SUSAN: I agree. I think as women we all start out with the whore stigma, whether we take money for sex or not. Perhaps we should explore issues surrounding shame, stigma, and commodification. Also, what would the industry look like if these issues didn’t exist?
I believe sex in society today is seen as a prize jealously guarded by women, only to be bestowed upon a worthy man—one who commits to marriage or to a monogamous relationship. This prize is highly sought after by men, and they will do almost anything to get it.
The entire onus of guarding this prize is placed on women: We are raised to keep our legs closed, not wear too much makeup (or too little), not be too sexual, to reserve the prize only for those we love. We are discouraged from exploring sexuality, and punished when we do anyway. We are called sluts, whores, and various other derogatory names, none of which have a counterpart for men. We are shamed for our sexuality, and sex in general is considered dirty unless it takes place in a heteronormative, monogamous marriage.
Women who enter the sexual professions sometimes find refuge there: They discover a world in which everything they’d been discouraged from doing in terms of their sexuality can be explored and rewarded. Prostitution gives women interested in exploring sex with strangers the opportunity to do so, while stripping gives women interested in exploring their sexual power without actually engaging sexually with men the opportunity to do so.
If the games and shame surrounding sexuality didn’t exist, I believe that the sex industry would be far more specialized and professionalized. Higher standards of conduct—for both the sex professional and the client—would be established quickly, and entering the sex professions would require far more thought and skill than it does now.
MARIKO: I have been working in HIV and STI outreach lately, and when you [are the victim of a] stigma, you see how that affects negotiating condom use and being safe. You take more risks when you have shame. So without sexual shame and stigma, I believe sex work would be safer. I also think it would empower us more to establish and maintain boundaries. It would be nice if they weren’t surprised to find out you have boundaries: “No, I don’t swallow cum or do anal.” I think there would be more respect. But imagining a world without shame or stigma is an idealized question that doesn’t look like a reality that I am able to imagine.
I think that sex workers commodify men. I remember looking at guys in strip clubs and seeing dollar signs in place of their heads. Certain regulars who were always there but spent no money on you—you stop seeing them as dollar signs. You stop seeing men in the clubs as people—they are money in my pocket or not. I hate it when people assume that the only people commodified in sex work are the workers.
A lot of clients feel shame around going to a strip club or seeing prostitutes. If more people were polyamorous, they wouldn’t have that shame around getting their needs met. I think a more interesting question would be how the industry would look if we didn’t hold on to this impossible ideal of monogamy for life.
SUSAN: I agree. Monogamy, I believe, is a myth of patriarchy, and is completely unnatural for humans. Sure, some of us are more monogamously inclined than others, but they are fewer.
I also believe that patriarchy is responsible for the whore stigma, effectively dividing us into “good girls” and “bad girls” in order to conquer us. This is not necessarily a
conscious
effort on the part of society, but any hegemonic structure and system will endeavor to reproduce itself—and the agents of that effort are both the oppressors
and
the oppressed in any system. Hence, when men or women call other women sluts, whores, and any other such names, they are “keeping us in our place” to ensure the status quo remains.
The only way to truly overcome this entrenched hegemonic system is to eliminate the tools that enable our oppression. I happen to believe that one of those tools is the whore stigma, and that sex workers are at the forefront of eliminating it. Sadly, not all sex workers are aware of this important work in which they are participating.
The difference lies between those of us who choose—and find empowerment in—our work and those of us who feel objectified and exploited by it.
SAUNDRA: Absolutely. A woman who chooses to be in the sex industry of her own volition is able to set clear boundaries of what she chooses to engage in.
An exploited woman is one who is not comfortable in her line of work, does not enjoy what she is doing, and is
only
doing it out of desperation, coercion, or because it seemed like the only way to make “easy money.” This feeling can be experienced by workers in any profession: ambulance chasers, attorneys, doctors, salespeople, et cetera. However, because the stigma is much greater for a sex worker, an exploited woman would be unable to find solace in her productivity and career success the way other professionals can, and she would be relegated to deal with feelings of shame and social rejection in silence.
SUSAN: If a woman has the strength and desire to deconstruct and reconstruct societal views of sexuality for herself, and on her
own
terms, she is more likely to come from a place of empowerment in her approach to and views of the sex work in which she engages. She will be more adept at ignoring the constant presence of the whore stigma and more empowered to live her life—sexually, economically, and otherwise—on her own terms.
Conversely, if a woman finds it more difficult to go against preestablished norms, her internalization of the whore stigma may be such that it is not easily overcome. She will secretly, or not so secretly, feel that what she is doing is morally wrong, and see herself as denigrated because she is a willing participant in a profession that is morally wrong. She doesn’t question the accusations leveled at her by society, but agrees with them and submits to the consequences: At some level she agrees that because she is stepping out of line, she deserves everything she gets. This can in turn foster a victim mindset where she will attract victimizers, putting her in all kinds of danger.
MARIKO: But I believe it’s not just society’s construction of you, it is also your personal skeletons: Where you lie on the spectrum of dealing with your family abuse, your relationship, your sexual assault history, and your drug use are also part of that. I think it’s not ever a cut-and-dried thing.
I went through years of therapy and counseling around my relationship trauma, family, and dating issues. I thought sex work was the problem, and it pained me in every inch of my body feeling that I could never find a way to survive without using my body in a sexual way. But slowly, every year that I accepted more and more of my sex work, the more healed I became. Sexual trauma seems to work like that. You are bound to keep repeating the pattern of trauma until you recognize and resolve it in some way.
Sex work has been an integral part of therapy, and my own form of recovery from sexual and dating trauma. I love channeling all of my sensual energy into the act of making a man come as quickly and efficiently as possible, and in just the same manner jumping into the bathroom, grabbing him a hot, wet cloth so his mind is eased as I jump in the shower and get ready to be out the door without a string attached, without a receipt for the erotic services rendered, and without either party’s heart hurting in any way, shape, or form. I love leaving them after the hour or two is over. I love it the best if I can leave in less than thirty-five minutes without even having gotten dirty for a cool five hundred. I love being cold, calculated, businesslike, professional, intelligent, somewhat distant. These are the things that women on real dates are not supposed to be. Escort dates cut to the chase and can be worlds more empowering than conventional dating. Instead of men pretending that they like you so that they can sleep with you, you have mostly women or queer guys pretending to their male clientele that they are interested, that they care, that they are listening, that they too are having an orgasm.
For researchers who try to paint the actual sex work as the trauma, as the rape that [sex workers] are seeking to repeat subconsciously, it is hard for them to understand that many sexual assault survivors have used certain taboo sexual activities (sex work, BDSM, cutting) to overcome their own stigma and shame of themselves and whatever events that happened to them which were outside of their control. Contrary to what some psychologists decree, there is indeed a great deal of control that a sex worker has over her client, if she chooses to seek out clients and working conditions that she can control.
The same reenactment can take place in a relationship, too, when people seek out relationships with people who will repeat their trauma through physical or emotional abuse. It isn’t just about the sex work.
I’d like to look at how decriminalization would make it so we could prosecute rape against sex workers. It is amazing that so many judges still don’t believe a sex worker can be raped. Such as in Philadelphia, when the sex worker was gang-raped and the judge determined that it was merely theft of services.
SUSAN: I agree! And also the case in Orange County, California, in which an exotic dancer was sexually assaulted by a police officer during a traffic stop, and the judge agreed with the officer’s civil defense attorney that because she was an exotic dancer, she was overtly sexual and therefore got what she must have wanted.
This is unacceptable, and would not happen except for the whore stigma. It is so very powerful. Decriminalization would certainly be a first step in eliminating that. The criminal status of sex work establishes a very large—and gendered—class of people who are considered criminals, and the whore stigma establishes that it is okay to commit acts of violence against us. Together they work to ensure that we don’t even merit the basic human and civil rights that non-sex-working citizens are entitled to—such as protection by law enforcement, due and just process under the judicial system, or even simple common decency from our fellow humans.
I read a sign at a sex-worker protest once that read, NO WOMAN IS FREE UNTIL PROSTITUTES ARE FREE!
And, to continue with great quotes, I will end with one of my favorites:
“The only solution to the oppression of women exploited as prostitutes is a political elimination of the very notion of female sexual/economic transgression (chosen or forced) by granting all women the same rights, liberties, and protections against violation as those to which human beings in general—i.e., men—are entitled. All women’s rights are attached to prostitutes’ rights because the whore stigma can disqualify any woman’s claim to legitimacy and throw suspicion on any woman accused of economic and/or sexual initiative.”
—Gail Pheterson,
The Prostitution Prism
If you want to read more about FIGHT THE POWER, try:
• When Sexual Autonomy Isn’t Enough: Sexual Violence Against Immigrant Women in the United States BY MIRIAM ZOILA PÉREZ
• When Pregnancy Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Be Pregnant BY TILOMA JAYASINGHE
If you want to read more about MUCH TABOO ABOUT NOTHING, try:
• How Do You Fuck a Fat Woman? BY KATE HARDING
• Sex Worth Fighting For BY ANASTASIA HIGGINBOTHAM
If you want to read more about SURVIVING TO YES, try:
• What It Feels Like When It Finally Comes: Surviving Incest in Real Life BY LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARASINHA
• Killing Misogyny: A Personal Story of Love, Violence, and Strategies for Survival BY CRISTINA MEZTLI TZINTZÚN
24
The Process-Oriented Virgin
BY HANNE BLANK
I DON’T EVEN KNOW her name, but I’ll never forget her. She was short and busty and vivacious, and her audacious approach to sex left me speechless, almost reeling. But maybe that’s as it should be. She was my first, after all. My first-ever process-oriented virgin.
In my own defense, I should note that revelations about people’s sex lives almost never take me by surprise. As someone who has been writing, speaking, and teaching about sexuality, gender, and the body professionally for the better part of a decade, I’ve become pretty well unshockable. I’ve had people abruptly announce their fetishes upon being told what I do for a living, had an audience member at a reading come up while I was signing books and ask in a loud voice whether I’d beat him if he humped my leg, even fielded my mother’s questions about nonglycerine lubes and not skipped a beat.