Rewire.News Editor Jodi Jacobson's Q&A on Legalizing Sex Trade, Claim That It's Not Same as Trafficking
CP: There certainly seems to be a divide among some feminists on that issue.
Jacobson: There definitely is a divide.
CP: Some feminists would say, and instinctually it hits me this way, that the sex trade is driven by men, and the idea that sex work would be something that is good is a male-dominated narrative. But if I'm understanding you correctly, you seem to disagree with that.
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Jacobson: Well, I think many of the people who have that approach don't really understand the full ... I'm not trying to dismiss their arguments or concerns because I think they are coming from a place of wanting to do something good, but let me just give you an example of what I know.
So you have a village in India or a series of villages in India that at some point in time [were] basically reliant on coal mining or a kind of mining that they do in that village. Then that mine is exploiting the workers, they get very little pay, they get very few rights. The women are abused and mistreated by the owners who are male. And then the mine shuts down and then there's no work at all.
So you've got a labor exploitation problem and you've got a problem of people who are in labor, and this happens all over south Asia and in parts of Latin America and in Africa where I've traveled where you have factories, for example, where people cannot leave to go to the bathroom. They are subject to sexual exploitation by their bosses, also a male-led, male narrative. So you have all of this exploitative labor and those people have no rights.
And now you've got this village in India where the factory or the mine or the source of employment has completely disintegrated and people have nothing. And so women go into sex work. And not only women. We talk about this as though there's like a uni-directional pattern here. There are married women in sex work. There are LGBTQ persons in sex work. Some men are in sex work. And so you have people who literally have no other option. Either they have no other option and they are working in a factory and being exploited or they decide. And often times they decide they would rather engage in sex work because they can decide when they get to go to the bathroom. They can decide who they take on as a client. They can decide what their rates are.
And if they become sort of unionized, which has happened in parts of Calcutta, for example, they have a greater bargaining power. And I think this kind of comes down to whether we look out at a group of people and over them or whether we really get into and sit with a group of people and understand their perspective and their own ideas.
Because the first people that will tell you how to reduce reliance on sex work [are] the sex workers. And they know what they need. They need their kids to get education and not be discriminated against. They need not to have intergenerational poverty. They need the kinds of things we all need, right? They need fair wages, they need protections, and they will tell you these things if the narrative is "just wipe out my only chance of surviving right now or put me into a place where I might die in a fire because I can't get out of the factory because all of the doors are locked. I choose this."
So it's a very kind of, I think, savior-type narrative that [we] have about some things where we're not really sitting with the people who are in it. I've never met a group of people facing a challenge who did not themselves often times know what they needed most, and first.
And unless you're sort of asking people, "What do you need, and how can I help you get that?" They will tell you. And so I just have to reject those [savior-type] narratives because it's not my experience at all in working with sex workers.
And it also begs another question. You know, sex is a natural, biological and human function in the whole universe, not just human [sexual activity]. And so people meet their sexual needs in different ways and I think part of the narrative, just to sidestep, is that "women are the only victims and therefore we have to save them from themselves," as opposed to "women knowing or sex workers per se knowing what they are doing."
Because, hey, look, I'm not saying everybody [who] is in sex work wants to be in sex work, but I am saying that they will tell you what they need to get out of it, or what they want for the next generation. And barely anyone listens to them. They are the least powerless people. They are the most regulated, criminalized people apart from the traffickers and the pimps. It doesn't make any sense to me.
I think that driving things underground is never a good idea.
The Christian Post followed up with Jacobson to gain further clarification on a few things she said. She responded by email on April 13.
CP: To follow up on my question about those who contend that the sex trade is driven by men, and is therefore not good (that support of sex workers rights is a male, patriarchal narrative), you mentioned that:
"Sex is a natural, biological and human function in the whole universe ... and so people meet their sexual needs in different ways and I think part of the narrative, just to sidestep, is that 'women are the only victims and therefore we have to save them from themselves,' as opposed to 'women knowing, or sex workers per se, knowing what they are doing.'
But even if the women were not trafficked and agreed to this, the whole getting sexual "needs" met seems to suggest that men have almost this license or right to sex with a woman however they want whenever they want, legitimizing a kind of "boys will be boys" ethic. Could you elaborate a bit more?
Jacobson: Just to reiterate: Sex work and trafficking are two different things. To reiterate, when I am talking about sex work, I am not talking about the issues of trafficking, which are sometimes related but different.
Sex work — as defined by sex workers themselves — is work, for which sex workers advocate (i.e. sex workers who are organized and speak for themselves and are not the object of someone else's campaigns, want recognition, protection, rights, healthcare, etc.). The narrative of "men's license" is, for me, both shallow and misrepresents the issues.
As I noted yesterday, this whole frame assumes only women are sex workers, which is far from the truth. There are male, female, transgender, LGBT sex workers. Also, "the sexual needs of men" assumes women and other persons have no sexual needs and basically makes sex a bad thing. Sex per se is not a bad thing. Coerced activity of any kind is a bad thing, whether you are coercing someone into sex or you are coercing someone into sewing garments for 16 hours a day in a factory with no bathroom breaks, no food breaks, paid pennies an hour, and sexually harassed/raped by your bosses.
It also assumes that "sexual needs" are a bad thing, which they are not.
CP: You mentioned that "there is definitely a divide" between women who identify themselves as feminists who are supportive of sex worker rights versus those who object to prostitution altogether, and the disagreement appears rather profound here, but should any side be marginalized in this debate? Have you observed one side or the other getting particularly marginalized for their views?
Jacobson: This is a question I find to be troubling. What do you mean by "marginalized?" Everyone has a voice in a debate; anyone can lobby or voice their opinion. But no, I don't think we should make policy based on thinking that is devoid of public health or human rights evidence, nor that utterly and completely ignores the lived experiences of those most affected, which both of these laws do. We are going to end up with more people, not fewer, trafficked in the shadows without the ability to have recourse than before.
We make too many policies around sex — whether it has to do with teen sexual health, contraception, abortion, abstinence-only policies, HIV and AIDS policies — based on someone's "ick" factors around human sexual behavior. And we far too often ignore or throw away evidence of what is best for people, their rights, and the public health, endangering millions of people in the process. Just because you have a strong opinion about what you are uncomfortable with, even if you don't understand it fully does not mean your "voice" is what should drive policy.
It's no different than vaccines. There are tons of bad articles and assertions around vaccines out there. And people not only circulate them but seek to make policy on them and also don't vaccinate, and we end up with more disease and more danger to the public health. It makes no sense.
