Weeks 11-12: Sex Work in the U.S. and elsewhere

        Ever since I read Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs I’d been trying to figure out how to go about perceiving sex work as something that is actually empowering in the midst of what she so aptly dubs “raunch culture.” Here’s the breakdown for me: on the one hand, of course sex work is inherently offensive and oppressive to women – it degrades them for the benefit of men. On the other hand, sex work can have an empowering effect: as Julia states in Live Nude Girls Unite, one way to fight the patriarchy is to subvert the system and take their money. I’d gone back and forth between the two and I think, in the final analysis, it comes down to the belief that feeding the bad habits of the patriarchy – even if it has a somewhat liberating effect for the women – is not the solution. Healthy expression of sexuality is not going to be possible when we are still living in constructs of certain century- or maybe even millennia-old power dynamics. The curious thing is that I can totally agree with the notion that on the level of an individual sex work – profitable sex work – can certainly be a big fat f*** you to the patriarchy and a legitimate, even respectable, and clever way of beating the system at its own game. But, on the level of the collective it only exacerbates the problem, strengthens the systematic oppression and subjugation tactics. If there is a supply for a demand that is driven so obviously (at least in my opinion) not by the desire for sex but a particularly constructed kind of sexual interaction, one teeming with gender-specific power dynamics, then the demand will continue to exist. And if sexist and misogynist views of sexual exchange remain well-stocked and well-fed then it doesn’t seem like the conditions in which sex work exists now is doing anything to solve the problem. Sure, it’s a source of income – for some (or many, depending on the region of the world) it’s the only source of income. But, until conditions improve – and that entails both some serious changes in the way society thinks, in addition to basic recognition of sex work as work – it seems legitimate but not just for lack of a better word. I can accept sex work as necessary but not as non-exploitative. After all, sweatshop workers in factories aren’t performing any less of a legitimate kind of labor. But that doesn’t mean I support it. Serious, mind-blowing change has to happen first.

These films on sex work are the first of their kind that I've seen. In all of the documentaries on this industry it seems to me that the story is the same: destitute individuals with little of no means of getting income using on the few things of value they have left- their bodies. In none of these movies (this might be the way the director structures the film) are the happy to be in their position. In reading Kempadoo's essay I feel like she has a valid point in that if these individuals, victims of the social institutions that create there circumstances that they should be granted the conditions to perform this kind of work safely. At the same time I think she disregards the that fact that for some consumers part of the appeal is taking part of something illegal. I took a sociology of deviance class and we discussed prostitution as deviance, and the reason why it is a lucrative profession is because consumers are paying workers for their lost of status. Also I think it's important to note this is these individuals only option- how free is your choice if it's your only option? Also something I've been wondering if treated sex work as just work, how would it change the meaning of sex? I feel like sex culturally is alot more complicated then having it or not; it is part of many facets of our lives in implicate ways. With your partners, how would you differentiate between work and play?

So today in class when we were asked to do the questions exercise I was kind of stuck. Well, actually I wasn't stuck at all. I had so many questions to ask, but no answers. Sex work and its ethics has always been a very confusing subject to me. I'm not about to delve into my conservative religious upbringing (again) but I really think it effects my thinking (on everything...).  Someone in class today was asking about morality and how it plays into peoples thinking on this issue. Basically I go in circles in my mind. On the one hand I think that it is degrading and that a woman's (or man's) body is priceless. On the other hand, we can choose whatever we'd like to do with our bodies, and we are free to set our own rules, and if a woman chooses to use it in a certain way she should be entitled. Sex is a big part of life, and a very important one--so should we treat it like any other need? Should we put it on a pedastool?

I guess my official policy on it would have to be a little bit of a mixture of the two. I think that personally sexwork would be degrading to my body and not for me, and I would not encourage any of my friends or loved ones to engage in it. HOwever, I think that it is a woman's (or man's) choice and that, just like anything else, good or bad can result from it.

As much as I criticized Julia (the main woman in "Live Nude Girls Unite") for being hypocritical, I think I probably would react similarly... I would not want my daughter to be involved in sex work and yet would support those who were. I guess we can talk all we want but when it comes down to our own lives and loved ones, it's different.

 I haven't had a chance to see Live Nude Girls Unite! yet because it's out in Magill, I didn't have time to go to Bryn Mawr and I cannot find it ANYWHERE online (has anyone else? I thought that it'd be easy to find but I guess I was wrong).  Anyways, sex work and stripping is something I've thought about a lot, and I immediately thought about this song, which I'm sure you all remember:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uv2b8jo46w

City High, What Would You Do

Boys and girls wanna hear a true story?
Saturday night I was at this real wild party,
they had the liquor overflowin' the cup,
about 5 or 6 strippers tryin to work for a buck,
and I took one girl outside wit me,
her name was Lonni, she went to Jr. High wit me,
I said, Why you up in there dancin' for cash?
I guess a whole alots changed since I seen you last
She said,

what would you do if your son was at home,
cryin' all alone on the bedroom floor
cuz he's hungry, and the only way to feed him 
is to sleep with a man for a 
little bit of money and his daddy's gone,
somewhere smokin' rock now,
in and out of lock down,
I ain't got a job now,
so for you this is just a good time but for me this is what 
I call life, mmm

girl you ain't the only one wit a baby,
that's no excuse to be livin' all crazy,
then she looked me right square in the eye,
and said every day I wake up hopin' to die,
she said-nigga I know about pain cuz,
me and my sister ran away so my daddy couldn't rape us,
before I was a teenager I been through more shit,
that you can't even relate ta... 

what would you do?
get up on my feet and let go of every excuse
what would you do?
cuz I wouldn't want my baby to go through what I went
through
(come on)
what would you do?
Get up on my feet and stop makin' up tired excuses
What would you do?
girl I know if my mother can do it, baby you can do it

what would you do if your son was at home,
cryin' all alone on the bedroom floor
cuz he's hungry, and the only way to feed him 
is to sleep with a man for a 
little bit of money and his daddy's gone,
somewhere smokin' rock now,
in and out of lock down,
I ain't got a job now,
so for you this is just a good time but for me this is what I call life

This song was released in 2001, so I guess most of us were about 12 years old and didn't quite understand what the song was talking about. But the lyrics are straight forward enough that I had the idea. When I listen to this song now, I can't really keep my thoughts in a straight line. I think of my mother's friend who got pregnant at 18 and tried like hell to get a job as a secretary, in food service, in factories around the city but nothing pulled through for her so she starting dancing as a stripper at the local bars. That's all she's done for more than ten years now, and she has a nice, clean home and has enough money to give her youngest child, her daughter, everything she desires. There's still a lot of conflict though, from the lifestyle that tends to come along with this kind of work. She doesn't have custody of her son of her son because of mix-ups with drugs and partying when she was younger and first started stripping. 

In the song, the part rapped a male member of the group (starting with the line "get up on my feet and let go of every excuse") really rubs me the wrong way. I understand what he's saying, and in some ways I agree with his sentiment, but I've seen this woman get her life together and be a responsible and loving parent while stripping. He ends this section with "girl I know if my mother can do it, baby you can do it" which has a really caring, sincere tone, but she HAS done it, and so have many other women who have turned to stripping and sex work in order to provide for their children. 

So I guess right now my opinions and thoughts are mixed and mashed. I would like for women to not have to resort to stripping in order to make rent and buy food, but what else do you do when you've spent months and months applying for jobs and going to interviews without getting any offers? I don't see it as a degrading profession when the women choose it and become well-off because of it--what is degrading about being able to put food on the table or buy Christmas presents for your child? It's likely that most of the time, especially for women who have been doing this for awhile, stripping isn't even about sex. It loses that feel after 5 years of dancing in lace underwear on a stage, or that's what I think would happen if I were in that position. I don't have a full perspective on this issue, and I really can't wait to get my hands on that documentary to see what perspective that offers me. It could be that it totally changes what I think, but at this point I know that stripping does not have to be a horrible thing, and that negative sentiment shouldn't be pushed onto the women who are working as strippers--rather, we should be listening to them telling us how they feel. 

*Note, I'm not sure yet how I feel about "sex work" still. It's in a different space in my mind, away from stripping, and seems to imply something much more dangerous and risky than dancing. 

I was in high school when I first saw this episode of the Tyra Banks show, but ever since then it had caught my attention. I picked this video clip to show the class the diverse opinions and thoughts on the sex industry by workers of the sex industry. I found it particularly interesting for the class, for these women  choose to be in the sex industry, many even had collge degrees. Furthemore, I found it interesting how this heirarchy within the sex industry illustrates how sex labor should be legalized, for it show how sex is just another form of work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCKx2P5ynzw

the video is a bit long, but it's all worth it!

okay, so in our class discussion, one person said that before we make sex labor legal, we must give women trapped in such a life, different alrenatives. I have to say that I completely agree with this. In Legitimizing/legalizing sex work, we give men the freedom to do as they please with the women who were put into such conditions by force. We purposely condemn unwilling victims to a lifetime of sex labor of which many have no choice but to stay in.

With that said, of course sex work should be legalized. For many, sex work is the only form of surviving due to a lack of education; for others, sex work is simply easier, or empowering. But this does not mean that conditions in a work place should be used to manipulate workers to stay and work. I mean why must the idea of sex be used to keep workers in the sex industry from living normal lives without being looked upon as whores, sluts etc.

I think that this lies with the idea of sex as devil worshipping in the eyes of society. If sex was not looked at as an evil sin, then sex work would  not be so hard to legalize.