I'd like to offer up props for Michele Tea's 'co-author' on Rent Girl, the person who did all the great artwork for the book, a local girl for me: Laurenn McCubbin.

I worry a bit about the inherent class bias here. I mean, who has the kind of internet access you need to have a blog? Why does Jane Vincent feel the need to point out that she's "educated" in her blog title? I feel like I've seen a lot of "I stripped my way through grad school!" type articles about sex work that make sweeping claims about the industry based on the experiences of its most privileged members. Or they admit their privilege, but they never do anything to give equal voice to women who have different experiences of sex work and who don't have the same access to an audience. And I suspect it's a lot easier to talk about how empowering it all is if you have other choices, if you don't have a pimp, if you're not working a street-corner in the middle of winter. I absolutely don't want to depict sex workers as demons or vicitms, and of course they, like everyone else, have agency. But I also don't want to justify the exploitation of a lot of poor women so that we can focus on an elite minority that has more access to the media.

I could be totally off base here. But that's my initial impression of this all.

Why is it when the IWF narrowly selects a data set of young, white, college educated, middle class women to prove there really is no gender wage gap such nonsensical reductions of the problem's global scope are quickly dismisssed by young feminists, but when pimps and the 'liberal' corporate newspapers they give millions fo dollars each year to use this same exact data set to suggest being prostituted really is healthy, safe, and pro-woman most young feminists eat that spoonful of shit up like it's chocolate frosting?

Wow. I read the Village Voice article, and I have to say I found it even more biased than I'd expected.

It makes sweeping claims like "Sex work is clearly thriving in New York, but nowadays it has a new face." But then it acknowledges that "Strega emphasizes that those who take pride in their work are likely to be young, college-educated, able-bodied, and probably white."

So does that mean that all the older, non-college-educated, disabled, non-white sex workers have gone away, or do we just not care about them?

ack--i see what you're saying sally. i just went over and read the piece. check this out:

Clearly, the image of the hooker as street worker has changed. These women aren't ashamed of what they're doing and are propelled by a sense of empowerment along with the paycheck.

...These are not people you'd ever know had sex for money unless someone told you. They look like any young, white, femme-y girl, dressed up for a night on the town.

yikes...

i'm all for exploring agency in sex work, but the lack of a class and race analysis in this piece is seriously problematic.

vanessa--what do you think?

I agree. The article pissed me off, big time. This whole, "I'm young, white, and college-educated" happy-hooker schtick seems to me to be remote from the experiences of most sex workers, especially those in the inner-cities.

I totally agree with what all of you are saying, and I should have addressed the classist and racist implications of the article... I just felt that linking to these sex workers' blogs would show some of our readers who have continuously ridiculed our posts on the subject that prosititutes and sex workers are not totally victimized or deviant.

I like what you had to say, Vanessa--the whole spirit of a lot of the stuff you linked to, Rent Girl in particular for me, because that's what I've read, is to point out that this is a complex issue; of course, the other commenters here are pointing that out, too. All is as it should be, I would think. Yes, remember that there are often (always?) racist and classist assumptions when people discuss sex work. Yes, remember that some (most?) sex workers don't have the advantages that the ones who publish blogs do. But also: Yes, remember that not all sex workers are victims in the traditional/easily explained sort of way. All of this, is true.

All of this, is true.

Right, but one truth, that young, good-looking, middle-class, educated white women sometimes enjoy sex work, gets a whole lot more press than other truths. And that reflects the fact that young, good-looking, middle-class educated white people in general have more of a voice in the media. This biases the way sex work is discussed in the media, at least by people who actually do it. You never hear from young, good-looking, middle-class, educated white sex workers who don't like it very much and would rather be doing something else, because middle-class women who aren't empowered by sex work don't do it. If you talked to women who have fewer other options, you would, I think, hear a somewhat different story. The structure of this discussion mirrors and reinforces the biases that already exist in our society. I haven't read Rent Girl, and it seems to represent an exception to that. But the emphasis on privileged women seems to be the general trend.

To me, this is symptomatic of a general trend among some feminists not to talk about issues of power. This kind of feminism is about self-expression. Sex work is good because (for the women who matter), it's a means to sexual self-expression. But a lot of people don't have the luxury of choosing a job based on whether it's a means to self-expression. That doesn't make them victims: it just makes them people choosing between a more-limited set of options. And those people need a bigger voice in this discussion.

So rather than "acknowledging complexity" or "recognizing bias," it'd be nice if feminists would focus on listening to the opinions of a wider range of sex workers.

Sally--I certainly don't disagree with you about listening to the opinions of a wider range of sex workers. Nor do I disagree that, at least in the media circles I travel in, I read more about 'priveleged' (if I may generalize for a moment) women doing sex work as just such an expression than I do about just about any other group of men or women doing sex work.

I wasn't complaining that people are calling out the sexism and racism in the article--still, I think in SOME media circles, people have a stereotype of sex work in mind that is just as bad a representation of sex work that we're talking about.

Despite the dearth of media (again, at least in what I read) about how harmful sex work can be, I think it's good for people to point out that it isn't always harmful in those ways (or, perhaps, in any ways).

I think everybody can hold both threads of thought in their heads.

It seems to me that despite the class and race bias, it is generally helpful to humanize sex workers and might make it harder, in the long run, to simply ignore streetwalkers. Or that's what this eternal optimist hopes.

I hope you're right, Amanda, but I'm skeptical. The VV article seems to replace a distinction between sex workers and "normal" women with a distinction between educated, middle class women, including educated, middle-class sex workers, and everyone else. It doesn't humanize streetwalkers; it just puts them on the wrong side of a new division.

I agree with Sally's views, and out of personal observation (I live 15 minutes outside of Detroit) I think that the article really discusses a fragment of sex workers who really don't need to be writing an article anyway. Perhaps these proud (middle to upper class) educated sex workers should arrange some sort of charity or agency to help those workers who are, as Sally said, abused horribly by their contolling pimps. I think common prostitutes are stripped of their personal agency and need help to get out of their situation. When the choice is to be beaten or worse if you refuse to have sex and give the pimp the money, can you really call that free agency?

If someone is doing sex work and is happy with their life, then that's certainly better than being unhappy. However, when their somewhat unique experience in any way glamorizes prostitution, or becomes the public face of it, (which often justifies use of prostitutes in much worse situations by johns), then there is something wrong. Some stats on the reality of prostitution are below. The whole page that I have linked to is extremely informative and I highly recommend it to everyone as a critical education tool on this subject. It really presents a well documented and thus accurate picture of prostitution.

"92% of women engaged in prostitution said they wanted to leave prostitution, but couldn't because they lack basic human services such as a home, job training, health care, counseling and treatment for drug or alcohol addiction. 130 people in prostitution were surveyed in San Francisco, California, as part of a study funded in part by Kaiser Permanente and the Prostitution and Research Education project of San Francisco Women's Centers, Inc. Respondents ranged in age from 12 to 61, with an average age of 28. Nearly 40% were white European/American, one-third were African American, and almost 20% were Latina. ("People in prostitution suffer from wartime trauma symptoms caused by acts of violence against them," Business Wire, 18 August 1998)

Girls involved in prostitution are increasingly getting younger, dropping from 14, to 13 and 12 years of age. Child prostitution in the United States began to escalate in the late 1980’s after new laws made it more difficult for officials to detain runaway children. (Lois Lee, founder of Children of the Night, Brad Knickerbocker, "Prostitution’s Pernicious Reach Grows in the US," Christian Science Monitor, 23 October 1996)

In Ohio, over the past seven years, the average age when a girl enters prostitution has decreased from 16 to 14. The demand for prostituted children is increasing, as men feel safer from AIDS with younger girls. 75 to 95% of all prostitutes were sexually abused as children. Many prostitutes are high school dropouts, come from poor and abusive homes, move from place to place and are alcoholics or drug addicts. (Debra Boyer, U. Washington, Susan Breault of the Paul & Lisa Program, "Danger for prostitutes increasing, most starting younger," Beacon Journal, 21 September 1997)

2,632 youths were reported missing, more than 60% of them are listed as endangered runaways, who often end up as prostitutes in Ohio in 1996. Attacks against prostitutes were increasing as of September 1997. (State Attorney General, "Danger for prostitutes increasing, most starting younger," Beacon Journal, 21 September 1997)

16.9 is the average age of entry into prostitution for girls. (Delancey Street Foundation, San Francisco, "The lost boys," Sarah McNaught, The Boston Phoenix, 23-30 October 1997)

http://www.catwinternational.org/factbook/usa2_prost.php

And for some more recent representations of how the world of prostitution usually works when one is not a white, middle-class, college-educated and college aged woman...(And such women are indeed the exception, as discussed and documented.)

"A Queens man has been charged with forcing two runaway girls, ages 13 and 15, into prostitution on the streets of Jamaica after beating and raping them, prosecutors said yesterday.

Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, said in a statement that the man, Barrington Heffenden, 30, of 114-22 158th Street in Jamaica, forced the two girls to have sex with scores of men."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/nyregion/17pimp.html

"She was just 14 when her torment unfolded on June 7. The girl went to a party in Brooklyn, where Averhart and some of his friends - including a teenage prostitute - were hanging out.

They lured her to a 1994 Ford van parked on an East Flatbush street, where Averhart's cohorts stood guard outside as he attacked her inside.

With music blasting in the van, Kris said, she prayed out loud for God to help her as she was raped and beaten for more than an hour.
...
But she's determined to have her say - and to watch ex-con Tyrell Averhart get sentenced to 12 years in prison for raping her and trying to force her into prostitution."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/krnewyork/20050120/lo_krnewyork/teenwillconfrontherattackerincourttoday

I'm always tempted to say everything is a spectrum, but with sex work, I think that is not really descriptive. I think it is more useful to say that sex work is two spectra. There are the women (and men) for whom it is at least superficially consensual, and those for whom it is compulsory, whether through the threat or use of force or just strong circumstantial pressure.

It makes no sense to talk about self-discovery and empowerment when speaking of a sixteen year old runaway supporting a meth habit. At one end of this spectrum are the dead and mangled and the cases that make me want to throw up, and at the other are the merely depressing and sad. These are compelled sex workers; they have not really chosen sex work at all. Patriarchy has imposed it on them.

Then, there's the other spectrum. At one end, women and some men do various kinds of sex work because they have other options, but not attractive ones. They can get out, and may -- but they are not happy where they are and it takes a toll. I don't deny these womens'agency, though I do criticize the circumstances that reduce their options. At the other end of this spectrum are the happy sex workers. When talking about these women, we are talking about choices (without, of course, ignoring the context).

I don't pretend to have all the answers, it just seemed to me that this is a way to analyze it.

smb and I have gone around sometimes about her... ahhh... delivery, but I think in this case her parallel with the IWF is sound.

I wonder what the blogs of the women described in this article would look like: :(

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/Raphael0102-2.htm

Has anyone here seen this documentary on HBO about street prostitutes?

ATLANTIC CITY HOOKERS: IT AIN'T E-Z BEING A HO.

I watched it a few months ago. It was very informative and I highly recommend it to others who are interested in learning the reality of prostitution. It has kind of a weird expose tone, but most of the film is the stories of the prostitutes lives as told by each of them. It was extremely moving.

"Prostitution is a job that promises quick cash, but the reality is danger, drugs, sexually transmitted diseases, hard lessons and lost hopes."

"People highlighted include: a mother of two who moved to Atlantic City after a pimp gave her his business card; a stripper-turned hooker who finds money "intoxicating"; a drug addict who once nearly sold her baby to bankroll a gambling habit; and a hooker who gave up a country-club lifestyle to descend into a life of drugs and tricks."

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/atlanticcityhookers/synopsis.html

This documentary is going to be shown again soon. I hope those of you who can will watch it.

Sun 2/6 11:00 PM HBO ZONE - EAST
Mon 2/7 02:00 AM HBO ZONE - WEST
Fri 2/11 11:00 PM HBO ZONE - EAST
Sat 2/12 02:00 AM HBO ZONE - WEST
Sun 2/20 03:00 AM HBO ZONE - EAST
Sun 2/20 06:00 AM HBO ZONE - WEST

I think articles like the VV one do misrepresent the overall picture of sex work. It's more like Belle de Jour than reality. My question though is this: if it's okay to be a sex worker, is it okay to be a john? How would you feel if your boyfriend purchased sex, even from a squeaky-clean Ph.d? to me, the whole business of selling sex promotes callous views toward sex and toward women. Why shouldn't men, like women, have to make the effort to please another person in order to get pleasure from that person's body? What happens to the mutuality of sex? In my view, sex work promotes male sexual selfishness,coldness, narcissism and sexism. It promotes the idea that men are entitled to sex whenever and however they want it. That's not a good idea to have running around in the culture.

i had huge problems with the way this vv article was written, and have problems with glamorizing the sex industry in general. i have two posts examining some of the reasons why (the second is in response to a talk by carol leigh):
http://blogsisters.blogspot.com/?/http://blogsisters.blogspot.com/2005/01/revamping-sex-worker-image.html
http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=leenawords&tab=weblogs&uid=159602279

oops, that first link should have been: http://blogsisters.blogspot.com/2005/01/revamping-sex-worker-image.html

Katha, those are interesting questions, but I have to say that I would mostly be pissed that he cheated if my boyfriend went to a prostitute. Especially if she were a well-off call girl like these women, I would mostly just be mad about the disrespect to *me*. If it were a streetwalker, well yeah, I'd think that there was something seriously wrong with the guy.

i interpreted katha's question differently than amanda. rather than it being a matter of the boyfriend cheating on me to purchase sex, maybe he had purchased sex in the past -- and the very matter that he considered sex (as in the female body) as something to be purchased would bother me. at a minimum, i would need to know that he respected that woman and would be ok with his own sister or aunt having a similar profession.

Amanda, let's see if we can avoid the 'cheating" aspect of the question. Let's say you discovered that -- before you, of course-- your bf had slept with prostitutes fairly often. Whenever he was between girlfriends, rather than masturbate or spend the evening trying to meet someone in a bar or read a book or take a cold shower, he would dial an escort service and have them send someone over. He got to have an orgasm in the female body orifice of his choice without all the messy emotional stuff like risking rejection, having to gratify a woman sexually, spend nonsexual time with her, know her real name, promise to call her. She got money.
Would you really not have a problem with that?
Let's say, to take care of leena's point, that he insists he DOES "respect" prostitutes and would not mind if his sister became one. (Because he is your bf he surely knows not to come out with blatantly double-standard remarks).

I've responded to some of the issues raised here in two different posts on my blog...

On sex work and danger: http://wakingvixen.blogspot.com/2005/01/seduction-narratives-and-dead-whores.html

On men, relationships and the purchase of sex: http://wakingvixen.blogspot.com/2005/01/boygirl-sexwork.html

I was a prostitute about two years ago now.
I was also a heroin addict. I'm also a young girl with dreams and hopes and a brain.
You can read some blogging about my story here :

http://heroinegirl.blogspot.com/2004/11/behind-soccer-club.html
in fact the more you read the more you will see that classism amoungst whores is a battle that has gone on for ages.

Both jane and audacia have done nothing but support my venture and educate myself on relearning sex and self-esteem.

Sometimes it's nice to read about sex done by a professional, when everything else is falling about. Those girls have made me reassess my approach to sex work and this means good things for all sex workers - and johns.

http://heroinegirl.blogspot.com/

i still don't understand why "sex-positive" is equated with embracing the *commodification* of the female body. this is not to say that all women involved in such transactions lack agency. especially in a capitalist society (which should be challenged in the first place, in my opinion), i feel it is entirely reasonable for rational, educated women to enter this work. i don't see anything "immoral" about what *they* are doing. indeed, certainly not immoral compared to the walmarts and nikes of the capitalist system who exploit other people.

however, understanding the individual rationale still does not make me understand why we should unquestioningly embrace an *industry* where the clientele is disproportionately male, and the providers disproportionately female. this inherently tells me that sex work is *not* work *just like any other*. any work where power dynamics are involved (workers are disproportionately women, or of color, or poor, etc., and consumers are disproportionately more privileged in terms of race, wealth, and inherent male privilege) must be critically examined. i think it's very important to hear all voices, including those of workers who feel empowered. however, the fact is that the choices of these workers impact the lives of women who are disempowered by this same work, or by the attitude that is cultivated and accepted in society in terms of male sexuality.

if we embrace the existence of this industry and don't challenge the way men approach sexuality, feeling they are entitled to "rent out" the female body, this interferes with the rights of women who do not wish to be commodified or objectified. it is absolutely sickening to me when i think about white boys going to "asian massage parlors," or going on "sex tourism" to places where women clearly have less power and status in society. such situations are expoitative and imperialistic, and even within the US, many women who do this work, especially immigrant women and women of color, find it extremely disempowering.

i personally would kick a guy's ass if he offered to pay me for a night of sweet "kama sutra" loving. i WOULD feel there is something *inherently* disrespectful about a guy looking at me and my body as something he can just toy with that way. it is offensive in terms of gender, race, and class- since he would probably have, or assume he had, more money that i would gladly take, and be flattered on top of it. of course, i would be offended with or without the money factor involved if he was exoticizing and objectifying me this way, but the money adds insult to injury given the reality that he has more power in society and is blatantly manifesting that through a monetary transaction.

we seriously need to re-evaluate how gender and sexuality are played out in this society. look at how porn is shaping out- it is getting more and more disrespectful- more "reality porn" that is focused on the "humiliation" of young, naive "bitches" that get tricked into riding in vans and the like. more exotification of women of color, more fetishes, more language that is violent towards women, more pleasure taken in how "desperate" the women are (even if they are not really desperate behind the scenes, the fact that people get off on the fantasy of their desperation is extremely disturbing). i wouldn't want my son growing up in a culture that teaches him he is entitled to look at women that way.

lastly, i do wonder- if a young woman, say 17, is very poor, desperate, abandoned, thinking of turning to prostitution- is it wrong to have a program that would help steer people like her away from prostitution and provide training and support to do other work? or do supporters of sex work think we might as well let her do sex work (since otherwise it would be implying something inherently demeaning about sex work as compared to anything else you might turn to out of economic necessity) and just provide her with safety and support resources?

Ok Guys, Enough of the age old war of the whores. It's never going to end, and people just wind up insulting each other. It's my contention that how ever poor you are, no matter where you live, you retain the right of agency for self preservation. In this, the right to contract for your personal sevices should be held as sacrosanct. No one should be able to remove that right from you or interfere with your ability or methods in your actions to secure what you may need for survival. Not the Church, not the state, we alone will decide our fate!

Come on ladies, this is fundamentally about freedom, and the right to do whatever you damn please with your body. You may think it is disgraceful, harmful, ugly, unseemly and not to be recommended. Higher education for women was thought of the same way at the turn of the last century. (Oh yes it was!) Fundamentally in all too many instances, it's again a decision about life and death.

Now let's chew on this red herring for a bit. (I know it's all too fascicle, right?): [From the Independent Institute, and NO I don't argee with all of this OR them. It's slightly right wing for my taste, but provocative just the same.]:

[http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1300]

In response to the last part of Leena's post - I would definitely support a program to steer a 17 year old woman away from sex work and give her the skills to find a different job. This is not (obviously) because I think sex work is an invalid choice, but because I don't think any 17 year knows herself well enough to do sex work in an emotionally and physically safe way.

The hourly rate that sex workers can command is and will ever be the lure of sex work. It is difficult to steer a woman who has done sex work to another job in which she'll make a mere fraction of what she made before. This is the true frustration around sex work - when we're not naked, women are worth much less than men, but naked we can command hourly fees comparable to what a lawyer makes per hour.

"It's my contention that how ever poor you are, no matter where you live, you retain the right of agency for self preservation. In this, the right to contract for your personal sevices should be held as sacrosanct. No one should be able to remove that right from you or interfere with your ability or methods in your actions to secure what you may need for survival. Not the Church, not the state, we alone will decide our fate!"

This is precisely the argument that was made in the 19th and early 20th century against all labor regulation: the 8-hour-day, the 40-hour-week, the minimum wage, safety regulation... you name it. If people are willing to work 80-hour weeks in unsafe factories for starvation wages, who are we to tell them they can't? It's denying their agency! And the problem with that argument, as with yours, is that it ignores the real constraints on agency. If your only choices are to take the unsafe, 80-hour-a-week job or to starve, almost everyone will take the awful job. We regulate (and provide a social safety net) because we realize that the need to eat and pay the rent means that people are not entirely empowered to make free choices in the labor market.

Maybe you want to go back to the world of the Jungle. There are certainly a lot of libertarians who do. But I don't think most people here will agree with you.

To me, the question is whether legalizing prostitution could give to prostitutes some of the protections that all other workers currently enjoy. I honestly don't know the answer to that. I think you could argue that, as personally problematic as some people may find sex work, it's better to treat it like any other kind of work than to put it in a special category. But to me, because I'm not a libertarian, arguing for legalizing sex work on libertarian grounds isn't going to cut it.

"This is the true frustration around sex work - when we're not naked, women are worth much less than men, but naked we can command hourly fees comparable to what a lawyer makes per hour."

See, this is what it comes down to for me. I suppose it's because most of the women I've known who have done sex work have been strippers, rather than prostitutes. And they did it because none of their skills could earn them anything like what they could command for allowing men to look at their naked bodies. They weren't crazy about the job, but neither were they kidnapped and kept locked up. They were caught up in a really crappy low-wage economy that doesn't pay a living wage, and sex work provided a way out.

Which I guess is why, for me, the sex work debate is totally bound up with other stuff about labor, the social safety net, global inequality... all sorts of stuff that isn't just about whether it's ok to sell sex. And that's why I think the focus on privileged grad student sex workers kind of distorts the discussion.

Thanks for the perceptive comments Sally. That indeed is the central argument. Now getting the state to regulate sex work like 'normal' work that's the crux here. In Amsterdam that may work, here we are too wrapped up in all this religious crap to ever even approach the problem rationally. But you're right, as a broader approach to the market in general, it's regressive and I'm against it. I'm talking about you as a personal agent, how this integrates into the higher realms of the economy as an employee, that's a different picture. There's plenty of jokes about it really. (OSHA, Union rules, etc...)

But Sally is right about the legal aruments. I think we need to address the liberty issue here though. MOST of the contraints on sex work are not job or labor laws, they are 'morals' laws. If sex work is not to be 'legalized' it needs to be 'decriminalized'. It's a waste of effort and funds to have the cops chasing after ADULT sex workers.

What you do about under age prostitution is another story. That's a world wide problem, and has been one for centuries. No one much takes that issue seriously, and yes, simple universal education for girls would go a long way to preventing such tragedies. So would better access to abortion AND birth control. So would better economic development and mico loans. But pretty soon you've created the UN once again, and we all know where that leads.

In any case no one I know works just 40 hrs a week. Fewer still have good health benefits, and where I live in Ga. (a 'right to work state', like more than Half the US), you can be fired at will for almost any reason. Saftey regulations are a joke, environmental laws are being flouted every day. Tell me again about all those swell labor laws now that the right of free association and the right to form a union has been all but criminalized by successive Repug. administrations? Give us this right, healthy and sound once again and I'll begin to rethink my position a bit. (I don't expect to see this in my lifetime BTW).

I will continue to insist that the freedoms we are willing to share with yes whores, criminals, and even prisoners is the true test of how healthy our democracy is. My liberty is not threatened by this. My morals are my own damn business and any whore will tell you that politicians are the last ones to be able to tell anyone how to lead a 'moral life'!

When the Swedish social-welfare system was in full swing it was hard to find a prostitute. Now that it is frayed, and there are more immigrants who are not doing so well economically, it is easier. Prostitution is one job where the demand follows the supply -- the more women there are willing to do sex work, the more customers there are. Personally I find the male attitudes involved in purchasing sex repulsive-- it is about "renting" a woman, as Leesa says. Behind it lies the notion that men should be able to have a woman whenever and however they like, that it is the woman's job to please them, not also their job to please her. I just don't see what is feminist about that, and I don't see what is feminist about cheering for an industry that has that rationale. It's one thing to say, hey this is the way I can make the most money per hour. It's quite another to say, this is great, and it's freedom and it's feminist.
Women justify EVERYTHING they do now as part of exercising their agency--getting breast implants, vaginal cosmetic surgery, etc. The more sexist it is, the more they claim they are doing it for themselves. Everyone has learned to speak the language of self-determination. But besides that frequently being self-delusion on the individual level, it leaves out the social dimension -- how society has structured that choice, and how that choice affects other people. I just don't see how the mainstreaming of male-fantasy-based commercial sex -- in sex work, in porn -- helps women.
As for a 17 year old not being ready, i think that argument shows how uncomfortable the poster is with her position when it gets concrete. Because by that age many teens have an idea about what they want to do and are getting started--they're taking summer jobs and volunteering in the areas that interest them (or are available) even though they may change their minds, as young people do. A 17 year old's market value in prostitution will never be higher, and no one has explained why sex work requires greater maturity than another field . If sex work is so great, and so profitable, and just another job, I think the logical pro-sex-work position is to suggest she start out with handjobs on weekends at the local massage parlor and see if she likes it.

whoa- first off, that post from independent.org is incredibly disturbing in what it implies about men and their animalistic need for a "sexual outlet". do men now have no agency over their sexuality? are they uncontrollable sex fiends that will rape if they can't purchase sex? and if we have accepted this biological or sociological phenomenon (who knows what the implication is), the solution is to simply cater to their urge for a female body to rent out and penetrate rather than examine the culture of masculine entitlement that goes into this phenomenon?

i completely support decriminalizing sex work. much more harm than good can be achieved from keeping it illegal, especially to women that are raped or want out of the work and need assistance from authorities to do so. but just because i don't support government regulation, that also does not mean i have to support a libertarian attitude about an industry that is as highly gendered and racialized as the sex industry is. we have to work on changing socio-economic and *gender* norms and attitudes in addition to examining labor and globalization. at least, i don't want to live in a society where "boys will be boys" and they will rape women if no affordable sex workers are around.

This is the true frustration around sex work - when we're not naked, women are worth much less than men, but naked we can command hourly fees comparable to what a lawyer makes per hour.

true true, which is why it's perfectly understandable that informed, educated women could want to do this work. but as katha points out, can that be a feminist act?

though not a perfect analogy, it helps to switch the axis of identity from gender to race and see if we would see things similarly. i think that an aspiring actor of south asian or arab descent could make a lot more money by taking on stereotypical comic/exoticizing roles, or terrorist roles, than those rare roles where he is actually three-dimensional and nuanced. i sincerely understand why so many actors choose the former route to success, and don't hold it morally against them. that's the system, and you have to pick some route to get ahead. but i definitely don't take pride in that method of dealing with the structure either, because the whole structure is bullshit and we should challenge the very foundation of it. while individuals have a right to deal with this racist, sexist, capitalist structure in any way they see best fit (and we all, sex workers or not, have to negotiate and compromise with these structures in different ways), i want to be careful about what we consider empowerment.

Rock on Leena and Katha. I couldn't have said it better myself.

I don't understand why, instead of fighting each other tooth and nail re: the question of legalization, feminists don't join together and do more concrete outreach to women victimized by (or at risk for being victimized by) the sex industry. We could be building shelters, we could be creating comprehensive job training and counseling centers. We could be making a real difference in the lives of disadvantaged women.

Instead, many feminists (& feminist orgs.) continue to ignore their plight & adopt the attitude that by doing nothing tangible to help, they are somehow being "supportive". How is looking the other way while women self-destruct supportive?

Women have been gutsy and shared their stories of pain and abuse, and I think it's high time we actually LISTENED to them & HELPED them. In so doing, we would further the fight for equality, because we would remove patriarchal control over women's bodies & lives.

I recently came across a website that highlights the pain & cruelty often involved in sex work. In case you're interested, it is:

http://www.viceland.com/issues/v11n3/htdocs/the_vice.php

(warning: this is a tough, non-sugar coated read by prostitute Kassandra Marin). Brace yourself...

Geez, You know I knew it would come to this some day. Facing down Katha Pollitt in some dark corner of the big city over something profoundly silly or simply wrong headed she wrote.

So mindful to be respectful of others at all time, let's unpack some of the baggage here. First and foremost it's a job, right?

Would we want better for our daughters? You bet. I still want better than that slacker skate boarder who dropped out of HS for her too, but I've got a limited amount of willingness to force her to conform to my choices. The safe bookish science nerd I like around the corner will be more attractive in his 30's perhaps. Or maybe never.

Still this is primarily about jobs, personal agency and the liberty to make your own choices in your life. Sometimes all that you are left with are bad or poor choices. Not every young girl will grow up perfectly desired by her family, comfortable in the rich cocoon of middle class existence. Even then this is an option that seemingly is somehow attractive to some (hello Heidi Fleiss). People make piss poor choices in life all the damn time. We over eat, as a nation we are the fattest folks on the planet. That one fact alone will sicken and kill more people in America this year than all the whores born since 1920.

If freedom means ANYTHING it means deciding for yourself, with whatever guidance you can muster or accept how to make your way in the world. Plumbers can and do slog literally through shit everyday to do their jobs. The guys I employ are happy to do so. They make more money than most folks I know, make their own hours, have more leisure time than most, and can afford a comfortable retirement. It's a dirty smelly, nasty job full of hard unpleasant work literally at and off the bottom of things. Would you have your daughter Marry a plumber let alone Be one? Think again. Larry the plumber will come home promptly at 7-8pm, he'll have some disposable income if he's at all diligent, and his job will never be outsourced to Bangalore. An engineer with an MS or a Ph.D. can not say the same.

And Please, can we stop all this BS about the commodification of the female body? The only thing wrong with this aspect of sex work is that this is where it is most honest. Ever been to a car show? They're selling the cars and the girls there too. Ditto for any software convention. Think about that for a moment people. Friggin' SOFTWARE somehow needs scantily clad babes to bring in the rubes to give vendors a chance to sell their wares. We fought this war and history and capitalism won. It is ever thus. Adverts going back centuries used the female form. It attracts attention. It works. 'Mainstream male fantasies', even the sick twisted pathetic kind are worth billions of dollars catering to, or have you never heard of the gaming industry? Without it the advertising industry would collapse tomorrow. The economy soon afterwards no doubt.

Is this exploitation? You bet. This is what that job thing means most of the time for most people living outside of the increasingly rarefied air of disappearing 'safe' jobs. It's all about the work. People can appreciate theories, but most need to eat first and find and keep some shelter for themselves and their family. Are there power differentials and overwhelmingly male bosses? Yeah, that's an apt description of 90% or better of most workplaces not owner operated, according to the Wall St. Journal.

This is a job not unlike many others, and according to my lights everyone engaged in honest labor is worthy of dignity, respect and fair compensation. I say this fundamentally comes down to the right to contract freely your services to another willing party. That to me is what the free exercise of liberty is all about.

[No that's not my real email}

A short note on self determination. When anyone tells you that she's doing 'X' or 'y' as something to better herself or improve her lot in life, or merely just to 'get by', it's usually best to take it at face value. Economists & Social Scientists have a very hard time modeling such behavior otherwise. We are not gods, we might not know what should be best for all of everyone's children.

And you want to know from self delusions? We had an election on that question. Delusion and fantasy won, as usual. More people like it that way. There's plenty of essays presently being penned on the topic. See Harper's and the NYRB among others.

vj,

you didn't really address the question i asked in assuming that it's just "a job." sex work, in my opinion, cannot be compared to the work of a plumber. are most plumbers of one historically marginalized identity with less power and privilege in society, while most people seeking their services are of a racial/gender identity that have historically dominated them? no. in part, from an earlier comment, i wrote:

"understanding the individual rationale [of sex workers who have have other options and choose sex work] still does not make me understand why we should unquestioningly embrace an *industry* where the clientele is disproportionately male, and the providers disproportionately female. this inherently tells me that sex work is *not* work *just like any other*. any work where power dynamics are involved (workers are disproportionately women, or of color, or poor, etc., and consumers are disproportionately more privileged in terms of race, wealth, and inherent male privilege) must be critically examined."

yes, sex workers deserve health care, compensation, dignity, etc. but your libertarian-fundamentalist reduction of any criticism of the industry as unduly moralistic will detract from investigating the true harms that result to many women, mostly immigrant and of color, from its existence. let's not, for the sake of validating the privileged, white, few in the industry who do have agency (which for chrissake, i haven't seen anyone refuting), deny an honest exploration of the many who do not. let's also not simply accept for a given that men will always have more money, so women should cater to what they want to get a piece of it.

and why stop the "bs" about commodification? yes, the examples you gave also are commodification, and i have problems with them too. moreover, i have a problem with saying it's perfectly fine for white guys to go on sex tourism in developing countries, all in the name of contracts. people have different bargaining power. let's fix that before pretending this is a matter of freedom.

paper on sex tourism- http://sincronia.cucsh.udg.mx/bender.htm

really elucidates how sex work is inextricably linked with unequal distributions of power.

I don't like Sex tourism for the same reasons I gave. Most of the kids involved are just that, kids. In their situations they have very little agency, and many indeed are being cruely exploited and sold without their consent. I would flat out ban all such 'sex tourism' universally. I'd do this the way the Canadian's have. If you exploit a child or use them for sex in a manner that would be illegal at home, well the law can follow you and should they desire to, prosecute you on the same standards you would find in your native country. Still this will not end the exploitation of girls and boys in many lands, it will just sort of shift it a bit. Millions of child laborers work in degrading and highly dangerous environments the world over. We really need to remember that. If you call for the law to prosecute one condition, you should see the much larger problem in the same context.

I do not unquestioningly 'embrace' any industry, I just want people to live and let live. And yes, in the comfortable middle class household of my youth plumbers definitely had a stigmatized and marginalized identity. In a different age so did most musicians, artists and civil service workers. We are slightly better about this now, right? And in a different age courtesans had a much different and more powerful identity in some European societies.

Again, Most industry is male dominated. The 'Boom boom room' was real at Smith Barney. Female staff brokers were as degraded and humiliated as any sex worker might be on a regular if not daily basis. By clients and very well compensated lawyers and MBA's as a matter of fact, [See: 'Tales from the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street'].

Are women harmed by their jobs? Why yes, they are. Men too. Are children exploited? Yep, horribly so, world wide and each of us have commodities in our homes made by such desperate tykes. The difference is that we feel and hear about it more when it's about sex. That's fine, it's human nature. But I continue to believe that this is an argument about the nature of work, all work. Humanizing the tasks of everyday living and making a living I've got no issue with. But that's something that would take a political movement considerably broader and more complicated than anyone here might be willing to endure. Still eliminating the commodification of women would take longer still, because at the bottom it's all about the commodification of People, and that's what capitalism is all about.

the difference between the sex industry and most other industries is this: in other industries, yes, under capitalism, there is always the danger and the reality of exploitation. but most industries do not *inherently* rely upon workers being of one particular identity (and by identity, i mean race or gender) to provide services to people of another, which has historically had more power. yes, in big companies, men frequently harass and exploit women, and white people frequently discriminate against or harass people of color, and straight people harass gay people, but that is not *functionally* required for the industry to exist and thrive. in sex work, the workers demanded are disproportionately female, and even when they are male, they are catering to other men. the problem about the sex industry largely involves, but goes *beyond capitalism* and the labor exploitation that occurs therein. it is about our society's construction of gender and sexuality. it is about male sexual entitlement and dominion over female sexuality. it is about the fact that white men control how our portrayals and understandings of gender and sexuality should be shaped up, and sex workers have to cater to these ideas of how *women* should be in order to get the white men's money. it is about the fact that demands within the sex industry are getting more and more extreme with respect to "humiliation porn" and fetishes for women that are particularly disenfranchised in society. and though we should bring attention to exploitation that occurs in all industries, the exploitation here is particularly harmful because the orgasms mask oppression and too easily form into a nice, glamorized, e! true hollywood story.

i think your solution of simply shutting down sex tourism is unrealistic. sex tourism is outsourcing, in a way. men can get cheap exotic goods abroad. and it helps the economies of developing countries. wider *social* changes will need to be made in men's attitudes re: women being commodities to keep them from exploiting women, because the governments aren't going to enforce shit about all the "foreign direct investment" they're getting.

lastly, i modify the question i asked earlier. suppose a 22-year-old latina woman in san francisco is very poor, desperate, abandoned, thinking of turning to prostitution- is it wrong to have a program that would help steer people like her away from prostitution and provide training and support to do other work? or does this wrongly imply something inherently demeaning about sex work as compared to anything else you might turn to out of economic necessity?

all right, i'm commented out. i'll keep reading but i'm already getting redundant and probably won't have much else to add. by the way, i mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone here, and i'm sorry if it comes across that way. i'm sincerely attempting to understand all perspectives, though i have some very strong ones of my own.

I appreciate your comments Leena. I know you must feel strongly about this issue. I'm trying not to insult anyone here, but I know many do not like hearing what I've got to say. And I can agree with much of you've written, I will concede that it's a specialized industry as you described. Just like the Army, Air Force and Marines are. All are also overwhelmingly male and dedicated to a limited set of desires from an almost universally white male moneyed elite. Again I see the nature of the exploitation as part and parcel of the job, not who is exploiting who at which moment in the transaction. Boys were the preferred love objects for most of antiquity in many countries. It's not the particular gender that makes the power imbalance seem uncomfortable for most, it's the very fact that humans are exploited to suit anothers desire. But we've fought that battle and lost, capitalism won out. It's largely a dead issue for most, and a useless academic exercise for the few who bother to study such things.

Training in economics would have you ask directly, who is being harmed and how by this activity? How does this manifest itself? For most adults in many western nations, this is hard to quantify, but it is certainly not very large in terms of lives Directly lost.

Like you I am concerned about conditions abroad. I continue to insist that more children are killed each year laboring in heavy and dangerous industries Besides sex work, but they just never make the papers. The UN reports on their numbers and the truly staggering toll, but it is our imposition of western values that will focus on the sex first. I see the problem as a problem of work, the working world and how we can best accommodate ourselves to it.

I agree it would be hard to completely stop sex tourism, but prosecute more of the clients from western nations, and we could at least affect the market to a significant degree, which is no small matter. Slavery was slowly abolished in the English world (outside the US) in such a manner before the Civil War.

Of course I've got no problems about better education for anyone who may need or desire it. I think that's the answer or at least a start on many, all too many social problems. Still, we have few ways of identifying and 'targeting' troubled teens and youth who might turn to hustling. They need to be willing to listen, and perhaps even desperate enough to also. It is in our interest to try and remove the attractiveness of violent criminal behavior in all members of society, especially when they are young and impressionable. But if that hypothetical young Latina woman wants to try and add to her meager pay packet from the local sweat shop by turning a few tricks, again this does not bother me. I trust her to know what is best for her, and what might fit into her life given her circumstances at the moment. You've got a program that might subsidize her pay because she's a wonderful mom, a thoughtful friend, or a great cook&welder, that's fine, but really unusual.

And yes, I deplore the 'recent' return(?) of humiliation porn. I don't like it, and I don't buy it. And men's attitudes towards women are changing all the time. The changes are just not in the nature many would seek nor quick enough to notice in many a lifetime. This is the unfortunate nature of wholesale social change. Work rules, regulations and expectations have actually changed at a much more rapid rate by some calculations.

ok, just to make one last point and clarification: in my thinking, it's not just about capitalism. capitalism and patriarchy work alongside each other and intersect in sex work. in the sex industry, it is not just an issue of some people controlling resources and exploiting others, but an issue of men appropriating female sexuality. it seems you (vj) are suggesting that the problem in sex work is *just* about capitalism. do you think patriarchy is obsolete as a system that exists independently from capitalism, or do you see it as something that has always been merely a by-product or subsect of capitalism?

i agree that many types of labor exploitation do not get exposed enough, and that is indeed due to capitalism: the mighty political influence and interests of multi-national corporations as well as the desperation of governments of developing countries, allowing the diminishing of trade barriers and regulations. international law must address those issues, and everybody should take the responsibility to speak out about them to put pressure on the respective governments. but sex tourism is different (though certainly not WORSE; no one was making that assertion, but rather, we are focusing on sex work since that was the topic of the article)- for the most part, it is individual elite men who are socialized with certain values about sexuality, not corporations systematically trying to scour cheap labor. in that regard, it is men's attitudes about women as commodities that need to change. i would want our society to create programs dedicated to changing that socialized masculine conception of sexuality, acknowledging that it exists independently from capitalism (but is mututally facilitated by it). but if these programs succeeded and most men did not feel it appropriate to approach women and their bodies in a transactional manner, then it would conflict with the interests of those privileged sex workers who want the industry to thrive so they can supply the labor for their own livelihood. public perceptions involve a struggle for recognition and redistribution: in this struggle, i just don't know if it's possible for everyone to "live and let live."

I just want to clarify something I said way back up there about Audacia's writing that a 17 year old was too young to decide to do sex work or do it safely and that she, Audacia, would support programs to steer young girls away. My point was that this was a dodge: if you really believe sex work is a good career choice, you might say this teen was too young to actually work, but not too young to start testing the waters, learning the ropes, as young people often do when they are interested in a field. Logically, you should support ways in which teens could safely explore prostitution, not be discouraged from it. 17 year olds are too young to be doctors, but we think it's great when they volunteer in a hospital, or work summers in a lab. So, in the same way, you should support "programs" that would introduce young girls to sex work in a safe way -- perhaps they could start with just watching, or giving handjobs, or folding towels in a brothel after school? if not, why not? Why shouldn't there be sex-work classes at vocational schools? One poster compared prostitution to plumbing, as equivalent smelly despised professions . Actually, plumbing is not at all despised: it is highly skilled, with a long apprenticeship and a rather racist union that is hard to get into;it's essential to the functioning of our houses and to public health. Plumbing is one of the many great working-class jobs that white men--not dwontrodden minorities, much less women-- have a lock on. Upper-class twits may look down on it, as they look down on all manual labor--it's not like they want their kids to be bus drivers either. But our society could not exist for two days without plumbers, and that is not at all true of sex work. Most plumbers are proud to have their sons follow them into the profession, and teach them bits of the work as they are growing up. So why would it be different for a prostitute mother to bring her daughter, or son, into the business?
I'm trying to suggest that some of the pro-prostitution posters don't really believe that prostitution is just another capitalist option, just a job. The fact that they so quickly admit young girls should be kept away, and shown other paths, demonstrates that.

I wanted to respond to the issue, raised by Katha and others, of the nature of male sexuality. It seems that the major sticking point in how sex work is viewed as a feminist issue is how it interacts with male sexuality.

First, I, for one, never have and never will accept the abdication of agency by my fellow men. As I used to say in rape awareness lectures in college (and I stole the line from a female colleague), "even if men are driven to orgasm, they don't have to orgasm inside a woman." Each of us meets people we desire sexually all the time. Some of them are colleagues, bosses, subordinates at work. Some of them are in relationships with friends. Men, responsible men, say no to sex, or at least to pursuing potential sex partners all the time for lots of reasons. I've had tremendous mutual attraction with people I work with -- but I do not pursue the attraction, even when I am very sure it could lead to sex. I have a promise to the woman I married. I also have to make judgments about what kind of personal relationships to have with people I work with, like not having sex with subordinates because it's not fair to them, or with superiors because it's not fair to me. Desire is no excuse for misconduct, and a poor excuse for bad judgment.

Second, I wanted to unpack the terms "commodification" and "male sexual narcicism." Both are terms used by different people in different ways, to mean such different things that I'm never sure if I agree or disagree with the speaker until I pin down what they mean.

If "commodification" is defined broadly enough, it encompasses anything that separates sexual intimacy from love or long-term relationships. "Male sexual narcicism" could mean that men want to come. Using the terms this broadly would lead to the conclusion that wanting to get off is inherently the problem. That's not an idea that I am ever going to get on board with.

Where I'm going with this is the answer that I think applies to most aspects of sex work, porn, promiscuity and a host of sexual issues: patriarchy messes everything up. I tend to think that, while it rubs some folks the wrong way, the abstraction of sex from love or from long-term relationships is not inherently a problem. Rather, I think patriarchal power relations make it a problem, and it is more of a problem where the relationship is the most unequal. Some people disagree with that, and think that anonymous sex or sex for no other purpose but to get off is inherently patriarchal.

"lastly, i modify the question i asked earlier. suppose a 22-year-old latina woman in san francisco is very poor, desperate, abandoned, thinking of turning to prostitution- is it wrong to have a program that would help steer people like her away from prostitution and provide training and support to do other work? or does this wrongly imply something inherently demeaning about sex work as compared to anything else you might turn to out of economic necessity?"

I guess that my answer is that I'd prefer to address the conditions that allowed her to get that desperate in the first place. There are a lot of dangerous and demeaning things that a woman might do out of desperation: she might get back together with a solvent but abusive ex, for instance, or she might resort to criminal activity that doesn't require her to have sex but that carries far more draconian penalties. (And this is probably not the place to address the horrific rates of sexual abuse in women's prisons, but that seems relevent here.) Instead of picking one desperate choice that we find particularly offensive and saving women from that, I'd prefer that we try to ensure that nobody ever faces that kind of economic compulsion.

Yes, Sally, I agree with that. But the prostitutes in the VV article are not motivated by the kind of economic/social desperation that offers nothing but bad choices. They are educated, writers, bloggers, white. There are plenty of other things they could be doing -- the straight jobs that almost all similar women do instead of sex work. They would certainly dispute the idea that they are under any sort of compulsion, or at least compulsion greater than other college grads. They say they are making a good, rational choice of work, that it harms no one and even helps people, that it offers better pay than other job options, and that they are proud of their work and enjoy it.
I really doubt this is the majority experience of prostitutes, but these women say it is their experience.

Finally Katha, We're getting somewhere with your last comment. Rational choice. Believe in it. Yes, the sex workers featured in the VV article may be unusual. We really have got little idea of this though. You can query some of the women featured in the article yourself, some have blogs and have replied on this comment string above. [(Ref:See: [http://wakingvixen.blogspot.com]]

But again I see this as a particular kind of work, (and actually many different kinds of work as WakingVixen tells us). Katha sets up a nice dummy staw man by asking the amusing question (again): Why not have training for 'sex workers'? Yes, why not indeed. And of course there is. Most of this is on the job training, which again is not all that unusual for many jobs. McDonald's will train you. Ditto for Wendy's, and most restaurants. Most restaurant managers really have had fairly little formal training. Again not all that uncommon in the service industry. Retail clerks, store clerks, even product managers get mostly on the job training.

Then there's the blogs. That's a post graduate education should you want to avail yourself of all the information available. Many of course do. So the question has an obvious answer if we bothered to think systematically about it. No, sex work is not a very highly skilled profession for most. Goodness knows in the internet age it certainly can be, if the money is good and consistent enough to support your own business ventures. Yes, in times past it was the kind of work that did happen to pass from mother to daughters. And yes, it seems lots of people started out petting and giving furtive BJ's when they were younger.

Again, we'd hope for better for our sons & daughters. We should try and encourage them at every opportunity to engage in more 'acceptable' realms of work and recreation. That's pretty simple, right? But If all our children were as perfect as we hoped and dreamed, all well behaved, well groomed, intelligent, good mannered, with swell prospects of a secure and successful future, then crime and many, many social problems would cease to be a problem in this country, right?

The world and our lives remain imperfect things. I want the opportunity to decide for myself how best to lead it. So do our sons and daughters. In this I'm in the clear majority of humanity. This saddens us as we recognize the incredible burden we face, that while we can have tremendous influence on our young, we can just show them the way. We can not walk the path for them, we can not and should not constrain their choices due to the dictates of what we may think is 'good taste' or 'fine breeding'. That really hurts sometimes. But freedom and true liberty was never meant to be pretty or easy. Most times love is the same way.

I really doubt this is the majority experience of prostitutes, but these women say it is their experience.

Yes, it is our experience and we do not make the claim that our experience reflects the wider experiences of sex workers. Rachel's article is all of 1100 words on a topic that she thought was interesting, based on some women she knows.

I think we should be careful not to make a leap from an article about individual experiences to assumptions about Sex Work As A Profession. Granted, the piece is very uncritical and not self-reflexive about class issues, but it has stirred up more debate about many issues than could be covered in 1100 words. In this respect, when you agree or disagree with who we are or how we are represented and debate it in a public forum, the article becomes a success.

vj,

i don't think you are addressing what i see as a fundamental problem with libertarianism- whether fiscal or social. it seems we can both agree on the fiscal, at least with respect to how it plays out with labor in the global markets. in a society, individuals' choices always impact other individuals' choices and lives. if we just lift off any economic OR social scrutiny, it is always the voices and wishes of the dominant group that will dictate and color our understanding of the underlying issues. this is not just a matter of women not doing what "we" would hope our daughters would do (which was not at all where i was coming from), but a matter of their choices interfering with the interests of other, less privileged women. frankly, i see educated, privileged, white sex workers as people that cash in on the same male sexual entitlement that harms many poor women, women of color, and immigrant women, but without having to live with the same burdens and consequences. these women have the education, bargaining power, and resources to set proper contracts and limits and ensure that no harm is done to them; they can enter or exit the work at will. it's trendy. the point is, their choice to validate the work, the industry, and the attitude toward sexuality that is required to keep the business running has a fundamentally detrimental impact on the majority of women working in it.

interesting thing is, i generally don't see people focusing on individual liberties to the exclusion of all else when it comes to matters of race. i don't see a clearly offensive, racist portrayal of an asian american man in a movie and hear people say, well the actor is asian, and he chose to act in it, therefore: end of story! no. yes, it's true that an asian man chose to act; there may be such limited roles that it was the best he could get. or, perhaps there were a variety of roles available, but the ones that had the best financial appeal happened to be pretty offensive; we shouldn't assume that whatever choice he made was not a rational one in the context of the capitalist society we are stuck in. after all, we all have to negotiate our ideas and "sell out" the the system in different ways. but what does that portrayal say about society? what does it say how white america wishes or expects to see asian americans portrayed? how does it impact the asian american community and american society at large? do we fail to ask these questions just because a person that deserves respect and dignity made a choice? no. and we shouldn't do that with matters relating to sexuality either.

leena reminds me of how some black business owners opposed desegregation because blacks not able to shop at white stores had to shop in black ones. Why should the capitalist rights of a few privileged people matter more than the health and equality of the overwhelming majority?

why has nobody discussed the women that johns and prostitutes leave in the aftermath. What about the wives and girlfriends who is concerned for their health, their respect, their safety? A good many johns and the hookers they deal with have a great laugh at the expense of wives and girlfriends. There is an emotional and often a physical effect on the person the john is stepping out on and a daily mentality of the john who then focuses on why the wife or girlfriends is not more like the hooker in how she acts or how she is willing to be treated. While it goes against popular thinking not all wives and girlfriends are evil sexless wenches who can't or won't give a man what he wants.

Again, as Audacia Ray notes, it's a matter of life and death whether or not you get the safety issue right with sex work. It's in the interest of self preservation to do so, and many if not most seemingly do.

Still 'standard', run of the mill occupational hazards will kill and sicken more people each year than the US sex industry will in almost any given decade.(Those are my interpretations of CDC and OSHA morbidity & mortality stats). It's certainly not a 'low risk' venture, which is one of the reasons it's stigmatized. Coal mining, and oil rig work are also not low risk jobs. But you stand a much better chance of survival than those job categories or even over Alaskan fishermen, fireman or even policemen in any given year as a sex worker in most instances. Especially so if you are mindful to be cautious and take some extra care in what you do.

So is there danger inherent in the job? Again yes. For many women this can actually be successfully alleviated with just a little bit of education, something you can not say for many manufacturing jobs which are by nature hazardous. Hard rock mining and timbering also come to mind here too. Hard dangerous and sometimes brutal jobs where any given day you might wind up dead, crippled and maimed.

Again we'd want better for our daughters (and I think this is indeed as fair a standard as we can hope for), but many of our children do indeed toil and labor long hours in dangerous occupations. At times they can be just as degrading and humiliating as most sex work. I will contend that most jobs leave an aftermath and an impact on the family far in excess of whatever damage might be done by a few errant nights spent with a woman/man 'not your spouse' and paying for the pleasure, however you define it. Really, think about it. Which is more damaging,the 50-80hr. a week, no overtime, no/minimal health care, low paying jobs or a visit perhaps every quarter or so from a 'fairy god mother' of someone's erotic fantasy.

And no, I've never considered myself a libertarian.

Very good point, Jessie. I was thinking about this myself. Infidelity - whether with a prostitute or with a woman that isn't being paid - is one of the main reasons cited for divorce. There are many societal consequences to divorce, above and beyond the heartbreak and betrayal of the wives and often the children involved.

The more prostitution is made acceptable and available, the more men will use it - including married men. Therefore there will be more divorce, more single struggling mothers, more children who often won't have close relationships with male parents who are good and trustworthy role models who treat women with respect and fidelity, etc. etc.

The consequences of prostitution go way beyond the two parties involved in the transaction. Those "transactions" between "consenting adults" are often relationship-ruining and divorce-causing (and often child-devastating) infidelities. Something to think about.

Fiona

This was the very argument behind the Prohibition too. Statistically it's much more likley that Non sex workers are the cause of this type of strife and woe. This is why adultery was illegal for centuries. Reforms of the legal system in the 1960's & 70's destigmatized the miserable adultery statutes that often times were a severe burden on women. For all the talk about Patriarchy, this would reinstate some of the worst apects of the 'old' legal order to go back to such rigid interpretations and standards of family workings. That's where Patriarchy really hits home!

I never claimed that sex work was not without it's misery, real costs and dangers. Again, this is another reason why we would fervently hope for better of our daughters. Still there are indeed worse places they could be.

vj, since you would fervently hope better for your daughters, would you support widespread social initiatives that aim to change how men think about and approach sexuality, and that dissuade them from commodifying women (without government legislation involved)?

on another note- i really don't like the argumentative strategy of saying "x is bad, but y is worse and therefore we shouldn't waste time exploring the nuances of x." social change isn't a zero-sum game where if people vest effort in examining one issue, that means everybody is ignoring other issues that might be more pressing or disturbing. yes, we could keep going in circles about which is worse between exploitative sex work and other exploitative labor, and then conclude that well, neither is as bad as being swept over by a tsunami or being a child left hungry, orphaned, and disabled in iraq. and then the fact that lgbtq marriage is illegal seems every less of a priority. but the truth is these are all important issues, and as a society we can work on all of them. if we have an issue that is worthy of some critique, let's critique it rather than going off on tangents.

I think we can easily come to some agreement here Leena. I too support more freedom and the expansion of liberty for everyone. This does not mean as our dear FearLess Leader positied recently attacking lands with an Imperial design for little or no cause, and then covering that crime with the rhetoric of 'freedom'. We first need a freedom agenda here at home.

Again as I stated above, I've got no problems with a wholesale reform of how we think of work and the time, especially the time and space that work has commanded and indeed come to dominate in our lives. That's a reform agenda broad enough to encompass most of our mutual concerns I think. I again insist that the central problem is the commodification of everything, but especially our lives as Humans is what is ultimately at the bottom of this issue. It's really a universal concern the world over.

I do not know of any governmental program that can be constructed that might adequately address the issue of men's desire or how they view women. The media is certainly a large part of this, and our government does not directly control that. If we were speaking practically, I'd note that the most prominent effort in this regard in recent years has been the 'covenant marriage' movment, with it's regressive insistence on absolute submission and obedience of the wife to the husband, according to the received wisdom some sects find in the Bible. This has most unfortunately been foisted upon the public by some state governments. It's seen spotty acceptance almost everywhere, including the deepest darkest parts of the Bible-belt. This if it were ever to be successful, (which thank goodness does not seem likely) would represent one of the largest wholesale changes in how men view women in our society in decades, taking us all back to the more unfortunate aspects of the 18th century type gender relationships. Even most firmly Repug. church going women do not seem to find favor with this view however. (Most American's have not for a very long time as a matter of fact).

Men's AND women's views of husbands& wives and even their larger roles and the role of sex in society have been slowly but noticably evolving even in the short life span of most of us. All I can offer is the thought and hope that they will continue to do so, and that the most productive change I've seen in my life time is the more serious consideration and prosecution of spousal abuse and violence against women. There's been a sea change in such attitudes inside of the last 25 years or so. There's something that can almost assuredly applauded by all, no matter your party or persuasion.

it is not just the emotional hurt that husband/johns infict on their wives and girlfriends by using prostitutes there are real physical risks to0 sexually transmitted diseases may transfered to the wife or girlfriend without them having the opportunity to decide to I want to keep having sex with someone who is having sex with hookers the risk potential is high and someone above said a few nights out getting laid is not so bad so I guesss the wife or girlfriends is suppose to just take it funny how everyone seems so eager to give hookers rights and respect but not the women who are often not given a choice since they do not usually know that their boyfriend or husband is using hookers. She should have the right to decide what she wants. I am confused by the 20 somethings affection, promotion and endorsement for stripper, hooker, porn culture and if so many of these women are so happy and making so much money let them and their johns pay for themsleves if the government gets involved they will want everyone to help pay for it why should i have to support that just because men, prostitutes and the sex industry, the miltiary and corporate american, and the art industries want it.

vj callling hookers fairy godmothers of erotic fantasies is romatnicing prostitution and maybe you do not think respecting ones non paid partner is of any importance or value but i do. why such respect for johns and hookers and none for sexually active, loving, willing partners at home?

This just in: Prostitution may not save your marriage! Sex may encumber or complicate your relationships... we know all this Jessie. I do not have to posit a cure for all the damn ills of the world to state my argument simply. But let me tell you a story.

Let's take a poor family out west. Say not far from the now famous Searchlight, NV. We're talking hard rock mining here. Hard lives shortened by harder work relieved only by death. Sand and dirt that got into every small home. Everyone had trouble keeping their places neat and clean. The A bomb tests glowed over the next rise. Your dad comes home from a hard days work in the mine, sheds his clothes at the door and trudges off for a well needed shower and some short sleep before his second job as a delivery man (gas and oil). There are constant struggles for the entire family to keep it all together. The entire household was gritty, not a surface to be found not scoured by the incessant dust and debris. As it happens, dad was mining uranium. At night, unknown to him he brought home a small pile of radioactive tailings with him, all attached to and in his clothes. They knew next to nothing about the safety issues with such mining in those early days (1940's-50'), even into the 1960's.

Now small communities all around the test and mining areas in NV have some of the highest rates of leukemia and other cancers known in the US, apart from industrial plant exposures. 100's are dying from this plague that was the very foundation of the Cold War. I know some of them.

Never imagine that your job or industry might kill or sicken others, perhaps even your own family and community? Well I've seen it happen. Divorce or death, choose an outcome you can live with here Jessie. Then think again about just how harmful other industry might be to the rest of the population. They've got the death stats. on this. Studies Have been done. One one hand we have undoubted mental anguish and yes, an epidemic of STI's/STD's. But most of the later are due to the freelancers, the volunteers not getting paid for anything. On the other hand are excess the 50K pulmonary deaths a year due to foul air in some cities. And that's just the air mind you. Water and ground pollution are another sad story. Hell even Food contamination kills 6-9,000 people in the US a year. That food prep chef who forgot to inform people he had hepatitis, or was unaware of it, he's got blood on his hands too.

So again better JOB and WORK regulation might help here, right? Mental anguish can be had on and from many a job, and me, I've always heard it was money troubles that ended marriages more than anything else. Chronic disease was a close second after that. I think 'frequents whores' just never makes it to the top 10 of any of the surveys I've ever seen on the topic.

vj once again you go the long way around and forget that what we are talking about is distincion. Your coalminer did not "know" he brought in the pollution

your "average male" makes a choice to