Sex for Sale~Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry (2 page)

Video, Internet, and cable TV pornography have exploded in popularity, almost totally replacing the adult theaters of decades past. The advent of the telephone sex industry and escort services also has contributed to the privatization of commercial sex. And the Internet has changed the landscape tremendously—providing a wealth of services, information, and connections for interested parties. Internet-facilitated sex work has grown as a sector of the market, while street prostitution has remained relatively stable over time, although it has declined in some areas.13

Despite its size, growth, and numerous customers, the sex industry is regarded by many citizens as a
deviant enterprise
: run by shady people and promoting immoral or perverted behavior. There has been some “mainstreaming” of certain sectors of the sex industry (as documented in Chapter 12

by Lynn Comella), but it would be premature to conclude that sex for sale has now become normalized, as some claim. Polls show that 72% of Americans think that pornography is “an important moral issue for the country,”14 and 61% believe that it leads to a “breakdown of morals.”15 The most recent poll (in March 2008) reported that fully half the population defined viewing porn as “sinful behavior.”16 And almost half the population thinks that pornography is “demeaning towards women” (one-quarter disagreed and the remainder were undecided).17 When asked about the idea of “men spending
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SEX WORK: PARADIGMS AND POLICIES

an evening with a prostitute,” 61% of Americans consider this morally wrong,18 and two-thirds believe that prostitution can “never be justified,”

while 25% considered it “sometimes justified” and 4% “always justified.”19

(The term “justified” in this question is somewhat opaque, and we can only speculate as to what respondents have in mind when they say prostitution can

“sometimes be justified.”) Two-thirds of the British population believe that

“paying for sex exploits women,” and young people are even more likely to hold this opinion: 80% of those aged 18–24.20

Regarding public policies, most Americans favor either more controls or a total ban on certain types of commercial sex. More than three-quarters (77%) of the public think that we need “stricter laws” to control pornography in books and movies,21 and half believe that pornography is “out of control and should be further restricted.”22 In 2006, two-fifths of Americans (39%) felt that pornography should be banned, and this figure has remained about the same for two decades (41% held this view in 1984).23 A huge majority of women (70%) want porn outlawed today, compared to 30% of men.24

Stripping and telephone sex work also carry substantial stigma. Almost half of the American public believes that strip clubs should be illegal, while an even higher number (76%) thought telephone numbers offering sex talk should be illegal.25 Despite these personal opinions, people seem to think that the country is headed in the direction of increasing tolerance. There are no national polls on this question, but a 2002 survey of Alabama residents found that 73% believed that “society as a whole” sees stripping as an occupation for women to be “more acceptable today than ten years ago.”26 Many Alabama residents are dissatisfied with this trend, however. In the same poll, 54% felt that “stripping as an occupation is degrading or demeaning to the women,”

and only 24% thought that it was not, with the remainder undecided.

What we have, therefore, is a paradox: a lucrative industry that employs a significant number of workers and attracts many customers but is regarded by many people as deviant and in need of stricter control, if not banned outright. The sex industry continues to be stigmatized, even when it is legal.

C O M P E TI N G PA R A D I G M S

When I mentioned the topic of prostitution to a friend recently, he said, “How disgusting! How could anybody sell themselves?” A few weeks later an acquaintance told me that she thought prostitution was a “woman’s choice, and can be empowering.” These opposing views reflect larger cultural perceptions of prostitution, as well as much popular writing on the topic.

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RONALD WEITZER

Many people are fascinated, entertained, or titillated by sex work; many others see it as degrading, immoral, sexist, or harmful; and yet others hold
all
these views. Indeed, some prominent people have simultaneously condemned and patronized the sex industry, and have been caught in hypocritical behavior:

■

Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) prosecuted prostitution rings when he served as the state’s Attorney-General, but resigned the governorship in disgrace after it was revealed in March 2008 that he had spent $4300 on an escort employed by the exclusive Emperor’s Club agency. Shortly thereafter, it was reported that he had also been a client of another escort agency, Wicked Models. Prosecutors later determined that Spitzer had paid for sex “on multiple occasions,” yet they declined to press criminal charges against him.27

■

In 2007, Senator David Vitter (R-La) was linked to a Washington, DC, escort agency. He refused to relinquish his Senate seat, but nevertheless issued a public apology: “This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible.” He was also accused of repeatedly visiting a New Orleans brothel in the late 1990s, according to both the madam and one of the prostitutes. Vitter is well known for his conservative, “family values” positions.

■

In 2006, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rev.

Ted Haggard, resigned after revelations that he had frequently paid for sex with a male prostitute and had used methamphetamine with him. The Association claims to represent 30 million evangelical Christians in the United States.

■

In 1988, a prominent television evangelist, Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, resigned his church leadership after photos were released of him with a call girl in a New Orleans hotel (she later appeared on the cover of
Penthouse
magazine). He continued his television ministry. Three years later, when stopped by a police officer in California for a traffic violation, a prostitute in his car told the officer that Swaggart had propositioned her for sex.

■

In Britain, Anthony Lambton, the Under-Secretary for Defense, resigned in May 1973 after being photographed in bed with a call girl. A few days later, another Cabinet member and the leader of the House of Lords, George Jellicoe, resigned after confessing his own liaisons with call girls, what he called “casual affairs.” Jellicoe had been in Parliament for 68

years, and he and Lambton were members of the Conservative Party.

■

Another member of the British Parliament, Mark Oaten, resigned in 2006 after it was reported that he had a year-long relationship with a male prostitute.

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SEX WORK: PARADIGMS AND POLICIES

These are just a few of the many examples of public figures who have purchased sex illicitly. And, in addition to political and religious elites, the clients include officials in the criminal justice system, with police chiefs and prosecutors sometimes caught buying sex even as they are obligated to enforce the laws against prostitution.28

The poles of condemnation and normalization are reflected in two paradigms in the social sciences.29 One of these, the
oppression paradigm
, holds that sex work is a quintessential expression of patriarchal gender relations and male domination. The most prominent advocates of this position go further, claiming that exploitation, subjugation, and violence against women are intrinsic to and ineradicable from sex work—transcending historical time period, national context, and type of sexual commerce.30 These indictments apply equally to pornography, prostitution, stripping, and other commercial sex. The only solution is elimination of the entire sex industry, which is precisely the goal of those who adopt the oppression paradigm.

In addition to these essentialist claims, some writers make generalizations about specific aspects of sex work: that
most or all
sex workers were physically or sexually abused as children; entered the trade as adolescents, around 13–14

years of age; were tricked or forced into the trade by pimps or traffickers; use or are addicted to drugs; experience routine violence from customers; labor under abysmal working conditions; and desperately want to exit the sex trade.31 These writers often use dramatic language to highlight the plight of workers (“sexual slavery,” “prostituted women,” “paid rape,” “survivors”).

“Prostituted” clearly indicates that prostitution is something done to women, not something that can be chosen, and “survivor” implies someone who has escaped a harrowing ordeal. Customers are labeled as “prostitute users,”

“batterers,” and “sexual predators.” As shown later, these labels are misnomers when applied to most customers and most sex workers.

Violating a core canon of scientific research, the oppression paradigm describes
only
the worst examples of sex work and then treats them as representative. Anecdotes are generalized and presented as conclusive evidence, sampling is selective, and counterevidence is routinely ignored. Such

“research” cannot help but produce tainted findings and spurious conclusions, and this entire body of work has been severely criticized.32 Unfortunately, the writings of oppression theorists are increasingly mirrored in media reports and in government policies in the United States and abroad.

A diametrically opposed perspective is the
empowerment paradigm
. The focus is on the ways in which sexual services qualify as work, involve human agency, and may be potentially validating or empowering for workers.33 This
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RONALD WEITZER

paradigm holds that there is nothing inherent in sex work that would prevent it from being organized for mutual gain to all parties—just as in other economic transactions. In other words, coercion and other unseemly practices are not viewed as intrinsic aspects of sex work. Analysts who adopt this perspective tend to accent the routine aspects of sex work, often drawing parallels to kindred types of service work (physical therapy, massage, psychotherapy) or otherwise normalizing sex for sale. Eileen McLeod argues that prostitution is quite similar to other “women’s work,” and that both sex workers and other women “barter sex for goods,” although the latter do so less conspicuously.34 Writers who adopt the empowerment perspective also argue that the tenets of the oppression paradigm reflect the way in which
some
sex work manifests itself when it is
criminalized
. Much less is known about prostitution in legal, regulated systems. It is important, therefore, to avoid essentialist conclusions based on only one mode of production.

This kind of work may enhance a person’s socioeconomic status and provide greater control over one’s working conditions than many traditional jobs. It may have other benefits as well: “Many prostitutes emphasize that they engage in sex work not simply out of economic need but out of satisfaction with the control it gives them over their sexual interactions.”35 Some writers who adopt the empowerment paradigm go further and make bold claims that romanticize sex work. Shannon Bell describes her book,
Whore Carnival
, as “a recognition and commendation of the sexual and political power and knowledge of prostitutes,” which sounds rather celebratory.

Both the oppression and empowerment perspectives are one-dimensional and essentialist. While exploitation and empowerment are certainly present in sex work, there is sufficient variation across time, place, and sector to demonstrate that sex work cannot be reduced to one or the other. An alternative perspective, what I call the
polymorphous paradigm
, holds that there is a constellation of occupational arrangements, power relations, and worker experiences. Unlike the other two perspectives, polymorphism is sensitive to complexities and to the structural conditions shaping the uneven distribution of agency, subordination, and workers’ control.36 Within academia, a growing number of scholars are researching various dimensions of the work, in different contexts, and their studies document
substantial variation
in how sex work is organized and experienced by workers, clients, and managers. Together, these studies undermine some deep-rooted myths about prostitution and present a challenge to those writers and activists who embrace monolithic paradigms.

Victimization, exploitation, choice, job satisfaction, self-esteem, and other dimensions should be treated as
variables
(not constants) that differ between types of sex work, geographical locations, and other structural and organiza-6

SEX WORK: PARADIGMS AND POLICIES

tional conditions. The chapters in
Sex for Sale
provide additional evidence in support of the polymorphous paradigm.

T YP E S O F S E X W O R K

A brief discussion of different types of sex work will illustrate the polymorphous approach.

Prostitution

Prostitutes vary tremendously in their reasons for entry, risk of violence, freedom to refuse clients and particular sex acts, dependence on and exploitation by third parties, experiences with the authorities, public visibility, number and type of clients, relationships with coworkers, and impact on the surrounding community. Table 1.1 presents a typology of prostitution.

(Excluded from the table are borderline cases, such as lap dancing, “kept”

women or men, geishas, etc.)

Before proceeding to a description of the different types of prostitution, it is important to note that individual workers may cross one or more categories. For instance, independent call girls may also accept regular or occasional appointments from an escort agency, and massage parlor or brothel workers sometimes moonlight by meeting customers in private and keeping the earnings for themselves. It is rare, however, for workers to experience substantial upward or downward mobility. As a general rule “the level at which the woman begins work in the prostitution world determines her general position in the occupation for much of her career as a prostitute.