Prostitution Policy: Revolutionizing Practice through a Gendered Perspective

Prostitution Policy: Revolutionizing Practice Through a Gendered Perspective

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Revolutionizing Practice through a Gendered Perspective, Lenore Kuo combines feminist social research and legal and philosophical studies to tackle issues raised by heterosexual prostitution in the United States. Through the lens of feminist theory, Kuo examines the milieu of prostitutes and the role of prostitution in contemporary society and how the interplay of these two works itself out in practice.

Kuo discusses criminalization, legalization, and decriminalization as possible approaches, ultimately arguing for a unique form of decriminalization including detailed legal oversight and mandatory social service. Extent x, pages. Contents Feminist debate Prostitution solution: K86 Literary form non fiction Nature of contents bibliography. Library Locations Map Details. Thomas Jefferson Library Borrow it. Louis , MO , , US. Carousel Grid List Card. Copy to clipboard Close.

Cite Data - Experimental. These studies have also underlined the need to understand sexual-economic exchanges within the globalization processes, which are inseparable from economy, culture, politics, labor relations and, last but not least, gender relations, both in the origin and in the destination countries. However, considering the need to overcome a reductionist approach which views the prostitution phenomenon as a mere economic issue, this article aims at shedding some light on the subjective dimension of some of its main actors: With this in mind, during the fieldwork, selected actors were met and interviewed: It could be interesting to note that during the project two other associations based in Italy, which bring together prostitution clients, were identified through the web.

Although one of them had a short existence and no longer exists, the research team managed to interview one of its members who preferred not to be recorded during the interview. This association is very active in spreading awareness to clients about the phenomenon of trafficking women for sexual exploitation, and has as main target Nigerian prostitution networks. This is on the one hand due to the expansion of the market of commercial sexual practices, from both the offer and the demand side and, on the other hand, to the diversification of prostitution typologies, practices and available places.

The growth of the sex business in most Western European countries became visible between the s and the s, when the first sex shops were opened in some European cities. Various forms of masked prostitution started to be offered in night clubs, massage parlors, saunas and other relax and entertainment places; commercial TV channels and other mass-media with ad hoc sex programs expanded; and travel agencies started to organize the first tours of Western men toward central and eastern European countries and other exotic places both in Asia and South America Barry ; Kempadoo, Doezema ; Bimbi ; Monzini Through newspapers, television, advertisements and, in particular, the Internet and the messages and images of new medias, the sale of a wide range of products often plays upon the stimulation of sexual desire through the process, already observed by Marcuse, where sales and consumer goods are transformed into libido objects , 34 - objects that encourage and often celebrate, in a more or less explicit way, the more traditional and predatory dimensions of masculinity.

Thus, making available multiple forms of consumption sometimes even immaterial, or in any case more discrete, such as in the case of the Web , bringing together distant places and allowing a sort of massification of the market, which is now potentially accessible to everybody Monzini , 9; Barry , The aspiration to improve their income and consumption opportunities, along with personal fulfillment, have often led women to emigrate abroad as a sort of gender emancipatory process Mottura However, as was evident during some interviews, women often plan a migratory project in order to escape from poverty and deprivation: From one perspective, it is a form of refusal of subjugation, also in terms of gender, that women experience in their countries of origin; thus, it is a sort of emancipation.

In another perspective, it is the outcome of a strong demand of their services in the destination countries, where alongside the traditional division of labor based on gender, there is another division between autochthonous and migrant women; the latter are mostly destined to the domestic and sex markets, independently from their educational and professional levels Kofman et al. There is a sort of ethnic hierarchization of domestic as well as sex work, or at least a process of substitution symbolic or not which calls for foreign women taking on roles linked to the most traditional aspects of femininity which Western women have questioned Abbatecola , 11 2.

Therefore, foreign women are often presented a model of subaltern integration which accepts their otherness provided that it is kept at a certain distance, even though their activities inevitably involve a sort of insuppressible physical proximity Ibid. The words of an Italian transgender activist, currently involved in social work, clearly synthesize that crucial change in the prostitution world:. Certainly, the dynamics of exploitation and slavery-like conditions imposed on most women involved in this market, voluntarily or not, often pertain exclusively to prostitutes and exploiters.

Most of the violence in prostitution networks is, indeed, undoubtedly due to enslavement practices adopted by criminal organizations which manage prostitution and other markets, such as human trafficking. Therefore, violence is not an exception but actually a sort of rule of action:.

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Who works as a prostitute? We are talking about two ideologies and social practices which strongly feature migrant prostitution and women trafficking and that contribute to shaping them as a sort of free trade zone. In line with traditional approaches, many men consider their wives fit for reproduction, but unfit for erotic pleasure which is perceived as intimately subversive since it could soften male control over women.

Therefore, some women live sexuality as sin , as it can be perceived in the words of some women whose partners are prostitution clients, interviewed during our research. The coordinator of an association expressly devoted to providing support and counseling to clients of prostitution highlights this in his conversation:.

I was really surprised, because many wives blamed themselves; they called us and said: Or, in other cases, there were the children of the client who said: As far as wives are concerned there was that weird frustration: Many women, instead of being aggressive toward their partners… felt guilty. I was really surprised to see this form of self-guilt by the woman, of herself: Therefore they felt guilty. This leads us to question the continuities and ruptures existing between public and private spheres. Both spheres are marked by more or less subtle forms of gender violence, and by deeply embedded asymmetrical power relations which are particularly evident in the case of prostitution.

They are traditionally excluded from some fundamental rights, such as the right to protection and the right to respect.

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On one side there are normal people, on the other there are criminals, prostitutes, transsexuals, homosexuals… all those people considered different, considered as the other. Of course there is also the policeman who is human, who understands more… but if there was more trust toward the police, a different relationship, I am sure that there would be more denunciations; there will be three times more. I would like to tell you one of the stories I personally witnessed, because it is really terrible… It was when the Bossi-Fini law [ Italian law concerning immigration ] was approved, when policemen started to be overzealous, since they felt strong in their work, in their role as enforcer, you know?

But we were supposed to do what? Then the police car arrived and they brought the girl away; but this girl had been treated really badly… when they decided to leave her, they threw her away from the car with a hand on her back, as if she was an animal… I swear to you, it was really mind-blowing, and this guy also did not seem to be normal, he had two glowing eyes….

That original sin induces denying other personal characteristics, abilities or competences, without any chance of redeem. Therefore, prostitutes are perceived as generalized others.

Significantly, the possibilities of being granted recognition or, more easily, any form of respect are, in many cases, closely linked to the capacity to become invisible , to disappear, to not be recognized. Some Eastern-European women who worked in the sex market, for example, emphasized in their stories how the success of their social reintegration process was due to their capacity to not be clearly recognized as former prostitutes.

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The three expressions of shame or misrecognition analyzed by Axel Honneth may all be identified in relations that Western clients have with migrant prostitutes: In this regard, most of the women met during the research told us that they had always used fictitious names during their prostitutional lives, which emblematically drew a dividing line between what they had been before and what they tried to be in that very limited space of their personal life and what they had become while working in the street.

One of the social workers interviewed clearly summarizes this notion:.

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These girls [ foreigners ] do not have a name, just because they tend to delete it, because of the problems related to their illegality, for problems related to trafficking, immigration, you know, because they have a history that they want to cancel; that is one way, no? Indeed, we face physical bodies; symbolic bodies; bodies confined in power relations, dominion and market relations; bodies as goods of consumption or exchange; bodies which are in all cases instrument and symbol of relations which leave on the skin an indelible mark.

In light of this, similarities may be noted between the new expressions of global prostitution and the old forms of slavery practices. In both cases we refer to naked bodies, undressed from the enjoyment of rights; world-less bodies, expropriated from the capacity or possibility to talk, to express themselves; and, particularly, excluded bodies, made invisible, retained from freely moving in the agora: The enslaved body, on the other side, stripped of any rights and removed from the citizenship dimension, is at the disposal of any form of violence, manipulation, mutilation, segregation or fraud Covre We could probably say that such bodies are absolutely denied.

They may be defined as displaced bodies, forced to move in organized, although alienated and alienating spaces such as modern Western cities , which prevent people from creating reference in terms of identity and relations. They gave me the clothes, and I launched them on the bed… Well, at the end what can you do?

When you find yourself in those situations you cannot do anything… Either yes, or no. Either you are out, or you are in the game. During the ethnographic observation carried out on some local trains which connect Florence with other small cities in the near province, I often witnessed really amazing body transformation processes. Young African women, who got on the train wearing casual clothes and no make-up, looking like young girls with their plastic bags and big suitcase, within the time-frame needed to go from one city to the other radically transformed themselves, while still continuing to talk and eat all together: By the time they arrived at the destination, they appeared perfectly dressed as objects of desire according to the typical Western image of prostitutes.

As Wendy recounts in her biographical book, recalling her encounters with Italian clients:

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