Three Cheers For Bad, Dirty Sluts
Mistress Matisse has written an excellent short essay on why prostitution is not inherently wrong. It’s hard to argue with her points on women’s ownership of their own bodies, and it’s puzzling to me that self-described feminists, who are all about body self-ownership when it comes to the reproductive side of sex, can’t understand the same point when it’s applied to sex for money-and-pleasure.
My favorite paragraph:
That, to me, is the part of being a sex worker that’s most apt to be damaging: the pressure, the name-calling, the marginalization and isolation she may encounter. If she internalizes those beliefs – and for many women it’s hard not to – she will start to hate herself, and with self-hatred comes a host of other self-destructive behaviors. But I think it’s not the sex with men that’s damaging these women, it’s being told they’re bad, dirty sluts. And I think it’s unfortunate when the people calling them that think of themselves as feminists. That’s not any brand of feminism I want to be a part of.
And just for the record, I would pay good money to be there watching in person while someone tells Mistress Matisse to her face that she’s a bad, dirty slut.
Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=1177
I don’t see anything more inherently degrading and exploitative in sex work than I do in any other work. If you do it when you hate it because you’re forced to by circumstance, then it’s bad. If you do it because you like it, then it’s good.
I had this conversation with somebody once who was saying that she thinks strippers are being exploited and it makes her sad. I said, you know what makes me sad? You know who I think is desperate and exploited? A woman old enough to be retired who’s working the drive-through window at Taco Bell at 2am. That shit is depressing, and it’s for $6 an hour, not $20 a dance.
There is a certain amount of thought that says that Having Sex With Men Is Wrong. Sex is something that men take and women give. Sex is a man’s pleasure, but a woman’s degradation. It’s all very neo-Victorian.
Therefore, women who give men sex, for money, are either Victims (and thus don’t know what they’re doing), or they’re willing accomplices in the oppression of women.
Having said that, there are feminists who see prositution as entirely being about women owning their own bodies, and thus fine and good. In fact, some feminists see prositution as the only honest sex a woman can have with a man. Feminism is a fairly broad church.
I’d pay even more money to be the one telling her she’s a bad dirty slut. Oh, mama!
I see she links to River City Kitty, who is an inhumanly hot stripper now sadly no-longer-based-in-Austin. So she has good taste in friends to go with her healthy attitude.
Prostitution as in willing prostitution. But what if the giver is not willing or has been forced by economic reasons? Or worse, forced by reason of being kidnapped, cheated? I don’t see what is wrong with prostituion either, simply because I believe it’s not a dirty occupation, it’s an honest living and in fact it should be legalised and monitored to make sure the person in this occupation is willing.
But sadly, most prostitution that nobody discuss in here are those morally repugnant; most obvious case in point, child prostitution or forced prostitution. I am not a person who sees things in a morality viewpoint since I am not religious but when it comes to exploitation of children, unwilling women or men, it makes me very very angry. It’s different from fantasy but to see it for real is something very emotional for me, and I don’t really know anybody who has been forced at all.
Does it make sense?
Woah there, SF, morality is not owned by the [deleted — Bacchus]. I’m Canadian, socialist, and very not Christian, and I see things very much through my strong sense of morality. There’s a myth brewing that Christian mores are the only morality, and that’s so very, very dangerous.
Aside from that “danger Will Robinson!” moment, yes, I see what you’re saying. Until prostitution is legalised and regulated, it will be used by unsavoury elements of society as a source of revenue, and that almost always means exploiting the people who do the real work. Prohibition didn’t work in the 20s, it doesn’t work now.
SF, I think it kind of goes without saying in a space like this that prostitution-positive topics are about consensual activities. The issue with ‘child prostitution’ or ‘forced prostitution’ isn’t prostitution at all, but force or coercion.
That’s a different issue; a worthy one, without question, but let’s not automatically lump together one of the world’s oldest, most honorable professions with something that’s orthogonal to it.
Thanks, Dionysus — you beat me to it. “Forced prostitution” isn’t prostitution, it’s rape or slavery, and not what were’re talking about here.
Also need to point out that “forced by economic reasons” makes a mockery of the word “force”. Force is guns, knives, fists, blood, bruises. “Economic reasons” is choice, never force.
One comment edited to remove the name of a political party — mentioning (to promote or criticize, makes no diff to me) specific parties or politicians or candidates remains strictly forbidden here.
i work in an office. i think perhaps that no job in the sex industry is any more degrading or humiliating than that is at times.
One of the hard parts about growing up and being smart is when you encounter other smart people. No longer are you automatically always right, now you have to be able to back up your position with more than just lots of facts and figures. Allowing others to hold a contrary position, and being okay with that, is sometimes a very tough task indeed. There is so much that could work better in modern societies, that it is sometimes too easy to look at a situation/occupation/way of life and say ‘that is wrong’, without taking the time to consider the full effects on the people involved, not just what You think you would feel if you were in that situation. Thus many automatically assume that prostitution is wrong, because they wouldn’t want to do it/have their sister/cousin/daughter do it. But depending on where you live, it might be quite preferable to many other forms of employment. Another example of “It’s not always What you do, it’s How you do it that counts.”
Thank fuck for Mistress Matisse. I am so sick of hearing about the road to excess and self destruction I’m on merely for being a stripper. Yes, it is sexual. Yes, it is hard. Yes, sometimes I hate it, and sometimes I love it. But do I think it’s screwing me up? No. What screws me up is the prejudice I get because of my job, and the fact I can’t admit to having a bad day without people informing me the job is ‘pulling me down’. It’s paying my fucking rent, which is more than the degree from cambridge ever did. And when some asshole throws you sixty bucks to kiss your pussy, you feel nothing, no shame, no self-hatred. It’s only later when people tell you what you should feel that you start to feel emotion, and it;s usually irritation at their self-righteousness and inability to understand that sometimes in life we have to make certain choices everyone may to agree with to get by. Sink or swim. I chose swim, like it or not.
Heh… I feel kind of alone here. I feel that prostitution (and related occupations, like stripping) are at least reprehensible, if not _wrong_, because they put a price on and therefore degrade sexuality. Buying and selling sexuality like a commodity bothers me in the same way that selling out one’s principles would bother me. My sexuality is something special to me that I will share with special people, not with anyone who has the money.
I found the Mistress write up interesting, but in a few points I think she wanted to make points she couldn’t really support.
E.g. “I don’t think anyone has a “right” to buy sex. So, if there was no one who was willing to sell it, well, would-be customers would just be out of luck. But there are women who are willing to sell it, and I do think women should have the right to sell sexual access to their bodies.”
So this means that if a woman wanted to sell her body, but no one wanted to buy it, someone should be forced to fuck her (and to pay to do it), since she has the right to sell sexual access? Well that doesn’t make sense… So why would she feel it important to stress that customers don’t have the right to buy, but sellers have the right to sell? They would require each other if a transaction is going to take place in my humble opinion, and either they both have the right to participate or neither does.
The word “right” gets thrown around a lot, and I don’t see it applying on either side for this issue.