[erinjane]

One of the touchiest subjects between feminists is the relationship to sex work/porn/stripping/etc. Rather then further derail the Porn and Boys thread (but you can check it out for a bit of background http://www.bust.com/lounge/index.php?showtopic=52071&hl= ) come on in to this thread and share your thoughts.

What do you define as sex work? Are you pro/against? Why? Do you have a background in it, know anyone involved, are you involved? As Pixie asked, Does anyone see it as conforming to the sterotypes that feminists are against? Does it hurt or hinder feminism?
Just a few questions to get us thinking. So throw out some thoughts!

*I'm just running out the door but I wanted to get this going before I left. I'll be back hopefully this evening to throw in some of my opinions.*

[doodlebug]

If sex toy stores are involved in the sex trade, then so is Sears and other department/catalogue stores, because they've sold vibrators for years...for over a century, actually. Not to mention lingerie! I think if we're talking about the "sex trade," it's probably necessary to differentiate between "goods" as material objects for private consumption (and really, anything could be a sex toy - a piece of rope or a cucumber!), and "services" as an exchange between two or more people (the buying and selling of a person's time and/or labour).

I brought up "traditional" marriage - and maybe I should use the term "old school marriage" instead - for the same reasons other people brought up things we don't generally see as part of the sex trade, like advertising and bartending and the like. (And I'm not trying to shit all over wives or bartenders or waitresses...I used to be a waitress, btw, and my last co-worker at the women's centre held down a 2nd job as a bartender.) I brought it up because I think it's too easy to judge one group of women for how they make a living using their bodies and sexuality (sex workers), while at the same time ignoring how a variety of women make a living using their bodies and sexuality.

My real point was not that we should judge wives and waitresses (there's enough judging of women going on out there!), but that we have to look at the overarching context of how women use - and in a lot cases are forced to use - their bodies and sexuality in exchange for financial security. I think we make assumptions about (and therefore judge) women who are prostitutes and strippers, in ways that we DON'T make assumptions (and judgements) about other women who use their bodies/sexuality to achieve financial gain. And I think that, in particular, is unfair to women who are involved in what we understand to be "the sex trade."

I'm sure it makes those of us who have used our bodies/sexuality for financial gain very uncomfortable to see ourselves in the same context as those we call sex workers. And I'm not cutting myself out of this discussion here. I certainly did use my body and my sexuality to increase my tips when I was a waitress - I even used to do very deliberate experiments using different lipstick colours! (But let's also be fair - it's still true that male servers earn higher tips than female servers, and so we do use our sexuality to bridge that gap.)

And when I think about it, I use my body and my sexuality even to this day, as a public spokesperson for a feminist organization, by doing my hair and wearing makeup and body-flattering clothes when I'm in the media or speaking in public. I do the clothes/hair/makeup on purpose, knowing that it helps me to "sell" feminist ideology to people who might normally dismiss (or at least, be less receptive to) what I am saying if I did not appear attractive...according to accepted social norms of beauty standards (i.e.: if I looked like a stereotypical feminist, sans makeup, with "butch" hair and a turtleneck, or something like that).

Just to come back to my main point about "traditional marriage" or "old school marriage"...I am not trying to lambaste anyone's choice to be a stay-at-home wife so much as I'm trying to make the point that I, personally, would feel more independent, more powerful, and more "empowered" if I were earning and in control of my own money, regardless of HOW I earned it - running a small business or taking off my clothes (or selling marijauana, for that matter) - than I would if I were financially dependent on another person for my food, shelter, and other basic necessities of life. (And to clarify, I've never been dependent on a partner, but I was dependent on public welfare in the past, so I've definitely had a taste of what financial dependency feels like.)

There is a poster in our women's centre that talks about how feminism is not about helping "some poor, downtrodden woman over there," but about helping ourselves, as women. This is an essential understanding to me. The problem IMO is that we are all, as women, in the same boat: we lack economic equality and freedom from violence, and that perpetuates our social, political, economic, and legal position as unequal citizens. And while a few privileged women have managed to achieved something close to "equality" and freedom of choice, equality for SOME should never be construed as equality for ALL...most women are on the same continuum of having fewer genuine choices than our male counterparts.

So, women achieve (or just plain survive) using our bodies/sexuality as commodities - whether we make a "good" marriage based on our beauty, or we accept a promotion that is given to us because we are attractive, or we wear revealing clothing to make better tips, or we take our clothes off in a bar - because that's the main source of power the dominant culture has allowed us to have. (Certainly no one can deny that at the same time women are starting to achieve more towards equality, the culture of "looksism" and bias towards increasingly narrower beauty standards for women also increases...whether it's coincidence or not, it's a fact.)

And I believe, as a feminist, that we all need to recognize that we are sisters on that same contiuum, in order to develop and implement the steps we need to take to achieve genuine equality - and genuine freedom of choice - for women.