Why is sexwork
considered a shame based service by many?
JENN CLAMEN: Some good older interview comments with Arts and Opinion in Canada.
She is an advocate in Canada the doomed mission of SWOP to give street hookers
the right to be a public nuisance which hurt all efforts of reform of bawdy
house (incall illegal but rarely enforced) laws just like it dooms all efforts
of positive reforms in the U.S. but these points are good when related to
PRIVATE consenting adult sexwork:
...bias that most people have about sex work, which is that the work is
inherently shameful and that no willing person would work in the sex industry. I
don’t think that sex workers and clients are inherently ashamed of what they do.
I think society has failed to cultivate a healthy perspective on sexuality and
hence imposes a shame on those whose sexual activities deviate from that imposed
norm. If and when sex workers do feel shame, I would argue that it is a result
of internalized discrimination and the stigma that constantly casts an accusing
shadow over the immorality of sex workers’ lives and work. People hold sex up to
unrealizable standards where the love component legitimizes sexual relations --
even though we know that a lot of people have sex outside of that limited
context.
People approve of sex when it’s an expression of love, or if it passes religious
muster, but outside of that, we’ve been taught to be ashamed of sex for sex’s or
pleasure’s sake. All that being said, people continue to spend billions of
dollars for the kind of sex society frowns upon. This is an unacceptable
hypocrisy our sex workers rights movement is trying to bring down, and we feel
the first step is to change the laws that criminalize the people who practice
what is commonly regarded as ‘deviant’ – that being sex work.
ARTS & OPINION: Do you mean if our marriages and intimate relationships were
more honest, the sex worker might disappear?
JENN CLAMEN: No, that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t think it’s only dishonest
people who frequent sex workers. There will always be a place for sex workers
because it’s impossible for one person to satisfy another person’s sexual needs
and fantasies.
ARTS & OPINION: Isn’t there something fundamentally degrading when a man, who
because of his looks, or quirks, or whatever, cannot attract a woman, and has to
pay her to have sex with him?
JENN CLAMEN: One of the biggest myths about clients of sex workers is that they
are ugly, pathetic and desperate. A lot of people who frequent sex workers are
either married or in relationships. There are many reasons why people seek out
sex workers. It could be the kind of sex they want. As far as I’m concerned,
better to seek the services of a sex worker than have a partner in a
relationship take on a lover in secret. Again, if there is a sense of
degradation in sex work I would suggest that this results from a value system
that has been imposed on us that makes people feel guilty doing what they want
to do. Guilt about indulging in sex is inauthentic guilt.
ARTS & OPINION: Is that what mystifies most of us about sex work, we just can’t
get past the idea that sex is what you make of it, that it is not subject to any
prior laws or disposition?
JENN CLAMEN: Sex work is mystifying only if you work under the assumption that
sex necessarily leads to bonding. Sexual relations facilitate bonding and help
sustain a bond, but in and of themselves they don’t constitute the bond that
designates a couple. Many sex workers have boyfriends, even husbands. They will
tell you that their work is work, and that they haven’t necessarily developed
any personal bond with their clients. Again, this depends on the type of service
they offer and how often they see the same client because there are a lot of sex
workers who will say they bond with their clients. The biggest mistake that
people can make is using, as a matter of convenience, a single portrait to
define sex workers and/or their clients. This kind of stereotyping usually
doesn’t help to further people’s understanding of human nature.
The sex worker rights movement is big and strong, with over 60,000 sex workers
in Calcutta alone! A lot of the clients, in fact, take part in the activities
and celebrations of sex workers in India. The sex worker rights movement has
brought forward in a single voice the just cause of sex work and sex workers
rights, and has helped to educate the world at large in demystifying the life
and work of the sex worker.
Full article at
http://www.artsandopinion.com/2005_v4_n1/clamen.html