One of the elements that most intrigued me when I watched Firefly years ago was the idea of a sex work as a positive, healthy, prestigious occupation – which I believe it could be in a society more evolved than ours. But it didn’t take long to realize the creators either didn’t get it or were setting up a revelation that despite the Companion Guild’s great public relations buzz, it hadn’t really reformed sex work to the degree Inara claims. I suspect it’s a little of both (the creators not thinking it all the way through, and the intent to expose the Companion Guild as one more piece of Alliance hypocrisy), but whatever the intent, what we’re left with is a hodgepodge. We’re told Inara is respected; we’re often shown she’s not. We’re told the “whores” in “Heart of Gold” are different because they don’t belong to the Guild, but never get a satisfactory answer to the question of why the hell that should make such a difference.
This got me thinking: what would a writer have to do to create a fictional a society in which sex work is positive, safe and fulfilling for both workers and clients, and considered a good thing by society? Can it even be done, when you factor in the reality that many prostitutes are minors of both genders, too young for any sort of legal employment?
The first step seems obvious: your fictional society would have to grant sex workers the same security, autonomy and protection that other employees and independent contractors have. This is where Firefly more or less gets it right. But what about minor prostitutes? Kids usually wind up on the street because the situation at home was no better, and our society isn’t prepared to talk about practical exit strategies for kids who desperately need to get away from their homes. If you protect adult sex workers, that would be highly beneficial – but it would reveal in disturbing detail the fact that women were never the sex class. Children have always been a sex class, too.
So it seems to me you need a society in which:
- sex workers are protected by the law, like other workers,
- women have as many options in life as men have,
- abused children have access to practical remedies and know about them,
- sexual predators of any sort are always thought of as the worst kind of scum, even when they’re such nice white boys with such promising futures, and
- people believe all workers deserve basic respect and dignity. Otherwise, legally protected sex workers – like restaurant servers – will get some basic rights and protections, but still be made to feel worthless by asshole customers with entitlement issues.
- Also, I’m not sure you can achieve this as long as monogamy remains the model for your society. It’s plausible that your society could believe people should be faithful without blaming sex workers for making infidelity possible, but highly unlikely.
And that’s just getting started. To convince me that your fictional sex work is a truly good thing, I would also like to hear that your sex workers enjoy the sex they have on the job. That at least many of them find their careers fulfilling in some way. And I would really, really like to see roughly as many male sex workers as female, and female customers as male, or else I will still be frustrated that in this enlightened society you’ve created, you’re okay with continuing the idea that sex is something women yield to men rather than a just plain human experience.
I’ve given this a fair amount of thought over the past couple of years, and yet I think there’s still a lot I haven’t worked out. What would convince you sex work was working out nicely for a fictional society?
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“Also, there will never be a way to create a society in which people don’t feel jealousy and betrayal at their partner having sex with someone else. That’s a ridiculous notion that would require the entire rewiring of the human brain in order to be feasible. So, regardless of whether marriage as an institution lasts, the emotions of jealousy and hurt will continue to inhabit the human mind.”
I know an awful lot of polyfolk who disagree with this statement. (I myself am one of them.)
Pocket Nerd(Quote) (Reply)
DHS also assumes that anyone engaging the services of a sex worker has a partner.
I’m really not sure why people like DHS think sex work is innately different from other work. Lots of people enjoy their jobs, and get personal dsatisfaction and validation out of them. But any sex worker who claims this is met accusations of lying or being brainwashed by the “porn-iarchy.” (Yes, there are people who really use that term.)
I don’t think it has anything to do with sex work, personally. It’s my theory that there are poeple in the world who are simply unable to believe that anyone who is intelligent, well-informed, and well-intentioned could possibly come to different conclusions than they have. Therefore, to such people, anyone who disagrees with them is stupid, ignorant, or evil.
(I’m not claiming DHS is one of those people, since they haven’t given us much to go on. I’m just pointing out that I think such people exist.)
Patrick J McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
I was forced into prostitution as a minor (and was told it was good for me) and I used to think that prostitution as presented in the popular media was accurate and that I was some sort of exception. Then I read the research. It turns out it’s the other way around. Most prostitutes are walking wounded and want out. Yes, there are some who are doing fine. But they make up a small minority. And from what I’ve read, the ones who are doing the best are the ones who have day jobs, because then they can always afford to say no.
I think trying to make fictional prostitution positive in today’s world is a form of rape apology, if that’s the term I want. It’s easier to pretend prostitution can be good than to see just how bad it is. Less painful all round. Well, for most people.
I was disappointed in Whedon when he added a “whore” to his series, and snickered about it. Though he could have had a character who was fine with casual sex, with or without gifts of cash or whatever, as a side job that she could take or leave whenever she wanted. That would be more realistic. And you could do a lot with a character like that.
Except that I also consider writing this material into an actor’s job description to be sexual harassment, so it would all have to be off camera to be ethical in my book. But you could certainly do it off camera, or in print, if you were responsible about it.
Anemone Cerridwen(Quote) (Reply)
Anemone, I’m sorry to hear you were forced into prostitution. I think that’s definitely the most common story among sex workers, unfortunately.
I hadn’t thought of “good prostitution” as “rape apology” but I see what you mean. Some story elements tend to remain problematic, no matter what a great and enlightened job the writer does with them. This could be one of them, because society in general has a poor understanding of the various ways people get into sex work, the various things it means to them, and the ways they feel and so on. If the audience isn’t starting on the same page as the storyteller who attempts to portray a society that’s found a “good” way to dole out sex for money, the storyteller might need to spend inordinate time educating the audience on what all this means, and that wouldn’t be practical for the story. But leaving it out could certainly create in some readers/viewers the impression that the storyteller is saying sex work, as it is here and now, is largely okay.
Re: off-camera. Hell YES you can always do anything involving sex and nudity off-camera. Used to be the only way you could do it, and I actually think it pushed the filmmakers to be more creative. Some old movies just ooze sex without even showing the clothes falling on the carpet – it was done with dialog and good acting. I personally find a lot of modern sex scenes pretty unsexy because no thought’s been given to creating that chemistry between the actors – it’s just rub this, kiss that, ho hum.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
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