I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the words that get thrown around when topics around sex work come up. The biggies, of course, are “empowerment” and “degradation.” I am planning on writing a whole other post about the word “empowerment”, so I’m going to gloss over the semantics for now, but the meat of it is: those two words posed in opposition to each other just don’t do it for me. They are, in essence, flimsy buzzwords that say little about real experiences (and I’m going to use them anyway, to make a kind of point).
But they are used a lot, especially when class comes into play: middle class women who choose the sex industry over other options (like me) are empowered, poor women who choose (that could be in air quotes depending who is saying it) the sex industry over McDonald’s are degraded. Immigrant/young/otherwise disadvantaged women who are tricked into the sex industry are superduper degraded.
If you haven’t noticed, the default position of many feminists who have beef with the sex industry is to call on this empowerment/degradation thing, and to point fingers and mock women who feel empowered by sex work (or women who don’t call themselves empowered, but others slap that label on them) and attempt to invalidate their experiences as being in the minority and kinda silly. And anyway, how can women really feel empowered when there is so much suffering? (Aren’t you feeling guilty about your empowerment now?)
But on the flipside, it is difficult for the so-called empowered sex workers to admit that there are myriad problems with the sex industry (more invalidation of the I-told-you-so ilk). I have faced this on a number of occasions, in which I am speaking about my own experience, and am asked “what about trafficking? what about drug-addled street workers?” These experiences are wholly outside of my personal experience, though I’m trying to make it more part of my professional expertise. Even that feels kind of weird, like I’m gearing myself up to speak for other people. If I concede to the fact that there are horrendous experiences within the industry, does that mean my experience is bullshit? How do I make space for all those things? Or is the nuance just lost because of the fact that somewhat crazy people are often the ones pushing these issues.
Rachel Lloyd, founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), had this to say in a recent debate on the NYU Gender Studies list:
“It is interesting that in the debate over the sex industry that those of us with personal experience that does not support the pro-sex work viewpoint are frequently ignored, and our traumatic experiences minimized.”
This is a serious problem, exacerbated on both sides by people getting nut-jobby and putting sex workers on the defensive in the extreme. Why pit people from different parts of the sex industry against each other? Because its fun to watch them scramble to justify their position?
Maybe it’s my turn to be a little nut-jobby, because I know that academic studies and studies embarked on by various NGOs about sex worker experiences are important, but I can’t help but feel that the voices of sex workers themselves have supreme authority in this discussion. How to level things out and allow space for many perspectives is indeed the problem.
The thing is, and I know that this is at base a feminist position (and I won’t be convinced otherwise by those who view the sex industry are evil and exploitative): sex industry or no, I’m all about women’s agency and their ability to make choices for themselves. In a highly simplified way, this includes getting into the sex industry because they want to/it seems to be the best job choice, or getting the hell out of the sex industry because its a terrible thing. At core, its all about the women themselves, as individuals. And I know that’s sticky – what’s good/right for one woman might not work for Women, and vice versa, but individuals should be given the space and autonomy to figure it out for themselves. How to make a world where there are option-wealthy choices is another thing entirely.
12:33 pm
Yes, yes, yes. I could not agree MORE.
12:42 pm
Thank you for this, it’s really well said.
3:13 pm
Right on, Audacia!
9:39 pm
here, here! Great post.
1:01 am
Yup.
Here’s the thing I always try to remember: The most exploited I ever was by an employer was when I worked for Ticketmaster. And the most abusive job situation I ever had was when I worked for a progressive lesbian/gay community newspaper. Does that make the entertainment industry or the gay press inherently evil? (Okay, a case could be made for the entertainment industry…)
I do think that sex-work-positive folks don’t do our cause any favors by pretending that sex work isn’t really hellish for some of the people in it. But I also fail to see how continuing to make sex work illegal and stigmatized helps those people in any way.
In fact, I would argue that it makes their lives much worse, and makes it harder for them to get out of the business. It gives people a criminal record, makes it harder to seek help from the police, makes them vulnerable to abuse by the police, etc. Not to mention the dreaded “unexplained gaps in your resume.”
Okay. That went on much longer than I intended. Obviously a topic on which my feelings run high.
8:57 pm
I completely agree with Greta. I wish to legalize it because it will make it safer all the way around for those who service clients, and the public as a whole. Women should have that choice to use their bodies to make a good chunk of money and retire early, included with a health care program, etc. At the very least, there is a compelling state interest in my view via health care alone.
1:22 pm
People tend to look at these things as an entity, with a brain and the capacity to act, that can be punished for its deeds and banished from society.
That is usually what people seem to be saying right? Bad things happen in the sex industry so the sex industry should just.. go away. It is like we have an infected finger and our only way to deal with it is to shake our hand and tell it to fall off.
You are forced into a defensive stance where you end up defending something that is ultimately not a “thing” at all. Or worse, something that really is indefensible, inexcusable.
But I think that with your work you can make the sex industry, or sexuality in general actually, something that can be talked about and seen as a natural part of our lives and in that, I think, you do improve things for those who are “degraded”, albeit not in a way that is very visible from our point in time.
As to the arguments that were made for “legalisation”. Here in the Netherlands prostitution was legalised seven years ago. It did shuffle up “the market” but it didn’t really improve much for the workers so far. So don’t expect any miracles. (well it would be a miracle by its own rights wouldn’t it?)
7:12 pm
all with the international Women’s Day!