Lecture 16 - prostitution Flashcards
What is prostitution primarily considered to be?
An institution of hierarchical gender relations.
* Prostitution is analogous to sex trafficking or sex slavery
Prostitution is viewed as a reflection of gender inequality.
How is prostitution analogous to other forms of exploitation?
Similar to sex trafficking or sex slavery
Both involve the exploitation of individuals, often within a gendered context.
What is sex work bound by?
Moral issues
* We are interested in the mechanisms that are put in place to create this deviant behaviour.
This includes societal perceptions and legal frameworks that shape views on sex work.
What can changing society’s view on sex work to a labour problem do?
Shift the labels associated with sex work
This could lead to a re-evaluation of the normalization of certain behaviours.
Prostitution is a labour problem?
- If we can change society to treat this as a labour problem then a lot of the labels associated with this sex work will shift
- If certain behaviours can become legalized by law, then we can have a conversation about if it’s normal or not.
- Sex work has a lot of stigma and labels attached to it because of the laws and rules put in place.
- Different regulations shape how a behaviour is seen by society.
What factors shape how a behaviour is perceived by society?
Different regulations
The legal and social context can significantly alter perceptions of sexual behaviours.
How is sex typically identified in society?
By the labels ‘male’ or ‘female’ assigned at birth
* Most often identified based on the external appearances of genitalia and, to a lesser extent, chromosomes.
* There is a lot of ambiguity that depends on social structures and laws
This identification is often based on physical appearances and biological factors.
What is gender defined as?
A social construct
* A culture organizes people and labels characteristics and visual cues into identities of “man,” “woman,” and sometimes non-binary” and/or other additional gender categories
* These ideas are time and culture-dependent.
* Women = want to procreate, naturally a mother
Gender is shaped by cultural norms and expectations.
What does gender identity dominate?
All other social identities
It influences how individuals interact within society.
What norms are attached to the categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’?
Specific symbolic traits and behaviours
These norms guide societal expectations of gender roles.
Gender as a master status?
- it is a master status because we don’t question it most of the time.
- In most cultures, individuals are routinely identified and classified into “man” or “woman” based on perceptions of physical appearances
● Specific norms are attached to “man” and “woman” categories → based on symbolic traits
● Behaviours are constantly judged as “masculine” or “feminine” in all social interactions
● Gender identity dominates all our other social identities and determines our general position within society
● Gender identity impact our daily interactions with all the members of society
Our gender represents something that people can’t actually see and every day we need to show this. Represent our gender
● Norms about gender are reinforced through cultural messages in advertising, media, and even our daily language.
Society gives us scripts of how we should align with our gender
Gender and deviance
● Dominant norms dictate what being a “man” and being a “woman” entail.
● Gender identity can sometimes become less about how we feel and more about how dominant social stereotypes define our behaviours and appearances.
● Gender systems typically identify certain types of people as “normal” and others as “deviant”
What can sex be a source of?
- Pleasure
- Intimacy
- Power and control
- Love
- Casual experiences
- Family formation
- Reproduction - means to start a family
- Can be seen as sinful, romantic and adventurous
Sex can have diverse meanings and implications across different contexts.
What is Alfred Kinsey’s view on sex
● “The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform”
* wanted to create encyclopedia for sex behaviours
What is sexual identity?
An individual’s self-identification of their romantic, sexual, emotional, intellectual, and/or spiritual attraction to others based on the ways a culture organizes people and labels characteristics and visual cues into socially constructed identities
* Ex. Lesbian, gay, heterosexual, bisexual, transgender, queer
* Sexual identity is socially constructed
* It is dependent on culture, is temporally relative, and is ever-changing.
It is organized by cultural labels and characteristics.
How is sexual identity characterized?
Socially constructed and ever-changing
It is influenced by cultural contexts and historical developments.
Which era normalized same-sex relationships between men in Greece?
The era of pederasty
This was a socially accepted practice that included mentorship and companionship.
What did Adrienne Rich propose about heterosexuality?
Compulsory heterosexuality
She argued that heterosexuality is imposed on women, suggesting a natural attraction to women.
What is the lesbian continuum?
The realization that lesbianism encompasses more than just sexuality
It includes aspects like comradeship and compassion.
Sexual beaviour and sexual identity?
Relationship between sexual behaviours and sexual identity is complex: It has been complex all through history. Our sexual behaviour is attached to sexual behaviours and it attached to social construction.
Sex acts
Sex acts between two people of the same sex date back to the earliest evidence of human existence → paintings show us this.
- The idea of tieing them to sexual identies as gay and lesbian is new
Identity labels
Today’s identity labels such as “gay” or “lesbian” are very recent developments.
* Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) literature portrays both love and marital relationships between men in Fujian noting that this southeastern area of China → absolutely acceptable and sanctioned by the state
* Song Dynasty (960–1279) also demonstrate support for same-sex sexuality between men: “All the gentlemen and officials esteemed it.(Neill 2011:247)”.
What are some mechanisms of repression against lesbian sexuality?
- Death penalty
- Rape
- Clitoridectomy
- Hysterectomy
- Genital mutilation
- Incest
- Child marriage
- Sex work
- Systematized infanticide
These mechanisms reflect societal violence against non-heteronormative identities.
What does Alfred Kinsey’s research suggest about sexual orientation?
Sexuality exists on a spectrum
He found that heterosexuality and homosexuality are not strictly defined categories.
What trend was observed in attitudes toward non-heterosexuality from the early 2000s to 2019?
A shift from a spectrum of behaviours to a more binary view
This reflects changes in societal acceptance and identity presentation.
What is a significant gender gap in attitudes toward LGBTQ individuals?
Heterosexual men are more prejudiced than heterosexual women
This gap highlights differing social perceptions and biases.
What role does fear of sexual advances play in attitudes towards non-heterosexuality?
Fear of being perceived as gay
This contributes to the stigmatization of LGBTQ individuals.
What does Victorian True Love emphasize?
Purity and procreation over eroticism
In this era, sexuality was not openly discussed.
What was the impact of the growth of the consumer economy in the 19th century?
It transformed the human body into a means of consumption and pleasure
This shift allowed for new markets for erotic experiences.
What did Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s work introduce?
Identities like ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’
His work contributed to the medicalization of sexual identities.
Greek and Gay
- boy-boy was totally normalized
- In Greece sexual relationships between men were commonly depicted in literature, art, and poetry.
- Greeks celebrated a social system that contemporary scholars have describe as “pederasty” (derived from Greek meaning “boy-love”)
- Mutual loving relationships between adult men and teenage boys were socially sanctioned and normalized
- The sexual nature of these mentorships was expected to end when the boy reached manhood and married (although the older man and his protégé would remain intellectual companions
- No identity label, they eventually had wifes.
Adrienne Rich: Compulsory Heterosexuality
- Radical Feminist
- Compulsory heterosexuality – the idea that heterosexuality is the only normative/viable practice (all the women in the world are naturally lesbian and that heterosexuality was actually imposed on us - forced to like men)
- Women are the earliest sources of emotional caring and physical nurture for both female and male children (our first model of intimacy is with a women so wouldnt it be our first attraction to women).
- Proposition: the search for love and tenderness in both sexes originally lead toward women;
- We have a model of intimacy and care but why is everything based on us having to reproduce. Why does it have to be conflated?
- Reproduction does not justify everything so easy.
Lesbian existence and continuum
- The lesbian existence – A broad spectrum of women’s relationships with other women
- The lesbian continuum – the realization that lesbianism is about more than just sexuality. It also includes erotica, comradeship, compassion, etc.
- This type of existence and continuum needs to be dug out of society.
- No role models for female-female relationships, so this is not normalized
Hetero-normative mechanisms of compulsion
= Physical force
Death penalty for lesbian sexuality
● Wife beating
● Rape
● Clitoridectom
● Hysterectom
● Genitalmutilation
● Incest
● Child marriage
● Harrems
● Sex work
● Systematized infanticide;
● Seizure of children from lesbian mothers by the courts
Hetero-normative mechanisms of compulsion
- Control of consciousness
- Ideals of heterosexual romance through culture
● Sex-role stereotyping in work
● Pornographic depictions of women having pleasure in violent and humiliating sex
● “Feminine dress codes”
● Disruption of women’s creative aspiration
● Great silence about lesbian existence and experience through out the history (no role models to look at as they were all suppressed.
Alfred Kinsey
- 37% of males had homosexual physical contact to the point of orgasm at least once.
- Between 2 – 6% of unmarried females are exclusively homosexual between the ages of twenty and thirty-five.
- “ Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts to into separated pigeon-holes.
The living world is a continuum” (Kinsey et al., 1948, pp.199-200) - Sexual activities with same sex individuals by presumed heterosexuals was quite common
- Heterosexuality and homosexuality are not separate, clearly demarcated categories but a spectrum (scale of 6)
- Self-definition and behaviour are not always perfectly matching
- Binary definitions are a human invention → forcing us into pigeonholes
Exploring with same sex?
- For straight men, the capacity to explore is reduced.
- Straight women are less opposed to it. probably because men like watching women have sex with other women
- bisexual - Even if you have a variety to your sexual behaviours, you still make decisions that lean towards one.
Attitudes towards non-heterosexuality
47% of the country accepts - general acceptance
* Prejudice varies
* The target of prejudice (who is being stigmatized)
* The respondents’ characteristics (who is doing the stigmatizing)
* intersections of gender and sexual identity
Attitudes toward non- heterosexuality
● Heterosexual men are significantly more prejudiced toward “homosexuals” when
compared to heterosexual women
● Heterosexual men have more negative attitudes toward “gays” and more positive
attitudes toward “lesbians,” while heterosexual women report similar attitudes toward “gays” and “lesbians”
● Heterosexual men are much more likely than heterosexual women to agree with negative stereotypes about “bisexuals
●Heterosexual men (compared to heterosexual women) report higher levels of hostility toward “transgender” individuals
● Heterosexual men (compared to heterosexual women) are more violent toward trans women than they are toward trans men
Explanations for “gender gap” in attitudes toward LGBTQ individuals
● Association of HIV and AIDS with men who have sex with men – disease and contemination
● Blame bisexual men for transmission of HIV to straight people
● Perceive all LGBTQ people as “vectors” of disease
Fear of sexual advances
- Fear sexual advances from gay, bisexual, trans, and queer men because they fear being thought of as “gay”
- Worry that they may send out a “gay vibe” that threatens their masculinity
Gender nonconformity prejudice
● Strict in their own gender role expressions
● Desire high levels of conformity to strict gender roles for all
● Condemnatory of those who they perceive as gender-role violators
● Much more leniency with women - men enjoy it - Enjoy eroticization of lesbian and bisexual women in pornography and other media
● Sexually titillated by bisexual women because not only will they kiss girls, but they may also kiss guys
Heterosexism and sexism
● Hold traditional perspectives about relationships between genders
● Believe all relationships should be heterosexual and between cisgender couples
Victorian True Love - 19th century
● Lust- dangerous, primitive, dirty
● True Womanhood – pure
● True Manhood -trying to be pure
● True Love = proper procreation
● People as procreators,NOT as erotic beings
19th century – new pleasure ethic
● Growth of consumer economy → becoming a consumer
● Human body transforms from an instrument of work to means of consumption and pleasure
● New markets for erotic experiences (books and newspapers,theatre, plays,bars,bath houses)
- Brings the idea of the pleasure of the body, not just to procreate but to enjoy
- Connect to the physical experiences
Modern medicine
Psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing
Psychopathia sexualis (1886–1901)
* “Hetero-sexual”-erotic feelings to a different sex
* “Homo-sexual”-erotic feelings to the same sex
* “Psycho-sexual hermaphroditism”- impulses towards both sexes
* Before this era, we did not have these identities.
