What's Wrong With Prostitution?

In Carole Pateman's article “What’s Wrong With Prostitution?”, she raises many key points and objections to both legal and social stipulations surrounding prostitution. One of the objections that is consistently brought up throughout the piece is the debate about what a prostitute is actually selling. A sentence on page 59 reads, “A prostitute must necessarily sell ‘not her body or vagina, but sexual services. If she actually did sell herself she would no longer be a prostitute but a sexual slave.’” I found this statement to be very thought-provoking, and to be entirely frank I’m not positive where I stand on it. I find it difficult — as do many, according to the amount of objections raised even just in this piece — to grasp the concept of being able to sell sexual services without selling the body that is providing those. Now, that’s not to say I think it is inherently wrong to sell your own body. It harkens back to Beauvoir’s housewife dilemma — is the happy housewife truly happy and doing what she pleases autonomously, or because she’s trying to fill her place in society and is receiving pleasure from successfully conforming? I think we cannot rely on the idea that a prostitute is selling services and not her body — in a way, does this not devalue her consent? As in our discussion of Baron’s writings, perhaps refusing to see prostitution as a woman claiming her right to her body is saying her bodily autonomy is invalid. This is where I take issue with the phrase “sexual slave”… this is also where the lines can become blurred and tough to define. As someone who inherently believes that as long as you’re not hurting anyone (yourself included), you should be able to do whatever you want, I want to deny the concept of sexual slavery if we’re working with the idea of a woman who decided to enter the “sex work” industry as a prostitute. At the same time, Beauvoir’s ideology here does keep coming into my head, and considering that this can indeed be a dangerous line of work, I find objections can be made either way. While I think prostitution is hard to define/work with legally, I think perhaps it is even tougher to discuss socially, in that a conclusion can be hard to come by. I do, however, think we cannot say a prostitute does not sell her body, but perhaps we can remove the stigma of that being something so negative. Let us not declare invalid a prostitute’s ability and/or willingness to make her own decisions, even (and especially) in regards to her body and her work.

Anderson

In Scott Anderson’s piece, Sex Under Pressure: Jerks, Boorish Behavior and Gender Hierarchy, he argues that there is something important in looking at the connections between seduction and rape. Anderson believes that gender hierarchy entitles men in their role as the seducer while at the same time crippling women in their stereotypical role as victims of seduction. I agree with Anderson on this point because I also believe that if gender equality was present that seduction and pressuring woman to have sex would not be as ethically suspect as it is due to gender hierarchy.

            Since gender hierarchy in our society is evident and sexual assault and men being forceful is seen more often than not makes seduction and pressuring woman to have sex examined more closely. Anytime that a man has to resort to using pressure to get woman to have sex with him is ethically suspect, according to Anderson. Whether or not the woman eventually agrees to having sex with that man, if the man uses pressure to get that woman to have sex with him it conveys the idea that, that woman’s wants and needs don’t matter.

            Someone that was to refute this point would question if sexual pressure is ethically suspect and if it undermines woman’s autonomy. For example, Anderson talks a lot about Sarah Conly and how she believes this is only the case if the sexual pressure involves a coercive threat leaving the person being threatened no choice but to avoid it. Conly feels that as long as the pressuring doesn’t result to coercing someone into having sex that a woman’s consent answers the main ethical questions about sexual pressure and seduction. Although I understand that a woman’s consent is very important, this objection doesn’t hold true because there is still more to the idea that sexual pressure is ethically suspect. Conly’s argument over looks the connections between seduction and rape while also failing to make sense of the reasons that have left feminists to make this connection. Also, Conly’s argument doesn’t identify the fact that gender hierarchy plays a role in sexual pressure and woman’s autonomy which is a major reason that it’s ethically suspect. Conly doesn’t make note of the fact that the interactions between men and woman as different genders affects women’s autonomy. Men are seen as superior to woman, which leads women to be less autonomous in situations when a man is trying to seduce her. For example, if a man is trying to seduce this woman and he starts to pressure her but doesn’t intend to cross the line, that woman may see the situation completely differently than him and she might feel that if she is autonomous and does exactly what she wants then he might go the extra mile and hurt her to make her have sex with him.

            All-in-all, I agree with Anderson that gender hierarchy does make sexual pressure ethically suspect and undermines women’s autonomy more than it would be if gender equality was present. Conly offers good points but I believe that Anderson provides a stronger argument on the matter.

Anderson

 Amy Zhou

In Sex Under Pressure: Jerks, Boorish Behavior, and Gender Hierarchy, Scott Anderson defines what sexual pressure is to him, and whether or not sexual pressure is ethically suspect. What this means is he is arguing whether or not pressuring someone into having sex regardless of what the victim’s response is, is ethical or not. He argues that these pressures of interest are limited to “those of ordinary, if not laudable, social or familial interaction” (352). In other words, this could include emotional manipulation, mild intimidation, petty deceits, and threats to altar a relationship. Some might see this as a grey area because there is no explicit proof as there would be with violent assault or drugging someone. On top of that, there is also something emotional abusers are very good at, and that is gaslighting. Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which a victim is manipulated into doubting their own memory and perception. Of course, taking this into account, it is absolutely possible a victim could be coerced into believe she wasn’t raped, when in fact, she was if we take into account “structural aspects of human interaction,” (350) which Anderson argues may affect consent’s value. Conly argues that sexual pressure is ethically suspect if it involves coercive threat, such as the threatener acting illegitimately such as an employer threatening to fire an employee unless she has sex with him. However, it can be argued that it does not have to be that explicit because the employer is still taking advantage of his position in power to achieve this type of sexual relationship with his employee. Another example of this might be with a teacher student relationship. Even if the student is the one who approached the teacher about a relationship, the teacher is still at fault because the teacher is aware of the power dynamic between the relationship and how that might appeal to a student. Anderson makes a point about this hierarchy when he discusses the study done by Robbins where sorority women gave the following as “reasons to have sex or sexual contact” (362), and how male seducers “are able to draw upon advantages conferred by male dominance within a gender hierarchy”(351). The reason why this study is so important is because of the reasons listed, where many, if not all, could be explained by said gender hierarchy. One criticism of this could be that women can also be in a position of power to manipulate their employee if they are the employer. In that case, it is not necessarily about gender dynamics anymore but simply just the power dynamic. However, in the case of the teacher student relationship, the gender hierarchy would still affect a male student, just simply in a different way. If he were to tell others, they would praise him, and tell him to “man up” and be proud of the fact that a grown woman is taking advantage of him. This goes hand in hand with toxic masculinity, and that is fed into by the patriarchy. 

Sex Under Pressure

Shanty Hernandez

                                                                                                            PHI 297

                                                                                                            Journal Entry #5

                                                Sex Under Pressure

In “Sex Under Pressure”, Scott Anderson discusses how gender roles play a part in being pressured into sex. Those who have a “higher power” find it easier to convince others into doing sexual acts because it is harder for them to say no. “Seducers often use plain and not-so-plain pressure to get the objects of their desires to acquiesce to sexual proposals. Further problems stem from the way background forces and injustices- systematic gender hierarchy, for instance- empower some seducers and weaken their targets” (Anderson). Anderson goes on to say that males are able to use their male dominance to get what they want. “In explaining why a woman submits to sex with a man, it will often suffice to say that he threatened her with violence if she refused. We rarely feel we need to press further and ask why she assumed that he was capable of violence, why she assumed the threat was in earnest, or why she assumed that if she denied him that he would have gone ahead, against his own interests, and executed his threat” (Anderson). It is harder for a woman to say “no” because woman know that men are capable of threats and harming if they do not get exactly what they want.  Just because women consent does not necessarily mean that they want to have sex, sometimes it means that they are afraid of the outcome if they say otherwise. I completely agree with Anderson because sometimes it is hard to say no when being pressured, people do not know what can happen after they say “no”.

Like man others, Sarah Conly had a different view on being pressured in sex. She talked about being pressured into sex is not sexual assault unless they are threatened. If a girl consents to having sex, it is not considered sexual assault because she agreed to it. I feel as though Michael Kimmel and Gloria Steinem would agree with Sarah Conly because they only talk about there being a verbal consent in having sexual activities. If there is a verbal “yes” then it isn’t sexual assault because they agreed to it. I would argue this claim because of there being gender hierarchies. When women say “yes”, their agreement has less value compared to a man. Sometimes women feel like they have to agree under pressure because they do not know what men would do if they do not agree. Men have much more power, therefor it is easier for them to get what they want.