The "If Barbie is so popular why do you have to buy her friends?" Problem
My *real* problem with prostitution, by the way, has nothing to do with morality, or some arrogant assumption that not just some but *all* women who do it are enslaved, or some property-based, dependency-based assumptions about monogamy and fidelity, or because I somehow agree with the (egregious) tradition that in order for most women to be deprived (virgins/madonnas) some women must be debased ("whores.")
No, what really bugs me about it is the assumption we men have that we're such loathsome bags of shit that we have to pay people to have sex with us. That the sex we want to have is so loathsome and perverted that no one would want to do it with us without bribery.** Add the pathetic belief that "good" women would never do that sort of stuff, or if they would it would have to be with someone else with a bigger (a.k.a. "worthier") penis or income, or if they did it with us during courtship it was "just to keep us interested" and all that so-on-and-so-on. (Oh, and throw in the notion that *if* one of our partners *would* do such things with us at all, let alone do it cheerily, let alone initiate it all on her own, then she must be some kind of "whore" and we're back to brooding over the "no-sex" class paradigm all over again... but I digress.)
Could there be prostitution if we men didn't believe we were the despicable scum of the earth? Sure! Would it at all resemble prostitution as perceived today? Hard to imagine.
Would we all, men and women, just generally have healthy, happy, diverse, uncomplicated, and appropriate to each individual sex lives if men got over the idea that their partners were slumming out of love (spouses) or commercial gain (prostitutes)?*** Hard to imagine not.
[** Can't find the reference but something like 95% of all commercial heterosexual transactions worldwide involve only vaginal intercourse, fellatio, or "hand jobs." Yes, lots of other acts can be purchased from prostitutes and some of it is, but even with 31 flavors including, I think, at least one new "flavor of the month" a month Baskin-Robbins still sells mostly... vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream. --fl]
[*** And, correspondingly, if didn't feel corresponding pressure to "settle." --fl]
I just recorded a podcast about this very question (#16.5 if you want to listen). It is a common belief that my clients have and it leads to a lot of shame. But, I will say here what I have said to them a hundred times. There is nothing wrong with you, at all.
Yes, we think of sex as something that someone should be able to have for free but there are a variety of reasons that men patronize sex workers. Perhaps they are bored with the sex they have in other relationships, perhaps they have a very particular fantasy that they want to fulfill, perhaps they get a thrill from paying for sex, maybe they just really want a woman and she happens to be a sex worker.
In the end, I am not in any place to judge why my client is on the other end of the line or what they want until they tell me. I can't assume any sort of flaws with them as many of them have none - they just like the simplicity of my services and enjoy exploring with me.
What if we weren't talking about sex but were talking about food. Something that people actually need to survive but are perfectly capable of making on their own. Perhaps I really want to eat pizza but I don't have an oven or don't know how to make pizza. Could I get on the phone/internet/etc and FIND someone to make me a pizza for free? Perhaps, but it might constitute a lot of trouble. It might not be as good as the pizza from the pizzaria. It might take a long time to get and I would be very hungry. Am I admitting that I am a pathetic and disgusting person if I have to BUY my pizza instead of someone just giving it to me?
Most people would see this example as ridiculous but they aren't as quick to say that sex work is the same. I think there is a lot of similarity. Men explore places and things with professionals that they think the can't get anywhere else or that they don't want to go to the trouble of getting.
But, you will say this is objectifying, how can you compare yourself to a pizza that can be ordered up and delivered to anyone with a credit card? Here is the important thing to keep in mind. The sex worker isn't the pizza, he or she is the chef.
[Hi Ellie. Just to be clear those are all arguments I agree with and (if I wasn't too lazy to search around) I'd provide links to in earlier posts. And just for the record I agree if you're a sex worker it's not exactly your responsibility to screen your customers for anything more than you do. So all that's fine. What I'm talking about, though, and the difference between buying pizza away from home and men sex away from home is that men don't feel guilty, ashamed, self-loathing, resentful of their partners, etc. about dining out. Ok, except maybe in Lake Woebegone but home-cooking communities like that have been... pretty much fictional for at least a generation now. Oh yeah, and with eating out nobody's embarrassed or afraid to mislead or lie to his partner about it. :-) What's important to me is that your job would be safer, more hassle free, and *way* more accepted if your customers were better able to respect *themselves* as well as their partners the same way they are, as you say, about eating away from home. Oh yeah, and it's not so much about the *free* part that frets me -- I don't think people should be able to eat out for free, nor that they should always and only make the effort to make friends in new places just in hopes they'll invite them for dinner. Instead it's that the 50's are over and so it doesn't make any sense that only men would need to get fed by someone else but never be called on nor volunteer nor even know how to feed someone else... and for the same reason (the 50's being over) there's something very peculiar about the still-one-way nature of only men acquiring only sex from others. In nearly every other dimension things are leveling out, especially as women and men are achieving economic, social, and legal power in society. Which means this one area's starting to look a sore thumb *culture-wise.* But again it's not specifically *your* responsibility *as a sex-worker.* As a partner, or parent, or neighbor, though, maybe so but only in the same way we all are. Thanks, Ellie. --fl]
No, actually I think it is my responsibility as a sex worker to engage with my clients as human beings whose choices I respect. If I think they are pathetic or wrong for being my client, what does that say about me?
I tell them, regularly, that I don't think anything is wrong with them. But, I alone can't make them stop feeling shame. It is a step, though.
[Oh dear. What I mean is people shouldn't push that it's *especially* your responsibility. So I said it poorly. And yeah, that's what frustrates me with so much of the debate -- that so few people are treating each other, or too often themselves, like human beings. Thanks, Ellie. --fl]
To your point about "the notion that *if* one of our partners *would* do such things with us at all, let alone do it cheerily, let alone initiate it all on her own, then she must be some kind of "whore" and we're back to brooding over the "no-sex" class paradigm all over again" -- "Tell Me About It" recently had a comment straight from someone who lives in that paradigm. It's hard for me to even believe people like this exist, but I guess they do.
It's a washington post article, so it may require registration, not sure.
[Hi Monique. First of all I checked and no registration's needed. Second, yep, that's the attitude we're talkin' about isn't it? "Sex diminishes women but doesn't diminish you." Yup, great, makes *everybody* feel great about it. Not. Thanks for the tip! --fl]
This is one of my problems with the whole sexworker/feminist thing. Choosing to sell your body still buys into the myth that a woman's sexuality has a price on it: it's not something natural and freely given, but must be negotiated, whether with money or with promises, while men are ravening beasts with urges that must be sated.
I'd stress that I support sexworkers fully... I just have a problem with the feminist bit of it :)
[Yup, I feel the same way about male customers -- it's not that people can't or shouldn't make those choices, it's the *underlying* assumptions about men and about women that sort of lance through it all. Change those assumptions and nobody'd care. On the other hand, *don't* change those assumptions and you could send every last pimp, prostitute and/or customer to a Southern Baptist Convention re-education camp in South Carolina without changing anything. Thanks, Z. --fl]
I'm pretty sure any given sex worker who hasn't been enslaved is still in full ownership of their body at the end of the workday.
I've seen several who think that the idea that they're "selling their body" is one of the things that makes their lives worse and encourages their dehumanisation. ("Selling themselves" is I think generally considered worse, but it's on the same spectrum.)
The sort of thinking that backs up that language is a real issue.
Yes, you're right. It was badly and hastily worded, and doesn't back up my thinking to a large extent - except that in the sense that so often something is being sold during sex. it's an argument that deserves more than a passing remark in a comments box.
Because if you don't buy Barbie's friends too, then you'll be taking her away from her friends so she won't be popular anymore!
(^Is not being serious)
[Thanks, Nightfall. --fl]