How is it possible to be a feminist and support the sex industry?

[Molesworth]

I've just been reading this article from the guardian. Young girls are being sold to brothel keepers and made to take steroids so that they look older than they really are.

All my instincts say that the sex industry is just plain wrong. I know some feminists think it's OK (although obviously they wouldn't support practices like those described in the article). Are there any sex industry supporting feminists here? What's the rationale?

SGB,
I don't think that men who use prostitutes are necessarily arseholes or abusive but I do think they have a strange view of women, and that they do regard women as commodities. They are separating the woman's body from her mind; her body is what has become the commodity and her mind (opinions, choices, preferences) is irrelevant to him. THere are men who do this with women who are not prostitutes, but that doesn't make it ok. Its the total de-humanizing of a woman in that he can't see that she is just like him, except that she's a woman; and how would he like it if someone paid him a few pounds to stick their dick in whichever orifice of his they chose. He wouldn't like it at all, I'm sure, especially if he realised that because they were paying they suddenly had the right to do it, and he couldn't say no half-way through for fear of inciting their anger or because if he did he might not be able to pay his rent.

I think that society generally views women's bodies as commodities though (again,look at the beauty industry), so he may not think he's doing anything wrong.

meh. some of what you say makes sense sakura, but the whole 'ooh, women don't write like that' thing gets right on my nerves. i never quite got to grips with whole ecriture feminine blah either. that's not to say that there aren't broadly generic traits in writing style that have been culturally claimed as masc or fem, (and fashionable bandwagons to jump onto periodically) but to claim you can tell the sex of a person by ten lines of internet chat... you've got a 50% chance of being right or wrong, frankly.

i'm not saying misshm is a woman either lol, but i'm not claiming to know either way...

the 'what do you want your daughter to be' question is interesting though - coincidentally i was wondering the same thing earlier. i wonder if misshm or manda would like to share their mother or daughter's opinion of their choices?

well, there's been some mad, sweeping generalizations on this thread by Miss; so why don't we all just write what the hell we want and pretend that makes it real. It wasn't just the writing style as in the choice of sentence length and structure. It was the content as well and you can tell that kind of thing.
When I think of all the emotive subjects that are discussed on mumsnet and how much opinions differ (and lets be honest there's nothing that can rile a woman more than to be told that her choices make her a bad mother: breast/FF, WOHM/SAHM etc etc) rarely have I seen thehow can I put it distain that is prevalent in Miss's posts towards other posters. There have been namechanged prostitutes on here in the past and the topics were discussed with respect. There's a nasty element to Miss's posts that makes me think its a male poster. NOt because men are nasty, before someone says that, but because rarely have I seen women spit on another woman's opinion in quite the way Miss spits on Dittany's.

Clarify: if a "person" wrote a novel about how women enjoy being raped and are asking for it or somesuch, you 'd have more than a 50% chance of being right if you thought it was a man. So its not just the aggressive tone and style of MissHM's posts, but its that the (very) aggressive tone is being used to defend prostitution, something which many feminists believe is bad for women and that some men want to perpetuate. COuple those two things together and it makes me certain that it's not a woman.

This is a fascinating thread -- albeit one that feels quite dangerous to jump into, even given that I have read every post....

I agree with the posters who say they see it difficult to view sex work as fundamentally different from other work. In my mind at least, there are plenty of jobs that are just as degrading, mostly done by women, and offer worse pay. Wiping old people's bums in a care home, for example. It might be a "necessary" job by comparison with sex work, but I wouldn't want it to be me or my daughter, any more than I'd want either of us to become sex workers.

I also don't see how the moral distinction can be drawn between selling a body for sexual services (commodification, objectification etc) and selling a body or body part for other services (singer, model, actor, labourer, cleaner etc). I know they feel different to me, too but the act itself appears to be morally equivalent.

None of this is to deny that there aren't both strong-minded independent women escorts who are happy in their jobs and impoverished, coerced, drug-using women in great misery. But I don't think these are the only categories. Probably it's easier to think of a bell(e?) curve. The argument is then one about the skew of the curve, and whether a feminist can support the continued legality of the "happy" end when the other end is so "unhappy".

But those jobs you mentioned are not physically invasive, cannot cause pain or humiliation (I've wiped bums in an old people's home as a summer job, worked as a waitress) i.e the worker keeps their personal integrity to a far greater degree. With prostitution, you are not just buying a service (sex) but actually a body. Her body belongs to him.
To me it's fundamentally different. I also still have my personal reservations about women who say they've "chosen" this path, because that Belle de Jour woman had a father who used to get her to interact with the prostitutes he was paying for sex. Well, even an armchair psychologist can work out the connection between her father doing that and her becoming a prostitute.

I can assure you sakura that some women do decide to become prostitutes in their 50's and older
why not have a look around first before making assumptions that also goes for assuming that the prostitiues who post on here are men !
i know you have mentioned abut the aggressive tomes in the posts but maybe that is how she posts or maybe just maybe she is utterly fed up with the lot of you and your blinkered views !!
some of you(well maybe just one) sound and seem so resentful and imho come across ever so slightly as man haters

@Sakura at 02:57 - re-reading the post you point to (MissHM at 19:27) - sounds more like she's an academic to me. Plus, sorry, even if you've studied writing carefully, I hate that pigeonholing by gender. Did you ever try that internet tool for categorising your writing by gender? Amongst my friends both male and female it mostly achieved pretty laughable results, and certainly it categorized a lot of female geeks as writing in a stereotypically male way.

Sorry, one more reply to Sakura - I know I've cross-posted a bit, sorry. I also think that while MissHM's tone is aggressive in many posts, it's not so in all - she is replying to aggression, and wasn't the one to start it, if you look back. And I must say that the person who to me is being particularly dismissive and disdainful of both MissH's and MandaMM's opinions here is actually Dittany. She believes the discussion is being sidetracked and misled by trolls, hence her words, but still I am surprised that you can point the finger only at one side.

We're having some really interesting discussions here, both with MissHM/MandaMM and between other MNers. Let's not get hung up on issues of verification of identity, or tone arguments if we can possibly help it.

I initially thought that MissHoneyMoon was a man from her writing style. But I no longer think she is a man, as I said before I think she is for real. Obviously what I think is not proof, but Sakura I think you are wrong about MissHoneyMoon.

Sakura asks a central question, would anyone like their daughter to become a prostitute? But does the answer to that give us the right to close down prostitution for women like MissHoneyMoon, who do want to do it?

I am still trying to find out the answer about the legality of the flat-owners who own the premises where prostitution is being carried out. Are these owners "controlling for gain" i.e. are they carrying out an illegal activity? I have googled to try to find this and ended up on the prostitutescollective website. On that website the women are very angry, just like MissHoneyMoon is, with what they say is an alliance between "government feminists and Christian fundamentalists" who are trying to restrict their business. It is clear from that website, that they think that the "government feminists" are not listening to their views. So I can understand MissHoneyMoon's anger because she is arguing for her choice to be allowed.

It does seem that the emphasis seems to be on targetting the men who use prostitutes rather than targetting prostitution per se. If the goal is to stop the practise of prostitution, then I am not sure how effective that will really be. It seems to me it is a bit like trying to stop gambling by allowing all the casinos to remain open, and being allowed to open up new outlets anywhere, and then trying to prosecute any customers who try and enter. Wouldn't it be better to shut down all casinos as well?

In reponse to TSH, the legalization model is also problematic, as has been shown in the places where it's been tried. What has happened in those places is an increase in illegal and unregulatable street and escort prostitution because 'service providers' (i.e. pimps, gangs or women working on their own account) thereby avoid the costs and restrictions involved in setting up legal brothels.

The Prostitution Licencing Authority in Queensland has published reports monitoring the progress of the legislation there in achieving its aims. In 2003 they stated that the legislation has failed to discourage illegal prostitution and that the licenced industry "occupies only a miniscule portion of the wider industry" (www.pla.qld.gov.au/Resources/PLA/reportsPublications/annualReport/2003/documents/04_messageC hair.pdf). I quote this because these aren't the words of a feminist: they're the words of the head of an authority presiding over a legalized system who has no vested interest in criticizing the legalization model.

No model is perfect and no model is going to make prostitution completely safe or eliminate prostitution entirely while it remains a profitable enterprise and while the wider socio-economic factors exist which drive women (or men) into prostitution in the first place and then make it difficult for them to leave it.

Sakura, I was addressing two separate points in my post. You've answered the two together, but I think it's important to deal with them separately: one point is about how horrible it is to be a prostitute vs other jobs. A second point is about the extent to which prostitutes are doing something fundamentally different in selling their bodies compared to others who sell physical services. I wasn't claiming that being an actor, singer etc is horrible work.

Re how horrible, I'm not saying prostitution is nice work (or sex work more generally). But I think it's not uniquely unpleasant. You may have been happy wiping old people's bums, but lots of people would be humiliated and disgusted to have to do that. I chose that example because it requires physical intimacy, but there are plenty of other jobs that are notorious for being physically invasive, causing pain or humiliation, or loss of integrity. I know that prostitution is often at the extreme end for these things, but other jobs at least approach it in their awfulness. One example that others have mentioned is agricultural work: exhausting to the point of pain, appalling pay, routine humiliation of workers, loss of privacy and dignity (eg sharing a room, bathroom, toilet with a dozen co-workers) etc etc. I think the indignities that these workers suffer is at least comparable to the indignities that prostitutes suffer.

Re the difference between the use of bodies in prostitution and other physical work. I just can't see the clear distinction that you see. People stare at prostitutes for pleasure, and do the same with models. Prostitutes sell their bodies, not a service; singers sell their voice, not a service. Prostitutes fake orgasms for the paying public; so do actors. Prostitutes and masseurs sell their ability to give physical pleasure through their hands.

Finally, on the Belle de Jour thing. I think you're right about her, but I don't think that makes it impossible for any woman to say they've chosen this path and for that to be truly the case. One shame about this thread is that there's been a lot of argument that specific cases support or disprove general truths, and I think this is an example, I'm afraid.

I wanted to mention one other point about disability. It is definitely silly, and maybe disingenuous, to imply that people with disabilities can't hope to have sexual experiences (in or out of relationships). But it is also silly to ignore the fact that many people do find that their disability makes it particularly difficult to have sexual experiences.

If we ban prostitution and sex work, we are saying to someone with a disability who can't persuade someone else to go to bed with them, "tough, you'll have to do without". As a society, we make such choices about denying people the ability to buy pleasures all the time, but I think it's important to recognise that there are people who will lose out as the result of a ban.

Dittany: while sex involves the body (well, usually - I have known people who claim that their best sexual experiences take place in their minds without any physical contact but that it probably a completely different issue) it's not a bodily function in the same way as eating, sleeping or breathing. If you don't sleep or eat or breathe you will die, whereas if you don't have sex or an orgams you will not die but (if sex is important to you) you will be unhappy, same as you would be unhappy if music was important to you and for some reason you were forbidden to listen to or play music.
I don't think you are entirely down on sex but you do give the impression that you regard male sexual desire as something that needs to be strictly controlled, as something that is dangerous and which women don't like.

Sakura: low-paid work in care homes can be physically damaging and dangerous. If you are working in this kind of low-paid low status but essential job, your employers often cut corners re health and safety: back injuries from lifting patients without the proper training or equipment are pretty common. And there is also the possiblity that patients who have MH issues might attack the careworker. But, hey, wiping up shit, giving yourself a permanently disabling injury, being called a thief or racially abused by some poor old sod who's lost the remainder of his or her marbles, working 40 hours a week for slightly under the minimum wage, it's all better than selling sex because Society Respects You...

And prostitution is absolutely nothing to do with female sexual desire.

SGB, are you really claiming that prostitution is no more dangerous than care work?

Molesworth: I'm saying that jobs other than sex work can be physically dangerous and psychologically draining as well as exploitative. A sex worker who has chosen to work in the industry and who is earning a lot of money probably is better off, physically and mentally, than someone doing agency care work (or menial catering work/agricultural work) for very little money, working for one of the less reputable employment agencies who are not fussed about an employee's immigration status, for instance.

But very few sex workers earn a lot of money.

Some generate a lot of money but see very little of it.

"A sex worker who has chosen to work in the industry and who is earning a lot of money ..."

What about all the others?

A long term study (over 30 years) of a cohort of almost 2000 prostitutes in the Colorado Springs area found that the average age of death was 34. The leading cause of death was murder (19%) closely followed by drug ingestion (18%).

"The workplace homicide rate for prostitutes (204 per 100,000) is many times higher than that for women and men in the standard occupations that had the highest workplace homicide rates in the United States during the 1980s (4 per 100,000 for female liquor store workers and 29 per 100,000 for male taxicab drivers)" (Source: Potterat et al 2003)

The authors conclude that prostitution is the most dangerous work environment for women in the United States (and their findings are consistent with smaller-scale research carried out in other countries).

Sorry for throwing statistics around again, but let's not be in denial about the dangers women in prostitution face.

No one is denying that street prostitutes in particular are at serious risk. I would like to see the comparable figures for people in other illegal or marginalised occupations, though - what are the death rates per 100,000 for drug dealers? What, for that matter, are the death rates for trafficked people working illegally in other occupations?

I find this sort of discussion so depressing. The Belle de Jour/Happy Hooker myth is so appealing that peopel don't want to face the ralities of life for most sex workers. People fantasize about champagne and diamonds and suites at the Ritz, but for the vast majority it's turning tricks in a back alley or a sordid brothel.

SGB, I don't know. I should think that those occupations are also bloody risky. But you were making a comparison with care work, not drug dealing. If you are leading up to the suggestion that legalization would make prostitution safer, then yes, it does make it somewhat safer for women (or men) working in licenced brothels (although even for them the health and safety advice makes for pretty chilling reading: how many care workers need a health and safety factsheet on what to do after a sexual assault?), but evidence gathered from places where prostitution has been legalized shows that legalization has the effect of increasing, not decreasing, the illegal trade.