Ignoring imprisonment and institutionalisation

As long as it’s only women in the sex industry being exploited and abused, that is. There’s two excellent posts around on legalised prostitution at the moment, examining the way that legalisation seems to have offered an extra layer of cover for the trafficking of other women in what is tantamount to slavery, and incidentally offering a glimpse of the casual violence surrounding the pimps who make the profit. Pavlov’s Cat writes generally about trafficking in displaced persons for the purpose of prostitution in Don’t think it doesn’t happen here, but also particularly of an actress discussing her research for a part in a movie (The Jammed) being dissuaded by a worker in a legal suburban brothel from asking dangerous questions:

‘And when I was speaking with one girl in a suburban brothel,’ says Sywak, ‘I think in Burwood in Sydney, I was speaking with her about the issue of human trafficking and this was just – I have to clarify this was a legal brothel and the girls were there on their own accord and I was talking to them and they said – I casually mentioned that I was going to go up to the Cross to learn – to discover more about human trafficking and try and contact or try to come face to face with some of these girls who have been enslaved.

And this woman said to me, she stopped, she said, “Sweetheart, if you go up to the Cross and ask about human trafficking, you’re going to be dead by this afternoon.”‘

At Reclusive Leftist, The Ghost of Violet Socks writes So that’s why all the morons think prostitution is an empowerfuling career choice, recommending (as an antidote to a “reality TV” show about happy hookers being shrewd, savvy courtesans) a book examining the legal prostitution industry in Nevada, where the researcher is threatened directly:

During one visit to a brothel, Farley asked the owner what the women thought of their work. “I was polite,” she writes in her book, “as he condescendingly explained what a satisfying and lucrative business prostitution was for his “ladies’. I tried to keep my facial muscles expressionless, but I didn’t succeed. He whipped a revolver out of his waistband, aimed it at my head and said: “You don’t know nothing about Nevada prostitution, lady. You don’t even know whether I will kill you in the next five minutes.’”

Sure, all those women who stay in prostitution are making a totally free choice, the continual threat of death for noncompliance doesn’t restrict their choices at all! And what about all that money they’re making?!!

Yes, let’s just examine that, shall we?

Farley found that the brothel owners typically pocket half of the women’s earnings. Additionally, the women must pay tips and other fees to the staff of the brothel, as well as finders’ fees to the cab drivers who bring the customers. They are also expected to pay for their own condoms, wet wipes, and use of sheets and towels. It is rare, the women told Farley, to refuse a customer. One former Nevada brothel worker wrote on a website: “After your airline tickets, clothing, full-price drinks and other miscellaneous fees you leave with little. To top it off, you are “¦ fined for just about everything. Fall asleep on your 14-hour shift and get $100 [£50] fine, late for a line-up, $100-500 in fines.” (The women generally negotiate directly with the men over the money; what they get depends on the quality of the brothel. It can be anything from $50 for oral sex to $1,000 for the night, but that doesn’t take account of the brothel’s cut.)

Farley found a “shocking” lack of services for women in Nevada wishing to leave prostitution. “When prostitution is considered a legal job instead of a human rights violation,” says Farley, “why should the state offer services for escape?” More than 80% of those interviewed told Farley they wanted to leave prostitution.

The effect of all this on the women in the brothels is “negative and profound,” according to Farley. “Many were suffering what I’d describe as the traumatic effects of ongoing sexual assaults, and those that had been in the brothels for some time were institutionalised. That is, they were passive, timid, compliant, and deeply resigned.”

“No one really enjoys getting sold,” says Angie, who Farley interviewed. “It’s like you sign a contract to be raped.” emphasis mine

A downthread comment from Violet which I will reproduce in its entirety:

There is a goodly list of occupations involving men which society will not tolerate because they incur too much harm, risk, and/or degradation:

voluntary slavery
gladiatorial combat
buying/selling of bodily organs

But when it comes to prostitution, suddenly talk turns to “consenting adults.” Which really means that our culture is so conditioned to think of women as sexual commodities to be bought and sold that people simply can’t see the harm. It’s what women are for, doncha know? Oldest profession in the world, doncha know?

People used to be able to sell themselves into slavery. This was actually a common occurrence in the late stages of the Roman Empire. People used to pay to watch gladiators fight to the death or endure torture or do any number of things that now we would never allow to be legal. These activities exploited the poor and disadvantaged. It was always the poor who became slaves, always the disadvantaged who became gladiators. Their misfortune became somebody else’s entertainment.

For a few people, becoming a slave or a gladiator actually worked out well. We know, for example, that a few gladiators became rich, which could never have happened for them outside the circus. And if ancient Romans had suddenly realized that human slavery was horrible and that paying people to be tortured or fight to the death was an outrageous thing that no civilization should allow, I can guarantee you that the handful of happy gladiators and slaves would have opposed any attempt at abolition.

They would have argued, “It’s my choice! Why shouldn’t I get to choose what I do with my body?”

And there is no good answer to that question if the focus is simply on one person making his (or her) individual choice. But it’s never about one person, never about the tiny handful who actually do okay out of the deal. It’s about the system, the huge meat-grinding system that exploits the poor and the desperate and the powerless.

If someone brought back gladiatorial games today, the men who would sign up would be the poorest men in the country, probably poor black men desperate at a chance to make money. And society would say: wait a minute. This is exploitation. And the argument would stand even if a couple of the guys did really well and made money and started proclaiming how wonderful a choice it had been for them personally. Their experience, real as it was, would not outweigh the pile of corpses on the floor of the arena, the bodies of all the poor black men whose desperation led them to that place. It would not outweigh the horrific insult to human rights that the system represented. It would not outweigh the brutality of a society that pays desperate people to be tortured for other people’s entertainment.

Now ask yourself why prostitution is different.

Hear hear. Prostitution is an industry which relies for its bread and butter on women selling themselves into voluntary slavery¹, a practise which society refuses to allow any other industry to do with male workers because it’s too risky and/or degrading. The comments thread raises several recent scandals which have occurred to do with the exploitation of men as illegally indentured workers who have had their entitlements illegally withheld or been killed doing work as indentured labourers without the proper safety provisions in place. These incidents were scandals only because the workers involved were men and the industries were not the sex industry. Women are trafficked against their will by pimps, imprisoned by pimps, financially exploited by pimps and regularly beaten and murdered by johns and pimps, yet the media and thus the public don’t even bat an eye.

There’s a lot of other excellent comments in the thread over at Violet’s (as well as the inevitable trolls, although interestingly they’re not pro-prostitution trolls). Read the whole thing.