The #MeToo movement shone a spotlight on the issue of sexual harassment, helping us to understand just how common and how harmful it is: how it damages women’s confidence and self-esteem – but, more than that, how it ultimately undermines women’s political, social and economic power.
“Decades of research has documented the extensive damage suffered by victims of sexual harassment, including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, job turnover and post-traumatic stress.”
Brendan Smith1 American Psychological Association, B.Smith (02.2018) What it really takes to stop sexual harassment
We all believe women have a right to live free from sexual harassment. And yet many of us fail to consider how this right applies to women in the sex industry, where sexual harassment is part of the job description.
We recognise the harms of sexually-objectifying women and girls. Yet we accept the idea of women earning a living by becoming sex objects.
We deny men’s right to use women sexually in whichever way they please, but we turn a blind eye when money is exchanged.
“One of the things that pornography does extremely efficiently is provide an endless flow of narratives of women being treated as objects, violated or “done to.””
Julia Long, sociologist Ruskin University 2 The Washington Post, J.Long (27.05.2016) Opinion | Pornography is more than just sexual fantasy. It’s cultural violence.
Mainstream online pornography is filled with themes that are otherwise regarded as taboos or as being beyond the pale: depictions of violence and coercion, sexual activity with children, racism, torture and abuse are all permitted as sexual ‘kinks’. By far the majority of sexual aggression is directed against women, who are made to kneel, called offensive names, choked, slapped, strangled, penetrated by multiple men at once, covered in semen, urine and vomit and subjected to various forms of pain and humiliation, all in the name of sexual arousal.
“Women endure further psychological and emotional violation from commodification. Commodification abrogates a woman’s subjecthood by reducing her to the status of a sex object, purchasable and exchangeable on the market.”3A.Mathieson, B.Easton, A.Noble (2016) “‘Women endure further psychological and emotional violation from commodification. Commodification abrogates a woman’s subjecthood by reducing her to the status of a sex object, purchasable and exchangeable on the market Seattle Journal for Social Justice: Vol. 14 : Iss. 2 , Article 10.
From “Prostitution Policy: Legalization, Decriminalization and the Nordic Model”
Sexual violence is unacceptable in the real world but tolerated in porn, largely on the basis that it’s considered ‘fantasy’. The women we see on screen in pornography are somehow different from the women we know and love in the real world. They’re not our daughters, mothers, friends and sisters – they’re bitches, ‘hos’, sluts and whores; they’re “random teens”, and somebody else’s step-daughter or ‘MILF’; they’re “mature”, “cripples”, “grannies”, “Chinese”, “ebony”, sian”, “slaves”, “pregnant”, “gay”, “babe”, “brunette”, “BBWs” and “big tits”.
Categorisations of this nature all prevent us from framing women in porn as anything other than commodities that exist for our sexual arousal. In this light, we don’t really mind when they’re mistreated, when their ‘no’ is taken for a ‘yes’ and when they’re forced into doing things they clearly don’t want to do. This sense of dissonance is further enforced by the fact that, 95% of the time, women act in response to the violence and aggression directed against them with either pleasure or indifference.4 A. Bridges, R. Wosnitzer, E. Scharrer, C. Sun, and R. Liberman, Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis Update Violence against Women 16, no. 10 (2010): 1065–1085.
“Women who are objectified are viewed as less than fully human, perceived to have less of a mind for thoughts or decisions, and viewed as less deserving of moral treatment by others.”5 D. Kellie(2019) What drives female objectification? An investigation of appearance-based interpersonal perceptions and the objectification of womenPLoS One. 2019; 14(8): e0221388. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0221388
It’s the same story with prostitution, which gives consumers the right to live out the porn experience where they pay to use women who are professional sex objects, and where the usual rules governing social interactions – respect the other person’s boundaries, considering their feelings and desires – don’t need to apply.
Research into the motivations of sex buyers shows that the main appeal of prostitution lies in the sense of power they feel at having temporary ownership of another person. This feeling of entitlement helps to explain the high levels of violence against people in the sex trade. As one sex buyer explains, “You get to treat a ho like a ho… you can find a ho for any type of need – slapping, choking, aggressive sex beyond what your girlfriend will do – you won’t do stuff to your girlfriend that will make her lose her self-esteem.”6 Tumblr, An Awkward Tangerine Collective Shout: Men who buy sex in their own words
“He just wants to ejaculate and whether it hurts the woman’s body or not, he doesn’t care.”
“Marie”, prostituted woman7 Irish Times, K.Sheridan (30.08.2010)A prostitute’s life: ‘Whether it hurts the woman or not, the men don’t care’
So why is it that we hold this double standard? Why isn’t everyone who is against sexual objectification, harassment and abuse in normal life also against the principles of the sex trade?
Choice?
Most people imagine the answer has to do with choice. When women are treated as sex objects, we accept it if we believe it’s their choice, and that they’re OK with it. This isn’t just the message we get from the porn itself – it’s also the narrative we’re fed by the mainstream media.
For example, in her book Pornland, Dr Gail Dines looks at how the media crafted the story of porn star Jenna Jameson’s entry into the porn industry, framing it as a natural career choice because she was ‘a very sexual person’. They ignore the tragic story of Jameson’s early life, which her biography describes as being marred by neglect and sexual abuse. We’re not encouraged to think about how these traumas may have shaped her later life choices.
This is typical of the way the porn industry influences the media – a deliberate attempt to improve its public image, sanitizing its products ‘by stripping away the “dirt” factor’ to ensure that we can all indulge, guilt-free.8 G. Dines. (2010). Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked our Sexuality (2010 North Melbourne, Vic.: Spinifex Press). p.25
Today, porn culture has seeped into pop culture to the point where pornified imagery and the hypersexualisation of women and girls is so normal that we barely notice, let alone question it. What’s more, we’ve been conditioned to equate the objectification of women with notions of choice, liberation and empowerment.
But just as we wouldn’t extend empathy to objects, neither do we empathise with objectified women- complex individuals with thoughts, feelings, life histories, hopes and aspirations. Sexual objectification is the thing that sustains the double standard. Whereas we feel horrified at sexual violence when it’s directed against close family members, we don’t ask questions when it’s directed against the anonymous, hypersexualised women in the sex trade. We make the assumption that such women are different, that they must somehow like what they’re doing – or at the very least not mind doing it. Or why else would they choose it?
Harm
The answer has to do with vulnerability. In the sex trade, the exchange of payment legitimises what would otherwise be recognised immediately as abuse in any other context (which is why sex trade survivor Rachel Moran describes prostitution as “paid rape”9 Il Manifesto, M.Miatini (11.10.2017) Prostitution is paid rape, and men know it). But money doesn’t nullify the harms of sexual abuse: being sexually used by a stranger is always harmful, even when we say we “choose” it, “consent” to it, or regard it as work.
In reality, women in porn aren’t a ‘special breed’ of women who like being treated as sex objects, who are inured to the harm of being sexually harassed for a living – so why should they be excempt from the rights and protections we extend to other women?10 M. Farley (2018) #METOO MUST INCLUDE PROSTITUTION Dignity Volume 3, Issue 1, Article 9, 2018
There is a huge psychological cost to women performing intimate acts with strangers. Most resort to strategies of psychological dissociation, suspending their sense of self in order to do the ‘right’ things, make all the right noises and be the sort of body the sex buyer wants. We rarely consider the fact that these individuals frequently suffer from anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and drug / alcohol abuse.11 G.Corita, G.Ryan, W.Margold, J. Torres & L.Gelberg (2008). Pathways To Health Risk Exposure In Adult Film Performers. Journal Of Urban Health 86 (1): 67-78. Springer Nature. doi:10.1007/s11524-008-9309-4.
Neither do we ask why women “choose” this sort of work in the first place. Why is it that very few women in the sex trade have had the privileges of a stable, balanced upbringing, a good education, plentiful life options and a comfortable financial situation. On the contrary, the vast majority of women in the sex industry are young, socially-marginalised and desperate for cash, with few other life options available to them. Very often they have a history of sexual trauma which has eroded their sense of sexual integrity, making it easier for them to cede to the unnatural ‘demands’ of the job. For survivors of abuse, selling sex can feel like the only thing they’re good for.
The long-term psychological consequences of being treated as a sex object are always devastating; no person is immune. As one sex trade survivor writes: “You start changing yourself to fit a fantasy role of what they think a woman should be. In the real world, these women don’t exist. They stare at you with this starving hunger. It sucks you dry; you become this empty shell. They’re not really looking at you. You’re not you. You’re not even there.”12 M. Farley, A. Cotton, J. Lynne et al. (2003), Prostitution and trafficking in nine countries: an update on violence and posttraumatic stress disorder. In: Prostitution, Trafficking and Traumatic Stress, M.Farley, ed. Binghamton, New York: Haworth Press, pp33-74.
Ultimately, this comes down to a collective cognitive dissonance: we like to imagine that the sex trade has nothing to do with the sexual violence we abhor and fight against. We like to keep them apart in our minds – and there are powerful cultural forces stopping us from joining the dots. The systematic sexual abuse of women and girls will continue to make huge profits for as long as we stay blinkered to this reality.