I have read the book Sex Power Money by Sara Pascoe. I have answered the most important points in this post, but I want to answer other points on this page below. Page numbers (in italics) are from the hardback version. Quotations from her are in bold, followed by my response. Anything in these brackets [like this] is me being sarcastic.
page 310. I think all human beings should be free to use their body however they want ... unless that involves buying sexual access to another person. Then I think they should have a wank and shut up.
I have dealt with one aspect of this in the post, her lack of clarity on what she thinks the law should be. She is making a mistake that many people make to do with sex work and that is they think it is all about penetration. A lot of sex work, perhaps most of it these days, involves a masseur using her hands to bring a man to orgasm. In this situation it doesn't make sense to talk about 'buying sexual access to another person' or 'buying a woman's body' or 'buying a woman'. Not that it has ever made much sense.
My nearest city is Liverpool. There are two brothels in Liverpool, neither in the centre. Some women work alone from flats and advertise online. There are many massage establishments in the centre of Liverpool. By 'massage establishment' I don't mean massage parlour which is another name for a brothel. A man or a woman can pay twenty or thirty pounds for a half hour massage. Some of the masseurs in some of these establishments will offer 'extras'. For another twenty pounds he can have 'hand relief'. Full sex is rarely if ever on offer here and neither is oral sex.
Most of these establishments are Thai, one or two Chinese, and one is English. The women use their hands for massage and then they use their hands to bring a man to orgasm. So nothing to do with buying a woman or whatever idiotic phrase people choose to use. None of the arguments that people use against sex work apply here. So you would think that feminists would all be happy with this form of sex work. It is said that in Stockholm where sex work is banned there has been an enormous increase in the number of massage establishments. Should that count as a success in terms of countering 'buying sexual access to another person'? You would think so but of course they will think up new reasons why they want to ban it.
I don't think that when Sara writes 'they should have a wank and shut up' she means they should go to a massage establishment and be wanked there.
page 310. I know what unwanted penetration feels like on my own body ...
Sex work is not all about unwanted penetration as I said above. Why doesn't she tell us what unwanted penetration feels like to her? Why doesn't she say what she means? Does she mean that it's painful? There are ways around that, such as suitable lubrication. Does she mean discomfort? Does she mean that she feels disgust? Not every woman will feel the same way she does.
By 'unwanted penetration' does she mean penetration without her being sexually aroused herself? Could that be damaging? It's interesting that she writes about research that suggests women can become sexually lubricated without being consciously aroused when presented with sexual imagery. The theory is that women have evolved this so that they are less likely to be damaged by unwanted penetration.
page 311. 'Sex is a human right' seems dangerous to me - surely it's in conflict with the human right NOT to have sex if you dont want it?
When you talk about the right to do something, you're talking about two or three different things. If something isn't illegal then you do have the right to do it. That doesn't mean that everyone else has a duty to provide what you want. You can negotiate for something with people whose chosen way of making money is to provide this service. In the case of medical care, people in Britain do have the right to expect the NHS to provide it. I don't seriously believe that the NHS could ever provide sexual services for men so that's a non-issue for me.
page 310. I think all human beings should be free to use their body however they want ... unless that involves buying sexual access to another person. Then I think they should have a wank and shut up.
I have dealt with one aspect of this in the post, her lack of clarity on what she thinks the law should be. She is making a mistake that many people make to do with sex work and that is they think it is all about penetration. A lot of sex work, perhaps most of it these days, involves a masseur using her hands to bring a man to orgasm. In this situation it doesn't make sense to talk about 'buying sexual access to another person' or 'buying a woman's body' or 'buying a woman'. Not that it has ever made much sense.
My nearest city is Liverpool. There are two brothels in Liverpool, neither in the centre. Some women work alone from flats and advertise online. There are many massage establishments in the centre of Liverpool. By 'massage establishment' I don't mean massage parlour which is another name for a brothel. A man or a woman can pay twenty or thirty pounds for a half hour massage. Some of the masseurs in some of these establishments will offer 'extras'. For another twenty pounds he can have 'hand relief'. Full sex is rarely if ever on offer here and neither is oral sex.
Most of these establishments are Thai, one or two Chinese, and one is English. The women use their hands for massage and then they use their hands to bring a man to orgasm. So nothing to do with buying a woman or whatever idiotic phrase people choose to use. None of the arguments that people use against sex work apply here. So you would think that feminists would all be happy with this form of sex work. It is said that in Stockholm where sex work is banned there has been an enormous increase in the number of massage establishments. Should that count as a success in terms of countering 'buying sexual access to another person'? You would think so but of course they will think up new reasons why they want to ban it.
I don't think that when Sara writes 'they should have a wank and shut up' she means they should go to a massage establishment and be wanked there.
page 310. I know what unwanted penetration feels like on my own body ...
Sex work is not all about unwanted penetration as I said above. Why doesn't she tell us what unwanted penetration feels like to her? Why doesn't she say what she means? Does she mean that it's painful? There are ways around that, such as suitable lubrication. Does she mean discomfort? Does she mean that she feels disgust? Not every woman will feel the same way she does.
By 'unwanted penetration' does she mean penetration without her being sexually aroused herself? Could that be damaging? It's interesting that she writes about research that suggests women can become sexually lubricated without being consciously aroused when presented with sexual imagery. The theory is that women have evolved this so that they are less likely to be damaged by unwanted penetration.
page 311. 'Sex is a human right' seems dangerous to me - surely it's in conflict with the human right NOT to have sex if you dont want it?
When you talk about the right to do something, you're talking about two or three different things. If something isn't illegal then you do have the right to do it. That doesn't mean that everyone else has a duty to provide what you want. You can negotiate for something with people whose chosen way of making money is to provide this service. In the case of medical care, people in Britain do have the right to expect the NHS to provide it. I don't seriously believe that the NHS could ever provide sexual services for men so that's a non-issue for me.
page 311. 'We're very comfortable and familiar with teenage boys' sexual urges, but if fathers were hiring gigolos to finger their quadriplegic daughters, wouldn't people be outraged?'
This is in the context of a mother who paid for sex workers so that her son could have a sex life. I'm sure that many people would be outraged by the idea of a father who paid for male sex workers so that his daughter could have a sex life and orgasms.
People should think why this is though. I can think of two reasons. First is the idea that girls shouldn't like sex or need orgasms. So they think it must come from a pervy dad rather than a grown woman needing sexual satisfaction. There are male and female masseurs who use their hands to bring female clients to orgasm.
Secondly there is the idea that disabled people are vulnerable. I remember an elderly woman talking on the radio about her elderly husband with dementia. She said that he often became sexually aroused but she didn't think it was right to do anything with him because he is in the vulnerable category.
A woman can't give her husband a wank to relieve frustration or to give him some happiness in the final years of his life because of the puritanical attitudes that many people have in society today. That's not helping them.
page 313. But I believe that while certain jobs may be unenjoyable drudgery, they would not impact harmfully on a person's mental health and wellbeing in the way that enforced sex work would.
This is in the context of Jobcentres forcing people to accept the work that is available. My experience of Jobcentres is that if you tell them you are an office worker they will never try to make you work in a factory. I was always afraid that they would suggest I apply for jobs in a call centre, but that never happened.
Jobcentres don't get people jobs, they don't even get people interviews. It's easy to sabotage an interview, just turn up in your normal clothes.
Nobody will force you to work in an undertakers or an abattoir. Nobody will make you join the armed forces. If you are Moslem no one will make you work in a brewery or sell alcohol. If you go to church no one will make you do sin, even if it's just talking dirty on the phone.
Many people say that we can never accept that sex work is work because if we do that then women will be pressured into doing it. They want to take this work away from women and tell them that it was never a real job anyway. They want to take an option away from women and tell them it was never a real option anyway. So don't complain.
I remember a Mumsnet discussion where someone said that sex workers can be very selective about their clients, so it isn't true that they have to do anything for anybody. The response was to neatly sidestep this point and say that people in a proper job can't be selective that way. Sex work might be different from accountancy but similar to other jobs. Female masseurs often choose to work with women only, not because they are lesbians but because they don't feel comfortable massaging men.
Some people spend a lot of time trying to work out how sex work is different from other work in a futile attempt to say that therefore it isn't real work.
page 320. What if I tell you that she tried to stop, asked to stop? Do you now think that it was rape? Or a grey area? What do you think of a man who is asked to stop by someone he thinks is a 'prostitute' and he doesn't stop because he is 'nearly there'?
Sometimes a sex worker finds it uncomfortable to have a man on top of her. Even a man of average weight. She may even have breathing problems. If she wants him to stop and get off her then of course he should do as she asks. That is what I have always done. No moral dilemma there. That applies to any sexual position.
page 321. And when we allow the successful, the victorious to dictate how we consider the entire industry, we are doing a disservice to the majority. Glass defines it like this: 'Prostitution, if it is anything, is a choice between homelessness and having men we don't like, do things we hate.' While 'sex work is work' aims to reduce stigma and disrespect for people who sell sex, is anything being done to educate sex buyers as to how some people who sell sex feel about them?
Who is the majority? Street based sex workers aren't the majority. Is that who she is talking about? Why doesn't she tell us? Would it not be better to create the conditions where everyone can be successful? What does she mean by 'the victorious'? That's an odd phrase to use. It's as if she thinks that high-class escorts have got where they are at the expense of street based sex workers (or whoever she thinks the losers are).
In the book Paid For by Rachel Moran, which Sara recommends in her book, Rachel states that as a teenager she was homeless but she had been offered a home with a family. She decided that she was too contaminated by prostitution to accept the offer, even though she hadn't had any penetrative sex at this time. So stigma and disrespect seem to be the problem here.
Rachel later made money from pimping and selling drugs. That's what she wrote in her book. So again it's not true that the only choice was between prostitution and homelessness. Unless you want to say that drug dealers have no choice between what they do and homelessness or pimps have no choice between what they do and homelessness. She had a choice between prostitution and pimping, and she chose prostitution because she didn't like the overheads. She didn't want to pay out for rent, mobile phones and newspaper adverts. That's her choice.
You would think that drug-addicted street-based sex workers would hate their clients. They are forced by their addiction to do what they do. Just wanting to keep your house or flat because you don't want to end up in temporary accommodation isn't something you need to do. Want to do, yes. But not need to do.
I have met many of these drug addicts when I lived in south London. They spend a couple of hundred pounds a day on crack and a hundred on heroin. I have written about them on this blog. I was never really a client of them because this was pre-viagra days. One of them contacted me and told me she wanted to tell her story on my blog.
Another one came up to me in the street (not the red light district) after I hadn't seen her for many months and told me she was giving up drugs. That's not the only conversation I have had with these women away from the RLD. I have bought one a cup of tea and some food. Do you think these women hated me?
Maybe you think I should have to go to a 'john school' to learn the effects of my previous actions. However, I know more about it than them. I wouldn't let them get away with their false arguments and their false statistics.
page 321. This podcast claimed that boycotting the high street stores who use these factories is no good, as 'for most of these women, the only other option is sex work'.
The idea that treating female workers in this way is in fact RESCUING THEM from much worse indicates that we think sex slavery is less justifiable than the other kinds.
The idea that treating female workers in this way is in fact RESCUING THEM from much worse indicates that we think sex slavery is less justifiable than the other kinds.
Sex work is not the same thing as sex slavery. Some people may think that sex work is worse than abusive factory work but I don't think that is what the makers of the podcast thought.
page 334. The reason there are fewer women sleeping rough isn't because they have more money, it is often because they engage in survival sex, sex for rent.
I don't believe this. There are other reasons why fewer women are sleeping rough. It's more likely to be that a woman is more likely to be accepted in someone's home in return for unpaid housework. Or if they're lucky paid housework [although that sounds so much like paid slavery that you've lost me].
Some men offer accommodation to women in return for housework. Some men offer accommodation to women in return for sex. And some men give the woman the choice. There are women who will take the second choice.
It has often happened that a woman will contact a man that she knows in another city. She will say that she would like to live in this city. Can she come and stay with him for a few months? Just while she sets herself up with a job and a flat of her own. They will do this on the basis that they will be sleeping together. You can call it a summer romance if you want to. I can't imagine Sara doing it but don't be so naïve that you think it never happens or that many women haven't benefitted from this arrangement. It's not 'survival sex'.
page 334. The reason there are fewer women sleeping rough isn't because they have more money, it is often because they engage in survival sex, sex for rent.
I don't believe this. There are other reasons why fewer women are sleeping rough. It's more likely to be that a woman is more likely to be accepted in someone's home in return for unpaid housework. Or if they're lucky paid housework [although that sounds so much like paid slavery that you've lost me].
Some men offer accommodation to women in return for housework. Some men offer accommodation to women in return for sex. And some men give the woman the choice. There are women who will take the second choice.
It has often happened that a woman will contact a man that she knows in another city. She will say that she would like to live in this city. Can she come and stay with him for a few months? Just while she sets herself up with a job and a flat of her own. They will do this on the basis that they will be sleeping together. You can call it a summer romance if you want to. I can't imagine Sara doing it but don't be so naïve that you think it never happens or that many women haven't benefitted from this arrangement. It's not 'survival sex'.
If it was really true that there are fewer women sleeping rough because of sex work then by eliminating sex work there would be as many women sleeping rough as men. Is that what anybody wants? That would be a strange form of equality.
page 131. ... trans people are twice as likely to live in extreme poverty as the rest of the population. This can be related to the expenses of treatment and counselling, as well as being ostracised by family and friends, or experiencing homelessness and unemployment after coming out. Being trans can lead to social exclusion for many women and this can make sex work an unwanted necessity -
For trans women sex work can be different than for other women. Sex work might be the only work that allows for earning large amounts of money. Money they need for gender reassignment. There is no other work that can do that, so you could say they don't have a choice of different types of work. I don't have sex with trans women so this isn't a moral dilemma for me. If I was a client of a trans woman and she said 'Sex work is the only way that I can achieve my dream' would that make me guilty or proud?
page 131. ... trans people are twice as likely to live in extreme poverty as the rest of the population. This can be related to the expenses of treatment and counselling, as well as being ostracised by family and friends, or experiencing homelessness and unemployment after coming out. Being trans can lead to social exclusion for many women and this can make sex work an unwanted necessity -
For trans women sex work can be different than for other women. Sex work might be the only work that allows for earning large amounts of money. Money they need for gender reassignment. There is no other work that can do that, so you could say they don't have a choice of different types of work. I don't have sex with trans women so this isn't a moral dilemma for me. If I was a client of a trans woman and she said 'Sex work is the only way that I can achieve my dream' would that make me guilty or proud?
page 309. The brothel with bodies buried in the garden of the women who tried to escape or became pregnant.
There is no reference for this so I have no idea what she is talking about. I have never heard of this. I have heard of a brothel called Cuddles which supposedly had an electric fence to keep women in but it turned out the sex workers didn't live there and it was probably to keep intruders out. If it existed at all.
Do you want to know about dead bodies in a garden? This is a true story not an urban myth. In 1993 the bodies of 155 women were found in the grounds of one of the Magdalene Laundries in Dublin. There were four orders of nuns who ran Magdalene Laundries and two of them set up Ruhama. Ruhama campaigned for the Nordic Model in Ireland.
Also on page 309 Sara recommends Rachel Moran's book Paid For. In this book Rachel writes that a Ruhama study says that 38% of Irish prostitutes have attempted suicide and 25% have been diagnosed with depression. I found this Ruhama report, it gives a reference to a study by Ann Marie O'Connor which says nothing about suicide or depression. Another study by Ann Marie mentions these statistics, but they are not to do with prostitutes in general in Ireland but a small group of drug-addicted street-based prostitutes in Dublin.
So you have nuns who tell lies about sex work who in the past had connections to the unmarked graves of women and girls kept in captivity. In the same paragraph Sara writes that Rachel had been raped. Rachel does not say this in her book. She writes vaguely about things which could be interpreted as rape. Sex workers are not 'vulnerable through the logistics of their work', they are vulnerable because the law stops them from making themselves safe. Neither are they vulnerable 'because, as we have seen, some men gain sexual pleasure from sadistic acts'. She has not established that.
page 115. That is what I believed then. It is a position of well-meaning ignorance. I worried that these women were unhappy people with no self-confidence and that we should 'protect' them, or 'save' them. Without having spoken to a single porn performer, without having read an interview or listened to anyone at all from that industry, I had a position I believed was 'informed' because of feminist literature. But actually I was prejudiced.
There is a fallacy that all women who work in porn are 'damaged', victims of abuse or addicted to drugs. This fallacy stems from the presumption that no one well-adjusted and perfectly sane would choose to have sex for money, would choose to have that sex filmed and publicly disseminated.
This kind of opinion demonstrates how we can believe we are being empathetic and kind, but in fact we are making women's lives more difficult. This wish to 'protect' women from 'exploitation' is built on our cultural morality that sex without love is bad, that there is something precious about sex which means that anyone having it outside of a relationship is 'broken'. We don't view the men in porn in that way, even though they're there too and BEING PAID EVEN LESS.
It's taken a while but we have finally got to the good bits. This is about porn stars but it applies equally well to sex workers. As Sara points out, porn stars are sex workers.
Evangelical Christians are the men who should be regarded as living embodiments of patriarchal culture. Drug dealers and pimps could be too. I have given my reason why I think Evangelicals like Jim Wells aren't, I think the reason why dealers and pimps aren't is because they are thought of as working class. There can also be a racial element to it too.
Clients on the other hand, because of films like Indecent Proposal and Pretty Woman, are thought of as capitalists. The exploiters. That's clearly nonsense. Lots of clients are working class (possibly most), with the usual amount of debt as others, going to see women who will be paid more than they will ever earn, and who don't have debts. Cash upfront. No refunds. That's your power imbalance.
I am aware that there are migrant women who owe a big debt to someone. That is not true of most migrants sex workers though, and it will apply to some migrants who have nothing to do with sex work.
An antiprostitution stance is often an antipromiscuity stance. Sara wrote that she doesn't like men trying to talk to her, especially when she is reading a book. She wrote that she would never go home with a man that she had just met. She couldn't understand why anyone would want to have sex with someone unless they thought that person was attracted to them.
With promiscuous sex two people aren't trying to please each other. They are both interested in their own pleasure. That might sound like 'masturbating into someone's body' or whatever silly phrase you want to use but both men and women can enjoy that sort of sex. You can say that with sex work only one person is getting the pleasure. But both of them will get what they want. For one it is pleasure, for the other money. As long as both of them are getting what they want there isn't a problem.
I've had sex with women that I'm not attracted to. I've even paid for sex with women that I'm not attracted to. So I'm not bothered if they are attracted to me. That doesn't mean that I'm 'just using them'. Sex doesn't have to be the way you think it ought to be. It can be different things.
Sara wrote that feminists will always see sex workers as victims. You know why that is? It's because the line between pity and contempt is a thin line. If they don't see them as victims then they would have to go to the other extreme and think of them as antisocial criminals. That's how sex workers were considered. That's how they are still considered: you wouldn't want them in your neighbourhood.
Sex workers have tried to get me to lick their pussies. Not because they can get extra money or because they want to turn me on. It doesn't turn me on. It's because they wanted sexual pleasure of their own.
Sex workers have started wanking themselves after I have got off them, their eyes closed in their own world of lust. Legs wide apart. They weren't doing it to turn me on or to make me think that I'm good at sex. Men like to believe we can satify a woman with penetrative sex, they don't want to see a woman frantically wanking herself after. Well, some men don't.
Feminists don't like to think of sex workers doing these things. Well, the sort of femininists who are obsessed with 'prostituted women'. Just as they don't like to think of sex workers laughing and swearing with favoured clients.
Clients on the other hand, because of films like Indecent Proposal and Pretty Woman, are thought of as capitalists. The exploiters. That's clearly nonsense. Lots of clients are working class (possibly most), with the usual amount of debt as others, going to see women who will be paid more than they will ever earn, and who don't have debts. Cash upfront. No refunds. That's your power imbalance.
I am aware that there are migrant women who owe a big debt to someone. That is not true of most migrants sex workers though, and it will apply to some migrants who have nothing to do with sex work.
An antiprostitution stance is often an antipromiscuity stance. Sara wrote that she doesn't like men trying to talk to her, especially when she is reading a book. She wrote that she would never go home with a man that she had just met. She couldn't understand why anyone would want to have sex with someone unless they thought that person was attracted to them.
With promiscuous sex two people aren't trying to please each other. They are both interested in their own pleasure. That might sound like 'masturbating into someone's body' or whatever silly phrase you want to use but both men and women can enjoy that sort of sex. You can say that with sex work only one person is getting the pleasure. But both of them will get what they want. For one it is pleasure, for the other money. As long as both of them are getting what they want there isn't a problem.
I've had sex with women that I'm not attracted to. I've even paid for sex with women that I'm not attracted to. So I'm not bothered if they are attracted to me. That doesn't mean that I'm 'just using them'. Sex doesn't have to be the way you think it ought to be. It can be different things.
Sara wrote that feminists will always see sex workers as victims. You know why that is? It's because the line between pity and contempt is a thin line. If they don't see them as victims then they would have to go to the other extreme and think of them as antisocial criminals. That's how sex workers were considered. That's how they are still considered: you wouldn't want them in your neighbourhood.
Sex workers have tried to get me to lick their pussies. Not because they can get extra money or because they want to turn me on. It doesn't turn me on. It's because they wanted sexual pleasure of their own.
Sex workers have started wanking themselves after I have got off them, their eyes closed in their own world of lust. Legs wide apart. They weren't doing it to turn me on or to make me think that I'm good at sex. Men like to believe we can satify a woman with penetrative sex, they don't want to see a woman frantically wanking herself after. Well, some men don't.
Feminists don't like to think of sex workers doing these things. Well, the sort of femininists who are obsessed with 'prostituted women'. Just as they don't like to think of sex workers laughing and swearing with favoured clients.
No comments:
Post a Comment