Berenger: And you consider all this natural?
Dudard: What could be more natural than a rhinoceros?
Berenger: Yes, but for a man to turn into a rhinoceros is abnormal beyond question.
Dudard: Well, of course, that’s a matter of opinion… – Eugene Ionesco
In Ionesco’s 1959 absurdist play Rhinoceros (filmed in 1973 with Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder and Karen Black), the inhabitants of the characters’ town begin turning into rhinoceroses. Though the cause is not explained, there is a strong implication that the transformation is at least partially voluntary, because the more people change the more others join them. At first the townspeople are outraged, but by the end of the play everyone has become a rhinoceros except for the protagonist, Berenger, who considers joining the rhinos but just can’t force himself to change. The play is generally interpreted as a political allegory; no matter how ridiculous a mass movement is (Ionesco probably had fascism and communism in mind), nor how ugly and destructive it makes its adherents, it will often continue to grow in popularity until many who once opposed it now defend and may even join it.
The metaphor popped into my head on January 5th while reading the comments on Laura Agustín’s column of the previous day; one of the commenters stated that she knows a sex worker who accepts some of Melissa Farley’s monstrous lies, and I replied:
A lot of sex workers buy into the “trafficking” mythology as well; I’ve read many comments and emails from such women who look around for where the “anti-trafficking” fingers are pointing and fail to realize that the supposed “sex slaves” are them and their friends and associates. It rather reminds me of Ionesco’s absurdist play Rhinoceros, in which the people who haven’t turned into rhinoceroses begin to perceive themselves as ugly outsiders.
It should be obvious that moral panics, like Ionesco’s “Rhinocerism”, are psychologically contagious; most people who are exposed to them are essentially brainwashed into accepting them, the victims of their own herd mentality. And so insidious is their influence that even some people who should know better are drawn into them, making whatever rationalizations are necessary to resolve the cognitive dissonance caused by the conflict of their knowledge and their desire to go along with the crowd. Thus many escorts, who intellectually know that the notion of prostitutes as coerced “sex slaves” is ridiculous, accept the “trafficking” hysteria by rationalizing that there is indeed an epidemic of “human trafficking” in other countries, or among streetwalkers, or in other places they conveniently never visit. Some of them even accept the outrageous claims of numbers and ages, egotistically assuming that they are part of some supposed elite of “free” hookers despite the fact that every other whore they know is equally “free”. Some even spin idiotic conspiracy theories in which there is a secret network of pimps who magically “get” girls and secretly control them without clients or other escorts being any the wiser. Many clients, too, are caught up in the hysteria; they worry that girls they hire might be secretly “pimped”, and that patronizing them somehow contributes to that prohibitionist devil, “demand”.
There is only one way to fight this contagious fantasy, and that is by rejecting the entire “trafficking” paradigm. In a September 2010 essay entitled “Willing Brides and Consenting Homosexuals” Cheryl Overs pointed out the danger of ceding any ground to the prohibitionists on this issue:
…I have noticed emergence of a new term “willing sex workers”. The danger here is that this term signifies that even those who support decriminalisation of sex work are now accepting the trafficking paradigm by repositioning willing sex workers as a subset of this broader category “sex worker/victim of trafficking or sexual exploitation”…The implications of this slow but clear shift are enormous. Health and human rights promoting programmes…can now be seen as applicable only to “willing sex workers” while “unwilling” sex workers deemed to be trafficked or sexually exploited need raids, rehabilitation and anti-trafficking programmes.
Perhaps the most depressing thing about this is that sex workers themselves and other well-meaning folks are buying into the trafficking paradigm…I am not going to argue about how many people are forced into sex work, but even in that overstudied “hotbed of sex trafficking” Cambodia, the only credible study [showed that] less than 2% of sex workers say they had been sold or coerced (CACHA 2008). How might this compare to the percentage of married women who were forced into marriage – even in the “hotbeds” of forced marriage? What percentage of gay men have been forced into sodomy? We don’t know, but clearly both happen. But it would be absurd to preface the words “bride” and “gay man” with “willing” or “consenting”. Can you imagine reports that say that condoms should be distributed to “consenting homosexuals”? Can you think of anything more absurd, more homophobic or more stigmatising? Can you think of anything more absurd than describing Kate Middleton as a “willing bride”? Positioning “willing” and “unwilling” doesn’t contribute to justice for people who have been raped, beaten [or] imprisoned in the course of either marriage [or] homosexuality and no one would suggest that. Nor would anyone suggest that rejecting the terms “willing brides” and “consenting homosexuals” amounts to a denial that those things happen. Yet this is exactly what the trafficking paradigm sets out for sex workers…
Perhaps the highest priority for the sex workers rights movement should be…to reject the entire paradigm of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Only by doing this can we focus on convincing the public and policy makers that public health, human rights and social development outcomes for sex workers depend on justice for all…our slogan says it perfectly – “only rights can stop the wrongs.”
Those with long memories may recognize her point as essentially similar to the one I made in my New Year’s Day column for 2011: “It isn’t necessary to have an adjective to describe every way in which a given person isn’t unusual; we assume the usual unless something different is specified, not vice-versa.” The vast majority of sex workers take their jobs as willingly as anyone takes any job, and it’s no more necessary to say “willing sex workers” than it is to say “willing doctors”, “willing teachers”, “willing cops”, “willing maids” or “willing cashiers”. The trafficking paradigm is an ugly fantasy which flies in the face of both reality and human nature, and must therefore be rejected completely in order to avoid being swallowed up by it; anyone who claims that the unnaturalness of a man becoming a rhinoceros is “a matter of opinion” is well on his way to becoming one himself.
One Year Ago Today
In “The Specialist” we meet Wanda, a call girl who specializes in clients of a most unusual (and exceptional) nature.
I submit the “trafficking” argument is just a small part of the bigger problem which is “controlling the masses”.
Human Trafficking Alarmists, Climate Alarmists, Ozone Hole Alarmists, Population Explosion Alarmists, Nutrition and Health Alarmists, Animal extermination alarmists …
All of them use the same tactics.
– Psuedo-studies and numbers and statistics from biased organizations with an agenda.
– Alarming “apocalyptic” rhetoric.
– Emotional moralistic appeals.
– Disregard any evidence that seems to disprove their conclusions.
– A body of written work and conclusions written by sacred authors who cannot be challenged – therefore the work cannot be challenged because it too, is sacred.
– Always with a political goal at the end of the day – and that goal is to shape behavior, redistribute wealth, or engineer society.
We really should teach “How to Spot a Snake Oil Salesman – 101” in High School, we’d have a lot fewer problems like this.
Well, Krulac, I find the melting of polar icebergs that have been in existence for thousands of years to be very “alarming”. But hey, who am I gonna believe? You, or my lying eyes?
Why don’t you do yourself a favor by not trying to tie your pet theories into Maggie’s well-thought out and well-researched conclusions about the nature of sex work, okay?
yes.. i must agree with Susan, on this one.
I beg to differ. Even if you disagree about climate change, the political tactic of inventing phony emergencies (both as a means to get favorable media coverage and to demonize those opposed to “doing something” about this week’s made-up “crisis”) has a long history, not all of it on the left by any means (9/11 comes to mind), and both the tactic and those who practice it need to be named, shamed, and above all not imitated. Panic stops rational thought.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H. L. Mencken
I’ve got to pull a Laura here and point out that not all of the “hobgoblins” are imaginary (and I’m justified because of Mencken’s use of the word “all”). Unless Mencken’s statement is in a context missing here, all he’s doing is scaring us with a hobgoblin called “government.” He’s just replacing one set of bad guys with another.
Life is complicated, and it isn’t worthwhile to try to find one bad guy to blame everything on.
Mencken was a curmudgeon; he overstated things on purpose for effect.
I guess I can understand that. I’ve probably done it a million times myself. 😉
Susan, I respect your opinion – but I’m simply pointing out that the trafficking issue is just one more issue – like the others I pointed out – where groups or organizations are attempting to push completely false agendas on unwitting populations by using phony statistics, emotional appeals, and apocalyptic predictions.
This is no different than religion has done for thousands of years – we’ve called them on that – why not call out the others?
If someone has something truthful to pass on – they usually do it with well reasoned arguments and submit themselves for cross-examination in an honest fashion. They don’t demonize those who don’t immediately agree with them. Trafficking Alarmists demonize anyone who disagrees with them. They completely dismiss the opinions of the women who are engaged in sex work by classifying them as mindless victims. They dismiss the opinions of the men who speak out for those women by classifying them as “pimps” or “victimizers”.
Sorry I brought up Climate Change Alarmists in the same post – I won’t do it again. I was simply pointing out that snake oil is sold in a LOT of different forms. 🙂
I love the rhinoceros metaphor because it is so perfect for almost the entire political sphere. Change it to a donkey and an elephant and you’ve basically got American politics. “Oh, you believe in civil liberties and personal freedom? You must be a Democrat. Whaddya mean they don’t support those things?!” “Oh, you believe in the free market? You must be a Republican. Whaddya mean they don’t support those things?” We have a political system not only bent on persuading people that they must be a rhino, but they must be a rhino made of wood and styrofoam, a completely fake rhino that doesn’t actually do any rhino things.
OK, I think I’ve beaten that metaphor to death.
When I read about rescuers, I’m reminded a lot of how cults convert people — by finding them at vulnerable points and essentially brainwashing them into a new identity (a rhino, as you say). The anti-whore brigade are a secular religion, no more connected to reality than the followers of Shree Rajneesh. It’s just frustrating that this particular cult is given credence.
Excellent post once again, one of the reasons I continue to send anti-prostitution people here instead of just bashing my head against a wall.
Thank you, Donn! 🙂
I fear, dear Maggie, that I detect a bit of paranoia and denial. Nepalese families sell their young daughters into Indian brothels. This is a fact, and those brothels are large, even though prostitution is officially illegal. In a corrupt country like India, legalities are observed in the breach. National Geographic interviews with these women demonstrated their anger at their plight, but also demonstrated their unwillingness to leave the profession. I assume this is due to the wretched shame attached to whores.
In Zimbabwe the economy is so bad that minors do sex work for food. I don’t imagine they consider themselves exploited, but it’s a sad situation. Just because you are willing doesn’t mean you are happy.
Crack addicts sell sex for $5 or $10, which they most often consider a good deal. If they weren’t addicted, how many would sell sex? We’ll never know, I guess. but what do you say to the moral ambiguity of women in this plight? What I mean is that addiction to a drug is equivalent to slavery in that the addict surrenders control and gives it to the drug. I may sound old fashioned, but I’ve seen it myself when living one the streets: addiction degrades a person’s character. I never could have imagined that I would resort to violent robbery in pursuit of methamphetamine. Those days are long gone. I stopped on my own without any pressure from the law. Nevertheless, those memories haunt me.
You detect no such thing. The fact that work or slavery is sexual makes ABSOLUTELY ZERO DIFFERENCE. There are lots of kids enslaved in sweatshops, but do we say “willing seamstresses”? There are plenty of agricultural slaves, but do we say “consenting farmhands”? This “trafficking” narrative will continue to gobble up the lives of real people until it is entirely rejected. I think you need to reread “A False Dichotomy” and “Thought Experiment“.
“….I don’t imagine they consider themselves exploited, but it’s a sad situation. Just because you are willing doesn’t mean you are happy….”
I agree, but, being happy or sad about one’s chosen means of income isn’t necessarily because that means is “immoral” — if it is, then, for example, it indicates that my decades of self-employment as a contractor/builder was “immoral” since I did it due to having no better option for adequate income but I was never happy while doing it.
“….Crack addicts sell sex for $5 or $10, which they most often consider a good deal. If they weren’t addicted, how many would sell sex? We’ll never know, I guess. but what do you say to the moral ambiguity of women in this plight? What I mean is that addiction to a drug is equivalent to slavery in that the addict surrenders control and gives it to the drug. I may sound old fashioned, but I’ve seen it myself when living one the streets: addiction degrades a person’s character. I never could have imagined that I would resort to violent robbery in pursuit of methamphetamine…. ”
I agree that a drug addict is enslaved to the drug, and that an addict’s slavery leads to her/him resorting to acts which she/he “never could have imagined’ to pursue the drug.
I also agree that an addict’s resorting to acts which harm others, such as violent robbery, is condemnable.
However, an act of sex (as distinct from rape) harms no one. Sex is not at all in the same class as violent robbery.
The subtle issue underlying is that a crack addict might be feeling “degraded” about selling sex not because selling sex is intrinsically “wrong” (whether sold “happily” or not) but because of the perverse, warped attitude that her /his society holds and has imprinted upon her/him about sex and sexuality.
If the crack addict sold her purse or sweater for $5 or $10, no doubt many would condemn for her motive and/or low profit in selling either, but no one in a free-enterprise society would condemn her for the action of selling a purse or a sweater. Yes, she might still feel degraded about selling her purse or sweater, but her degradation would lie in her motive for selling them, not in what she sold.
A crack addict selling sex and for cheaply is essentially no different than her cheaply selling her purse or sweater. Regrettably, as Maggie has thoroughly and consistently addressed on her website, selling sex is viewed by too many people as wholly different than selling other goods and services. The pervasive modern notion of sex as some intrinsically special thing seems in part to underlie the issue of “moral ambiguity” raised in the post I quoted. I agree that a crack addict might be morally ambiguous because of her motive for selling anything at all; but she’s only “morally ambiguous” for selling sex IF sale of sex is considered “immoral”.
When I drew up my preliminary dissertation proposal on a topic related to migrant sex work, the lecturer told me I had to specify from the outset that it was voluntary migrant sex work I was referring to. That wouldn’t have happened if I had been writing about any other sector – even the ones where trafficking is a known issue.
Precisely. It’s amazing how many social problems and how much human suffering can be traced back to the notion that sex is magically different from all other human activity.
>If someone has something truthful to pass on – they usually do it with well reasoned arguments and submit themselves for cross-examination in an honest fashion.
And this is exactly what those concerned with Global climate change and overpopulation have done.
>They don’t demonize those who don’t immediately agree with them.
And this is what climate change deniers have done.
I believe there is trafficking, and slavery in this world. And it’s not all for sex work. In fact, I’d say the majority isn’t. And as long as we live under world wide capitalism, we will have the situation.
Come now, Comixchik; I know we disagree on the use of the term, but surely you’ll agree that slavery was an entrenched institution long before anyone ever conceived of the notion of “capitalism”, and was/is a fact (in truth if not in name) under every communist regime.
Slavery will exist as long as humans are allowed power to control other humans, no matter what economic or political system they live under. If the excuse isn’t money it will be paternalism, religion, “the good of society” or something else.
Thanks Maggie,
It is refreshing for someone to note that slavery was universal before the advent of the Enlightenment. Exactly how the cultural phenomenon that moved toward abolition gets blamed for the residuals of the “peculiar institution” baffles me.
There is a certain irony to the fact that the institution most effective in destroying the practice of slavery – the British Empire – is among the most maligned among the leftist set. I don’t endorse the practice of colonialism or intervention abroad because I think that it is not in the interest of the country involved. But let’s be honest here. Worldwide slavery had its nadir (and yes, that’s a borrow-word from arabic) under the British Empire and its enforcement arm, the Royal Navy. In fact, the places where slavery survived in this time period were in Russia and under the hegemony of the Ottoman Empire – both places that the British did not hold sway. I find it telling that it is under Islamic regimes that slavery persists to this day – in the Sudan and modern day Qatar.
I think it’s important that it was not only universal, but ubiquitous; as Carl Sagan pointed out in Cosmos, the scientists of Alexandria questioned the permanence of the heavens but not the rectitude of slavery. And Jesus, despite his willingness to challenge the prevailing moral standards, accepted slavery as a given.
The British Empire STARTED slavery in what would become the United States, and made no attempt to end it here.
Aristotle is said to have predicted that when looms weave by themselves, slavery would end. In the US, those two even are close in time, and the automatic looms happened first. Of course, it isn’t exactly sticking my neck out to suggest that Aristotle was smart.
I don’t think I’d care to be a rhinoceros. But better that than an anteater.
Yep, they did start slavery in the US as part of the triangle trade. I should have been more specific. The British Empire after the Napoleonic wars was a lot different than the one we fought against. I think that that was because the 18th century empire was an outgrowth of mercantilism – of which the triangle trade and the prohibition against colonial ships plying it – is an example.
The 19th century empire was driven more by the ethic captured in Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden” at the end of the century (where he exhorted [some say ironically] that the US take up the Burden) rather than economic advantage. While there were some companies with royal charters that benefited (as was the case under the mercantilist system – the Boston Tea Party product was actually offered to the colonists, with tax, at a lower rate than those tea drinkers in the mother country) this was more a case of transfer payments because the companies’ bottom line did not reflect the costs incurred by the British Government in administering and protecting and pacifying those holdings. Like American interventions abroad, it may be a windfall for some companies involved but it is (and was) a fiscal disaster for the country and its taxpayers.
The British Empire of the 19th century was very different than the one in the previous century. Not only did they suppress slavery, they also put an end to such practices as sati in India with the support of local activists and at the behest of William Wilberforce who spearheaded the drive against slavery in the UK.
Yes, all true. I just wanted to point out that your hero was once the villain, lest anybody get the idea that villainy is an American monopoly. 😉
😉
Comixchik wrote:
>i>And this is what climate change deniers have done.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=climate+deniers+and+holocaust+deniers
goose, gander, all that
Oh absolutely, slavery well predated capitalism. I was speaking of slavery in the modern world, which s generally supported by capitalism.
Well I just watched it. At the end, you have to admire Wilder’s character, but at the same time, it’s never made clear that he’s actually right. Is he being heroic, or just obstinate? I think that’s part of the genius of this weird movie: there’s no obvious “right side,” though naturally we tend to root for Berenger.