If you’re in the United States of America, heck even if you’re not you’re probably familiar with how much we Americans care about our freedoms. Choosing how we want to live our life, what faith we want to practice, how to raise our children, and what happens to our own bodies. Choice is everything for most people and of course we all have our red lines when it comes to choice. But, what happens when choice is used as a way to ignore violence? More importantly, how have we used our deep desire for choice to violate others under the guise of “choice”?
Most often this discussion of choice comes up when talking about forms of sex trafficking such as stripping, prostitution/escorting, or other jobs within the wider sex industry. I apologize, I used the word “discussion” above, and what I mean is more like a debate and argument between those involved in the sex industry, advocates and basically everyone else!
Seriously, there is a huge debate about this topic, especially within the last 5 years as we’ve seen the fall of backpage-dot-com, a Craigs list type of website mostly used for illicit ads and one of the largest places where children were sold for rape. This prompted many adults within the sex industry to speak out about the dangers they face and how shutting down online ads limits their ability to properly vet potential clients and puts them on the streets.
I supported the shutting down of backpage, but I do see the need to listen to the voices within the sex industry just as much as I’m listening to the voices of those being trafficked. So, like I said in last post, it’s important to note that not all people within the sex industry are trafficking victims, or even children. There are still those within the industry that say they are choosing this line of work, and don’t see it as any different than you or I choosing to work at a restaurant as a server. It’s simply a job to them. So, let’s talk about choice.
I fully agree that every single person has a right to choose what happens to their body and what they do with it and should be free of experiencing any violence. I also think we have to think deeply about how our idea of choice can allow us to broad stroke every one we meet in the sex industry as “choosing” to be there when in reality, many “choose” to be there for reasons none of us would feel good about, while others have never “chosen” to be there.
Let’s talk about the kind of choice that seems like a choice to the person buying sex. First, let me just say that I don’t believe that the majority of the individuals who are buying these services are evil and sadistic. We do live in a world that commodomizes sex and sexuality on a daily basis in our books, movies/TV shows and music after all. Going to strip clubs on a person’s 18th birthday is as normal as getting their first [legal] shot of liquor on their 21st. Going to Las Vegas, it’s almost expected you’re going to see escorts and strip clubs all around you.
Often times we’ve heard the argument that women who chose to work in strip clubs are doing so to pay for their college - women have said this, and I believe that some are in fact doing it to save money for college. So in turn, it makes sense that the men and women who frequent these establishments see themselves as altruistic humans, just helping others achieve their goals. Yet, my friend and survivor of the sex industry poignantly asked, if you care so much about helping someone pay for their college, why not just donate to a college fund without expecting to see them naked for your own sexual gratification? I mean… She has a point doesn’t she?
If I can ask an even deeper question of my readers to ponder, why is it that we see the selling and buying of female bodies in order to maintain our livelihoods as acceptable in the “freest country in the world”? If in order for me to put food on the table, I must first let a stranger place their genitals in/on my body, why are we not enraged? Let me be clear, this isn’t me being anti-sex. I’m very sex positive - meaning I believe sex is a healthy, natural part of the human existence. But, if we’re all being honest, we can’t buy intimacy, we can only buy a few moments to objectify another human for our own pleasure.
Ah, but I said a key word above. Pleasure. I’ve heard people talk about how much they enjoy having sex for money or from buyers who say the women they buy sex from appear to really enjoy spending time with them. Once again, my friend said, “women are paid to make men feel good about themselves. No one wants a strip dance from Eeyore…” So, if we remove the paid for pleasure aspect from our notion of choice, followed by acknowledging the barriers and reasons one makes a decision to enter the sex industry for money/work, can we truly say this choice is as authentic as any other career choice?
Of course, we’re always going to find individuals who entered the sex industry because they saw it being glorified. The truth is, you can make a lot of money in it, not just as a pimp, especially if you’re in control of your business. Yet, the toll on your psyche as many who’ve left the sex industry have spoken up about will catch up to everyone in it. Not only this, it is not an “if” but a “when” in regards to when someone will experience a sexual assault in the sex industry. Even more shocking, is that this happens when filming porn, which means millions of people around the world are watching video recorded sexual assaults and telling themselves this is all for show. Of the people I know who watch porn, it’s hard to imagine them still enjoying it if they knew the secrets behind the camera.
Did you know that when elephants are captured as babies, they are trained [read tortured] using the same size chain as an adult as they were as a baby? As an adult, all that elephant would need to do is move their foot a little bit more and they’d be free. How many of us are chained in a place we’ve outgrown? Oppression binds us not simply because those in power maintain it, but they maintain it by making us think we’ve already gone as far as we could.
We must do the work to free ourselves from the lies and ideas that have been sold to us regarding the sex industry. We do this by understanding how “choice” has been sold to us in a package made by the oppressors. By the people who make billions off of selling humans the way we sell clothing.
The truth is, we all have choice. A choice to not buy another human for our own selfish purposes. A choice to see that young girl on the street, behind that camera, on that stage, or walking into that hotel room as your daughter, mother, sister, aunt, grandma, niece, god-daughter… or you. She is human. She has a spirit and a heart. She is more than sexual organs that excite you. Doesn’t she deserve to be shown that?
In Truth,
Jess
