Prostitution

When discussing the subject of sexual slavery, my first recommendation for supporters of prostitution is to read Paid For by Rachel Moran. ¹ A common response to my recommendation is:

You can't go by the comments of one person.

My reply is:

I completely agree. Forget my recommendation. Let's start with a list of your favourite thinkers on all sides of this debate.

This response is obviously tactical instead of literal, because many people I encounter are indifferent to prostitution and unaware the Nordic Model and abolitionism are even options, let alone being familiar with all sides of the debate (... which is somber but unsurprising, considering we've all been raised in global systems that abide by the selling of women). ²

So, because we all agree more comments are better, we also agree this is not where the conversation ends. Together, we ask: where do we look next, and what are the necessary sources? Luckily, if you haven't had a chance to break off and complete the essential reading — Paid For, by Rachel Moran — you'll find a wealth of resources online that are devastating for pro-prostitution arguments. ³

With the help of those resources, we can pose these basic but trenchant questions:

If prostitution is an expression of self-determination why do so many prostitutes want to exit the industry?

If it is so empowering why are the brothels not staffed by well-to-do men and women?

Would you promote prostitution as a first-time job with positive increasing career prospects, salary, health and safety processes to your daughter, granddaughter, niece, young female family member or friend?

Why do pro-sex trade advocates talk of harm minimisation and at the same time claim that the sex industry is not harmful?

What other industry’s union suggests workers leave DNA evidence at work in case of their murder?

In case you still support prostitution after seriously attempting to answer these questions, ⁴ please try answering all other questions in the article these come from, and then ask yourself: if prostitution is empowering, then how can the crime of trafficking exist? If prostitution is empowering, then how can anyone be forced into sexual slavery? ⁵ Furthermore,

In what other occupation is your most likely killer your customer or your boss? ⁶

The Standard of Ur (c. 2550 BC) depicting slaves who became prisoners of war, as discussed in the Nordic Model Now! webinar Prostitution and pornography: Have they always existed?

Setting aside those who support prostitution, let's take a moment and listen to those who have been exploited into prostitution:

In prostitution, people are simply used. The money earned is an illusion of power. Real power is found in mutual respect, compassion, and giving to others. These values do not exist in the world of prostitution. ⁷

Prostitution, if it is anything, is a choice between homelessness and having men we don’t like, do things we hate, to bodies we don’t know how to love. ⁸

I was attacked in every hole they could get their penis into and if I didn’t want to, I was beaten. ⁹

The act of penetration means a permanent humiliation and degradation as an object of sexual use. You are deprived of human dignity and stop noticing yourself as a human with feelings. This is one of the reasons why many victims of human trafficking remain in prostitution. Their personality, their will, their identity are broken. It is absurd to assume that these victims will resist and fight for their rights. ¹⁰

Picking up on the threads of broken will and identity, it's relevant to point out that hordes of middle- and upper-class people despise their jobs but are unable to apprehend the reasons why, or improve their situation. Here I am not disputing the reasons why people revile office politics and hierarchy, instead I'm pointing out that even with all of their opportunities and education, the well-to-do are persistently unable to explain why they detest alienated labour. ¹¹ So, if the well-to-do cannot articulate why they hate being dominated, then what hope do those who reside in the lowest socioeconomic rung have, for explaining and escaping their situations?

Everyone knows there is no such hope, and understands that women exploited into prostitution can't escape without help. Instead, these women avail themselves of the only escape available: psychological detachment. Hence the prevalence of drugs and alcohol among the prostituted. But along with other basic questions that remain unasked, supporters of prostitution fail to ask:

Why is being stoned or drunk during sex considered non-consensual sex in society but a norm and consensual for the sex trade? ¹²

Asked another way: what kinds of experiences consistently require people to be stoned or drunk, so they can press through that experience? Research provides a definitive answer, trauma, and the research here shows:

Almost three-quarters (71%) of the women ... interviewed had clinically significant symptoms of dissociation. A primary function of dissociation is to handle the overwhelming fear, pain and to deal with the systematized cruelty that is experienced during prostitution ¹³

With regard to dissociation:

Sixty-eight percent of 827 people in several different types of prostitution in 9 countries met criteria for PTSD. The severity of PTSD symptoms of participants was in the same range as the PTSD of treatment-seeking combat veterans, battered women seeking shelter, rape survivors, and refugees from state-sponsored torture. Symptoms of PTSD are acute anxiety, depression, insomnia, irritability, flashbacks, emotional numbing, and being in a state of emotional and physical hyperalertness. ¹⁴

It comes as no surprise then, that:

89% of these respondents wanted to escape prostitution ¹⁵

These observations about psychological distress and a desire to escape trauma relate also to the opening comments of this section, discussing the indifference people display towards prostitution. While it's true that many people are genuinely uninterested and callous about prostitution, it's also true that many look away because they can't face the pain they experience when contemplating paid rape. Unfortunately, they become accustomed to looking away. Then, while discussing politics, if you point out that most of us spend our day contributing to climate change by driving to work and buttressing economic inequality by shopping at Walmart, then we export death by paying taxes to a war-mongering government and finish the day exploiting women by consuming porn, you'll find that most people are not equipped to handle this total takedown of modern life, let alone devise solutions to these problems. ¹⁶ As busy adults, we prefer to believe our choices are made freely and intelligently, but what many of us haven’t realized is that the options we are stuck choosing from are framed and restricted by a complex web of patriarchal controls — and even though patriarchal apologetics do not stand up to scrutiny, few people have the time, resources, and humility to scrutinize the social impacts of how they live, then make changes aimed at improving the lives of people they’ll never meet.

Recognizing the political complexity here, what is to be done?

→ Next blog in this series: Supporting Women