Sex In The Public Square - NYT - Comments

Sex in academia

Michael — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:03:21 -0700

Once again, one notices a certain prurient interest in that only one sex worker was described in terms of her other ocupation, and that was as a doctoral student. Does one preclude the other?

i agree

tracya — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:55:58 -0700

this story has been all over the british press to the point we have heard (over our morning cuppa tea) the details of mr mosleys party

i do not support this sort of journalism...it's all about sensationalism...selling headlines.

funny that now the woman who filmed the scene is apologizing

my lesson learned? no cameras!!!

Ashley

Susan — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:19:41 -0700

Hello Elizabeth,

People assume that when Ashley Dupre is saying "I know what it's like to have everything and lose it", they think she's talking about when she left home at 17. It would never occur to them to think that when she "had it all", she was working for NYC Confidential, and when she "lost it all", it was when NYC Confidential was shut down.

For a different perspective ...

Elizabeth — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:11:05 -0700

For a different perspective on that same New York Times article see this piece on Bound, Not Gagged. It was posted by Amanda Brooks on behalf of Faith O'Donnell, one of the women profiled in the Times piece. Briefly, she felt like the journalists (Cara Buckley and Andrew Jacobs) wrote what was essentially a fluff piece, omitting any discussion of her political analysis of sex work, while providing too many possibly identifying details (which were provided to them only so they could confirm her identity for the story, but not for inclusion in the published piece), and that details attributed to her actually came from one of the other women. It seems like the Times, whether on its opinion pages or in its news pages (the Dominus piece was on the front page of the Metro section) has a hard time reporting about prostitution, or sex in general really.

It is a disheartening observation about what is reputedly a liberal newspaper.

Yeah, Dominus' article was

Iamcuriousblue — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:59:21 -0700

Yeah, Dominus' article was pretty bad. Thankfully, I grew up on the opposite coast from Upper West Side society, and so generally don't have to deal with quite such elaborate codes to show that one is born into the right class.

I'm somebody who often falls into the "little visible means of support" category, but I can tell a bottle of good Pinot from plonk, rattle off at least a few of the better declared years of Vintage Port, and go on about the remarkableness of a good Spitzenberg apple. That comes with having traveled in some quite varied social circles in my life, not to mention raised by a restauranteur. I imagine Ms Dupré is somebody with similarly eclectic tastes who travels in a few different social circles, too. Perhaps Susan Dominus is miffed because Dupré doesn't seem to "know her place"?

To be fair to the NY Times, they did do a much better article than the above a few days later, "The Double Lives of High-Priced Call Girls ". While it does play up the headline-grabbing "high-priced call girl" shtick, it does at least provide a realistic portrait of many middle-class sex workers, and certainly is in keeping with one's I've met. The NY Times is generally on better ground when doing actual journalism than with their op-ed pieces. But op-ed idiocracy is why we have blogs as an alternative.

Dupré and the new petite bourgeoisie

Lisa_M — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:23:34 -0700

Great post, Elizabeth. Dominus (whose name incidentally means “lord” in Latin) makes some horridly classist assumptions. When I read Dupré’s remark that she knew, at 22, what it was like “to have everything and lose it,” I first pictured a middle (or perhaps upper middle) class kid who ran away from an abusive home, like some of the homeless kids I used to run into on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. (Of course I don’t know Dupré’s background, but I find it annoying when people assume a “broken,” abusive family is lower class, as if the elite are always responsible, loving parents.) In her book Temporarily Yours, Elizabeth Bernstein considers how sex work not only draws people from the lower classes, but increasingly attracts people from what Pierre Bourdieu dubs the “new petite bourgeoisie”—composed partly of those who haven’t earned the degrees required to pursue careers their class background promised them (doctors’ kids who don’t go to med, law or business school, for instance). Again, this might not apply to Dupré, but most mainstream media sources don’t even consider this possibility because they’re so intent on depicting her as down-and-out, or as an aspiring star who’s about to strike it rich because all publicity is good publicity.

It’s worth noting that the “new petite bourgeoisie” (also called “the creative class” by Richard Florida) includes a sizable chunk of artists and intellectuals (some of whom are also sex workers), and many of us opt out of lucrative professions and shirk exclusive restaurants because these patterns of consumption are based on exploitation. Fuck the salad fork!

Your Blog: Maybe not required, but certainly available

sweLL — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:41:37 -0700

Elizabeth, you missed Alix Olson's performance on Monday 3/10 at the college. I met one of your students there at the bookselling table, who told me you recommended Alix to your class. Your young student was beaming when she spoke of you (explained to me you were out of town; therefore could not attend). She had never heard of A.O. before, and decided after the show to buy one of Alix' books.

There are ideal professor's out there whom we sometimes just can't get enough of. I'd bet this student of yours would be most interested in hearing more of what you have to say outside the classroom.

That would be a lot of pressure.

Bonnie — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:48:30 -0700

Mmmm...If I were a teacher, I think I'd be scared to make my blog required reading (even if my blog were a serious one & relevant to my course material).

It would make them a captive audience, and one of the reasons I started my blog was because I'd considered myself to be an overactive member of a certain local listserve & decided that I preferred writing on a blog because then people would only read it because they wanted to.

Some of those students would doubtless resent it. I'd just know that anything I wrote there was going to be scrutinized by people who'd just love to catch me in an inconsistency or an airhead moment, or even just a series of uninspired posts (or nonposts) if I had a case of writer's block, or just was too busy to write as well as I'd like to. That would really ruin some of the spontaneity of blogging for me.

I might well end up incorporating some of the material I wrote for the blog in my lesson plan, or vice versa, but as far as making it required reading - I don't think I'd want to put that pressure on myself, my site, or my students.

Assigning one's own website as required reading -- thoughts?

Elizabeth — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 08:29:26 -0700

Thanks Amanda! I'm glad you like the post. I was so angry about the article that I was afraid it might have come off as too much of a plain old rant.

You know, you raise an interesting point of discomfort for me: I'd love for my students to read the site and to participate, too. I've been very hesitant to make it "required reading." So far I've only gone so far as to mention it as an interesting source of info about the issues.

What are people's thoughts on faculty making their own web sites or blogs required reading? Is it different from assigning one's own textbook or article? (My college has a clear policy on the assignment of faculty-authored textbooks that is designed to prevent faculty from making money by assigning their own books when those books aren't adopted by other colleges as well, but in this case making money isn't part of the equation.)

clients don't care

Amanda — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:26:46 -0700

"High-class" or no "high-class" it's never stopped clients and never will, regardless of how society reacts. To me, that's the REAL hypocrisy that needs examined.

Great post, by the way. Hope it's required reading for your students.

Age, race, class and HPV

Elizabeth — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:01:02 -0700

Mojave66, that's interesting about the age-HPV thing. And the intersection of class and health is so important. Thanks for emphasizing it! I'd love to hear more of your thoughts about how to address those problems!

Evidence based policy

Michael — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:30:44 -0700

The subject of prostitution produces instant 'experts' and this column is no exception. It is frankly polemic and only refers to 'evidence' when it suits the argument. There is no ‘overwhelming’ evidence about prostitution in the US. Kristof relies on Farley as his sole source of information, a writer whose work is very problematic and self-serving (1), and ignores mainstream academic work.

In citing a 2004 epidemiological study Kristof adds padding, describing this as ‘meticulous’ without stating the scientific criteria he used for such an assessment. The study is in fact quite misleading, taking women in trouble with the police, and who were in clinics getting treatment and admitted to having been involved in sex work (which few do) and then comparing them with the general population. Apart from problems with misclassification in studies using self reporting, there is a failure to control for all the other factors likely to affect mortality. If they had compared these women to other women of a similar socio-economic group with police records and in treatment, the results of the study would have been very different. These women represent a subgroup of women selling sex on the street, which in itself only represents about 10-20% of all women selling sex. To conclude that this data is typical of sex work in general is a very serious error.

Interestingly it never seems to occur to Kristof that selling sex on the street is dangerous, not because selling sex is in itself dangerous - it is not, but because of the criminal law (that he champions) and social stigma which we impose on these women. One wonders just how many countries Kristof did look at - did he look at Finland or New Zealand, and why did he assume that the approach of Amsterdam’s mayor is some sort of proof that a more liberal approach is a failure. What exactly does he know about Bulgaria other than its plan to liberalise the laws came under attack from some US radicals?

Kristof seems a fan of Sweden, a country radically different socially and legally from the US. In fact there is no evidence whatsoever that Sweden’s approach achieved any benefit, including a recently released report from the National Board of Health of Welfare (2). No country has succeeded in changing the extent of prostitution through legislation, indeed it is difficult to see how they could, but many have succeeded in creating a good deal of harm.

Kristof’s intemperate vocabulary - “rape a 13 year old” “pubescent flesh” does not suggest he is interested in an objective analysis of evidence, as opposed to pursuing moral ideology. Calmer minds might realise that such things as human rights and public health deserve equal consideration rather than waging war on something one decides one does not like.

Michael Goodyear, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 2Y9

References
1. Weitzer R. Flawed theory and method in studies of prostitution. Violence against Women 2005 11(7) 934-949
2. Kännedom om Prostitution. Socialstyrelsen Artikelnr 2007-131-48. Stockholm

>We know that

Mojave66 — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:53:03 -0700

>We know that abstinance-only "education" is not really education. We know that lots of infections go undetected because of shame or embarrassment on the one hand, or because of lack of access to health care services on the other.

BINGO. This is exactly it. The Planned Parenthood spokesperson in the article who pointed out that abstinence-only education has been a 1.5 billion dollar boondoggle also hits the nail on the head.

As for separating out age groups, a cursory look at data on the HPV study I'm working on doesn't show much separation between 14-16 and 17-19 year olds in terms of HPV infection. Keeping in mind that those 14-16 year olds in my particular study are of lower socioeconomic status than most of our 17-19 year olds, who are college students, my impression is that race and class have a lot more to do with infection rates than age, something the study shockingly brings out. 50% of African-American teenagers are infected with STIs vs. 20% of white teenagers? That's a disturbing statistic right there, especially its implications for how badly we've educated youth around sexuality.