On the Dehumanization of Sex Workers
This is a research brief that I wrote for school last semester.
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On the Dehumanization of Sex Workers
by Katie Armistead
Dehumanization is happening in the world today. An example of this is the dehumanization of sex workers.
“Whore” is often used as a derogatory term; this is common knowledge. This seems just as dehumanizing to sex workers as using “gay” as a derogatory term is to homosexual people. This is also proof that sex workers are often considered lowly creatures in many cultures today.
Many people seem to think that a person who is a sex worker cannot be raped. Because of this unfortunate, but commonly held belief, sex workers are very rarely able to prosecute rapists (Karen 145-146, Lockett 39-40, Gardener). An example of this from 2003 is a case mentioned in a publication by the Human Rights Watch. According to their publication, “one police officer suggested that because a woman who had been abducted was a prostitute, her case was not rape, despite the fact that the woman reported it as rape and there was evidence of significant bruising and other injuries.” Not only do many police officers not protect sex workers, but sometimes they are the people who rape or otherwise harm the sex workers (Lockett 39-40).
Sex workers are often harmed in other ways as well (Frundt, Times Reporter, Tjaronda, Gardener). Sometimes a customer will become rough with a sex worker and abuse a sex worker, refuse to pay a sex worker, or pay with a check that bounces. Sex workers are often afraid to go to the police in these cases as well because they fear what the police will do to them (Lockett 39-40, Gardener).
The issue of the dehumanization of sex workers is not simply a sex workers’ rights issue, but is a women’s rights and human rights issue as well.
"The only solution to the oppression of women exploited as prostitutes is a political elimination of the very notion of female sexual/economic transgression (chosen or forced) by granting all women the same rights, liberties and protections against violation as those to which human beings in general, i.e. men, are entitled. All women’s rights are attached to prostitutes’ rights because the whore stigma can disqualify any woman’s claim to legitimacy and throw suspicion on any woman accused of economic and/or sexual initiative” (Pheterson 105).
If sex workers have no rights, then women do not truly have the same rights as men. Men’s rights are also endangered, as some sex workers are male. Thus, denying sex workers their rights is endangering human rights as a whole. According to Tutu, such is the way with all forms of dehumanization; “Injustice [and] oppression dehumanize the oppressor as much as – if not more than – the oppressed.”
Ann Gardener learned quite a bit about the problems sex workers have to face when a sex worker hired her as a computer consultant. One of these problems is money. Because of the risks involved in being in a sex worker’s business place, the sex worker had to pay four times the normal price to have Gardener teach her to set up and use her new computer. This is because Gardener could have been arrested simply for being in the sex worker’s business place. If any police officers had caught Gardener doing business with the sex worker, she would have been dehumanized as well.
Another problem that sex workers face is a lack of healthcare (Gardener). Sex work does not have benefits; sex workers cannot acquire health insurance through their jobs. This is a very serious issue, as there are many sexually transmitted diseases.
Apparently President Bush has not only started a war on terror, but has also started a war on sex work. According to Audacia Ray of $pread magazine, in 2005, Bush “put forth a requirement that all United States HIV/AIDS organizations seeking funding to provide services in other countries must pledge to oppose commercial sex work” (24-25). The organizations that did not sign a written pledge lost funding. This is an example of more recent attacks on sex workers.
Works Cited
French, Dolores, and Linda Lee. Working: My Life as a
Prostitute. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1989.
Frundt, Tina. “Life with an Abusive Pimp.” Prostitution.
Tamara L. Roleff, Ed. Contemporary Issues Companion Series. Greenhaven Press, 2006. Tina Frundt, testimony before the House Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology, Committee on Financial Services, April 28, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Dekalb County Public Lib., Decatur, GA. 12 Nov. 2006 < http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/OVRC?locID=dkpl>.
Gardener, Ann. Personal Interview. 15 Nov. 2006.
Human Rights Watch. “Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and
Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad.” Human Rights Watch July 2003. 11 Nov. 2006 < http://hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0703/index.htm>.
Karen. “The Right to Protection from Rape.” Sex Work:
Writings by Women in the Sex Industry Eds. Frédérique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander. First Edition. Pittsburgh and San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1987. 145-146.
Lockett, Gloria. “What Happens When You Are Arrested.” Sex Work:
Writings by Women in the Sex Industry Eds. Frédérique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander. First Edition. Pittsburgh and San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1987. 39-40.
Pheterson, G. The Prostitution Prism. Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press. 1996. P. 105
Ray, Audacia. “Global Sex Worker News.” $pread. Summer 2005:
24-25.
Sex Workers Outreach Project. 15 Nov. 2006
< http://www.swop.org.au/>.
The Sex Workers Project. 2006. Urban Justice Center.
15 Nov. 2006 < http://www.sexworkersproject.org/>.
Times Reporter. “Call-Boys Pounce On Suspected Sex Worker.”
Africa News Service. March 26, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Dekalb County Public Lib., Decatur, GA. 12 Nov. 2006 < http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/OVRC?locID=dkpl>.
Tjaronda, Wezi. “Ex-Sex Worker Tells of Life On the Streets.”
Africa News Service. Jan. 11, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Dekalb County Public Lib., Decatur, GA. 12 Nov. 2006 < http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/OVRC?locID=dkpl>.
Tutu, Desmond. “Just call me Arch.” New Internationalist
July 1992. < http://www.newint.org/issue233/endpiece.htm>.
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