To Trade in Pleasure

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum,

The following is an excerpt from my opinion that I once posted to the AIDS India

Forum (Nov. 6, 2005, Message No. 5136).

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The Telegraph, Calcutta, India

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

FIFTH COLUMN

TO TRADE IN PLEASURE

SUBIR K. KOLE

Now that the national elite and ruling class are campaigning for

legalizing prostitution, it is time to rethink whether such a measure

should be imposed merely on the whims of a few, without arriving at a

national consensus. While the Planning Commission in its 11th five

year plan document has recommended this, an sms poll by a leading

national daily has revealed that 91 per cent and 84 per cent

respondents of Delhi and Mumbai respectively want prostitution to be

legalized. Since the majority is for the motion, should we now

condone pornography, strip clubs, live sex shows, and the buying and

selling of women for sex?

Powerful lobbies have been advocating the recognition of sex work as

a legitimate industry. The International Labour Organization has also

joined the bandwagon. In a controversial report, the ILO urged four

poor Asian nations to take advantage of the booming sex industry by

taxing prostitutes. The argument was based on the fact that the state

should play the pimp by letting its women be sold as commodities in

the national and international market, in return for a part of their

earning as revenue. After successfully making HIV/AIDS eradication

the primary agenda in developing countries, legalizing sex work has

now become the next important target for NGOs.

The latest recommendation of the Planning Commission needs to be

viewed within the power dynamics of state versus civil society

whereby a group of futuristic, ill-informed bureaucrats are swindled

by powerful NGOs through misinformation. More disturbing, repeated

lobbying for prostitution by these NGOs has made it acceptable and

even respectable as a profession. Anyone criticizing it has to bear

with misnomers like the culture police or a sanghi.

Cruel act

Legalized prostitution is state-sponsored, one that legitimizes

buying and selling of women as commodities for sexual pleasure. It

segregates women as a class set aside for sexual servitude and

reduces them to mere sexual objects. Evidence from Netherlands

indicates that with legalization, there has been a tremendous

increase in the number of brothels, sex bars, strip clubs, live sex

shows and trafficking in women and children. The goal of any industry

is to expand and if prostitution is legalized, how then can it be

argued that this will regulate sex trade and prohibit the entry of

minors? There will be hundreds of fake procedures to prove one's age

and an entire network of pimp-police-bureaucracy will benefit from

the legalized sex industry. Criminals and exploiters of women who

were earlier termed as pimps will become sexual entrepreneurs.

The reason for not supporting the legalization of prostitution is

that it is an oppressive, exploitative institution, which reinforces

sexual violence against women thereby increasing gender inequality.

What we are condoning here is women's sexual slavery, exploitation

and abuse. The failure to expand the economic and social

opportunities for women in 60 years of planned development has now

forced the Indian government to offer a choice to women by proposing

to legalize prostitution.

There is absolutely no evidence that legalization of prostitution

reduces trafficking in women. There is also very little evidence that

legalization brings down the spread of HIV/AIDS. Sweden and Venezuela

have refused to give prostitution a legal status on the ground that

the profession goes against the basic tenets of human dignity and

social justice. But India is promoting it at the cost of the dignity

of its womenfolk. If at all, the oldest profession in our

civilization needs to be institutionalized, there should be a

national debate on the subject. It cannot be imposed simply on the

basis of the whims of a powerful NGO-bureaucrat lobby.

http://telegraphindia.com/1060125/asp/opinion/story_5700323.asp

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum,

The arguments for and against legalisation of prostitution is interesting and

very well thought out.

Commodification, sexual slavary, force, pimps, trafficking, sexual servitude are

words that have been used over and over again to describe this institution.

I am not for Legalisation because i do not believe that the state should enter

into any realm that deals with sexual rights. But this is a private opinion.

However I have a few comments for those that oppose sex work per se. What the

sex workers are now fighting for is a voice and for recognition.

The 'loose woman' has been the subject of much public discourse and debate,

academic writing and policy making. Several perspectives have been articulated.

On one end of the spectrum is the view that prostitutes are victims of female

sexual slavery. Kathleen Barry, for instance has elaborated on the manner in

which prostitution is inherently violent, whether women are kidnapped,

purchased, fraudulently contracted through organised crime syndicates or

procured through love and befriending tactics.

This perspective, echoed by those working to end trafficking in women and

children assumes that all prostitutes are forced into the institution, and that

making money from sex is synonymous with sexual exploitation.

Complete abolition of prostitution is thus the logical solution to end such

exploitation of women. This approach criminalises the manifestations of sex-work

such as soliciting, pimping, brothel keeping and trafficking, and often

criminalises the prostitute herself.

Interestingly, although prostitutes are considered to be victims, they are also

viewed as wanton [liberated sexual beings], debauched [making `valueless' money

from sex] and morally weak. The whore stigma emphasised the `evil' [sic]

influence of such `base' women on the " good " moral character of society, deeming

them 'deviant' women who transgressed the norms of " acceptable " social

behaviour.

The concept of the fallen, debased and deviant woman has always governed public

opinion, policy and law. Women have therefore been policed, coerced and raided,

to be rescued, reformed and

rehabilitated by a society that would like to order and control their life

styles, regulate or abolish prostitution.

In recent years, the discourse around prostitution has changed and is now

couched in the language of human rights. Feminists, theorists and prostitutes'

rights activists are involved in unravelling the complex and complicated world

of sexual autonomy, free choice, sexual exploitation and agency-versus-victim

debates. This discourse has helped in that it has shifted the focus from blaming

the woman and her sexual life to a continuum ranging from the `beneficial

exploitation of the institution of prostitution'to the `inherent victimisation

of the woman in prostitution'.

As Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan observes, the prostitution qestion, " challenges us,

as well, to ask whether prostitute interests are being truly represented in

these debates.

The urgency and force of the disagreements arise not only from the issues

relating to prostitution, but also from the fact that the

prostitution question has gathered around itself many of the issues that remain

unresolved in feminism: the relationship between feminists and female " victims

of oppression " ; the construction of the female subject in terms of " agency "

(choice, autonomy, desire, " voice " ); the public/ private dimension of work /

sexuality; the conceptualisation of First World/Third World difference - and-

sameness in women's status; the narrativisation-as-progress of women's (here,

especially, prostitutes',) history " .

Though the prostitutes` rights movement started in the late 60's and early 70's,

the rights approach has been challenged and will remain a dream as long as it is

plagued by advocates of the moral brigade or the proponents of sexual autonomy

and free choice, as mutually exclusive positions.

It is apparent that while the " prostitution question " will be continued to be

debated and arguments for and against, whether voluntary/forced, `agency' /

victim, trafficked / socialised, legal/ criminal, sexual slavery/ sexual

autonomy, exploited / liberated, will continue to occupy theorists, activists,

and Governments, prostitution as experienced by the women themselves is not

given the kind of recognition it deserves in these debates.

Unfortunately the term trafficking is being characterised solely by

prostitution and is used synonymously with sexual exploitation. The term has

acquired a moral value and is often seen to include not just 'procurement, sale

and transport of women for the purposes of sex work', but as sex work as well.

For instance though trafficking in human beings is covered under

the Indian Constitution [Article 23], the primary target of the Immoral

Trafficking Prevention Act, 1986 [iTPA] is to punish `immoral trafficking' and

traffickers. In practice, the ITPA ends up victimising women-in-prostitution.

There is an immediate need to redefine the term trafficking. The definition must

address the needs of all people irrespective of gender and must protect the

rights of trafficked people.

Failure to recognise their right to autonomy and self-determination will result

only in repressive measures and restrictive policies

Commercial sex was seen as an important public health issue throughout the

nineteenth century. While concern about it declined in the twentieth century due

to improved management of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted

pregnancies, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has refuelled the concern. Public health once

again dominates the way most societies deal with commercial sex.

Legislation, public policy and widespread societal attitudes permeated by moral

outrage, fail to recognise that there are complex dynamics at play which call

for complex solutions.

Most important, there is need to listen to those most affected - the women in

prostitution themselves.

The inability to accept that the movement for prostitutes' rights can be

informed by the women-in-prostitution and sex-workers themselves is as much a

part of denial of human rights as discrimination of mainstream women on the

basis of caste, class, race or religion. There is an immediate need to unravel

and reach out and listen to the women in the communities.

The present discourse fails to recognise the dynamics of an institution that

encompasses a wide spectrum of elements from violence and exploitation on the

one hand to autonomy and agency to choose the best possible options, on the

other.

Prostitution for many women, is a way of life. While it is true

that all women are not victims, to believe that all women are there out of free

choice is also utopian. Unfortunately the dominant discourse does not identify

the day to day struggles much less the strength of a minority community

comprised mainly of women who face the brutal and criminalised world they

inhabit.

It is a struggle that is fortified by a socialisation that encourages and

strengthens their ability to deal with a hostile and

violent environment. Communities of people in prostitution and sex work have

repeatedly scorned the attempts of mainstream patriarchal society to control,

regulate and abolish the institution of prostitution.

`We believe that a woman's sexuality is an integral part of her as a woman, as

varied as her mothering, domestic and such other skills.

We do not believe that sex has a sacred space and women who have sex for reasons

other than its reproductive importance are violating this space. Or if they

chose to make money from the transaction they are immoral or debauched.' [VAMP

Statement].

In solidarity,

Meena Saraswathi Seshu

SANGRAM/VAMP, Sangli

E-mail: <san_meena@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

This ref: Subir kole's posting " To Trade in Pleasure "

I fully agree with Subir Kole's view.

It is not only Planning or other political power who are keen to legalise but

many or ALL women's group are advocating this legalisation.It is only HIV / AIDS

group who are showing concern for the women.

National debate is needed and the media is totally unaware of the deferent

perspectives. It is projecting this issue as a Human Rights issue. I feel a

debate at state level through HIV or Health group is more powerful than any

other groups.

Regards

Shamantha

E-mail: <shamantha@...>