Anyone hear anything recently?

I would like to add two things that I have not seen covered. First, selling sex, virginity, or whatever is not just “selling sex.” It is selling full sexual access to a person. The winning bidder will be free to do whatever he likes with the product he has won and this may include torture, rape, sadism, maiming, etc. As much as I like the idea of an empowered woman profiting from the sale of her virginity, this is the reality of prostitution. I’d be interested to know how she plans to maintain her power in this interaction.

What Cara said, and as someone who has been a prostitute on and off, and who used to do survival prostitution, I would just like to say that you are absolutely WRONG. Not all johns think like that and those who do should have their asses in jail on ASSAULT. Prostitutes/sex workers have every right to negotiate what happens in the exchange, and clients/johns who take it further than that are the worst scum of the world. Some of them (not all of them) do go beyond what was negotiated, yes, which is why we need police who are actually willing to investigate crimes against sex workers without arresting the sex workers too. Because those things you mention, those are crimes. The right to do whatever you want does not come as part of the exchange.

Second has to do with the broader implications of this spectacle (and it is indeed a “spectacle”). Cross cultural studies have shown that when asked “If you could, would you leave prostitution today?” 85 to 90% of prostituted women said “Yes but I can’t.” This means that Ms. Dylan is of the 10 to 15% of women who are exercising a free choice to sell full sexual access to their bodies. This is not the majority group. Abolitionist feminists will have this particular example of freely chosen prostitution thrown in their faces for many years to come. What this means for the majority of women who are forced and/or coerced into selling full sexual access to their bodies is yet to be seen but the potential for damage is great.

There is too much force and coercion in the sex trade. This is absolutely true, and if you are looking for ways to remedy that, or interested in changing what is not working in that fight, I would start here. But someone wanting to leave the industry does not automatically mean that they have been forced into it. Many people have shitty jobs they would like to leave. One thing that would help unhappy people leave prostitution would be to stop arresting prostitutes and giving them criminal records that they have to explain on every future job application. Another thing that would help is increasing opportunities for people in poverty, especially women in poverty. Or you could work to reduce transphobia. Shaming and attacking and trying to “abolish” the sex trade is not something that helps, not at all.

Also, what Natalie Dylan is doing has pretty much no bearing on the rest of the sex trade. I could care less, and I’m guessing the same is true of most prostitutes. Whether or not “abolitionist feminists” care is absolutely the furthest thing from my mind. As far as I’m concerned, they are meddling in things they know absolutely nothing about and doing a tremendous amount of damage.

So as interesting, though-provoking, and empowering as this situation may be for Ms. Dylan and those following her, I fear that contributing to an image of prostitution where free choice and empowerment is the norm may cause great harm to prostituted women for whom “free,” “choice” and “power” are words rather than realities.

Nope, it has pretty much no effect on those prostitutes. You said it yourself above, the people who really care so much about Dylan are just these “abolitionist feminists.” Boo fucking hoo.

I would like to add two things that I have not seen covered. First, selling sex, virginity, or whatever is not just “selling sex.” It is selling full sexual access to a person. The winning bidder will be free to do whatever he likes with the product he has won and this may include torture, rape, sadism, maiming, etc.

Arnica, all I’m going to say to you is that you clearly don’t understand the very first — and indeed, possibly the most important — thing about prostitution. And if you don’t understand that each and every person always has a right to consent, and to negotiate consent, and to revoke consent, I really haven’t the slightest clue about what else to say to you.

I am reminded of Orlan – a french artist who has spend the 1990s undergoing lots and lots of plastic surgery to refashion her face in accordance with (renaissance) standards of beauty. her surgeries where filmed, broadcasted to screens in museums across the world. She was under only partial anesthetics, so she would talk to the audience, read poetry and (psychoanalytic) works, etc. Her performances raise all kinds of questions, for instance, is this art? who si the arist (the surgeon or Orlan)? More interestingly, her work has attracted lots of attention from feminists. Orlan herself states to want to challenge the seemingly natural and eternal status of standards of beauty and make explicit the grip technology has on the female body. Feminists have reacted in ambivalent ways… for plastic surgery is dangerous to women’s health; and plays into the Cartesian mind/body divide, the mind associated with the male, the body with the female. yet there is no doubt her performances are subversive, that is, she subverts the relation between women’s bodies and technology, taking the scalpel, so to say, in her own hands. She asserts her status as a subject using the prime technology/tool in the objectification of female bodies… of course, her strategy is nothing like other (more feasible) feminist politics, i.e., challenging beauty ideals and the objectification of female bodies.

I think this is also what is going on here. I think Nathalie is subverting structures of inequality, laying bare their oppressive nature. Women’s bodies are commodified, earn lots of men lots of money (men working in pornography, pimps, etc) – yet it is somehow taboo for a woman to take advantage of her “market-price”. The question if this has been a social experiment from the beginning isn’t really interesting, I feel – it is not intentionality that is at stake but the perception of her actions, the debates they give rise to in society. It almost works as a consciousness-raising exercise. It makes people wonder: who are, indeed, those men paying so much money for her virginity? Why is her virginity worth so much money? Why is there such fiss fuss about virginity anyway? Why is this worth reporting on? The answer is that her actions subvert one of those contradictions in capitalist patriarchy – that sex sells, and that “sex” equals “female body”, yet that females themselves are not supposed to earn money with it… In marxist terms… they are thoroughly alienated from the ‘labor’ patriarchy sets apart for them. (I know it’s not very fashionable speaking in Marxist terms. I’ll do it anyway)

Yet her actions seem indeed not very different from those of prostitutes. I think that they do, however. I believe her virginity is central here – the question is: is she indeed a prostitute? But prostitutes are not virgins – they are, in the patriarchical mind, opposites. Yet she, at the moment, is both – a virgin, and a whore. Which is why her actions are incredibly unsettling. They defy attempts at categorization and the binarism underlying thought about women’s sexual agency: frigid or sexually insatiable; virgin, and whore. This destabilization is something taking place not necessarily on a manifest level. Perhaps a more unconscious ‘uncanny’ realization which, I feel, does play a role in the ambivalence with which her actions are received and only adds to their particular subversive force. Again – subversive does not equal liberating, or revolutionary. Her actions need not be politically motivated or feasible political alternatives to existing structures of sexism and inequality to have a politically charged, subversive edge.

However,

I would like to add two things that I have not seen covered. First, selling sex, virginity, or whatever is not just “selling sex.” It is selling full sexual access to a person. The winning bidder will be free to do whatever he likes with the product he has won and this may include torture, rape, sadism, maiming, etc. As much as I like the idea of an empowered woman profiting from the sale of her virginity, this is the reality of prostitution. I’d be interested to know how she plans to maintain her power in this interaction.

Second has to do with the broader implications of this spectacle (and it is indeed a “spectacle”). Cross cultural studies have shown that when asked “If you could, would you leave prostitution today?” 85 to 90% of prostituted women said “Yes but I can’t.” This means that Ms. Dylan is of the 10 to 15% of women who are exercising a free choice to sell full sexual access to their bodies. This is not the majority group. Abolitionist feminists will have this particular example of freely chosen prostitution thrown in their faces for many years to come. What this means for the majority of women who are forced and/or coerced into selling full sexual access to their bodies is yet to be seen but the potential for damage is great.

So as interesting, though-provoking, and empowering as this situation may be for Ms. Dylan and those following her, I fear that contributing to an image of prostitution where free choice and empowerment is the norm may cause great harm to prostituted women for whom “free,” “choice” and “power” are words rather than realities.

You also singled out Natalie Dylan as an example of someone who is performing an act of “patriarchy compliance” while trying to deny said act. Which is interesting, because if you accept that we all live within overlapping systems, many of which happen to be patriarchal in nature, we all perform such acts. While what Natalie Dylan is doing is obviously both big in scale and very visible, I think it’s fairly obvious that she isn’t trying to deny much of anything. She’s operating within the existing system available to her, and stating as much. Of course, you imply that if only she knew better, she wouldn’t do it at all, or else at least act ashamed about it. I mean, it’s in NO WAY possible that a single act could have several meanings or interpretations, right? If only Natalie Dylan wasn’t such a “sell-out” she would adopt the “correct” interpretation of what’s going on here, yeah?

You interpret the conversations surrounding Natalie on this page as no more than statements to the fact that she is “aiding and abetting” those who will hurt other women (of course, any hurt that may come to Natalie herself is off the table here, I’ve noticed). You repeatedly state that sexists will use this against women – now, this is something that I actually agree with, but wouldn’t blame Natalie Dylan for. believe that sexists use *everything* against women. You, on the other hand, condemn her for “selling herself.”

So yeah, I’d say you blame her for what the sexists will think or do. Which is ridiculous – hence my example of being called a “slut” in a bar due to the way I looked. It’s all part of the same problem, when it comes down to it.

And arguing “in favor of prostitution,” what do you think that means? I would argue that it should be decriminalized, though I haven’t really made the argument here yet. Whether each individual should participate in it should be up to them. If that’s what you mean by “in favor of prostitution” then I guess I am arguing that.

But yes it can be very exploitative. And no I don’t think that is an argument “against” it in the sense that it should be illegal, or “against” it in the sense that its necessarily the wrong choice for any given individual. Its a reason to fight for decriminalization, less police violence, police who take crimes against sex workers seriously, and so on and so forth. That is my priority.

# Puppycat says:
January 27th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Sailorman, not arguing that it can be very exploitative, just objecting to the idea that that can be an “argument against prostitution.” As I explained.

You are simultaneously claiming that (a) prostitution can be very exploitative, AND (b) that said exploitation shouldn’t even count as an argument against prostitution. That doesn’t make much sense, unless you don’t care about women being exploited. And you surely aren’t in that category, so what’s up?.

Sure, the ultimate CONCLUSION may be (depending on the setting) that the exploitation is balanced by some other benefit of prostitution, or any number of things. But I don’t get it: don’t/can’t you acknowledge that something can have both pros and cons and still be a good idea? Think of cancer treatment: chemo sucks (counts against doing it) but it keeps you from dying (counts for doing it.) The fact that chemo may be the best option for some doesn’t mean that the negative effects don’t exist. And the fact that declining treatment may have benefits–no vomiting!–doesn’t prevent it from being the wrong choice for some folks.

Same here. You seem to be so focused on arguing in favor of prostitution that you won’t even admit that exploitation can be seen as a negative feature. That doesn’t make any sense, and it makes you very difficult to converse with.

It reminds me a little of an art performance piece of a few years ago.