Can't Go Back

Photo by Flickr user millie!. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Too-long ago now the Australian Government's Australian Institute of Criminology published a then-comprehensive study of the state of prostitution in Australia. ("Working girls : prostitutes, their life and social control" by Roberta Perkins, ISBN 0 642 15877 0, Canberra : Australian Institute of Criminology, 1991, Australian studies in law, crime and justice series.)

In the you-probably-want-to-read-it chapter "Pimps and patrons : the "boys" in the business among statistics about full-time vs. part-time work there's one paragraph that's just packed full of useful information (emphasis mine.)

Taking the estimate for "professional" prostitutes in Sydney in a given week (p. 17) and the average number of clients per woman also in a week, we find that approximately 30,000 men visit these women each week. Of course, some prostitutes may see the same man, if he is in the habit of moving about among prostitutes quite frequently, while, on the other hand, a number of men visit prostitutes as little as only once in their lifetime. Also, a number of tourists see prostitutes when they visit Sydney. But, to simplify for the purpose of a statistical guide, if we take the 30,000 men as visiting prostitutes only once a week and all of the men are Sydney residents, we can estimate that about I in 40 Sydney men, or 2.5 per cent of the male population aged 15-64 years, visit prostitutes a week. (The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated population for Sydney at 30 June 1988 was 3,594,400. Approximately half of this number were males. The percentage of males between the ages of 15 and 64 years in the Australian male population was 65.8 per cent, or approximately two-thirds of all males. Thus, 30,000 clients of prostitutes a week in a Sydney population of 1,196,133 males aged 15-64 years is about I in 40 men). Four decades earlier Kinsey and his colleagues (1948, pp. 249-59) found that about two-thirds of all American men had visited a prostitute at least once in their lifetime, and 15 per cent to 20 per cent were regular visitors. Gagnon and Simon (1972, pp. 222-3) claim that there were drastic declines in clientele in the 1960s and 1970s due to the growth of permissiveness in the so-called "sexual revolution". But rather than a sudden "revolution", Kinsey and his co-workers visualised an "evolution" of sexual permissiveness throughout this century. In their study of American females 14 per cent of women born prior to 1900 had experienced pre-marital coitus, compared to 39 per cent of those born after 1900 (Kinsey et al. 1953, pp. 298-302). AIDS too has been held to blame for "killing" the sex business, and indeed there was a rapid decline of up to 50 per cent of client turnover in the few years following the public hysteria on AIDS. But this appeared much more catastrophic than it actually was, because all it did was speed up a process of decline that has been evident for at least a quarter of a century but probably began in the 1920s.
Read the quote in context here.

The one I really wanted to take away is the two highlighted statistics that, at least for two cultures that are... roughly comparable (Australia and the U.S.), the percentage of prostitution customers to non-customers has dropped maybe ten-fold in the last 40-50 years. I'd say that sounds almost exactly right based on my conversations with men from older generations. I'm pretty sure that today, in Australia and the U.S. as well as much of the rest of "western civilization" a majority of men "lost" their (heterosexual) virginity with prostitutes whereas today an even greater majority first have sex with a friend, classmate, or other social peer.

I mention this because, you know, I talk about paradigms a lot, specifically the "no-sex" class paradigm of women (as perceived by men) involves pretty strong denial of autonomous, let alone independent-of-pressure-from-men sexual interest, I think it's a good time to point out that paradigms are usually invisible until underlying circumstances change enough that the core assumptions no longer sufficiently explain reality.

Think I'd have recognized the "no-sex" class theory if all but 14% of women were still valued exclusively for the integrity of their hymens? Not a chance. Think the stupid "virgin/whore" groupthink has any relevance if barely 14% hold out to wait till marriage?** No way. Think a gigantic obstacle to further progress is pushing men to move out from behind the curve they're leaving themselves behind on that? You bet!

So. Another quick question: For all lip service paid by certain parties, who's done more to undermine the foundation of prostitution, feminists or the Souther Baptist Convention (scroll way down) with their passionate denunciations of *both* "sex trafficking" (by which they mean only prostitution forced and unforced) *as well as* even more passionate opposition to economic, social, political, personal *and* reproductive* and *sexual* autonomy and agency for women? (And yes as a matter of fact I *am* still cheeved.)

The old line of thinking in Western Civilization at least, going back as far as Saint Augustine at least, has been that a certain number of women in every generation must be sacrificed on the "fallen" alter either as prostitutes or "sluts," to protect the "purity" of all the rest by absorbing the bulk of the tarnishing effect of sexual congress with us "superior" men. And as it seems to be turning out, women aren't in fact tarnished at all by sex but (especially when they can make their share of the decisions and not just rely in their partners***) sometimes outright glow. And when they don't glow what are the two or three leading reasons why not? Men still invested in the ____-class paradigm; men raised to believe their cocks are so filthy they can corrode "decent" women with a single push; men so alienated from women and sex they imagine the androcentric antics provided in porn and with prostitutes is supposed to be "good" sex.****

I mean, seriously, in Saint Augustine's day what passed for popular entertainment was bear baiting and watching other people get burned at the stake, and what passed for medicine was swallowing mercury and bleeding to "balance the humors." Even in Kinsey's day what passed for popular entertainment was boxing, oompah bands, and Reader's Digest and what passed for transportation were cars you had to stand in front of and crank. So what makes us think their ideas about *gender* were so all-fired smart compared to the directions we're heading in now?

If the Southern Baptists *and their admirers* really wanted to end exploitation of the involuntarily prostituted as much as they claim they do then they're going about it almost exactly wrong?

[** And amidst of that transition, by the way, were women more or less respected or more or less economically, politically, socially empowered overall in 1908 compared to 2008? Or even 1978 to 2008? For all the fuss about the 3rd-wave of feminism, when it came to sex 3rd-wavers made the then-nearly-unthinkable proposition that men weren't necessary for the existence of women's sexuality (as anti-feminists proposed), nor were other women the preferable substitutes (as proposed by 70's-era separatist "rad-fems") because *every* human's sexuality resides in *them individually* and not in the presence or absence of her (or for men his) partners. --fl]

[*** So gee, just exactly what useful information did men bring home for their "pure" partners when, as in Kinsey's day, they went (or their fathers took them!!!) to prostitutes to "learn" what to do? --fl]

[**** And, as always, if you're sure this characterization doesn't include you congratulations! But pass the word along. --fl]