This is a follow-up to the many interesting comments made on my previous three posts on New Zealand’s Prostitution Reform Act (just scroll down). Obviously the conversation could go in several different directions, but I want to try to clarify a couple of points made in the original post about the possible ‘whitening’ effect of a brothel-oriented policy. I was talking about cultural whiteness, not skin colour: the tastes, presumptions and norms of the (ruling) middle classes. The purpose of studying whiteness is to help us see that most of what is taken for granted as ‘good for society’ simply represents the views of the people who have most power, whose interests lie with the status quo (nearly always anti-poor, anti-immigration) and whose opinions are said to be ‘normal’.
This discussion started because the Prostitution Reform Act prohibits migrants from sex working in NZ; it’s a law regulating a business sector that also contains a piece of migration law. Some of us are speculating that a law that focusses on brothels
‘creates an ideological framework that promotes a very white middle-class kind of sex industry – one that is concealed from public view behind the doors of brothels. ‘ Josie
The fact that one can find a variety of ethnicities in brothels, anywhere in the world, is not surprising and doesn’t contradict the point. Brothel managers very often have a policy of keeping ‘one of each’ on hand to satisfy consumer whims. What I’m trying to
- La Sortie du Bourgeois, Jean Béraud, 1889
get at here is that regulated brothels are a conservative, patriarchal business form, a conception of the sex industry most palatable to bourgeois ‘family values’ stressing discretion (for the benefit of men) and non-visibility (of women’s sexuality). So whilst a semi-hysterical ‘sexiness’ shimmies away on television, making people feel they are more ‘liberated’ all the time, this prostitution law addresses primarily the most controlled and traditional version of commercial sex. In New Zealand, local councils may limit signs outside and the location of houses, which is good for community relations but belongs to the same impulse to ‘clean up the streets’ that protests against street prostitution do. This isn’t to say this law isn’t better than most. And I have taken the point that street prostitution is progressively accepted and included in it. But note also that the enormous variety of businesses found within the sex industry is not mentioned, including potentially raunchier activities like lap dancing and peep shows. How do those fare?
I’m not going to pronounce on the extent to which New Zealand is diverse or multicultural. Statistics from NZ’s census can be viewed here, and in a simple chart here, but they can be interpreted different ways. The statistics don’t include anyone living in NZ irregularly, of course – tourists who have overstayed their visas, workers who’ve been smuggled and so on. There are maps showing the percentage of people identifying as Maori (13.0%), Asian (8.1%) and Pacific Islander (6.0%) in the 2006 census. ‘73% of New Zealand’s population is of unmixed Europrean descent’ – whatever that means. The maps show that non-European people are densest in the north.
On the other hand, if you simply count the number of nationalities and ethnicities people lay claim to, then you can say that the country is highly diverse. A NZ Ministry for Culture and Heritage website roundly claims multiculturalism. Of course, you need to add in variables about language, age, religion, and you must try to resist relying on your experiences living there or as a visitor. Someone who’s lived in New York might experience NZ as very white; someone from a small town in a Nordic country might find it diverse. The term multiculturalism can also refer to a state policy that encouragies members of different groups to celebrate and maintain their different cultures as a way to promote social cohesion.
Similarly, NZ’s immigration policy can be described as benevolent and open or highly restrictive. As in other richer countries, the openness is towards ‘Skilled Migrants’, a point system is used, there are many, many limitations and difficulties put in the way and the whole thing is skewed towards the most educated white collar workers. I wouldn’t bet on the chances on getting into NZ for someone from South America or Africa whose profession is Kitchen Help or Manual Labourer (Construction), though I expect some of those jobs need filling. Many who read this blog consider sex work to be skilled, but so far no country’s migration policy agrees.
Links to information about the law are back at the first post.