"Prostitution and Feminism?"
Please note that this excerpt, as with all other writing on this site, is copyrighted. That means that you can't use it in your term paper or research report without attribution. You can also check out my more recent work on a slightly different (but similar) topic, the unionization of the Lusty Ladies.
Prostitution and A New Feminist AgendaNo one movement or organization as it exists today seems to fully address and articulate the various factors and issues involved in prostitute's lives and in the existence of prostitution. I believe that because of this lack of comprehensive analysis, the feminist movement(s), including the prostitute's rights groups, should take on the issue of prostitution using a new, multi-faceted approach.
The first understanding which needs to be achieved is that prostitutes are not guilty of any sinful crimes, nor are they to be viewed with pity as the ultimate victims of patriarchy. Prostitutes need to be respected and treated as sisters in the true sense of the word, and need to be included in any movement regarding prostitution, or supported in their own movements. As I explained in the previous section, most womyn in a capitalist economy are forced to sell themselves in one way or another, and this truth can be used as a basic, unifying factor. Life experiences and world-views will inevitably be different between womyn who have engaged in sex-work and those who have not, but this difference should be viewed as a challenge, not as an obstacle ...
A new feminist agenda needs not only to support decriminalization (as many have done), but also to provide physical and financial support toward that end. Legalization should be avoided at all costs, as it permits a great deal of social control over prostitutes' lives and activities.
Feminist discourse regarding prostitution must include not only gender analysis and perspectives on the role of patriarchal control, but also analysis of class and ethnic factors as they relate to prostitute's lives. General studies and theories regarding prostitution are furthermore invalid unless they include both First World and Third World womyn's experiences and conditions. Although upper-middle class, Euro-American or European prostitutes do exist, they represent the minority, not the majority, of all the world's prostitutes. Class, ethnic, and Third World analysis should not be seen as secondary to gender analysis, but integral to it.
Issues of sexuality and repressed sexuality should be openly addressed and grappled with. Particularly in the United States, but also in many other areas since the spread of institutionalized Catholicism and Christianity, capitalism, industrialization, and colonialism, sex is viewed as a sinful, dirty act which should be not enjoyed, particularly by womyn. Monogamy, heterosexuality and nuclear families are presented not as a choice among many others, but as the only choice to make or to be outcast. "Good" womyn and wives are expected to take a passive and uninterested role in sexual relations, while "bad" womyn, such as prostitutes, are left to fulfill men's more "dirty" desires. Because sexuality is so repressed and inhibited, it takes on what I believe to be very unnatural forms ... We must further remember that it is the very essence of capitalism to deprive one of the things that one needs naturally in order to sell them, often in very unnatural ways. (Food and sex are two striking examples). Capitalism further creates things which we do not need, but begin to crave after they are relentlessly pushed at us as something which we should in fact desire and obtai
That prostitutes face many dangers - such as physical and sexual abuse, economic exploitation, drug or alcohol addiction, police harassment, sexually transmitted diseases, and now AIDS - cannot be denied. A new feminist agenda must address these issues intelligently and cautiously. It is important to remember, for instance, that the majority of prostitutes are not drug addicts, and that prostitutes in the United States do not have higher rates of HIV-positive infection than any other womyn with three or more sex-partners a year. (Leigh 1988) Since men transmit the AIDS-virus more easily than womyn, prostitutes are at more of an increasing risk to become HIV positive themselves than they are of passing it on. (Goldberg 1991) Rather than buy into the media hype regrading the dangers of prostitutes transmitting AIDS, we should focus on the dangers to prostitutes from infected men. In areas where AIDS infection among prostitutes are high, such as in Thailand, or where prostitution is used to support drug habits (as in certain inner-city areas in the United States), education is the key tool to be employed, not judgement or punishment.
Education, counseling and skills training should be made known and available to prostitutes just as they should be made known to any womon. The purpose here, I believe, should not be to attempt to convince prostitutes to leave their profession for something "better" and "less degrading," but simply to allow womyn to have the necessary resources to truly make a choice.
The double standard applied to prostitutes and johns should be incorporated into a larger discussion regarding men and womyn in general. Taken to its logical extent, men must also become engaged in this discussion and exploration. The very issue of "masculinity" and male privilege must be challenged not only by womyn but also by men themselves...
Lastly, a new feminist agenda must realize that it should not aim one way or another for the abolition of prostitution or sex-work, but rather for the abolition of a society which allows for the existence of inequality and oppression. The critique must focus on a system which forces womyn into occupations or acts they do not want to be engaged in, and who consequently must resort to "prostituting" themselves. Whether or not prostitution, in this case the actual sale of sexual services, would continue to exist after such a time is debatable. As such, we shortly find that this debate is quite futile as the future of prostitution as a career is not one we can predict with certainty, nor does predicting one way or another help to improve current inequalities and abuses faced by prostitutes.
Feminism in its truest sense is indeed the movement for liberation of all womyn. It is for this reason that I believe it has a particular obligation and "calling" to address the immediate and vital issues regarding prostitution and prostitutes' lives, in conjunction with a broader understanding of the ways in which most womyn, and ultimately all people, must make choices which enable them to survive in a rather damaged and dysfunctional world. Our precious time is indeed poorly spent on stressing each others moral superiorities and differences , and much better spent on healing through compassion, mutual respect, and genuine efforts toward correcting the grave injustices which plague our societies.
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