Last month’s guest column by Kelly Michaels was so well-received I’ve decided to make it a regular feature on the second Monday of every month. And as soon as I made that decision I knew exactly whom I wanted to ask first: Sarah Woolley, whose writing I’ve linked twice before in TW3 columns. Sarah is a freelance writer who is one of the rare non-whores who “gets it” so completely that she is a valued ally; her essays are not only bang-on perceptive, but also sparkle with the sort of dry English wit that makes her a joy to read.
Rhoda Grant, MSP has published the responses to her consultation on the proposed criminalisation of sex workers’ clients in Scotland. The response from the Paisley Branch of Amnesty International (which supports criminalisation) is receiving a lot of attention for how it was presented and everything that is wrong with it. Jemima101‘s analysis includes a response from Amnesty to say that Paisley’s statement “doesn’t reflect Amnesty’s position. We’ve not commented on the Bill.” Jemima’s piece also lists the human rights groups that support decriminalisation. Meanwhile, Jewel examined the prejudices in Paisley’s statement, and its tendency to use second hand anecdotal evidence, including an employee of a women’s prison who spoke with:
…a young woman who had experienced prostitution of her own volition. The young woman was adamant that she was not a victim and that it had been her choice. Without wishing to patronise her in any way, her forearms were covered in so many scars it was impossible to see any unmarked flesh. To those of us who have been fortunate to have had a (fairly) stable childhood, where abuse has not damaged our understanding of bodily boundaries, her defence of “not being a victim” has a hollow ring.
It is possible to tackle the prejudices in this statement without refuting the existence of individuals with abusive backgrounds. However, it is difficult to do this because abolitionists use discussions of childhood and mental health problems to silence and dismiss sex workers.
The Paisley statement gave me déjà vu for the last time I poked my pretty head into a Q&A session at the Guardian where Naomi Wolf was discussing “What Women Want”. Personally, I want a feminist discussion that won’t hinge upon vajazzles, Barbies, advertising and other La La lands but I’m prepared to make baby steps. Step one is for wider criticism of glib statements like this:
Slow down, Wolf, slow down.
To be fair to Wolf, I too started to think of porn differently after a spurious correlation came to my attention when my favourite Tumblr – “Indifferent Cats in Amateur Porn” – alerted me to the high percentage of women who were Crazy Cat Ladies before entering the industry. (Insert pussy joke here). Providing data (I don’t see any coming from Wolf or Paisley) to back up a claim for its own sake is one thing, but using that statistic to critique sex work as an automatically negative outcome of that abuse? I call shenanigans.
Those who investigate or make assumptions, concerning the childhoods of marginalised groups – be they pornographers, kinksters or queer folk – are renowned for already knowing what they want to hear. Namely that no woman in her “right mind” would do that, so we have to discover what made her that way. That’s why there is little call to sift through the childhoods of lawyers and deep sea fishermen. Arguing that sex work is inherently symptomatic of pain leaves those with abuse-free childhoods wondering what induced them into such a terrible career. Was it their parents’ divorce? Were they bitten by an angry stripper as a youth?
Not everyone will thrive in sex work, whether they were abused or not, but discrediting a woman’s choices with one piece of information only stigmatises abuse. I believe that survivors have a right to mature into their own sexual identity and it’s not our call to say which form it should take in the interest of psychological health. Claiming that a sex worker was “probably molested” is familiar to us under the guise of misplaced concerns and punch lines. Take, for example, these Twitter gems:
Presenting rape as a fundamental element to what made a porn star “that way” discourages everyone, not just the woman in the Paisley statement, from discussing the nuances of life after abuse. When survivors contemplate “coming out” they make a decision that concerns far more than “am I ready to make this step?” Comments like the above are examples of the prejudices they will be exposed to when a Wolf in sheep’s clothing refuses to see their lives through anything other than a broken lens. Abused as a child? Want a tattoo? Prepare to discuss whether or not it’s an integral part of “reclaiming your body” or a form of self-harm. And no, you’re not allowed to just think tattoos are awesome. When a woman deviates from what’s “normal” it’s comforting to dismiss her with psychopathology. Charlotte Shane at Tits and Sass responded to those who regard all sex worker past as prologue with this: “Bottom line: Not all sex workers were molested or beaten or criminally mistreated while growing up. Some of them were, just like some doctors and some teachers and some plumbers were.” In other words, the abuser is always the problem. Not the vocation. If someone feels compelled to join an industry to which they aren’t suited, we should ensure that our society isn’t closing off other opportunities with society’s habit of using a sex worker’s resume as a weapon against their reputation. If Wolf and the Paisley Branch want to derive some significance from shaky studies that suggest more abused women sell sexual services than frozen bananas, they need to recognise the women who can reconcile consensual sex with an abusive past. Even if that consent is on camera. Not doing so is just as damaging as denying that some sex workers identify a negative link between their job and their history of abuse.
Some performers will have to stop working because their past catches up with them. Only those women can say if it was their job that was triggering bad memories or something as mundane as a perfume that blindsided them as they waited for a bus. When it comes to triggers, no one gets to choose what penetrates them. There will also always be people for whom sexual spaces, commercial or otherwise, are sanctuaries. No job application should be motivated by a therapeutic need, but it’s a bonus when a community benefits a person’s life. Although she doesn’t work in porn, xoJane’s Emily McCombs has written about enjoying taboo sex in a life after sexual trauma. Emily writes that “A lot of factors go into the creation of a fetish” and one of those for her is “almost certainly trauma”. For her, this element doesn’t make it a foregone conclusion that controversial sex is non-consensual and damaging.
When it comes to the anonymous woman described by the Paisley Branch, the finer points regarding how she feels her experiences inform her choices is not an insight we’ll gain from talking over her. I’m going to wager that explicit imagery doesn’t, as Wolf suspects, “Desensitise people to the humanness” of sex workers. However, we do diminish a woman’s humanity when we demand, regardless of how she perceives things, that the price of her past must be her future.
Great article – thanks for keeping the English spellings in there – I always think that’s cool.
One of the main reasons I don’t particularly like psychology is because it’s too often used as a weapon.
If an abused kid grows up to be a televangelist then someone will point at that as the reason for it.
What job is an abused kid supposed to do? Certainly not President of the United States … I remember it was said that Bill Clinton became a politician out of a need to please everyone because of his alcoholic father.
“Damn shame, she was raped by her father as a child and now she rapes the environment as the CEO for an oil company – THAT’S THE REASON FOR IT YOU KNOW!!!”
😀
There’s really no “proper” job for an abused kid to grow up and participate in.
The Pop-Psyche hoss-sh*t can go both way; the Neofeministas are clearly obsessed with the negative aspects of sex … that HAS to be because of childhood sexual abuse! They assume that most or all women hjave been abused, which is the common pattern of projecting ones own experience onto the world.
My Lady actually IS a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and the thing about the Neofeministas that I resent the most is the degree to which they trivialize her experience. Damnit, most families doe NOT abuse their daughters. Abuse is not a secret plague that would justify handing over control of society to a bunch of over pampered little daddy’s darlings who got out in the real world and suffered shock and outrage that people thought that daddy’s opinion of them was so much pigswill.
I never abused my daughters but I abused the hell out of their boyfriends! 😀
Good fun … good fun! It’s so easy to engrave a pellet of terror on a 16 year old boys mind that you know … will make him never forget you!!
Sadly, a few of my girlfriend’s Dads engraved some of those terror pellets inot my brain – and I’m still traumatized by them!! 🙁
Thank you for reading! I hadn’t heard that aspect of Clinton commentary before. Certainly very interesting.
It’s interesting how often cod psychology is used to ‘explain’ fetishes, too.
Once you leave out really serious forms of sexual abuse (i.e. violent rape) you realize that only the most coddled upper class women will have gone through their lives without _any_ form of sexual abuse. This runs the gamut from the immediate and visceral grope on a subway, to the slow drip, drip, drip of constant sexual comments in grade school. I remember taking a chemistry class in High School which had only one female student, and occasionally she would say, “I hate being the only girl in this class,” because of the constant innuendo sent her way by the other, male students in the class. I don’t know how much it really bothered her, but I thought it was interesting that she commented on it. (I tended not to fit in with the group, and be the silent guy in the class who just wanted to get a good grade in chemistry.)
What this means is that if you are willing to call any sexual abuse serious sexual abuse you will almost always find it. Besides, I think we shouldn’t diminish this kind of sexual abuse anyway, because different women have different levels of sensitivity to things and different expectations about life. In institutions where serious violence is often part of day to day life for many students, I don’t think that milder behavior will be “solved.”
I also wonder how successful a call girl can be with a self-harm habit and an arm covered with fresh scars. Even something as relatively benign as a pack a day cigarette habit can affect earning potential in a career where you have to get close to another person.
My take-away: yeah, what sort of messed up childhood DOES make someone want to be come a lawyer?!
No, I’m kidding. Seriously, I thought this was a great article, particularly in light of the court case that was just recently finished in Texas. I also wonder if part of the “what made her like that,” mentality about sex work is to do with the assumption that women can’t ever really make their own decisions about their lives. We’re constantly being seen as having to be rescued from ourselves, whether it’s with regards to prostitution or abortion or choosing to have a job…it’s always assumed we make decisions because we either have no other choice, or are denying our “biological” desire to be home-makers.
My maman worked very briefly as a paralegal back in the day at some boutique law firm here in Chicago. She used to talk about the senior partner and how he would come in everyday cursing and screaming at people from the time he stepped off the elevator. Talk about a fucked up individual! Let’s look into his past to see what made him such an unpleasant asshole.
I will say though, if I had my life to live over again, I think I might choose criminal defense attorney as a career. As long as I could choose my clients, I think I might like it.
Aye, there’s the rub.
I’ve noticed the Rahuma group on Twitter meddling dodgy mental health and child abuse statistics as ‘evidence’ that decriminalisation is necessary.
Some have wondered if mental health charities have been alerted to this report by the Paisley Group.
Thank you for writing this Sarah, and Maggie for hosting it.
My usual response to the self-esteem accusation – people who tell me they have too much self-esteem to make the choices I did – is ‘Yes, but I have so much self-esteem, my work choices do not affect how I think of myself!’ Not all of them get it, but the ones who do, it shuts them up for sure.
“Too much self-esteem” … I’m betting that if you looked into all the “choices” they’ve made in their entire life you’d find PLENTY of examples that didn’t quite justify their little claims.
I don’t like highfalutin’ people.
*Amazing* I will be adding this to my arsenal when the next shit weasel uses armchair psychology to dismiss my life away
A heavy smoker would certainly put me off. I absolutely hate the smell of cigarette smoke (I don’t mind marijuana smoke, though). A light smoker probably wouldn’t set this off, unless her last cigarette was really recent.
I actually learned to love the smell of cigarette smoke because my lovely grandmother had quite a serious habit. However, I think that this is an atypical reaction.
Thank you so much for this, as you probably know from the blog there are things in my past that some would say explain why I am a sex worker and a BDSM sub. The reductive and patronising idea that I am nothing more than the abuse that happened to me is insulting in the extreme. You refute it wonderfully .
Thanks as ever for your support, Jemima. And you’re absolutely dead on about how BDSM is tarred with this same prejudiced brush.
Ms Grant does seem to have been quite selective in the bits that she chose to include in her response to the consultation. This used to be called the “crime of Procrustes”, but is more usually called “Policy based Evidence” today.
Yesssss! Thank you Sarah Woolley. This is the best ally writing I’ve read. Succinct, poignant, clever and dripping w/ LOGIC. (The antidote to moral panic) YAYYYYYY!
This comment made my day. Thank you! Ally writing is tricky, which is why I try to commit a lot of the word count to sex worker sources like the great Charlotte Shane.
Big thank you to everyone who has read and shared this piece. The issue meant a great deal to me and it’s great to have a safe space to publish writing on the matter.
The “abusive childhood leads to taking up sex work” narrative is particularly difficult to get out of people’s heads. I read Charlotte Shane’s piece just this week for the first time and yours is a great addition to the subject.
On another note: “the high percentage of women who were Crazy Cat Ladies before entering the industry” – Priceless.
Thanks to you both, Sarah and Maggie, for writing and publishing this piece.
great writing Sarah!
And I can’t agree more with this statement: “I believe that survivors have a right to mature into their own sexual identity and it’s not our call to say which form it should take in the interest of psychological health.”
That’s exactly what I was thinking. To acknowledge that differerent people can have different fantasies and different sexual outcomes. (maybe associated with previous sexual abuse), is difficult for many folks.
I personally hate claims as: ‘It must be due to…., Probably because….,She couldn’t have felt like that…., She must have gone trough…..
I mean, what founding do these claims have anyway. Based on egocentric and shallow information. How do others know what an individual thinks and experiences? We can’t know! The only valid source of information we have, is that the information that comes from the individual him/herself. And if we’re going to distort this information, based on our own thoughts, then there are no valid cources to base our assumtions on.
What bothers me most about the arrogant, ignorant claim about abused sex workers is that the ones who actually have been abused, will always be pinned down to this negative experience. Society doesn’t allow them to move on from their trauma, but makes them question their choices and sexual preferences in light of the abuse, over and over again. They can never be free of it, exept if they adjust their choices to fit other’s expectations and deny themselves in the process. It’s already annoying and sometimes hurtful for me, and I haven’t been abused- so how hard must it be for someone to whom it actually applies? This article explains it in a great way, thank you.
“Were they bitten by an angry stripper as a youth?” Stripper origin story – or how Spider-Man could have been very different! lol
I think the key with your article – that we can’t get into the mindsets of those who go into sex work is very similar to what I was wrestling with in my post about polygamy. http://server.ericsbinaryworld.com/blog/2013/04/16/maybe-the-slippery-slope-is-a-good-thing-slate-has-an-interesting-call-for-legalizing-polygamy/
Both are topics where we tend to assume we know what happened to the people taking part. Both have some elements of truth. Are there some sex workers who were abused as children? Yes. Are there some polygamists who are doing it for the “wrong” reasons? Yes. Are there some people doing both of these because they are fully functional adults who are doing what they want to do? Yes. The problem is, we tend not to believe the answer to that last one because it’s so foreign to our way of thinking.
I totally agree with you 🙂
[…] source: http://lovebound.org/savioursyndrome.html comment on the article written by Sarah Woolley: http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/guest-columnist-sarah-woolley/ […]
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Thank you! I do get awfully tired of coming across comments like, “Hey, let these glassy eyed incest survivors call themselves ‘stars’ if they want to. What other joy do they have in life?”
I’m neither a sex worker nor an incest survivor, but that’s insulting to both, and to anybody who loves someone who is either. Stop assuming that one is the other, and stop being so damned dismissive of any who actually are both. She’s got a mind and a heart too, you know.
So again, thanks to both Maggie and to Sarah.
[…] women”, passive and childlike creatures suffering from “false consciousness” due to childhood trauma or drug abuse; when we insist that we endured no such trauma we are said to be lying, delusional or […]