I am doing a presentation on Gender Ethics tomorrow, specifically Prostitution and how it relates to Care. Labels: Women's Stuff
My views on Sex Work have changed but were always pretty positive. I do not liek the idea of looking down on sex work as a career, when you choose to do it and are in control of the situation, mostly because I think that's too easy...There are a number of reasons I think people are quick to tisk tisk when the idea is brought up:
1. Because of the way our society views women who are in control of their sexuality. Until we are big enough to not call women who sleep with whoever they want whenever they want or look sexy or are aggressive "Sluts" (this is a term used so casually it's got too many real definitions to count) we won't be able to comprehend a woman putting a price on her body and making money from her sexuality and not having to wear the ugly "Slut" title before her name. Slut is just a way we dehumanize each other anyway, and Levinas has taught us that when we dehumanize people it is very easy to treat them as less than human....this is why I think people (men) kill/harm sex workers, because they don't identify with them as women and thus don't feel they deserve the same basic, humane treatment as their wife.
2. Because of the Patriarchy's tendency to not look at work that is primarily thought of as "Woman's work" as work. If we think about this historically we can see that occupations like being a housewife, nurse, mother, whatever were nto always respected(and evern today being a housewife isn't really respected as a job, even by other women, because of the other jobs that a woman can do today).
So. Once you unpack all of that, and get away from any preconceived notions you had regarding sex work, how can you (I) really look at it negatively? How can you say a woma has a right to do whatever she wants except make money off herself? I'm still working out all the kinks in my rationale but I do know that a womans issue anywhere is a womans issue everywhere, and, for me, the fact that this is something real women live through (happily or unhappily) in this world means it is something I need to be aware of.