Prostitution is one of the basic
pillars of Puritanism and patriarchy. Even if all prostitutes do not
identify with the “woman” category, rarely do they identify as belonging
to a “male” gender, as do clients.
Indeed, prostitution supports the myth according to
which only male gender persons experience true interest in sexual
activities, and nurtures the myth of a “natural” venality specific to
those assigned to the female gender.
In prostitution, patriarchy, Puritanism and
capitalism interact in mutual reinforcement. Patriarchy builds, in order
to sustain itself, identity shackles that women must comply with.
These are divided in two broad categories. On the one hand is the
"purified" woman that belongs to only one man and is cleansed from her
"original impurity" in accessing the sacred role of the mother who
“gives birth in pain” and sees her sexuality amputated. On the other,
is the “impure” woman, who belongs to all men and serves as a receptacle
for the sexual impulses of the dominants, in order to preserve the
other woman’s “virtue”.
Whether sacralized or despised, these objects are
opposed despite being both sides of the same woman, alienable or
alienated, never her own person. There are many forms of prostitution
relationships that are not acknowledged as such (e.g. economic
dependence, and the “conjugal duty” of “housewives”). Prostitution
contributes to perpetuating these relationships through images broadcast
by its mere existence.
The Catholic Church was supportive of prostitution
earlier in the middle Ages. “To remove prostitutes, would be to let
libertines disturb social order," had written St. Augustine. In
reality, puritan ideology rejects sexual freedom even more than it does
prostitution since the latter functions as a sexual outlet. It has a
vested interest in maintaining confusion between the two in order to
hide the potential existence or experienced reality of inalienable
pleasure.
The “sex workers” who seek to legitimize prostitution
claim to be selling not their body but a “sexual service”.
Nevertheless, this “service” translates into providing someone with a
right of access to the body, a form of leasing, as if a person’s body
was an object external to herself. And it is to such an alienated
relationship to their own body that the prostituted are forced to submit
in order to satisfy their clients’ requirements.
This relation of externality to the body is
normalized by becoming deeply embedded in people’s minds. It is the
result of the puritan mind conditioning which consists in separating
what is deemed “the body” from what is deemed “the mind” and given
hierarchical precedence. Since the body is considered “inferior”, it
can then serve as a mere utensil or work tool.
Moreover, given its use of so-called “professional”
commercial pornography, sexist advertising, and various forms of
prostitution, capitalism has a vested interest in passing off sex
consumption as sexual freedom, sexuality and in turning sex into a
product that sells rather than a pleasure to be shared. The French word
for “work,” travail, is etymologically derived from a Latin word
tripalium, which was a torture instrument. In fact, it is an activity
that gets turned by capitalism – through salaries and commercial
relationships – into coercion and an obligation to provide labour. For
work to be abolished, socially useful activities would have to be
distributed and performed in a dynamic of sharing and gratuity, in
compliance with the needs and desires of each person, rather than in a
maintaining of commercial relationships based on a logic of exchange.
Prostitution is the alienation of sexuality by capitalism !
The French law banning "passive soliciting," passed
in 2003 by President Sarkozy, has had the effect of criminalizing
prostitutes. The overwhelming majority of them did not choose to
prostitute because they so desired, but to survive in the hope that this
situation would be temporary. One often hears the fall-back argument :
“If they say it’s their choice, where is the problem ?” First, only a
minority of the prostituted assert that “it is a choice,” and yet they
speak out on behalf of all. Second, what do we mean by the words “it’s a
choice”.
Every human act is the result of a choice, but this
choice is oftentimes laden with spite, consent devoid of desire. This
is where the notion of “consent” loses its meaning. There is a huge
difference between the majority of prostitutes and those who deem
themselves "sex workers." The latter propagandize by deed and advocacy
for prostitution. Rather than a libertarian choice, theirs reflects
neo-liberal ideology and politics, opposed to sexual freedom. (...)
To confer a professional status to "sex workers" is
to grant a social function to prostitution, thus supporting Puritan
morality, commoditization and patriarchy. A few dozen “sex workers”,
organized in regulationist and legitimist associations, are claiming
this status. In media and political environments, such claims obscure a
reality of prostitution of concern to the great majority of the
sexually exploited. To believe that regulationism would stifle sexual
exploitation is to ignore the huge financial benefits accrued through
the trafficking of hundreds of thousands, including children, and the
international dimension of this phenomenon.
When capitalism, Puritanism and patriarchy have been abolished, prostitution in all its forms will have disappeared.
Commentaires
Enregistrer un commentaire