The emotional nuances of being a sex worker
May 1, 2016 1:44 PM Subscribe
"Is what we offer love? It is when our clients don’t know the difference. And, in this emotional economy, I’m not sure I know the difference either. I don’t come to Showgirls just for the money, though it might have started that way. I come to be held and hotly desired, comforted and supported. I come to be needed too."
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble
1. Sex workers don't get paid enough, seriously. I mean, I know some people, and they make okay money, and that's great, but all this emotional labor on top of the actual sex, well, my first thought on reading this was that you'd have to be making way more than the people I know make.
2. I get so depressed by straight men so often. "I can't have a feeling unless it's with someone I'm paying so that basically the emotional connection is on my terms". "I don't want to have feelings unless they're had with someone hot and younger". Also, where is the cultural space for women to be sad pandas like these guys? Nowhere, that's where. It's very sad that sad men are sad and can't have feelings unless they're paying someone, yes, that's very sad indeed. What about the women on the other side of the equation? Also, women cannot, in general, even pay some dude to hold them while they have a feeling, etc; there isn't even cultural space for that.
posted by Frowner at 2:13 PM on May 1, 2016 [74 favorites]
2. I get so depressed by straight men so often. "I can't have a feeling unless it's with someone I'm paying so that basically the emotional connection is on my terms". "I don't want to have feelings unless they're had with someone hot and younger". Also, where is the cultural space for women to be sad pandas like these guys? Nowhere, that's where. It's very sad that sad men are sad and can't have feelings unless they're paying someone, yes, that's very sad indeed. What about the women on the other side of the equation? Also, women cannot, in general, even pay some dude to hold them while they have a feeling, etc; there isn't even cultural space for that.
posted by Frowner at 2:13 PM on May 1, 2016 [74 favorites]
It's an interesting essay, and well-written. I liked her openness about the ambivalence of her feelings (as Frowner asks, " What about the women on the other side of the equation?").
I feel like I am always saying this, but I wish it was standard practice here to credit authors in posts (in this case, Antonia Crane). It's polite, and at a practical level it helps with searches and being able to find posts.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:18 PM on May 1, 2016 [9 favorites]
I feel like I am always saying this, but I wish it was standard practice here to credit authors in posts (in this case, Antonia Crane). It's polite, and at a practical level it helps with searches and being able to find posts.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:18 PM on May 1, 2016 [9 favorites]
...do I have to celebrate the tragedy she describes?No, but it's interesting that the article made you ask the question.
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 2:23 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
If given the choice between receiving the money no strings attached, and receiving the money in exchange for the services she describes rendering, would she really choose the latter? Would anyone?
Of course. She makes it clear that her needs and wants aren't solely for money. Stripping fed her ego in some ways, even as she navigated some tricky emotional and physical paths.
but all this emotional labor on top of the actual sex, well, my first thought on reading this was that you'd have to be making way more than the people I know make
Eh, pretty much every job involves aspects of emotional labor. There's no particular reason that sex work should be different, especially since people often mix sex and emotion together.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:02 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Of course. She makes it clear that her needs and wants aren't solely for money. Stripping fed her ego in some ways, even as she navigated some tricky emotional and physical paths.
but all this emotional labor on top of the actual sex, well, my first thought on reading this was that you'd have to be making way more than the people I know make
Eh, pretty much every job involves aspects of emotional labor. There's no particular reason that sex work should be different, especially since people often mix sex and emotion together.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:02 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think sex work should be legal and regulated. And I think it should be regarded in kind to abortion: undesirable as a facet of a healthy society. Theoretically unnecessary in a world where people are, somehow, I imagine in fantasy, enough for each other.
I agree that you are describing a fantasy. There are quite simply, a lot of people who are emotionally unsuited to relationships and not necessarily in a broken, dysfunctional way. I've known more than a few.
posted by happyroach at 3:29 PM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
I agree that you are describing a fantasy. There are quite simply, a lot of people who are emotionally unsuited to relationships and not necessarily in a broken, dysfunctional way. I've known more than a few.
posted by happyroach at 3:29 PM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
I think sex work should be legal and regulated. And I think it should be regarded in kind to abortion: undesirable as a facet of a healthy society.
That seems unreasonable. Abortion is a response to a problem: an unwanted pregnancy, or a wanted pregnancy which has become untenable for medical or other reasons. Reducing such occurrences (technologically, socially, economically, medically) is unequivocally good. But sex work is not wholly something that people do or patronize because of a "problem": it may be, for workers, a fulfilling form of self-expression, and for patrons, the specific sort of sexual intimacy they desire. Certainly there's lots about sex work as it exists today which means that a lot of the people involved are utterly miserable, but I don't think the fact that a lot of it is unhealthy means that the entirety of it is. There are folks who are simply not interested in emotional romantic bonds and prefer transactional sex. There are people who are monogamously bound to people who they're not sexually intimate with (e.g. asexuals or people with certain physical disabilities) and for whom transactional sex is a compromise their romantic partners are comfortable with. There are people authentically served by sex work, and people who find sex work fulfilling. There's a lot to be done to make the marketplace better for everyone involved, but I don't think making it as small as possible is, in and of itself, a good thing.
posted by jackbishop at 4:39 PM on May 1, 2016 [11 favorites]
That seems unreasonable. Abortion is a response to a problem: an unwanted pregnancy, or a wanted pregnancy which has become untenable for medical or other reasons. Reducing such occurrences (technologically, socially, economically, medically) is unequivocally good. But sex work is not wholly something that people do or patronize because of a "problem": it may be, for workers, a fulfilling form of self-expression, and for patrons, the specific sort of sexual intimacy they desire. Certainly there's lots about sex work as it exists today which means that a lot of the people involved are utterly miserable, but I don't think the fact that a lot of it is unhealthy means that the entirety of it is. There are folks who are simply not interested in emotional romantic bonds and prefer transactional sex. There are people who are monogamously bound to people who they're not sexually intimate with (e.g. asexuals or people with certain physical disabilities) and for whom transactional sex is a compromise their romantic partners are comfortable with. There are people authentically served by sex work, and people who find sex work fulfilling. There's a lot to be done to make the marketplace better for everyone involved, but I don't think making it as small as possible is, in and of itself, a good thing.
posted by jackbishop at 4:39 PM on May 1, 2016 [11 favorites]
If given the choice between receiving the money no strings attached, and receiving the money in exchange for the services she describes rendering, would she really choose the latter? Would anyone?
Everyone would rather have money no strings attached than work for it. Women have sex with weird dudes all the time without being paid for it.
posted by chrchr at 4:41 PM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Everyone would rather have money no strings attached than work for it. Women have sex with weird dudes all the time without being paid for it.
posted by chrchr at 4:41 PM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
I saw nothing but melancholy here. Is it money that makes something work? Because to extend chrchr's point, I think most sex workers are unpaid.
One thing I can relate to with the article here is that between having sex with a stranger, and fully taking on the emotional burdens of a stranger, the latter is much harder to shake off and move on from. And realistically sex work is going to involve some of each. And when I say "taking on" - it's without the training or distance of a therapist - it's being put directly into the psychodrama, with boundaries that are a lot harder to enforce if they exist at all. Add to this an employment context, which nowadays means you are measured, judged, coerced, and made to know you are totally replaceable at every juncture. These women are doing something I could not do.
posted by idiopath at 5:15 PM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
One thing I can relate to with the article here is that between having sex with a stranger, and fully taking on the emotional burdens of a stranger, the latter is much harder to shake off and move on from. And realistically sex work is going to involve some of each. And when I say "taking on" - it's without the training or distance of a therapist - it's being put directly into the psychodrama, with boundaries that are a lot harder to enforce if they exist at all. Add to this an employment context, which nowadays means you are measured, judged, coerced, and made to know you are totally replaceable at every juncture. These women are doing something I could not do.
posted by idiopath at 5:15 PM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
I read her memoir (Spent) and also heard her speak a while back at Litcrawl here in SF. She also wrote an oped for the nytimes, called "Stop Stealing from Strippers."
I guess what I'm saying is that she's an interesting writer with a fair amount to say about men, capitalism, sex work, aging, drugs (lots of 'em), labor (both emotional and unionized), AND about herself and how it's possible to be damaged and hopeful. It's in this kind of self-reflection that she stands out from the mini-genre of young women who get involved in sexwork in one way or another and write semi-memoirs / semi-anthropological field work books about their experiences. Some of these are good books with lots of interesting things to say (see, esp Whipsmart).
But I find Crane's writing more compelling than most in this genre because of this added dimension - that she's willing to discover and disclose things about herself that are difficult truths.
posted by jasper411 at 5:25 PM on May 1, 2016 [10 favorites]
I guess what I'm saying is that she's an interesting writer with a fair amount to say about men, capitalism, sex work, aging, drugs (lots of 'em), labor (both emotional and unionized), AND about herself and how it's possible to be damaged and hopeful. It's in this kind of self-reflection that she stands out from the mini-genre of young women who get involved in sexwork in one way or another and write semi-memoirs / semi-anthropological field work books about their experiences. Some of these are good books with lots of interesting things to say (see, esp Whipsmart).
But I find Crane's writing more compelling than most in this genre because of this added dimension - that she's willing to discover and disclose things about herself that are difficult truths.
posted by jasper411 at 5:25 PM on May 1, 2016 [10 favorites]
If given the choice between receiving the money no strings attached, and receiving the money in exchange for the services she describes rendering, would she really choose the latter? Would anyone?
If you think sex workers "sell their bodies," but coal miners do not, your view of labor is clouded by your moralistic view of sexuality.posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 5:27 PM on May 1, 2016 [59 favorites]
- Eric Sprankle, PsyD
I appreciate the responses everyone. I feel like I've put forward a misguided position and you've reminded me (as you often do) to redouble empathy and tone down the consternation. I need to better trust that Antonia and others who put themselves in variously risky situations emotionally, physically, psychologically and otherwise do so of their own accord which completely belongs to them.
I think the lines between abuse and empowerment are incredibly blurry and when I read the stories of sex workers it's often difficult to parse the delineations but I'll try to be more careful that my worry counts more towards solidarity and deference than the judgement I expressed above.
posted by an animate objects at 5:47 PM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
I think the lines between abuse and empowerment are incredibly blurry and when I read the stories of sex workers it's often difficult to parse the delineations but I'll try to be more careful that my worry counts more towards solidarity and deference than the judgement I expressed above.
posted by an animate objects at 5:47 PM on May 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
"If you think sex workers 'sell their bodies,' but coal miners do not, your view of labor is clouded by your moralistic view of sexuality."
I think that argument is more likely to be counterproductive than not. Which is to say, I think that there's validity in challenging the assumption that there's some profound qualitative difference -- but that, even if there is a qualitative similarity (and I think there is), it's also the case that the social context (institutionalized sexism and the very particular and profound ways in which women's bodies have been appropriated by the patriarchy) creates a very significant difference between the two examples and it's hurtful and destructive to glibly equate the two. The discussion that follows will be polarized into extreme competing claims that they are quite alike or are entirely unlike, each of which obscures important ideas and implicitly excuses some particular forms of institutionalized injustice in both cases.
In my opinion, a portion of what's involved with sex work is comparable to the kind of selling one's body involved in something like coal mining, and in that sense we shouldn't be any more or any less quick to assume that there's something intrinsically harmful about it than we are about these other forms of labor. Maybe it's not as bad as our intuition suggests, or maybe coal mining is more bad than our intuition suggests.
But, that said, sex work for women doesn't exist in a vacuum any more than did sharecropping for African-Americans in the late nineteenth century. That's the better comparison -- it's an example where this form of economic activity is the expression of an underlying social bias that a particular kind of person's body (in one case, women, in the other, black people) doesn't truly belong to themselves but is fundamentally available for the use of others. That's why sex work is so fraught in so many ways -- not that it necessarily must be on its own terms, but that its existence in the here and now of a patriarchal society ensures that it is fraught, it's structured in a way that in many respects denies that a woman's body actually belongs to herself. This creates a pitfall for many people who are opposed to the exploitation of women, in that the social context itself makes it very easy to unintentionally elide agency in ways that just reinforce the underlying social bias that it's right and proper to police women's bodies (for their own good or otherwise).
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:58 PM on May 1, 2016 [24 favorites]
I think that argument is more likely to be counterproductive than not. Which is to say, I think that there's validity in challenging the assumption that there's some profound qualitative difference -- but that, even if there is a qualitative similarity (and I think there is), it's also the case that the social context (institutionalized sexism and the very particular and profound ways in which women's bodies have been appropriated by the patriarchy) creates a very significant difference between the two examples and it's hurtful and destructive to glibly equate the two. The discussion that follows will be polarized into extreme competing claims that they are quite alike or are entirely unlike, each of which obscures important ideas and implicitly excuses some particular forms of institutionalized injustice in both cases.
In my opinion, a portion of what's involved with sex work is comparable to the kind of selling one's body involved in something like coal mining, and in that sense we shouldn't be any more or any less quick to assume that there's something intrinsically harmful about it than we are about these other forms of labor. Maybe it's not as bad as our intuition suggests, or maybe coal mining is more bad than our intuition suggests.
But, that said, sex work for women doesn't exist in a vacuum any more than did sharecropping for African-Americans in the late nineteenth century. That's the better comparison -- it's an example where this form of economic activity is the expression of an underlying social bias that a particular kind of person's body (in one case, women, in the other, black people) doesn't truly belong to themselves but is fundamentally available for the use of others. That's why sex work is so fraught in so many ways -- not that it necessarily must be on its own terms, but that its existence in the here and now of a patriarchal society ensures that it is fraught, it's structured in a way that in many respects denies that a woman's body actually belongs to herself. This creates a pitfall for many people who are opposed to the exploitation of women, in that the social context itself makes it very easy to unintentionally elide agency in ways that just reinforce the underlying social bias that it's right and proper to police women's bodies (for their own good or otherwise).
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:58 PM on May 1, 2016 [24 favorites]
Everyone would rather have money no strings attached than work for it.
The work ethic ain't dead, at least out here in BFE. Although good wages would be cool as hell.
Back on topic: too bad America hates unions, because Sex Workers Union's pension and health care plans would at least put a floor to stand on out there. I have no idea what to do about the ones that are basically slaves.
posted by ridgerunner at 8:59 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
The work ethic ain't dead, at least out here in BFE. Although good wages would be cool as hell.
Back on topic: too bad America hates unions, because Sex Workers Union's pension and health care plans would at least put a floor to stand on out there. I have no idea what to do about the ones that are basically slaves.
posted by ridgerunner at 8:59 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Frowner: I get so depressed by straight men so often. "I can't have a feeling unless it's with someone I'm paying so that basically the emotional connection is on my terms". [...] What about the women on the other side of the equation? Also, women cannot, in general, even pay some dude to hold them while they have a feeling, etc; there isn't even cultural space for that.
Paying for sex so that the emotional connection is made on his terms. That's a brilliantly stated and thought-provoking insight, Frowner. Thank you.
posted by velvet winter at 11:38 PM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
Paying for sex so that the emotional connection is made on his terms. That's a brilliantly stated and thought-provoking insight, Frowner. Thank you.
posted by velvet winter at 11:38 PM on May 1, 2016 [8 favorites]
Yes - thank you, Frowner and Ivan Fyodorovich, for articulating some of the discomforting things I guess some feel around SW... Between you, you've made it *apparent* that (and how) it's the logical conclusion of a rigid binary gender system (I guess ours, specifically).
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:01 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:01 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
And thanks stoneweaver for reminding us that reducing individual people's stories and lives in that way isn't the thing to do, always. F and IF just really elegantly described the larger dynamics. Powerful piece I think it's hard to undermine in any way.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:13 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:13 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
I just want to hop back in to say that for a couple of friends, sex work was the route out of really, really bad situations. For others, it's been merely the best out of some eh options - you can do sex work, for instance, on a schedule which lets you take care of your kids or build up another business or skill-that-will-become-a-business. I'm glad they have the option, honestly, absent fully automated luxury communism. For one of my friends, having a job where you manage your own time/supplies/boundaries/location has really let her exercise some skills that she didn't have scope for in her previous lousy, hyper-controlled employment, too, and she's gained skills because she has had the freedom to make decisions for herself about her work.
For me, what is squicky about the men described in this essay is not that they're going to a strip club or the massage parlor; it's that they want emotional exchange, but they only want it with someone they can pay. The emotional exchange they want is well beyond what you have with, say, a hairstylist or other professional that you might have a sort of professional friendship with, and well beyond the kind of professional friendship that some clients do develop with sex workers. They're talking about "surrogate family", and that really bothers me because we live in a culture which encourages men to check out emotionally on partners and children.
Also, the part where she talks about dudes wanting "daughter-like" attentiveness and emotional attachment. That bugs me, as does the whole family narrative. What they want is "family" that they can leave behind when they walk out the door, and "family" who will always have to say "great idea! your ex doesn't sound very nice!" because they're being paid. It also suggests that they can't or don't want to be fatherly unless they can also have sexual access to a woman - there's all kinds of ways, via volunteering, church, mentoring, community groups, etc, for men to develop purely parental/supportive relationships with young people.
As someone who is also in a pink collar gig with a lot of emotional labor, I know pretty well that while pink collar workers have far more agency than is popularly believed, we generally cannot contradict or withdraw our attention during the performance of emotional labor. And I am very, very skeptical of men who really lean on this kind of attention - it says to me that they like unequal emotional exchanges, where I have to always agree and always make nice but they do not.
I think this is a very interesting piece because she talks about her own desire for attention - that's the kind of thing that gets turned into "see all sex workers are damaged, sex work is bad" when people actually come out and say it, which to my mind contributes to a good deal of foolishness in these conversations.
posted by Frowner at 5:18 AM on May 2, 2016 [15 favorites]
For me, what is squicky about the men described in this essay is not that they're going to a strip club or the massage parlor; it's that they want emotional exchange, but they only want it with someone they can pay. The emotional exchange they want is well beyond what you have with, say, a hairstylist or other professional that you might have a sort of professional friendship with, and well beyond the kind of professional friendship that some clients do develop with sex workers. They're talking about "surrogate family", and that really bothers me because we live in a culture which encourages men to check out emotionally on partners and children.
Also, the part where she talks about dudes wanting "daughter-like" attentiveness and emotional attachment. That bugs me, as does the whole family narrative. What they want is "family" that they can leave behind when they walk out the door, and "family" who will always have to say "great idea! your ex doesn't sound very nice!" because they're being paid. It also suggests that they can't or don't want to be fatherly unless they can also have sexual access to a woman - there's all kinds of ways, via volunteering, church, mentoring, community groups, etc, for men to develop purely parental/supportive relationships with young people.
As someone who is also in a pink collar gig with a lot of emotional labor, I know pretty well that while pink collar workers have far more agency than is popularly believed, we generally cannot contradict or withdraw our attention during the performance of emotional labor. And I am very, very skeptical of men who really lean on this kind of attention - it says to me that they like unequal emotional exchanges, where I have to always agree and always make nice but they do not.
I think this is a very interesting piece because she talks about her own desire for attention - that's the kind of thing that gets turned into "see all sex workers are damaged, sex work is bad" when people actually come out and say it, which to my mind contributes to a good deal of foolishness in these conversations.
posted by Frowner at 5:18 AM on May 2, 2016 [15 favorites]
Frowner's comment about the dynamic between paying for sex and therefore getting to define the emotional content/direction of the exchange made me think about a relationship trope with which I've had experience: being the unfuckable female best friend to a heterosexual guy. As in a million rom comes, their relationships with their actual girlfriends was comparatively shallow in part because the sexual desire/tension and attendant posing got in the way of honest exchanges of emotions, a factor absent in the friendship with the UFBF.
In the rom coms, the guy realizes that the UFBF has been Ms Perfect all along, but in real life, the UFBF gets frustrated with the man-child/emotional labor burden and drifts away, or the guy learns and matures enough that he eventually has solid emotional relationships with people he finds attractive, etc. But some of them become Ms Crane's clients because they've never figured out how to have relationships that encompass both honest emotional exchanges and sex. When you're 40 or 50 or 60 years old, there are no more UFBFs available and fewer women willing to have emotionally barren relationships, so they buy the girlfriend experience. It's tragic.
posted by carmicha at 7:09 AM on May 2, 2016 [5 favorites]
In the rom coms, the guy realizes that the UFBF has been Ms Perfect all along, but in real life, the UFBF gets frustrated with the man-child/emotional labor burden and drifts away, or the guy learns and matures enough that he eventually has solid emotional relationships with people he finds attractive, etc. But some of them become Ms Crane's clients because they've never figured out how to have relationships that encompass both honest emotional exchanges and sex. When you're 40 or 50 or 60 years old, there are no more UFBFs available and fewer women willing to have emotionally barren relationships, so they buy the girlfriend experience. It's tragic.
posted by carmicha at 7:09 AM on May 2, 2016 [5 favorites]
On the other hand, though, women who do sex work are getting paid. Absent utopia, cash seems like a decent option. Sad panda men are gonna sad panda; much better that someone is actually getting something in exchange.
Actually, a society in which women can insist on getting paid for doing this work is a society which is putting a floor under women's economic condition - this is the campaign for fifteen of emotional labor. Because how often women are expected to perform emotional labor for free! And pretend to like it! And pretend it's not work! This seems like one of the reasons that sex workers and people who don't do sex work but who are in less privileged roles in relationships (often but not always women) have lots of common cause, and there's a lot of social mystification to make us think that we don't.
posted by Frowner at 7:39 AM on May 2, 2016 [11 favorites]
Actually, a society in which women can insist on getting paid for doing this work is a society which is putting a floor under women's economic condition - this is the campaign for fifteen of emotional labor. Because how often women are expected to perform emotional labor for free! And pretend to like it! And pretend it's not work! This seems like one of the reasons that sex workers and people who don't do sex work but who are in less privileged roles in relationships (often but not always women) have lots of common cause, and there's a lot of social mystification to make us think that we don't.
posted by Frowner at 7:39 AM on May 2, 2016 [11 favorites]
Absolutely it's a good thing to be paid for emotional labor, whether it's in the context of sex work or not. What I was characterizing as "tragic" is the men who, for whatever reason, never evolve to where they can have the real life version of what they simulate by purchasing a "girlfriend experience." Though most of them wouldn't understand it this way (especially those who think RL women are to blame), they're victims of the patriarchy.
posted by carmicha at 8:00 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by carmicha at 8:00 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well, men are conditioned to not show their feelings and to not be emotional beings. By paying a lovely person, you can get that emotional outlet, but you don't build real ties. It gives you a deniability, a way to offload that emotional burden for a while without having to build a real relationship. You don't have to uphold your image or anything like that. It's transactional.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:04 AM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:04 AM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
Just let people speak for themselves and really listen to all the shades of gray.
You certainly can respond to Ms Crane's essay anyway you see fit. My response is filtered by decades of exposure to sex workers from the Philippines and Thailand to Norfolk, Va back to the Ozarks listening to members of my family talk about their nights work. I've seen the bruises, the limping, the ODs and I don't think a union is the answer, just a start for people not doing as well as Antonia Crane.
posted by ridgerunner at 10:01 AM on May 2, 2016
You certainly can respond to Ms Crane's essay anyway you see fit. My response is filtered by decades of exposure to sex workers from the Philippines and Thailand to Norfolk, Va back to the Ozarks listening to members of my family talk about their nights work. I've seen the bruises, the limping, the ODs and I don't think a union is the answer, just a start for people not doing as well as Antonia Crane.
posted by ridgerunner at 10:01 AM on May 2, 2016
For one of my friends, having a job where you manage your own time/supplies/boundaries/location has really let her exercise some skills that she didn't have scope for in her previous lousy, hyper-controlled employment, too, and she's gained skills because she has had the freedom to make decisions for herself about her work.
That was one of the main attractions of sex work for me, too. (And frankly, even my marriage was a form of sex work.) In a way, it played a part in "spoiling" me for conventional employment. Even now that I am pushing 50 and working as a solo house cleaner and home organizer, and no longer do any kind of sex work in or out of marriage, I am still very glad to be self-employed. I'm still able to work directly with clients in private homes (which I love), and happy that I'm the one in charge and can run my business the way I see fit, rather than shoehorn myself into a job.
For me, what is squicky about the men described in this essay is not that they're going to a strip club or the massage parlor; it's that they want emotional exchange, but they only want it with someone they can pay.
Yes. Good point, and I agree. Brings to mind an exchange I once heard:
posted by velvet winter at 10:20 AM on May 2, 2016 [9 favorites]
That was one of the main attractions of sex work for me, too. (And frankly, even my marriage was a form of sex work.) In a way, it played a part in "spoiling" me for conventional employment. Even now that I am pushing 50 and working as a solo house cleaner and home organizer, and no longer do any kind of sex work in or out of marriage, I am still very glad to be self-employed. I'm still able to work directly with clients in private homes (which I love), and happy that I'm the one in charge and can run my business the way I see fit, rather than shoehorn myself into a job.
For me, what is squicky about the men described in this essay is not that they're going to a strip club or the massage parlor; it's that they want emotional exchange, but they only want it with someone they can pay.
Yes. Good point, and I agree. Brings to mind an exchange I once heard:
"But he's so handsome and sexy and wealthy and charming! He could probably date any woman he wants! Why does he need to pay for sex?"I remember that hearing this made me feel vaguely shitty at the time, as I recognized a truth there that had larger implications I didn't like. If I'd known about the concept of emotional labor at the time, it would have made perfect sense. He's buying his way out of emotional labor.
"He's not paying her to sleep with him. He's paying her to go away afterward."
posted by velvet winter at 10:20 AM on May 2, 2016 [9 favorites]
"...do I have to celebrate the tragedy she describes?"
Why is it a tragedy? Isn't it the ancient Middle-Eastern morality we've all adopted that makes it so? In reality, it's no more shameful than any of the work we do unwillingly, as a means to an end, for money. I certainly wouldn't choose to do the work I do if I had any better choices. It's humiliating enough, but at least I don't have all of society pointing their finger at me.
"...it should be regarded in kind to abortion..."
Isn't it this very attitude that makes prostitution such an unhappy choice in our society? This is also the reason we lock women in cages for taking money in a consensual exchange - our disgust. If you think it should be legal, it's this view which will have to change first. It's worth remembering that, in the pre-Christian era, things weren't always this way. Attitudes about sexuality varied quite a bit, from place to place, before Christian conformity became the norm in the west.
"Is there something about our species that requires these dynamics to play through?"
Yes, there is. It's in the very different nature of male and female sexuality in our species. I think prostitution is a very civilized way to deal with this "imbalance". Then there is the simple notion that, if you have something people want, you can sell it. Another commenter lamented that women aren't able to pay for the same services from men. I would, first of all, suggest they check their local classifieds. But the reason the gigolo market isn't as big as the prostitution market has to do with the very different sexual situation of men and women. Women, as a rule, don't have to pay for it. But if they wanted to, men would line up for the job. In this, women have much more power than they sometimes seem to realize.
posted by sudon't at 11:53 AM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
Why is it a tragedy? Isn't it the ancient Middle-Eastern morality we've all adopted that makes it so? In reality, it's no more shameful than any of the work we do unwillingly, as a means to an end, for money. I certainly wouldn't choose to do the work I do if I had any better choices. It's humiliating enough, but at least I don't have all of society pointing their finger at me.
"...it should be regarded in kind to abortion..."
Isn't it this very attitude that makes prostitution such an unhappy choice in our society? This is also the reason we lock women in cages for taking money in a consensual exchange - our disgust. If you think it should be legal, it's this view which will have to change first. It's worth remembering that, in the pre-Christian era, things weren't always this way. Attitudes about sexuality varied quite a bit, from place to place, before Christian conformity became the norm in the west.
"Is there something about our species that requires these dynamics to play through?"
Yes, there is. It's in the very different nature of male and female sexuality in our species. I think prostitution is a very civilized way to deal with this "imbalance". Then there is the simple notion that, if you have something people want, you can sell it. Another commenter lamented that women aren't able to pay for the same services from men. I would, first of all, suggest they check their local classifieds. But the reason the gigolo market isn't as big as the prostitution market has to do with the very different sexual situation of men and women. Women, as a rule, don't have to pay for it. But if they wanted to, men would line up for the job. In this, women have much more power than they sometimes seem to realize.
posted by sudon't at 11:53 AM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
Well, men are conditioned to not show their feelings and to not be emotional beings. By paying a lovely person, you can get that emotional outlet, but you don't build real ties. It gives you a deniability, a way to offload that emotional burden for a while without having to build a real relationship. You don't have to uphold your image or anything like that. It's transactional.
Yeah, I mean, I am not convinced capitalism-informed compartmentalizing, or monetizing emotional labour, is necessarily ideal (including via non-sexual psychotherapy). What contrasts this in my mind - (an ideal I know is value-driven, necessarily normative): men and women enacting integrated, coherent, emotionally capable selves in and through a supportive community of similar others. Not men being so deeply self-alienated they feel compelled to rely on professional intimacy, or women needing to exert control over their emotional histories by shaping them through these transactions. (As fragmented and illusory as attempts at "whole"-selfing-in-community may *actually* be, ontologically etc., or impossible, in the real post-recession world etc., there is support for the idea that the effort is adaptive and healthy, in various literatures, like it's a defensible view.)
At the same time - yeah, we're not in that world. I'm not judging Crane (or even her clients - I've found it easier to talk to strangers, sometimes), I just wish things weren't the way they are. If she can experience a kind of freedom or catharsis after a Mr. Butterfly, that is less bad than her not having that option.
posted by cotton dress sock at 1:01 PM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I mean, I am not convinced capitalism-informed compartmentalizing, or monetizing emotional labour, is necessarily ideal (including via non-sexual psychotherapy). What contrasts this in my mind - (an ideal I know is value-driven, necessarily normative): men and women enacting integrated, coherent, emotionally capable selves in and through a supportive community of similar others. Not men being so deeply self-alienated they feel compelled to rely on professional intimacy, or women needing to exert control over their emotional histories by shaping them through these transactions. (As fragmented and illusory as attempts at "whole"-selfing-in-community may *actually* be, ontologically etc., or impossible, in the real post-recession world etc., there is support for the idea that the effort is adaptive and healthy, in various literatures, like it's a defensible view.)
At the same time - yeah, we're not in that world. I'm not judging Crane (or even her clients - I've found it easier to talk to strangers, sometimes), I just wish things weren't the way they are. If she can experience a kind of freedom or catharsis after a Mr. Butterfly, that is less bad than her not having that option.
posted by cotton dress sock at 1:01 PM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
"What I was characterizing as 'tragic' is the men who, for whatever reason, never evolve to where they can have the real life version of what they simulate by purchasing a 'girlfriend experience.'"
I'm in strong agreement with this whole argument -- it's pretty clear that many (most) men go to sex workers to purchase emotional labor as a means of getting what they want, when they want, without having to engage with, and take on the responsibilities of healthy relationships in their own lives.
But I'm uncomfortable with eliding one category of experience. This is deeply uncomfortable for me to discuss, but for the sake of the discussion I'll be very open and honest. I'm 51 years old, disabled, extremely poor, and I've not been in a relationship for six years or, indeed, have had sex in six years. I don't even really know that it's realistic to imagine how this could change for me. I'm starved for both sexual and emotional interaction -- an actual relationship would be like winning the lottery. And so occasionally I think about sex workers. I've not acted on this for a huge variety of reasons, most of them discussed in this thread. And, personally, I expect that I'd probably end up feeling worse for it, not better.
So, from that perspective, surely it's the case that some of these men are paying for sex work not because they're the men you describe, but are men more like myself? I can see why it very well might be that it's only a small portion, though. Paying for any kind of sex services is relatively expensive. And, as I describe in my previous comment, the entire social environment of sex work has male privilege built into it so a big part of the attraction for men is that this is explicit. Personally, this makes me queasy and I recognize that you can't generalize from me to other men. My point about this, though, is that when a large part of sex services is all about reifying male privilege, then surely that's a huge part of what customers are looking for and therefore you just have to assume that this characterizes most customers. In the end, maybe it's only a relatively very small portion of male customers who are genuinely able only to find this interaction in this environment. And, bottom line, as you've pointed out, even then it's the case that straight women don't have this option. So maybe this is just a mostly irrelevant digression.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:44 PM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm in strong agreement with this whole argument -- it's pretty clear that many (most) men go to sex workers to purchase emotional labor as a means of getting what they want, when they want, without having to engage with, and take on the responsibilities of healthy relationships in their own lives.
But I'm uncomfortable with eliding one category of experience. This is deeply uncomfortable for me to discuss, but for the sake of the discussion I'll be very open and honest. I'm 51 years old, disabled, extremely poor, and I've not been in a relationship for six years or, indeed, have had sex in six years. I don't even really know that it's realistic to imagine how this could change for me. I'm starved for both sexual and emotional interaction -- an actual relationship would be like winning the lottery. And so occasionally I think about sex workers. I've not acted on this for a huge variety of reasons, most of them discussed in this thread. And, personally, I expect that I'd probably end up feeling worse for it, not better.
So, from that perspective, surely it's the case that some of these men are paying for sex work not because they're the men you describe, but are men more like myself? I can see why it very well might be that it's only a small portion, though. Paying for any kind of sex services is relatively expensive. And, as I describe in my previous comment, the entire social environment of sex work has male privilege built into it so a big part of the attraction for men is that this is explicit. Personally, this makes me queasy and I recognize that you can't generalize from me to other men. My point about this, though, is that when a large part of sex services is all about reifying male privilege, then surely that's a huge part of what customers are looking for and therefore you just have to assume that this characterizes most customers. In the end, maybe it's only a relatively very small portion of male customers who are genuinely able only to find this interaction in this environment. And, bottom line, as you've pointed out, even then it's the case that straight women don't have this option. So maybe this is just a mostly irrelevant digression.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:44 PM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
IF, I'm all for empathy and compassion but I think that your impulse, to identify with other men -- who are NOT actually like you in the aspect that is most relevant to the thread, i.e. they go to sex workers and you do not -- and to call for sympathy towards them based on your estimation of the extent to that which some subset is actually like you, is a repeating and really problematic pattern that undermines plenty of mostly decent men's ability to empathize and be in solidarity with women.
posted by Salamandrous at 5:28 AM on May 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Salamandrous at 5:28 AM on May 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah, that's a very good point and this is an opportunity for me to demonstrate my willingness to take my own advice and step back and interrogate my defensiveness in response to that criticism. I think I was caught up in my own issues and because of that failed to remain fully aware of the context even though I have both the knowledge and experience to have done so. Sorry.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:51 AM on May 3, 2016
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:51 AM on May 3, 2016
« Older Burnistoun, twinned with Quimper, Verona, R'lyeh | A man and his botfly Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
If given the choice between receiving the money no strings attached, and receiving the money in exchange for the services she describes rendering, would she really choose the latter? Would anyone?
I think sex work should be legal and regulated. And I think it should be regarded in kind to abortion: undesirable as a facet of a healthy society. Theoretically unnecessary in a world where people are, somehow, I imagine in fantasy, enough for each other.
Or it is necessary? Will some women always be required to trade their bodies for security? Is there something about our species that requires these dynamics to play through?
posted by an animate objects at 2:05 PM on May 1, 2016 [6 favorites]