Conceptualizing Prostitution

Prostitution is conceptualized in a variety of different ways in modern American culture, but in this blog post I’m going to focus on what I consider the two predominant views and offer an alternative that is gaining support. I am writing about these two viewpoints not as an outsider to either, but as a former-insider to both. At various times in my life, I have held various positions on prostitution influenced by the subcultures I was part of—conservative Christianity for a few years between high school and early college, and liberal sex-positivity from late college through, more or less, today. I also will point out that obviously, there are nuances to both these positions that I am not going to be exploring. I am certainly open to comments from folks who hold one of these two positions and believe I have missed or misrepresented something about them.

The conservative view: prostitution as sin and prostitutes as sinners

Let’s start with the more conservative position, which usually comes from religious groups and those who are culturally traditional. In this view, prostitution is typically regarded as wrong or, in religious terms, sin. This viewpoint ostensibly blames both the prostitutes and the consumers of prostitution (“johns”) as equally in the wrong/sinners. But despite this theoretical stance, the reality is that within the cultural dialogue, texts, and unspoken mores, prostitutes are branded much more frequently and emphatically as sinners and there is hardly talk of the “johns” at all. The prostitute is described as a temptress, a “Jezebel,” a woman out to trap men in sin. She is the classic “bad girl,” and there is not much empathy for her, unless she wants to “turn away from her sin” (i.e. accept their victim-blaming as reality) and convert to whatever conservative or religious ideology the group believes in.

The liberal sex-positive view: moral neutrality and pure choice

The other perspective, the liberal counter-dialogue to that conservative dialogue, comes from groups that tend to describe themselves as “sex-positive” and who regard prostitution as honorable and valuable work. This group works to re-frame and rename prostitution, in an effort to reclaim it as a positive. The words “prostitute” and “prostitution” are exchanged in favor of “sex worker” and “sex work,” and the phrase “the oldest profession in the world” is frequently used to describe it. These groups rightly criticize the marginalization and hatred that comes with a “bad girl” view of the women in prostitution. They believe that the cultural disrespect and rejection of prostitution is out of date and unenlightened. They believe prostitution should be celebrated and respected just as any other career, and reject outright that any sin is taking place in the prostitution transaction.

Suffering made invisible

While I have spent portions of my life more or less believing these two different viewpoints about prostitution, both have eventually left me intellectually and ethically unsatisfied. At this point, I certainly reject out of hand the conservative conception of the prostitute as a “bad girl” who is tempting men out of her evil, dirty sinfulness. But I’ve also come to see that there is much unaddressed by the liberal view of prostitution as morally neutral or the sex-positive view of prostitution as good. Neither viewpoint adequately addresses the problems faced by women and children who are coerced and trafficked into prostitution every day.

In my senior year of high school, I read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment for a class. One character, Sonia, is compelled to become a prostitute because of her family’s poverty. I remember being shocked and repulsed by some of my classmates referring to her actions as “sin” in subsequent class discussions. I remember the rage I felt, thinking, this young woman has been put in the impossible situation of having to watch her family starve or allow her body to be violated—how is this her sin? Part of the reason for her family’s situation is that her father spends all the family’s money on alcohol—how is this not the result of his sin? She is not sinning, she is being sinned against, by her father and any “john” who “uses her services.”  But it’s not just the conservative view that comes up lacking in addressing Sonia’s abuse; the sex-positive view that prostitution is morally good or neutral, and simply one among many un-coerced choices that women make invisiblizes Sonia’s position—a position that is quite representative of the reasons women and children enter prostitution today.  Sonia is neither a sinning temptress nor a woman with full agency simply choosing one among many professions available to her. And neither are the vast majority of women and children who are being prostituted today.

Feminism: a new way to conceptualize prostitution

There is a third way of conceptualizing prostitution, that neither blames the victim nor invisibilizes the suffering of the victim. This is a feminist conception that names as the problem not the prostitute but rather the society that objectifies women and creates feelings/beliefs of entitlement in men. It sees all but the smallest minority of prostituted people as persons who are being exploited and taken advantage of (sure, a very tiny percentage really do have the power to get out of it and truly choose to stay). Those of us who are feminist Christians may even still use the word sin, not to describe the behavior of the prostituted people but to describe the behavior of the pimps, the johns, and the society that allows this to continue. I plan to flesh out this viewpoint in more nuance and depth in future posts.

I will close by sharing with you that on Tuesday night I attended a community meeting of the non-profit Seattle Against Slavery. The guest speaker was Peter Qualliotine, a representative from the The Bridge Program at YouthCare. Peter discussed the work that the Bridge Program was doing in reaching out to prostituted youth on the streets of Seattle. After he was done, Robert Beiser, a representative from Seattle Against Slavery, talked about a number of ways that the organization was responding to all forms of human trafficking in this area, such as putting up educational posters at rest stops and gas stations and seeing a great response from those. I left the meeting feeling energized and hopeful that good work is being done to help the women and children who’ve been coerced into prostitution to safely get out, get treatment for PTSD or other mental illnesses, learn new career skills, and build up a network of healthy and supportive relationships.

I am not yet sure exactly how I might help with this work, but I am planning to continue to attend Seattle Against Slavery meetings when I can. And one thing I have decided to do is start blogging. This is a huge topic, with many nuances to consider, and one that cannot be addressed by simply one blog post. It’s also, I believe, an incredibly important and timely topic. So my post today is, I hope, just the first from me on this issue.