Strange allies
Reason (the libertarian website) agrees with the libertarian feminists, of course. Elizabeth Nolan Brown says the usual things:
In a recent interview with Time magazine, feminist icon Gloria Steinem—currently promoting a new travel memoir—says that the biggest threat to reproductive rights today is “patriarchy… the very definition (of which) is that men control women’s bodies in order to control reproduction.”
The way johns do, for instance. But Brown isn’t having any of that, thanks.
It’s a nice sentiment—but alas, Steinem’s concept of human rights and bodily integrity only applies to certain people. Steinem has been an outspoken proponent against sex workers’ right to bodily integrity.
Over the summer, Steinem was one of a group of Hollywood celebrities and high-profile feminists condemning the human-rights group Amnesty International for its support of completely decriminalizalizing prostitution.
Or rather, decriminalizing pimps, brothel owners and johns. They favor the decriminalization of prostitutes aka sex workers. So Steinem isn’t in fact “an outspoken proponent against” (i.e. an opponent of) sex workers’ right to bodily integrity.
In 2014, Steinem said it was wrong to use the term “sex work,” a preferred term of many women who willingly work in the sex trade, because prostitution is merely “commercial rape”—a “body invasion” that is “not like any other work.” Never mind that a lot of grown women choose to be sex workers and do not experience prostitution as commercialized rape; that’s how Steinem sees it, and so pity the poor sex worker who thinks she gets to define her own experience.
But by the same token a lot of grown women and underage girls do not choose to be sex workers; they are forced into it and/or trapped in it. Which group is more likely to have various kinds of privilege that should be checked? I say it’s the group that doesn’t choose. The more options you have (and privilege amounts to more options), the less likely you are to “choose” to be a chicken-processor or a coal miner or a prostitute. The more desperate you are, the more likely you are to do jobs that you wouldn’t touch if you could survive any other way. The fact that some women think prostitution is a fabulous way to get both sex and money is not all that relevant to the desperate ones.
“Choose” is such a loaded term.
The guy who robs the liquor store chooses to do so. Anyone who engages any activity whatsoever — legal or otherwise — ultimately “chooses” that activity, unless under immediate duress. And even then, one can “choose” to cooperate or get an ass-whooping.
Each side of this debate “chooses” to define the term specifically and differently from the other. To one, the woman happily “chooses” to give blow jobs in the alley as a means of self-fulfillment and empowerment. To the other, the only reason she would engage in such behaviors is because she is desperate or firmly under the thumb of someone else. So, it’s a “choice” of last resort.
The truth is more likely to be much more nuanced, with a nice bell-shaped curve representing the distribution of coerced “choice” versus non-coerced “choice”. But since each side is only arguing the tail of that distribution and ignoring the rest — no communication occurs.
Yes, but that’s why I made the point that privilege entails more choices – a wider range of choices. Lack of privilege closes down a lot of choices.
85% to 95% of those in prostitution want to escape it, but have no other options for survival.
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/Prostitution%20Quick%20Facts%2012-21-12.pdf
It’s also worthwhile to think about why the vast majority of prostituted people are female, and the vast majority of sex buyers are male. Would one be so quick to suppose a “nice bell-shaped curve” to represent the coercion/non-coercion of men putting their bodies up for sale? Or does one suppose it is in the nature of women to be a reduced to a masturbatory object, but not so the nature of men?
Jeez!
‘Steinem has been an outspoken proponent against sex workers’ right to bodily integrity.’
Sure, and the Center for Disease Control is an ‘outspoken proponent against football players’ right to bodily integrity’ because they report on the threat of concussion and brain-damage that the NFL and broadcasters would rather not think about.
Of course, football players receive substantial sums for ‘choosing’ to be turned into vegetables. And they aren’t trafficked across borders like drugs or contraband goods. No collection of anecdotes about ’empowered’ sex workers, anymore than old-school ‘white slavery’ horror stories, is going to give an accurate sense of the real-life issues around ‘sex work.’
There is no question that women, and children of both sexes, ARE made victims of violent crime in the commercialization of sex as practiced and ‘accepted’ today. These are conditions to be addressed and corrected in real life. Not banned for discussion because it might offend some academic who thinks grad students picking up pin money at conventions might be swell.
But high school football players run the same chance of injury for no income, often because they hope it will be their ticket to big money they can’t see themselves making another way. When you see minority kids desperate to be athletes and kidding themselves about their skill level, it’s pretty scary to see the risks they take in the hope of escaping poverty. \derail