Paying For It (2013)
Sex-Work Pride & Related Matters
by Chester Brown
(first posted on Patreon, 15 April 2017)
My March 28th post about Dave Sim's body-camera proposal has been put up on A Moment Of Cerebus. Dave has been having computer problems and so has been unable to respond. (Perhaps he hasn't even read the post.) But other A-M-O-C readers have commented. I notice that NONE of them defended Dave's body-cam idea.
Someone named Erick accused me of hypocrisy because, in criticizing Dave's extreme ideas, I neglected to acknowledge that many of my own ideas are similarly extreme. It would seem that Erick doesn't know what hypocrisy is.
Erick asked me a question:
"You truly mean to say that you would have no problem with your own mother and daughter becoming paid receptacles for strangers to hump on and ejaculate over? To be used in every conceivable way by men who see them as just a physical object to satisfy themselves on. Who would treat them no better than a pair of old shoes? And you no problem with that?"
Because I know that prostitutes can engage in their work with dignity and self-respect, I would have no problem with anyone I love doing sex-work. Erick characterizes sex-workers as "paid receptacles for strangers to hump on and ejaculate over" who are "used in every conceivable way by men who see them as just a physical object to satisfy themselves on" and are "treat[ed…] no better than a pair of old shoes". I'm not sure where Erick gets the idea that it's common for prostitutes to be ejaculated on and "used in every conceivable way". All sex-workers have their boundaries. A lot would not allow themselves to be ejaculated on and the ones who would usually charge extra for that. Only a few clients are so interested in ejaculating on someone that they'd pay the extra, so very little ejaculating-on is actually happening to prostitutes. That said, I wouldn't have any problem with a relative of mine allowing himself-or-herself to be ejaculated on during sexual play, whether for pay or not. And no sex-workers allow themselves to be "used in every conceivable way". Erick is exaggerating to make sex-work sound bad.
In saying that the clients see the sex-workers "as just […] physical object[s]", Erick fails to understand why people pay for sex: they want a connection with a fellow human being. I've been seeing one sex-worker for a long time and have real affection for her. That's not unusual - most prostitutes have regular clients and those regulars are the back-bone of their business. Very few prostitutes could survive financially if their only clients were ones who saw them only once. Why do clients become regulars? Most clients are men and, lets face it, guys tend to like sexual variety. If a guy has sex regularly with one woman over a long period of time, it's almost certainly for an emotional reason. That tendency to form emotional bonds with the sex-workers they see indicates that many clients see sex-workers as people, not objects. Even when I saw a sex-worker only one time, I still was able to recognize her humanity.
I've read a lot of stuff written by sex-workers (books, blogs, etc.) and there's general agreement that, while there are bad clients, most of them are relatively decent, and a lot of them are genuinely good. For example, I happen to now be reading King Kong Theory by writer and film director Virginie Despentes. She did sex-work for a few years and wrote of her first client, "I found him astonishingly kind." She then adds:
"[That] impression was confirmed by the other clients: in general, they were nice to me, attentive, and tender. [… I]n my small experience the clients were heavy with humanity". [60 & 61.]
The person proudly going by the name A Fake Name wrote:
"I just don’t think [prostitution is] anything to be celebrated, to be proud of or to have as a goal for a woman's life. But that's not hatred, or dislike or prejudice."
The words hate, dislike, and prejudice are not synonyms. One can be a homophobe and yet honestly not hate or dislike any individual gay people. (This is why the some-of-my-best-friends-are-black-or-gay-or-whatever line is widely mocked). If A Fake Name thinks that it's not possible for a sex-worker to be genuinely proud of what she or he does, it's because A Fake Name has a prejudice against sex-workers and can't see things from their perspective. Engaging in sex-work takes courage for all sorts of reasons. Courage is something to be proud of. H-L Mencken writes that the prostitute's "revolt against the pruderies and sentimentalities of the world [is] evidence […] of her intellectual enterprise." An ability to see through the pruderies and sentimentalities of the world is something to be proud of. Many sex-workers have children - an ability to provide well for one's children is something to be proud of. Those are just a few reasons why sex-workers can and often do feel proud. There are other possible ones - that isn't an exhaustive list.
Sean Michael Robinson wrote:
"I’m […] skeptical of (to me) extraordinary claims when they come from a self-interested party. I’d suggest someone dispassionate about prostitution might make a more effective policy advocate."
Why was Martin Luther King Jr passionate about rights for black people? Because he was black. Why was Harvey Milk passionate about gay rights? Because he was gay. Human rights are moved forward by self-interested members of oppressed groups. It's sex-workers and those of us who are their clients who are most interested in pushing for our rights and pointing out the ignorant misinformation that too many people believe about us.
It doesn't seem to me that I'm making any "extraordinary claims", at least not in the posts that have appeared on A-M-O-C. I've met a lot of sex-workers (both as a client and as someone who created books on the subject that a lot of sex-workers found interesting). When one meets a lot of sex-workers, one finds that most of them aren't like any hooker stereotypes. They're just normal people, all different from each other. The same is true for their clients. (I've met a lot of them, too.) Is it really extraordinary to say that the stereotypes are mostly not true?
Erick returned to the comments section to add:
"I believe that all prostitution is degrading. […] I am sure there are individual cases where [a prostitute] does not feel degraded. […] But […] slaves were and are degraded and treated as less than human. [… T]here have certainly been slaves who did not feel degraded. Who may have been treated well by their captors. But does that in fact mitigate the horror and degradation of slavery as a whole."
In an attempt to explain why sex-work is morally wrong, Erick is saying that even though there are (many) prostitutes who don't feel degraded by engaging in sex-work, it is nevertheless degrading. To prove this, he asserts that some slaves didn't feel that they were degraded, but all slavery is nevertheless degrading. I see that as just a semantic mistake. Yes, there probably were slaves who didn’t feel degraded, but slavery isn’t wrong because it always involves degradation (although it usually does). Slavery is wrong because slaves are forced to do the work they do whether that work is degrading or not. A slave who was in a position that didn't involve degradation knew that his-or-her position was precarious - if the master died, the slave could easily end up in a degrading situation. And slaves want the freedom to make their own choices. No slave makes the choice to be a slave, and every slave would choose freedom.
Of course, I agree that forced prostitution is wrong, but the vast majority of sex-workers choose to do the work, they are not forced to do it. That is the important distinction between slavery and sex-work, not whether either involves degradation. I'm not forcing Denise to have sex with me. Instead of seeing me, she could get a (non-sexual) part-time job to make the same amount of money that she makes from me. But that job would take up more of her time (and she already has a full-time non-sexual job) so, from her perspective, having sex with me is the better choice given the options before her. Unless he-or-she wants to die, a slave has only one option: obey the master.
The idea that consensual sex between people is degrading even when those people don't consider it to be degrading, that idea is perverse - it's exactly that idea that homophobia is rooted in.
Like every attempt to explain why prostitution is supposed to be morally wrong, Erick's rationalization for his prejudice falls flat. To paraphrase George Carlin's well-known comment on the subject: consensual sex between adults is not morally wrong, giving a person money is not morally wrong, therefore giving an adult money to have consensual sex is not morally wrong.
I mentioned that book by Virginie Despentes, here's another relevant quote from it:
"[W]hen you hear that prostitution is an 'act of violence against women,’ we are supposed to forget that it is marriage and other things we put up with that are ‘acts of violence against women.’ We cannot ignore the fact that far more women die from domestic violence than from engaging in sex work. Women who are fucked for free must continue to be told that they have made the only possible choice, otherwise how can they be kept under control? Masculine sexuality is not in itself an act of violence against women, as long as they are consenting and well paid. It is the control exercised upon us that is violent — the power to decide on our behalf what is dignified and what is not." [80.]
CHESTER BROWN:
(from Patreon Update, 17 April 2017)
On Saturday I mentioned the book King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes - here are two more quotes from it:
(from Patreon Update, 17 April 2017)
On Saturday I mentioned the book King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes - here are two more quotes from it:
"Girls involved with paid sex, who gain concrete benefit out of their position as females while remaining independent, must be publicly punished. They have transgressed, have played neither the role of the good mother nor that of the good wife, still less that of the respectable woman […] and so they must be socially marginalized. [91.]
"When whores are prevented from working in decent conditions, women are not the only ones being targeted, men’s sexuality is also being controlled. Having a relaxed heterosexual fuck when they feel like it mustn’t be too easy or pleasant. Their sexuality must remain a problem. [… Desire] must remain problematic, guilt-inducing." [75.]
Chester Brown has been writing and drawing comics and graphic novels since the 1980s: Yummy Fur, Ed The Happy Clown, I Never Liked You, Louis Riel, Paying For It, Mary Wept Over The Feet Of Jesus. You can help provide him with a stable source of income while he works on his next graphic novel by donating at Patreon.