seen as temporary to the profession, not provided with benefits, etc. in general, not so different, but now without labor unions. this calls a lot of every kind of work into question, and so i know it isn't really very helpful in trying to parse out what's unique to prostitution, but i was want to just be careful. so.
also i'm not so certain that providing a service, in the structure of the "regular" economy, makes you not a commodity. or at least if it does, i'm not sure i understand why.
this is no help at all. nor is it meant to be, truly.
but still, thanks.
Lashauna: you have now descended into Bill O'Reilly territory. That's right -- when Bill really, really hates somebody who happens to teach college, he starts obsequiously referring to the guest as "Professor," catering both to his and his audience's anti-intellectual fervor. It's an old, honored, and sleazy tactic. Take a look at Huck Finn's father for additional examples.
You use the term "hooker boots' for what I'm sure you intended to be a giggle-inducing effect, and I'm not sure believe every 'whore' reference is directly about you as a whore, but I think you're being unduly obstinate so thanks for replying and goodbye.
CD, I don't think that's fair--I think Lashauna is new to the blog and was just wondering what my pseudonym actually was (and I do use all four: B, Dr. B., Professor B., and bitchphd).
In any case, I figure we might as well give people the benefit of the doubt.
I use "hooker boots" because someone once said that to me about some boots I was wearing. You're operating with a complete ignorance of context here. I blogged about that exchange, and we talked about teaching and the way women dress in front of a classroom and how it's received, and other women academics who use my blog and I have picked up on the phrase as a shorthand way of skewering (yes, and giggling at) a culture that looks askance at style-conscious women and questions whether the way they dress indicates sexual availability, or at least "too much" consciousness of their sexuality.
"Obstinate," "bitch," it's all the same isn't it? I don't let myself be led or baited much, no.
Somehow I got labeled as denying the harmful conditions of prostitution because I asked those critical of bitchphd's analysis to provide on of their own that was more than a "you know" (cause I don't know).
I've been accused of making too much of masturbation. Yet when Paige spoke about "men buying women into whom they can masturbate" that was the closest Paige has come to articulating a position. When I see someone beginning to articulate a position I try to go with that. I didn't introduce the term masturbation into the thread(s).
So when I tried to to push that and get more from Paige than just the suggestion of something wrong there, I'm ignored by Paige and accused by others of making too much of the masturbation comment. If masturbation in that context was just a euphemism well then that doesn't help me either. Because no she's just trying to elicit a reaction from "men fucking a prostitute", or "inserting a penis into a vagina... anus... mouth..." Or perhaps something else. Either way, why not try to continue with a line of argument rather than throwing up one's hands and insisting we're just from different paradigms.
Many have suggested the harm comes from: the dire economic conditions of some prostitutes; the propensity some men have toward violence; the legal system that scorns prostitutes (and also johns and pimps); perhaps the lack of income for women. Others have suggested selling/buying one's laboring ability always harms the person selling it. Another suggestion was that some prostitutes find themselves performing sexual labor under slave conditions. I am sympathetic and have been respectful to all of these ideas.
I think there's a current through some of these comments that women who (for whatever reasons) find prostitution or even sex uncomfortable, distasteful, disgusting or shameful end up nevertheless compelled somehow to engage in prostitution. This too sounds like a horrible and harmful condition to be in. I have never suggested that any of these explanations of the harmful effects of prostitution are fascistic. I agree with all of them (maybe some more strongly than others; e.g., I'm not 100% behind the idea that selling one' ability to labor is harmful rather I think that comes again with the conditions of existence of that sale).
Where I have taken issue is with those who have rejected all of these reasons as privileged and silly without offering anything other than sexually charged buzzwords in their place. When asked to clarify their position the just move on to another innuendo. For example, funnie's likes: what are the motivations of johns. I have know idea, but if you told us what you think the motivation of johns are that could be a point of departure for discussion.
Paige and funnie (and some others) seem awfully concerned with maintaining the status quo around woman's roles. To me their comments seems to suggest the legal system, the construction of gender, the language we
[continued]
the language we use, the way we perform labor (sexual and otherwise) are all immutable and eternal. The answer then is to simply accept the conditions find themselves in and just try to stop the sinners from buying their fornication. Leave intact: the legal system's indifference to poor women; the income disparity of women; the slavery; etc. If johns stop buying sex from prostitutes those women will not face the pain of these conditions of existence. If in fact these women were faced with the only only choice of selling sex, then with everything else left alone they're now faced with just starvation. So we get the Malthusian solution to the problem of prostitution and poor women.
I don't think that sex is wrong. I don't think that selling one's ability to labor is wrong. And I don't think that selling one's ability to labor sexually is wrong. I know there are others who would disagree and I welcome elaboration on those positions. I also understand that this is not a neutral position to take, but is merely one of countless position one could take.
However to me, and as others have said, context does matter. What are the conditions of those sales? Does exploitation take placed in the sale of one's laboring abilities and to what degree? Do diseases and other working hazards abound?
I sense the discussion may be winding down, but I honestly hope this is not the last word.
One other thing I meant to mention (and Ithought other might have an interest in) is a song by the rap group The Coup. It's one of the most powerful songs I've ever heard that tells the story of a boy who is the son of a prostitute and a pimp and the tragic and harmful effects these conditions have on his mother, him as a young boy and on him as an adult when he becomes a pimp himself. It's the second song on the album entitled "Me and Jesus the Pimp in a '79 Granada Last Night."
The Coup's: "Steal this Double Album"
Others have found this song so powerful that it inpsired a novel by Monique Morris based on the story and the characters contained in this rap song.
"Too Beautiful for Words"
(I've tried to construct the links so that bitchphd gets the commission; hopefully I did it correctly).
You'll find the lyrics here.
Thanks cp, but I suspect one has to go through the actual button to benefit me. Maybe not, though, I don't really know. I sure appreciate the thought.
I think you're right, the convo seems to have died down. But man, it was good while it lasted, no?
I hope I'm not too late, but I have a question that I might constructively focus some of the disagreement:
What are the legitimate purposes for having sex? What can a woman expect out of sex that makes it a freely chosen act? Orgasms? What else?
Funnie says:
"I understand that sexual desire does not magically appear, but I also disagree with what you said about no harm being done when women have sex they don't sexually desire just because they're in an LTR and they want to make their partner happy or comforted or whatever. I see BIG BIG BIG harm in that."
What that implies to me is that sexual pleasure is the only legitimate reason to have sex. And I find that deeply problematic.
Suppose, for example, a lesbian wants to bear a child, and decides that artificial insemination is too complicated or expensive. So she finds a male friend who's willing to have intercourse with her so she can get pregnant. It's not orgasmic, it's not even very fun, but she gets her baby. Is that a feminist choice? I would say absolutely yes. (If someone disagrees with me on that, I'd love to hear it.) And it's pretty closing to closing one's eyes and thinking of England.
If motherhood is an acceptable reason to have non-orgasmic sex, then why is affection and love for a long-term partner not an acceptable reason to have sex? And if that's acceptable, then why is a kinky thrill and new designer shoes not an acceptable reason?
Of course, the reason should never, ever be only to get something that it's her inalienable human right to have anyway. Women who are prostitutes because otherwise they'd starve, or be beaten bloody, are clearly exploited.
People of all status situations have sex for ulterior motives all the time. The question here is which of those motives are acceptable. Cash is perhaps not the noblest of motives, but under the right circumstances it might be less damaging than emotional blackmail or revenge or the dozens of other dubious reasons people choose their sex partners.
Anon, exactly what I was trying to say, only better put. I was also thinking of, say, married couples trying to conceive who time sex around ovulation. People I know say it gets pretty damn tedious, but they want the baby, so they persevere. I think that, too, is "sweet."
The position that sexually desired sex is the only non-exploitative sex treds close to the theory that all sex in our society is exploitive (I know - Dworkin never said it). Because telling women that only the sex that *Funnie* defines as non-exploitative is acceptable, infantalizes women in my opinion.
A Taste of the Good Wife, a blog by a pregnant woman with somewhat more sex than you'll find here had a relevant anecdote - http://atasteofthegoodwife.blogs...n-my-
posts.html - I believe that Funnie would say that The Good Wife was being exploited.
edited at the poster's request
You know, at the end, it's bullshit to say that it's *Funnie* who infantilizes women. And obviously, I say this as someone who knows her, and who's willing to be allied with her (as Prof.B. is with CP, only more up-front about it), but what's being described as "Funnie's view of women" and "Funnie's view of sex" is really distorted beyond all belief. And it's insulting. She put herself out there every bit as much as Prof.B. I wonder WHY they're both shamed for it?
I would love it if this example we're discussing were as simple as someone having sex for all of the reasons beyond that intense urging to have sex: it's just like when you have sex with your partner because it will help them or it will help you. Or it's just like giving up your physical autonomy for another, whether because you feel compelled to, or because you receive proper renumeration for it, or because somehow, someway, it's worth it to you.
But you know, women have been selling, for money, access to their vaginas for centuries. For a lot of reasons. It's a good thing to look at and think about. And I'm just absolutely floored that it's okay to make Funnie the person we beat down now, because at least it's not someone else, someone we LIKE, someone, you know, more OPEN. Because there's such a huge difference between bashing the woman who's open to everything and the woman who's not.
I didn't mean to get in the way of all the more classical argument that was taking place and was avidly following what Paige, Funnie and others had to say, but something about that style of posting and this teeny-tiny font in skinny black on a bright white background does my eyes in after a while, so I just have to get snappy.
Professor (I figured out that I don't like 'B' because of what it still stands for), you keep mentioning a multiplicity of feminisms. I hear that a lot and it makes no sense to me. I think it is rather an academic (small 'a') exercise to come up with all that "cultural," "liberal," "radical" stuff. Sure, things being what they are, it's kind of useful sometimes, but NOT if we finally arrive at the place where there are not supposed to be any basic tenets of FEMINISM or the word is meaningless.
The other thing, you keep saying that it doesn't matter what the trick thinks, but what the woman he's paying thinks. What do you mean by that? What they thing about what? Isn't the customer always right?
Look how hard Anon has to strain to find a .0001 example where a woman MIGHT choose sex she doesn't want to engage in for a specific reason. Most artificial inseminations are done without a flesh and blood cock.
"Women who are prostitutes because otherwise they'd starve, or be beaten bloody, are clearly exploited."
Okay, now that you've identified this population of (according to www.prostitutionresearch.com ) no greater than POSSIBLY 8% of prostitutes, why the essentially fundamentalist insistance that this handful of prostitutes who MIGHT be said to 'choose' should have the debate framed around them?
That POSSIBLE 8% should be an afterthought to any substantive debate about prostitution, and reframing it around the personal desires of one or two individuals like has happened here serves no purpose but to satiate the kink-seeking egos of the individuals involved at the expense of the 92% of prostitutes who say they want to get out of prostitution immediately but are not free to leave even though they want to.
Theory is fun to poke and play at, but the testimony of what prostitution is really about is written on millions of prostituted people's bodies. Don't ignore those 92% who said they hated it and wanted out immediately just because they don't make for very sexy theories. Those 92% aren't infants being told what's good for them by Funnie or anyone else, they have said it with THEIR OWN VOICES and you are going to outlandish hypothetics to avoid hearing their expressly stated wishes: they want OUT. NOW.
lly distorted beyond all belief. And it's insulting. She put herself out there every bit as much as Prof.B. I don't think Funnie's being insulted. It's strenuous argument, people get heated. It doesn't need to be taken personally. Especially since--unlike me--funnie hasn't talked about her own sex life or her own life, period; her argument is being called "infantile" (which I would myself phrase as "oversimplified"), not her.
Lashauna, there are different kinds of feminism. Not all feminists believe the same thing. Yes, there are certain ideas we all have in common, like that women are human beings, not objects. But, as in the present argument, we disagree about what that *means*. Is it objectifying for a woman to be a prostitute? You, funnie, Paige, a couple of others say yes, inherently. I say, not necessarily. That doesn't mean either you or I are not feminist. And no, the customer is not always right, and the corrolary of that is that how a woman (or man) sees her life and her work does matter.
Gina, Anon offered one example. I offered several, one from my own life. It's not really all that rare for people to have sex for reasons other than sexual desire, is the point.
As to the percentages of women who engage in prostitution for different reasons, no one here (hasn't this been said many times already?) is pooh-poohing prostitutes who are exploited or forced into prostitution. And I'm not trying to avoid that point at all, I'm merely standing my ground on what *I* am saying. As to the statement that the discussion at hand is about "the personal desires of one or two individuals," again, I would say that personal desire does matter. Also, that for all I know, prostitution of the kind that I'm contemplating is way more common than we think it is, but we don't know that because (1) few women like me would admit to it if they did do it; and (2) if they did, they would be dismissed, as I'm being dismissed: "that isn't really prostitution."
I was not attempting to call funnie, or funnie's argument infantile - to the extent that it was understood to be that, I apologize. It was the end of a very long day.
I was writing in response to funnie's comment: "...I also disagree with what you said about no harm being done when women have sex they don't sexually desire just because they're in an LTR and they want to make their partner happy or comforted or whatever. I see BIG BIG BIG harm in that."
I think that argument infantalizes women, in that it treats them like infants, unable to rationally make decisions that affect their life. To say that agreeing to non-sexually desired sex causes 'BIG BIG BIG harm' is also to say, in my opinion, that you know what kind of sex women should have, and which kind they should not, and that they are not qualified to make that decison. What other women are lacking, and you have, I dunno - but to me, the only way to read that statement is as an attempt to decrease a woman's control over her body.
Because I know that people, both men and women, have non-sexually desired sex every day. And surely they wouldn't if they, or women in general (or men in general) suffered BIG BIG BIG harm from doing so.
To me - saying that non-sexually desired sex causes BIG BIG BIG harm is the reductio ad absurdum of this argument.
In conclusion - in my earlier comment, and this one, I am grateful for the opportunity to explore these issues in such an intelligent environment, and I respect what you've had to say, even as I reserve the right to vehemently disagree with you.
Thank goodness that Tor and others are here to fight for women's right to have sex when we don't want to. People like funnie who say I should only have sex when I want to take away my agency.
I don't understand what it means to say that "so-and-so is still a feminist" even if they believe in x, y, or z. That strikes me as a meaningless assertion that may or may be true about the person being referenced, one that is used to attempt to redefine a strikinly anti-feminist belief or act as "feminist."
I believe Funnie's comment was that you should only have sex when you physically desire to do so. Not for any other reason. Such as when you might want to get pregnant, or to cheer up your spouse.
What I was trying to say was that I believe women should have the ability to have sex, or not have sex, for any reason, or no reason at all.
I guess it comes down to how you define 'want.' Funnie (I would guess) would define it as having a physical desire to do so. I would define it as making an uncoerced rational decision to do so. Or not do so - I thought that was understood, but I guess not.
Who was it who said that the concept of CONSENT was a monument erected by and dedicated to the patriarchy? I love that. Just think about the context you would hear that word used in before it was taken over by the negative-sex-postive crowd. "Joe finally relented, and gave his consent to the railroad company to take his land."
Lashauna writes: "I don't understand what it means to say that "so-and-so is still a feminist" even if they believe in x, y, or z. That strikes me as a meaningless assertion that may or may be true about the person being referenced, one that is used to attempt to redefine a strikinly anti-feminist belief or act as "feminist.""
Lashauna, are you finally confessing?
Yes indeed I am, I am, and indeed always have been, a feminist.
That "any woman is a feminst no matter what she says or does" is just pablum for the boys who really don't like meat and potoatoes as much as they think they do.
Just picture a black anti-apartheid activist trying to make such a ridiculous clain about a black person defending banjo playing and tap dancing for white folks. Not that I'm implying women should be as staunch as other groups when it comes to such matters (though heck, maybe they should!); sure is something to think about though.
"I'm seeing that neoliberal/queer tactic of dressing up political/theoretical disagreement as "trashing" or "lack of respect" in order to shut up legitimate critique, here."
Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. I just read this somewhere else, and if they person who wrote it happens to read this and wants credit, I'm sure they'll say so; otherwise the quotation marks will have to suffice.
Or perhaps picture a feminist saying that if a woman is paid for her labor, she must be having something done to her, and by that I assume you meant something bad done to her.
I would suggest something like "equal pay for equal" work might be something most feminists could agree on. Now I understand equal work is always a difficult thing to measure, but as a general principle it seems like a noble goal for a feminist to advocate. You, on the other hand, argue that when a woman is paid for sexual labor (not just paid equally, but paid anything at all) she is being harmed. And you really never offered any explanation for distinguishing sexual labor from tutoring labor from any other labor.
This seems suscipisouly close to the banjo playing/tap dancing example.
It appears that you, my dear sir, my good man you, are the one who believes not only in a monolithic feminism, but indeed in a monolitic feminist. I made none of those arguments to which you refer and indeed rather detest (or at least have no patience for) the reasoned argumentative style especially when I know damn good and well that people already understand what's what but just don't want to give up their cookies.
"And you really never offered any explanation for distinguishing sexual labor from tutoring labor from any other labor."
Go to www.prostitutionresearch.com and see for yourself, CP, why Canadian sex workers were found to have a mortality rate 40 times that of non sex workers.
Look there at the reasons behind post traumatic stress affecting 'sexual laborers' at similar rates it affects combat veterans.
Seek and ye shall find, but if ye don't seek ye can't find.
That's a great site run by Melissa Farley (I think?), Gina. I love that thing she and Nikki Craft came up with, Twenty Reasons I Got Into Prostitution or whatever it's called.
My work firewall won't let me go there, but how do canadian sex workers compare to alaskan fishermen and crabbers, who supposedly have the highest mortality and injury rate of any profession? Are you saying that all professions with a mortality or injury rate above a certain level should be banned?
Society's traditional response is to offer more money - so should prostitutes simply be paid as much as salmon fishermen ($35K per summer, was what they offered me) or scuba divers who work in nuclear cooling tanks ($55/hr)?
Do you really want to deny college kids the opportunity to travel to Alaska, work on a fishing boat, and come back missing a finger, if they come back at all?
Tor, that is so offensive. Prostitution is not and has not traditionally been, a profession. Men have always prostituted disenfranchised women and you know it. If you want to make labor comparisons, that's your business. Yeah, Billy Budd can certainly tell us about some of the SIMILARITIES between his experience and that of Jack the Ripper's victims, but having ten men a day thrust their dick at whatever part of you they want to is not work, it's torture.
I was responding to Gina's 'labor comparison' of the mortality rate between sex workers and non sex workers. I was not making the point that prostitution is or should be considered a profession - just that there may be professions that are even more dangerous than whatever 'canadian sex worker' is.
Just to be clear, I was responding to Gina'a labor comparison, "Canadian sex workers were found to have a mortality rate 40 times that of non sex workers."
Why was my question, which was in response to Gina's labor comparison, so offensive, and yet her original labor comparision was not offensive?
By the way, "Why I made the choice to become a prostitute" is here:
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/...i/
WhyIMade.html
And I have not disagreed, at any time, with the statement that men have prostituted disenfranchised women. But that does not mean that all prostitutes are disenfranchised.
Lashauna writes: "It appears that you, my dear sir, my good man you, are the one who believes not only in a monolithic feminism, but indeed in a monolitic feminist."
I've already said I believe there are feminist of many different kinds (in contrast to what said above). That said, that doesn't mean we can't draw boundaries between feminism and non-feminism (which I admit some of what you said may suggest the same thing). For example, if Bush today declared himself to be the feminist president (since he's already the strong dollar president the compassionate president, etc)., we don't have to take him at his word. I understand they've so demonized the word feminism, this isn't going to happen anytime soon, but he's pulled many things like this. In any event, we can apply our own understandings of our political/cultural/economic and physical landscape to decide whether we would categorize Bush as feminist, non-feminist or not easily placed on either side of the boundary. I know where I'd come down on making that decision.
To draw these boundaries doesn't equate to a monolithic feminism. To me feminism has many diverse positions (at least as many as their are feminists).
"I made none of those arguments to which you refer"
No you're right, my mistake (and fading memory). I'm sorry about the confusion. It was who wrote:
I don't want shame on anyone, I'd just like an explanation for why when the choices offered to look at this potential prostitution act are:
"view sex as something a man "does to" a woman"
and
"view sex as something that people do together"
the second option is the one that least explains why bitchphd would be the one paid while the first one accurately describes why it would be the prostituted woman who is paid and the male user who does the paying."
So I guess we can agree that is outside the feminist category.
I made the mistake of enclosing "you're missing the main point" in < and > symbols. Basically I was attributing the block quot to [you're missing the main point]. I felt the need to enclose it to avoid confusion betweeen the name and the phrase.
Quick drive by between meetings--who said "any woman is a feminist"? I would never claim that. There are plenty of anti-feminist women. I'm just saying that arguing that exchanging sex for money, under certain conditions, can constitute consent (as in "consenting adults") isn't not-feminist. It's maybe not *your* kind of feminism, but it is mine. I don't think I"m being Stepin Fetchit here.
Now, if I were arguing, "oh, all whores know what they're getting into, blah blah free market, blah blah they can quit if they'd just stop using drugs or whatever, blah blah get a job at McD's," then yeah, I'd be an ass. But that's not what I'm saying, at all.
Thank goodness that Tor and others are here to fight for women's right to have sex when we don't want to. People like funnie who say I should only have sex when I want to take away my agency.
That's a gross distortion. All Tor and I and a few others are saying is that we should have the right to have sex when we DO want to, and that no one has the right to judge whether our motivations are the "right" ones or not. Funnie's argument isn't taking away your agency; on the other hand, by saying or at least implying that it's not okay for someone to choose to have sex, absent sexual desire, for other reasons--love, affection, getting pregnant, or even money--she does come dangerously close, imho, to denying agency to those who disagree with her position, and who might wish to judge for themselves whether or not their reasons for fucking are good ones. For them.
What we seem to not be addressing here, is that we are not talking about what this or that woman happens to do, how would we even know about it? What concerns me is when women with a grip on the public ear are used as arbiters. I mean, you wrote that column (entry, whatever) for a reason. What was it? I would be hard pressed to call it a random bit of life news, epecially after finding out that you know Tracy Quan and link to Susie Bright.
Somehow, I keep thinking of Annabel Chong. So what if a woman who was gang raped wants to define it some other way for her sanity's sake? That doesn't mean it didn't happen just because she says it didn't. That is a co-optation of the 70s feminist rhetoric about always believing the woman, a very simplistic view, but one that was certainly necessary (and probably still is) to counter the traditional view of never believing the woman. And anyhow, that referred to allowing a woman to call something rape or exploitation even if other people said it wasn't, and was not meant to allow women to define away all abuse and exploitation just because they couldn't deal with it or didn't want to believe it was happening.
What? I don't know Tracy Quan. I read her shit in Salon like everyone else, and I thought it was kind of sensationalistic, but hey. She has the right to write sensationalistic shit and get paid for it. I do like Susie Bright.
This really is a personal blog. Having said that, I'm not gonna deny that publication has public consequences. But if you're reading some kind of nefarious plot into my writing, well, no. And I do think that if anything, the posts have led to a very smart and interesting discussion and much food for thought, and I think that that is a good thing--so, in answer to the question that was asked at some point, "is this part of the solution or part of the problem," I'm going to say that it is my belief that honest, open discussion is always a good thing.
I don't know all the details concerning Annabel Chong - but your comment, that she wasn't not gang raped just because she says she wasn't - goes right to the heart of my earlier comment.
You seem to be saying that if a woman does something that you, personally, find abhorrent, even though she disagrees, you have the freedom to define it for her, as gang rape.
Whatever the facts were there, in the case at hand, you have an intelligent woman, B, who has not only thought this decision through, in a rational manner free from coersion AND ALSO listened to the detailed and thoughtful comments of feminists such as yourself, who believe that what she is doing damages herself and women as a whole, responded to those comments, and finally read your responses in turn, is unknowingly defining away her future abuse and exploitation, assuming she goes through with it.
Its basically saying that you are the only person capable of deciding what her actions truly are. Myself, I prefer to think of women as rational actors, who occasionally make mistakes, but who can be trusted to decide who they sleep with and under what circumstances. Whether it is 251 men on film, or 1 person for money.
And no, I am not talking about women who are coerced or forced into prostitution by physical, economic or other method, as should be obvious by now, but apparantly isn't. I'm just going to have to add this disclaimer to everything I write here.
B - I was kind of hoping you knew Tracey Quan. While your comment mentioning her seemed just to say that you knew who she was, Lashauna's comment gave me hope that you could put me in touch with her.
If you are the mouthpiece for the 'pro-prostitution under certain, limited circumstances' lobby, could you email me with the location of your headquarters? I'd like to pick up some literature.
Lashauna writes:
"I... rather detest (or at least have no patience for) the reasoned argumentative style..."
I know Lashauna you try to stick to a strictly emotional appeal (shame or otherwise). And when pressed for any kind of rationale for those that don't share your knee-jerk emotional response, you just move on. This is another trait of the fascist. As I suggested with funnie's indescribable offense at johns buying sex. Fascism has frequently used this tactic to move the mob to action. For example there are countless stories of black men lynched because they had (allegedly or otherwise because no evidence should be needed for we all know what's what) sexual relations with a white woman. The strong emotional response, would move the mob to restore the woman's sexual integrity by murdering the black man. But I guess you probably think he had it coming anyway; what business did he have violating the sexual integrity of the white woman?
"especially when I know damn good and well that people already understand what's what but just don't want to give up their cookies."
Our cookies? Is that our our own emotional and analytical understanding of what's what? Cause no, I don't think anyone easily gives that up easily.
CP, you know I'm basically on your side in terms of the overall argument, but I have to say that I think tossing the word "fascist" about is kinda easy. It also violates Godwin's law. And implying that Lashauna is defending lynching is at least as offensive as the ongoing implication that you and I are defending the exploitation of prostitutes.
"Godwin's law"
As in Michael?
Actually, yeah - his name is Mike (mike@eff.org) - the law states that:
As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
As a practical matter, it means that you shouldn't compare people to the Nazis, or Hitler (or by extension, fascists).
Oops, you can reach Mike Godwin at Godwin@eff.org.
"I have to say that I think tossing the word "fascist" about is kinda easy."
I understand what you're saying. It is easy to toss around a word, however, I've been very careful to specify particular traits that I'm identifying as fascist; I don't think that's the saming as tossing it about. I'd be happy to hear and consider contradictioning arguments about why that's not fascism. Is fascism only limited to the lynching of black men and the gassing of jews? With so many proudly carrying the fascist emblem 70 years, did they all just change their mind? OK, I guess it's not a concern anymore.
Like the 1930's I think this would be a good time for everyone to think threw what fascism is and is not. And that's the difference, I'm suggesting those discussions not just come from emotional appeal (like Lashuana argues), but rather openning a a space to discuss when and when we aren't confronting fascism. Not naming it does not make it go away.
"It also violates Godwin's law."
I think that's perhpas one interpreation of Godwin's law. I think Godwin's law was more meant to avoid the strictly/purely emotional eppeals that we're getting from Lashuana, funnie and the like. For example when they invoke emotaionally charged word wihtout any analysis of how we're expected to understand those words.
"And implying that Lashauna is defending lynching is at least as offensive as the ongoing implication that you and I are defending the exploitation of prostitutes."
One of the criticisms I've raised about the point of view still being argued by Lashuana is that it accepts the current political, cultural and economic conditions without challenging them at all. For example: 1) prostitution is inevitably exploitative because men must be violent and in superio positions. 2) women will inetivatly find themselves in poverty ("there will always be poor" as Jesus told us). 3) women cannot be in positions of deciding for themselves about their own sexual behavior; etc.
My lynching example was meant to do two things. First, show how under other conditions, white women were not able to think correctly about their sexual relations with black men. They could not consent to sexual relations with black men, so any sexual relations between them must necessarily be rape (or a violation of the white woman's sexual integrity to use the language we've seen here). Second I wanted to show what happens when we forbid analyticial questioning of purely emotional appeals. Again is this a trait of fascism? I think it is. If someone wants to analyze (including with emotional appeals; just not purely) how it's not, then I think that would be an engagement that did not violate Godwin's Law.
Tor writes: "As a practical matter, it means that you shouldn't compare people to the Nazis, or Hitler (or by extension, fascists)."
Well that should pacify the fascists everywhere. They are most effective when they can operate under radar.
Emotional appeals may be a trait of fascism, but they are not *only* a trait of fascism; I still think that's an oversimplification.
I do agree that the problem with the "prostitution harms women" argument is that it accepts current conditions as normative. OTOH, it may well be correct to say that prostitution under any other conditions would be so different as to be unrecognizable and/or deserve a different name. Am still chewing on that one.
bitchphd writes:
"Emotional appeals may be a trait of fascism, but they are not *only* a trait of fascism; I still think that's an oversimplification."
I didn't say that was the only trait nor a trait only of fascism. Also I was trying to draw the distinction between emotional appeals and strictly/purely emotional appeals in response to Lashuana who wrote: "I... rather detest (or at least have no patience for) the reasoned argumentative style..." And indeed Lashuana, you have fled from every question asking you to backup your views with some kind of analytical argument. I am not against emotional appeals; I've used them frequently here and elsewhere. It's the idea that the emotion defies analysis and defies conversation: "just act!" we're told.
Also I've talked about several othes: 1) the treatment of categories within theory as monolithic and unfragmented. For instance, feminism, women, men, prostitution. 2) somewhat derived from the first, the paternal notions that the people need protection from evil. And since all women are alike, Lashuana knows when consent constitutes real consent and when it does not because it would always be under the same circumstances as it would be for Lashuana. 3) A focus of the imminent and immenant danger from others (e.g., bitchphd will likely be raped by her colleague)., etc.
I don't think fascism will (or even could) look the same as it has historically. Have liberalism, feminism, marxism or any other isms remained immutable to the changing conditions around them. I say no. So why do we think fascism has to have swastikas and goose-stepping? Or ask yourself why Godwin's law so often takes on the current interpretation of "don't mention fascism"? It would be much more useful to have a law that discouraged strictly emotional appeals and name-calling without analysis. Why only those names (i.e., fascism and nazism and hitler)? As I said before fascism is under the radar now, but from the history I've witnessed in just my life, I can imagine a time when the fascists (I'm not comparing someone to a fictional fascist I'm talking about fascists themselves), dust off their once proud emblem and present it again for the whole world to see (just look what's happened to the word 'liberal' in the last few decades).
"I do agree that the problem with the "prostitution harms women" argument is that it accepts current conditions as normative. OTOH, it may well be correct to say that prostitution under any other conditions would be so different as to be unrecognizable and/or deserve a different name. Am still chewing on that one."
I have no disagreement with that. But haven't you been taken to task for suggesting (which I don't think you did) that different words should be used for those difference ("whore" and "ho" were the examples). Anywan, I would welcome that kind of discussion, but that would involve some reasoned argumentative style that, Lashuana, you te
[continued]
Anyway, I would welcome that kind of discussion, but that would involve some reasoned argumentative style that, Lashuana, you tell us you have no patience for. Perhaps your selling your sexual service to your colleague is not prostitution (I'm willing to hear such an anlaysis) I doubt Lashuana would stomach it. Sorry to take the discussion so far afield, but I kinda brought back home at the end.
Re. whore/ho, etc. Initially, my point was that I am not going to, myself, say, "oh I am not a prostitute" because that's a form of exceptionalism. I was thinking about stigma: "those dirty poor women over there, the exploited ones, they're the *bad* people, but me, with the choice to do this or not, I'm not *really* a whore." That's the distinction I was refusing to make.
The point, however, that the distinction is, in fact, a real one--not in terms of stigma, but in terms of choice, danger, etc (though some have argued that there is little or no difference between street prostitutes and expensive call girls)--but at least, in terms of what someone very early on called "middle-class prostitution" and other, more regular perhaps, forms of prostitution, that distinction is, I think, a good one. I still think it would be very problematic for someone in my position to deny that what I'm doing is "really" prostitution; but I think that it is necessary, of course, to acknowledge that prostitution usually, if not always, means serious exploitation and lack of agency.
I still think that tossing out facism like that is facile. I think Lashauna's point re. reason vs. emotion is that "be reasonable" is often used by people with power to dismiss the anger or frustration of those without it. I really don't think that the primary arguments here are irrational, even if the language has at times been emotional or heated.
"I still think that tossing out facism like that is facile. I think Lashauna's point re. reason vs. emotion is that "be reasonable" is often used by people with power to dismiss the anger or frustration of those without it."
Believe me, I have plenty of experience with my arguments being dismissed as irrational, unreasonable and emotional.
I also can understand how you could read Lashuana the way you do. It's just not my reading. Perhaps I'm simply paranoid about this fascist issue (I actually hope so). To me it feels real and is very disconerting. When Lashuana uses similarly facile words and phrases but refuses to answer clarifying questions (or only responds in strictly playful ways), it's even harder for me to agree with your reading. Isn't the innuendo that I felt went rampant in the early part of this discussion also facile? What made it so for me was especially the unwillingness to back it up with any argument, whether one tugging at heart strings or clarifying positions.
I think it's useful to discuss these different readings of Lashuana I welcome that. .On the other hand, it makes me more paranoid when I hear that fascism is a taboo topic because it's simply an inappropriate topic for the internet (or television or newspaper or you name it). Perhaps we can lobby Bush to add another internet where Godwin's rule doesn't apply: adding it to all of the other internets where it does apply. Are there any other topics not allowed on the internet? Not in my experience.
Godwin's rule doesn't actually state that you can't mention fascism - that was just a summary I used (practically speaking...). Godwin's law actually states that the longer a thread gets, the more likely it is that someone will accuse another of fascism - whereupon the thread disolves into a discussion of fascism and loses its focus. See:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/...legends/godwin/
You're fascist/No, I'm not- is not terribly interesting. Whether some comments here may have had fascist overtones, e.g. "severe economic and social regimentation" it looks like what Godwin predicted, has again come true - most of the people involved in this discussion have left, and we are now discussing whether this person or that was fascist.
Better stated than before, Godwin's law means that once you call someone a fascist, people will lose interest in the discussion and leave. It's not a rule, so much as a prediction.
Maybe they'll be back, maybe they won't be - either way, it seems like it was winding down now that everyone has had a chance to express their opinion.
Yeah, I think that Lashauna can speak for herself.
I think there is a big difference between saying something is troubling--e.g., "your appeal seems to be mostly emotional and very simplistic" or whatever--and saying that something is fascist. For better or for worse, most people understand fascism as something more than propaganda: propaganda plus power plus suppression of dissent (which isn't happening here), plus creating a scapegoat (and even if you want to say that johns and/or prostitutes are being scapegoated, I don't think it entirely qualifies), and etc. I don't really want to get into a big analysis of what fascism is or isn't.
In terms of the internet, it's not that fascism can't be discussed seriously. It's just that sooner or later, it gets hauled out in discussions that are about something else, and yeah, at that point, the discussion is usually over. And I do think people toss it around really easily. Detaining people in Gitmo is arguably close to fascism. I really don't think that arguing that prostitution is inherently bad is.
There ought to be something akin to Godwin's law, like Misogynist's Law of Reversal. I would define it as: In a dicussion about feminism and women's rights, women are the ones who get accused of being the perpetrators. Feminazi is often the word used or some such comparison to fascism.
Odd isn't it considering that feminists have never been responsible for genocide or known to commit violence. Apparently, to misogynists just speaking about feminist issues is enough to count as an act of violence.
Arguably? You read the transcripts of the Gonzales hearings, B.? Alberto himself didn't bother to refute it; he stands by his written assertion that the executive's power, for all practical intents and purposes, trumps the law of the land. And if Gonzales is not arguing the point, who do you think is?
wow. I just spent about an hour reading this marathon thread. Most blogs are uninteresting redundant self-indulgent wastes of ether space, but what a great exchange doc b just hosted.
One thing that came up but was dropped is the question about wether sex is the same as any other service. I'd say undeniably it is, regardless of subject position. Sure, from a vulgar marxist or econometric perspective it might be, but would anyone really want to argue that those paradigms can account for lived experience.
There is no phenomenological equivalence, or at least a great disparity, between working an unpleasant job for low pay and selling sex for money.
oops.
I meant to say that sex undeniably is DIFFERENT from other services / jobs rendered.
I hope it's not too late to join in and offer some unsolicited advice.
Don't do it Dr B. This is such a bad idea. If you need a thousand bucks to pay off your credit card or buy handbags and shoes, you need to practice sensible money management not prostitution.
Prostitution isn't easy money, don't ignore all the negatives that could come along with this. What if you and your husband split up and he decides he wants custody of your child? You prostituting yourself could easily be used against you. What happens if your client decides to blackmail you once you've done the deed, would you want your employers to know what you've done? How about if he films you, or invites a couple of friends to watch from the closet, or maybe even invites his friends to join in. I can't imagine that you're going to get away with one fuck if the amount of money he is offering is enough to make you consider doing it. What will you be required to do for the money?
You probably won't like this but reading these threads, I'm worried about you. Where is your self-esteem if you find someone treating you like a fuck-hole flattering? If your confidence needs this much of a boost ask your husband and boyfriend to pay you more compliments.
How would you feel if 20 years down the line if your "client" goes to your child and offers them money to fuck them? Would you be happy about it? Would you want them to do it? If not, why is it OK for you?
If you do decide to go ahead, get the money up front and think about meeting on neutral territory rather than his home ground. You may be marginally safer. Let a friend know what you are doing and where you are going to be.
One link, one question.
There is an article which is relevant to this discussion which I don't believe has been linked to above. It's called "Whoring in Utopia", and it's an argument that, even in Utopia, there would be a place for prostitution. It can be found here:
http://eserver.org/cultronix/cal...alifia/whoring/
The question is this. Dear Professor B, have either the comments in these two threads, or the experience of writing about them, influenced your decision one way or another? If so, will you elaborate?
"wow. I just spent about an hour reading this marathon thread. Most blogs are uninteresting redundant self-indulgent wastes of ether space, but what a great exchange doc b just hosted."
I agree. Thank you B.
"One thing that came up but was dropped is the question about wether sex is the same as any other service. I'd say undeniably it is [not]..."
I think this point you make shines a light on what I too see as the different positions advanced. I am very interested in hearing and trying to understand these other positions too. But I think the differences are a little finer than that. I haven't read anyone argue that there are not differences in performing sexual labor or service and performing non-sexual labor. I think the differences lie in what those differences are and in what ways those differences are harmful and injurious to the person selling sexual labor (but not to the person selling other kinds of labor). That is the difference in position that I've been trying to understand from this exchange. I'm not trying to ask rhetorically. The harm and injury are not obvious to me and I'm not simply trying to pretend I don't understand.
The 'special harm' of prostitution is that it reinforces male supremacy; esp as embodied in the entitlement of men to sexual access to women as and how they want it by virtue of their greater socioeconomic power. Sexual difference has been the justification for historical male dominance and control of women's reproductive capacities has been the motivation behind and rationale for the neccessity of patriarchy. Men buying sex from women reinforces this notion of entitlement: that 'I deserve the sex I want from the woman or women I want and using male power to get it is a-ok.' This reinforcement hurts all women, individually and as a class.
*I am aware that forms of prostitution exist which are not men-buying-women. That's a big and different topic;I do note that there is often a masculine/feminine dynamic explicitly played up in such transactions.
CP, how did you do those links so that they worked? Sure 'nuff, I got credit for them (and at a higher rate, b/c they were direct links). I'm curious.
And thanks
ms. helios, thanks for the response. For me this goes a long way toward understanding these other positions. I can understand how prostitution can reinforce patriarchy. I'm still not totally clear about this, so allow me to ask a few questions.
You write:
"The 'special harm' of prostitution is that it reinforces male supremacy; esp as embodied in the entitlement of men to sexual access to women as and how they want it by virtue of their greater socioeconomic power."
Would this not be true in the case whenever a man buys any service from a woman, especially a service understood as traditionally women's work. So if a man pays a woman to clean his house or cook him meals wouldn't that also reinforce male supremacy in that they want this particular woman to perform this domestic labor and can make that happen by virtue of this man's greater socioeconomic power? Likewise, other caring labor might fall in this category such as doctoring or nursing, psychotherapy, message therapy, etc. In other words, wouldn't buying these too reinforce traditional gender roles, patriarchy and male supremacy? What is exceptional about sexual service?
On the other hand, doesn't a man who gets sexual service without paying for it (imagine especially a man of great wealth or power), but rather through charm, chivalry and the like similarly reinforce male supremacy? What is exceptional about paying for sex?
Other work that is traditionally women's work is not limited to women. My nurse may be more likely to be a woman, but it can certainly be a man and increasingly is. A man who buys a prostitute is unlikely to be indifferent as to whether he buys a man or a woman. The sex difference is a common characteristic of rather than intrinsic to the transaction in the case of 'feminised' labor.
(Note: my view is not universal even among my fellow uptight prudes; some feminists are very wary of paying for 'domestic service', generally from women of color who may be said to be exploited.)
As for the 'charming into bed' story, I don't think that's the issue at all. Charm is not bestowed systematically on men by society; women charm men and women into bed and men charm men and women into bed and I am not sure that that reflects or reinforces gendered power dynamics. Charm is part of why people genuinely desire one another in my experience. Why do you think it is part of a gendered power dynamic?
bitchphd, I just did a search for the items on amazon, which showed a long url with some sort of item number appearing in it (before the qid, whatever a qid is). Anyway, I pasted that number into another url I had from another site. Then I pasted your id into the url (bitphd-20) so you'd get credit instead of the other site I started with. You can always test the url to see if it's pointing to the right item.
Anyway, I think you can just use the url I created and paste other item numbers in. There is a webform at the amazon partner site, but it's probably more convuluted than what I just described.
Not only will you get a higher commission rate, but I think you'll find more people clicking through when it's directly relevant to your posts. (e..g., linking to Dar Williams CD's or a biography of Alva Myrdal when they're feminists of the day).
ms helios, so is the problem with sexual labor that the service is the rigidity of gender roles? I've known of many men who wanted their nurses to be female, their pilots and doctors to be male, their massage therapists to be female. Perhaps we simply haven't eroded the rigid traditional conceptions of sexual service quite as much as we have for the gender roles of these other services.
And charm seems very gendered to me. The charm of George Clooney seems quite different to me than the charm of Cameron Diaz: quite gendered. Perhaps that just says more about me than it does our culture; but that's how I see it.
And while I'm talking about non-market sexual relations, wouldn't the fact that a man in not indifferent to whether he charms and has sex with a man or a woman be related to the same rigid sex roles? Is it not related to patriarchy in a similar way to the man buying sexual services without this indifference? I assume your answer is no, but I just don't understand why.
A problem with what you call sexual labor (I'm going to stick with 'prostitution') is that the material basis for it is the same as the material basis for male supremacy. Male supremacy is on the basis of sex as prostitution is. Nursing, while perhaps associated with gender roles, just isn't. I think you can see the difference between hoping your nurse is a woman and paying a prostitute so you can fuck her. The physical act of prosititution is about the physical characteristics that motivate patriarchy: the desire to control womens sex organs and sexuality.
You may feel that a man preferring to try to charm women into sleeping with him is the same as a man feeling entitled to buy access to a women's body; as you guessed, I beg to differ. One of these things is coercive. I am not obliged to be charmed by a man nor he by me. In prostitution that agency we've talked about so much, which exists in the 'charm transaction' is not there.
The physical act of prosititution is about the physical characteristics that motivate patriarchy: the desire to control womens sex organs and sexuality.
I think the question for me is, is this necessarily so? Could it not be about control, but simply about desire for pleasure, and willingness to provide that pleasure for a set price? (It's that "willingness" issue that, for me, is at the heart of the agency question.) Is there a way in which prostitution might be understood under some conditions as a transaction between equals?
Sort of tangentially related: I'm one of those feminists who is very leery about domestic labor like housekeeping, on the grounds that it is often very poorly paid and exploitative. On the other hand, I have hired housekeepers in the past. I started by paying, I think, $20/hour, and made a point of giving two weeks's paid vacation. I also gave my housekeeper regular and substantial raises, was flexible about scheduling, and was quite happy to have her bring her daughter to play with my son while she was working. Not everyone does that, but it was my attempt to make the exchange more about a fair wage for fair labor, and to provide decent working conditions: in other words, to make it an equitable exchange.
I don't think that the willingness to provide pleasure for a fee makes prostitution ok or undermines the tendency to reinforce patriarchy. The buying of sexual access is about the belief that control of womens sexuality by others is acceptable. Control over womens sexuality, and the notions that men can legitimately own, buy or rent it, are to me the engines of male supremacy and good conditions in which to make the transaction (while absolutely preferrable to bad conditions) don't change that.
I also think that 'a transaction between equals' suggests that feminism is done, that everybody is equal nowadays. Yet on average women need money more than men precisely because in most societies (and certainly in the US of A) they are not substantively equal. The two things at work are entitlement and economic power and they stack the deck against women. Feminist endorsement of prostitution, in more or less ugly forms, doesn't help.
To clarify: The particular transaction you envision may not be [i]about[/i] control to the payer. But it [i]is[/i] control; it embodies control over the sexuality of the payee, who is using her sexuality in a way she would not otherwise choose to do, control exerted through economic power.
I like the Swedish approach of crimalizing the buying and decriminalizing the selling (by the prostituted person herself, not to be confused with pimping) and just linked to an article on that subject in the On the Other Hand, This Is Clearly Not Okay entry.
Professor, I just reread the intitial entry that sparked all of this, the one called Sluttier Than You Imagine, and to tell you the truth, it doesn't even strike me as all that believable. By which I don't mean to say that one of you didn't engineer it so that what you describe actually occurred, but you sure don't give very much detail, "Yesterday someone offered to pay me money to sleep with him. I'm seriously considering it. I could use the money and I like the guy."
This is ridiculously vague. How did you meet this guy? Why would someone make such a propostition outside of an "appropriate" context? And lastly, let's take it even further outside the norm and say that some rich man got off on the thought of being paid for sex or some upper-middle class professional man (a professor let's say) managed to finagle a similar propostition because he managed his money poorly and need a little extra spending cash for fishing tackle or something. Just what in the hey (hay?) would that have to do with the actual institution of prostitution?
And what a hybrid approach is used by the defenders of prostitution! One moment prostitutes are factory/service drudges like any other so what's the big deal; the next moment they are pleasure-craving nymphos who accept the cash as a bit of a bonus; a split-later we're talking a legion of Florence Nightengales--pleasure and money be damned! These women just want no man to go life without the thrill of sex with a do-gooder; I'm surprised no one has dared to compare prostituted women to entrepreneurs yet.
ms helios writes:
"A problem with what you call sexual labor (I'm going to stick with 'prostitution')..."
I think your misunderstanding what I mean by sexual labor. By sexual labor I mean the labor humans perform to sexually stimulate, arouse and climax themselves and others. Prostitution, on the other hand, I understand as the sale of one's ability to labor sexually and the actual labor performed by the seller as a result of that transaction.
"Male supremacy is on the [same?] basis of sex as prostitution is."
By basis, are you talking about the physical differences between men and woman (i.e., hormones, organs, chromosomes, etc.)? So are you saying both male supremacy and prostitution arise from these physical differences?
"Nursing, while perhaps associated with gender roles, just isn't. I think you can see the difference between hoping your nurse is a woman and paying a prostitute so you can fuck her."
I was more referring to those men who would insist that their nurse be female. I remember a story back in the 80s or 90s (it probably happens more then I hear about it) where a guy freaked out on an airplane because he found out the pilot was a woman. They delayed the flight's departure so they could bring back the jetway, deplane the passenger and put him on the next flight (upgraded to first-class of course for troubling all of the other passengers and crew).
In any event, it still sounds to me like you're suggesting the patriarchy arises out of the rigidity of these gender roles: i.e., the nursing is increasingly liberated from the rigidity while prostitution remains wrapped up in the rigidity. Is that correct?
"The physical act of prosititution is about the physical characteristics that motivate patriarchy: the desire to control womens sex organs and sexuality."
Again, I'm not getting what makes prostitution exceptional in this regard: exceptional either from other sexual relations, nor from other sales of one's bodily services (like nursing). And again, I understand nursing is different than prostitution, but was is harmful and injurious to prostitutes and women in general in that difference?
Isn't the physical act of sex (sans prostitution) also a possible way to control a woman's sex organs and sexuality (the phrase: "to charm the pants off of her" comes to mind).
"You may feel that a man preferring to try to charm women into sleeping with him is the same as a man feeling entitled to buy access to a women's body; as you guessed, I beg to differ."
Again, both involve feelings of entitlement. A man has to feel entitled to charm a woman into sleeping with him before he can charm her. What's the deleterious effects of the entitlement to pay a woman for prostitution that is absent from the entitlement to charm her into bed.
"One of these things is coercive. I am not obliged to be charmed by a man nor he by me. In prostitution that agency we've talked about so much, which exists in
[continued]
"..in the 'charm transaction' is not there."
This is the other side of the question again. what is exceptional and causing a lack of agency in a prostitute where others who sell their ability to labor (non-sexual labor or non-prostitution labor) do not face this lack of agency. If I sell bookkeeping services (something I hate and wouldn't do had I not been paid) isn't that also an imposition on my agency?
To reiterate, prostitution is the intersection of sexual labor with the selling of labor. I read you as repeating this intersection in various ways, but I'd like to understand how the intersection is harmful to the women in this position and women in general.
It is not the sex segregation of the occupation. Nursing isn't less damaging to women than prostitution becuase some men do it; it's less damaging to women because the commodity is not the basis of sex discrimination. That women-as-sex can be bought sold and owned is intrinsic to prostitution and is also the core belief of male supremacy. That women can change sheets and bandages and iv bags is not the basis on which women are discriminated against: it is their sex.
I think being charming to someone in the hope that it will lead to them desiring you is catagorically different than hoping someone will want money you have and they don't badly enough that they will sleep with you without desiring you. I do not know how much more bluntly it can be said. You may see no difference, which is your right.
Prostitution is an intersection of sex discrimination, male supremacy, and exploitative work. It relies on the belief that men may acceptably control, through coercive actions, the sexuality of women. You doing bookkeeping does not tie into the basis on which you are discriminated against, regardless of your background or class. It does not hurt men as a class, for instance. You have said that you see how prostitution reinforces patriarchy; patriarchy harms women.
The earlier example of blacks hired to 'pretend slavery' is an example of a kind of work that may be exploitative and which also relies on the payee acting out the basis and circumstances of their discrimination. White 'slaves' wouldn't do for the party in question. It may hurt the people doing the pretending and it also hurts blacks as a class. Advocating the goodness and rightness of mock slavery with sufficient water breaks and ergonomic hoes in a world where blacks are systematically disadvantaged by the very color of their skin does not help blacks as a class.
L, I will write back to you, promise. I'm going to be net-less until Friday, though; have to go interview for a job. Nearer you than I am at present, in fact; we'd be almost-neighbors.
ms helios, I am starting to understand our differences better than I thought possible. I think you are locating the basis of sex discrimination in the physical differences between men and women (like the physical differences in skin color below forming the basis of racism). It is these physical differences that make patriarchy, male supremacy and exploitation happen. These physical differences motivate and form the basis for these harmful results.
I agree that patriarchy, male supremacy and exploitation are harmful to women. That was never the difference in our positions. But I would add these things can be harmful to many men as well: men are not the unambiguous beneficiaries of patriarchy
And I do agree that prostitution can reinforce these harmful results. But I also think courtship can reinforce patriarchy; theory can reinforce patriarchy; puritanism can reinforce patriarchy, etc. More importantly, I think all of these things can undermine patriarchy as well: it depends on conjunctural circumstances.
The example of blacks hired as pretend slaves especially helped me to understand these differences. To me the circumstances of hiring blacks for pretend slavery matters profoundly in terms of it's ability to reinforce or undermine racism. The black extras and actors hired to pretend to be slaves for the "Roots" miniseries did something to undermine racism. Does it necessarily have to eliminate differences in skin color to do so? I don't think so because racism cannot be reduced to a necessary expression of differences in skin color. Nor should we reduce sexism, patriarchy, male supremacy and the exploitation of women to the physical differences between men and women.
One of my biggest problems I see with promoting a theory that reduces various oppressions to the physical differences that form the conscious motivations for these oppressions is the politics it prescribes. Transformations of these oppressions are rendered nearly impossible: so long as the physical differences remain (and what's to eliminate those). The only thing left is a sort of righteous indignation: to chase down those who believe they can undermine patriarchy through changing the conditions of courtship, marriage, prostitution,etc. and accuse them of celebrating patriarchy and trivializing the victims. Perhaps I'm look at this with blinders on, but what other politics arise from this conception of oppressions?
What I read in many of bitchphd posts on her marriage, on her child-rearing, and on prostitution is an injection of new understandings of these activities: ones that undermine the patriarchical understandings that are so wide-spread and often unquestioned. If one can imagine a world where physical differences remain between men and women remain, but where politics, economics and culture have been so transformed that patriarchy becomes marginalized or even eliminated, one can understand the revolutionary potential of these posts.
Despite our disagreements, I want to thank you for your participation in this discussion. Your presence here raised the level of this discussion far above what the rest of us were capable of achieving.
Well so far, the culture has been so transformed that some dude supposedly felt within his rights to offer a woman he was corresponding with online if he could rent her for sex. I still can't quite picture how that was supposed to go down.
I guess one could use the trappings of prostitution for some truly subversive guerilla theater though. How about scoring a date with some guy who just wants to show you off, getting somewhat dolled up for the occassion, and paying some guys to drive buy and shout, "Two dollars?" and "Ruff Ruff" in front of his friends.
See the difference?
Lashauna, I really am starting to take offense. You can't picture what happened, and you apparently aren't willing to take my word for it that it wasn't offensive. You seem to approve of the Swedish news story (as do I) but you also seem to disapprove, strongly, of me asserting my right to consider this offer seriously. And I don't see why this keeps getting framed as if I, and CP, are offering blanket defenses of prostitution, when I think both of us are being pretty careful to say that we're not.
One would think that somene being either dumb or cavalier enough to put an illegal proposition in writing would have indicated SOMETHING other than discretion, trustworthiness, and good will toward all.
One might think that, but I suppose that depends on whether one thinks that illegality is, in and of itself, offensive. And what do you mean "in writing"? My blog? Considering breaking a law is not, of itself, illegal.
No, I was referring to his propostition. If someone sent me an email asking me if I wanted to buy some cocaine or had any to sell I'm afraid that I'd have to dismiss him on Darwinist grounds even if that were my line of business.
It's just little things like that that led me to the feeling,the expression of which you found so offensive,that things don't quite jibe. Of course, you don't have to tell us anything about your life, but how can you expect any real discussion of something so nebulous?It's as though you only wanted to springboard into a political discussion which makes the oddsof such a golden opportunity coming your way seem rather . . .
Well, I already said it. Offensive or no, I'm sure you can see what I mean.
Oh, people accuse me of fictionalizing on the blog all the time. Usually because what I'm saying doesn't fit their sense of how the world works, so obviously it must be false. No one could possibly have a happy open marriage, no "real woman" would have extramarital sex, no "real mother" would risk divorce, no "real professor" would talk about her work this way, blah blah blah.
In any case, it seems to me that we've had quite a bit of "real discussion" on the topic--far more than I anticipated. Surely it's more far-fetched to think that I wrote the post with a plan to springboard a discussion with a bunch of people who had never commented on my blog before than it is to take what I said at face value.
I know y'all have moved on, but I've been out of town and still have a few thoughts on the matter.
The basic justification for sex discrimination is in physical differences; the differences
themselves don't 'make discrimination happen,' but they are important to our understanding of the discriminatory activities and ideas. I agree that things that do not directly involve
the body can also reinforce patriarchy and ideas of male supremacy, but as I alluded to by the choice of 'special harm' to describe the difference between prostitution and other stuff that can be based in and reinforce discrimination, I think that those activities that are about the
biological difference do so more readily. Ignoring physical differences altogether is no way forward against sex discrimination.
I also do not think that arguing that biology and physical difference is important means that discrimination can never end; there are quite a lot of physical differences that are not a
basis for discrimination in any wide portion of society and I can envision a world in which sex is not an acceptable basis for oppression without envisioning an end to sex differences.
Your point about 'Roots' can serve to illustrate some of my problems with this particular debate about prostitution. If Alex Haley were a white man and the audience for 'Roots' had a lot of white folks, some of them slaveholders, talking about what a great and sensitive portrayal it was, and a lot of black folks saying that they thought this was dangerous and
unhelpful in the fight against white supremacy, I would be wary of judging 'Roots' a success, even if the black actors said they had been treated well and gotten their Equity card
besides. I think the white frat kids buying 'slaves' for their party wanted the feeling of dominance
over blacks in a way Alex Haley didn't. (Note: I recognise that I can't prove this, though from
what I recall of the news coverage of the event at the time it's not a crazy supposition).
Describing white supremacy (or male supremacy) is one thing; actually going along with domination itself is another. Dr B would be actually prostituting herself to a man in this
transaction. Actually letting a man buy sexual access to her body. Actually saying that this
is an ok thing for men to want and do, in the face of the tremendous harm such actions have had and still have on the vast majority of women confronted with men who think this is ok. You say that her position on this undermines patriarchal understandings of prostitution; I fail to see how it does this in the way that, say, some of her commentary on her marriage might seem to undermine the notion of that institution as one which legitimizes male ownership of women and supports an alternate notion of
mutual partnership. (Dr B, I don't mean to attack you by this, I feel I should point out. It seems relevant to CPs statements and you may remove it with my blessings if you are more comfor
...table that way)
I also think that if the 'balance of agency' in a transaction depends on which of the transactors has biological group characteristics that are the basis for discrimination and oppression, it is sensible to be concerned about that class of transactions.
I think what you're saying makes good sense, and I'm not offended in any way; this whole discussion is very valuable in that sense. I do maintain that the particulars of my particular situation aren't oppressive to me; I don't think that in terms of a private transaction, they harm women as a class; it may be true that in talking about it, I'm enabling rationalization of a larger system of oppression, but I do think that the *way* I'm talking about it makes that hard to sustain. I don't know that the Roots analogy holds: I do see women saying that this discussion is problematic, but I also see women (myself included) saying it's not. Surely there's a case to be made (whether or not it's fully convincing is another question) that my talking about this in terms of *my* decision undermines patriarchal notions of prostiution, in which the prostitute's agency and decision-making power doesn't really enter into it.
Well, there's always a case to be made . I don't find this one too compelling, but that's me.
It's not answerable, I suppose, but I can't help but wonder if your agency and decision making power enter into it for the man involved. Does he care? Is it important to him? If he discusses this on his blog or in his social circles will your agency or otherwise be a key fact, more crucial than his ability to buy sex with you?
I wouldn't fuck anyone, money or no, who I thought didn't respect me.
There's a policy we can all agree on.
I was thinking about this and my logic is about to become circular, so be warned. In your position, I would be inclined to doubt shows of respect from a man who felt it was ok to pay me to have sex with him that I was otherwise uninterested in. Because I think that's a scummy, disrespectful to women thing to want. Because I think prostitution is fundamentally problemmatic for and harmful to women as individuals and a group. But you don't, so perhaps you don't have those doubts. So we are back where we started. Anyhow, I wish you well for all that we disagree.
So did you sleep with him in the end? (and did he pay with a check or cash?)
Very interesting post! thanks for making me really think about it!
Just a thought--It seems to me that viewing prostitution as a commodification of the body rather than as a service has to do with the traditional sense of women's sexuality being neccessarily passive. For it to be a service, you have to acknowledge that sex can be something women do to men, rather than the other way around.
Prostitution is obviously not a literal commodification of the woman's body. The man who "buys" a woman's private parts doesn't get to take them home and keep them. It doesn't even seem right to see it as "renting", since I usually think of that as the renter using the item in the absence of the owner and without the owner's assistance. If a woman could remove her mind from her body and leave the limp form on the bed during prostitution, that may be rental. But as it is, it's a service in my mind--you're paying for a person to actively do something for you.
In response to the main comment thread--someone can approve of an action in an unusual situation without implying that it's all right in the more common situation. Dr. B was speculating on an unusual case of prostitution, which means that her judgments on it don't necessarily tell you anything about her judgments of how prositution normally works. It's not contradictory to think one is positive or neutral and the other is not.
Eep, didn't finish my point on the middle paragraph--While it's not literal ownership, it may be symbolically so. This gets into all kinds of tricky territory with motives and how to differentiate identical-seeming actions because the people are thinking different thoughts.
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hi. i happened upon your blog, and thought i'd comment on this even tho it's almost 3 yrs old. i'm a guy who's been in a 7 1/2 year 'relationship' w/a 'paid consort'. it's generally worked out well. we have nothing in common but we like and respect each other. i'm very strongly attracted to her physically, and she digs the cash. BUT she is also into the sex(no she's not faking. i'm sure). paying a woman to have sex w/me would be really horrible if she was revolted by it, even if she was a stunner. it'd also be horrible if i treated her badly, like an object...which i confess i used to sometimes do. but i realized that was wrong, so i quit it....so i've learned things. paid sex is ok as long as there's mutual respect, mutual sanity(no illusions), and mutual sexual pleasure.
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