Curious
Unlike me, Anna Merlan at Jezebel didn’t like Jimmy Carter’s opinion piece on prostitution and decriminalization. She didn’t bother to be especially honest about it though.
Writing for the Washington Post, Carter editorialized that sex work is bad and oppressive. He’s against Amnesty International’s call to decriminalize all aspects of adult, consensual sex work, because he doesn’t think consensual sex work is real.
Some assert that this “profession” can be empowering and that legalizing and regulating all aspects of prostitution will mitigate the harm that accompanies it. But I cannot accept a policy prescription that codifies such a pernicious form of violence against women. Normalizing the act of buying sex also debases men by assuming that they are entitled to access women’s bodies for sexual gratification. If paying for sex is normalized, then every young boy will learn that women and girls are commodities to be bought and sold.
(Emphasis mine.)
It’s curious to suggest that decriminalizing sex work would lead to a wholesale devaluation of womanhood, but other aspects of Carter’s argument aren’t new.
You see what she did there? Se casually translated what Carter said into something else – she bolded his words, just as I did, but then she misrepresented them. He didn’t say “decriminalizing sex work would lead to a wholesale devaluation of womanhood”; he said something more interesting than that, and less easy to brush aside. Maybe that’s why she ignored it in favor of something sillier and more banal.
Explain to me why he’s wrong. Why is he wrong to say that normalizing the rental of women for sex will teach boys that women and girls are commodities to be bought and sold? Why wouldn’t it do that? If it becomes legal to buy and sell access to women, isn’t that teaching boys that women are a category of people who can be rented? Not simply paid to do some work, but rented for access.
But then again – human beings do have a long history of rising above prejudices of that kind, and treating everyone as an equal no matter what cues their society gives them.
Cue hollow laughter.
Not only did Carter not say “decriminalizing sex work would lead to a wholesale devaluation of womanhood” but on the most obvious reading of this, i.e. “decriminalizing prostitution would lead to a wholesale devaluation of womanhood,” he would not agree with it; he is in favour of prostitution itself being decriminalised. What he was talking about was buying sex, a different matter altogether.
Decriminalising sex work does not normalise it in the sense that is implied here. There are many things that are not criminal but are nonetheless far from normal. The reason decriminalising sex work will not teach men and boys that women are commodities to be bought and sold is that buying and selling women will remain illegal under Amnesty-style legislation. But women and men who choose to take money for sex will not be criminalised and it is, therefore, less likely that they will be persecuted by the police and criminal gangs. None of this has anything to do with ’empowerment’, nor does it suggest that sex work is fun, or that sex workers are free from exploitation or coercion.
The places where men and boys really are taught that women are commodities to be bought and sold, the patriarchies of the Hindu Kush, for example, are places where sex work is prohibited and punished to a severe degree (although it still goes on of course). That might be a clue to something.
So Carter said: “If paying for sex is normalized, then every young boy will learn that women and girls are commodities to be bought and sold.”
And Merlan responded: “It’s curious to suggest that decriminalizing sex work would lead to a wholesale devaluation of womanhood, but other aspects of Carter’s argument aren’t new.”
Wow. Just wow. Imagine if Carter was referring to, say, objectifying or commodifying imagery of women in advertising. I bet Merlan wouldn’t have a problem with his commentary then. It’s as though sex work is now sacred, and no one can object to it, even on the same grounds as they might (reasonably) object to other objectifying or commodifying practices.
Sex work is already largely normalised.
Look, this is one of the issues I have with this debate that when we say sex work, normally we are talking about prostitution, which is simply one industry within the larger category that is sex work,
I’m currently watching Game of Thrones. The earlier seasons have a lot of scenes in brothels, and involve women in highly sexualised situations. I would say that qualifies as sex work.
I mean how much of a difference is there between that and softcore porn?
And while we may talk about the underlying issues with Game of Thrones and similar TV shows, the elements that are good with feminism and the elements that aren’t, we can’t pretend that they aren’t when you get right down to it, normal.
On the issue of prostitution – I suspect actual normalisation would lead in the opposite direction, in that working as a prostitute would have the same social impact as working as a fry cook or a street sweeper. It wouldn’t be objectifying any more than doing any other sort of work, if it was actually normalised.
The trouble is that given western morals and mores, that isn’t what is really on offer here. What is on offer is it being legalised, without paying much attention to altering culture to the point where it is unremarkable. We have this idea that a judge having worked as a prostitute in her past would disqualify her from having the ability to make legally sound rulings.
Legalisation seems to often come without that cultural shift, meaning that you end up with a situation where legal prostitution has distinctly negative outcomes – in part because we’re also already in a situation where women are commoditised.
Purity culture types are quite happy to compare non-virgin women to used shoes for fuck’s sake, and the entire fashion industry is full of assholes who think the woman is there to show off the clothes promoting an incredibly unhealthy idea of feminine beauty.
And that issue has persisted whether prostitution was legal or not. How harsh a country is regarding the legal status of sex work appears to have little to no relationship with how much it respects women as human beings rather than property belonging to their fathers or future husbands.
What we have to consider therefore is not “normalisation” but what the impact of legalisation would have given the shitty situation that is already considered “normal”. So far as I can see the issue isn’t some vague moral question of public attitudes, but concrete issues such as rises in human trafficking and slavery.
We cannot legalise not because of some fear of social change that we can never really predict, but because of the entirely predictable harms associated with the industry as society is right now.
@ #3 “On the issue of prostitution – I suspect actual normalisation would lead in the opposite direction, in that working as a prostitute would have the same social impact as working as a fry cook or a street sweeper. It wouldn’t be objectifying any more than doing any other sort of work, if it was actually normalised.”
I used to think that. But now I’m not so sure. I am starting think that there is SOMETHING about sex that makes it not like “any other sort of work”. I think it’s the reason why sexual assault is considered in a different class to just assault, and why rape is such a traumatising experience. I think it has to do with the emotions we attach to sex, and I am not sure we can just socially construct those away.
@Emily Vicendese
That I think is a fair point – is normalisation even really possible?
@3,4,5: the counterpart to “sex work is work” is that sex slavery is slavery; in fact it’s slavery plus rape. The pimping model of prostitution is one in which women are systematically coerced into sex with whatever men pays, without the opportunity to say no; describing this as “sex work” is whitewashing. A woman offering sex in exchange for money, of her own free will, and to clients of her choosing (i.e. she can say no), is a completely different issue; it’s like the difference between BDSM play and actually being enslaved. Frankly, using the same word – prostitution – to describe both is barely coherent.
Pinkeen @ 2 –
You have that exactly wrong. It’s the Nordic model that does that; AI wants buying and selling women to be decriminalized.
I think Pinkeen is basing the argument on a distinction between “buying and selling of women” and “prostitution.”
Prostitution isn’t the literal buying and selling of women, therefore it can be said (disingenuously, I think) that the AI plan prohibits the buying and selling of woman AND decriminalizes prostitution.
Jamie Lee Curtis’s character from Trading Places is not the norm; if it was this kind of thing would not be a problem.
No, it’s more like renting or leasing. And if you look at industries where renting is common (cars, houses), it seems obvious that some people take much less care of property they have rented than at property they own. You can use it and move on, because someone else will be responsible for any damage you do in the long run. (Yes, I know there is a deposit for cleaning you won’t get back, but if you do enough damage, that won’t cover the charges).
When you have a pimp in the deal, then you have someone “owning” the “property” and renting it out to others. The apartment/house/car doesn’t rent itself; with a pimp, the prostitute doesn’t rent herself, but is “owned” by someone else. So buying and selling, or renting, let’s not quibble over words?
Pinkeen, you should read some of the prior posts here: Ophelia and most of us are in favor of the Nordic model, which is what you THOUGHT Amnesty International is supporting. What we don’t favor is pimps and johns having their “rights” to sell and buy others for sex legalized.