As I sit on the red velvet couch of my friend’s apartment, I notice the opulence of it all. The gold rimmed mirrors, floor to ceiling windows, and 4×6 rug on her living room floor must have cost a fortune. Living like this in downtown Toronto is incredibly impressive, especially as a 24 year old. How does she do it?
The answer to my question is almost painfully obvious – she’s a sex worker. Whether it’s through online video calls or luxurious hotel rooms, she’s stripping down to her silk underwear almost every night. My curiosity about her profession is relentless, so I finally ask her:
“What’s it like?”
She pondered the question, coming up with an answer I found to be deeply profound.
“Imagine walking into a bar, and having to pick a man to have sex with that night.” She said,
Okay, Easy enough. I thought to myself.
“Now imagine walking into that same bar, and having sex with every man. No matter how short or tall, skinny or fat, attractive or unattractive; it doesn’t matter. You will have sex with them because it is your job.”
My friend is a woman of incredible mental strength, but the criticism she faces is horrific. It is Scarring. Prostitutes, or any sex workers, are often reprimanded as inhuman creatures, shameful beings, and the dirtiest members of society.
In full truth, sex work violates the pillars of ‘decent work’ in too many ways to mention. It even violates the most basic health and safety standard. For just one example, women in prostitution are exposed to sweat, semen, and sometimes even feces. It is fashionable for female academics to declare the validity of sex work as work – but in a Marie Antionette fashion. They are much too detached to relate to the conditions of this type of work, much less on a conceptual level.
I would argue that military work violates the decent working conditions on the same, or even higher level, but does not need to be defended by progressive, feminist scholars to be respected. Fundamentally, we are all selling our bodies in some way. Models sell their beautiful faces and engineers sell their dexterous hands – soldiers sell their life’s blood.
On some level, this basis of respect must stem from the sexist nature of our society. “Both the gender division of labour and gender inequality in a society depends on its cultural beliefs about the nature and social value of gender differences in competencies and traits. Such taken for granted beliefs allow actors to be reliably categorized as men and women in all contexts and understood as more or less appropriate candidates for different roles and positions in society.” (C.L. Ridgeway, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001) By this logic, the foundations of gender roles in society have been built by what we are “good for”. If a woman is neither intelligent nor driven, she can always be good for two holes and a wet mouth. If a man is mentally challenged both emotionally and intellectually, he can always be good for his bloody hands and brute strength.
One could argue that military work and sex work simply cannot be compared because the nature of the acts is too fundamentally different. To Edmund Burke, sex and death are the greatest realities of our sublime. “Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime, that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.” (Edmund Burke, SECT. VII: Of the SUBLIME) Sex and death give our lives meaning and purpose, and in both acts, it forces us to fully manifest the choices we make – because that is when they are magnified to the fullest.
Man is not a rational animal. Man is rabid. Violent. Pathological. But there is a certain dying to the other that goes along with sex. The sexual act completely subordinates the self to the other. In a psychological and inner sense, the self dies to the other during sex since it is totally absorbed by the other. However, this is a mutual action. The sexual act ironically possesses the highest potential for the most creative explosion of all: the production of new life! Taking a life and making a life are two sides of the same coin. They are companion souls of one another.
Both occupations reflect on the extremes in man. The same masculinity that propagates men as machines of war is the same that inflicts violence onto women; often in a sexual context. The longer that we teach men that their only value is in their aggression, and the longer we teach women that their only value is in their bodies, such rape of humanity will only fester.
It is worthwhile to bring to light that in the current day, gender roles and traditional masculinity or femininity have all become relatively fluid. Most professions, regardless of working conditions, societal respect, or financial incentive, possesses an amalgamation of every sex and/or gender. Queer sex workers are common, and all genders take part in serving the military. With this in mind, it would be irresponsible to ignore the fact that sexism is integral to this argument. Though it is an inaccurate generalization to gender these two occupations, these gender biases have been too ingrained into our society to ignore. Though there are a myriad of factors when honour is called into question, it is undeniable that gender, and the biases attached to it, play a vital role.
Despite my critique of both professions, the point still stands: for progress to be made, prostitution must be respected in its own right. This violent division of labour and base value propagates out of hate for women and their sexuality. By respecting sex work just as much as military work, we begin to unravel the very basis of this system.
My friend, in all of her parts, is still my friend. A dear friend. She is strong, kind, and brilliant, in ways that cannot be seen even from the deepest parts of her body. I will not and can not tolerate the despoilment of her humanity any longer. She is Ashley. My Ashley.