College credit: Learning from prostitutes
April 11, 2008 | 10:26
am
A few months ago I got a call from an administrator at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Va. She had a class of 11 students and four professors heading to Vegas to study the various ways of American consumption.
Las Vegas, of course, is an ideal place for that. The class had read an article I wrote in 2005 about the week I lived at the Chicken Ranch brothel. The administrator wanted to know if I would talk to the class about my experience there.
Instead, I put her in touch with the brothel, and Thursday the students traveled to the Chicken Ranch to meet two of the working girls and receive an unprecedented all-access tour.
I was surprised when I got there to observe the exchange that the meeting was as packed with press as it was with students. A press release had gone out, and everyone from the AP to the local television news was there to report on the meeting. I think that probably changed the dynamic a little. But in general, as when I visited a few years ago, the ladies who work at the Chicken Ranch felt misunderstood and had a strong desire to be open about their lives with the students and the press.
Two workers, Alicia and Alexis, spoke to the students. Alexis seemed a little nervous and spoke from note cards. Alicia was more vivacious and spoke from the hip. The students were respectful. And I think both sides found the experience fascinating.
It is interesting the way questions from a Women's Studies perspective are responded to by people who work far from academic feminism. One student asked: "We have read a lot of books and journals about body image. Do you find that is really important here, and there is a certain look for this career choice?"
Two workers, Alicia and Alexis, spoke to the students. Alexis seemed a little nervous and spoke from note cards. Alicia was more vivacious and spoke from the hip. The students were respectful. And I think both sides found the experience fascinating.
It is interesting the way questions from a Women's Studies perspective are responded to by people who work far from academic feminism. One student asked: "We have read a lot of books and journals about body image. Do you find that is really important here, and there is a certain look for this career choice?"
Alicia responded: "I think everyone has a certain image that they are looking for. That is why there are so many different girls that come here. There is a wide variety of women here. It is about self-confidence. If you project yourself well, people will gravitate to that."
Alexis responded: "I agree. It is amazing. One of the interesting things I learned about being here is body image is about what you feel about yourself. I have seen girls who are absolutely beautiful and all you expect a model to be and society to love, and they don't get picked at all. I have seen heavier women who get picked all the time. It all depends on your confidence in yourself."
Does Andrea Dworkin offer any explanation for this? My point is that one thing I learned about the legal brothels is that everything about the psychology and practice of them is too complicated for the sort of pat answers on prostitution that essays and textbooks provide.
Students also learned that the prostitutes have the right to refuse any customer and sometimes for the most arbitrary reasons. Alicia told students that she will turn down a customer if the moment does not feel right: "If you can't communicate with someone when you are walking down to the room, then you are probably not going to have a good sexual experience. For me that is a discriminating factor if you can't talk."Randolph College junior Johna Strickland, 21, told me after the visit: "This was the highlight of the trip. I am all for legal prostitution now, once you learn the reality of how it is here without the danger of drugs and violence. But in general it is not an issue people discuss." Her conclusion: "These are real women with an unusual job."
Alexis responded: "I agree. It is amazing. One of the interesting things I learned about being here is body image is about what you feel about yourself. I have seen girls who are absolutely beautiful and all you expect a model to be and society to love, and they don't get picked at all. I have seen heavier women who get picked all the time. It all depends on your confidence in yourself."
Does Andrea Dworkin offer any explanation for this? My point is that one thing I learned about the legal brothels is that everything about the psychology and practice of them is too complicated for the sort of pat answers on prostitution that essays and textbooks provide.
Students also learned that the prostitutes have the right to refuse any customer and sometimes for the most arbitrary reasons. Alicia told students that she will turn down a customer if the moment does not feel right: "If you can't communicate with someone when you are walking down to the room, then you are probably not going to have a good sexual experience. For me that is a discriminating factor if you can't talk."Randolph College junior Johna Strickland, 21, told me after the visit: "This was the highlight of the trip. I am all for legal prostitution now, once you learn the reality of how it is here without the danger of drugs and violence. But in general it is not an issue people discuss." Her conclusion: "These are real women with an unusual job."
I've never been to a brother (maybe someday, though!) But would I be wrong to think that the brothels look a lot nicer when the national media shows up. I have friends who've gone to these places and have seen guns and drugs at these places.
Posted by: Clay | April 11, 2008 at 01:03 PM
It is common, in my experience, for men who want to promote prostitution, to note the unusual situations women are in, rather than talk about the more usual situations. Most women in prostitution are not in brothels. Many work on the streets, giving at least half of their earned income, if not all of it, to their abusive and controlling pimps.
This isn't learned from afar by textbooks: Andrea Dworkin lived it for real, in life, as many women do, as a close friend of mine did, who was on the street at fourteen, picked up by a "friendly" pimp, who offered to take care of her, but instead exploited her sexually by seasoning her to be a prostitute for his own financial gain. Her body size wasn't the issue. She was, according to him, "pretty." He wss, in his view, exploitable human goods.
Why do men focus on the most unusual cases, ignoring what is far more widespread? Why don't you also discuss sexual slavery, for example, which is global, affecting many women and girls around the world?
Most women in systems of prostitution--from their own reports, not from textbooks--do not have the freedoms you describe the women you knew in the brothel as having.
I suspect something self-serving is going on here, Richard. And I wish you'd be honest enough to own that.
So, in answer to your question: Does Andrea Dworkin offer any explanation for this?
The point many feminists are making is that women ought not to exist on Earth for men to sexually use and abuse; that women have the right to a kind of dignity and purpose that doesn't involve taking strange men's penises into their bodies, over and over again. The point is that most women are not in systems of prostitution because it is what they most wanted to do ever since they were little girls. The point is that most women in prostitution need to have been incested or need to be on drugs even to get through the experience, and to believe "this is my value; this is what I am for." There are many women who have come out of these systems to report this. It isn't abstract, academic information. Andrea Dworkin lived a woman's life. She wasn't speaking from any ivory tower, nor with the regular and paid access to the press that you have.
Thanks for your time.
Paul S.
Posted by: Paul S. | April 23, 2008 at 02:33 PM