Prostitution

    An interesting post up at Feministing about prostitution, but I must admit that I found the motivating sentiment a bit mystifying. Jessica says:

Ok, I have mixed feelings on people who have cheated--I think if you're building a life together, forgiving someone for cheating is understandable. But that's not what we're talking about here. The big question isn't whether he's remorseful about betraying her trust. To me, it's about whether or not you really want to be with someone who is fine and dandy about buying sex and commodifying women. Personally, there ain't no fucking way I would stay with someone who bought sex. 

But then, after saying this to myself out loud as I read the column, I felt conflicted. Because I support sex workers' rights. How do I reconcile my belief that it's morally wrong to commodify sex with my support of women who do sex work? But then I realized that I don't have to. I can want to ensure the safety and rights (health, work and otherwise) of sex workers while still believing that buying bodies isn't right.

    But, of course, we buy and sell bodies in the morally non-problematic sense all the time. When I go to the dentist, or hire a contractor I rent out someone's body and mind for my purposes. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with this, provided that the person is not coerced to do it through economic dependence and associated unfairness. Prostitution does not involve the buying and selling bodies, but the contractual renting of the body in a way that doesn't strike me as inherently different from other ways we rent people. As good Kantians, we should not treat people merely as objects to rent, but there is no objection to treating them like that as long as we also treat as ends in themselves by respecting their rights, honoring the contracts, fairly contracting in the first place, etc.

    Now, there are many reasons why prostitution, as it is currently manifested, is very objectionable. Prostitution is often violent and exploitative, and women are often driven to it by economic hardship and a lack of opportunity. And this is all very obviously condemnable. But of course, any economic relationship that was characterized that way would be condemnable. It isn't like prostitution is somehow uniquely evil qua prostitution.

    I mean, you can be a kind of Marxist-Kantian and argue that any capitalist relation would involve treating someone as a mere means, but I see no reason to think that Jessica adopts such a strong (and by my lights, implausible) position. The real issue is not the act of prostitution as somehow inherently evil, but the contingent fact that prostitution as it is currently instituted usually tends to have some bad effects and properties. This is how the post ends:

     As Amanda said to me, "I think men should avoid prostitutes, but I find it much easier to understand slipping up with someone who's got health care, freedom, etc."

So, my question is "why should we avoid prostitutes under those circumstances?" In a society in which there exists, more or less, equality between the sexes and an individual woman freely chooses, with all the opportunity and freedom that she has, to become a prostitute, why should men avoid prostitutes? We pay chefs to make us food, comedians to make us laugh, so why not prostitutes to get us off?

Nota bene: This is somewhat orthogonal to the point of the post, which discusses prostitution in a context where women are not free and equal members of their society. Still, would Jessica object to any economic relations with someone from the third world? Just ones that exploitative and violent, like lower class prostitution and sweatshop labor? What is the principle here?

Comments

[Caligula]

rather than write an essay or law review article, Caligula will merely state
that here again a FREE MARKET works best....could it be that Jessica, like GM and Ford, can't handle the competition?

[Lally Gartel]

Another thing that's important is the legal aspect. I agree that men should be able to, like any other service, pay for sexual services.

Certainly the practical things you mention (how potentially violent and dangerous some forms of prostitution today are) also apply here, in that prostitutes' health is not monitored outside of the handful of counties in the U.S. which prostitution is legal.

In those places sex can be safe and consentual. Of course, these places have their problems, but I think in addition to exploring the faulty value judgments associated with the taboo of prostitution, we should also look at how decriminalization or legalization can, in turn, stabilize and sanitize the sex industry.

[Richard]

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