Life and the Mind

Most groups speaking on behalf of sex workers ask for decriminalization, not legalization.  Many people don’t get the distinction. After all, if something isn’t a matter of criminal law, isn’t it legal?  The adage "that which is not forbidden is permitted" is true and so if the existing laws which speak to sex work  were repealed  then  sex work  would  be legal.  But that’s not  what’s  meant  by  "legalization."  In this  context, legalization is  more then  mere removal of criminal prohibitions.  That’s "decriminalization." Legalizations means the legal regulation of sex work, which goes on, for example, in places such as Nevada and the Netherlands. And most sex worker advocacy groups, such as Stella oppose legal regulation. Here from the Stella web site is their explanation of the distinction between legalization and decriminalization,which an explanation as to why they prefer the latter:
—————————————
" Legalization:

In countries where sex work has been legalized, the State regulates sex
work. For example, sex workers may have to pay special taxes, work
exclusively in brothels or certain designated zones, or get a permit
(these restrictions can cost a lot for a person who only wants to work
part time or when a worker isn’t getting a lot of work). It can also
mean that sex workers are obliged to register and pass physical exams
that can lead to the workers being quarantined. (Or worse, knowing
about the compulsory exams could lead clients to believe that bareback
sex is risk-free, which would lead to more clients asking for this
dangerous practice and to more pressure on workers.)

Legalizing
sex work means that certain forms of the work that used to be illegal
become regulated in a specific way, which does not provide sex work
with the same status as any other form of work.

Decriminalization:
Decriminalization means removing the sections that make our work criminal in the eyes of the law from the law itself:
Section 210: keeping or being found in a common bawdy-house.
Section 211: taking or offering to take someone to a common bawdyhouse (a chauffeur or a lift from a friend or partner)
Section 212: procuring someone into becoming a prostitute or living wholly or in part on the avails of prostitution.
Section 213: communicating or attempting to communicate with any person
in a public place or in any place open to public view for the purpose
of engaging in prostitution (solicitation).

This would
mean we could no longer be arrested because of the work we do, or
because of how we market what we have on offer. Basically, what that
means, is that anyone doing any type of sex work would be considered in
the same way as any other self-employed worker. She would have the same
rights and responsibilities as any other self-employed worker from any
other field! We would be protected by the same laws as those regulating
and protecting other workers. It would mean sex work and other fields
are equal and would help remove stigma from our work."

That’s the title of an exciting looking conference to be held April 26-28, 2007 at Syracuse. The conference description reads as follows,

"A constellation of internationally prominent philosophers and theologians gather
to ask, What does the “return of religion” mean for women
and for human sexuality? What new openings for feminism and gender theory are
being made by the renewed interest of intellectuals in religion? How can we reimagine
God and the divine beyond patriarchy and homophobia? How are feminist and gender
theory to respond to the worldwide resurgence of religious fundamentalisms?"

Speakers include Cixous, Judith Butler, and bell hooks. Field trip anyone? Thanks Catherine for the tip.

Last week I attended a fascinating and anger-making workshop sponsored by the London Alliance to Support Sex Workers at our local Centre for Research on Violence against Women and Children. Leading the workshop was Samantha Smythe of the Canadian National Coalition of Experiential Workers.  Smythe talked about the coalition, its work and their goals and I was shocked at how straightforward and simple some of these issues seem to me and yet how hard it is to achieve change. (Smythe’s explanation: misogyny + erotophobia.) Whether or not one’s ideal world includes sex work (and for me that issue is tied to the larger one of whether my version of utopia includes anything like paid labour in general) surely one can see that the people currently employed in the sex industry are working. Working in the sense that labour laws ought to apply, workplace health and safety ought to matter, and that workplace discrimination ought to be illegal. Instead, many of us turn our heads away from the industry and while we are busy thinking that because it ought not to exist we can treat it as if it doesn’t, women are being hurt and killed on the job. Interestingly and frustratingly, feminists of very different stripes seem to engage in behavior that ultimately hurts sex workers. Feminists who focus on sex work as inherently exploitative don’t want to view it as work because the fear that to do so will have the result of making it seem normal, "just a job." But to fail to classify sex work as work, when the services in question are performed by adult women, further victimizes women, framing their choices as illegitimate and casting their activities into the shadows. Other feminists–pro-sex and pro-women’s choices–sometimes ignore the bad side of sex work as work because in our efforts to view women’s choices as legitimate we are sometimes too anxious to look for the bright side of sex work, ignoring the grim reality which frames many women’s choices to enter these professions. To do this ignores some basic facts: that most sex work is performed by young women for older men, making compromised choices, in pretty horrible conditions. (And yes, of course there are exceptions: women who work for women, men who work for women, and men who work for men, tough women, educated women,  burlesque dancers of all ages, dominatrixes, etc etc.) All this said then, what are the easy issues?  

• Well, a quick repeal of the laws against soliciting and keeping a "bawdy house" would be a start. How on earth can we think it’s anything other than a concern for appearances that makes sex for cash not illegal but criminalizes the negotiation of the deal and where it occurs? (Smythe used a great analogy to make this point. Imagine if it was legal to do another person’s taxes for money but that one couldn’t advertise one’s services, solicit clients, negotiate a price, or rent an office in which to do the work.) Street sex workers routinely complain that the laws against soliciting mean they have no time to evaluate clients and to negotiate a fair price for services. The laws against keeping a "bawdy house" mean that sex workers can’t cooperatively rent or buy space and watch out for one another. Fear of a charge under this law also can result in unsafe sex practises. In my hometown used condoms in garbarge cans were used as evidence that sex was going on at a body rub parlour. Now the women who work there are instructed not to use condoms for fear the ownder will be charged with keeping a "bawdy house."
• Oversight of municipal by-laws for the effect they have on women: Most people think of municipal regulation as harmless but the NIMBY motivated laws that send strip clubs and body rub parlours to the industrial edges of town hurt the women who work there the most. Likewise, the rules that limit the number of clubs in a town might seem sensible but since they don’t also limit the size of clubs, such laws effectively put the workforce under the control of a small group of employers, often associated with bike gangs. In London where there can only be 10 body rub parlours, this means women can’t quit and open up their own places or even plausibly threaten to do so.
• Extension of work-place safety laws and non-discrimination laws: This should be easy. I’ve just endured lots of supervisory workplace safety training and if these rules were applied in strip clubs the world might be a different place. Smythe talked about dancing on a small wooden box in stiletto heels and I can’t imagine that passing occupational health safety standards. Worse yet, she talked of staph infections from touching poles that are are rarely cleaned and the long term ill health effects of artificial tanning. White women were forced to tan in order to dance without being given any information about the risks of skin cancer from tanning. Smythe talked about the so called "black girl limit" in local clubs in which minority women are routinely denied work because the clubs already have enough women of colour on the floor. She also talked about the unwanted touching that goes for which it would be impossible to get charges laid or customers thrown out.
• Shifting our focus from moralizing to harm reduction: The coalition for which Smythe works is neutral on the question of whether sex work is utimately good or bad for women. The coalition contains sex positive feminists as well as abolitionists. They have agree to set aside differences to work together on the easy questions. A focus on workers’ rights and harm reduction are their main goals.

We also met a writer for a new magazine by and for sex workers.
Spread Magazine is described  as  "a quarterly, glossy
magazine by and for sex workers and those who support their rights. The
magazine has a focus on personal experiences and political insights,
and contains practical information like news, features, health columns,
and resources related to the sex industry. $pread builds
community in the sex trade by featuring the honest and diverse
perspectives of those who know it best: the women and men who work
within this sensationalized, highly stereotyped industry. …..$pread actively
confronts various stigmas surrounding sex work, raises awareness of
legal and political issues affecting sex workers, and encourages
support for the rights of all people working in the sex industries."

And nothing I’ve said here is anywhere near as articulate as the words of my favourite Opinionated Lesbian, Eleanor Brown. Brown’s blog entries on prostitution draw connections between GLBT rights and the rights of sex workers in a way that’s compassionate, principled and persuasive. (The Op Les is now the editor of the Sherbrooke Record and is no longer blogging her days away in Montreal.)

While I still think the name sounds like the alumni association (I liked it better when it had "queer" in the title, off putting for business students’ cv’s but still) Pride Western has done a great job of organizing an October Pride event. From October 11th on, here’s what’s scheduled:

WEDNESDAY
6:30 pm QUEER SEX TOY USE DISCUSSION w/ LIBIDO EROTIC EMPORIUM, room 371 in the UCC
Kelly
Garland from Libido Erotic Emporium for Women will discuss the many
uses of sex toys and safe sex toy use in queer, bi-sexual, gay and
lesbian sexuality.  Included in this discussion will be the safe use of
sex toys and accessories, which toy materials are best for use, the
safe use of toys with multiple partners and the benefits of sexual
self-exploration for both the individual and healthy future intimate
relationships.

MARGARET CHO NIGHT @ VARSITY COMMONS THEATRE
PrideWeek
without the racy, controversial and often hilarious Margaret Cho? Join
us at Varsity Commons, or meet with us on campus to bus down! Exact
time TBA: check our website for details and directions!

THURSDAY
6:00 pm AIDS COMMITTEE OF LONDON SAFE SEX  PRESENTATION, room 379 in the UCC
We get the straight (?) goods on safe sex, presented by a special speaker from ACOL! Join us afterwards for…
8:00 pm "THE GAY GAMES" PRIDEWESTERN COFFEEHOUSE EXTRAVAGANZA
(Our
weekly coffeehouse goes wild! Drink free hot chocolate and compete for
the adulation of your fellow players through games such as Twister,
Taboo, Cranium, and many more!)

FRIDAY
4:00 PM WESTERN PRIDE PARADE
We
make our way through campus, showing pride, led by the Engineering
golf-cart and supported by queer students and their allies! All are
invited to come out to support/march, provided you’re willing to join
in the fun! Head to Concrete Beach by 3:30 to make sure you can get
involved in time! Groups who plan to march should confirm with us first!
5:00 pm PRIDEWESTERN BARBECUE @ THE SPOKE LOUNGE
Join us after the parade for burgers, drinks, and good clean fun!

SATURDAY
6:30 pm DINNER @ THE ALEX P. KEATON
From
6:30 to 9:00 pm, enjoy an awesome, all-ages dinner at the Alex P - just
don’t forget your ticket, which will be on sale at INFORSOURCE for $20
all through the week! $5 from every ticket is donated to the service!
Vegetarian options included!
9:00 pm PUB NIGHT @ THE ALEX P. KEATON
At 9:00 pm, the Alex P. turns down the lights down and the music up! Come party with
PrideWestern! 19+ only. No cover!

SUNDAY
2:00 pm BRUNCH AT WALDO’S
Waldo’s closes its doors for a private PrideWestern brunch! Join us to recover from Saturday
night, or just to enjoy some fine food!

Or so I thought. I fell at the Velodrome on one of those lovely steep corners trying to get off the track too fast. The bike hit the slippy centre of the track, tipped over, and down I went. It was mostly embarassing, not painful and in a way it was sort of a relief. Everyone falls and you just feel better having done it and found out that at low speeds nothing too bad happens. I rode the rest of the session, once a very friendly volunteer annointed my scrapes, fearing that if I didn’t get back on the bike that that would be it. I got back on the horse, as they say, heart pumping from the spill, I still had a great time.
But the next day I had a doctor’s appointment for another matter entirely. Being the observant sort the 20-something doctor noticed my very swollen fingers. She asked what happened. I told her. Velodrome, speed, spill, death grip on the drops of the bars, smushed fingers on left hand. But I said with complete confidence, "I can wiggle them so they aren’t broken." I should mention at this point that the clinic in question is for university faculty members. She is used to people like me. Young Doctor asks, while smiling, "What’s your PhD in anyway?" "Philosophy," I tell her. Ahh, she sighs. "Not much medicine it that, right?" I nod. Then she stops smiling and says seriously, "Well, if you had studied medicine you’d know that It’s not true that if you can wiggle it, it’s not broken. Some things are more wiggly when broken."  Ouch.
More ouch when they had to move my fingers into all sorts of weird positions for the x-ray. (As a philosopher I always cringe when they ask the pregnancy/x-ray question, you know "Is there any chance at all you’re pregnant?" Given various heavy duty serious birth control measures in place, it’s extremely unlikely. Very very unlikely. But it’s possible in that there is a teeny tiny small chance. But once again I avoid discussing standards of possibility and certainty with x-ray technicians and let them proceed. I figure they won’t want to talk philosophy and will instead send me off for an unneeded pregnancy test.) They tell me that if I hear nothing I’m fine. For days, many days, silence. I think smugly "Ha…there must be something to the wiggle test after all." But today the call. And now I believe her. Repeat after me: It’s NOT true that if you can wiggle it, it’s not broken.

When I am teaching about the work of figures in the history of my discipline (dead white men all), I often have to remind myself and then my students why people who seem to us now to be quite conservative were the radicals of the day. My favourite example of this are the early utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill . First off, they were social reformers, interested in changing the world. Second, they had the idea that one couldn’t just declare that some act or other was wrong, instead one had to show how it harmed other persons. No harm to others? No justification for making the act in question illegal. It was that simple for the utilitarians. Third, standards of right and wrong were tied to the promotion of the overall good, in which each person’s happiness mattered and mattered equally. Even Betham’s infamous ideal prison the Panopticon (much reviled by contemporary theorists from Foucault on) in which prisoners are constantly observed from a central tower, was proposed as an alternative to prisons of the Victorian era. Prisons in Bentham’s time were little more than windowless holes in which prisoners (usually the poor arrested for prostitution or theft) were thrown and left to rot. The only to guarantee even minimally decent treatment was bribery and many didn’t survive to ever leave prison. Bentham’s focus on observation and reform at least assumed the inmate’s eventual return to regular life. Compared to retributivists who think it’s good for its own sake that those who do wrong suffer (regardless of the consequences), the utilitarians are positively softies on issues of crime and punishment.
But my favourite subject on which the early utilitarians wrote is homosexuality and the need for legal reform of laws against sex between men. In a long essay Betham tirelessly applies the utilitarian standard (does this promote the most overall good?) to laws forbidding gay sex. Called "Offences Against One’s Self: Paedestry" and written around 1785 it was believed to be

"the first known argument for homosexual law reform in England.“ Reform was clearly called for given that the penalties for offences included death. Death for homosexuality made no sense, thought Bentham. He wrote, "I have been tormenting myself for years to find if possible a sufficient ground for treating them with the severity with  which they are treated at this time of day by all European nations but upon the principle of utility I can find none." The first problem was that laws against sodomy were inequitably applied. Bentham noted that heterosexuals were also committing the offence in question: "It seems to be more common for men to apply themselves to a wrong part in women," notes Bentham, "and in this case grave authors have found more enormity than when the sex as well as the part of the object is mistaken." Rather than concluding that this meant all sorts of sex ought to be regulated, he instead declared it outrageous that the state should be involved in the sex lives of consenting adults.  "If there be one idea more ridiculous than another, it is that of a legislator who, when a man and a woman are agreed about a business of this sort, thrusts himself in between them, examining situations, regulating times and and prescribing modes and postures." There was one argument which Bentham did consider quite seriously, the effect that legalizing male homosexuality would have on heterosexual women. If there were no men left as a result, or not enough to go round, this would make straight women unhappy and given the utilitarian calculation, this mattered morally. But Bentham concluded, in one of my favourite passges in the history of philosophy, that women’s near monopoly on men’s affections is secure and that we don’t need the law to enforce it. "By the mild ordinances of nature the fair sex enjoy already a monopoly asperfect as other monopolies are, and more perfect than they ought to be,  of the affections of the other and this monopoly is too well secured by  the means that established it to need the support of the harsh constitutions of penal laws. A ribbon or ringlet is a much more suitable  and not less powerful tie to bind a lover than the hangman’s rope of the  executioner. The man may be their friend, but it should seem not a very  judicious friend, who would advise them to conciliate affection by horror and by force."
Lesbian sex? What of it, you ask. Bentham with his usual wit notes that while sex between two women was against the law in France, "we know nothing of this in England."

Rarely does work published in academic journals in my field deal directly with issues I’ve thought about in my personal life in practical terms. However, recently I cast out my net looking for philosophical work on bisexuality and the academic trolling turned up a gem. A philosophical paper by Kayley Vernallis addresses the topic of a workshop held at the 9th International Conference on Bisexuality (9ICB) I attended this summer. In "Bisexual Monogamy: Twice the Temptation but Half the Fun?" (Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 30 Page 347  - Winter 1999). Vernallis argues that bisexuals can commit to monogamous relationships–that part of the argument goes down easy. There is no necessary conflict between monogamy and bisexuality, nor a necessary connection between a bi orientation and a "bedhopping" lifestyle. So far this is just good common sense and Vernallis is correcting common misperceptions about what it means to be bisexual. More controversially Vernallis argues that monogamy while possible for bisexuals, is more demanding because of our sexual orientation. Writes Versallis, "given certain deep and pervasive constructions of gender and sexuality in our society, monogamy imposes greater sexual costs on bisexuals than it does on heterosexuals and homosexuals."  Her argument turns on the role of bisexual behavior in the ideal bisexual life. She also explores the relationship between sexual behavior and sexual identity, arguing that we needn’t be essentialists about gender to think that the bisexual who forgoes sexual experiences with one gender in favour of monogamy with a member of the other gender makes more of a sacrifice than the heterosexual or homosexual who limits him or herself to a single sexual partner. Vernallis believes that the full sexual flourishing for bisexuals requires lovemaking with both male and female partners. I’m tempted by two very different responses to this position. First, it’s not clear to me that the conflict between monogamy and sexual flourishing isn’t there no matter what one’s orientation. (It may be that there are other goods only possible in a mongamous relationship and so one trades off full sexual flourishing in favour of some other good. But that’s an argument for another time.) Second, Vernallis’ identity argument–we are different people with different lovers–is also true, gender differences aside. It may be that this article offers a good prima facie case against monogamy but I am not convinced by the claim that demands of monogamy are necessarily worse for bisexuals.

In a  class on feminist ethics the other day we had a lively discussion  of the ways in  which feminist rhetoric is now used  in advertising.  Usually it’s the language of autonomy and choice reduced the choice between consumer goods that one sees. In these anti-abortion times, south of the border but creeping north, I am happy that we still put a positive spin on choice even if that means I have to endure ads about my choice of handbags, bank accounts, and hamburger toppings. Have it your way! (Yes, I will, thanks.) But my favourite ad of all time for its use of the feminist rhetoric comes from a gun manufacturer and is quite old. This ad plays not on choice but on equality. And the image of the take charge woman–I don’t need defending, I can take care of myself–is quite powerful even if one deplores guns.