Excuse me for a moment while I rant. I doubt it’ll do much good, but it will make me feel better. Given the time I spend on this blog, I figure it owes me the occasional indulgence.
The recent Amnesty proposal to decriminalize sex work (covered in this past post) has generated a lot of column inches in the press and a lot of stupid generalizations. It’s has also frequently featured a phrase I absolutely despise – ‘selling their bodies’. Let me state clearly that the only time a news article should be discussing the selling of bodies is if the profession concerned is grave robbery. In any other situation it’s completely fucking obnoxious.
It’s strange that anti-sex workers insist on objectifying the people they profess to care about so much. It’s almost as if they care more about their personal beliefs and morality than the people they claim to be helping. Perhaps Cindy McCain now thinks John owns her body after having sex, but there’s no reason to inflict her screwed up reasoning on the rest of us.
As an aside, I suspect anyone using this phrase has some deep rooted issues around sex. It seems to stem from the same kind of thinking that considers sex as a reductive act that somehow devalues and ‘uses’ up women. In everything else in life practice makes you better, yet somehow something that gives great pleasure, and almost everyone does, is the exception. John Oliver touched on this mentality brilliantly in a recent show.
Anyone who talks about sex workers selling their bodies should have to explain their reasoning to someone like Mistress Natsukiss (below). Then they should spend an hour or two ‘enjoying’ their purchase, and see just how in charge of her body they feel. I’d like to think she could beat some sense into them, but that’s probably too optimistic.
I’ve featured Mistress Natsukiss in several previous posts, including here and here.
Hi paltego!
Nice rant!
“Selling their bodies,” I, also hate that stupid and erroneous phrase! Maybe I’d be selling my body if I was an egg donor! Otherwise, what sex workers sell is SERVICE, companionship, and a safe place for clients to explore their sexuality. That’s it! That’s all! (Well, I guess we also sell FUN and ENTERTAINMENT.)
This phrase needs to be retired pronto. And we should throw out “losing your virginity” while we’re at it.
Great post. I enjoy your rants, and encourage you to rant more often. xo.
Hi Miss Margo,
A good rant can definitely be therapeutic now and again. It’s a shame there’s so much raw material for them!
I actually had a paragraph on what sex workers actually sell in the original draft of the post, but it was rapidly turning into a mini-essay rather than a shouty rant, so it got cut. Certainly agree with what you’ve put there.
-paltego
From the Washington post: Sweden takes on Amnesty International in debate over legalizing prostitution.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/08/20/sweden-takes-on-amnesty-international-in-debate-over-legalizing-prostitution/
Not really too surprising that they’d take that attitude. Kind of silly that they’re claiming to invite Amnesty to study their model, when in fact Amnesty already has done that at length and obviously disagrees.
I think the best, or I guess I should say the worst article I’m seen on the Swedish model would be this one: http://titsandsass.com/the-bloody-state-gave-him-the-power-a-swedish-sex-workers-murder/
-paltego
“It’s almost as if they care more about their personal beliefs and
morality than the people they claim to be helping … ”
It makes my blood boil!
Of course they don’t give a damn about the female sex workers they
want under the bus today rather than tomorrow … It’s all about
power! The power to shame. The power to discriminate against. The
power to criminalise. The power to deny women their agency. The power
to control other women’s sexuality. And ultimately the power to
destroy other women … to destroy the competition!
Almost everything in life is about sex. Except sex itself. Sex is
about power; about power inequalities, about unstable power balances.
They really believe their whore phobia and hatred for prostitutes IS
morally superior; that that hatred makes ‘m morally superior.
And once you “self trafficked” yourself to the summit of moral
superiority … The last pitiful remnants of (inconvenient) reason go
out of the window.
And don’t forget there is a lot of money – grants, subsidies and other
tax dollars/euros – to be syphoned off here and ready to be stuffed
into private pockets. QUI BONO has always been a good question. FOLLOW
THE MONEY has always been good advice.
===
You are a male engineer and you work for the tech industrial complex.
Not hired for your beautiful blue eyes and your nice voice, I hope,
but for that thing between your ears: your biggest sex organ.
I’m a female aerospace technologist(rix) and I work for the (ultra
patriarchy of the) aerospace industrial complex. Not hired for my blue
eyes, my nice legs and my rather big tits, I hope, but for that thing
between my ears: my biggest sex organ.
Does that make us both whores? Like all other folk in
“intellectual”/non menial jobs? Naahhh! And does that make our
respective employers part of the pimp industrial complex? Nope!
As a student (TH in Hamburg, Germany) in the mid 80s I worked one or
two weekends a month as a call girl, escort and prostitute; after
discovering the hours and the rates were much more attractive than
what was offered by the beer tap industrial complex and the marginally
better rates offered by the office cleaning industrial complex.
Without a boyfriend I was never in danger of falling into the trap of
the pimp industrial complex. And I trafficked myself into Hamburg two
years before I discovered whoring 😉
From the 20 – 30 steady customers I retained – after careful screening
– I learnt a lot about (north German) men in general and johns in
particular: Most of ‘m quite OK and quite “normal’ as well. No freaks,
no sex fiends and no psycho’s. Just in (moderate) need of a listening
ear, a little friendliness, a little warmth and a little sex. Nothing
outlandish.
And after I stopped, I never had any psychological issues to deal
with, I never suffered mental break downs, my spine didn’t dissolve
into jelly and – horrible dictu – I never even contracted an STI or
STD during or after my life of vice. Almost forgot to mention I did
not get cancer and my hair did not fall out either.
There was no well subsidised rescue industrial complex operating to
safe me from myself and my waywardness and guide or force me back into
decent and honourable LOW PAID beer tapping and office cleaning.
In other words I survived quite well; like most (temporary) sex workers.
LET”S WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE IT THAT WAY AND TO KEEP IT THAT WAY!
===
Years ago I found this on the interweb (I lost the link, so forgive me
for copy-pasting the entire text):
Prostitution laundering … or sex-for-nonsex …
Prostitution is the voluntary exchange of anything sexual for anything
non-sexual.
Sex-for-money is too broad a definition. Not all prostitutes receive
money and not all prostitutes give sex. Before money was invented, a
prostitute might have received cattle, and even today she might
receive drugs or political favour. Instead of intercourse, she might
be hired to spank and humiliate a man or even just wear a negligee and
act like she enjoys it.
The definition of prostitution as the voluntary exchange of any sexual
activity for any non-sexual payment is the only definition that amply
covers all the colours in the prostitution spectrum. Once we realise
this, however, we have to face some uncomfortable truths.
(Having sex to have a baby is, of course, the notable exception. Sex
for the purpose of children is not pleasure or prostitution, but a
third thing we’ll call procreation.)
This sex-for-nonsex definition means that anyone who’s ever had sex
for anything except pleasure and babies is guilty of participating in
the beautiful symbiosis that is prostitution. A woman who has sex with
her partner not for pleasure but for emotional closeness or stability.
A man who provides intimate companionship to a woman not because he’s
attracted to her but because she is powerful or famous. A woman who
flirts with her professor for good grades. Any man or woman who sleeps
his/her way to the top.
Prostitution is less about the actions and more about the intentions.
If you sleep with someone for pleasure and then they give you
something (goods or services) you weren’t expecting, that is your good
fortune. If you sleep with someone because you want something from
them besides pleasure (or procreation), that is prostitution.
Because prostitution is (still) illegal in the majority of developed
countries, it is often laundered in various ways to turn the illegal
sex-for-nonsex exchange into a legal goods-and-services transaction.
Many unionised professional sex workers use the date method to launder
their prostitution. The john invites the sex worker to a dinner or a
party for an agreed upon fee, and anything that happens after that is
simply between consenting adults.
Non-unionised, freelance prostitutes are also quite fond of this
method. Sometimes the agreed upon fee is just the price of the dinner
or a movie.
Some non-unionised prostitutes take it even further to where the date
method becomes the girlfriend method and possibly even the wife
method. The wife- and girlfriend- methods are some of the most
effective ways to launder prostitution. Anything material a man buys
for or any favours he bestows on his wife or girlfriend will never be
called into question under prostitution laws. Similarly, any sexual
activity she grants him in payment for those goods or favours will be
mistaken for simple partnership or marital affection. The exchange has
been completely and thoroughly laundered.
Another popular method of prostitution laundering is the spa method.
In this method, the unionised sex workers gather under the shelter of
a “spa”, the customers pay a door fee for entrance, and then may tip
extra for sexual services. Non-unionised prostitutes also sometimes
use this method, usually amplifying it to the bar method or club
method. Like the spa method, the bar- or club- methods involve the
non-unionised prostitutes gathering under the shelter of a bar or
club, the customers paying a door fee for entrance, and then tipping
extra (usually in the form of drinks) to ensure sexual services.
There are many ways to launder prostitution, ladies!. How do you launder yours?
Food for thought, don’t you think?
Regards from Marga