"Survival Sex", have you heard the term? I'm seeing it pop up more and more, most recently and widely used it is the title of a story in the current Ms. magazine on Iraqi women being forced into prostitution due to the atrocities going on in their country. I've seen it in literature that I get at work and heard it used at conferences over the last several years, but it's been increasing as of late. And as you may have surmised, "survival sex" is being used in lieu of the word "prostitution". "Survival sex" is what it is to be called when the woman has no choice due to financial situation, a drug habit, a pimp, or other situation out of her control which forces her to turn to selling sex to survive. "Prostitution", on the other hand, is to be used for women who have other options but make the choice to sell sex for money (for instance, it pays the bills quicker than being a waitress or they can fund their way through school faster and with more flexibility than being a receptionist).
So I started to consider why this distinction needs to be made. My thought is that prostitution has always been a difficult subject for a lot of Feminists. A lot of Feminists are very much against sex work, but at the same time, are uncomfortable with condemning female sex workers outright because so many of them don't seem to have much choice and are thus seen as victims. And as Feminists, we certainly want to help these women. But then you have these other women who embrace their sex work and proclaim that it empowers them as women and makes them in control of their sexuality, and well....a lot of Feminists don't agree or like that at all and how are you to respond to that?! I mean, how do you deal with a group of people who are essentially doing the same things...and some you sympathize with and understand their choice, and some you really don't support or understand at all? What you do, is you break it up into two different categories, one you can get behind and try to do something about, and one you deem wrong and anti-woman. Thus, we have survival sex and prostitution. Two different terms for someone selling their body.
I understand it, I get it totally, and I can see how it would make it all much more simple. It's also a good term to use to garner support outside of the Feminist community, because I think even Mr. & Mrs. Potential Donor could have sympathy for and want to help someone who has had to resort to survival sex, it's a very graphic term that puts directly into light exactly how brutal sex work can be. And that's all good.
But it also sets up the whole madonna/whore paradigm. It encourages slut-shaming. It's the "good girls do, bad girls don't" shit all over again with a more politically correct Feminist stamped approval sticker. Because if women who have survival sex are victims who need our help, then who are the prostitutes who choose their career because they feel it's a better choice for them than more conventional careers? And how do we as Feminists then respond to them? Do more Feminists now feel more comfortable condemning them once we've taken the victims out of equation? Do we now acknowledge that they have full agency and therefore we can now show our contempt without fear of feeling that we aren't supporting women? And what about supporting women's choices no matter what we happen to think of their choice? Where does that fall in?
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Why would I even want to condemn a prostitute? If they are doing it by choice, and in the more narrow definition of choice that excludes ultimatums vs. death, why is it even any of my business whether someone decides to get into one line of work instead of another? Indeed, why would anyone else? My understanding of the situation was that most feminists' problem with prostitution has to do with it actually being survival sex. If, on the other hand, we know that they could survive just fine without it, then where's the problem if they pick that instead of something else?
Not A Damsel posted at July 26, 2008, at 02:34AM: "'Survival sex' is what it is to be called when the woman has no choice due to financial situation, a drug habit, a pimp, or other situation out of her control which forces her to turn to selling sex to survive. 'Prostitution', on the other hand, is to be used for women who have other options but make the choice to sell sex for money (for instance, it pays the bills quicker than being a waitress or they can fund their way through school faster and with more flexibility than being a receptionist)."
Also, doesn't "survival sex" include some marital sex too, like when a woman has no ways to survive while unmarried (parents didn't let her learn enough other job skills, local business owners won't hire women, local landlords won't rent to a single woman and all the men in her family can't or won't take her in, etc.) so she's forced to get and stay married?
Not A Damsel posted at July 26, 2008, at 02:34AM: "What you do, is you break it up into two different categories, one you can get behind and try to do something about, and one you deem wrong and anti-woman."
Exactly!
Not A Damsel posted at July 26, 2008, at 02:34AM: "Because if women who have survival sex are victims who need our help, then who are the prostitutes who choose their career because they feel it's a better choice for them than more conventional careers? And how do we as Feminists then respond to them? Do more Feminists now feel more comfortable condemning them once we've taken the victims out of equation?"
I bet some would now feel more comfortable legalizing what they and their customers do once we've taken the victims and rapists out of the equation.
"My understanding of the situation was that most feminists' problem with prostitution has to do with it actually being survival sex. If, on the other hand, we know that they could survive just fine without it, then where's the problem if they pick that instead of something else?"
That's in there, but when it comes to many feminists, Radical Feminists in particular, it has much to do with their view that a woman choosing to be a prostitute is just enforcing patriarchal concepts of women as commodity. And that any woman choosing sex work hurts all women.
I thought this post was about crap like this thishttp://www.amazon.com/Lube-Jobs-Womans-Guide-Maintenance/dp/B0015MG25O/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217123793&sr=8-1
"Radical Feminists in particular, it has much to do with their view that a woman choosing to be a prostitute is just enforcing patriarchal concepts of women as commodity. And that any woman choosing sex work hurts all women."
I tend to be of that position. I think its fucked that society would be fueled economically by selling of a womans body.Its horrific that women have to turn to hawking their bodies simply to get some bread on the table.
Calling it "selling of a woman's body" is just plain over-dramatic. Selling one's blood or internal organs, on the other hand, now that's actually the selling of a body! As long as people are being forced into the position of having to literally sell their bodies, which some people are, I think we're being disrespectful by using the same phrase to refer to people who are merely selling their labor, however unpleasant that labor may be.
Also, you say, "Its horrific that women have to turn to hawking their bodies simply to get some bread on the table," but that's just the thing. Nobody thinks that that's ok, but the question is about when they can count on having bread on their table no matter what, and then choose prostitution anyway.
Indeed, you can make the situation even more strict by imagining that they'd have guaranteed access to not only basic food, but shelter and health-care for themselves and their children. If that's the case, then any work a person does of any kind must then be for luxuries. Would at least some women still choose prostitution anyway? I think so.
How 'bout
Profitable Sex
or
Sex for Profit
that covers the survive and thrive aspects of the industry.
right on Alice.
Katherine said: "That's in there, but when it comes to many feminists, Radical Feminists in particular, it has much to do with their view that a woman choosing to be a prostitute is just enforcing patriarchal concepts of women as commodity. And that any woman choosing sex work hurts all women."
This is actually something I have been thinking about lately. I am a stay-at-home mom, and this is one of the arguments against it, even saying you can't be a feminist if you are engaged in anything that enforces patriarchal concepts of women. This is, of course, frustrating for me.
By this measure, teachers, nurses, assistants, most mothers, and of course, sex workers, cannot be feminists and are in fact actively hurting other women. At what point does this rule expire? Only when exact gender equity has been reached?
Mama Mia, indeed. That's a good point.
Regarding sexuality in general and feminism, it seems that women, more so than men, are willing to bend and twist (and sometimes break) to meet the demands of society or our personal lives. It's quite a burden and it weighs on us all.
The more I think about it, I see this as a net advantage to men while men's comparative sexual rigidity is a net disadvantage to women.
Being more "fluid" means that society, including feminists, feels perfectly comfortable challenging and questioning each and every choice that a woman makes. Men on the other hand can simply say that they have an unmet need and this reasoning seems to met with a lot more understanding at least with the mainstream.
This has implications in so many areas of women's lives including how society views rape, how we are dealing (or not dealing) with HIV in the African American community, teen pregnancy, etc.
Regarding sex work, I think people are much more comfortable with the idea of men simply seeking out a need. This of course is an extension of the sexual double standard, i.e., man's need vs woman's choice.
So I can see the frustration of feminists and women in general constantly trying to navigate this battlefield on our own. There needs to be more accountability and flexibility from men regarding their choices because they affect us all, just like women's choices do. I'm just not sure how we get there.