Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 18:37:53 +1100 From: Rob Schaap <rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au> Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Rob's perfectly nice hooker friend G'day all, Sorry about that last one - I was cleaning the send button and it just went off. Anyway, as to my friend. Well, unfortunately she's not really. I met her again by chance about two years ago in a King's Cross cafe. I don't know where she lives, nor what her professional name is. I believe she works for a firm, but I don't know anything about the conditions of employment/commission. I do know she is well off and seems happy. I honestly thinks she likes (most of) what she does. It'd be arrogant of me to think otherwise - that's the impression she gave me, and that's all I have to go on. The point here is that she is not typical of sex workers everywhere. I was just saying she comes closer to the liberal ideal of selling her labour to whom she likes for what she's 'worth' than do most in her line of work. That if she worked for herself (as she has in the past) she'd be as close to Adam Smith's ideal type as exists in our world. And that, given the relations of production that prevail, she's doing okay. Okay, the context of her particular life is such that it hides humanity behind the exchange relation, distorts the meaning and salient attributes of sexual relations and sexual identities etc etc. This makes of my friend what the world makes of us all. I see no room for specific claims of sociopathy and amoralism here that do not apply to us all. That's probably not important here though. That the conditions within which she works are not the slightest bit like those under which most sex workers labour is much more a point, I'd have thought. Canberra has an out-of-the-closet, duly regulated sex industry, and even the workers, who have a loud voice because they have organised themselves well, profess good working lives (there are terrible exceptions, no doubt, but I believe this to be the norm here). Sydney has all kinds of sex work in all kinds of context - from the agentic professional down to the doomed plaything who must have unprotected sex with anonymous drunks who might or might not pay/hurt him/her/be HIV-positive etc. Reformist politics, borne of different times, still live in the ways I am protected in my workplace and paid what I'm paid. Most prostitution sectors were neglected in those times, and can certainly not anticipate improvements in our times. It seems to me that the greatest predictor of a prostitute's fortunes are, unsurprisingly, where in the working class s/he hails from. That is the decisive regulator in an industry largely untouched by formal regulation. Middle class does mean something, I guess (sorry Carrol). It's what set up my friend for a reasonably good life in the industry (she was middle class at the off and has remained there). It is how we distinguish her from the world's norm, those who start out in the (lumpen)proletariat and stay there. Most prostitutes work in high-risk occupations, often at ages where their sexual identity - and hence much of their self-concept - is still under development, don't like what they do, have no alternative, may quickly lose the appearance upon which they rely, and can never hope to achieve the degree of economic independence enjoyed by my friend - they will always be poor. Enough - there's nothing new in this, I guess - there was a chat about this on PEN-L a while back (including an eloquent post by a Canberra sex worker/spokesperson). If anybody is interested, I'll pass the more germane comments on here. Cheers, Rob. PS I think I agree with Yoshie that clients of sex workers are buying something just a little different from sex. That's not to say all of them would be doing so happily (if they even dwell on the matter), but I think the exchange relation does do something to sexual relationships that robs the 'seller' of status-as-subject - this is a good thing for some (who are a bit of a worry - and should save money in the long term and get themselves a love doll) and no doubt a bad thing for those for whom loneliness is a decisive motivation. Objects don't cure loneliness ... --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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