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3.1.05
Decriminalizing Prostitution: Part IV
Please read the preceeding parts of this series by following the links below:
Introduction
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
We're almost finished with this series. I know it has been enjoyed and informative. We'll have to do this again sometime. :)
In this part, I will be addressing some of the laws and attitudes on prostitution and how they can negatively affect prostitutes and (especially in the case of attitude) other women. The government is thriving in a Nanny state, constantly creating laws against consenting adults for 'our own good'. This keeps people in a permanent state of childhood. First I want to talk about the laws.
Because prostitution is illegal, this prevents women who have either been forced into it or harmed by someone involved in it from going to the police for protection, just like any other woman can. I read a case where a woman was lured from Mexico to the US with the promise of a job, but instead forced to work as a prostitute to pay off a debt. Now, if there wasn't laws against prostitution, this probably wouldn't have happened. The laws help the criminals who pervert and twist prostitution to their own gain more than they 'help' women off the streets. Since the laws are in place, those criminals know they're protected and their victims won't be able to go to anyone for help. This woman is being sent back to Mexico and back to the same poverty-stricken conditions that forced her into this situation.
Once again, a case like that is not of prostitution, but of fraud, coersion and deception. She could've easily ended up cleaning Beverly Hills mansions in the same forced circumstances. If you ever get a chance, rent Gregory Nava's El Norte to view an illustration of my comment.
One of the worst laws against prostitutes is that of pimping. When most people think of pimps they envision some caricature of a 70's persona or some huge black man beating on his white whore. Images which are the exception in many cases, not the rule. Not all pimps are abusive men who are taking advantage of the women or even making money off of them. Not all pimps are men or even of age.
Children can be pimps.
Grandparents can be pimps.
Unemployed/disabled husbands or lovers can be pimps.
The grocer down the street. The paperboy, the gardener.
All of those people can live off the earnings of a prostitute, which is how a pimp is defined by law. As Wendy McElroy states in a powerful speech she gave on prostitution (which I will be coming back to many times), the law on pimping is that of economics, not of violence. As the law now defines pimping, it does not arrest those men who pressure women into prositution. Instead many innocents can get swept up in a police sting. Just ask Rebecca Rand's daughter.
As Ms. McElroy says, if a bank teller's husband beats her, he is arrested for assault, not for being a bank teller's husband. Likewise, the bank teller herself wouldn't be arrested for being a bank teller. Just like any other women, many prostitutes enter that line of work to support their children and/or their families, for example my neighbor (see Part One of the series). Some women do seek out pimps to act more as bodyguards so that they will feel safe on the streets. After all, the police won't protect them. That's not to say violent pimps don't exist, because they do. But how often are the honestly caught with laws like this?
Living off immoral earnings is another idiotic and destructive law that only aims at the economics of prostitution, not at any of the violence that many like to conflate with prostitution. If all these anti-prostitution activists are serious about getting women out of the system that have been forced there and don't want to be there, don't go after the economics which will affect every female prostitute, coerced or not (though abolitionists feel every prostitute is coerced, but I'm not going there again). Removing all laws against prostitution will allow coerced workers to approach the police and charge their captors with the appropriate crime.
Abolition activists who are pro-sex worker (similar to that 'hate the sin, love the sinner' bullshit saying among certain Christians and the like) advocate going after the male customers. Well, problem is, the majority of the male customers are completely harmless. Programs like the school for Johns drives away the otherwise law-abiding and respectable clients who don't harm the prostitutes. They don't want to be exposed thanks to the stigma attached. What does that leave? The psychopaths who don't have anything to lose. Somehow the abolitionists can't seem to get this through their thick, self-righteous, sometimes well-meaning skulls.
By cutting off a respectable client base, you've cut off the whore's (the preferred term among sex-worker advocates, maybe only second to the term sex-worker) cash flow and has left her vulnerable. You know, for her 'own good'. Once again, I must turn to Wendy McElroy's speech. She gives the example of saying that if a lady lawyer can practice law but anyone going to her for advice on the law, renting space to her or benefitting from her advice is breaking the law, would that lady lawyer honestly think the law was looking out for her? No, don't be silly. For abolitionists to think prostitutes as a whole are that stupid to go along with a prospect like that is beyond insulting.
The attitudes against prositution and prostitutes are just as harmful and detrimental. For example there are comments like this:
"Personally, I 'frown' on prostitution. I believe it's wrong, and just as disgusting and evil as murder." - From a discussion on the character Inara Serra on Joss Whedon's Firefly, who was a Companion.
How sick and twisted is that person?!?! Prostitution is just as disgusting and evil as murder? So the exchange of sex for money between consenting parties is just as bad as someone slitting your throat or shooting you full of bullets or hijacking your plane and flying it into two Manhattan skyscrapers? That honestly gave me an aneurysm there.
But this is exactly what I'm talking about. This society, American society, would rather see 24-7 war coverage than two people making love. They'd rather children or they themselves view violence before viewing a scene of two people (hetero- or homo-) having even an innuendo of sex.
Whore, slut, skank. Those are popular words to be used against women who show far too much sexual maturity, independence and enjoyment on her own terms. The words whore and slut used to have respectable connotations, but have been perverted by the patriarchy. They are used with such venom so as to scare women who still want to remain 'respectable' into their 'proper place'. That is, within a heterosexual, monogamous relationship with a man who has sole access to her sexuality.
And women fall for it almost every time.
And so many women who would be more than happy to support prostitution rights get scared away. The incomparable Norma Jean Almodovar, the famous prostitute who wrote From Cop to Call Girl and founder of prostitution rights group ISWFACE, wrote a poem about the word whore:
The Whore Word
by Norma Jean Almodovar
I am a woman
And if I get out of line you call me a whore.
And if I have a good time you call me a whore
And if I speak my mind you call me a whore
You throw the word at me when I stand on my own
You use the word often to hold me down
You ever remind me that whores are the worst
The outcast pariahs without any worth
"You're just a whore," you repeat like a mantra
Like a shot of cold water to dampen my joy
"You're just a whore, so what do you know?"
And what do I care whatever you think?
You're a whore is the dagger you drive through my heart
As you pound into my psyche that name.
You equate everything I thought good with that name you spit out like venom
To show how awful I am.
But I ask you, please tell me
What is a whore? A whore says what she thinks
And she thinks for herself
She's independent and fiesty
So what, is there any more?
Why does it frighten you so to know I have a mind of my own
And don't need your permission to live or to love or to be?
And what if I tell you, "I don't care anymore if you call me a whore."
What will you call me now?
Almodovar wrote that poem after a heated encounter with an anti-sex worker feminist on a college campus where she tried to display an exhibit of whore art.
That poem, the first part of it, is what you see in everyday life. Any woman that shows an inkling of sexual independence and maturity, who loves sex and loves sex work (in the case of prostitutes), is called that word, 'spit out like venom'. If the stigma surrounding sex work and sex workers wasn't present, then a woman being called this word, whore, might take it as the compliment it is than as a warning to get back into her place.
Whore is used as a slur against women mostly as a catch-all insult. Britney Spears, though I am in no way a fan, is often called a slut by others, both men and women. Women usually mean it as a direct insult and most of the men mean it to indicate her open availability, there for their sole perusal. "Oh, she's a slut, she'll give it up to me no problem." Wrong! Britney probably would, but I also don't see Britney as a slut because I see sluts as a good thing. Independent women, like in the poem above. Britney is a puppet so any words with the connotation of independence don't apply to her.
Lil' Kim is called a slut too. She's more independent now than she was when, say, Biggie was alive since she was hopelessly attached to him. I could go on and on.
This ties into the dreaded Madonna-Whore dichotomy. You're either or. Preferrably Madonna so that certain men (not all, but still a signficant majority IMO) can feel secure that you'll never 'stray', knowing better sex is out there, you're for the taking. Whores are to be shunned and if you still want to be respectable, you better hope you don't get put in that column.
Now, I totally admire the men who love sex because they're able to share a moment with a woman who will enjoy it just as much, or maybe even more than them. These men are to be lauded and we need more of them! For you men to whom this applies, you often feel frustrated that women who truly enjoy sex aren't out there as much. Some may act like they love sex, read all the sex advice, buy the toys, the lube, the lingerie, but deep down inside, still punish themselves. You pro-sex men need to start speaking up. When your brethren start putting down women who truly enjoy sexual pleasure, set them straight. The same with women who do that. Don't laugh at sexist jokes, become active in pro-sex movements and be genuine about it. I know men like you are not myths. Become a reality, okay?
Anyway, this keeps women apart. This is the patriarchy at work and once again, when I use patriarchy in reference to this day and age, it refers to both men and women who hold that party line created thousands of years ago by a bunch of psychotic males. Attitudes such as this will keep any decriminalization from passing and will keep the stigma in place. This affects all of us who are pro-sex. Those of us who realize that sex is in fact an art that takes time and patience to cultivate, which is why most people have 'hamburger sex' with 'crotch sneezes' (the short seconds-long orgasm). Those who study this art and want to make money from it (prostitutes, especially the high-class escorts and courtesans) are professionals just like doctors and lawyers and deserve to practice their art.
After all, it's time to move away from this anti-sex stance in our society. I mean, when we have people who think prostitution and murder is one in the same, you know that we are truly sick.
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