Archive for Sex+ Government
Open, Fearless, and Needed: Best Sex Writing 2012
That an anthology series called Best Sex Writing exists thrills me. Truly. There are few topics I feel the human species would benefit more from exploring, questioning, and opening to. The fact that those things all seem particularly lacking makes me even more excited to see a book—in this case, Best Sex Writing 2012, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and published by Cleis Press—devoted to inviting and displaying them in a multi-authored tapestry.
Between the pages of Best Sex Writing 2012 is rumination, information, and investigation of a society displaying, as I see it, a severe misguidedness around the book’s title subject. The fascinating exposition of “Sex, Lies, and Hush Money” by Katherine Spillar outlines for us (just in case anyone has forgotten) the corruption and hypocrisy that is alive and well in our political systems—largely resulting from, I would argue, our continued repression, distortion, and shame around sex.
I found Radley Balko’s “You Can Have Sex with Them; Just Don’t Photograph Them” painful to read (which is not a negative comment—it was one of the pieces I appreciated most in the book); my sense of wanting to do something to help put a stop to the literal insanity it described was activated from its first page. The seemingly small but important victory of seeing it recognized and reported on assuaged my distress a tiny bit. The suspense in the powerful, heartbreaking “An Unfortunate Discharge Early in My Naval Career” by Tim Elhajj was breathtaking to me, as was the reminder that “being [accused of being] a homosexual” in the United States military could be the basis of such suspense.
In “The Careless Language of Sexual Violence,” Roxanne Gay offers a profound elucidation I found so extraordinary I don’t know how to even sum it up here. It struck me deeply as something that needed to be said, and I’m grateful to Ms. Gay for saying it.
I had already read (and recommended here) Thomas Roche‘s “Men Who ‘Buy Sex’ Commit More Crimes: Newsweek, Trafficking, and the Lie of Fabricated Sex Studies.” As I said then, I found it incisive, comprehensive, and illuminating of the issues the piece was about and responding to. (A one-sentence case in point: “Trafficking continues because of corruption and poverty, not because there are no laws against it.”)
There are also what Rachel describes in her introduction as “more personal takes on sex [...] that aren’t about making a point so much as exploring what real-life sex is like in all its beauty, drama, and messiness.” To me, three of the most moving of this kind of piece were Joan Price‘s “Grief, Resilience, and My 66th Birthday Gift,” a striking slice of memoir interwoven with, as the title suggests, experiences of grief, vitality, love, and the beauty of connection—including with ourselves; Hugo Schwyzer‘s raw, insightful (and indeed rather hot in parts) “I Want You to Want Me,” which, while very personal, lays out a commentary on gender socialization I much appreciated; and “Losing the Meatpacking District: A Queer History of Leather Culture” by Abby Taller, which relays a compelling, poignant portrait of a time and place that is no longer.
All three of these pieces compelled me in a different way, enlisting empathy and softheartedness as they opened a part of themselves onto the page and paradoxically shone a light on universal levels of sexual—and human—experience.
The combination of this kind of personal memoir alongside the investigative exposition, irreverent humor, and incisive commentary also found in this book makes for a vastly varied volume of entertainment and thought provocation. The few things in the anthology that didn’t resonate with me did not decrease my overall appreciation of it; I indeed encountered perspectives that diverged from mine, and I see that as one of the values of a book like this. Certainly I was engaged and even energized by the eloquent, captivating articulations of perspectives in alignment with mine—but those that weren’t invited me to discern and articulate why, an opportunity which is not lost on me.
Ultimately, this book exemplifies something it seems to me we could use a lot more of: open, fearless discussion of sexuality in which we talk about it like we do so many other topics—with consideration, enthusiasm, respect, curiosity, interest, reverence, scrutiny, and maturity…rather than the degrees of pubescence and oppression I have found so woefully pervasive in our culture. Rachel asserts in her introduction that “the more we talk about the many ways sex moves us, the more we work toward a world where sexual shame, ignorance, homophobia, and violence are diminished.” I couldn’t agree more, and I thank the the editor, contributors, and publisher of Best Sex Writing 2012 for offering their time and attention to doing so.
Love,
Emerald
“Did you read the news today, they say the danger’s gone away, but I can see the fire’s still alight, burning into the night…this is the world we live in, and these are the names we’re given, stand up and let’s start showing just where our lives are going to…”
-Disturbed “Land of Confusion”
An Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh
March 3rd is International Sex Worker Rights Day. My post in honor of it is combined with a few other things I want to address and is in the form of an open letter to Rush Limbaugh.
Dear Mr. Limbaugh:
From what I have interpreted in the last week, it seems you do not like the idea of birth control being funded by health insurance companies. It further appears that you found it appropriate to speculate about the personal life of an individual who disagrees with you about that and spoke about it before members of Congress.
Do you have health insurance, Rush? Would it be safe to say that you feel you should be able to eat all the french fries you want and that your insurance should still pay for treatment for you were you to develop heart disease (I certainly do not wish this on you or anyone), and that if you did happen to experience a heart attack, insurance should pay for your medical care during and after that as well? If so, we are on the same page.
If not, then for whatever reason, we do appear to disagree. Not that I would describe the above situation as taxpayers being asked to satisfy the eating habits of radio personalities, but if we are going to have a system of health insurance, it seems appropriate to me that it should cover the health care needs of the people it insures—even if those health care needs seem influenced by the lifestyle choices the holders of it, citizens of a free and democratic republic, make.
You mentioned that you felt that Sandra Fluke, who spoke before a congressional forum about contraceptive coverage in relation to health insurance, was a “slut” and a “prostitute” because she she feels birth control pills should be covered by health insurance. “Slut,” of course, is a subjective term—since it seems to me it has no actual definition, it would be hard to claim it to be slanderous. Furthermore, some of us don’t see it as a denigrating label. You could call me a slut, for example, until you’re blue in the face, and it wouldn’t disquiet me in the least because I simply don’t perceive the word as an insult.
Similarly, I don’t see labeling someone a prostitute as an insult. In the case of that word, it does refer to an actual job, so the label could be incorrect. Claiming that I am a prostitute at this time, for example, would be incorrect, but it would hold about as much power to insult me as claiming I am an accountant. Both are erroneous, but I certainly don’t take offense to either.
Because we have ignorant, puritanical, and inappropriate laws in this country about it, however, prostitution is illegal. So stating that someone works as a prostitute is claiming that person does something illegal. Thus that, if not true, is slanderous. I wish Ms. Fluke all the best in introducing legal action against you as such should she choose to.
Probably you didn’t know that today, March 3rd, is International Sex Worker Rights Day. One of the things supporting that means to me is advocating for the decriminalization of prostitution so that one day what you said about Ms. Fluke would not be slanderous because 1) it wouldn’t be accusing someone of doing something illegal, and 2) the ignorance and judgment of collective society would have subsided so that what you said would not even be perceived as an insult.
Of course, the energy with which you said it would probably still make it an unsavory thing to say. It wasn’t the words but the judgmental and disrespectful energy with which it was said, the relatively unconscious place from which it came, that made it so unfortunate.
To be frank, it would seem to me that one who underwent what became a public challenge with substance addiction as you did would have developed more empathy both for the basic struggles of your fellow humans and also for those whose personal business is intruded upon by a culture that seems to find it okay to do so to those considered famous or public figures. Why that didn’t appear to happen, I don’t know, but it seems doubly sorrowful to me because I suspect it means you are suffering all the more in order to close your heart off to the natural development of empathy.
I don’t doubt that you struggle a lot. Anyone who treats others with the degree of vitriol and contempt I have observed in you almost certainly feels those things toward oneself, whether it is realized consciously or not. I wish you all the best with the struggles and challenges you experience. In truth, it is not actually hard for me to do so—I recognize that we are ultimately all one, and even when I feel enormous frustration with what I perceive to be the ignorance or unconsciousness someone displays, I am still aware that there is something much bigger than that.
The truth is, Rush, I suspect that someday you will perceive and feel true regret for the degree to which you’ve treated your fellow human beings with disrespect. It may be on your deathbed, perhaps before. Or, perhaps it will not happen at all. I just suspect it will. Remembering that reminds me of the compassion I feel for you, as true compassion (which I feel we all have the intrinsic capacity for, whether we recognize it or not) is compassion for everyone—it’s indivisible. I don’t want to intrude on your process, so I beg your pardon for saying that; it is not for me to speculate, really. It’s just something that has occurred to me as I have observed this situation.
I wish you all the best, and indeed I do plan to continue to have as much sex as I want, with however many partners as I want, as often as I want. That happens to not be the reason doctors have recommended birth control pills as part of my health care, but it is a choice I make just like many citizens who choose to eat french fries and still receive health care for heart and other diseases. As long as I work for or pay for health insurance, I expect it to cover my health care needs to the same degree it does the rest of the citizenry, regardless of what my employer finds appropriate.
Sincerely,
Emily McCay
aka Emerald
-LIVE “Transmit Your Love”
Then As Now
“But paradise, we found, is always frail; against man’s fear will always fail…”-From the narrated poem in the opening of Dangerous Beauty
The movie is Dangerous Beauty. The screenplay is adapted from the book The Honest Courtesan, a biography by Margaret Rosenthal of Veronica Franco, sixteenth-century Venetian writer/poet and courtesan. Ms. Franco lived, and thus the events in the movie and the time period in which they are contextualized occurred, 450 years ago—a time so far in the distant past it may seem archaic or hard to conceptualize in light of how different human society is now.
Except it’s not. Different, that is. As I finished watching Dangerous Beauty for the first time that day last year, I was struck by how much, on some level, we have not changed.
Now indeed, I will say first that there are things that have on some level shifted or rearranged such that our gender roles, for example, seem less strict, and of course I appreciate that. At this point and in this location on the earth, I have additional options as a woman to survive financially beyond marrying, becoming a nun, or working as a courtesan or prostitute. There are practical ways in which women in many parts of the world have far more opportunities for financial independence now than they did in sixteenth-century Venice. This of course calls for acknowledgement, and I duly extend it. My personal appreciation for such is profound, and to not acknowledge that would be disingenuous and inappropriate.
That withstanding, however, I would argue that throughout our collective civilization, deep-seated and unconscious perceptions and distortions still exist that relegate us in very fundamental ways to the same as we were then. We’re dressed up a little bit differently—but we’re the same. So much so that it’s staggering.
Marriage is still a contract (if in doubt, observe phenomena such as alimony and the state’s having anything to do with whom is “allowed” to marry), and though what we tend to associate with romantic love seems more of a reason to marry now than then, people still feel political, financial, or other reasons to get married. Marriage itself is still expected—monogamy is still the default, the standard for people’s lives in romantic relationship. Affairs still exist, and we still pretend not to acknowledge their prevalence or potential complexity as any invitation to examine the possibility that monogamy and marriage are perhaps not the ideal configurations for all individuals.
“The Church” still inserts itself into public affairs—sometimes via official governments—claiming an esoteric authority and the position to judge the general populace according to the standards it chooses to set. We are still compelled by war. Poverty, disease, populist unrest remain. There is still rampant evidence of nationalism, classism, sexism, and political manipulation. We are still encouraged to follow the rules, whatever they may be, and not question or flout them lest we interrupt the fragile illusion of whatever arbitrary perspective of “reality” our ego-based selves have created and think they feel comfortable with.
In Dangerous Beauty, when the plague begins to run rampant through Venice, the townspeople/collective society turn on what is considered the decadence and indulgence of the city, of which courtesans are perceived to be squarely in the middle. A following of religiously oriented purveyors develops and overtly blames “those who tempt us” with “fornication and carnal practices” for the “God”-inflicted downfall of the republic.
In response to a protest that the Inquisition has appeared in Venice, the doge (presiding figure of the republic at the time) responds, “Fifty-six thousand people are dead. The living want answers. They may be the wrong answers, but they want them just the same.”
To me this line virtually epitomizes that which has not changed in four and a half centuries. Throughout society there are examples of selective intervention in human rights abuses, astounding hypocrisy in application of laws, and scapegoating of cultures, people, entities in order to get “answers” that a part of us finds tolerable internally and/or in response to the cognitive dissonance in us.
What seems most concerning to me about this uncanny similarity to a time centuries ago is not just the clarity with which it seems that we are such a parallel reflection of it but that we do not seem to realize that. We truly think we are different. That things were so primitive then, that they were so inhibited, their roles so strictly defined. We think we are so advanced because we have skyscrapers and spaceships and smartphones. But we still use that technological capacity to create ways to destroy each other and ourselves—which tells me we are not.
It seems obvious to me that despite our apparent advances and some level of progress in social redresses, under the surface the same prejudices, constraints, ignorance, and fear that formed what was seen in sixteenth-century Venice is with us now and still forming the same things. The seemingly obvious things like racism, classism, xenophobia, sexism are outcrops, manifestations, of what has remained the same—which is our ignorance of ourselves. We have not awakened enough to be consistently aware of our true nature. We are not conscious of the unconditional love that is the deepest level of ourselves and the innate oneness of the universe.
Underlying this lack of awareness is the resistance and refusal to examine ourselves, to see that it is what is inside ourselves that may be tormenting us rather than projecting it onto a perceived external. Repression is one of the key ingredients in this phenomenon, and repression of a fundamental instinct—such as, say, the sexual one—is one of this phenomenon’s very bedrocks.
As in the movie, many of the above-described circumstances and the societal responses decrying and attacking them have to do with sex. All over the world, a conservative populace still behaves as though perceived “immorality” around sexuality is or will be the downfall of civilization. “The Church” (represented by fundamentalist perspectives of virtually all major religions) still bewails “fornication and carnal practices” and proclaims our collective suffering “punishment” for a culture steeped in “sin.” These perspectives seem to see open sexuality rather than denouncement, vilification, and repression as dangerous, sinful, and undesirable.
Why would this be? As depicted so beautifully in Dangerous Beauty, sexuality is one of the preeminent paths to love (not just romantic, but love in the universal sense), self-awareness, Divinity, connection, gratitude, openness, and beauty. Then as now, this aspect is so fundamental to us that it instills the kind of fear that has through the ages attracted measures of denouncement, repression, fear, violence, and desperation in the face of truly experiencing and interacting with it because it is so impossibly close to us, so unavoidably reflective of ourselves—we cannot not see ourselves if we are truly and openly acknowledging and examining the sexual impulse within us. It forces us to face ourselves, and to truly do that is something we have found, probably throughout our human existence, excruciatingly difficult to do. Sexuality, our instinctive drive for what it represents, for pleasure and beauty and openness and love, is so close that we must either surrender to it or do everything in our power to control it. Yes, there are measures in between, but the sexual impulse does not give up—it doesn’t have that capacity. No matter how we try to control it, sexuality just is. It’s how we be with it that is the opportunity.
Sexual repression appeared rampant at the time of Dangerous Beauty‘s depiction (and highly encouraged by social structures at that time). It appears rampant to me now (and highly encouraged, perhaps in superficially different ways, by social structures currently). Am I suggesting that a large part of the fear, hatred, and relentless harm we do each other around the world at this time is based, at least in part, on sexual repression?
I am.
At a key point in the film, Veronica Franco’s character states,
“I confess I find more ecstasy in passion than in prayer. Such passion is prayer. . . . I confess I hunger still to be filled and enflamed, to melt into the dream of us, beyond this troubled place—to where we are not even ourselves.”
Those lines gave me chills the first time I watched the movie, and they did again yesterday when I watched it most recently. I would certainly not say that everyone should agree with them and feel the same way—we are all unique and experience things as such. I do wish, though, truly and deeply, that we would see the offering in them and open to discover whatever truth resonates uniquely and authentically within each of us.
It is in that, it seems to me, that true progress lies.
Love,
Emerald
-Adam Lambert “Aftermath”
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”
Fallacy and Distinction
Recently on AKIMBO, the blog of the International Women’s Health Coalition, Audacia Ray posted about the June release of the 10th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report by the United States Department of State. I have not read completely the 373-page report but rather browsed it a bit, spot reading a few paragraphs on different pages. What I read I (not surprisingly) found heartbreaking.
There is no intention in me whatsoever to undermine, dismiss, or observe with any lack of appropriate reverence the horrific phenomenon of human trafficking. I do feel concern, however, about a conflation of human trafficking or sex trafficking specifically with sex work in general. As Audacia pointed out when she provided the link, the ugly phenomenon of human trafficking encompasses far more areas of industry than just sex work, and indeed, in my brief perusing of the report, much of what I saw related to other forms of industry. And yet, sex trafficking seems to be the area most associated with human trafficking to the public, and in some cases this emphasis seems to be used to argue for continued (or increased) criminalization of prostitution.
This is not to necessarily accuse the perspective that proposes this conflation of exploiting the tragedy of human trafficking, but it does seem important to me to provide another perspective(s). The current phenomenon of human trafficking seems to me related to a number of economic, social, psychological, evolutionary, and consciousness-related factors beyond the scope of this post, and a consideration of human trafficking or sex trafficking as synonymous with sex work seems to me severely misguided. I see no intrinsic connection, much less interchangeability, between the two.
I read two online articles recently that I interpreted as presenting fallacious assertions about sex work and human trafficking.* Both were at an anti-sex-trafficking website called Hope for the Sold. The first was published June 8 of this year and is a response to a video of Pye Jakobsson discussing sex worker rights and the Swedish model of criminalizing the patronization of sexual services. The second is a follow-up article in response to comments received on the first.
In the second referenced article, Michelle Brock of Hope for the Sold states,
This seems to me a possible subtle fallacy. The legalization of alcohol at the time of Prohibition did not seem to increase the demand for it. The demand was already there. Maxim claims prostitution as the world’s oldest profession. In this country and much of the world, capitalism is an official and strongly ingrained social system. Sexuality is intrinsic in us. Combined, the demand for sexual services does not seem to need much help.“Legalization grows the size of the sex industry, which includes a rise in demand for paid sex.”
Does it seem likely that an increase in the demand for manual labor has occurred because it is legal to work in that industry? For domestic work? Is that why we think human beings are trafficked for these purposes? Because domestic work and manual labor being legal are increasing the demand for it? To me that makes little sense. As with sex work, the demand seems to be already there and not to need any help. I see no basis for a supposition that sex work being legal increases a demand for it, or really that demand is or would be affected very much by legal status at all. Human trafficking seems to encompass numerous factors, contributors, and circumstances not exclusive to or even necessarily directly related to sex work or any of the particular industries in which it is occurring.
In the first article, Ms. Brock asserts,
“[Ms. Jakobsson] fails to see that prostitution and sex trafficking cannot be separated.”
Really? So does that mean manual labor and manual labor trafficking cannot be separated, and domestic work and domestic work trafficking cannot be separated? What will we do about that? Try to abolish a demand for manual labor and domestic work? Criminalize them? Criminalize the purchase of such services? I fail to see how “prostitution and sex trafficking” any more “cannot be separated” than other kinds of work from their respective trafficking occurrences.
Which brings me back to the heartbreaking point that there are many other areas and cases in which human beings are currently being trafficked besides sex work. The fixation on sex trafficking to the exclusion of other areas of trafficking is one of the things that signals that a bias against sex work itself may be in operation.
It does not seem productive to me to perceive an “us against them” circumstance between those who support decriminalization of prostitution and those who seek to eradicate human trafficking. There is nothing mutually exclusive about these positions; on the contrary, I don’t recall ever encountering or hearing of anyone who supports the decriminalization of prostitution not also unquestionably desiring the elimination of human trafficking.
What seems important to me is to present an alternative perspective(s) to any which may be focused on a hostility toward sex work itself and thus draw superficial, ignorant, or arbitrary connections between decriminalization and sex trafficking that may be more related to ingrained cultural perspectives than what is actually occurring. (I do not use “ignorant” there derogatorily but rather advisedly—ignorant of an understanding of consensual sex work, a category into which much of the population may fall—and not necessarily by fault of their own: there is little in mainstream society to illuminate this understanding for the general public.)
As I ponder how to close this post right now, what feels forthcoming is a sincere reiteration of respect and love for everyone, encompassing the heartbreak for the tragedy of human trafficking and the holding of unconditional love in this deep wish for the Awakening of all humanity.
Love,
Emerald
“Hey you, don’t tell me there’s no hope at all, together we stand, divided we fall…”
-Pink Floyd “Hey You”
International Sex Worker Rights Day
Today (March 3) is International Sex Worker Rights Day. I would like to observe the occasion here by listing and highlighting some things pertaining to sex work/sex workers’ rights lately that I find cool/uplifting/heartening/lovely. The t-shirt I am wearing in the picture, by the way, was produced by the fabulous and local-to-me organization HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive).
“I will, though, share a story.
When I first started my work 14 years ago, I shared with a Tantrika friend about what I was doing [prostitution, I have the impression] and why. I felt safe sharing as, heck..we were assisting at a Tantra workshop, she did “healing massage” and we were both supposedly doing our inner work. She blasted me like no one had before. I just kept breathing, knowing that we had to be together all weekend in this close environment, working together for the participants. Our “stuff” had no place there.
At first she wouldn’t look at me. I simply kept reminding myself that this had nothing to do with me, it was her stuff. I was safe, all was well, etc, etc.
The last day she came up to me and thanked me. During the course of the weekend she realized that her blast had come from her fear about doing the same work. That she had been getting intuitive flashes that it was her next step but she was afraid.”
Oh my. I don’t even know what to say about this except that it may be one of the coolest personal accounts I have ever read in the context of sex work.
And there is my list of beautiful celebrations I specifically honor on this International Sex Worker Rights Day. Best wishes, support, gratitude, and love to all current and former sex workers on this day of celebration of our universal rights amidst our professional vocations. (And of course best wishes, support, gratitude, and love to everyone everywhere as well. We are, after all, all One. :)) Love,Emerald “No more turning away from the coldness inside, just a world that we all must share, it’s not enough just to stand and stare, is it only a dream that there’ll be no more turning away?…”
-Pink Floyd “On the Turning Away”
Lighting a Red Candle
As I mentioned last year (though on MySpace at the time, as it was before this blog was launched), December 17 is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers as conceived and named by Annie Sprinkle and SWOP-USA in 2003. The red umbrella is an international symbol (history/origination here) of support for the rights of and protestation of violence and discrimination against sex workers.
An article by Dr. Sprinkle about the origination of the recognition of this day may be found here. It is a read I highly recommend.
SWOP-USA’s December 17 site contains a listing of events around the country and world to recognize the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. I don’t know of any organized gatherings in the geographical location where I am this year, so my own commemoration will be solo. I have procured a red candle (conveniently easy to do this time of year) that is currently lit and that I plan to have lit throughout the day in silent support for current and former sex workers, our rights as professionals and as individuals, and deep reverence and respect for those who experienced violence in the line of work in the last year and ever.
And reverence and respect for all.
Namaste.
Love,
Emerald
-Our Lady Peace “Innocent”
Our Continued Awakening
I have generally not commented much on abortion and reproductive rights on this blog. This is not because I don’t find the topic important (I have been a reproductive rights activist almost my entire adult life and have worked in that area professionally at times when I’ve had a day job) but rather because it is so commonly covered elsewhere (where sex worker rights and the advocacy of open sexual dialogue, understanding, and appreciation seem to me not nearly so much). However, reproductive rights are of course intrinsically linked to sexuality, and in response to two articles I have come across recently, I do feel like I would like to say something about the subject here.
I actually wrote the first part of this post a few weeks ago when I encountered the first article referenced above. An opinion column in the New York Times, it is entitled “Not All Abortions are Equal” and is written by Ross Douthat. (It may be that this article will only be available to NYTimes Select subscribers. I will do my best to quote the things from him to which I am responding directly in case that is the case.) I did not see the second article mentioned above, by Kate Harding on Salon.com, until today when I followed a link from Shanna Germain’s blog. So I will be going over the response in me to Mr. Douthat’s column first and following up with the relatedness I see in Ms. Harding’s.
The argument in Mr. Douthat’s article seems to be (and I did not understand all of it, which I will get to) that just because some abortions are sought and performed due to traumatic circumstances like rape or because a woman’s life or health is in danger if she continues a pregnancy does not mean that abortion should legally be a completely unrestricted procedure.
From the article:
”The argument for unregulated abortion rests on the idea that where there are exceptions, there cannot be a rule. Because rape and incest can lead to pregnancy, because abortion can save women’s lives, because babies can be born into suffering and certain death, there should be no restrictions on abortion whatsoever.
As a matter of moral philosophy, this makes a certain sense. Either a fetus has a claim to life or it doesn’t. The circumstances of its conception and the state of its health shouldn’t enter into the equation.
But the law is a not a philosophy seminar. It’s the place where morality meets custom, and compromise, and common sense. And it can take account of tragic situations without universalizing their lessons.”
This is probably the part of this article where most of the responses I lay out here come from.
Something about the arrangement here doesn’t resonate with me. Not all cases of rape (for example) are “equal,” either, but that doesn’t mean we nuance the law around it and say, “Well, if this person knew her/his assailant, it’s a little different so not quite as illegal,” or “Well, if she was out by herself at night, that’s a little different so the law changes.” (There may be social attitudes surrounding this that encapsulate such unconscionable perspectives, but thankfully they are not apparent in official laws at this time.) Rape is illegal because it appears to violate a basic human right. Abortion is legal because it appears to uphold one.
In neither case does it seem to me appropriate to begin qualifying law based on what we see from the outside as interesting or nuanced. To be sure, there are nuances. Of course there are. But while Mr. Douthat touts law as “place where morality meets custom, and compromise, and common sense,” I would offer that this seems erroneous. To me law seems basically the opposite. Law necessarily calls for guidelines that are not based on compromise (do we say, “Murder is illegal unless, well, it seems like I think it’s justified”? or “The speed limit is this — unless you find yourself justified to drive this particular speed to get where you’re going”?). The legal process does include some degree of recognizing nuance, and it generally takes place in the courts, e.g., juries of peers who consider such things. It is not written into law — if it were, the structure law purports to provide would contain a certain flimsiness that would render it far less credible and useful.
It strikes me that the philosophy surrounding the abortion and reproductive rights issue has sometimes seemed not particularly considerate of the fact that quite real, immediate impacts exist and occur regarding the individuals about whom we so fiercely debate. While we go on and on about rights and life and viability, a woman may be facing a pregnancy which she finds breathtakingly fearful, desolate, joyful, euphoric, crushingly uncertain, or any number of other things that those debating may not — because they are not pregnant or surrounded by the circumstances of that woman’s particular situation.
Regarding fetuses: Some people claim to feel a protectionism toward fetuses. I will admit I feel suspect of this; in some cases they may genuinely believe this is what their focus is on, but it does seem to me that the discussion is so fundamentally about male and female, sexuality, and autonomy that there is likely more at play than a simple concern about fetuses. In many instances, incidentally, I have observed the same people so concerned about fetuses seem rather un-concerned about babies once they are born. To feel concern about fetuses is one thing, but it seems to me it would carry over into a concern about babies as well, and frequently this has seemed to me not to be the case. Not once they are separate units themselves, out from under the protection of a woman’s body.
Which brings me right back to one of the main things it seems to me this controversy is about.
I’ve generally not adhered to comparisons when it comes to abortion. E.g., “It’s murder, taking a human life,” or “She’s just having a medical procedure done.” Pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth seem to me not particularly ripe for comparisons because they concern a unique process. There is simply nothing else like it. Thus to say either of these or related comparative things seems to me to be speaking of something in a way diluting of its inherent and unavoidable uniqueness.
In fact I think this uniqueness may be what has made the process such a target for controversy. On some level I think it is recognized in us that there is nothing else like it. There are also perspectives in us about it that stem from some basic things that may be largely unconscious and thus seemingly unknown to us. Combined, there is a tendency in us is to use things about which we know, about which we already have established conceptions, to fit the subject in question into/around these unconsciously-motivated feelings.
To me, denying a woman the choice to obtain abortion feels viscerally repugnant, eliciting a conscious seething, frothing, fury in me. The unconscious motivators for that may be numerous — a ferocious rebellion against male domination of female, against one person’s control over another person, against external control or oppression of sexuality…all this resonates with me. For others, there may be a similarly unconscious aversion to almost the opposite — female having autonomy, equal control of women with men over something, or perhaps something even further: In the case of pregnancy, something has happened to which both a female and a male contributed. In the case of abortion, the female may make an ultimate decision without the involvement or consent of the male part of it. It is not just equal say — it is a full-blown demonstration of female autonomy that may overrule the male part of the equation, ultimately rendering him without a voice about something with which he was inherently involved. A certain fundamental sexism is so ingrained in us societally that in the unconsiouses of some, this could feel searingly threatening in its unfamiliarity and disruption of a centuries-long collective identity.
In being presented with the argument that if a woman chooses to have sex, she must be willing to face the consequences of having a baby, I have heard statements along the lines of, “It’s just biology. It’s not fair, but biology isn’t fair.” Interesting to me that the above offering could be presented in the exact same language. What makes one more valid than the other?
Historically I have almost never felt oriented toward or resonant with separation on the basis of gender, sex, or biological characteristics in general as far as human potential and certainly rights. Thus I have rarely recognized a distinction in the perspectives or experiences of men and women in general, feeling oriented rather toward recognizing that everyone is an individual and one’s sex does not override basic human potential and uniqueness. The only area in which I can ever remember making any such distinction (barring biological characteristics of the physical body) is regarding pregnancy.
Biologically as far as we understand human life to have existed, it is simply the case that men do not become pregnant. As such, when a man has stated a preference for the disallowance or restriction of abortion, I have felt in me a visceral rebellion that has at times felt almost overwhelming.
It is not that I think men should have no perspective or voice about it. To deny such a thing seems outrageous to me. If a male wants to say he does not feel abortion should be allowed, I have no desire to squelch that voice. I simply recognize that it does not resonate with me.
For that perspective from that source to come to pass, that is, for it to be made a rule affecting females, feels unconscionable to me.
I assure readers I am making no claim whatsoever that all men are anti-choice, which in my experience has been obviously not the case, or that all females are pro-choice, which in my experience has been equally obviously not the case. I simply mention that because it is another nuance surrounding the issue that seems unique to pregnancy and therefore abortion.
To go back to Mr. Douthat’s article, the following are (parts of) the closing paragraphs:
“One reason there’s so much fierce argument about the latest of late-term abortions . . . is that Americans aren’t permitted to debate anything else. . . .
If abortion were returned to the democratic process, this landscape would change dramatically. Arguments about whether and how to restrict abortions in the second trimester — as many advanced democracies already do – would replace protests over the scope of third-trimester medical exemptions.
The result would be laws with more respect for human life, a culture less inflamed by a small number of tragic cases . . . .”
This is really an area where I do not understand what Mr. Douthat is saying.
“Less inflamed by a small number of tragic cases”? I wonder if he thinks that if the “landscape drastically changed” due to “the democratic process” that those of us frankly concerned about not only our personal lives but also the concept of the female population’s bodies being relegated to susceptible to state control as agents to produce babies will just say, “Oh, whew, we have much more to debate now that people aren’t paying attention so much to the ‘small number of tragic cases’ that have occurred in this area. I don’t think we need to worry quite as much about it in general now, do you?” What does this even mean? This is not the only area in which I felt genuine bafflement about what exactly Mr. Douthat was implying, arguing, or presenting. I am not sure exactly what he means by this statement, but I offer that for some abortion is not a philosophical concept to be debated “democratically” but an immediate life-altering issue, and even for those for whom it is not, for those who have the theoretical ability to get pregnant, it carries a more significant implication in that at some point that could be the case.
For men this will simply never (as long as the biological workings continue as they have since our understanding of human beginning) be the same consideration.
The second article I referenced at the beginning of this post is by Kate Harding and entitled “Voluntary Childlessness ‘Unnatural’ and ‘Evil.’”
This article speaks to reproductive rights being fundamentally about female autonomy and presents evidence of social perception on subjects beyond the realm of abortion. The author mentions the similarity she saw between the “vitriol” directed at Polly Vernon, a thirtysomething woman who proclaimed in the Guardian that she was choosing to not have children, and that which Harding has historically observed from the anti-choice faction, such as “‘terrifying’ letters and e-mails calling her ‘selfish … unnatural, evil’” which Vernon received.
It was when I came across and read this article today, which basically echoes much of what I have said above, that I felt drawn again to blog about this. Harding writes the following:
“When you’re talking about abortion, specifically, you can muddle that basic issue with questions about fetuses’ rights. But it becomes crystal clear when you take the fetus out of it: A woman says she doesn’t plan to have children and is thus taking measures to prevent unintended pregnancy indefinitely, and she gets the very same load of crap: She’s unnatural, evil, mentally ill.”
Basically, that offers an anecdotal summary of what I have referenced here that seems clear to me: Reproductive rights is about something much broader than abortion — and the resistance to abortion as a choice is too.
Here’s to our continued awakening, sexually and otherwise.
Love,
Emerald
“Every time I hear people say it’s never gonna change, I think about you, like it’s some kind of joke, some kind of game, girl I think about you…I think about you, eight years old, big blue eyes and a heart of gold, when I look at this world I think about you…”
-Collin Raye “I Think About You”
