Sex Work is a Feminist Issue!

Is sex work damaging and degrading to women or is it a a service profession just like any other? This is an issue which has caused a schism among feminists everywhere. As an individual who identifies as both sex-positive and a feminist, I have always found it hard to grasp why many mainstream feminists in the United States don’t really support sex worker’s rights. There is a long history behind this opposition, one that needs to be reevaluated and questioned. I think that it is important to situate sex work activism within an expanded feminist framework, one which takes into consideration the opinions of sex workers themselves as well as the ways in which their experiences serve to enhance the feminist agenda not harm it.

Radical feminists such as Andrea Dworkin and Glorian Steinem have strongly opposed sex work on the grounds that this type of profession is degrading and only serves to enhance male supremacy. Just to get a clear idea about the ways in which anti-sex feminists feel about sex work, I have included a quote below from a speech that Andrea Dworkin delivered at the symposium entitled “Prostitution: From Academia to Activism”. When asked how she would define prostitution, Dworkin states that,

“Prostitution is not an idea. It is the mouth, the vagina, the rectum, penetrated usually by a penis, sometimes hands, sometimes objects, by one man and then another and then another and then another and then another. That’s what it is.”

I think that what is important to note here is that this type of anti-sex feminism is not at all representative of the ways in which most sex workers actually feel about their profession. Sadly, sex workers are rarely given a platform through which to voice their opinions. This idea about whose opinion is heard and whose is not calls into question issues of discursive power. It also emphasizes the importance of sex workers’ involvement in dominant discourse as a means to take control of their own lives. Otherwise they just DO become objects to be spoken for and about (sadly sometimes by feminists).

There has been a long history of pathologizing those who do not adhere to rigid gender and sexual binaries, a practice which hurts women and sex workers alike. I call on feminists to think about the ways in which the government has tried to regulate women’s bodies and sexuality. I call on feminists to think critically about how this process continues to exist through the socially and legally sanctioned persecution and stigmatization of sex workers.

While it is true that violence and exploitation are problems faced by sex workers, we must recognize that these are not the only factors which characterize the lives of sex workers. Sex work provides a domain not for clients and sex workers alike to explore their sexual desires in ways that may not be acceptable in mainstream society. The vagina is a site of power and pleasure and I commend those who are brave enough to transgress the bounds of acceptable sexuality.