We do not see the lens through which we look. – Ruth Benedict
We all see the world through the lens of personal bias, and in the case of those who are not freethinkers this lens is often both highly distorted and not individual. Indeed, many if not most people wear cultural “spectacles” of which they are not even aware, and the world they see may seem strange and warped to those of us with clearer vision. I was recently referred to this story about prostitution law in Iceland by “Deep Geek”, who sometimes reads my column on his Talk Geek To Me podcast. As some of you are no doubt aware Iceland shares with her Scandinavian sisters Norway and Sweden the sick, paternalistic “Nordic Model” of prostitution law which characterizes women as permanent wards of the state who are as psychologically and morally unable to consent to compensated sex as many Americans believe girls under 18 are psychologically and morally unable to consent to any sex. But the politicians of Iceland, their brains perhaps numbed by the cold of their land and confused by the wild seasonal variations in the amount of daylight received by their pineal glands, add some of their own frightening, extremist rhetoric to the usual propaganda and thereby allow the rest of us a glimpse at the strange shape of the lenses they wear, but cannot see. The article is paraphrased for clarity:
Gudrún Jónsdóttir is the spokeswoman for Stígamót, the Education and Counseling Center for Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Violence; she claims that between thirty and forty women annually seek help from the organization because of their experiences within prostitution and the porn industry. Currently, Stígamót is preparing a shelter for women who want to quit prostitution or have been subject to slave trafficking in the porn industry. “There are women in Iceland who really need this kind of service. We have been aware of this need for a long time,” said Jónsdóttir. She said that it is often very difficult for women to quit prostitution; “We know of women who have already sought help but there have been no tailored solutions for them. Not all women need to stay in a shelter when they are quitting prostitution but some women really need it because the way out is hard and difficult. These women are ridden by shame and guilt…they are stuck in a net and need help to break free, both because the industry always drags them back and because they are scared,” said Jónsdóttir. “I argue constantly that the porn industry is nothing but violence against the women who take part in it. The consequences of getting involved in this industry are serious and totally comparable to experiencing hardcore violence. These women find it difficult to live with what they have done and experienced. We have seen women give up and commit suicide,” she said.
At first, this looks pretty much like any other neofeminist anti-sex rhetoric which demonizes prostitution and pornography. But look a little more closely; in the United States and most of Europe it’s not usual to claim that adult women are “trafficked” into the porn industry, or that producers actually use force to control them. And though there are exceptions like Linda Lovelace, in the US it’s pretty rare for anti-porn activists to claim that adult women in porn are literally pimped. But considering that trafficking fetishists very often make that claim about underage girls, we can see that Icelandic neofeminists essentially view adult women as American extremists view teenage girls: frightened, malleable and helpless to control their own lives without the help of “rescue” organizations.
Until 2007, Icelandic law was harshly prohibitionist: “Anyone engaging in prostitution for own upkeep shall be subject to imprisonment for up to two years.” But in 2007 neofeminists convinced the government that most women who sell sex do so out of desperation or because they are forced into prostitution by others, and prostitution was thus briefly legalized until 2009, when the Nordic Model was fully adopted. Then in 2010 Iceland went one step further by banning stripping as well; if the rhetoric in the article above is typical, can porn be far behind? Icelandic prime minister Johanna Sigurðardottir, a declared lesbian, said: “The Nordic countries are leading the way on women’s equality, recognizing women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale.” And the female politician behind the stripping ban, Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, said: “It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold.”
This is, of course, what happens when men allow themselves to be reduced to eunuchs and turn control of their sexuality over to radical lesbian neofeminists. “Women’s equality”? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Iceland infantilizes its female citizens to an even greater degree than Norway and Sweden do, and in the pretense that prostitution and stripping are the selling of women themselves rather than services they freely choose to provide, Iceland essentially declares that women (except for lesbian politicians, of course) have no value other than their sexual characteristics. If it is recognized, as in advanced countries, that women have value outside of our sexual characteristics, then prostitution, porn acting are stripping are clearly seen as simply services a woman might or might not choose to provide. But in backward regimes like Iceland, a woman has no value other than her sexual characteristics and so sale of those characteristics is seen as sale of the entire woman (since she has nothing else of value to offer). And because the government of Iceland is unwilling to cede control over women to anyone (including the women themselves), any activities which offend the sensibilities of the rulers must be prohibited, even if it results in their country having almost twice the rape rate of any other country in Europe.
Imagine a woman sitting on a train in a station beside another train; if she looks out the window and sees the other train moving in relation to herself she does not know whether it is her train moving or the other. And if her thick spectacles prevent her realizing that she is seated facing the back of the carriage, her confusion may be greater still. Through their distorting lenses, the ruling neofeminists of Iceland see themselves as “leading the way on women’s equality”, when in reality their train is moving swiftly backward toward the repression and restriction of women’s choices that most of Europe abandoned years ago.
Governments all too often seek paternalistic control of the local poulace. The Iceland example may be particularly egregious, but it’s nothing new or different.
I once wrote something which is quite compatible with your opening here. I thought I’d add it in.
We think a lot alike.
Anyhow, your underlying point seems to be that people don’t think. They let emotions and pet politics and social fad du jour do their thinking for them. Couldn’t agree more.
Great minds often do, I’m told. 😉
Maggie, in all fairness to Iceland, they do have and have had a very strong social network. The standard of living for Icelandics, including women, is very high even compared to other European countries.
In regards to sex work, I imagine there are women in Reykjavik who work as escorts to foreign men who do business there. And I imagine that there might be “neighborhood” divorcees who service men in the neighborhood. But with a population of only 300,000 on an island the size of England with a strong social network, sex work probably isn’t very high on the list of things women might engage in. So what the prime minister is doing is rather redundant.
But I so agree with you, it is very infantalizing for women to tell them what work they can and can’t engage in, and to inadvertently reduce them to their sexuality.
Ms Jónsdóttir claims 30-40 women per year seek help. For a country of 300,000 people, this is not a negligible number. (What is surprising is that no source of help can be immediately found in the already existing social network — but I don’t know it in detail, so I can’t really tell.)
http://tinyurl.com/6zfh6qg
All the media are utterly wrong about young people, too, which is another reason adults should not be treated like children or teens. Hell, children and teens shouldn’t be treated the way we treat children and teens.
http://www.youthfacts.org/
[…] words from Maggie McNeill, a former callgirl repulsed by backwards and counter productive laws that prevent […]
“But in backward regimes like Iceland, a woman has no value other than her sexual characteristics and so sale of those characteristics is seen as sale of the entire woman (since she has nothing else of value to offer). ”
This is exactly what troubles me so much with the term “selling oneself”. Strange how hard it is for many “feminist” people to get it…
The trafficking fanatics are particularly bad about this rhetoric; the way they express it one would think the custody of the girl changes hands! 🙁
I wonder if it isn’t a good idea to ask these people what they think sex is, actually. The whole thing is so often left unsaid (because “everybody knows” that sex only goes well with love — and we all know what Papa Heinlein said about “everbody knows” sentences…).
No matter what answer they give — say, that sex is an intimate relationship where people express themselves freely, willingly, and geneorusly, or any other odd definition — it usually is not sufficient to make sex-for-money bad. Hell, money doesn’t even necessarily make it bad (i.e. not enjoyable) sex, by any of these definitions!
And yet the non-sequitur is allowed to continue, as if the whole world suffered from blindness to logics. Ah, the strength of unspoken assumptions!
Since you like quotations, Maggie, here is one that I think applies to the question of colored lenses and other biases:
The “Nordic Model” defenders think they are right. They think they are empowering women by freeing them from the backward social pressures that force them into porn and/or prostitution. Since there are some women who indeed are forced into these industries and/or exploited in them, I am sure that it is a good, ethical idea to have shelters and help for them. When Guðrún Jónsdóttir says 30-40 women per year look for help from her organization, I’m willing to believe this is true, and that most of these women aren’t lying but really were harmed.
Then, of course, the big overgeneralization: all (or even most) women in these industries are like that. The industries inherently create this exploitation, because it’s part of their very essence. “Paying for sex” means buying the person, like a slave.
One might say they should be able to see the fallacy by simply comparing the obviously absurd consequences of applying the same ideas to other areas. Are all female nurses exploited? Are all female singers selling themselves? Do I buy a singer if I pay him/her to sing at my birthday party? Ms Jónsdóttir, who is a famous singer in her land, has probably never refused to be paid for her performances; yet she chooses to believe that women who have sex for money are not doing performances, but are actually being “bought.” And mostly against their will. Because what woman, on her right mind, would freely and willingly choose prostitution as a job?
Ms Jónsdóttir, and so many others, are not making any attempt to check the possibility that her beliefs on the matter might be influenced by biases. As the quote above says, Ms Jónsdóttir, and so many others, are showing thus that they are not extraordinary people.
I’m not. When a wino wants a handout from the Salvation Army soup kitchen, the price is listening to Sister Edith’s sermon while he eats. And if a maladjusted woman wants help from Jónsdóttir’s organization, the price is claiming she was a prostitute coerced into making porn. Do-gooders are never, ever skeptical of what they want to hear.
Though Iceland is not culturally as much like New Zealand as the US is, let’s apply the New Zealand numbers for a very rough estimate: 300,000 people means 150,000 female people means about 428 prostitutes in the whole country, of which 10% per year are trafficked victims who seek her help? Suuuuuuuuuuuuure they are. 🙁
Actually, that does makes sense, Maggie. When I wrote that I hadn’t thought about how small the population of Iceland is. One might wonder why women from a country with a strong social network might need help from Ms Jónsdóttir’s organization — but then again, if they can get more money this way, why not?
(To be fair to Ms Jónsdóttir, she included not only prostitutes but women in the porn industry in her 30-40 estimate. Do you have a similar estimate of the number of women per 1,000 who participate in the sex industry outside prostitution — porn, strippers, phone sex, etc.? That might lower the percentage below 10%.)
But that’s not what she claims. She says prostitutes and porn actresses, not strippers or PSOs. That number could only be believable to one of those “70% of prostitutes would quit right now if they could” people. (Yes, I realize that 70% of everyone would quit their jobs if they could, but you know what I mean).
I don’t think she would exclude strippers or PSOs (or even webcam girls for that matter) from her help, were they to show up and claim exploitation; so my guess is she is including them in her calculations. Even if only porn were included, that would already imply more women than simply those who are prostitutes; so in all fairness we should attempt to quantify Icelandic porn actresses / models and include them in the calculation.
Still, it makes a lot of sense to think that Ms Jónsdóttir would not have a strong vetting procedure for any sex worker who came to her organization seeking help against exploitation. I’m inclined to think that you’re right on this one, too — though one should of course wait for good research on the matter.
Asehpe, she doesn’t WANT to know the truth; she wants her preconceptions proven, which is a very different thing indeed. The former requires skepticism, and the latter the complete lack of it. Every woman who comes to her and claims to be a trafficked sex slave will be believed; her entire weltanschauung depends on it. 🙁
funny how so many felons are “born again [whichever is the politically correct religion]” until they’re back out of prison.
I asked around about this when I was in Iceland a few years ago, and a lot of the support came from women who were not engaged in sex work, but felt their morale lowered by the industry. It was more a concern that prostitution touted women’s sexuality across the board as a luxury item. This legislation really wasn’t all about “saving” prostitutes. It was a response to very specific concerns about general quality of living, for men AND women. (Yes, men were also troubled by the industry and its effect on their daughters, wives, etc.)
Support for prohibitionist laws always comes from those who don’t partake of whatever it is that’s being prohibited,and their usual excuse is that it somehow affects them negatively. This is exactly why strong constitutions are necessary, to keep the majority from telling minorities what they can’t do in private.
“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).” – Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
yet it seems the most vocally anti-gay, turn out to lowdowners. Larry Craig, Haggard, many other ‘family’ ‘values’ group founders.
I’ve suggested that the REAL “homophobia” is “the fear that somebody will find out that I’m a homo.”
Or as somebody on TV (I didn’t get his name) said: “If you look like a duck, and you walk like a duck, and you act like a duck, make sure you let everybody know how much you fucking HATE ducks!”
He was bleeped, but hey.
KWHITLEY, I’m curious: did anyone who answered your questions ever mention actual studies made on prostitution and porn in Iceland — or did any of them consider including actual prostitutes or porn actors / models as sources of information? Did anyone consider their voices worth listening to? Did you happen to talk to anyone in the industry, or hear from any of them what they thought about the matter?
I fear the answers would probably be predictable. It’s funny that Nordic countries, who pride themselves on being inclusive and accepting non-orthodox viewpoints on social matters, should be so closed when it comes to the opinions of sex workers.
Slave trafficking? In **Iceland**?? A country of 300k people?
That was enough to give the world Astropia.
Has women and crime, even a kidnapping, but nothing which quite qualifies as human trafficking.
LEROY JENKINS!!