Prosti-tuition

Thanks to the Internet, I now know exactly how to tell my mother that I’m a prostitute, after I make that eventual career choice, just like my middle school assumed I would.

I think it was a Thursday (because if any day of the week was a douche with a neck tattoo, raccoon eyes, and bad tan that day would be Thursday). Regardless, we walk into the cafeteria and on the stage is the large projection screen. The principal tells us we were going to have a special treat. This only means one thing—a movie.

Or, it could mean that the school has decided to bring in a bunch of former prostitutes to show us pictures of their venereal diseases like old people show off pictures of their grandchildren. They tell us, “you are not Pretty Woman. No handsome man is going to ride in on a white horse and save you.” Well clutch my pearls, I’ve always been more a Cadillac fan myself. They tell us that we shouldn’t be prostitutes because we will be abused and beaten. They tell us that being a prostitute robbed them of their self-confidence. Now, I don’t know about my peers, but thank god for that wonderful intervention. I was totes planning on becoming a prostitute boo.

Yet, this narrative is the dominant narrative in society. One that premises prostitutes as inherently powerless, who either need to be saved by some douche bag on a white horse or need to be liberated by the powers that be. When in actuality, this hardly accounts for the reality of what happens. For instance, the whole ohemgee diseases part of the narrative. Factually, this is just wrong. Yeah, some prostitutes do pick-up diseases, but the HIV infection rate for women who work as prostitutes is lower than for women who do not work as prostitutes. Former and current prostitutes have called the experience “empowering.” The violence that occurs is predominantly caused by the criminalization of prostitution, not by the profession itself.

            The conflict between these two narratives forms the nexus of one of the most contentious debates within feminism. The anti-prostitution feminist narrative is rooted in an understanding of prostitution as a coercive act that discriminates based on race and class. The economic exchange is seen as an abstraction of the woman into a product, a thing to be used. It’s interesting that the women in the red light district work behind glass that looks like store windows. On just a visual level, this seems to be turning the person into a product. The very existence of such a system is patriarchal and exploitive.

            The sex-positive side of feminism has a very different view of feminism. The sex-positive view of feminism comes as a direct response to what the movements originators felt was the patriarchal control of sex, through the promotion of sexual freedom. This view tends to hold that sex workers are in prostitution more often than not because they want to be. Thus, the act of being a prostitute is nothing more than an expression of their sexual freedom.

            Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that prostitution is a business. And like any business, these days, the average American prostitute looks very different from what we would expect. Thanks to the internet sex work is easier, safer, and more cost effective than ever. Websites like Backpage.com have hundreds of listings for when you’re lonely. One guide on how to get into the business advises, “you should take advantage of the many blacklists, whitelists, and background checks that are available.” It’s also a lucrative business. One San Francisco based sex-worker, Jolene Parton, reports making several hundred dollars an hour and works less than ten-hours a week, while staying squarely in the middle class.            

            Of course, it’s not all rainbows and puppies, before you all run off to become prostitutes, like I know you will. There’s the constant stigmatization of sex work in society. The demonization of the world’s oldest profession. There are lots of reasons to be a prostitute.