This essay first appeared in Cliterati on April 13th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.
Nearly every Western society has a long tradition of viewing sex as something “dirty” and “demeaning”; the idea of punishment is inextricably bound up with the concept of “correction”, so buried in the misandrist rhetoric spouted by prohibitionists is the notion that if Big Nanny just spanks men hard enough and often enough, they won’t have those dirty thoughts any more. The underlying pretext of punishing men for male sexuality, and restricting them from enjoying same, is not to hurt them but rather to “help” them by making them more like (asexual, idealized) women. To be sure, “fallen” women are to be “helped” as well wherever possible, but when it happens it’s merely a happy byproduct of the campaign to “improve” men; those women who refuse to be “saved” and to dutifully recite the feminist catechism thereafter will be thrown under the bus without the slightest hesitation. While this motive is obvious in most Christian prohibitionism, it’s often less so in the feminist variety; that is not, however, the case in Katha Pollitt’s remarkably-transparent jeremiad in The Nation, whose lede included the feminist shibboleth “male privilege.” But rather than quote from Pollitt’s polemic itself, let’s instead look at Elizabeth Nolan Brown’s excellent criticism of it in Reason:
…Pollitt is upset about what she perceives as widespread leftist support for legalized prostitution. This is, in itself, a strange perception…I am far from alone in noticing a recent surge in anti–sex work passion among progressives. But more problematic/annoying are the reasons Pollitt gives for criminalizing prostitution, reasons which turn on an unsavory belief that restricting liberty is justified if it leads people to better (read: more progressive) views…Giving sex workers more rights…would also mean giving johns less punishment—a point which Pollitt expects women to find scary. Have you thought about the fact that men you know might visit prostitutes, young ladies? “This faceless man could be anyone: your colleague, your boyfriend, your father, your husband…When feminists argue that sex work should be normalized…they accept male privilege they would attack in any other area…Maybe men would be better partners, in bed and out of it, if they couldn’t purchase that fantasy,” Pollitt [writes]…