Film: Live Nude Girls, Unite!

[politicat]

The above is a documentary about the foundation of the Exotic Dancers' Union in San Francisco, and it's subsequent growth. (I highly recommend it for anyone who has any questions about practices within the exotic dance profession, or who can watch it with an open mind even though they may have doubts as to the rightness of sex work. It really presents another side of the argument that is often hard to hear.)

As I was watching it, I realized that the problem with sex work is not that it's SEX work, but that it's sex WORK. Very few people, especially management, but also dancers themselves at times, realize that it's a job, just like any other physical labor or or performing art. Management bills it and advertises for jobs with things like "Ladies, Have Fun, Make Cash!" and "Fun, Sexy Part-time Jobs!"

They always use the word "fun" rather than the word "professional". Fun is what you have intentionally outside of work. Any fun you have AT work is incidental, not what you're there for. At work, you're there to make a living. You may enjoy it, you may feel fulfilled by it, you may be happy doing it, but the point of it is to pay the rent. However, management within the industry does not want the employees to realize that they have a JOB; they want their employees thinking it's a hobby from which they might get to grow wealthy, akin to having yard sales or selling on eBay. And so they do their best to conceal the fact that they are hiring employees into a service profession. They intentionally create a party environment, from allowing alcohol on the job (I have a serious problem with this in general, as it promotes the highly unsafe activity of drinking, then driving) and promoting "dates" with customers (which in my mind is about a quarter of a centimeter from actual pandering) in an effort to hide the profit and business aspect of the industry. I have a real problem with that, because in no other industry are employees deceived as to the nature of the industry.

The more I learn about the sex industry, and I have several friends who have been in the industry, the more I come to believe that it is ripe for the labor movement and a good place from which to rebuild it. The clientele is largely union or union-sympathetic (except for the college boyz, and most dancers despise them anyway, they're cheap and usually assholes who believe their entitled to **** worshipping for a $20), the working conditions range from barely legal to highly illegal, and the workers themselves tend to be both more thoughtful and more attuned to each other's needs than in most industries. If actions are needed, a good 80% of clientele won't cross the picket line, and the workers themselves need the security that collective bargaining and the grievance process can bring. Further, this is one industry that absolutely cannot survive without its labor; a manufacturer with an assembly line can replace workers fairly easily in the event of a strike, but there are only so many women willing to be paid to get naked. Most strip clubs absolutely cannot survive without their employees; the bar and cover charges usually cover the cost of the infrastructure and the support staff, but no one will pay the bar and cover charges if there are no employees. (NO ONE in their right mind wants to look at most of the management naked.)

The problem is the sex part of sex work. There seems to be an ethic that, even though these women are being exploited and men are getting very rich off of the labor of women, the women deserve it. (Which is so entirely sexist and anti-feminist that I can't even begin to articulate the issue without foaming at the mouth.) Women who are expected to be unreasonably thin, coiffed and manicured to keep their flight attendant jobs are really in a harder position to negotiate than a group of strippers (since the flight attendants already have union membership, health care, sick time, vacation time and benefits) , but when a union official or negotiator is offered the choice between a crew of flight attendants and a club full of strippers, the flight attendants will get a lot more help. And since both grievances are based on appearance and perceptions of management, they're effectively in the same boat, but the strippers carry the stigma of sex.

Any employer can be abusive to the employees who are necessary to the daily and continued functioning of the business; unions began as a way to force employers to play fair. The sad fact is that employers want something for nothing and have economically coercive power over individuals to extract that unfair gift. Anyone who has ever worked fast food knows that assistant managers are some of the most abused employees on the planet (how would you like to work 80 hour weeks for $24K and be abused by both customer and manager? They're forced into the salary because they're "management" but the real reason is that an assistant manager is a cheap way to keep labor costs down, and since labor is really the only thing that an assistant manager can control in the FF business, the assistant manager ends up picking up the slack to keep costs low.) But it seems to me that such abuse is given a pass in the sex industry merely because the industry has the cachet of being against the Puritan-Victorian ethics of modesty and antisexuality. In no other industry I know of are workers blamed for the exploitation of themselves.

I feel that in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that while I am in favor (cautiously, the craft of the law would be very delicate and I don't trust our current legislators to manage English that well) of legalizing prostitution, I am also in favor of life sentences for repeat or multiple pandering and look on brothels as only slightly less deserving of scorn. I have no problem if a woman chooses to join the Hookers' guild, pay her dues, get her health checks, and cash in on her body but I have no sympathy whatsoever for the "management" who takes the greater percentage of the woman's earnings. I can accept a Robinsonian take on a brothel, and I can accept a service that provides central switchboarding, security and employee benefits, but not one that creates an ownership relationship with the women actually doing the work. Yes, I know there are male prostitutes, but most of them are freelance and not subjected to pimps or brothels.

The sex industry won't go away; I don't even think it is rooted in misogyny specifically because in most ways, it is far more exploitative of the customer than of the employee. It is rooted in economic classism and control, and yes, women as a class are subjected to greater economic peril and thus are forced to seek less than ideal employment, but that is not necessarily misogynist. The economic classism has been around for at least as long as misogyny. I believe that it is far more an example of economic repression of an underclass than specifically economic control of women. (It's a chicken and egg story if there ever was one, but I believe that the same forces that drive women to work long hours for low pay as housecleaners is an economic repression of an underclass rather than specific misogyny.) But sex work is here to stay, whether legal or illegal. As long as there are people, both men and women, who find sexual activity pleasurable, and as long as there are people who for whatever reason cannot or will not maintain an entirely sexually continent life, there will be a sex industry. When it is illegal, the workers have no protections at all and it is run by semi-organized crime, thus contributing little to maintain or further the health and wellbeing of the community. When sex work is legal, they have the rights of employees everywhere - to negotiate and work in safe and reasonable settings. Just on that point, I favor anything that puts the product on the side of the law. (Because it is far better for a government to have some authority over an industry than it is for the industry to be so far removed from the legal discourse that neither employees nor customers can seek redress of grievance without meeting Mr. C. Ment Over-Shews.)

My biggest gripe with the industry, however, creeps up in many performing and artistic professions. The current trend in the non-contact sex industry is the shift from performers as employees to performers as contractors or consultants. In shifting the responsibility for taxes and other standard benefits for being employees, the management has also shrugged off the responsibility for following the law regarding employer responsibilities, such as maintaining a safe work environment and preventing damage to employees. The worst club to work at in the Denver metro area has embraced this contractor ethic. It requires performers to pay for stage time out of their earnings and does not contribute to the Workman's comp pool or pay unemployment insurance costs for the performer. It forces the performers to pay for the privilege of doing their job while reaping the benefits of not having to have actual employees. Essentially, management has forsaken all responsibility as business owners. This puts the performers in a hell of a bind, having to pay to work, pay their employer's share of their FICA, find their own insurance and often pay for their own physical security while at work, by paying the house for services such as bouncers and bodyguards. This strikes me as a lawsuit waiting to happen. In no other industry save publishing is a performer ever expected to pony up cash for the opportunity to work to earn said cash. That, to me, is the obscenity behind sex work - the exploitation of the economic situation, not the display of naked bodies.

Okay, I've ranted far too long. Let's talk about the industry.

[noamnety]

1. disagreeing on some points, but appreciating others

I would have to disagree with the idea that the customers are exploited far more than the women. The decision to buy a person, to treat them as a dehumanized commodity, to buy the use of their body, exploits the person being sold, not the person doing the buying. Add to that the percentage of women who are in prostitution against their will, and the picture is pretty clear. To say they are in it of free will, while ignoring the economic standing of women, is the equivalent of saying sweat shop workers are there of their own free will.

"The numbers have shown over and over again that 90% of prostitutes want out (prostitution research has all the information on these statistics) they want out and these pro-pornstitution advocates are louder than the voices of the actual prostitutes.

... I fall into the 90%. And what confuses me and hurts me so much is that women whom I would call sister don't appear to give a fuck about the rest of the 90%. Sure, they say that no woman should be in prostitution who doesn't wish to be there, but when it comes down to it all they can talk about is the 10% who fit the happy hooker mold. All they can talk about is the rights of that 10% and how those rights should trump the rights of the other 90%. They carry on and on about how prostitution is freeing and spiritual and healing and yet, in so doing, they completely disregard the voices of the 90%.

... That 10% is the scapegoat for all the men out there who wish to be able to use us women as though we were animals. That 10% is what they're using to excuse their treatment of us. Everyone in this society cares about that 10% and I'm here to say I don't. I don't care about them. I'm sick and tired of hearing the desires of the other 90% who are living an existence that the 10% can't even begin to fucking fathom, be lost in the wake of selfishness. And yes, it IS selfishness. It's all about selfishness.

... A line must be drawn somewhere and this is where mine is. I resent the implication that 90% of women must be sacrificed to keep you in your happy hooker state of mind. I resent that the conversation always and invariably turns to you instead of to the 90% or the vast numbers of men who abuse these women."
http://bitingbeaver.blogspot.com/2006/07/90_22.html

So much for the part I disagree with, large though it is. Now the part I find thought provoking and worthy of further exploration - this idea that as work it is advertised as fun. DeAnander was recently musing on Stan Goff's blog about how sex that women perform for men is so often casually referred to as work - hand JOB, blow JOB. It's a job - unless we're dangerously close to recognizing it really IS a job ... then it's FUN FUN FUN. Oh, the irony.

[politicat]

2. Again, you have to know strippers to understand what they're feeling and

thinking. Having talked to many who have been in the business , and successful, they see it as a career that is no different from any other entertainer's. The quote I have this morning is, "Does the audience exploit the ingenue's voice?" My feeling is that there is little difference between paying a hairstylist or manicurist to pay personal attention to me and pretend an interest in my life than paying a person to display her body and feign a sensual interest. It's a skilled profession with personal and artistic merit. And really, it's no different. We are not talking prostitution, we're talking about the non-touch viewing of bodies. That is a significant difference - charging people to look is far different in practice than charging people to touch (at least if viewed logically and not through the lens of either fundamentalist misogyny or the reactionary feminism that resulted from it.) The dancer is worth her hire, and the 90 - 300 a dance is far better than most professional classical dancers make. The major difference in my cynical world view is that when a man goes to the ballet, it's not acceptable for him to admit his erection.

There are men in the world who can get excited over the site of a pair of eyes looking out of a chador. There are others who don't even notice when they're at a nude beach. The former are always going to look because it's part of their biological makeup to seek out as many opportunities to impregnate as possible; since our culture fortunately does not allow them this license, they will still act on the biological urge to look (and as it happens, there are lots of women with the same impulse, so it's not just a male thing). If we forbid them the ability to look in a way that subverts the patriarchy (because what is more subversive than taking their money and financing a master's in Women's Studies or putting a kid through a good school? The women walk away with money, the power to make another feel something other than apathy and the control of the situation, while the men walk away with longing and an empty wallet) they will still look, but it will be illegally - either through coercion in their marriages and relationships, or through force by peeping and putting cameras in places of privacy or seriously abusing women in a coercive way reminiscent of early 20th century fears of White Slavery (except in fact, not in fiction). It would drive it underground, make it utterly ungovernable (now the clubs are regulated; enforcement is the issue, but without even that level of law, when all is forbidden, the shades of grey go away and there is no recourse for an abused dancer.) This already happens, but can you imagine the increase that would happen if people who are accustomed to seeing the erotic arts were put in a place where the only possible human nudity available was in the marriage bed? (Don't laugh... there are a lot of Fundies and Feminists both who would be perfectly happy to see the only possible sensual or sexual transaction relegated to a strict set of sanctioned relationships.) We've been in this place before and it was far from healthy and caused more crime, disease and personal pain than the legal system in place today.

90% of prostitutes are in the job because of economic privation or to feed some sort of habit, be it the habit of living in luxury, supporting someone, feeding a sense of such extreme inferiority that they can't escape, or a physical addiction. The same is true of most drug dealers, who live in poverty and have no access to a better economic position. Legalization of prostitution changes the economics because in a legal system, there's no way that an individual can be pressured into continuing in a job that is not functional. Few people want to stay in Fast Food, and so leave for better things as soon as possible. Under a well-crafted legalization scheme (which would, in my utopia, include both job security and future savings in the form of Social Security and pensions) an exit strategy would have to be in place. However, those who choose the profession should not be subjected to social scorn or legal penalization; a sexual artist is entitled to make a living by practicing her or his art as much as any other artist.

As for the use issue... I don't believe that most men want to use anyone in anything but mutually satisfactory ways. (Which isn't so much use as equal exchange.) If you ask most repeat strip-club patrons what it is they want, and what they're hoping for, they're actually looking for something like a relationship. They want the fairy tale, often more than the women they're looking at. (Few strippers keep any delusion of finding the knight with the $20 for more than a day or so.) I don't believe men have much skill at articulating this, because they are deprived of their emotional grounding at such early ages, but in drill down, most are inveterate romantics hoping for fulfilling and meaningful relationships. That they're looking in places unlikely to ever find them that is their own problem, but they're not looking for something animalistic at root -- they're seeking affection and connection that is absent in their normal lives. And in the strip club world, they tend to be egging each other on, motivated by a set of social restrictions they neither especially like nor entirely comprehend. The rowdies are the ones who come in to the club in groups. The quiet ones are the solitaries, and often they admit to a far better view of women than the groupists will admit to. But get the group members alone to talk, and they're a different creature all together.

I don't expect that you agree with me; your resentment is misplaced because I wish to see a world where no one is forced into any occupation - laborious, sexual, or professional. There are just as many unhappy phlepobomists, bartenders, food service workers and software developers as prostitutes (look at job satisfaction studies. The Dept of Labor has a pretty significant one.) No one should be forced into any profession by any means of coercion - including economic. And I see sex work as motivated primarily by economic issues at the moment, not by a wish to fulfill either personal or spiritual goals. THAT is my issue and why I wish to see it legalized and regulated. In a legal and regulated industry, economic motivations are less likely to force individuals into situations they find personally untenable for solely economic reasons. (The fact that we have few fully regulated industries is secondary.) If you want out, get out. There are other jobs. You have the choice of making a sacrifice of lifestyle or self, and as long as you feel that you're sacrificing yourself for your lifestyle, that's your choice. But don't resent me for wanting your economic conditions to be improved while you're in the industry. And besides, your resentment - the resentment of a nameless, faceless person who doesn't seem to appreciate the economic issues at root here - is not my problem. It's yours.

I want to see a fair and equitable system of employment for all, that includes the ability to use one's mind, body and spirit as the worker sees fit. That includes sex work, because it's WORK, not sex.

[ismnotwasm]

3. I've *Been* a stripper

Known strippers, been good friends with whores, and still am. I have to tell you, I no longer count the dead. What are the average ages of your "success" stories? 40? 50? Doubt it. Yeah the money is good, but the dangers are very real. I agree on some, but by no means all, of your points. The industry is ripe with exploitation, addiction and disease. I just finished "C***" (I believe the word is forbidden on DU) by Inga Muscio. I love that book, (it's the extended version) She uses the term "women positive" rather than "sex positive" Which I appreciate.

The chapter "Whores" she tries to bring the idea of a sacred sexuality, or sacred Whoredom,to get women to rethink value judgments on whores and whoring. I agree. We can research the roots of women's sexual power. ANd as she calls it "C***fear" She also tries to explain how our own sexual repression leads to some of the ugliness in ANY industry where women are.

I wish is was that simple. I really, really do. The efforts at lobbying for workers rights is impeded by judgment values and laws yes, but despite the women involved running say, a porn production company, the entire industry is a male dominated destructive mess. Would I support sex-workers rights? Without judgment? In a heartbeat. But we are so far from any kind of sanity, it's not an uphill battle, it's climbing Mount Everest. So you want to start somewhere? Good. I applaud your sentiment.

I don't see you denying the reality of day to day whoring, thank you. As a young teenager (I told this story on this forum several times) I was a "street kid" my best friends and mentors where male prostitutes. They saved my life. This was the late 70's, and nearly all of them are dead from AIDS. I will never, ever forget them. I don't think I ever told the story of the young male whore who got attacked by a trick who wanted to stick a knife up his ass. So it's not just women.


Until we come to terms with our own sexuality in a healthy way (don't ask my how, but I don't believe it's whoring in this current social atmosphere) Sex workers-especially females are going to experience some very shitty experiences. Would labor laws and legalization of prostitution help? Maybe. But where to start? Where to start?

I won't even talk about world wide exploitation and sexual slavery. Patriarchy Still Sucks.