Corollary to the BBC brouhaha, Jeg writes a post on the world’s oldest “profession”:
Not one to pass on the chance to defend scantily-clad women, I asked why is it sexploitation. Those dancers were not being coerced. They freely chose their profession and are being paid for it. And with that I think it is time to come to the defense of what is called the World’s Oldest Profession, the prostitutes, those purveyors of venereal services that society has maligned; indeed our legal system considers their profession illegal. A prostitute is here defined as one who engages in sexual services for a fee.
A slippery slope we have here. I can only think of more questions in response to this post. Does anyone willingly choose to become a prostitute? As a worker who engages in the labour market, what does a prostitute offer? Sex as a service? Her body as a commodity for consumption? Both? Can we compare services rendered by, say, a call centre agent to that of a prostitute? A call centre agent sells his time, his expertise, his skills as service. This does not include his body for exploitation (i.e. use) and consumption.
A prostitute’s body is a fictitious commodity. It is is not “produced” for consumption in the market. Like bags and tupperware. When her body is consumed – like agriculture, her value is “renewable.” Her body as commodity does not disappear. However it “depreciates” because her customers put value in pliable, wrinkle-free flesh. Is her body a public good then? Like clean air and public order? A private good by definition must only be consumed by one.
And what about the value of her service? Why do societies around the world normally equate prostitution with women? Do women not require sexual release without strings attached as men? There is a stastic somewhere that in the US at least as many as 60 percent of men who hire prostitutes do not engage in intercourse. They talk. He confides in her. She listens. In this case, what kind of service is she offering? Care? Attention?
We go back to the issue of motivation – is it her own free will to engage in prostitution? Can anyone think of any other work where a human being sells both his service (i.e. labour) and the use of his body in a transaction? Hm…acrobats maybe?
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Thanks for this, sparks. I’ll try to answer your questions as best I can, with a more in-depth reply tomorrow, inshallah. (Or maybe in my blog, as I dont want to take up a lot of space in the comments section.)
Does anyone willingly choose to become a prostitute?
I dont see why not, so yes, a person can willingly become a prostitute. In fact a lot of those Ive spoken to (when I worked next to several Japayuki agencies) are quite happy. They leave as simple barrio girls then when they arrive, they look different. Full of confidence in fact.
As a worker who engages in the labour market, what does a prostitute offer? Sex as a service? Her body as a commodity for consumption? Both?
Yes, sex as a service, whatever form that takes. Her body remains hers and is not consumed by her clients. Like our bodies, it is consumed by time and wear.
Can we compare services rendered by, say, a call centre agent to that of a prostitute?
Yes, we can. Except that the call center agent is an employee and does not own his own time. Our prostitute (the one in my blog entry) is more of a businesswoman.
Her body as commodity does not disappear. However it “depreciates” because her customers put value in pliable, wrinkle-free flesh.
Yes it does, and when that happens, she retires from the profession — in fact she has to — and finds work elsewhere. Mama-sans in bars usually were former prostitutes. They could also pimp (Another topic altogether — ideally, the pimp and the prostitute have a fruitful relationship.)
Why do societies around the world normally equate prostitution with women?
I dont know about this. There are male prostitutes as well. Women are more equated with the abhorrent trade of white slavery. I condemn white slavery.
at least as many as 60 percent of men who hire prostitutes do not engage in intercourse. They talk. He confides in her. She listens. In this case, what kind of service is she offering? Care? Attention?
Sex. Maybe not the kind wherein she actually engages in intercourse. But she is in the sex business. I remember the Rev Jimmy Swaggart didnt actually engage in sex with the prostitutes he hired. He just wanted them to perform some sexy striptease thing and he did the rest himself.
We go back to the issue of motivation – is it her own free will to engage in prostitution?
Yes it is her own free will. I’d like to reiterate that this isnt white slavery and I condemn white slavery.
Can anyone think of any other work where a human being sells both his service (i.e. labour) and the use of his body in a transaction?
Off the top of my head, manual laborers. Farm laborers like the Sakadas would fit in this category. (Of course they dont sell the use of their bodies for sex. They sell the use of their bodies as farm hands.)
I’ve talked with some men who dance in gay bars. They’re not doing it for survival. They’re doing it for extra money. These are even college students! Students who’re not even scholars, but whose parents send to school. In a sense they could finish college even without doing it but they do. It’s money. They can buy something with it. It’s a job. For some people, it’s unthinkable to be willingly submitting themselves to sex trade. For others, it’s simply a job. I think it’s just a matter of perspective.
There is an alternate reading of Jesus Christ’s warning to the Pharisees that the prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God before they do.
Christ by exposing their hypocrisy says that we are all prostitutes. Christ expands the meaning of the term.
Obviously many of us ply our trades and professions quite willingly.
To put in Darwinian terms, when we want something, we can gladly release something in exchange for cash or favours.
In the early 1990s I was a student of the renowned environmental scientist, Prof Roger Green in London. He remined us that we will all be “biostitutes” (biologist- prostitute) since one day we will gladly sell our services to those who have the means to pay. The big mining and what have you companies.
I told Prof Green much later that I thought what he meant was “biostitute” = biologist-destitute! :)
In the extractive and exploitative Philippines of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the moral tightrope has become tighter and longer.
“And what about the value of her service? Why do societies around the world normally equate prostitution with women? Do women not require sexual release without strings attached as men?”
You’re a woman Sparks, why don’t you answer your own question. Do you need sexual release without strings attached? Any time, maybe?
BrianB, bastos ka na pala ngayon. Wala ka na’ng hirit sa wine-drinking sessions? What? No witty high-brow retorts on my so-called bourgeois philosophising?
60% hire them just to talk? Hmm… I guess Eddie Murphy and Hugh Grant answered the same questionaire. :)
sparks,
I think Jego has it right. Prostitution is a service. I would only add that the profession of prostitution sells sex as a commodity.
A prostitute is not a commodity as such. It’s even called the oldest profession, eh? Now of course, there is “free prostitution” where the prostitute is an entrepreneur or an employee of one. Then there is also prostitution as indentured service–white slavery. I also think that most professions do require people to use both mind and body.
But here is ole Bill talking about men, (and though he practically invented our concept of humanity, he doesn’t pretend to understand the eternal mystery of Woman either).
Sonnet 129–
Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and, till action, lust
Is perjured, murdr’rous, bloody, full of blame.
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated as swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe,
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Hey Dean Bacobo, poetry will not be of help to people who find
their Hormones burning…not even a relief.
DJB, for a moment there, i thought you were referring to Bill Clinton.
sparks, yeah sometimes i can be bastos.
A response to Jeg’s response over at his blog:
I do not feel “morally superior” to prostitutes. My post comes from a Marxist feminist analytic, hence framing the discussion on the commodication of both her body and her labour.
In truth, I am still unclear on whether anyone willingly chooses to be a prostitue as opposed to being a carpenter or a cook.
If we assume that human beings by nature “work”, and in modern times we must specialise in a certain kind of work and then sell our services in the market, then a prostitute has little value to add to her expertise. To start, she only needs to have her body to sell. Maybe later on she can learn tricks and be more sought after. And after that? When she grows old?
I guess what I am saying is that a prostitute is a special kind of worker – someone who sells both her service and her body as a commodity.
Is “sex” a fictitious commodity in itself? If so, why do men pay most of the time and not women? Why is the market in sex trade only one-way?
“why do men pay most of the time and not women?
because men in their mid 20′s and 30′s think about sex all the time. The uncomfortable truth is that most men who pay for sex are just regular guys — colleagues, brothers, fathers, sons and lovers.
Why is the market in sex trade only one-way?”
In progressive countries, many women become prostitute by their own choice, forced into it, or because of their own mental health state.
In third world countries, it is due to poverty and deviance. For them, it is a career to survive and provide security to their families.
It is a sad profession. I could have made money on this profession but I choose not to. :) hahaha
but here’s the kicker. a friend of mine who is a doctor married to a man who cannot secure a job. One day, she told me. “I’d rather be a prostitute because I get paid for sex. My husband has not paid me a dime” I was laughing. They eventually got divorce.
In a complex world of relationship, love will go out of the window when money is the issue.
When men have their Hormones burning…they have to find
ways to relieve it!
Sparks, you should read valley wag. LOL. “How Daddy’s Little Girl became a pricy escort“
I think sparks may also be interested to look into this site of an independent London escort, http://stellacortez.com/index.php. Don’t ask me how I knew about this site. Ehehe.
I think this girl is an example how an educated lady, who’s definitely not in a financial crisis, chooses to work in the escort service trade. It is clear from the faq and about pages that she isn’t forced into any of potential clients because she, herself, chooses, which client to take.
Prostitution as a source of income may be unthinkable for most of the women we know, but, yes, there are those who are in the business and it’s clearly by choice, which was freely made, with no financial or social pressures.
After seeing her rates, the client will need viagra.
You can pull your credit card, or ask for a discount.
@cvj, why did you have to take a peek at her rates page? Haha
Pwede bang lista, like a sari-sari store ?
I’ve just been to Mark Rimorin’s site and posted a long comment on the same issue. I have quite an experience on the topic but I wouldn’t dare blog all the myths I could bust in one post.
For starters, I grew up in a place where our block has about 14 whorehouses (1970s) having anywhere from 2 to 80 girls aged 13 to 20 catering to Japanese sex tourists who pay $50 short time. Many “operators” pimped their wives/live-in partners, adopted and real children, sisters, townmates, or white-slavery victims. The girls were barely into their teens some even joined the boys flying kites in the rooftops. A perfect example is that girl who was studying in an all-girls private school who was the “victim” of Romeo Jalosjos. She lived four houses away from us.
No, these kids did not choose to be prostitutes. Even those who were pimped by their parents, who I assume have been brainwashed early in life, resisted and got beaten up the first few times, until they surrendered to the futility of resisting. Raids by police were frequent but it never stopped them until the biggest pimp was sensationalized in tabloids the NBI nailed him for ten counts of rape and 14 counts of white slavery.
The girls went their own ways, many became “independent” hookers who plied their trade in casinos and hotels while some moved to other whorehouses and pimps (today they are called “contacts”). And yes, they also paid callboys for their services.
Let me also correct the impression that all dancers/models, GROs and club workers are prostitutes. Many are not. Trabaho lang.
Hookers will always be with us. As long as there is a demand
for Sex.
its better than becoming a domestic slave in a foreign land
At least, they are paid…
Legalize Prostitution…make sure they pay taxes and give receipts
to their customers.