Poet and second-wave feminist
darling Katha Pollitt
penned a predictably bad piece about sex work for The
Nation recently. Pollitt is upset about what she perceives as
widespread leftist support for legalized prostitution. This is, in
itself, a strange perception—I’ve followed sex worker activism and
attitudes for years, and I am far from alone in noticing a recent
surge in anti–sex work passion among progressives. But
more problematic/annoying are the reasons Pollitt gives for
criminalizing prostitution, reasons which turn on an unsavory
belief that restricting liberty is justified if it leads people to
better (read: more progressive) views.
Pollitt’s opposition seems to hinge mainly on three things:
1) Some people do not want to sell sex and would rather sell
pie.
2) Men she knows (and men you know, too!) might visit
prostitutes if it’s legal.
3) PATRIARCHY.
To the first point, Pollitt notes that it’s not “just prudery or
fear of arrest or attack or stigma that keeps the vast majority of
women working straight jobs. Maybe there’s a difference between a
blowjob and a slice of pie.”
No maybe about it, lady, there is definitely a difference
between a blow job and a slice of pie. It’s neat that there’s room
in this world for both, and that there are people willing to both
sell and buy both. Waitresses who don’t want to sell blow jobs
don’t have to, sex workers who don’t want to bus tables don’t have
to, and neither of them have to sell insurance. Women who don’t
want to sell blow jobs or pie or insurance, meanwhile, can find
different means of making a livng entirely. The fact that not
everybody wants to do a particular job seems like a very silly
reason to think that job should be banned.
Would many sex workers choose other work if they could? No
doubt. (I’ll bet many coal miners and migrant farm laborers would,
too.) And sex work supporters acknowledge this. It’s completely
untrue that popular sex work activists—the kind Pollitt pooh-poohs
for having Twitter accounts and a choice in what they do—don’t talk
about sex worker exploitation. No one is under any illusions that
all sex workers are Ashley Dupre or
Belle Knox. But, as Noah Berlatsky commented on Pollitt’s
article, the key question is how best to reduce that
exploitation?
“Is it to tell sex workers that there’s something wrong with
them for doing this work rather than a service job (which does seem
to be where your argument leads)?” Bertlatsky asks. “Or is it to
try to give them more rights and more power?”
Giving sex workers more rights, however, would also mean giving
johns less punishment—a point which Pollitt expects women to find
scary. Have you thought about the fact that men you know might
visit prostitutes, young ladies? “This faceless man could
be anyone: your colleague, your boyfriend, your father, your
husband,” writes Pollitt. “Theoretically, if it’s OK to be a sex
worker, it’s OK to be a john….Do pro–sex work feminists really
think that, though?”
I can’t speak for all pro–sex work feminists, but I imagine that
most do, in fact, realize that it takes two to tango for money.
Which means, yes, it’s okay to be a john. Yes, monetized sexual
relations with another consenting adult are “OK” no matter which
side of the cash flow you’re on.
But, but, but…don’t we know this will perpetuate patriarchy?
“When feminists argue that sex work should be normalized,” writes
Pollitt, “they accept male privilege they would attack in any other
area.”
I’m not sure what Pollitt means by “normalized.” I’ve never seen
any feminists arguing that prostitution should be the predominant
sexual paradigm or that scores more people should go into it. We
simply think that prohibition of sex work creates more problems
than it solves, that adults should be free to engage in sexual
contracts with one another as they see fit, and that driving sex
work underground leads to more exploitative conditions for those
who are coerced or forced into it. If that’s “normalization,” sure,
but it wouldn’t be the first term I’d choose. Semantics aside, the
fact that a practice may contribute to troubling gender
expectations simply isn’t justification to prohibit it.
“Maybe men would be better partners, in bed and out of it, if
they couldn’t purchase that fantasy,” Pollitt notes, as if making
men better lovers is good enough reason to lock women away for
offering hand jobs. She goes on to worry that destigmatizing
prostitution promotes the view “that sex is something women have
and men get (do I hear ‘rape culture,’ anyone?), that men are
entitled to sex without attracting a partner.”
First, imagine how silly this would sound in any other context
(legalizing street vendors promotes the attitude that some
people are entitled to soft pretzels without the work of baking
them themselves…). Second, men paying women for sex has
nothing to do with “rape culture.” Rape culture rests on men
thinking they’re owed or deserve (free) sex from any or all women,
not men spending their money to purchase sex from women who have
given consent. Regardless, I want no part of promoting certain
values—no matter how desirable—through coercive force.
“The current way of seeing sex work is all about liberty—but
what about equality?” Pollitt concludes. Liberty, however, is an
essential component of equality, and restricting the liberty of
those engaged in (buying or selling) sex doesn’t get us any closer
to a more equal or less sexist society. It just restricts liberty.
Hey, at least nobody’s dad or husband is visiting a whore without
punishment, though, right?
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