The Implications of Our Lives: Choice, Agency, and Intersectionality in Prostitution
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UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT HILO ◆ HOHONU 2020 ◆ VOL. 18 The Implications of our Lives: restoring dignity to prostituted persons in valu- ing the “work” which sex workers do. Kamala Choice, Agency, and Kempadoo, pro-sex work scholar, has termed this Intersectionality in Prostitution “reproductive labor,” or “the way in which basic Emily Burkhart needs are met and human life is produced and re- produced” (Miriam 141). She goes on to articulate Philosophy 375 that “‘sex work involves…purely sexual elements Prostitution became a hot topic within femi- of the body…sexual energy should be considered nism during the “sex wars” of the 1980s (Miriam both procreation and bodily pleasure’” (141). The a line in the sand; a polarizing debate about agency, expressivist model sees prostitution as a site of choice, sexuality, and structural oppression. How “self – actualization” for sex workers, “a space can we best interrogate prostitution? Liberal femi- for ingenuity and creativity…which empowers nists argue for decriminalization on the grounds them…as sexual agents” (141). In addition to the that prostitution is a site of economic liberation, sexual empowerment they assert prostitution gives agency, and sexual expression for prostituted per- women, pro-sex worker advocates cite economic sons, or “sex workers.” Radical feminists argue for abolition and the criminalization of the purchase of sexual services. For them, prostitution is a form I started doing sex work when I was 12 years of structural gendered oppression of women kept old. One of my sisters was burnt to death. I alive by male demand. Critical race feminism might also have been killed, so I ran away.” In (CRF) argues that women and children of color are the next shot, dressed in a bright yellow sari, overrepresented in the population of prostituted she sits with her two children, and one of them persons and are often, but not always, coerced into kisses her on the head. “It is only recently that prostitution by racial and economic marginaliza- I’ve started thinking it’s good that I’m in sex tion; a fact generally overlooked by predominately work,” Shabana says. “I don’t have to depend white, middle – class, female, cisgendered aca- on anyone for anything. (Bazelon) demics nestled in distant ivory towers. How can we best understand prostitution, a complex and This statement was reported by Bazelon in a far-reaching issue? New York Times- Liberal feminist approaches to prostitution take up what is commonly called the “pro-sex work” of pro-sex worker collective V.A.M.P. in Sangli, stance. To contextualize liberal feminism: liberal Maharashtra, India. Prostitution enabled Shabana philosophy’s main values are the “‘autonomy’ of to become a liberated economic agent; therefore, ‘individuals’ and their rationality” (Miraim 137). Liberalism is mainly concerned with individual economic model of the “agency” in prostitution freedoms surrounding “choice” as “the exercise asserts that “prostitution is a quid pro quo com- of the individual’s autonomous will” (137). Kathy mercial sexual transaction and as such should be subject to standard labor laws and protections” which fall under this category: expressivist and (Carter and Giobbe 50). Pro-sex workers see pros- economic. The expressivist model sees the “basic tituted women as “savvy entrepreneurs,” “making injustice” of prostitution as the stigmatization and use of the existing sexual order” who choose pros- social devaluation of people who choose prostitu- titution as a means of securing sexual liberation tion as a profession (Miriam 141). Emily Bazelon, and/or economic mobility (Miriam 141). senior research fellow at Yale Law School, char- Radical feminist approaches are deeply criti- acterizes the “sex-workers’ rights movement” cal of these claims to freedom and choice. It sees as “a rebellion against punishment and shame” - (Bazelon). One of the “main political strategies” ated,” in that it assumes individuals to be “free of of the expressivist model is to address shame by historical and social conditions” (137). Therefore, 35 UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT HILO ◆ HOHONU 2020 ◆ VOL. 18 any freedom attained under these circumstances is of the work: “If prostitution were a choice, you’d purely “in the head,” or “the physical/legal condi- think there would be more men exercising it” tion of ‘being let alone’” (137). Further, the radical (MacKinnon). Abolitionism acknowledges as well feminist abolitionist stance disputes the claims that that reproductive activity and sexual pleasure can prostitution is often a consensual choice: “Women be (except for those identifying as asexual) an im- who sell their bodies out of economic necessity portant part of life. Abolitionism is not anti-sex, have not fully consented to prostitution,” states nor anti-pleasure, nor anti-men. Abolitionism is Catharine MacKinnon, renowned feminist legal anti-male entitlement. scholar (MacKinnon). - It is imperative to remind ourselves what nomic and human need as descriptive: “sex work “radical” means in this sense. It does not refer to pays well,” and “sexual pleasure is an integral part a far-left political agenda nor notions of anarchis- of life for many.” These are then twisted to become tic rule-breaking. Radical, in the sense that femi- normative claims: “sex work pays well, therefore nists mean it, implies “root.” Radical feminism at- women should engage in sex work,” or “humans tempts to point out and address the root causes of need sex, therefore women should engage in sex women’s oppression by identifying the structures work.” In reality, “humans” means “men” in pros- which sustain it, namely patriarchal social orga- titution; most buyers, are men and purchased peo- nization. By this line of reasoning, radical femi- ple are women (MacKinnon). Vednita Carter and nists ascertain that in addressing only the very real Evelina Giobbe, ex-prostituted women-turned ac- violence many prostituted persons face in terms of tivist academics, assert that “heterosexism advanc- rape, assault, carceral punishment, homelessness, es the belief that men have uncontrollable sexual and “injuries to status,” as liberal feminists tend to do, will only address a symptom of a much deeper ‘innocent’ females. Herein lies the ultimate justi- problem: male entitlement to demand access to fe- male bodies for sexual pleasure in a commercial “At the very worst,” they write, “prostitution is lit- market (Miriam 142). eral sexual slavery. At the very least, prostitution Abolitionism agrees with pro-sex work advo- is an accommodation and an adaptation to white cates that prostituted people are harmed by pros- male supremacy in its most brutal incarnation” titution in its current state. However, abolition- (47). Their analysis points to the white suprema- cist, patriarchal power structure which underlies from their inability to attain an adequate degree prostitution. This is entirely obscured by liberal of “freedom” within the practice. As argued by feminist rhetoric of “choice” and “freedom.” Other than addressing male demand, radical as oppressive by addressing the demand (men) feminists challenge pro-sex work advocates on the rather than the issues around the supply (women). Prostitution, according to abolitionists, promotes as well as the occlusion of the “actual, material, egregious male entitlement by granting on-demand, commercialized access to female bodies for sexual pleasure to satisfy male “need.” Abolitionism does Pateman, “masks the fact that a person’s capacities not demonize nor stigmatize prostituted women; are not separable from her self [sic] like pieces of it readily acknowledges that women make real property” (138). Therefore, radical feminists seek decisions every day to safeguard economic stabil- to discuss prostitution not as the circulation of sex- ity for themselves and/or their families. This does ual services, but as the sale of a “relation of com- not mean that they consent to or choose prostitu- mand” over the prostituted person’s body: tion. As MacKinnon points out: “Prostitution here is observed to be a product of lack of choice, the what is really sold in the prostitution or the em- resort of those with the fewest choices, or none at - all” (Butler, quoting MacKinnon, 119). She goes erty,” but a relation of command: the prosti- on to point out the uncontested gendered nature tute/employee sells command over her body to 36 UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT HILO ◆ HOHONU 2020 ◆ VOL. 18 the john/pimp/employer in exchange for some Liberal feminism centers individuality and recompense. It is this fundamental relation of autonomy, failing to address structural realities of white supremacy and patriarchy which ob- if not denied, by the pro-sex-work position on scure choice in prostitution. However, I follow Dr. “free prostitution.” (138) Bardwell – Jones’ assertions that any attempt to create a homogenous categorization of “women” If command over one’s body is what is sold in in either a liberal or radical critique is a disservice in that we center white women’s experiences while “agency” of prostituted women in this exchange. devaluing “the unique experiences and identities Through the pro-sex work model, one would have of women of color” (Bardwell – Jones 273). Legal to subscribe to the “contractual paradigm of disem- feminist scholar, Cheryl Nelson Butler’s, research bodied agency,” or freedom that is “in the head,” shows that women and children of color are the because the prostituted woman is operated on by most vulnerable to prostitution due to racialized not just an individual man, but male dominance economic marginalization and sexual stereotypes. as a structure. According to Adrienne Rich, men’s “right to be sexually serviced,” or the “male sex abolitionist stance and Critical Race Feminism. right,” is the “invisible precondition of a liberalism According to Butler’s analysis of Catharine that (still) works in men’s interests, a claim which MacKinnon’s work, “her [MacKinnon] focus has does not preclude an analysis of how class and race been on challenging structural oppression and rec- interests and ‘rights’ are also presupposed by the ognizing that, in the context of prostitution, this same political order” (144).