There’s a school of thought floating around, led mostly by women who sell their bodies, that says that to legalize prostitution is to somehow give “sex workers” some sort of autonomy in the buying and selling of their “goods”. Hey, that sounds like a plan. While we’re at it, let’s legalize slavery too why don’t we? Selling one’s humanity, selling one’s essence, selling one’s body creates an abyss, a karmic, emotional wound so deep it can’t be healed. How can one ever turn back the time to a place BEFORE they gave away their most sacred and intimate gift? How can one ever erase the memory that they were once a hole to be used, a receptacle for someone’s carnal and base desires for $100? The legalization of sex, the commodization of it doesn’t mean we as a people are liberating our views of sexuality. It’s placing a dollar value on one’s personhood. Sex should be about intimacy and communion, not a dollar transaction.
The selling of sex damages the people who are selling their bodies and the people who are buying the sex. To own a human being, to purchase someone’s body, even for a short period of time, to do with it whatever you want because you have paid for it creates a distorted and warped sense of power that perpetuates not only the objectification of (mostly) women but it creates a sense of entitlement in the world as if anyone can be bought and sold for a price. Those individuals with more money can buy more expensive ass. That creates a warped mentality in those who don’t have the same financial means who want to posses as much power as the ones who can buy any piece of ass they want. It perpetuates the fallacy of supremacy, capitalism, and a false sense of power of the individuals who have the money to buy any hooker they want. It creates further objectification of women in that the most expensive hookers have the traits most desired by the men with the most money, i.e. white men. So the blonde haired, big booobed, Barbie Doll continues to reign as most desirable while anyone with traits that don’t fit the ideal has to discount their pussy in order to pay the bills.
To place a dollar value on your sex, to sell it like a ham in the meat department, to give away your autonomy as a human being to pick and choose your partners based on love, compatibility, attraction, and/or lust is to cheapen your entire identity. How does one set the price for their pussy? How does one determine what their soul is worth? Where do you draw the line? You let some total stranger do some foul, gross, disgusting thing to you because they’ve paid your going rate. The same goes for women who have sex with their “special friend” in order to make ends meet, to pay for child care, and to get that designer pair of shoes. Once you have placed a dollar value on your sex, you have cheapened yourself.
I’ve never had sex for money. Not once in my life. Not for a car note, not for my rent, not for a little spending change, not in exchange for anything that had a dollar value. Does that make my pussy more valuable than someone who has? YES, INFINITELY! Does that make me morally superior? No, but it is an indication that I have a more profound sense of self-worth. My body, my sexuality, my love is priceless; there is no amount of money that can purchase me. There is no amount of money in the world that could make me lay with someone for currency. Legalizing prostitution damages me as a woman who refuses to participate in the exchange of goods and services for sex in that it makes men who buy sex think that they can purchase my body and treat me however they want because it allows them to see women as objects and not human beings deserving of love, respect, commitment, and the things necessary to form a healthy, mature, loving relationship.
The women who sell their pussy like it’s no big deal, who rationalize that it’s the oldest profession, that people are going to do it regardless, that there might as well be regulations on it to prevent the spread of disease, etc, are pawns of a patriarchal system of oppression that allow men to dictate the value of what a person’s body is worth. That’s slavery. “Sex workers” are not empowered; they are not taking advantage of the men who would ordinarily take advantage of them. They are sexual chattel in a capitalist scheme of power and domination.
6 comments:
To me, paying someone else for admission into a swinger's club to have sex with strangers, or a place where people use other forms of sex (their sex or sexuality) to dominate you is just like paying for oral, anal, and vaginal sex. The only difference I see is that the money one pays goes directly to the person giving them pleasure as opposed to a third party collector who provides the scenery.
Besides, there are other ways to pay for sex which are perfectly legal and used often.. buying expensive clothes, jewelry, handbags, drinks, and dinner for people so long as they "put out" are all forms of prostitution. But people assume that just because they are not on street corners or knocking on stranger's hotel rooms they are safe from being labeled prostitutes. NOT ALL PROSTITUTES GET PAID IN CASH!!!!!!!!! So to me legalizing the on-screen Julia Roberts form of prostitution is not a big jump at all. But hey, maybe I'm just crazy.
Or maybe you are just a ho.
AfroerotiK, great post and well said.
There are different types of sex work and you seem to be conflating prostitution with ALL sex work (ie. stripping, peep show workers, burlesque, pro- dominatrixes and submissives, phone sex workers, escorts, solo amature porn, etc. etc.) Sex workers have varying levels of autonomy some trafficked workers have NONE, others pick and choose who to work with. The sex industry is not a monolith.
I also highly disagree that a woman's pussy is the most sacred part of her being. In my opinion her mind and heart are the most sacred. Saying a woman's worth is based upon her pussy being "used" or not sounds like Christian Right rhetoric.
And you are NOT more valuable of a woman just because you have never had to trick on the streets for cash or anything else because you've been privileged enough to have enough income to not go that route. That is an insult to all poor and working class women who have had no choice! It's classist. And if a woman did chose to be a sex worker? She is STILL not less than you are. I'm SICK of hearing women, of all people, rank themselves based on their sexual worth! It's like crabs in a barrel.
I'd also like to know who died and made you the expert on who is and isn't a "pawn of the patriarchy."
"Or maybe you are just a ho."
Why are you trying to illegitimate her opinion by calling her a "ho"? As if an insult to a woman's "sexual worth" trumps everything else she has ever said. A slut, a whore, a ho, a tramp, a hussy, on and on.
Honestly I used to really love your blog, your thoughts, and site. But I strongly disagree with this post, and have to unsubscribe to it all per your "ho" comment.
I did not say I was more valuable as a woman. I SAID my pussy has more value because it doesn't have a price on it. ALL sex workers are pawns in the patriarchal game, whether you like it or not, because we live in a male-run, male-dominated, male gender oppressed society. Who died and made me speak up for the rights of women NOT to sell their bodies? Any woman who has had to sell her body to survive and been killed at the hands of her "client" THAT'S WHO! If my comments or message is offensive to you, I invite you to leave. Perhaps there are other people out there, fighting for the right for women to be oppressed, degraded, and purchased like objects with legal tender whose message you prefer more.
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