Chapter 7 - Pornography and the Sex Trade Flashcards
Sex Trade
adults (19+) who exchange sexual services for money which “necessarily, but not exclusively, include direct physical, sexual contact with clients…”
includes street workers, escorts, entertainment workers, brothel workers, erotic masseurs, BDSM practitioners, etc.
Their conditions vary.
Most data is based on criminal charges of street workers even though they are 10-20% of all sex workers in Canada. (Kendall, p. 135)
Advocates: One law against all forms of prostitution does not address the multiple problems facing sex workers.
Cecilia Benoit, Understanding Sex Work (2015)
Selected findings:
60-80% of indoor workers never experience any work-related violence
24% of sex trade workers are attacked on the job
“Working in the sex industry becomes a rational option with identifiable benefits for those who do not have the money, education, privilege, or social support systems in place to support themselves otherwise.”
Implications?
Human Trafficking
“The 3rd largest money-making enterprise in the world, after drugs and weapons, is the traffic in people” (Malarek cited in Kendall, 3rd ed, p. 153)
Many women are exploited as they seek to migrate from persecution, dire poverty, hopelessness, and are vulnerable to recruitment and promise of work.
The scale of operations can be large, medium, or small.
human trafficking is often conflated with sex work
Prositution
The commercial exchange of sexual services between consenting adults is not illegal and never has been illegal.
But activities related to it are illegal.
eg. communicating in public for purposes of buy or selling sex; involvement in the procuring of sexual services contradictions
“It is almost impossible to engage in the trade without breaking the law.” (Kendall, 133)
exacerbates the risk for sex workers
Chief Justice McLachlin
The prohibitions at issue do not merely impose conditions on how prostitutes operate. They go a critical step further, by imposing dangerous conditions on prostitution; they prevent people engaged in a risky—but legal—activity from taking steps to protect themselves from the risk.
Current Legislation
McLaughlin gave the federal government one year to write new laws
But on 4 June 2014, Peter MacKay, Minister of Justice, introduced legislation to amend the Criminal Code
Bill C-36, “Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act”
It undid the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Canada v Bedford
criminalizing sex work in Canada
Protection Of Communities And Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA)
Provision 213: Communication
Stopping or impeding traffic in order to offer, provide or obtain sexual services for consideration and communicating for the purpose of offering or providing sexual services for consideration in a public place, or in any place open to public view, that is or is next to a place where persons under the age of 18 can reasonably be expected to be present.
Provision 213: Communication
Increases isolation and dangerous working conditions for street-based sex workers
street-based sex workers will abandon established tactics such as working in pairs, soliciting in familiar, well-lit, populated areas, and taking the time to carefully assess a client prior to entering a vehicle
They will shift sex work areas to industrial zones
Provision 286.2: Material Benefit from Sexual Services
Everyone who receives a material benefit (profit) knowing it was derived from the purchase of sexual services is liable to imprisonment; s. 286.2(3): Living with a sex worker, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, is presumed to be proof of such a benefit; s. 286.2(4) & (5): If a person receiving benefits is in a “legitimate” (i.e., family or intimate) relationship with or provides services at fair market value to the sex worker, exceptions may apply, but not if that person uses threats or violence, abuses a position of power or trust, provides intoxicants, or receives benefits in a “commercial enterprise” to sell sexual services.
“Most sex workers in all areas of sex work are independent of pimps and likely have never interacted with them.” (POWER 2012, cited in Benoit & Shumka 2015)
Legitimate 3rd parties include managers, agency owners, security personnel, drivers, phone girls, booking agents, website operators, and other sex workers
They can play a pivotal role in the health, safety, and security of a sex workers.
eg. screening of clients’ personal information, zero-tolerance policies for clients engaging in inappropriate behaviour, reliance on bad date lists, and use of security persons
Legal Models Governing Sex Work
Criminalization: (a) Prohibition, eg. US (except Nevada), 30 nations in Africa, 25 in Asia, 20 in Europe
Partial criminalization: selling sexual services is legal, but it is illegal to buy them; criminalization of related activities, eg. Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada
Legalization: sex work is regulated, eg. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Nevada
Decriminalization: labour rights are recognized and the sex industry is regulated, eg. New Zealand
The Debate over Decriminalization - PROS:
Pros: “Serving men sexually is one of the leading forms of employment and survival for women on the planet” (Ward & Edelstein cited in Kendall, 130)
It is work, like any other, that requires protection for the workers.
US research: minimal violence occurs in regulated sex work environments (Benoit & Shumka 2015)
New Zealand research: trafficking of women, drug abuse, and increased rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) do not result from decriminalization of sex work.
The Debate over Decriminalization - CONS:
Sex work is an extreme, flagrant form of abuse of women, and is always exploitative.
Can’t be separated from the drug trade, trafficking, pornography, child abuse.
Legalization will not help the women who are drug addicts, abused, and enslaved
It will legitimize pimps and sex traffickers
Social morality arguments
Advocates’ Recommendation
“Decriminalization is a first and necessary step to address the rights and safety of people who sell or trade sex, particularly those who are overpoliced and underprotected. However, decriminalization is not enough on its own.
Functionalist
sex work is a criminal activity = deviance
a breakdown in society’s function to socialize everyone to conform to norms
but it also has its own functionality that may be tolerated
Conflict Theory
“choice” of sex work arises from poverty and sexism
treat the root causes
and regulate sex work like any other labour issue
sex work is determined by the inequities btw men with power and women without power
change the male-led infrastructure that preys on women, not the women and what they must do to get by
Interactionism
explores the experience of sex work and factors involved, eg. the meaning of prostitute as a label; stigma
How this is negotiated by different kinds of sex workers
Some research gives voice to the workers (and to male clients)
Feminism
Supporters:
Sex work is legitimate work that requires regulation and protection for workers.
Canadian law increases the dangers for sex workers and should be repealed.
Race, ethnicity, social class, age differences have to be recognized.
Have to distinguish btw “traffic in persons and forced prostitution” and “respect for the self-determination of adults who are voluntarily engaged in prostitution” (cited in Kendall, p. 145)
Fix the root cause of inequality problems of public health, violence, racism, esp for the most dangerous kind of sex work
Pornography
obscenity = materials generally regarded as offensive according to accepted standards of decency
Criminal Code, s 163 = undue exploitation of sex, or of sex together with crime, horror, cruelty, or violence
erotica = materials that depict consensual sexual activities that are sought by and pleasurable to all parties involved (Kendall, 146)
What divides obscenity from erotica?
Pornography Debate Pro
the industry is already so large, it is impossible to shut down
you cannot censor use of the internet without curtailing public use of the internet in general
pornography can be separated from exploitation of women and children by implementation of the Criminal Code
most of it is harmless
It is a form of sexual freedom
Pornography Debate Con
pornography cannot be separated from the exploitation of women and children
pornography is exploitative by definition
pornography is increasingly violent: this normalization has to be stopped
social morality arguments
Prostitution
The sale of sexual services (of ones self or another) for money or goods and without emotional attachment.
May include pornography, live sex shows, international sexual slavery, and prostitution.
It is estimated that 80-90% are women and girls world’s oldest profession (4000 years neither completely accepted nor condemned)
History of Prosetution
Christian leaders St. Augustine and St. Thomas argued that prostitution was evil, but encouraged tolerance towards it
Served as a basic need and if unmet, would result in greater harm than prostitution.
16th century Europe thought that it should be eliminated on moral grounds
Prostitution debate
Some argue that prostitution is a valid expression of female sexuality outside of marriage and should be seen as a legitimate career choice.
Others see prostitution as rooted in global gender inequality.
Dan Allman - prostitution among indigenous people did not exist until Europeans began to settle here
The Global Sex Industry
3 decades - industrialization, normalization and globalization f prostitution.
Normalized with no legal impediments to promote it as a commodity it is normalized and seen as entertainment
Globalization of prostitution refers to the process by which the sex industry is becoming increasingly global in scope (conglomerates)
Globally Sex Industry
There has been an increase in Canada of migrant often trafficked sex workers - Soviet Union, eastern and Central Europe as “Natashas” - you can buy a woman for $10,000 and make your money back in one week.
Estimated that 2.45 billion people were trafficked resulting in $31.6 billion in profit
Trafficking as a crime
Shall mean the recruitment transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons, bu ,exams of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of
Trafficking in persons
power, or of a position of vulnerability, person receiving payment or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include at a minimum the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
Trafficking in Canada
The demand for prostitution is greater in areas were military congregated for extended periods of time in the military or on business far from home
Natural disasters or wars saw many displaced or marginalized women taken to or drawn to these areas to make a living.
60 incidents in 2011, 54 in 2012.
Victims
Issues of PTSD, shame and stigma
Sex tourism
Luminal space - betwixt and between in socially condoned marginality, neither bound by the mores of home nor by the host community Women are getting involved in this - white women exploit poor black men Patriarchal view of power has all but made invisible the inequalities that exist in this relationship based on race, class and gender.
Prostitution in Canada
It’s not illegal in Canada
Sections 210-214of the criminal code do prohibit many transactions that are quite necessary to prostitution, particularly the safer sale of services.
Section 213
Prohibits the selling of sexual services
Section212
Prohibits lining of the avails of prostitution - procuring or soliciting a person to exchange sexual services for money
Section 210
Being involved in a common bowdy house - providing direction to or driving someone to a bawdy house
Section 214
Buying sexual services from someone under the age of 18 years old.
Bristish COlumbia and Ontario
Issue of safety, citing constitutional concerns
They are not convicted of offences but fines - max penalty is $2,000 or 6 months in jail.
Federal Laws of Prositution in Canada make it almost impossible to engage in sex work:
Lowman - argues that this fact adds to the already existing moral political marginalization that sex trade workers endure
Contributes to legal structures that revictimize, prostitution becomes part of an illicit market, alienates workers from the protective services of police
Bad Tricks,Bad Dates
Various organizations in canada publish Bad Data Sheet was the alliance for Safety of Prostitutes
Most bad dates are physical sexual assaults,followed by robbery and in a quarter of the cases a weapon.
Of 80 men surveyed only 6.5% didn’t violently victimize
Caucasian males perceived to be in their 20s or 30s.
CHaracteristics of Prostitution in Canada: Five tiers of Prositution
Escorts - top tier - have years of formal education - often dress conservatively so that they do not call undue attention to themselves
Pimps, conceive and drivers can also receive a percentage of the sex workers fees
Ranging from escorts to those exchanging sex for drugs in crack houses
Street based sex work
2/3 experience violent behaviour
Escort work is particularly difficult to police
Windsor escorts and agency receptionists are able to work from home
Escorts are licensed
Many escorts like to maintain that their work does not involve sex services
Second tier of Sex Work
Hustlers, strippers, and table dancers - supposed to pressure people to buy drinks. Not paid by the bar but negotiate sexual services with customers.
Third Tier: House Girls
Run by a madam or a pimp
Pro Arguments for legalizing sex work
Sex work is more safe indoors
Brothel would provide more legitimate work opportunities and help workers exit the trade
Con argument for sex work
Those that owned and operated brother still won’t solve any problems for those engaged in the sex trade for survival
Believed to account for 10-20% of the sex trade in large urban centres
One British study suggested that pimps exercised almost complete control over prostitutes
Exploitative- pimp prostitute relationship
Near the bottom tier are street walkers
Public-ally solicit customers and charge by the trick.
Sex Worker Legislation
In 2007, three Ontario sex workers initiated a constitutional challenge to the Criminal Code prohibiting:
s. 210 keeping or being found in a bawdy house,
s. 212(1)(j) living on the avails of prostitution, and
s. 213(1)(c) communicating in public for the purpose of prostitution
Sureme Court Rulings on Prostitution
Supreme Court of Canada (Canada v Bedford): Attorney General of Canada v. Terri Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott
20 Dec 2013, landmark unanimous decision:
These provisions DO contravene s. 7, constitutional rights to security of the person, and are not justifiable.
Critiques of Feminism
Sex work always involves the abuse of women.
Sex work is never a freely made occupational choice.
Legalization will not help the most vulnerable of sex workers.
Legalization will legitimize pimps and sex traffickers.
Violates laws ensuring gender equality.
Advocates Argue for a Holistic Plan
sex work law reform is propelled by a larger vision and by concrete measures to address discrimination and inequality in all forms, poverty, inadequate housing, inadequate healthcare, lack of access to safe transportation, inadequate access to legal aid, over-criminalization and over-incarceration, and ongoing problems with youth protection systems. It is imperative that sex workers from diverse communities and backgrounds be meaningfully engaged in all of the conversations and policy planning that affect us.”
Negative Effects of Using Facebook and Sex Trade
Pimps often troll through Facebook profiles looking for girls who appear isolated and vulnerable
message these girls, compliment them and ask them if they are interested in making easy money
alcohol, gifts, drugs and other items like expensive cars
send a friend request and get access to personal information
mental and physical coercion
Pros for Facebook and Sex Trade
Used by sex workers themselves to free themselves from the grasps of pimps
25% of sex workers receive their clientele from facebook
31% receive them from escort agencies
Extent of Prosituiton in Canada
Street prostituion almost entirely quantitative data
accounting for 10-15% of all prositution in Canada
95% of all charges for communicating
many people drift in and out of prositution while attending post secondary
Prositution Age, class, Education, Race
vast majority are 17-24 years old
BC study - average age of entry is 14
with some beginning as early as 8 or 9
Off street workers - BC study were 22-45 years old
Teenage prosituition
most enter the sex trade because they are runaways
because of sexual abuse at home
they are “throwaways”
SociaL Class and Prositution
lower income and poverty level women and men are far more likely to become sex workers
few formal skills and education enter the trade out of necessity
women are more likely to be working for an escort agency and are more likely to have college or some university
Racialization and Prosituition
Patricia Collins (1991) suggests that African American women are affected by the widespread image of the sexually promiscuous
exotic sexual commodities
this stereotype has the effect of devaluing of dehumanizing indigenous women
Indigenous women suffer from this image
Augie and Jean Leonard Elliot (1996)
“squaw hoping” white men harass and sexually assault native women
complex web of political and economic relationships whereby sexuality is conceptualized along intersecting axes of race and gender
Street Prostitution
stratified by race, appearance, income and locale
all which shape the workers daily experience
high rates of indigenous women in the sex trade can be attributed to poverty and foster care
BC study of East side - 52% identified as native
johns
mid 20s-mid 40s, white, married and gainfully employed
experiencing sexual acts that they cannot have in their marriage
many johns report childhood abuse
the use of prostitutes had men feeling a great deal of shame
20% experienced sexual abuse
Johns on criminalizing Sex Work
Most of these men don’t believe that it should be criminalized
believe that these women are normal and hard working and providing a “valuable service”
Those that disagree think that they are “victims of a sexist society”
Functionalist Perspective
the presence of a certain amount of deviance in society contributes to its overall stability
serves an important function in society
Functionalist Perspective: Kingsley Davis
certain restrictive norms governing sexual conduct in society
provides impersonal sexual gratification and does not require sexual gratification
provides a sexual outlet
provides people with the opportunity to engage in a variety of sexual practices and experiences
provides jobs for people with limited formal education and skills
Interactionist Perspective
Why do men enter the sex trade?
research suggests that male prositutes do it as a way to seek out a rite of passage from boyhood to manhood
provides people with greater autonomy and career options than they otherwise would
stigmatizing career is similar in many ways to entering any other occupation
public labelling acceptance or rejection
many qualitative studies done to help to understand the experiences of sex workers
Conflict Perspective: seek to explain how the powerful enact their moral beliefs into law
how prositution is related to patriarchy and captialism
lawmakers seek to maintain cultural dominance by criminalizing sexual conduct that they consider moral or in bad taste.
Funtionalist: Durkheim
Social control - the systematic practices developed by social groups to encourage conformity and discourage deviance over people’s behaviour - deviance clarifies social norms and helps society to maintain social control
Conflict Perspective: on Decriminalization
Victimless crime - a crime that many people believe has no real victim because it involves willing participants in an economic exchange.
the profession itself is not abusive, it’s the illegality
Maxist Feminist and Radical Feminist
women become prostitutes because of structural facors such as economic inequality and patriarchy - fostering inequality between men and women
Marxist Feminist and Radical Feminist
women bodies are viewed as commodities - the sex act itself provides acknowledgement of patriarchal right
profits go to pimps, clubs and business men
Feminist Perspectives
Some argue that portraying the sex worker as a victim denies their agency
Marxist Feminists
eliminate prostitution is to reduce disparities in income levels of women and men and eliminate poverty
Radical Feminists
Believe that prositution will out eliminating patriarchy
third world and transitional feminists
view it as a practice that emerges from the intersections of races, patriarchy, imperialism, and capitalism
not necessarily problematic
sex work is about money and sex - used to make a way for themselves
Pornography
Nina Hartley fonder of Pink Ladies Club - many have framed this problems an issue historically rooted in patriarchy male oppression of women
the purpose of the female body is for profit making
some argue that pornography will always exist underground or in the mainstream until sexism is eliminated
Obscentiy
the legal terms for pornographic materials that are offensive by generally accepting standards of decency
Gonzo pornography
openly misogynisit pornography with no pretensions
The nature and extent of pornography
technology has greatly increased pornography
porn industry grosses $100 billion globally
production and distribution are on the stock exchange
some argue that it is a supply and demand
each new technology changes the meaning of pornography - regulation and censorship
brings more in that mainstream movies do
Hard core porn
is material that explicitly depicts sexual acts and or genitalia
it has been argued that pornography has more powerful influence on people than the printed word.
Soft core porn
is “suggestive” but does not depict actual intercourse
Research on Pornography
sociologist don’t agree o the extent to which pornography depicts excessive sex, violence, and domination of one person by another affects behaviour
Masculinity
Gail Dines (2010) ultra violent forms of masculinity that readily available on the internet today - emotional economy, porn is appealing - men get to have as much sex as they want.
themes in Pornography
1) all women at all times want sex from men
2) women like all sexual acts that men perform
3) any woman who does not at first realize this can be easily turned with little force
Mainstream Culture
Jensen - the normalization of cruelty toward and degradation, dehumanization of women are increasingly common place
Studies have shown a link between violent porn and increased aggressive attitudes toward women by men
Dines suggests this is too simplistic and suggest that we need to understand who it affects our culture
Porn as a Activism
Tristan Taormino - could be a political act if taken up by women as directors and producers
Michael Kimmel
men have been relatively silent on the issue of pornography
fear that speaking out will lead to questions about their masculinity
Pornography as Class Based Elitism
opposition to pornography is a form of snobbery related to maintaining that it is vulgar, trashy and lower class 50% of hotel guests order pornography
Pornography actors
Sharon Abbot found that many of the actors were well educated with post secondary
Pornography Power
Soble - ponography is not as much an expression of their power as it is an expression of their lack of power.
Racism and Pornography
Collins (1991) suggests that racism in pornography can be traced to the oppression of Black women in slavery: African women were depicted as animals and used as sex objects for the pleasure of White men.
Future of Pornography
Canada is ambivalent about pornography and other aspects of the sex industry while some argue that it could be a safety valve for some, many others believe that these goods and services can also be a “trigger” for some
Liberal view on Pornography
ponrography may offend some people but it brings harmless pleasure to others
Religious views
that to the moral values of society
