The locus of control: An essay on prostitution as exploitation

Our readings this week in the trade/human rights law class focused on human trafficking (slave labor, the sex trade industry, modern-day indentured servitude etc.)  And, if you're interested in finding out more about modern-day slavery, I've added a section of links to some really good articles, on the left-hand sidebar.  They provide good background information for this post.  Two of these articles we just read for class this week (The New Yorker article and The National Geographic article). 

 One of the articles we read, "Both Work and Violence: Prostitution and Human Rights", argues that "mutually exclusive frameworks for understanding prostitution --one that characterizes it as violence and one that treats it as work --dominate the current human rights debate" over prostitution.  The author argues that prostitution is both  (i.e. it's exploitative work) and should be treated from a human rights point of view the same way we treat sweatshop labor and other forms of super exploitative work: as a form of slave labor. 

I agree.  The crux of the matter is the illusion that economic necessity has no bearing at all on free choice.  That is a fallacy.  Except in some rare instances as I describe below, sex work is rarely a real choice, it's not liberating, it doesn't "empower" women.  Some pro-sex feminists have argued for the decriminalization of prostitution on the basis that it's a choice like anything else (e.g. Annie Sprinkle).  Others argue for the rights of prostitutes (or sex workers) as workers (Anne McClintock) which assumes that it's essentially the same as other forms of labor. But these approaches do not take into account the overwhelming force economics plays in a capitalist system.

I appreciate a sex-positive approach that tries to undo notions of sex as inherently "dirty" and "sinful" and I also appreciate trying to protect sex workers by legitimating the work in the hopes that we can regulate it and make it safer but I think that both approaches miss the point.  Under the global neo-liberal economic system in which women are at such a disadvantage, the overwhelming majority of prostitution is an exchange between economic unequals.  We have to look at the subject within it's own context and that context is the global capitalist system.  If it were possible for some deux-ex-machina to come along and remove the question from the world that surrounds it, those arguments might make more sense.  But the social sciences are not the physical sciences.  We cannot remove a particular social phenomena from its context and place it within a sterile environment for the purposes of study.  We have to look at social phenomena within it's own context that is the world around us.

Also, both of the above approaches argue that "prostitution is one of women's best economic choices".  It pays well.  And that's a good thing, they say.  But we have to ask why is it one of our best choices?  Why are our bodies the most valuable possession we have as women?  Getting more money isn't the end all and be all of liberation. It's a pseudo-liberation.  It is not full liberation if it preserves the underlying structure of inequality which exists under the global capitalist system we have today.  There's something inherently wrong with a system that makes women's bodies their most valuable possession.

It comes down to this: where is the locus of control?  Is it within the woman herself or within the capitalist system that makes sex-work a good economic choice for so many women around the world?  In a globalized neo-liberal economy very few people (any at all? considering that corporations are the new citizens?) retain the locus of control.  Much less for poor women.  This, then, is the problem, with arguing that prostitution is a choice.  Any choice made out of economic necessity is a false choice because the locus of control is not within the individual. 

This is not to say that I'm arguing that we should continue with the current system of criminalizing prostitutes themselves.  If a woman’s “best economic option” is prostitution, the problem is not with the women (prostitutes) it’s with the “filthy rotten system” that makes it so.   

To those who argue that prostitution should be legal, based on destigmatizing sex and getting women better pay, I have to say that I agree with both of those things, but accepting a system where so many poor women have to sell their bodies in order to survive is not the way to achieve either of those goals (a sex-positive society or economic security for women).  Until we have a more equitable economic system, the instances in which it could be fairly argued that prostitution is a true choice are going to be very, very tiny.  I don’t doubt it could happen.  But to the extent that it does in our world, I think it’s only in the upper classes (e.g. high-end call girls, Heidi Fliess etc.) who could be said to truly have a choice. I imagine someone who is otherwise economically well-off, definitely has other options but chooses a kind of sex-positive lifestyle choice purely out of personal preference.  Like I said, I think that’s very, very rare, but it is possible. 

Making those sorts of arguments about freedom of choice for women under a global capitalist system legitimates an oppressive economic system and paints poor women who have few other choices into a corner which tells them that this is the only thing (best thing) they can do and not only that it's liberatory for them.  That's offensive.  That's like arguing that farmworkers choose to be farmworkers and that people who work in sweatshops choose to work in sweatshops and that such work empowers them because they get paid more than they would otherwise would if they were unemployed.

Choice implies that a person has that locus of control.  The vast majority of prostitutes don’t have that.  Farmworkers don’t have that.  Sweatshop workers don’t have that.  (Unless they unionize.)   When we have an ideal (read: non-capitalist) world, then you can argue that women who have sex for money (which wouldn't make any sense in such a world anyway) do it as a choice and as a truly liberatory act.  Until then, no way.  Prostitution is exploitation not empowerment.

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For another aspect of the sex trade industry please READ THIS excellent post from Alley Rat: Whose money feeds the sex slave trade?

Comments

[Paul Wright]

I've been thinking lately about how women are objectified, and how often it's not obvious. I don't know of any "masculinist" movement, but I've read a bit from men's movements (mostly catholic or protestant). These mostly challenge men to be more responsible, and point out how we get programmed by all kinds of voices to evaluate women by their looks. But I was thinking about "empowerment" for men. Even in apparently asexual situations - a series of scientific talks for example - men may pay more attention to a woman than another man or to a woman they don't find attractive. I think empowerment would be the ability to be conscious of when attraction is biasing you where it shouldn't and be able to say "no" (or at least be equal). It's really hard work, because it's so subtle, unlike blatant sexual harassment. I'm not sure what empowerment for women means, but I think there are good and bad kinds. I like the kind that teaches women to tell men "you shall not say ----- to me, that is inappropriate because -----". But I don't like the kind that teaches women to use their looks to get what they want from men. I think that only makes things worse as it tempts men to think with their small head rather than their big head. All I'm saying is, when I experience these power games, there seems to be a lot going on that both men and women could change in their behavior (and my experience is low-level stuff, not things like employment and salaries, or physical abuse). Also, I frequently feel like women have the upper hand in some ways because of decades of writers teaching them how to be empowered. I was just wondering whether anyone has done the same for men. (And I don't mean David DeAngelo.)

[barb]

Well then I think we need to clarify the term "empowerment". That might turn into a whole 'nother post! But when I first read your comment I understood and agreed with what you were saying but questioned your use of the term "empowerment" to describe what you were talking about. Then I did a google search for the definition and found this, "Empowerment is a process that challenges our assumptions about the way things are and can be." (from here)

But I think it's more than that. It involves an inquiry into the location of that power and since that's traditionally been with men, white people of Western European descent, heterosexuals etc. to talk about empowering any member of any of those groups vis a vis their race, gender or sexuality would be redundant. They already have it. Actually that article mentioned above does get to this idea: "empowerment is a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives"

Unless you're talking about "empowering" men or white people or straight people to the realities of privilege but in that case it seems like the better word would be consciousness raising.

[barb]

Oh and I forgot to say also that understanding empowerment as regaining control would preclude any arguments that women could use their looks to gain advantages. That's not regaining control, that's manuevering within the system (in which women have less control) to one's own advantage. That's a temporary and illusionary "empowerment" at best.

[kate.d.]

Well then I think we need to clarify the term "empowerment". That might turn into a whole 'nother post!

indeed! and you should write it.

understanding empowerment as regaining control would preclude any arguments that women could use their looks to gain advantages. That's not regaining control, that's manuevering within the system (in which women have less control) to one's own advantage. That's a temporary and illusionary "empowerment" at best.

yes yes yes!! thank you. this is why "madonna as feminist icon" sends me into a fit of rage. sex as power is not real power, at least not within this society.

[Paul Wright]

I had a look at the article in JoE. They defined two kinds of power - fixed, zero-sum and changable, contagious - and preferred the latter. Generally, power was the capacity to implement what the individual defined as important. But this process happened in relationship and community. They described the interdependence of individual change and community change, and warned that sometimes we expect only low-power individuals to change. Finally, they point out that empowerment does not give power, but presents resources that a person may choose to use.
This view overlaps a lot with conflict resolution I think. That is, what limits capacity to implement in a community or individual are conflicting definitions of what is important, within the community or individual. Empowerment sounds like a way of helping people to straighten out the plumbing of their definitions so that the water will flow again. This is inextricable from consciousness-raising, since unexamined definitions of what is important often conflict and cannot be changed (until they are made examined).
I could go on, but I'll cut this short. My conclusion is that those of us wanting to "do power right" must risk our domination or even destruction by those who are unwiling to be vulnerable (who want a zero-sum fixed-power game). In fact, I think empowerment sometimes means relinquishing our choices, sometimes in subordination to a person or a system we oppose.

This is getting away from your original issue, which I think is about power and responsibility. That is, the johns have more power than the prostitutes they hire, so they should be made to take more responsibility (punishment). I can't give my thoughts about that, because I have to go back to reading about the ,a href="http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Stroop/">Stroop task.

[I got my conclusion from the chapters "Revolutionary subordination" and "Christ and power" in John Howard Yoder's "The Politics of Jesus". Basically, empowerment requires a number of parties to subordinate control to one another.]

[Paul Wright]

Just by way of further procrastination, that last comment should have linked to the Stroop task. Which I should be reading. And I'm not.

[Bitch]

Having been in the position to consider sex work as a way to make a living and having been poor most of my life and having lived among sex workers for 6 years, well I can't say that I am sympathetic to anything you've written.

e.g., the notion that we shouldn't trade our bodies for money is pretty funny, to me. do it every single day. trade my mind for money, etc.

but that's about all i'll bother to say. the last place anyone wants to go is poverty. because, in the end, no matter how enlightened a lefty thinks they are, they really still believe that poverty is all about the individual.

[barb]

But, see, I think that's fine if you felt you actually made that
choice freely of your own violation. I have no problem with that.
Heidi Fliess and all. That's totally fine. What I have a problem
with is that the vast majority of prostitution is a result of the
globalization of neo-liberal economic policies that force vast
numbers of poor women in the majority world into the sex trade. And
that's NOT a choice no matter how you look at it.

[Hugo]

Paul, I often blog about these issues at my place -- though the book will have to wait.

Barb, great summary of a vital issue, especially the problem of "choice".

[Older]

Y'know, I chose a "sex-positive" lifestyle long ago (back when it was uncommon) and raised my kids the same. But I've never been a prostitute. I say this not to disrespect prostitutes, but to point out that "sex-positive" is not the same as "sex worker."

[Bree]

"Any choice made out of economic necessity is a false choice because the locus of control is not within the individual."

I've been trying to articulate that for so long - thanks for putting it out there.

[Scott]

It seems like the author's problem with prostitution does not have to do with an inherent wrongness associated with prostitution, but the fact that most prostitutes would be in another field if they could afford to. In an ideal world, poverty would be nonexistent and the exploitation of that poverty by the unregulated sex traffic industry would also be gone.

But this is true in all professions, not just prostitution. Few would choose willingly to condemn oneself to die of black lung disease by becoming a coal miner, but it remains the only option for many people today to make enough money to survive.

But until that wonderful povertyless utopia is upon us, we will continue to have prostitution, just as we will continue to have coal mining. We should do to prostitution what we did to coal mining, which was to regulate it with safety standards and minimum wages. Now black lung disease is nowhere near as prevalent.

Prostitution is usually exploitative. But, so is most work. Some professions are just more exploitative than others.

[barb]

Good comment, Scott. It raises a couple of questions:
I think that "inherent wrongness" of prostitution is worth examining. Is it inherently wrong? If so, why?
And two, I absolutely agree that all work under a capitalist system is exploitative (or I would say alienating) and I think it is reasonable to argue that, if nothing else, regulations to make the "oldest profession" safer would be a good thing.
In sum, maybe another way to say it is that under a capitalist system, we're all prostitutes.
Thanks for the comment!

[stino]

a good book that's relevant to this topic is
a biography written by a former prostitute.
it's called "CallGirl" by Jeanette Angell

Basically it chronicled her life as a callgirl,
which she became out of economic necessity even
though she was white, middle class, and extremely
well educated (she held a P.h.D. and taught college).
It goes deeper into the philosophy of a woman who chooses to
put herself in that position and was quite interesting.

[Scaramouchex]

Love your ideas, you venture into some courageous thoughts here.

Here's what I think: fundamentally, prostitution is feminism.

I wrote a piece entitled, 'Pussy Control, or, Prostitution IS Feminism', and posted it on my blog....

http://iseekthegrail.blogspot.com/search?q=pussy+control

It's in very rough form, but I stand by all the (hard-won!) ideas.

Thanks for a very good read!