a special feature the Sunday doily on pr'ostitution I wk_ INumber b68 Page Four Sunday, Novembe. 19, 1972 rostitution: Escaping the sexual prison'? By MICHAEL CASTLEMAN J .Just take off your clothes and lay down on your backs .. -Phil Ochs from Cops of the World HE RECENT RAIDS aimed at closing down local massage parlors have stirred a tre- endous amount of controversy. The Daily's ensationalizing of the incidents and its com- licity role of alerting the police to the nature f the parlors' business have justifiably anger- d a large and vocal segment of the student ommunity. Probably no issue, except for the election, as precipitated such a flood of letters to the ditor. Unfortunately, most of these letters ave reacted only to The Daily's manner of re- orting the incident and its cooperation with he local police. Although these issues are im- ortant, the deluge of furious reactions to he Daily's role has largely obscured any ana- ytic discussion of the many issues involved in he question of prostitution itself. There has een, no attempt to provide perspective on hese issues. Responsible journalism should provide a ramework within which its readership can ttempt to understand issues, rather than erely reacting to them viscerally. I do not laim to be an expert on prostitution, its his- ory, sociology, or psychology, nor can I prov- de a woman's perspective on the issue. I sim- ly hope to initiate a discussion of the topic. have no answers, but I have some ideas hich may shed a glimmer of light on this ery complcated and confusing issue. ST OF ALL, what is prostitution? The word "prostitution" calls to mind a spect- m of situations ranging from the heroin ad- Icted, pimp exploited street hustler to the se- uctive upper class suburban call girl. The one hing common to the entire gamut of the pro- ession is that men buy sex from women; fe- ale sex is the commodity for sale. Many of the arguments against prostitution ocus on the demeaned role it forces on the rostitute herself. She is depicted as the pris- ner of a bestially greedy pimp who doubles s her heroin supplier. She hustles in order to own out on smack and escape from the life e detests while her pimp lives in grand style nd drives a big Lincoln. This is clearly an "To assert that everything in a capitalist economy can be put up for sale except sex and knowledge is plain stupid. Both are on sale all the time. You don't have to look farther than the ads for chocolate vaginal deoderant spray. None of this con game with a prostitute; she wants it as bad for the money as he does for the lay." ploitative relationship, but is it really that uch different from the young factory worker ho gets strung out on smack to escape from s dehumanizingly tedious job on the Ford ssembly line while Henry Ford lives in grand yle and drives a big Lincoln? The obvious "difference" between the two that the factory worker, though dehuman- ed and exploited, is selling his labor, some- bing "outside" of himself, while the prostitute Ills a much more fundamental experience. he sale of sex, with the usual accompanying lienation from all sex, is somehow more odi- us to society than the sale of labor. But, for a moment, consider the job of pro- assional football players. It is no longer a se- ret that pro football players shoot up steroid ompounds on a strict regimen to add weight nd beef themselves up. The normal side ef- et of steroids is loss of potency and inability perform sexually. Aren't they prostituting aemselves, selling their sex in order to keep aeir jobs? Check your guts now: do you react to this ae way you might to female prostitution? I on't think so. It seems that there is a differ- ace between the way society views men and omen selling their sex, (OW CONSIDER the high society girl for a moment, the Bree Daniels of Klute fame, ad there are lots of them. A decent call girl in make $100 a night and maybe even grab steak dinner in the bargain. She may or may ot be paying a fee to a "matchmaker" but ev- 1 if she is, her earning power is far greater ian that of the average secretary, sales girl ' clerk, who might take home $80-90 a week !ter taxes. A call girl can work one day per eek and make more money than the majority women who are employed full time. Typi- lly, women's jobs are demeaning, mindless, id menial, not to mention the on-the-job ssles of being the sexual prey of the profes- AP Photo TWO MEMBERS of the newly created "Pimp Squad" of the New York City Police Department escort an alleged prostitute across Broadway in Times Square early in the morning. decrease the spread of VD since -it would be simple to require weekly VD check-ups for continued certification as a licensed prosti- tute. WHAT EMERGES from all this is a very hazy picture at best. People. say that sex should not be for sale in a country where everything is for sale and usually sold with the aid of advertising calculated to link the pro- duct with sexual gratification. People say that prostitution is demeaning and exploitative to women, but a good case can be made that it is no more demeaning than housewifery or shitwork, perhaps less. And if you object to male pimps living off the labor of their girls, do you approve of madams? Furthermore, what's the difference between prostitution and cutting your hair or donning a bra and shaving your legs to land that straight job so you can work two months (though you told them you'd stay a year) then split to the good life in Big Sur? The only perspective which cuts through these seeming contradictions is the view that female sexuality is now and has always been the private property of men. Certainly this is the case with respect to marriage. The wife becomes the sexual captive of her husband. Monogamy has always meant monogamy for women. This point has been made by countless anthropologists from Engels in The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, on down to the present day. Men have always seen themselves as free to fuck around while their wives were fitted with psychological, if not physical, chastity belts back home. This is where prostitution emerges as a necessary occupation, invented by men for their own pleasure. After all, you can't always do it with some other guy's wife, and virgins, until relatively recently, have believed the male initiated myth that they should be virgins when they married, so men needed a readily available supply of holes to put it into. In a culture of sexually imprisoned women, prostitutes occupy a unique position in that they do have sexual freedom, and a certain amount of power. The one thing that Bree Daniels enjoyed about her profession was the power it gave her over men. However, the prostitute must pay a heavy price for her sexual freedom and smidgen of power over men, the price of her self-respect, since female self-respect is defined in male terms. It is honorable in collective male terms for a woman to be a housewife, or clerk, but it is definitely not honorable for her to be free to regulate her own sexuality. The male attitude toward prostitutes is an ambivalent one: men will line up for a "really good piece of ass" while they hate the prostitute every minute for her sexual freedom because it threatens the captivity of their wives. After all, what if every woman demanded to be paid for sex .,. what if my wife did ... ? This is why the law comes down, on the prostitute rather than on the male consumer or pimp if there is one. The law is male developed and dominated, and has institution- alized male hate for and threat froin pros- titutes by continual harassment and jail sen- tences. Prostitution is definitely not a victim- less crime. The prostitutes themselves are the victims. In the recent massage parlor raids, the female employes were booked on felonies while the consumers got misdemeanors, if anything. Clearly this is sexist discrimination. The, act does take two consenting partners.... 1,JANY CULTURES, perhaps most, see female sexuality as the private property of the men. In many tribal cultures, it was and is the chief's prerogative and privilege to' de- flower all virgins. This practice set the chief up as one better than the rest of the men at the expenfe of all the women. In the tyrncal pimp-pro-titute relationship, we see a microcosm of all capitalist work relationships. Someone owns the labor of someone else. It matters little whether the employe smiles, drops her pants, and spreads her leis, or if she smiles, crosses her legs, and says, "Mr. Smith is on the phone right now. Could you wait a moment?" There is another contemporary connection between capitalism and prostitution: it follows the flags of economic imperialism. In Batista's Cuba, wealthy vacationing Americans clipped :oupons on the world sugar market, while prostitutes were as plentiful as Havana cigars, and competitively priced. The same was true for pre-revolutionary Shanghai. And the ladies of Saigon are legendary. . . . U.S. imperialism has many nations literally "by the balls," and prostitution is the female side of the rampag- ing dollar. The language itself is very graphic and re- vealing: imperialism "penetrates" Third World nations. I am tempted to assert that domestic prostitution has a class and race base, that rsch white men fuck poor black women while white racism fucks them over daily. Malcom X implies this in his Autobiography. While I am certain that there is an element of truth to this, I think the situation is much more com- plex than this perspective can explain. Just look for a moment at the burgeoning number of suburban white call girl rings which are popping up like shopping centers. One thing worthy of note is that recent travelers indicate that prostitution has been eliminated in both China and Cuba (as has drug addiction). It would be interesting to interview former prostitutes in these countries in order to better understand this transforma- tion. SO, WHAT ABOUT these massage parlors? Can anyone honestly tell any of the em- ployes to quit a $10-20 per hour job and be- come a Kelley Girl? The point is that this society provides very few creative outlets for women's energy while demanding uninter- rupted consumption to keep them sexually attractive. The situation of the prostitute is symbolic of the marketplace relationships that define all social relations under capitalism. An anti- capitalist alternative may not of itself resolve all the problems facing women. But I think it's a good place to start. making the bed and lying in it. For men, the marriage bed represents free sexual gratifica- tion on demand. The woman, who has few if any skills, who would be unlikely, if not com- pletely unable, to survive economically on her own, is basically a prisoner of her husband and his sexual appetites. So who is in the more demeaned position: the housewife whose services are free on de- mand, or the prostitute who maintains a reg- ular income from her sex which she can sell as she pleases? In this light, prostitution appears as a liberating alternative to the forcible rape called marriage. The fact that not all marri- ages are forcible rape relationships in no way nullifies this prostitution. Prostitution may very well be a form of sexual self-determina- tion for some women. THERE ARE a number of "sensitivity" argu- ments against prostitution which deserve examination. The one most frequently heard is that sexual experiences can only be "meaning- ful" in the context of a love relationship. What this argument objects to is the commodifica- tion of sex. Sex should not be for sale to all comers, as it were, it should be the physical dimension to a multi-dimensional relationship. Sex is somehow sacred and must be reserv- ed for love relationships which cannot be bought. Love must e worked on for it to be "real."Interestingly enough, this same general argument is used against term paper firms. The professorial contention is that knowledge is only "real" when it is struggled for. It can- not be bought. The obvious flaw in this argu- ment is that in a capitalist society literally ev- erything is for sale; everything is commodified including sex and knowledge. The assumption that one can buy happiness, for instance, lies at the heart of all advertising. Consuming equals happiness. Happiness is unlimited if you have the money to purchase everything your heart desires. Advertising is blatantly sexual too. Personally, I feel that discreet prostitution is a constructive alternative to the out and out pandering that we see daily on television and in magazines. Can't you just see svelte Suzie Sexobject in her pert GL-70 smile, Maybelline mascara, and Revlon lipstick purring "Fly me!" Is that obscene or isn't it? To assert that everything in a capitalist economy can be put up for sale except sex and knowledge is plain stupid. Both are on sale all the time. You don't have to look farther than the ads for chocolate vaginal deodorant spray to see sex for sale. And as for knowledge, is there any real dif- ference between a professor publishing a com- pilation of his/her grad students' research in exchange for fellowships and good recommen- dations, and that same prof's student buying a paper from Write-On? I don't think so. And if prostitution is the purchase of sexual favors, isn't courtship a form of it? The male of the species courts the female by wining and dining her-with the emphasis more than likely on the wine than the dine. Is spending money to initiate a relationship any different from spending money to consummate one? In one sense, courtship is more insidious than prostitution since courting implies at least some seduction or coaxing of a presum- ably less than enthusiastic partner. None of this con game with a nrnstitute- she wants it ness as one's frame of reference, this kind of relationship is not a healthy one. But should it be illegal? With the divorce rate approach- ing 40 per cent, and almost everyone I know really hating his/her landlord, the phone com- pany, and Nixon-hate relationships are an ongoing, thriving part of everyday life. Taking this point further, do all prostitutes even hate their Johns and feel demeaned by their work? Of course, many, perhaps even a majority do, but it is possible for a prostitute to enjoy her work, be sexually satisfied, take a craftsperson's pride in satisfying her custom- ers, and be pleased to report that most of her customers are a regular clientele. The fact is that faced with the limited options open to her, sex, a woman may, in good conscience and in full possession of her faculties, choose to earn her living by prostitution. If you don't- believe it, check out what one artist of the night spray painted on the wall of The Daily's building right next to "Massage forever." It reads: "If I want 2 B a prost then I should B free 2 choose." (sic) Another argument often voiced against pro- stitution is that it is a health hazard, that it contributes to the spread of venereal disease. While this certainly contains a germ of truth, prostitution cannot be blamed for the present epidemic proportions of venereal disease. The pitiful lack of availability of courteous, non- moralizing diagnosis and treatment, and the hush-hush, anti-educational attitudes preva- lent in public schools are much more to blame. In fact, legalizing prostitution would probably A.. f~.t".. .:,"x' , .r.. .: s." :a..:.a": l ea - s "Cv "r as = 4fi