The Green Light District

At the Risk of Repeating Myself…

I feel like I’ve said this all before. Yet I seem to continue to encounter some of the same assertions, postulations, perspectives about sex work, specifically the decriminalization of prostitution, to which I still feel, and have felt in the past, compelled to respond.

In this case, as I mentioned in my recent post about human trafficking, there was more to which I wanted to respond in the two articles I referenced. That post of mine focused on the (erroneous) conflation of sex work and sex trafficking, and as I said then, in the interest of post length I didn’t want to get into as well the things in both articles with which I disagreed about the principles of prostitution and its decriminalization in general.

That I saved for this post.

Philosophically, in addition the fallacious perspective that equates prostitution and sex trafficking, the perspective offered in these two articles seems to find the current and continued criminalization of prostitution advisable and desirable. Michelle Brock, the author of both articles, asks in the second one,

“If you were a trafficker, would you be drawn to a country where men were criminalized for giving you business, or to a country where they felt free to roam?”

And that seems to me an interesting question. The first answer that occurs to me is that since trafficking of human beings is (appropriately) illegal, I don’t know whether the legal status of the places traffickers are going would seem of particular importance to them. If what they’re doing is illegal anyway, it doesn’t seem obvious to me that they would be seeking out legal enterprises or environments in which to operate. Dealers of illegal drugs in the United States, for example, don’t seem to have avoided bringing said products to the country despite their illegal status. If such drugs were decriminalized, I don’t feel sure that the same covert mechanisms and tactics for provision would still be necessary and that current dealers of illegal drugs would suddenly flock to the United States where they were “free to roam.”

And actually, it seems to me that the traffickers referred to in the question may prefer the former—being somewhere where the demand was criminalized. If they are doing something illegal to provide a service, why would they go somewhere to provide it where the practice is not criminalized? Essentially it seems this would eliminate or at least decrease the demand for their services. If the service were freely or easily accessible and legal, why would illegal means be necessary to further provide it? Such may in fact create an environment in which traffickers might not feel so comfortable operating.

The same article states,

” … I have read in most other government and NGO documents that many victims are afraid of telling police the truth, since they are threatened and by traffickers.”

That strikes me as truly ironic. I don’t doubt that it’s true (and find it tragic). I wonder why it doesn’t seem to occur within this context that when prostitution is criminalized, virtually ALL working whores, trafficked or not, feel exactly this way by the very law in regard to reporting crimes and telling the truth? If they do experience some kind of assault, especially on the job, the exact description cited above fits that which every sex worker (in an environment in which said work is criminalized) may face—sometimes afraid not of traffickers, but of the law and officials employed to uphold it. Incidentally, since decriminalizing prostitution certainly doesn’t mean decriminalizing human trafficking, nothing about the above would presumably change in the face of the decriminalization of prostitution. What would change, rather, is that the many working in the sex industry by choice would legally hold more recourse in reporting abusive or unlawful acts without (so much) fear for their own freedom or safety. In addition, law enforcement would be in a position to devote more attention to actual situations of abuse and coercion since the law would not call on them to identically pursue incidents of consensual sex work.

Going back to the first article,

“Paying to have sex with a prostituted woman/sex worker is inherently dehumanizing because it takes the wholeness out of the woman’s humanity.” [Emphasis theirs]

…What in the hell does that mean? I’m really not being a smart-ass here—I truly do not understand this. What exactly is the part that’s “dehumanizing”? The having sex? That would seem to be quite the assertion (though not unheard of, I guess). The being paid for it? Um, is most gainful employment dehumanizing, then? What about, for example, writing, which is something I have loved to do since I was seven and that I feel has been a significant part of my existence—and for which I have also been paid. Is that dehumanizing? How about professional psychologists? Are they “dehumanized” by being seen for their training and education when one buys their services, taking the “wholeness” out of their “humanity”? Feel free to insert virtually any profession you’d like to in the above statements, as I don’t see exactly what is differentiating one from another. Why is this profession somehow more “dehumanizing” than the other services we perform for money in a capitalistic social and economic system?

Moving on to practical matters (still in the first article):

“If you throw in some drugs, second-hand clothing, and the watchful eye of a pimp, you’ve got yourself a more realistic picture of what the majority have for a work environment.”

First, I really wonder how one claims to know that this represents a “majority.” But second, why, why, why does it not seem to occur to us that this may be in huge part because the industry is forced underground due to its illegal status? I really don’t understand why this does not seem more commonly recognized. Does it really seem like the above would need to or likely be the case in a non-criminalized industry?

Maybe an example would help this seem clearer. Let’s pretend that we decided to criminalize, say, soccer for some reason. Do you think soccer would remain just as it is now, with the same audiences, environments, and performing conditions? Does it seem that perhaps the aforementioned factors may be affected by its suddenly having lawfully punishable status? That viewing it, following it, participating in it would suddenly need to be done covertly, so that the methodology(ies) arranged to employ this may shift, take on a different feeling, be exploited in different ways? Seriously, ponder that. And if this were the case, does it seem obvious that this would be not because of soccer itself but because of its illegal status?

Then there is the line at which I just sigh:

“This means she [Pye Jakobsson] cannot speak on behalf of the sex trade industry, specifically when it comes to trafficking victims.”

I wonder why, then, Ms. Brock feels that she can? I wonder who exactly can speak for sex workers if not sex workers themselves? This is not the first time I’ve seen or heard such an assertion—you’re “an exception”; “most” sex workers are like this. How do the people purporting this know this (even more pointedly, know this better than sex workers themselves)? Why does it seem so commonplace and cavalier to blatantly disregard, particularly as “atypical,” sharings from sex workers who have chosen to work in the industry and who express their perspectives? At what point is it appropriate for those perspectives to be taken into consideration? Why have they seemed so consistently ignored? What constitutes a “valid” sex worker perspective worthy of attention? Perhaps most pointedly, why would someone who has not worked as a sex worker seem to feel so strongly about wanting to speak for them while ignoring expressions from those who have or do work as sex workers as they speak for themselves?

For the record, I don’t claim to speak for all sex workers, nor do I feel I have some magical understanding and knowledge of the majority of sex workers’ experiences or working environments or contexts. I frankly don’t know how virtually anyone feels like s/he knows this, especially in an area of work that tends, contemporarily, to be so covert. What I do feel is that, as I have said before, in a capitalistic environment, I see no justification for the arbitrary disallowance of sexual services to be recognized as among the myriad services legitimately offered and sold within the structures of that system. In addition, to purport to speak for the workers comprising an entire industry without necessarily even speaking personally to any of them, much less what may be construed a representative sample, seems inappropriate, or at the very least, subject to scrutiny, to me.

Love,
Emerald

“Everybody’s talking all this stuff about me, why don’t they just let me live?, I don’t need permission, make my own decisions, that’s my prerogative…”
-Britney Spears (originally by Bobby Brown) “My Prerogative”

Posted by Emerald | Filed under: Sex+ Government,Sex+ Society,Sex+ Work| 12 Comments