![prostitution Why Does the Left Want Prostitution to be ‘a Job Like Any Other’? [#Feminist Friday]](http://www.peopleofcolororganize.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/prostitution.jpg "prostitution")
The go-to perspective on prostitution from many progressives in Canada these days seems to be a fairly hard and fast vote for decriminalization or legalization. Even many of our beloved East Vancouver lefties seem convinced that the most progressive position to take is one of ‘sex as work’, arguing that debates around prostitution should prioritize labour rights, allowing women to come out from the underground and ‘into the light’ as free and autonomous workers.
The gaps in this logic are all at once complex and simple. While I have long been a supporter of labour rights, of unions, and have counted myself as a fighting member of the working class who has waivered somewhere between socialism and Marxism from the moment I understood the concept of class struggle, I’ve found myself suddenly misaligned with some of those with whom I share my end of the political spectrum.
These are the people I vote for. They represent my interests and ideologies and yet, when it comes to the issue of prostitution, it feels as though we’ve been pitted against one another.
On one hand there seems to be a distinct lack of class analysis – we forget that there are reasons that some women are prostituted while others are not, that some women have a ‘choice’ while others do not. On the other, because decriminalization has, in part, been framed as a labour issue (i.e. that this is a job like any other and, therefore, should be treated in the same way any other service sector job is, in terms of laws), the gender and race factors fall to the wayside and we forget that prostitution impacts women and, in particular, racialized women in an inordinate way. Prostitution simply doesn’t happen to men in the same way that it does to women. It is no mere coincidence that the missing and murdered women and that Pickton’s victim’s were, largely Aboriginal women, that many of the women on the streets in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver are Aboriginal. Where is the race, the gender, and the class analysis within decriminalization rhetoric? How will licensing help women who cannot ‘work’ legally? How will decriminalizing male buyers, male abusers, pimps and johns keep women safe from these men? Particularly when so many of the women being bought and sold have little choice in the matter?
Why has decriminalization been positioned as the progressive position to take in Canada?
On November 4th, Forrest Wickam asked, in a piece for Slate Magazine “What did the founders of socialism think of prostitution?” Strangely, for those who count themselves among the group of progressives who maintain that the violence and abuse that is so much a part of prostitution can only be negated via a normalization of the industry via an ideology based in workers rights, those who brought us our class struggle, who provided us with the idea of a working class, did not view prostitution as ‘a job like any other’. Rather, it would seem as though they were, in fact, abolitionists.
Wickam explains that: “Karl Marx viewed prostitutes as victims of the capitalist system,” hoping that prostitution would vanish alongside capitalism. He goes on to say that Marx “viewed the abolition of prostitution as a necessary part of ending capitalism.”
So why are progressives promoting the idea that prostitution is simply the selling of a service? Why are abolitionists being paired alongside the Christian right? Why is the conversation around prostitution not one that is framed by a desire for freedom from oppression but, instead seems rooted in a starting place that says, decidedly, “well, we give up”?
And indeed, when our work is to normalize the industry rather than to provide exiting programs, social safety nets, public education programs, and other options for women who find themselves without a way to support themselves or who are vulnerable, I do think that we are giving up.
Decriminalization seems to assume that prostitution is inevitable and that, therefore, male power and dominance is inevitable and, as such, all we can do is to make the best of it.
Why are progressives giving up on women? And not only that but why are they giving up on men? Why is there an assumption that men must treat women as things to be used for their pleasure? Is the message we want to send out in Vancouver and, more widely in Canada: “this is what men do” or “this is what we expect from the society we live in”?
Not only that but when we frame sex as work, we work from an assumption that sex can be something that exists only for male pleasure. That sex can be something that happens to women but does not require that women feel pleasure as part of the act.
The reason for a man to buy sex from a woman is, without a doubt, because he desires pleasure without having to give anything in return. This is a male-centered purchase. If we are to define sex as something pleasurable for both parties then how on earth can we define prostitution as sex work? There is something decidedly unprogressive about calling something ‘sex’ when the act is, in fact, solely about providing pleasure for one party (the male party) without any regard for the woman with whom you are engaging in this supposed ‘sex’ with. Doesn’t this defy the whole enthusiastic consent model?
While I certainly support human rights and worker rights, I also support women’s rights and believe that, as a feminist, I cannot and will not work towards normalizing the idea that women can and should be bought and sold. I certainly will not promote this as part of my progressive politics.
Prostitution exists because of the inextricable link between capitalism and patriarchy. The two, under these circumstances, cannot be separated. Desperation, poverty, abuse, addiction, a lack of other opportunities for work, a need to pay the rent and feed the kids, a history of colonialism and racism, and of course, a misogynistic culture that treats women as things that exist to feed the capitalist wheel, to sell and to be sold, all work together to create a society wherein prostitution not only exists, but thrives (if you consider an abundance of men profiting from prostitution and sex industries ‘thriving’). Why is the response to the abuse, to the exploitation, to the deaths, and to the trauma that many women experience as a result of being prostituted, to treat this as simply ‘a job like any other’? What other job demands that the employee be violated? Maybe raped? Maybe abused? Maybe murdered? Maybe called horrid names until self-confidence has been worn down to a thread? Maybe develop PTSD? What progressive person would argue that this kind of treatment should be legitimized? That women’s bodies, indeed, should be available for purchase by men? And that men should feel A-OK about that?
In what profession is it expected that ONLY women must provide for ONLY men as part of equitable workplace legislation (and I don’t believe I should have to remind everyone that yes, the vast majority of prostituted women service men)? How is it progressive to institutionalize gender inequity? Women as things that can be bought or sold when under duress, to men who have the means, is not a progressive position to take. Why our fellow left wing politicians and comrades have not explored alternatives to the normalization of sexism and abuse, such as the Nordic model remains somewhat of a mystery to me.
We want women to be safe, but we also want women to be human. We want women to have rights, but we also want women to have real choices. We want respect and equitable treatment for women but we don’t believe that johns will ever provide this. No man who thinks he has the right to purchase women is a man who believes in real equality and a man who can legally do this is a man who thinks that this is what women should do for him. No woman should be thrown in jail for having to do what she needs to in order to survive, but certainly we don’t need to accept and legalize exploitation from men in order to decriminalize the women?
Simply, no person who views themselves as progressive and who believes in working towards an equitable society should, from my perspective, also believe that an equitable society can exist in one where women are prostituted.
I support my left wing allies and my progressive representatives but I cannot understand how we can share a desire to end capitalism or corporate greed or oppression in any form and not all at once desire to end prostitution.
- Meghan Murphy, The F Word Feminist Media Collective
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![blank Why Does the Left Want Prostitution to be ‘a Job Like Any Other’? [#Feminist Friday]](http://www.peopleofcolororganize.com/wp-content/plugins/share-and-follow/images/blank.gif "Why Does the Left Want Prostitution to be ‘a Job Like Any Other’? [#Feminist Friday]"){kind=small}
I agree!
I don’t agree. I do think sex work is work. There is a very interesting thread of conversation on the original link.
Do folks at this site fully back the personal and social theory that this piece puts forward? Do you think that people cannot be a sex worker on their own accord?
What about the many PoC’s who are sex workers, and sex work advocates and allies? Where do our voices fit in this?
Billy: we haven’t formulated a formal position and post a variety of things, some we do not always agree with, there tends to be agreement with this piece. Some thoughts:
Capital creates oppressive conditions in all forms of relations. A very critical point in shaping discourses is the conversation around choice. There is a school of thought that says individuals chose to do what they do, and so that activity is labor and thus valid because, under capitalism, one makes a choice and one is paid to do so. Taken to its natural conclusions, though, this sort of approach needs to be understood as an extreme that favors capital. Our editorial collective sees a need to understand capital when defining work, people or choice.
Though there are certainly those participating in prostitution or the sex industry who like the job, a more provocative conversation is how prostitution and the sex industry fit into patriarchy and are part of shaping our social perceptions of women. It’s critical that this conversation is about the social impact for women, because we need to be aware of how society, when we talk capitalist exchange and libertarianism particularly, privileges individuals who wish to make money over how such activities potentially affect others — in this instance, women’s self-perception, men’s view of women as property and sex as a commodity for purchase by men. For progressives, the piece raises important questions about how we sometimes unconsciously affirm a socioeconomic model by simply saying one has chosen to do something for money and it’s okay because one may want that, without really considering collective liberation.
All this doesn’t even get into the contentious idea of how many involved in prostitution or the sex industry are there because they really love that job, or were forced, desperate, etc. Instead, this piece puts forward the necessity for considering this issue strategically.
Many women of color are exploited by the sex industry, in considerable numbers. One can guess some want to work as prostitutes, etc., but that should not change our understanding of the predatory nature of the sex industry on communities of color, via obvious things like human trafficking but also by how prostituted women of color are oftentimes most vulnerable because a culture based on white supremacy sees women of color as disposable, to be used by others, purchased for their use and discarded.
I support sex workers and their right to work and I support the point of view that sex work is real work. Not on an idealogical basis, purely because the overwhelming voices I’ve heard from sex workers have said that they want sex work to be decriminalised and legalised so that their work is subject to the same scrutiny as other work. Intersectionality is however a big issue, and women, especially immigrant women who may not have legal paperwork, may still find themselves in sex work due to lack of options and may find themselves in a situation that would place them in danger. However, targeting all prostitution seems to be a cutting off the nose to spite the face argument, as then all prostitutes and sex workers will find themselves in this situation. There is a huge mish mash of societal and institutional isms that contribute to making sex work dangerous and those all need to be addressed.
But what sex workers have said is that they want their work to be made legal, that they don’t want shame, that they want to pay taxes and be the same as any other working citizen. And I’ll support them in that.
However, because many of these voices are white and cis and full citizens, we definitely need to look at marginalised voice, and we ultimately need to work towards a society that doesn’t need sex work. In terms of the short term, I agree that decriminalising sex work is good because it can help to protect and remove the stigma from sex workers, and because that is what a lot of sex workers are fighting for. In the long term, we need to reconfigure society so that people no longer need to go into sex work unless they enjoy it, where sex is destigmatised and where there is no longer a sense of ownership over the bodies of women, particularly trans and POC women. All in all, I may disagree on some points, and I still support in the short terms decriminalising prostituion for the safety of women (because even if you decriminalise prostitutes, johns are not going to want to go to jail and women are going to have to compromise their safety to satisfy customer demands, and ultimately the only thing that that will affect would be whether they end up in jail. Which is why I personally support decriminalising and regulating brothels so women will be able to work in safe, sanitary environments) but this is a wonderful, thought provoking article, and many of these points need to be integrated into the debate.
I am a sex worker, have been for many years, and I love my job. Like MANY others in my industry, I have other choices but prefer the work I do over other types of jobs available to me. You speak for the women who are being exploited. THAT must end, but not all women operate their businesses at the hand of some evil pimp and many have great clientele who are not misogynist assholes.
Decriminalizing prostitution would help to end the stigma of sex work, as well as give our most vulnerable OPTIONS to protect themselves, including relying upon authority figures. WOC are targeted by police far more often than white women in prostitution, and decriminalization would also help alleviate the burdens of interwoven systemic oppressions (sex work, race, nationality, etc.) We deserve better work conditions and access to better safety precautions, and ‘getting rid of prostitution’ is not going to ever happen- it’ll only increase the ‘victim’ paradigm and further perpetuate stigma and oppression.
i support decriminalization because, simply, the criminal law as it is, is harmful to women who do sex work. it compromises their safety and harms their ability to protect themselves. it puts workers in danger in pushing them into remote, isolated areas. it compromises women’s ability to negotiate safer sex practices; isolates workers from one another where empowering and informing partnerships and cooperation could exist; it limits workers’ access to health services, social support, and harm reduction services; it sets the police as the enemy rather than a protection agency (ok, nothing new here). you want to support alternatives to sex work – having a criminal record really compromises finding another job and choosing differently.
we can and should support women of color who run their own independent businesses, even though they act within capitalist patriarchy to which we oppose. similarly we can support veterans without supporting the war or tolerate any kind of state violence, and support sex workers without supporting capitalist patriarchy. i think our ‘contribution’ to the system here are minimized at the face of cooperation and solidarity that have the power to undo those systems of oppression.
like the author, i don’t feel that sex work is “like any other work”. i have a lot of biased negative feelings against prostitution, and that sometimes vague my perception. i’m also a a person with white and male passes and privileges, sitting on a couch pondering on sex work, in a relatively safe environment, where i don’t need to use my body to ensure food or shelter. reaching beyond the negative bias, i feel the same pain, abuse and trauma shared by all those who are most vulnerable in capitalist patriarchy. all the same subjected to racialized and gendered violence on every turn and in every field of occupation. and just like every field, violence, and sexual violence, increases towards the most vulnerable – trans women, immigrants, indigenous women of color with no legal rights, criminalized poor people of color.
and, as Emi Koyama eloquently puts it: “If prostitutes were more vulnerable to exploitation than other workers today, it is because we, like offshore sweatshop workers and migrant farm workers, lack the institutional power to defend our rights as workers. To say that prostitution is “inherently” oppressive would absolve the wrongdoers of their responsibilities, and therefore is ultimately reactionary.” (http://eminism.org/readings/supporthookers.html)
the more power vulnerable people have, the less power dominators have on us. the less protected a woman is, the more advantage to her abuser. decriminalization and legal rights are a start – in allowing women and gender-variant folks who are sex workers to better protect themselves, talk & advocate for themselves.
my friend who does sex work, changed my perspective telling me: “in my life i am sexually harassed by men all the time. now i reclaim my body and demand they pay!”. it helped me recognize the challenging of gender power dynamics that is in sex work. i support my friend’s empowerment, self determination, and survival with all my heart. i learn from my friend’s expertise all the time, lessons and skills i think are tremendously empowering and useful to all women and gender-variant folks in patriarchy.
as Thierry Schaffauser pointed out, stigma against sex workers prevents us from realizing that the struggle for safety and freedom of sex workers is an all-woman, feminist struggle, concerning, for example, “the occupation of nocturnal and public spaces, or how to impose a sexual contract in which conditions have to be negotiated and respected”. and that “consent to one sexual behavior does not imply consent to anything else. The idea of sex as an agreement between two (or more) people, rather than something one person does to another, deserves widespread embrace whether or not the sex is paid for.” (http://jezebel.com/5571081/sex-workers-rights-are-rights-for-all-women)
you say “as a feminist, I cannot and will not work towards normalizing the idea that women can and should be bought and sold.”
between decriminalization and normalization lies a big difference, and between sex workers and trafficked women lies a big difference. nowhere have i seen sex worker rights activists advocating to legalize abuse; folks always draw a line between the two and make clear that trafficking in living beings must be prohibited. sex workers are not “bought and sold”, sex workers engage in an exchange. an unfair exchange in a system set against us – and nonetheless an exchange that can be empowering. sex workers reclaim power on their own bodies as their own, actively determine their own value. as a feminist and “leftist” i am committed to better the conditions in which this exchange is done – decriminalization – toward abolishing patriarchy.
Everything she said about prostitution applies also to abortion. Many women have no choice they are forced to have abortions because if they have a baby they will lose their job their income their accomodation. Banning aborton wouldn’t give them a choice it would just increase the dangers of illegal abortions. All these problems sex workers face are made worse when sex-work was illegal. Criminalising sex work doesn’t mean they choose a career more acceptable to this writer’s morality. They still have to resort to sex work whether it is legal or not it only means they have no protection of labour laws, immigration laws the police or society. Do you say workers should give up all the concessions and protection that labour movements have won from capital? You might as well work 24 hour shifts for slave wages in sweat shops because health & safety, minimum wage laws don’t overthrow capitalism. Even if her ideas about sex work were true, do you overthrow captalism by allowing the police to criminalise the victims of capitalism?
Also the argument begins from Euopean/American ideas about sex and women which are irrelevant to my culture and many other Indigenous cultures. I don’t appreciate white feminists using woc as a prop for their own agenda.
Several things concern me about this article.
Marx is cited as anti-prostitution because he wrote that prostitution would end when capitalism does. However, the article fails to acknowledge that ALL paid service work (where one performs a service that pleases another, not to also please oneself, but for money) would end with the demise of capitalism. Thus the author undermines her own thesis (that sex work is unlike other service work) and weakens her credibility as an author with an informed socialist perspective.
This ties into my second concern. Women are forced to undertake all kinds of nasty chores, without receiving any pleasure in return, to survive under capitalist patriarchy. An analysis of prostitution is incomplete without an analysis of other human service industries that exploit women: domestic work, nursing, bar service, child care, palliative care. Some women choose to clean barf, scrub toilets, change diapers or give blow jobs. Some women do these things for personal satisfaction; others for money; others because the loss of their homes, children or safety are at stake. I believe we can agree that women deserve more choices over what they will do when (and for what) than is currently offered by capitalist patriarchy. However, to isolate sex work without a wider social context perpetuates a reductionist stereotype of women sex workers as victims, rather than agents making difficult choices about how to survive within an oppressive social structure. In this way, the article alienates readers who support all sex workers (those who choose the work and those who are forced into it) and does appear to align itself with “Christian right,” anti-feminist arguments on this aspect of the issue.
The author’s definition of sex work as a field where service providers receive no pleasure from their labour contradicts many outspoken sex workers (even in these comments) who don’t require a loving relationship to enjoy sex and are happy to work in a field that enables them to please others while having a relatively good income and flexible hours. Chester Brown’s “Paying For It” is an example suggesting that some johns are sincerely concerned about the pleasure and comfort of those whose company they pay for. Perhaps such figures are a minority; but denying their existence makes the author appear to have blinders on to any lived realities that don’t conform to her own opinions.
Significantly, the author fails to define her interpretation of “prostitution.” In erotic relations tied to income, where does exploitation end and agency begin? With stripping? Phone sex? Erotic massage? Working without pimps? People who only date above a certain income bracket and expect partners to cover all expenses? Those who marry for sociocultural reasons other than love and pleasure? The failure to define the exact subject being argued against conflates such complex situations, weakening the persuasive potential of the article. It is also simply confusing to read, as is the conflation of decriminalization with legalization, and sex work with slavery (being “bought and sold” rather than providing a short-term service for money).
Lastly, sex work is framed as a field in which violence inordinately affects women. Yet it is widely agreed that transgendered and transsexual people are in fact disproportionately likely to face violence in the form of physical and sexual assault and harassment while participating in sex work (a recent article is here: http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Trans_sex_workers_still_most_vulnerable-11058.aspx). It appears that the author overlooks this because trans sex workers are a minority among sex workers; yet trans people are also proportionately more likely to rely on sex work than cisgendered women. The failure to mention trans sex workers at all is suggestive of an essentialist perspective also aligned with anti-feminist arguments on this issue. Shockingly, the author critiques decriminalization movements for a lack of gender analysis while providing next to none herself.
While I do fundamentally disagree with the author on this subject, it is of greater concern to me that the article presents its arguments without providing the kind of context, facts, or thoughtful reflection that might actually convince knowledgeable readers of the merit of the author’s ideas. For these reasons, I find this piece to be a setback for feminists on all sides of the complex and often triggering issue of sex work.
You can see this is dangerous and something needs to be done. Backpage, Craigslist, clavox how many will be allowed to advertise?
I applaud Megan Murphy for this article. Whenever articles like this appear, there are comments from sex workers who say that they enjoy their ‘job’ and choose it freely. Well, I’m happy for you, but for every one of these stories, there are many more (usually untold) stories from women who have experienced horror and pain. And of course, those who are dead can’t express their views at all. Trading these personal anecdotes back and forth achieves nothing. Prostitution is not an issue of individualism – it is an issue of social collectivity that affects all women, including those who have never been prostituted. I guess it’s just a coincidence that we live in a male supremacist society and the overwhelming majority of prostitutes are women who service men. Funny how that works.
Also, what other ‘job’ requires someone to have objects inserted into the orifices of their bodies? I can think of no other ‘job’ that fits this description, besides perhaps that of surrogate mother.
Megan, men on the left will resist your arguments here because it might interfere with their ability to get off. They’ll do whatever kind of moral and ethical gymnastics are necessary to defend prostitution — for obvious reasons.
They experienced that while sex-work was illegal the consequences are worse because it is illegal and they have no protection, like other illegal workers. My experience is limited, I haven’t experienced horror or enjoyment, it actually was just like any other job. What would have caused me pain would be if I was unable to pay my rent and ended up homeless or if I was arrested and my kids were taken away. The people doing moral and ethical gymnastics are feminists who want other women to suffer consequences for your ideology and support the capitalist state to inflict these consequences in the name of communism.
Also, what is the significance of objects inserted into the orifices of bodies? If that is how you feel about sex of course it is not the right job for you.
I agree with this article.
Many of the “sex-work positive” leftists will mistakenly try and conflate the position taken here by the author with “whorephobia” and a wish to criminally punish the women who work – voluntarily or not – in the sex industry, when that’s not what is being advocated at all. Take a look at what the author said:
“Why our fellow left wing politicians and comrades have not explored alternatives to the normalization of sexism and abuse, such as the Nordic model remains somewhat of a mystery to me.”
It’s a mystery to me, too. I doubt anyone who calls themselves a progressive or a feminist would agree that sex workers should be treated like criminals, or suffer the consequences of criminalization as it currently exists (e.g., fear of going to the police when abuse occurs, exploitation by men who play upon that fear, criminal records preventing them from obtaining other sorts of work, etc.,.) I also doubt that they believe sex workers should carry a social stigma (after all, such stigmas are widely recognized as being a product of patriarchy.)
I just don’t know why it’s so “wrong” to want to discourage the behavior of the john, too, which is what the “Nordic model” is supposed to do. I mean, is it the goal to grow the sex industry? And if so, exactly how is that a leftist/feminist goal?