... and ain't i a woman?: Decriminalise prostitution

September 17, 1997
Issue 

and ain't i a woman?

Decriminalise prostitution

Debates surrounding brothels in two Sydney suburbs raise, once again, the question of feminists' perspective on prostitution.

Earlier this year a brothel which has operated in Liverpool Street for five years applied to Sydney City Council for a planning permit so that it could operate legally. Then in July, in the southern suburb of Sutherland, planning approval was given for a "supabrothel" to be located in a commercial area.

Opponents of the brothels have used technical arguments about residential zoning laws and the lack of facilities, but the overwhelming tenor of their campaign has been moralistic. Sutherland Council, for example, initially refused the permit because the brothel was too close to a bus stop and a sports oval used by children, and would operate amidst "family-run" businesses.

These responses are common reactions to prostitution in our society — a society in which both church and state demonise sex for its own sake and sex workers as "whores" who destroy "family values".

For feminists, prostitution is not a question of morality. It is, however, a crucial issue — a direct and, for millions of women, devastating consequence of women's oppression under capitalism.

Prostitution is an inevitable consequence of a society which ties sexuality to profits. Sex is commodified in capitalism. It is a social interaction that is transformed into a relationship between property owners, a buying and selling of goods and services in the marketplace.

While some sex workers are men, the economic and psychological vulnerability of women in a society which defines their primary role as unpaid "labourers of love" in the home, renders women the exploited gender in this marketplace.

In a society not driven by the private accumulation of profits and in which, therefore, well-paid, non-alienating work, life-long educational opportunities and extensive social supports were equally available to all, the basis for prostitution would disappear.

The broader struggle for such a society is at the heart of feminists' struggle against the compulsion on women to hire out their bodies for sex — for an hour, for a night or for a lifetime.

Along the way, feminists must fight to improve the conditions in which sex workers hire out their bodies. The most immediate need is for prostitution to be decriminalised. The criminalisation of prostitution makes sex workers far more vulnerable to super-exploitation and abuse by their "employers" (pimps) and clients, and to persecution and prosecution by the state.

Removing prostitution from the criminal code is essential because "legalising" brothels merely substitutes control by the state (police, courts, governments) for control by the pimps. Apart from the fact that the state has a far from "neutral" or just stance on issues of sex discrimination, sexuality and workers' rights, sexual relations between consenting adults must be free of all state interference.

All those who profit from the exploitation of sex workers must be fought with every means available. Just as feminists support the efforts of all workers to fight exploitation and improve their working and living conditions, sex workers' efforts to organise themselves and campaign for quality health care, freedom from violence and coercion, good wages and working conditions must be supported.

Without such immediate reforms, the ability of sex workers to join the broader struggle for women's liberation and for a society in which sexuality and sexual relations are free in every sense will be severely limited.

By Marina Carman

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