Sex on Sunday Special: What do we have in common? What would a counter-campaign look like?

I am asked – nay, challenged – to say what the issues I comment on here have in common. Not the obvious answer incapsulated in the blog’s title: migration, trafficking and sex, but what lies underneath those – or what the framing issue is above them all. What are you and I concerned about? What brings us together? What’s behind the immediate issues?

Leaving out regional tags the cloud to the right lists:

borders campaigns children clients colonialism culture dance demand development feminism gender equality helping hiv home informal economy laws media migration mobility money police porn power rescue research services sex tourism sexuality sexwork smuggling statistics sundaysex sweden trafficking transnationalism travel urban space violence

Which is not what I need, even if I add more such topics, like

rights, censorship, prison, law and order, fake economics, voodoo evidence, taboo, stigma, regulation, moralism, government repression, government intervention, sexism, misogyny, disrespect for women, disrespect for poorer women, neocolonialism, imperialism, sexual regulation and the list could obviously go on and on

None of these get to the nucleus of what we are worried, annoyed and protesting about. Recently several people –  here on the blog, in emails and at live events – have said what we all know by now: that none of the debunking and deconstructing of the anti-trafficking movement’s messages has had much effect. Whatever has been mobilised with sex-slavery reductionism is impervious to reason and evidence. Therefore the question is, What would a counter-campaign look like? A positive message, not a negative one. One that doesn’t refer to organised political parties or broad schools of thought such as liberalism, humanism, libertarianism. Or to unfortunately over-used words like equality. And this is a non-academic question: no abstruse or long-winded replies allowed. Answers do not have to come in the form of a pithy Madison-Avenue message, either – not yet.

Sexual autonomy? My Body, My Self? Sexual Respect? Do those exclude anything really important?

Send ideas as a comment and let’s have a conversation, or talk to me via the contact form to the right.

Laura Agustin, the Naked Anthropologist

19 thoughts on “Sex on Sunday Special: What do we have in common? What would a counter-campaign look like?

  1. Marc of Frankfurt

    Is there a campaign necessary? Possibly many discussions in the public media realms are part of social bigotry, double standards and power games of helper-, media- and activists industry. Hence most people vote by feet and stay in distance (the silence crowd). They focus on either pursuing good business in sex work or frequent good sex workers or partners… Doing good work or living a good life is hard enough and a big challenge not to be overlooked.

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  3. Kris

    After visiting all these prostitutes, what I discovered is I don’t want sex, but:

    excitement, attention, “love”, interest, confirmation, contact, talk, information.

    Perhaps this is the positive side. Men don’t come to prostitutes just to dominate or to be dominated. But I do really wonder if forced prostitution is really such a marginal phemonenon. I still think it is very real, but not to be exaggerated. I think forced prostitution is a very big issue for clients of prostitutes.

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  4. Megan Morgenson

    My comments are from a US perspective-

    To me, we have to get people behind not fearing sex if we ever hope to move forward on other issues surrounding tolerance and personal sexual freedoms. As I work backwards from what it would take to get decriminalization of prostitution passed, it starts with better education, open conversation, and broader understanding of what human sexuality is all about first, then hopefully the foundation is laid for more complex policy changes to occur.

    Also, the underlying current that women workers are always victims, whether we feel that way or not, shows how much more we have to do to allow women sexual autonomy in our society. Somehow we still need our Daddies and Mommies protecting us, for we know not what we do… This is completely anti-feminist, regardless of how some feminists try to spin it. Women are still not allowed to claim their sexual power on their own terms, nor do most really understand it themselves, or what they can do with it. Until we are able to convince society that women can take responsibility for our choices, including ones that are more challenging to navigate, we will always have some savior trying to rescue the damsel they think is in distress.

    Short version: sex positive culture, female sexual autonomy and power

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  5. asehpe

    Yes, something around sex is wrong in this culture, and this leads to “prostitution is evil”, trafficking and the rescue industry. The evil these people see themselves as saving women from is ultimately the evil of sex (the motivator of exploitation).

    My slogans would center around:
    – Sex is not the enemy. Sex is life-affirming. Sex implies respect.
    – Sexual respect.
    – Autonomy.
    – Responsibility.
    – Consensuality.

    The problem is, of course, that put in those terms the people in the trafficking and rescue industry will immediately agree. Of course we all favor autonomy, respect, responsibility, consensuality and see sex as a positive thing. The point — they would say — is that you don’t see this big cloud of bad people doing all this oppression (prostitution), plus all those patriarchal elements that keep this oppression going and protect it from us, the freedom fighters extraordinaire!

    Which is why I think such a campaign ultimately would fail. It’s not about having the ‘right slogans’, because we’re all pretty much in agreement about the slogans; it’s about Weltanschauungen and the impossibility some people have of seeing prostitution and porn as anything other than obvious exploitation. And this vision can be cognitively closed (those trying to defend porn/prostitution, even in theory, are simply part of the problem: they’re working for the ‘sex industry’).

    How did people ever manage to change so many people’s opinion about smoking — a very widespread and well-accepted custom at the beginning? Maybe that — geared at sex work, and with reverse polarity (bad-to-good) — is what should be done.

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  6. Mercedes Allen

    This is similar to what we’re experiencing in the trans community as well. we can educate people until we’re blue in the face, but it seems to make little difference. What does make a difference is getting our narrative out there.

    Tell your stories, somewhere that the mainstream sees it… openly, positively, nakedly, including the hilarious, sad and embarassing parts. It’s only by inviting people to see from our perspective that they seem able to do so — and until then, without having a reason to empathize, they’re seeing the issue as “someone else’s problem.”

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  7. Lia

    It’s funny. I really think that the reason why this is such a difficult issue is that people cannot deal with ambiguity. People really want “authority” to tell them what to think and how to respond. Unfortunately, the anti-trafficking movement happily fills in the gaps of ambiguity, makes the discussion black-and-white, and people respond.

    And they respond with a lot of money!

    One of the points in the original Freakonomics book was that standing against principles that are good makes you look like a jerk. If you stand against anti-trafficking organizations, then you MUST be FOR slavery, right?

    So perhaps the role should be “Way cooler people than you are against slavery, too, but we think it’s not as simple as you’d like for it to be.”

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  8. Maggie McNeill

    I think there are actually two separate issues here: One, the “normal” opposition to prostitution which has existed for a very long time; and Two, the sex trafficking moral panic which has engulfed the Western world. I honestly feel as though we need to concentrate on fighting #1 because moral panics cannot truly be fought, they can only be survived. They are like floods which eventually ebb after doing untold damage. While the flood continues we can be the voices of reason which help some people to stay afloat, and when it does abate – as all moral panics eventually do – perhaps we can use the experience to call attention to the underlying problems which facilitated it just as others did after the witch hunts and the Red Scare.

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  9. laura agustin

    lots of helpful comments here, thank you (also separately on facebook and in messages to me via the blog contact form).

    maxine, i am wondering about wider issues than sex work, which is what decriminalisation refers to. that focus makes great sense in the US and in certain other countries but does nothing for the trafficking problem and is rejected by sexwork activists in some places.

    asehpe, my search is not for a superficial slogan and not solely about sexwork and trafficking. ideas about respect and autonomy apply to surrogacy, abortion, family-lifestyles and other wider issues.

    as for success and failure, i think they are too crude as measures. take another area of social activism, climate change, environmental movements. one may say they have achieved nothing or that they have prevented worse things happening, etc. a campaign to unite those annoyed or outraged by a sort of fundamentalism about sex and diversity might inspire more individuals to understand and struggle or help beleaguered groups to survive – to mention only two possibilities. at the moment the many strands of this are quite dispersed, so i am curious to see if there is a way to unify them.

    the tobacco story is interesting, i must look into it.

    lia, coolness definitely has to be part of the feeling of the thing, and youth, and sexiness.

    mercedes, stories are also essential – accessible, funny, hopeful stories including coping and surviving in the face of victimisation and criminality.

    which brings me to megan: sex positive culture is a very good frame to look at this inside. autonomy v power – interesting distinction, the power word so often used in a negative sense.

    again thanks

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  10. Daryl Champion

    Many good ideas above, which seem in one way or another to be pointing in a particular direction, although it seems perhaps they need to be tied together under the auspices of something along the lines of “a more general cultural malaise – which is not just confined to issue of sexuality – requires a comprehensive cultural approach (or ‘remedy’)”. This would be a longer-term project.

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  11. laura agustin Post author

    maggie, sorry, i don’t know why your comment got stuck in spam.

    daryl (and others), it’s true one can find more and more general causes for these sexual uproars, and so one can get into debating libertarianism, humanism and so on. i am interested to see whether there is a median sort of frame, though – something between sex worker rights at one specific end and philosophy at the other.

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  12. Asehpe

    It seems you are talking about unifying a number of different groups — “those annoyed or outraged by ‘sexual fundamentalism'”, which may include groups that maybe do not realize that they have this much in common. Is it more something along these lines — making these groups connect — rather than changing mainstream attitudes? Is it about linking efforts that are still unconnected?

    I find the tobacco history quite interesting. Attitudes were indeed changed against all odds and against the interests of powerful and traditional economic interests.

    It is difficult to see how to foster open-mindedness in sexual matters without attacking social ideas about sex. It seems we would have to agree on a message — what is sex, and what is it for? — that could challenge traditionally held views. Respect and autonomy could in principle be consequences of such a vision of sex. (In arguing with others, I’m always struck by how their ideas about how certain sexual behaviors are ‘obviously bad’ is also a direct consequence of what they think sex is, and what they think is its purpose. That, much more than the pragmatic reasons they sometimes mention, is the strongest inspiration for their opposition to whatever they think they should oppose, from homosexuality to stem cells research, to prostitution, etc.

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  13. auletride

    Hm, I think what I have to add to this conversation is more slogan/theory based than action based, here goes…

    Much of the time when I read the anti-trafficking propaganda, that which isn’t so over-the-top, I find myself somewhat in sympathy with what they have to say, probably because they have good sloganeering. Of course, slavery is bad, abuse is bad, forced anything is bad, and so as mentioned before it sounds unthinkable to oppose the people opposed to these bad things. But we’re not in support of those bad things. In my mind, the sex workers’ rights movements, in name, has the exact same goals as the anti-traffickers claim: to end forced labor and abuse and, to promote safe, fair working conditions. So why not turn their rhetoric around on them? If anti-trafficking laws, police, legislators, and on a broader level, an inherently oppressive economic model are inflicting abuse on an institutional level, shouldn’t the anti-traffickers also be protesting police violence against sex workers, laws that lock up “trafficking victims,” and capitalism as a whole?
    The anti-traffickers astound me in their shortsightedness, not just in their simplistic analysis, but more in that their legal “achievements” are actually harming migrant workers and sex workers. I don’t doubt there are intelligent, caring people working in that movement, and thus it must be possible for them to see their mistakes, step back, and work towards their stated goals in a responsible manner. And, if that is possible, it is also possible for those of us in the sex-worker’s rights movement to be working alongside them.

    I also like the language of “pro-choice” anything- it lends itself well to any sort of decriminalization campaign, be it of drug use, abortion, sex work, or any other personal choice that isn’t inherently harmful of others. Often it seems like pro-sex worker media is too on the defensive to actively acknowledge that, yes, many people are exploited within the sex industry. Pro-choice is a phrase that is positive, yet allows for negative experiences. A campaign using that language can say, people should be allowed to chose whatever profession they please and do so in a safe environment for fair pay. That can mean choosing sex work, and it can also mean choosing not to do sex work. If the anti-traffickers think that sex work is such a horrible choice, they should work to create alternative economies and employment opportunities that are more appealing AND for safer working conditions for sex workers. If a counter campaign is doing that, then it’s doing the anti-traffickers jobs for them.

    So, obviously, my analysis is a strongly anti-capitalist one, and it’s hard for me to argue for sex work itself as I don’t agree with the idea of money- or barter-based economies. Thus, I don’t see the use of arguing for the moral or social merits of sex work. Though I have met a few sex workers who really do love their work and find it to be their calling, they’re in the minority. At best, it is a well paying alternative with little to no negative effect upon the worker, client, and surrounding environment (in contrast to, say, heavy industry, which has overwhelmingly negative effects on workers, clients, and their environments). At worst, it’s exploitative, re/traumatizing, thankless, emotionally and physically demeaning- like most work available to poor people and migrants. Exploitation of the global underclasses and the environment will exist as long as there is a global economy that rates it’s success upon how efficiently it can perform said exploitation. I say a counter campaign aught to be for is both the individual right to chose how to navigate one’s oppression, as long as it doesn’t harm others, and the overthrow of the causes of said oppression.

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  14. Laura Agustín

    asehpe: yes, a fundamental problem is the idea that some kinds of sex are good, and others bad, and that it is possible for us to find out and make lists of which behaviours belong on each side. then we would definitively forbid all the bad ones, and everyone would know what they can and cannot do and that would be that: jail for those who trespass.

    which is utterly different from (our) ideas about sexual cultures, diversity, ambiguity, shifting identities, experimentation.

    if we ask your question: what is sex for? what is a non-fundamentalist answer? presumably that sex is for a lot of different things – health, happiness, reproduction, identity formation, comfort, fun, relaxation as well as negative things.

    auletride: a few keywords are unfortunately now over-associated with particular battles. choice is one, though it is a good word and concept. when i give talks about migrants who sell sex and the contexts they often come from i talk about preference, not choice, because so many people instantly hear in the word a neoliberal frivolity. i talk about people who have maybe three choices for jobs, none of them very appealing, and who opt to try one or the other because they prefer to. is this fair? no. are they overwhelmingly constrained by structural inequalities? yes. within that situation can they still opt-choose-prefer one over the other? also yes.

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  15. Kris

    I think the solution is a socialist world government. Then all income can be spread equally. I read that when that happens there will be enough for everybody. Prostitution wouldn’t be necessary then. And we don’t have to work so hard anymore, not 60 hours a week, but perhaps 20. So everybody will be happy.

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  16. Asehpe

    To the question “what is sex for”, my non-fundamentalist answer would be “for us”. :-)

    The fundamentalists would insist on a more specific answer; say, sex is for reproduction. (So non-reproductive sex is kinda wrong.) Or it is for expressing love. (Hearts, yay; orgasm, boo.)

    The fundamentalist will insist on the harmful side. Sex is animal. Not in front of the children! Yes, think of the children! Sex without love is meaningless. Sex for money is slavery (you’re selling yourself!). There’s Too Much Sex Already: our society is oversexualized! Look at sex addiction. Porn destroys lives! Don’t forget the children trafficked into prostitution! Sluts are class traitors: they make life harder for other women. Why not give abstinence only a chance? And all the abortions we have because of sex! Mindless sex. Casual sex. Unprotected sex. Big bad wolf waiting for you in the alley! Boys will be boys. Careful: she’s one of those girls your mother warned you against. You should marry a good girl. Madonna or Whore; White Knight or Rapist; pick your side! Eeeh, look at all this confusion! And you want me to believe sex is simple?

    Maybe the best message would be indeed: “Sex is simple; it’s people are complicated.” Or maybe “relax: it’s just sex…”. (I sometimes think people like Svutlana do more, with their philosophy of saying sex is something you should be able to laugh about, for the goal of “normalizing” sex in life than many a thick treatise full of information.)

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  17. Julie@GAATW

    We tried a couple of things related to this. Last year, we held an arts contest called ‘Rights!Art!Action!’ challenging members and the public to come up with more empowering anti-trafficking imagery. The representations we got were really diverse, it was interesting to see how people interpreted empowerment in the anti-trafficking context. You can see the winning entry here: http://www.gaatw.org/index.php?limitstart=2 . We should also have an article online soon about the contest. Our 2011 annual planner includes 12 of the submissions we received, you can request a copy at info@gaatw.org.

    We also collaborated with a local photographer to document the work of SEPOM, a Thai org led by returnee migrant women (some of whom have been trafficked): http://www.victimcenteredmechanism.com/images/stories/docs/resources/Stories_of_Returnee_Migrant_Women_A_Photo_Essay.pdf . This has been really useful in international advocacy spaces, government representatives in particular really responded to the exhibit. To me, one of the biggest contrasts this offers is that it’s about women making meaning from their experiences, determining how they’ll share that story, and talking about their trafficking or exploitative migration in the context of full and rich lives.

    Finally, we’re sponsoring a contest right now based on some of these issues. It’s in collaboration with the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival. The deadline is mid-March, more info can be found here: http://www.rhizome.org/announce/events/56458/view/

    Reply

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