Melissa Farley
Women & Therapy (2003) 26(3/4): 247-280
The harm of prostitution is socially invisible, and it is also invisible in the law, in public health, and in psychology. This article addresses origins of this invisibility, how words in current usage promote the invisibility of prostitution’s harm, and how public health perspectives and psychological theory tend to ignore the harm done by men to women in prostitution. Literature which documents the overwhelming physical and psychological harm to those in prostitution is summarized here. The interconnectedness of racism, colonialism, and child sexual assault with prostitution are discussed.
Introduction
Prostitution is sexual violence which results in economic profit for perpetrators. Other types of gender violence, such as incest, rape, and wife-beating are hidden and frequently denied, but they are not sources of mass revenue. Like slavery, prostitution is a lucrative form of oppression of human beings. Many governments protect commercial sex businesses because of the monstrous profits. Institutions such as prostitution and slavery, which have existed for thousands of years, are so deeply embedded in cultures that they become invisible. In Mauritania, for example, there are 90,000 Africans enslaved by Arabs. Human rights activists travel to Mauritania to report on slavery, but because they do not observe the stereotype of what they think slavery should look like – if they don’t see bidding for shackled people on auction blocks - they conclude that the Africans working (in slavery) in front of them are voluntary laborers who are receiving food and shelter as salary (Burkett, 1997).
In a similar way, if observers don’t observe the stereotype of “harmful” prostitution, for example, if they do not see a teenaged girl being trafficked at gunpoint from one country to another, if what they see is a streetwise teenager who says ‘I like this job, and I’m making a lot of money,’ then they don’t see the harm. Johns (customers) go to Atlanta, Amsterdam, Phnom Penh, Moscow, Capetown, or Havana and see smiling girls and women waving at them. The customers decide that prostitution is a free choice.
The social and legal refusal to acknowledge the harm of prostitution is stunning. Normalization of prostitution by researchers, public health agencies, and the law is a significant barrier to addressing the harm of prostitution. For example, the International Labor Organization described prostitution as the “sex sector” of Asian economies in spite of citing their own surveys which indicated that, in Indonesia, 96% of those interviewed wanted to leave prostitution if they could (Lim, 1998). It makes no sense to oppose trafficking on the one hand, and promote the “consensual sex sector” or “commercial sex work” on the other. One can not exist without the other; trafficking is the marketing of prostitution.
To assume that there is consent in the case of prostitution, is to disappear its harm. Social and legal assertion that there is consent involved in women’s oppression is not new. Rape law, for example, commonly inquires whether or not the woman consented to any sexual act, rather than asking if the rapist obtained her freely given affirmative permission without verbal or physical coercion. In situations of domestic violence, the question is often: “why did she agree to stay in the relationship?” rather than: “how did he cut off her physical and psychological ability to safely escape?” And in cases of sexual harassment, the question is: “did she invite, provoke, or welcome the behavior?” rather than: “did he use his position of authority to compromise her ability to resist?” Just as we have not moved beyond the obstacle of consent for raped, battered, or sexually harassed women, so we are also still at ground zero where prostitution is concerned.1 The line between coercion and consent is deliberately blurred in prostitution. The politician’s insistence that prostitution is consensual parallels the john’s insistence that mutuality occurs in prostitution.
In prostitution, the conditions which make genuine consent possible are absent: physical safety, equal power with customers, and real alternatives (Hernandez, 2001). One woman in Amsterdam described prostitution as “volunteer slavery,” a description which reflects both the appearance of choice and the coercion behind that choice. Instead of the question, “did she consent?” the more relevant question would be: “did she have real alternatives to prostitution for survival?” As we will discuss below, it is a statistical, as well as an ethical error to assume that most women in prostitution consent to it.
There is no mutuality of consideration or pleasure in prostitution. The purpose of prostitution is to make sure that one person is object to the other’s subject, to make sure that one person does not use her personal desire to determine which
sexual acts do and do not occur, while the other person acts on the basis of his personal desire. This is in stark contrast to non-commercial promiscuous, anonymous sex where both parties act on the basis of personal desire, and both parties are free to retract without economic consequences (Davidson, 1998).2
Invisibility
Words which conceal harm lead to confusion about the real nature of prostitution. Some words in current usage make the harm of prostitution invisible: voluntary prostitution which implies that she consented when usually, she actually had no other options to survive; forced trafficking, which implies that somewhere there are women who volunteer to be trafficked into prostitution; sex work, which defines prostitution as a job rather than an act of violence against women. The term migrant sex worker blends prostitution and trafficking and implies that both are acceptable. The Chinese words beautiful merchandise benevolently conceal the objectification of women in prostitution. The expression socially disadvantaged women (ostensibly used to avoid stigmatizing prostitutes) removes any hint of the sexual violence which is intrinsic to prostitution.
Libertarian or postmodern ideology obscures the harm of prostitution, defining it as a form of sex. The harshest sexual exploitation in strip club prostitution has been reframed as sexual expression or freedom to express one’s sensuality by dancing. Brothels are referred to as short-time hotels, massage parlors, saunas, and sometimes health clubs. Older men who buy teenagers for sex acts in Seoul call prostitution compensated dating. In Tokyo prostitution is described as assisted intercourse.
Men who buy women in prostitution are called interested parties or third parties, rather than johns, which is what women call customers. Pimps are described as boyfriends or managers. One pimp recently referred to the brief shelf life of a girl in prostitution. What that means is that he knows the extent of the damage in prostitution, and realizes that she will not be saleable after a few years. In the United States, the expression ‘ho reflects the widely accepted view of all women, and especially women of color, as natural-born whores.3
Women in prostitution are called escorts, hostesses, strippers, and dancers. Sometimes these words are attempts by women in prostitution to retain some shred of dignity. The purpose of exposing these words is not to remove women’s inherent dignity and worth, but to expose the brutal institution which harms them. What words can be used, without insulting women in prostitution? The expression sex worker implies that prostitution is an acceptable type of work (instead of brutal violence). We do not refer to battered women as “battering workers.” And just as we would not turn a woman into the harm done to her (we don’t refer to a woman who has been battered as a “batteree”) we should not call a woman who has been prostituted, a “prostitute.” We suggest retaining her humanity by referring to her as a woman who is in prostitution, who was prostituted or who is prostituting. We also use the word “john” which is the word women themselves use to refer to customers.
The lines between prostitution and nonprostitution have become increasingly blurred. Since the 1980s, there has been huge growth in socially legitimized pimping in the United States. For example, the amount of physical contact between strip club employees and customers has escalated since 1980. Customers can usually buy either a table dance or a lap dance where the dancer sits on the customer’s lap while she wears few or no clothes and grinds her genitals against his. Although he is clothed, he usually expects ejaculation. The lap dance may take place on the main floor of the club or in a private room. The more private the sexual performance, the more it costs, and the more likely that violent sexual harassment or rape will occur.
Continue reading entire report (PDF format)
Footnotes can be read in the PDF document
