Pimps, slaves and whores

With this whole Spitzer scandal, sex work has been at the front of my brain, but before I get into that mess, I wanted to note that last weekend the NYT Magazine ran a surprisingly thoughtful article on transgender students at historically women’s colleges. Kudos to Alissa Quart for breaking down the fundamentals of gender theory (and citing the likes of Judith Butler, Gayle Rubin and Jack Halberstam!) and calling out Barnard president Judith Shapiro for being less than supportive of gender nonconforming students. And what’s more, I never would have found the article if it hadn’t popped up in the top ten most popular side-bar, which means, if nothing else, that a ton of people are reading it and emailing it to other people.

It’s a good thing I found something worthwhile on the NYT website, because after the garbage I’ve been reading by Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, I was about ready to puke. You can tell Kristof is giddy at the idea of getting to spear Spitzer on the blade of his own hypocrisy, and indeed last week's column "Do as he said" argues for stricter laws governing prostitution, specifically those “cracking down on pimps and customers.”

The real problem, Kristof suggests, is perverted and hypocritical men like Spitzer, who prey on young women like poor Ashley Alexandra Dupre, who he is quick to point out in a second column, had been “abused as a child, and tangled with drugs and homelessness.” Kristof doesn’t mention Dupre’s upper-class upbringing or the fact that she is currently making even more off publicity on the Spitzer scandal than she did working for Emperor’s Club, but even despite this, he has difficulty portraying her as a victim, and emphasizes that her situation is “dangerously unrepresentative” of prostitution.” He also cites a former sex worker who wrote on his blog that she “never felt exploited or trapped” and prostitution was “one of the best jobs” she ever had, only to dismiss her immediately. You see, women like these do not fit into his idea of a prostitute.

Instead Kristof cites statistics about abuse, drug use, mental illness and mortality rates, quoting experts from the field who confirm his idea that prostitution is equivalent to slavery.

I have no doubt that these statistics, gruesome as they are, are generally accurate. Like other workers involved in illicit industries (drug dealers, for instance), sex workers operate outside protections from the state, and are thus much more likely to be targets of violence. In addition, sex workers often face unique forms of gender-based violence (and in fact, transgender sex workers face the highest mortality rates by far). Yet rather than decry the abysmal working conditions for people engaged in the sex industry, and support their efforts for reform, Kristof wants to eradicate prostitution altogether.

Putting aside for the moment the obvious pragmatic difficulties in that endeavor, let’s say that a successful campaign managed to literally lock up every john in the nation (we won’t pause to imagine the number of empty chairs in the house and senate, let alone the leaderless cities and states across the land). What then, of our now unemployed sex workers? Just as shutting down sweatshops in and of itself does little to improve the lives of maquiladora workers, shutting down prostitution doesn’t actually give women any more autonomy and choice in their lives and occupations. Rather, it reduces women’s choice and autonomy by denying sex work as a viable occupation.

In refusing to acknowledge women’s agency in choosing to be sex workers (even in the face of a variety of factors that may restrict individual women’s choices), Kristof demonstrates a particularly insidious version of paternalism. Like many of us, Kristof has internalized the virgin/whore binary, in which women face the choice of submitting to patriarchal protection and control, or risking social condemnation and violence in return for sexual freedom.

Violence against sex workers is an abomination. It is also a way to keep the rest of us in line. It’s not a coincidence that uppity women get called “whores”. These serve as warnings – if we attempt to exercise autonomy (and control over our own bodies and sexuality is a particularly dangerous form of autonomy!) we run the risk of losing those protections that proper ladies receive. But just as Kristof’s idea of protecting women from the “nightmare” of prostitution involves denying their agency to choose their own occupation, we must keep in mind that the protections of patriarchy are inherently limited. And, unbelievable as it may seem to Kristof, some women do in fact choose to be whores. The fact that many choose this occupation despite the incredible risks associated with sex work, and the lack of formal protections indicates the possibility that in certain instances, freedom from the imperatives of patriarchal authority may be worth the risk. After all, violence isn’t endemic to prostitution, but gender-based violence is endemic to patriarchy. By refusing to accept the logic of the virgin/whore binary we can take an important step in dismantling the division that is central to the technology of patriarchal violence.