Be heard on the issues that matter most to you!
There seems to be one very simple (or not, as it were) problem standing in the way of uniting various groups who have sex work as an interest, and it is a problem of semantics and how often the sex industry, and the people in it, is dealt with in a monolithic fashion. For example:
Sex Worker/Prostitute/Prostituted Person/Provider/PerformerErotica/Pornography Hobbiest/Client/Consumer/John
All of these terms have different connotations in people’s minds, and perhaps for many of us, very different meanings. They are part and parcel with the over all problems of looking at the sex industry as a monolithic institution, because it is in fact incredibly diverse and made up of people, on both the supply and the demand sides, who are vastly different. To look at the industry as a monolith is to deny a great many people in it, no matter what light you view the monolith in. Thus, I have always felt it is very important to make distinctions between forms of sex work and the people doing it. There are, after all, worlds of difference between the contract porn performer and the underage street worker. These people might be in the same “business”, but one is a performer, the other is a rape victim, and painting them with the same monolithic brush and applying the same terminology to both of them is an insult to both of them.
However, I have found it neigh impossible to convince our opponents that these distinctions do in fact exist, unless they use them on occasion to dismiss us. So I suppose my question is…
How do we go about making distinctions, demystifying the monolith, and seeing that the correct terminology for the various strata of people involved in the sex industry is put into place and used? I feel it is an important step in humanizing those in the sex biz, and I feel it is important to refer to them using the terminology they apply to themselves. The term “Sex Worker” is an insult to people who have been/are prostituted people, yet the term “Prostituted Woman” is an insult to a sex worker… and on and on it goes. In what contexts, and where, do people feel the use of these various differing terms are appropriate? And how do you draw distinctions?
Ren, I'm so glad you raise the language issue! I think it's one of the biggest difficulties we face in talking about sex work. One the one hand, I *want* a monolithic term like "sex work" to be accepted so that it is all perceived as work. Then we can begin to talk about the labor abuses that occur in different sectors of that work. On othe other hand, I want to refine my understanding of different jobs/positions within sex work so that I can better talk about the range of working conditions that people expeirence. I don't want those differences to be erased by an umbrella term.
We have similar problems in in talking about trafficking.
To use the word "trafficking" is to conjure up horrifying images of unsuspecting people being deceived or kidnapped and then enslaved. We often assume that means for sex work. The term gets in the way of our recognizing the reasons that people try to move from one place to another for work, and erases our awareness that trafficking is as much an issue of immigration policy, inequality and lack of opportunity as it is a matter of organized crime and enslavement.
How do we refine our use of language and then get those new usages/definitions/framing devices out into the culture so that we are less often faced with the reductionist debates we so often see today?
...because public space really matters!
Elizabeth
See, I've never been one of those people who thinks of "Trafficked Labor" solely in a sexual context...could be that I've spent time in places where more people are brought in to sew in sweat shops/harvest oranges than work in illegal brothels.....but yes, I see what you are saying. The "expansion" of the term trafficking is problematic...for there is a vast difference between being shipped from China by criminal gangs to...anywhere... and forced into prostitution than, oh, leaving Ohio to work in a Nevada Brothel for a contracted period of X amount of months, and people are trying to erase that distinction.
But even within movements trying to "help" sex workers / prostituted people I see it as problematic. I mean, on some issues I find it easy to call things in black or white terms. I mean, not even I would classify a lot of porn as "erotica"...hell, it's porn. Yet when various folks insist on scare quoting the term sex work, and refering to anyone and everyone (no matter their level of choice or autonomy, or hell, even their gender) as prostituted women, or applying universal experiences, it makes my head want to explode and I wonder how helpful they can actually be. These are often the same sorts who are running with the term trafficking. I mean, can these folks actually be allies, or are they really more of a problem? I think the ability for a person involved in the biz to be able to define themselves by their own terms, and apply their own terms to what it is that they do is very important.
Thinking about language and terminology seems to be very critical in discussions of sex work.
Jill McCracken of SWOP-East did her dissertation about rhetoric used in various communities that encounter sex workers.
She interviewed law enforcement, sex workers, activists, social/health workers, etc. She asked them abut terminology, different spaces for different terminology ie: terms a subject would use in private settings vs public settings, etc. It's very interesting. I'm not sure if it is available to the public right now. Ill find out from her...
Hi all,
I'm Jill McCracken and I wrote my dissertation on the language surrounding street sex work in particular. As Stacey said, I interviewed social workers, police officers, neighborhood association leaders, activists, and sex workers and compared their language and the answers to their questions--looking at how their language relates to the material conditions of their lives. Things that people commonly think of when they think of street sex work--drug use, HIV status, etc. The interesting, frustrating, and challenging thing about language is that people use it out of habit, unquestioning, but/and also to further certain agendas—as in the trafficking, all prostitution is trafficking argument. In my interviews, people said that they talked in certain ways (referring to their use of the word ‘prostitute’ for example), but in actuality, talked in different ways (at least in my interviews/analysis). What was fascinating (at least to me) about my questions was I compared ten years of newspapers along with interviews with public figures and street workers. The language used and the assumptions built into the language used were starkly different. So how do we change this? Education is one—talking about the issues, exploring them, analyzing them—getting people to pay attention to the language they use. It’s kind of like sexist language, I think—when everyone was referred to as “he” we actually picture a “he”—and yet calling attention to this fact along with the reality of doctors, lawyers, sanitation workers, etc., who are women—makes the change happen—slowly, slowly, slowly. Also—paying attention to our legislation and the wording therein is so important—but at times it just seems like the forces are insurmountable. At least it does to me.
As far as my diss goes, the reference is below--you'd have to go to a library and look up proquest dissertations and then search for the title. You should be able to get an electronic copy of the entire thing. But if anyone wants a pdf file, just let me know. Here is the reference:
Listening to the language of sexworkers: An analysis of street sexworker representations and their effects on sexworkers and society
by McCracken, Jill, Ph.D., The University of Arizona, 2007, 267 pages; AAT 3271080
PS, I am kind of annoyed--I have no idea why they made sex worker one word!!
Jill
