Guest blog post written by Dr. Meredith Ralston, Mount Saint Vincent University.
In February, Alan Brown
(Sociology), Jeff MacLeod (Political Studies) and I got together to participate
in a cross-campus conversation at Mount Saint Vincent University. We choose sex
work as our topic because both Alan and I do research on different aspects of
sex work, and we wanted to see what Jeff’s art and imagery model might bring to
our research and activism. I talked about my latest film on escorts in the US
and the stigma they face; Alan spoke about the conflation of prostitution and
sex trafficking and the consequences of this for sex work activism; and then
Jeff solved all our problems by talking about his art and politics model and by
demonstrating how we can affect policy by reframing issues – by for instance
showing that if our picture of a sex worker is a survival street worker it will
frame all the discussions of policy with a victim lens or narrative.
What I talked about is the stigma around sex
work and how that stigma, those double standards, affect women and girls who
are not sex workers. Some people in
the anti-prostitution movement genuinely believe that prostitution should
remain socially unacceptable and stigmatized because it is inherently degrading
to women and should be discouraged – after all, we don’t want to encourage our
daughters to be sex workers or our
sons to go to sex workers. But what
are the unintended consequences of continuing to stigmatize sex workers? I
argued it reinforces the deep seated stigma about sexually active women
generally and is definitely a method of control.
The stories of sex workers I
met for my film perfectly illustrate the huge double standards of male and
female sexuality that are still with us today and the stigma that exists when
women’s expressions of sexuality goes outside the norm. Sex
work is a hierarchical, continuum of experience absolutely but it is a
microcosm for the double standards and hypocrisy surrounding sex in our
society. As one of the interviewees said to me, “Sex workers are like this
vestibule that society puts all of their stigma, their nastiness, their
thoughts, their blame, their guilt, like just everything into that.” We project
our discomfort on women who are ironically “free” with their sexuality like sex
workers. Though the escorts I met
for the film choose to do sex work and their economic situation is much better
than a survival sex worker, they face the same stigma.
The stigma is rooted in the Madonna/whore
dichotomy that we’re all very familiar with, but was really only theoretical
for me until I met these women. The good girl is virginal; the bad girl is not.
Though sexual mores have certainly loosened over the years the distinction
between good and bad women has remained to a certain extent, transforming
itself in different ways so that so-called “slut shaming” is the 21st
century/cyber bullying/social media way to shame women – even when they just
want to put Jane Austen on the ten pound note! We still don’t have any
equivalent (negative) language for men who are “promiscuous.” Men who revel in
their sexuality are not judged as bad people or bad fathers or bad husbands,
because they enjoy sex, unless they get caught with their pants down, literally
or figuratively - think Eliot Spitzer or Timothy Weiner or Dominique Strauss
Kahn. Men are not judged as harshly for their sexuality, as it is assumed to be
part of their natural male identity.
We seem to be a very confused
society right now with a very problematic relationship to sexuality. We are
still profoundly uncomfortable with sexuality in general and women’s sexuality
in particular. Many people feel shame for their bodies, at the same time as we
are inundated with sexual images and pornography. Sex, sex, sex + shame, shame,
shame = the Ick factor in my very scientific analysis.
On the one hand, we use sex to
sell everything. We have sexualized the young to a ridiculous degree. We reward
some women for releasing sex tapes and swinging naked on wrecking balls. But these
are rich and famous young women who use their sexuality to get more rich and
famous, and are somewhat protected from the consequences by their fame and
money. It is understood by young women as a way to get rich and famous, but –
and here is the important thing – we still have huge double standards about
male and female sexuality.
So we have this hugely
sexualized culture that still rewards male sexuality and punishes women for
theirs in subtle and not so subtle ways. But then we’re surprised, baffled,
outraged when university students casually chant about the sexual assault of
minors, when young men don’t seem to realize that a drunk, 15 year old girl
cannot consent to sex; when pictures of the sexual assault go viral; and when
that girl is slut-shamed afterwards to the point where she takes her own life
because it was her fault. Because women are still seen as the gatekeepers of
sexuality – we tell girls what not to wear, where not to go, who not to go
with, what not to drink – but we’re not telling our boys that a drunk 15 year
old cannot consent to sex, that no means no!
It’s more complicated than this of course but
the message we are giving our girls is confusing and one that is making them
fearful of being judged and shamed. I teach a lot of young women, and it is the message that comes up over and over.
Sexuality is a double edged sword: something everyone is doing, that gives them
great power but that they must control. Controlling men, controlling
themselves, controlling the situation – so they won’t be blamed.
Whether parents and teachers do
it out of love, concern, fear or simple double standards, we have continued in
the 21st century to make girls fearful and worried about stigma
relating to their sexuality. And therefore less likely to explore their
sexuality and find out what is pleasurable for them; to even see the value of
sexuality outside of it being a commodity for them. What might the connection
be between a continuing stigma towards sexually active girls and their lack of
interest in embracing their sexuality?
The escorts I met had long ago realized that
stigma and criminalization were just other ways to control them and their sexuality.
And they taught me that in continuing the distinctions between good girls and
bad, (and in some cases embracing the distinction) well meaning anti-prostitution
activists are reinforcing the stigma, making it easier to blame women for what
happens to them, to point fingers, to label any woman who transgresses a slut.
My big lesson in all this, then, is that
meeting these escorts made me realize that maybe the misogyny that we’re all
worried about is not solely in the buying and selling of sex but in the desire
to punish women for their sexuality when they choose to do so.
Meredith Ralston is a professor in the
departments of Women’s Studies and Political Studies at Mount Saint
Vincent University. She is also a documentary film-maker and her latest
film, currently in post-production,
is called Selling Sex.
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