Pro Sex

April 1999

Why is prostitution so vehemently suppressed? Cops arrest hookers and hustlers, district attorneys target escort services for sting operations, and neighbors copy down suspected johns' license plate numbers in attempts to embarrass prostitution clients. Society assigns to sex workers the social status of drug dealers and petty thieves. Our culture which usually worships market economics reacts differently when the commodity being hawked is sex. Why?

After you strip away all the red herring concerns about traffic and health and shady business associations (which can all be addressed through proper regulation, as in any other enterprise), opposition to prostitution boils down to two assertions: first, that selling sex is morally wrong and hurtful to society; and second, that prostitution is inherently and uniquely exploitative of the individual sales people involved. We need to expose both arguments as hypocritical lies.

Prostitution exists because there is a tremendous demand for sex. People desperately want more sexual contact than our sexphobic culture allows. This is one of the lessons that gay liberation has to teach the world. If everyone were getting laid more regularly, could anyone doubt that we'd have fewer uptight, neurotic, and frustrated people being mean to one another in serious and sundry ways? Sex may not be the solution to all the world's ills, but the lack of sex certainly is at the root of many of them. By filling niches in the sexual market left void by other institutions, prostitution has the potential to address some of the destructive sex-denying dogma that so pollutes our culture.

The assertion that prostitution exploits the prostitute can be true­ just as it can be true that the textile industry exploits mill workers or grape growers exploit migrant laborers. As in any wage-for-labor undertaking, there exists the possibility that the compensation will not be commensurate with the work rendered and risks endured. Those truly concerned about exploitation will press for careful regulation and collective bargaining.

Anti-prostitution crusaders' professed concern about sex workers' well-being is revealed as hypocrisy when one realizes who is wielding the club. Those who claim that sex work per se is so demeaning that it should be banned are themselves the ones who snub, ostracize, and denigrate prostitutes. If prostitutes were accorded social respect as skilled providers of a valued commodity, there would be nothing "demeaning" about selling sex. Again, the problem lies in those who claim to have an exalted view of sex, but who actually see it as shameful and wicked. If sex were properly valued, prostitution would assume its rightful status as a noble profession.

Prostitution is suppressed by those who fear sex, the same people who fight to keep queers in closets. Let us fight alongside hookers and hustlers to liberate everyone from the deadening fear that spawns guilt and hypocrisy. Let us use our selves and our bodies to provide pleasure and satisfaction to others, whether as amateurs or professionals. **

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