Prostitution / Sexwork

PAGE 4 OF 4

Greetings:

The latest issue of Feminista! has a good article about "The Shocking
Truth," a powerful
film by Swedish feminist Alexa Wolf about prostitution and pornography.  It
has had tremendous impact in northern and eastern Europe.  A good film is
worth a thousand words:

http://www.feminista.com/v4n8/clarke.html

When will we north Americans be able to see it?  When are WS instructors
going to show it?  I find it interesting that the most effective
anti-pornography and anti-prostitution feminism is coming from "liberal"
Sweden.  I never thought it would happen. It gives me lots of hope.

One missing link in this discussion:  books by men who finally admitted
that prostitution
and pornography perpetuate male privilege . . . and books by men who are
*really* doing something about it.

Kathleen Trigiani
ktrig246  @  airmail.net

*********************************************
"Out of the Cave:  Exploring Gray's Anatomy"
http://web2.airmail.net/ktrig246/out_of_cave/
You Don't Have to Settle For Mars&Venus!

Part of this has to do with the sex worker discussion; but mostly, it's just
what I've been encountering recently.

I'm currently in a graduate level abnorminal psychology class. Each
week, we are suppose to read on one disorder group or another from the
DSM to discuss it on how to dianosis it and such. The class
discussions started simple as such but when we got into the sexual
disorders, I really started wondering about this world's future given
my grad associates.

The class consists of mostly psychology majors (I'm not; CJ) with a lot at
work in the field. I walk into class, emotions turned off, ready to get to
the guts of the matter. I wish my classmates would do the same but they don't.
They go with what they've seen, what they feel, and how they define it against
their own personal standards. And if psychology research indicates otherwise,
at least some of the time, it's "that's a load of trash!".

For example, in the dianosis, a lot of them lock in on one point and after
that point lock, they can't shift from it, can't see anything else. In one
case history, the subject was wearing a coke spoon, so a lot only saw cocaine
intoxication, despite there being no chemical/physical evidence of such and
the urinaylsis coming back for aromatic inhalents.

But probably the most revealing was a case history of a killer who
came up with, correctly, sexual sadism and antisocial disorder. But
because at one point he had sex with a 6 year old (him not much older
for that attack) and that he was raping his daughter regularly, many
locked in on pedophilla and couldn't shift from that. This despite the
fact that there were other details to be considered.

Okay, so how does this all apply to the current topic in specific and to
wmst in general? We are dealing with an issue here that people react to
emotionally. They are applying their personal standards to it and, at best,
may be oppressing another who doesn't have those standards. And at worse? They
could be dead wrong and not realize it. Being dead wrong in an opinion is one
thing but it is quite the disaster if management decisions are made upon it.

Generally, we should remember one of the purposes of college: to develop finer
thinking minds. Admittedly, we shouldn't check our emotions for all things but
we should learn, the students should learn, when to turn off the emotions, when
to think rationally. Because it will be the student who leaves the classroom
and goes out to make decisions in the world, maybe. In one of my law classes,
there was an arguement that laws shouldn't be written by lawyers with all the
legalese if they are to be applied to the people. That the common people
should write the laws. Sounds good but I really don't want law written by the
common person who can't detach themselves from their emotions for such things;
it's bad enough with the current system but it would be absolute disaster that
direction.

As far as my psychology class goes? Personally, I'm amused. I get my answers,
I make good grades, and when I see people like that out there, I know I can
run circles around them.

-Traci
th06  @  swt.edu

The notion that "radical feminism" is silenced in academe strikes me as
inaccurate.  A good index would be the absence of  radical feminist work in
course syllabi in women's studies courses of either a general/introductory
kind or related specifically to the subject of sex and sexuality.

From looking at many such syllabi (available on the web on various sites,
including on this llist's enormous collection of syllabi), it is my
impression  that Catharine MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin, and other figures with
similar radical feminist  views on sexuality, pornography, and sex work,
are a prominent feature of such courses.  By contrast, I wonder how often
work such as  Nadine Strossen's book "Defending Pornography,"  or Carol
Queen's "Real Life Nude Girl: Chronicles of a Sex-Positive Culture"  (Cleiss
Press, 1997),  is  taught or even mentioned.

List-members may be interested in the special issue of the journal Sexuality
& Culture, devoted to Sex Work & Sex Workers (vol. 2, 1999).

The fact of earning one's living by doing work that "services" another body
or person is not in and of itself grounds for  considering that work a mark
of exploitation or oppression.  Neither is the fact of going after the best
wages one is able to garner.  Both these features exist in many different
employment situations occupied by both men and women.  The issue of social
status and stigma related to sex does make sex work have some special
features, obviously.  But  generalizations guided by such overarching
concepts as patriarchy and  classism do not help in understanding particular
kinds of work.

The usefulness of radical feminist ideas is greatly limited by its tendency
toward totalizing thinking.  If some women choose things that radical
feminists don't approve of, those choices get recast as UNfree and not
"real" choices--unlike the choices made by a radical feminist herself.  I am
*not* dismissing the notion of involuntary or forced labor (sexual or
other), which of course is a human rights violation that is being fought
vigorously.  What I am calling attention to is the ease with which ideology
can redefine the terms of a discussion, so that the very concept of choice
or autonomy or agency can be dismissed out of hand when the results of that
agency are not what some feminists approve of.  Thus we have people like
Dee Graham explaining the very existence of heterosexuality in women by
invoking the "Societal Stockholm Syndrome" which sees heterosexuality as a
"survival strategy" for women, who are forced to ingratiate themselves with
their "captors."  She also argues, as do other radical feminists, that all
male violence is central to women's lives.  Such claims make it difficult to
know how to address real instances of abuse and exploitation (not to mention
real instances of imprisonment or kidnapping).  A problem has to have some
borders in order to be addressed.

DP
  ---------------------------------
daphne.patai  @  spanport.umass.edu

As I read the recent posts on alternately sex work, the sex industry,
prostitution (street prostitution, brothel prostitution), pornography, nude
dancing, sex trafficking (usually labled "sex industry" and in content about
prostitution), I noticed a few things that we as WS scholars should be aware
of.
1)the ellision of several related but not identical practices.  What often
seems to happen in feminist discourse on issues regrading sexual intercourse
is that we identify a paradigm case and use it to represent the overarching
issues (i.e. a prostitution situation where the prostitute is forced/coerced
by a pimp into performing sexual services for customers who abuse her).
Then, this type of situation gets expanded to stand in for "Prostitution"
with a big P and following that as a stand in for sex work, the sex
industry, all sexual services performed for money or, by implication, in
non-normative situations.  In the process the complexity of the group of
practices under the umbrella "Sex Industry" (and so on down the line) get
erased.
2)The heterosexual assumptions surrounding the production of sexual
services.  Many posters to the list seem to assume that it is only women who
perform services for men.  Men perform sexual services for men and women.
Women perform sexual services for women.  This is one of the arguments for
woman-centered (lesbian or otherwise) erotica--books/videos: if women are
doing these things for each other then what anti-pornography activists are
saying is that there is something else wrong with this activity other than
its patriarchal aspects.  Additionally, for the folks who are against sex
work of any kind, what is more significant, that women are involved or the
nature of the work and why?
3) The apparent refusal of some scholars to hear others when they argue that
there are issues in addition to sexism that are important in the various
locations of "sex work" that need to be addressed, perhaps in a more urgent
way than the idea that women are (as Andrea Dworkin put it) "being duped by
the patriarchy".  In other words, a major dissagreement that gets formed as
"pro-" or "anti-" sex is the question of priorities. I agree with the
posters who argue that anyone who provides sexual services in any venue need
legal protection.  Regardless of the question of whether women have choices
in the overarching Catherine Mackinnon sense, women are making choices and
they deserve the right to a safe workplace, a privilege many of us
enjoy(P.S. this goes for all sex workers, not just women as per comment #2).
To me there IS a difference between the different practices that fall under
the category "sex industry" and I believe that as scholars we have the duty
to discuss these nuances and not simply surpress those that do not easily
fit the paradigm case.  Additionally, I believe that not enough discussion
has been put into the question of agency under constraint and when we talk
about sex industry/work in broad sweeping terms we lose sight of the people
working in that industry and all of their varied experiences and needs.
Some people were forced into their present situations and need help to get
out.  Others would like to continue in their work but with better regulation
and less harrassment from police officers/abusive clients/or media messages
that label them as inferior for their choice of profession.  Outlawing or
condemning all practices associating with the 'sex industry' will not help
people in either of these situations and nor will it show respect for those
aspects of sex work that are not exploitative.  In the end such moves only
serve to further stigmatize sex in general and all of the things associated
with it.

Karen Kapusta-Pofahl

>>>My student worked at this "club", and her explanation of the things that
>>>she observed, and analyzed, were quite different than mine would have
>>>been, as someone who had only viewed this environment from a safe,
theoretical "distance". All of which made me question my own
understanding of  these things.<<<


Thank you very much for this post, Joan. What I have seen in this (WMST-L)
debate is typical - we hear so much from scholars who have "studied"
prostitution, by reading all of the "theories" of prostitution. However,
there is almost no mention of *how sex workers feel* about their profession,
much less how they feel about "feminist" anti-sex worker sentiment. I have
myself worked as a prostitute, and I echo the qoute emi used in her posting
- I never felt so "dirty" in my work as I did considering what would happen
if others found out about my profession. For a movement that is supposed to
be about valuing women's expereinces, I find it unbelievable that sex
worker's voices should be so entirely left out of the debate. What could it
be if not a classist assumption of false consciousness to "study" a
profession and the women who work in it without *asking* them what they
think? If one camp is being "silenced" it is certainly not anyone from
academe.

For more on these issues, see my upcoming chapter in Lisa Johnson's _Jane
Sexes it Up_, "The Plain-Clothes Whore," and my upcoming article in
_Sexualities_ due out this month, "Is a Feminist Stance on Prostitution
Possible? An Exploration of Current Trends"


Kari Kesler
karikesler  @  hotmail.com

I thought it was appropriate now to tell the list about our new film on
rape because it includes a significant section on the relationship between
rape and child abuse and prostitution and sex trafficking. I hope you find
it useful in starting classroom discussions on some of the hotly debated
issues about sex workers that have recently surfaced. Thank you.
Margaret Lazarus


ANNOUNCING THE RELEASE OF A NEW DOCUMENTARY ON RAPE FROM THE ACADEMY AWARD
WINNING FILMMAKERS OF  "DEFENDING OUR LIVES."

"Quite simply, this is the best film on rape I have ever seen." Joan Zorza,
Editor, Sexual Assault Report, Domestic Violence Report

"Rape is...,"  a new documentary video, explores the meaning, severity, and
consequences of rape. It expands the narrow ways we think of sexual
violence, and demonstrates that it is not a sporadic and rare occurrence,
but a cultural and criminal outrage that effects millions of women,
children and men all over the world.

"Rape is..." includes the poetry and ideas of Salamishah Tillet, the
perspectives of Diane Rosenfeld a professor at Harvard University, the
thoughts of Rich Ridlon, survivor of child abuse, Eve Ensler, playwright,
"The Vagina Monologues," and activist who explores the ideas behind V-day,
stop rape actions and Vednita Carter, the founder and director of Breaking
Free, an organization that helps prostitutes.

"Rape is..." looks at rape from a global and historical perspective, but
focuses mainly on the domestic cultural conditions that make it the most
under reported crime in America.  Many types of sexual assault are not
considered a serious crime by the legal system and our society refuses to
see the true cost of this brutal denial of human rights.

Few are likely to dispute that a sexual attack by a stranger is an act of
rape, but what about the far more common acts of sexual violence committed
by relatives, dates, "boy friends", or "customers" of the increasingly
lucrative sex trades?  This documentary explores these complicated issues,
but always focuses on the terrible price that survivors of these acts pay,
not only in physical pain but in the psychological damage caused by the
loss of trust, the guilt and confusion, and the destruction of self and voice.

"Rape is..." is in the tradition of  the previous films of CDF, a challenging
and often deeply troubling  documentary.  But it is unlikely to allow
audiences to leave with the complacent and inhumane view that rape is
simply a crime or that, as one misguided judge claimed about the eleven
year old victim of an adult rapist, "It takes two to tango."

www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org
34 minutes, available from:
Cambridge Documentary Films
  PO Box 390385
Cambridge, MA 02139
phone 617 484 3993, fax 617 484 0754
email: cal  @  cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org

A couple of points:

1) The Intro to Women's Studies book, "Women's Voices, Feminists
Visions" by Susan M. Shaw & Janet Lee (Mayfield Publishing 2001) does
include an excerpt "The Internet and Global Prostitution Industry" by
Donna M. Hughes.  Another article by Hughes was included in Rebecca
Whisnant's list of radical feminist critiques of prostitution.  I think
is fair to say that reading/discussion of this excerpt would provide
students with some exposure to the radical feminist ideas Rebecca is
suggesting.

HOWEVER, I wonder if many Intro classes either never "get to" Violence
Against Women at all or, when they do, they focus on rape and domestic
violence of  non-prostituted women.  In the Shaw & Lee book, the Hughes
excerpt is in the chapter that includes these issues, as well as
pornography and incest.

This presents very tough choices for the Intro teacher - at a minimum
because of the incredible time constraints in a survey course.  But also
because the teacher faces (I think) STRONG resistance from students
about even thinking about prostitution in ANY kind of feminist way.
(And less resistance - although still PLENTY - re rape or dom. viol.)
And I'll plead guilty - it's the end of the semester, I've allocated 2
hours on Violence against Women; we did rape today and we're going to do
domestic violence (my area of expertise) next week.

The question then is whether schools with lots of other Women 's Studies
offerings EVER really look at the prostitution issue, INCLUDING the
various perspectives we've encountered over the recent discussion.  I
don't know, but my gut tells me that it could well be true that, because
of the painfulness, student resistance and devisiveness of the issue, we
never quite "get around" to prostitution - perhaps from ANY perspective
- in course after course.


2) Despite the strong differences of opinion expressed, it appears that
everyone who's spoken agrees that "happy hooker" or "prostitution as
choice" model is a far cry from reality.  What I mean by this is that
Rebecca and Emi, for all their disagreement, agree that IN THE WORLD AS
IT EXISTS TODAY, prostitution is often evil, demeaning, dangerous, etc.
Yet I do think that lots of intellectual, sophisticated people on our
campuses - both students and professors, and not just male ones -
continue to see prostitution as largely "victimless."

To counteract this idea - that is, to make the reality of prostitution
clearer - people of various views might want to check out
http://www.escapeprostitution.com.  I am on another listserve with Jill
Leighton, one of the key people in this organization.  Of the three
people behind this organization, two are former prostitutes.

The organization, headquartered in Minneapolis, describes itself as is
"an educational organization against prostitution, pornography, and all
other forms of sexual exploitation."    I think it's fair to say that
the organization's analysis is much closer to Rebecca's than Emi's.  The
site is highly literate, including a number of both analytical and
artistic expressions that I found very powerful.

The EscapeProstitution.com people are available for speaking engagements
and other educational opportunities.  They have done at least some
speaking on college campuses.

Sincerely,
Kate Waits
U. of Tulsa College of Law


*************************************

Kathleen (Kate) Waits
Coordinator, Women's Studies Program
University of Tulsa

Associate Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, Oklahoma  74104-2499

918-631-2450 (voice)
918-631-2194 (FAX)

E-mail: kwaits  @  utulsa.edu

*************************************

At 12:00 AM 4/13/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>I think I missed something. What big splashy pro-sex conferences? And by
>"pomo" do you mean postmodern theory? If so, what does that have to do
>with the topic? Postmodern theory is mainly about political economy
>(Jameson, Baudrillard, Virilio, Lyotard) or literary/art/architecture
>theory (Hutcheon, Jencks, etc.). This thread is getting confusing and
>perhaps it is time to end it.
>
>peace,
>Linda Wayne
>wayne005  @  tc.umn.edu


The 1998 conference at California State University Northridge comes to mind
immediately. There have been others. Loni Bramson

>I never stated that prostitution is empowering; in fact, I had a big
>argument with Carol Queen (author of "Real Live Nude Girls") about
>this at the last Sex Workers' Conference in Olympia. My criticism was
>that by telling sex workers that sex work is inherently empowering,
>she was making invisible the exploitation and abuse of workers by the
>management, and making it easier for them to further the exploitation.
>By labeling someone "anti-sex" for having legitimate grievances
>against their working conditions, whether the work involves sexual
>act or not, Queen's pro-sex feminism renders sex work as primarily
>sex as opposed to work - and thus her argument is counteractive
>and anti-worker.


Which is why I think it's odd that you accuse *all* radical feminists who
believe the system of buying & selling women is inherently misogynistic of
being elitist, racist, white, middle class. Do you hear Black prostitutes,
Mexican prostitutes, Third World prostitutes, prostitutes who are dirt poor
saying how much they love being a prostitute?  Is it just me, or does it
seem like it's mostly white, 100% college educated, 100% Western women (and
men, of course)saying that prostitution can be a great career for women,
and that women freely choose it as a profession? (Yeah, and
Mexicans "freely choose" and thoroughly enjoy cleaning up white people's
houses, doing your laundry, and cutting your grass. Please.  Get out of
school and into the real world.)

Solidarity,
Angie Manzano

I know I said what I wrote before was the last post in this topic, but
there are some distortion of my comments so I'll try to only correct
them. It is interesting that the only negative responses to my posts
so far have been: (1) distortion of my views (conflating my working-
class sex worker feminism with middle-class "pro-sex" feminism or the
"choice" argument, despite the fact I have criticized these positions
as well), and (2) tokenism (i.e. "some women of color, working-class
women, or former prostitutes agree with me!"). If these are the only
possible "refutation" of my views, that once again proves that radical
feminist analysis of prostitution is obsolete and intellectually
bankrupt.

On 4/12/02 12:43 PM, "Kathleen (Kate) Waits" <kwaits  @  UTULSA.EDU> wrote:
> 2) Despite the strong differences of opinion expressed, it appears that
> everyone who's spoken agrees that "happy hooker" or "prostitution as
> choice" model is a far cry from reality.

I did not say that it is or is not "far cry from reality." Here's what
I said:

>> I do not buy "choice" argument either, because it is not particularly
>> useful to reduce the issue to "choice." But "sex work is work"
>> position is not the same as the "choice" position, as it has the
>> potential to address abuse within the prostitution economy as the
>> exploitation of workers' rights and challenge conditions that make
>> workers vulnerable to such abuse, such as poverty, sexism, racism,
>> homophobia, transphobia, anti-immigrant policies, neoliberalism,
>> etc.

As Karen Kapusta-Pofahl pointed out, statements such as yours erase
"the complexity of the group of practices under the umbrella 'Sex
Industry'" that I am trying to articulate here.

> What I mean by this is that Rebecca and Emi, for all their disagreement,
> agree that IN THE WORLD AS IT EXISTS TODAY, prostitution is often evil,
> demeaning, dangerous, etc.

I've never stated that prostitution as a whole is or is not evil. I
am saying that sexism, racism, poverty, transphobia, neoliberalism,
anti-immigrant policies, "war on drugs," prison industrial complex,
rapists, abusive management, etc. - those are what's evil. And
anti-prostitution feminist groups such as SAGE and LGBF are also evil
for using the threat of imprisonment as a weapon to abuse and control
women, and getting paid by the law enforcement for helping them
dictate women's lives.

> The organization, headquartered in Minneapolis, describes itself as is
> "an educational organization against prostitution, pornography, and all
> other forms of sexual exploitation."    I think it's fair to say that
> the organization's analysis is much closer to Rebecca's than Emi's.

Blatant tokenism.

On 4/13/02 9:58 AM, "Angie Manzano" <angiemanzano  @  YAHOO.COM> wrote:
> Which is why I think it's odd that you accuse *all* radical feminists
> who believe the system of buying & selling women is inherently
> misogynistic of being elitist, racist, white, middle class.

Again, I did not say that "all radical feminists [are] elitist, racist,
white, middle class." I argued that radical feminist analysis of
prostitution (that prostitution is inherently misogynistic) has
implications that are racist and classist, among other things; I also
argued that actions taken by anti-prostitution groups such as SAGE and
LGBF are anti-women. See my previous posts for reasons.

If you disagree with my positions, you need to show why they are
wrong - rather than distorting my positions or relying on tokenism.

> Is it just me, or does it seem like it's mostly white, 100% college
> educated, 100% Western women (and men, of course)saying that
> prostitution can be a great career for women, and that women freely
> choose it as a profession?

As I have already stated, I am equally critical of "pro-sex" feminism
which posits prostitution (or any other form of work under the capitalist
system) as freely chosen and "anti-prostitution" feminism which displace
the blame by arguing that prostitution is "inherently" oppressive, rather
than focusing on social, political and economic issues that perpetuate
abuse and exploitation within the sex industry (as well as in other
industries).

> (Yeah, and
> Mexicans "freely choose" and thoroughly enjoy cleaning up white people's
> houses, doing your laundry, and cutting your grass.

Excellent point. In other words, it is not the specific acts (e.g.
sexual service) involved that make those work oppressive; rather,
it is racism, classism, colonialism, neoliberalism, anti-immigrant
policies, etc. that do. Forcing women to stop turning tricks is not
productive if other options are not any more attractive. On the other
hand, if we as the society could provide more attractive options for
these women, there will be no need to force them out of prostitution
- if they are truly better options, women will know and switch to
that.

Programs currently run by anti-prostitution feminist groups are
regressive because they take away relatively lucrative form of work
from poor women, immigrant women, trans people, etc. and force them
to work in other dead-end job for minimum wage or less (prostitutes
from middle-class background seldom get sent to these programs,
because they are less likely to be arrested and more likely to have
good lawyers). These programs are abusive, degrading, patronizing,
and out of touch with the actual needs of prostitutes.

These programs may claim to support decriminalization under the logic
that women do not deserve to be punished, but they rarely take any
concrete action to make such a legislation reality, despite their
close ties with the authorities. I suspect that they are afraid that
once it is decriminalized they won't be able to use the threat of
imprisonment to force women to stick with their agenda, and thus
lose their power and their government funding.

> Please.  Get out of school and into the real world.)

It's interesting that many anti-prostitution feminists continue to
argue with the "choice" or "glorification" position that nobody here
is making, and never respond to my criticism of anti-prostitution
feminism and its anti-women actions.


Emi Koyama <emi  @  eminism.org>

--
http://eminism.org/ * Putting the Emi back in Feminism since 1975.

In 1997, I participated in a conference on prostitution which was
co-organized by CSU Northridge and COYOTE.  Many feminist scholars were
contacted and invited to participate, and one prominent "radical" feminist
who was invited to give a keynote pulled out when she heard that COYOTE was
helping to organize this conference.  In 1999, I participated in a
conference on prostitution organized only by academic feminists (Aalborg,
Denmark), who had decided to exclude sex worker activists from the program,
although some had submitted proposals.  In general, I have found sex workers
and their academic allies much more willing to engage the anti-trafficking
activists, than the other way around.  There is a vibrant, growing,
international sex worker rights movement addressing issues of legal and
labor reform, and health outreach in many countries around the world.  The
leaders of many of these groups are well informed, and have interesting
policy proposals, research, and experience that could illuminate many
feminist discussions of these issues.  The issues of slavery, abduction, and
child labor are important ones, and many sex worker activists are addressing
these issues, as are labor and human rights activists working outside the
sex industry.  The problem of atrocious working conditions and egregious
worker exploitation is not unique to the sex industry and needs to be
addressed by a broad coalition of activists.  There are problems unique to
the sex industry--its legal status, stigmatization, etc.--and it's arrogant,
narrow-minded and counter-productive for feminist scholars to refuse to
enter dialogue with sex worker rights activists on these issues, many of
whom identify as feminists.  Yet at the last two conferences on prostitution
I attended, prominent, generally anti-trafficking, feminists refused to
participate on a program that would have sex workers.  I hope that
discussions of the sort we're having on this list indicate a new willingness
of feminists on all sides to engage each other.  Laurie Shrage