Should Feminists Oppose Prostitution?
Laurie Shrage
[Please note: This is an abridged version; I have eliminated some parts, and all citations and footnotes. Originally published in Ethics, v.99, n.9, pp.347-361]
INTRODUCTION
1. Prostitution raises difficult issues for feminists. On the one hand, many
feminists want to abolish discriminatory criminal statutes that are mostly
used to harass and penalize prostitutes, and rarely to punish johns and
pimpslaws which, for the most part, render prostitutes more vulnerable
to exploitation by their male associates. On the other hand, most feminists
find the prostitute's work morally and politically objectionable. In their
view, women who provide sexual services for a fee submit to sexual
domination by men, and suffer degradation by being treated as sexual
commodities.'
2. My concern, in this paper, is whether persons opposed to the social
subordination of women should seek to discourage commercial sex. My
goal is to marshal the moral arguments needed to sustain feminists'
condemnation of the sex industry in our society. ... I analyze mercenary sex in terms of
culturally specific beliefs and principles that organize its practice in con
temporary American society. I try to show that the sex industry, like
other institutions in our society, is structured by deeply ingrained attitudes
and values which are oppressive to women. The point of my analysis is
not to advocate an egalitarian reformation of commercial sex, nor to
advocate its abolition through state regulation. Instead, I focus on another
political alternative: that which must be done to subvert widely held
beliefs that legitimate this institution in our society. Ultimately, I argue
that nothing closely resembling prostitution, as we currently know it, will
exist, once we have undermined these cultural convictions.
...
3. In this paper, I use the term 'prostitute'
as shorthand for 'provider of commercial sexual services,' and corre
spondingly, I use the term 'prostitution' interchangeably with 'commercial
sex....
HISTORICAL AND CROSSCULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
4. In describing Babylonian temple prostitution, Gerda Lerner reports:
"For people who regarded fertility as sacred and essential to their own
survival, the caring for the gods included, in some cases, offering them
sexual services. Thus, a separate class of temple prostitutes developed.
What seems to have happened was that sexual activity for and in behalf
of the god or goddesses was considered beneficial to the people andsacred." Similarly, according to Emma Goldman, the Babylonians believed
that "the generative activity of human beings possessed a mysterious and
sacred influence in promoting the fertility of Nature." When the rationale
for the impersonal provision of sex is conceived in terms of the promotion
of nature's fecundity, the social meaning this activity has may differ
substantially from the social significance it has in our own society.
5. In fifteenthcentury France, as described by Jacques Rossiaud, com
mercial sex appears likewise to have had an import that contrasts with
its role in contemporary America. According to Rossiaud:
By the age of thirty, most prostitutes had a real chance of becoming
reintegrated into society.... Since public opinion did not view them
with disgust, and since they were on good terms with priests and
men of the law, it was not too difficult for them to find a position
as servant or wife. To many city people, public prostitution rep
resented a partial atonement for past misconduct. Many bachelors
had compassion and sympathy for prostitutes, and finally, the local
charitable foundations of the municipal authorities felt a charitable
impulse to give special help to these repentant Magdalens and to
open their way to marriage by dowering them. Marriage was definitely
the most frequent end to the career of communal prostitutes who
had roots in the town where they have publicly offered their bodies.
6. The fact that prostitutes were regarded by medieval French society as
eligible for marriage, and were desired by men for wives, suggests that
the cultural principles which sustained commercial exchanges of sex in
this society were quite different than those which shape our own sex
industry. Consequently, the phenomenon of prostitution requires a distinct
political analysis and moral assessment visa'vis fifteenthcentury France.
This historically specific approach isjustified, in part, because commercial
sexual transactions may have different consequences for individuals in
an alien society than for individuals similarly placed in our own. Indeed,
it is questionable whether, in two quite different cultural settings, we
should regard a particular outward behaviorthe impersonal provision
of sexual services for fees or their equis, as prostitution.
...
7. In general, historical and crosscultural studies offer little reason to
believe that the dominant forms of sexual practice in our society reflect
psychological, biological, or moral absolutes that determine human sexual
practice. Instead, such studies provide much evidence that, against a
different backdrop of beliefs about the world, the activities we designate
as ''sex"impersonal or otherwisehave an entirely different meaning
and value. ... [T]hough
we can appreciate that making an occupation by the provision of sex
may not have been oppressive to women in medieval France or ancient
Babylon, we should nevertheless recognize that in our society it can be
extremely damaging to women. What then are the features which, in
our culture, render prostitution oppressive?
THE SOCIAL MEANING OF PROSTITUTION
8. Let me begin with a simple analogy. In our society there exists a taboo
against eating cats and dogs. Now, suppose a member of our society
wishes to engage in the unconventional behavior of ingesting cat or dog
meat. In evaluating the moral and political character of this person's
behavior, it is somewhat irrelevant whether eating cats and dogs "really"
is or isn't healthy, or whether it "really" is or isn't different than eating
cows, pigs, and chickens. What is relevant is that, by including cat and
dog flesh in one's diet, a person may really make others upset and,
therefore, do damage to them as well as to oneself. In short, how actions
are widely perceived and interpreted by others, even if wrongly or seemingly
irrationally, is crucial to determining their moral status because, though
such interpretations may not hold up against some "objective reality,"
they are part of the "social reality" in which we live.
9. I am not using this example to argue that unconventional behavior
is wrong but, rather, to illustrate the relevance of cultural convention
to how our outward behaviors are perceived. Indeed, what is wrong
with prostitution is not that it violates deeply entrenched social conven
tionsideals of feminine purity, and the noncommoditization of sex
but precisely that it epitomizes other cultural assumptionsbeliefs which,
reasonable or not, serve to legitimate women's social subordination. In
other words, rather than subvert patriarchal ideology, the prostitute's
actions, and the industry as a whole, serve to perpetuate this system of
values. By contrast, lesbian sex, and egalitarian heterosexual economic
and romantic relationships, do not. In short, female prostitution oppresses
women, not because some women who participate in it "suffer in the
eyes of society" but because its organized practice testifies to and perpetuates
socially hegemonic beliefs which oppress all women in many domains of
their lives.
10. What, then, are some of the beliefs and values which structure the
social meaning of the prostitute's business in our cultureprinciples
which are not necessarily consciously held by us but are implicit in our
observable behavior and social practice? First, people in our society generally
believe that human beings naturally possess, but socially repress, powerful,
emotionally destabilizing sexual appetites. Second, we assume that men
are naturally suited for dominant social roles. Third, we assume that
contact with male genitals in virtually all contexts is damaging and polluting
to women. Fourth, we assume that a person's sexual practice renders her
or him a particular "kind" of person, for example, "a homosexual," "a
bisexual," "a whore," "a virgin," "a pervert," and so on. I will briefly
examine the nature of these four assumptions, and then discuss how
they determine the social significance and impact of prostitution in our
society. Such principles are inscribed in all of a culture's communicative
acts and institutions, but my examples will only be drawn from a common
body of disciplinary resources: the writings of philosophers and other
intellectuals.
The universal possession of a potent sex drive.
11. In describing the nature
of sexual attraction, Schopenhauer states:
The sexual impulse in all its degrees and nuances plays not only
on the stage and in novels, but also in the real world, where, next
to the love of life, it shows itself the strongest and most powerful
of motives, constantly lays claim to half the powers and thoughts
of the younger portion of mankind, is the ultimate goal of almost
all human effort, exerts an adverse influence on the most important
events, interrupts the most serious occupations every hour, sometimes
embarrasses for a while even the greatest minds, does not hesitate
to intrude with its trash interfering with the negotiations of statesmen
and the investigation of men of learning, knows how to slip its love
letters and locks of hair even into ministerial portfolios and philo
sophical manuscripts, and no less devises daily the most entangled
and the worst actions, destroys the most valuable relationships,
breaks the firmest bonds, demands the sacrifice sometimes of life
or health, sometimes of wealth, rank, and happiness, nay robs those
who are otherwise honest of all conscience, makes those who have
hitherto been faithful, traitors; accordingly to the whole, appears
as a malevolent demon that strives to pervert, confuse, and overthrow
everything.
12. Freud, of course, chose the name "libido" to refer to this powerful natural
instinct, which he believed manifests itself as early as infancy.
The assumption of a potent "sex drive" is implicit in Lars Ericsson's
relatively recent defense of prostitution: "We must liberate ourselves
from those mental fossils which prevent us from looking upon sex and
sexuality with the same naturalness as upon our cravings for food and
drink. And, contrary to popular belief, we may have something to learn
from prostitution in this respect, namely, that coition resembles nour
ishment in that if it cannot be obtained in any other way it can always
be bought. And bought meals are not always the worst."' More explicitly,
he argues that the "sex drive" provides a noneconomic, natural basis for
explaining the demand for commercial sex. Moreover, he claims that
because of the irrational nature of this impulse, prostitution will exist
until all persons are granted sexual access upon demand to all other
persons. In a society where individuals lack such access to others, but
where women are the social equals of men, Ericsson predicts that "the
degree of female frustration that exists today ... will no longer be tolerated,
rationalized, or sublimated, but channeled into a demand for, inter alia,
mercenary sex." Consequently, Ericsson favors an unregulated sex in
dustry, which can respond spontaneously to these natural human wants.
Although Pateman, in her response to Ericsson, does not see the capitalist
commoditization of sexuality as physiologically determined, she never
theless yields to the assumption that "sexual impulses are part of our
natural constitution as humans."
13. Schopenhauer, Freud, Ericsson, and Pateman all clearly articulate
what anthropologists refer to as our "cultural common sense" regarding
the nature of human sexuality. By contrast, consider a group of people
in New Guinea, called the Dani, as described by Karl Heider: "Especially
striking is their five year postpartum sexual abstinence, which is uniformly
observed and is not a subject of great concern or stress. This low level
of sexuality appears to be a purely cultural phenomenon, not caused by
any biological factors."" The moral of this anthropological tale is that
our high level of sexuality is also "a purely cultural phenomenon," and
not the inevitable result of human biology. Though the Dani's disinterest
in sex need not lead us to regard our excessive concern as improper, it
should lead us to view one of our cultural rationalizations for prostitution
as just that--a cultural rationalization.
...
Sexual contact pollutes women.
14. To say that extensive sexual experience
in a woman is not prized in our society is to be guilty of indirectness and
understatement. Rather, a history of sexual activity is a negative mark
that is used to differentiate kinds of women. Instead of being valued for
their experience in sexual matters, women are valued for their "innocence."
15. That the act of sexual intercourse with a man is damaging to a
woman is implicit in the vulgar language we use to describe this act. As
Robert Baker has pointed out, a woman is "f*cked," "screwed," "banged,"
"had," and so forth, and it is a man (a "prick") who does it to her. The
metaphors we use for the act of sexual intercourse are similarly revealing.
Consider, for example, Andrea Dworkin's description of intercourse:
"The thrusting is persistent invasion. She is opened up, split down the
center. She is occupiedphysically, internally, in her privacy." Dworkin
invokes both images of physical assault and imperialist domination in
her characterization of heterosexual copulation. Women are split, pen
etrated, entered, occupied, invaded, and colonized by men. Though aware
of the nonliteralness of this language, Dworkin appears to think that
these metaphors are motivated by natural, as opposed to arbitrary, cultural
features of the world. According to Ann Garry, "Because in our culture
we connect sex with harm that men do to women, and because we think
of the female role in sex as that of harmed object, we can see that to
treat a woman as a sex object is automatically to treat her as less than
fully human." As the public vehicles for "screwing," "penetration,"
"invasion," prostitutes are reduced to the status of animals or things
mere instruments for human ends.
The reification of sexual practice.
16. Another belief that determines the
social significance of prostitution concerns the relationship between a
person's social identity and her or his sexual behavior. For example,
we identify a person who has sexual relations with a person of the same
gender as a "homosexual," and we regard a woman who has intercourse
with multiple sexual partners as being of a particular typefor instance,
a "loose woman," "slut," or "prostitute." As critics of our society, we may
find these categories too narrow or the values they reflect objectionable.
If so, we may refer to women who are sexually promiscuous, or who
have sexual relations with other women, as "liberated women," and thereby
show a rejection of double (and homophobic) standards of sexual morality.
However, what such linguistic iconoclasm generally fails to challenge is
that a person's sexual practice makes her a particular "kind" of person.
17. I will now consider how these cultural convictions and values structure
the meaning of prostitution in our society. Our society's tolerance for
commercially available sex, legal or not, implies general acceptance of
principles which perpetuate women's social subordination. Moreover, by
their participation in an industry which exploits the myths of female
social inequality and sexual vulnerability, the actions of the prostitute
and her clients imply that they accept a set of values and beliefs which
assign women to marginal social roles in all our cultural institutions,
including marriage and waged employment. Just as an Uncle Tom exploits
noxious beliefs about blacks for personal gain, and implies through his
actions that blacks can benefit from a system of white supremacy, the
prostitute and her clients imply that women can profit economically from
patriarchy. Though we should not blame the workers in the sex industry
for the social degradation they suffer, as theorists and critics of our
society, we should question the existence of such businesses and the social
principles implicit in our tolerance for them.
18. Because members of our society perceive persons in terms of their
sexual orientation and practice, and because sexual contact in most settings but especially outside the context of a "secure" heterosexual
relationshipis thought to be harmful to women, the prostitute's work
may have social implications that differ significantly from the work of
persons in other professions. For instance, women who work or have
worked in the sex industry may find their future social prospects severely
limited. By contrast to medieval French society, they are not desired as
wives or domestic servants in our own. And unlike other female subordinates in our society, the prostitute is viewed as a defiled creature;
nonetheless, we rationalize and tolerate prostitutional sex out of the
perceived need to mollify men's sexual desires.
19. In sum, the woman who provides sex on a commercial basis and the
man who patronizes her epitomize and reinforce the social principles I
have identified: these include beliefs that attribute to humans potent,
subjugating sex drives that men can satisfy without inflicting selfharm
through impersonal sexual encounters. Moreover, the prostitute cannot
alter the political implications of her work by simply supplying her own
rationale for the provision of her services. For example, Margo St. James
has tried to represent the prostitute as a skilled sexual therapist, who
serves a legitimate social need. According to St. James, while the commercial sex provider may be unconventional in her sexual behavior, her
work may be performed with honesty and dignity. However, this defense
is implausible since it ignores the possible adverse impact of her behavior
on herself and others, and the fact that, by participating in prostitution,
her behavior does little to subvert the cultural principles that make her
work harmful. Ann Garry reaches a similar conclusion about pornography:
"I may not think that sex is dirty and that I would be a harmed object;
I may not know what your view is; but what bothers me is that this is
the view embodied in our language and culture. . .. As long as sex is
connected with harm done to women, it will be very difficult not to see
pornography as degrading to women.... The fact that audience attitude
is so important makes one wary of giving wholehearted approval to any
pornography seen today." Although the prostitute may want the meaning
of her actions assessed relative to her own idiosyncratic beliefs and values,
the political and social meaning of her actions must be assessed in the
political and social context in which they occur.
20. One can imagine a society in which individuals sought commercial
sexual services from women in order to obtain high quality sexual ex
periences. In our society, people pay for medical advice, meals, education
in many fields, and so on, in order to obtain information, services, or
goods that are superior to or in some respect more valuable than those
they can obtain noncommercially. A context in which the rationale for
seeking a prostitute's services was to obtain sex from a professional
from a person who knows what she is doingis probably not a context
in which women are thought to be violated when they have sexual contact
with men. In such a situation, those who supplied sex on a commercial
basis would probably not be stigmatized but, instead, granted ordinary
social privileges. The fact that prostitutes have such low social status
in our society indicates that the society in which we live is not congruent
with this imaginary one; that is, the prostitute's services in our society
are not generally sought as a gourmet item. In short, if commercial sex
was sought as a professional service, then women who provided sex
commercially would probably not be regarded as "prostituting" them
selvesas devoting their bodies or talents to base purposes, contrary to
their true interests.
SUBVERTING THE STATUS QUO
...
21. What can a person who works in the sex industry do to subvert
widely held attitudes toward her work? To subvert the beliefs which
currently structure commercial sex in our society, the female prostitute
would need to assume the role not of a sexual subordinate but of a sexual
equal or superior. For instance, if she were to have the authority to
determine what services the customer could get, under what conditions
the customer could get them, and what they would cost, she would gain
the status of a sexual professional. Should she further want to establish
herself as a sexual therapist, she would need to represent herself as
having some type of special technical knowledge for solving problems
having to do with human sexuality. In other words, experience is not
enough to establish one's credentials as a therapist or professional. How
ever, if the industry were reformed so that all these conditions were met,
what would distinguish the prostitute's work from that of a bona fide
"sexual therapist"? ... [I]f prostitution were sufficiently transformed
to make it completely nonoppressive to women, though commercial
transactions involving sex might still exist, prostitution as we now know
it would not. ...