This week there was an interesting discussion of prostitution, call girls, and street walkers. Sex workers. With the internet and the migration of sex work onto the internet, street walking has decreased. Our mental images of what prostitution is (often based on what we see in the media) may be distorted. This conversation followed two interesting stems. The first: Why do we need to buy intimacy? Frequently these encounters are less about sex and more about power or experiencing a certain intimate experience with someone else. The second: Does exchange of goods or services count as prostitution? What needs to happen for it to be considered sex work? Is marriage sex work?
I brought up a few points which I thought were interesting. The first being that we may separate our partner and our family life with obtrusive fantasies or “unnecessary” needs. Which are both seemingly confusing statements – so I’ll go on. Let’s say you’re in a perfectly happy marriage but you really feel like to be satisfied you need to have a woman spank you every now and then. (I apologize for those of you who do study this, as that’s a pretty basic example.) You go outside of the marriage to satisfy that desire now and then to not risk upsetting the balance within your marriage that is otherwise perfectly fine without this one thing. You may consider this fantasy obtrusive but you may also consider it unnecessary. Except, clearly, it is necessary. If you have to go outside of your relationship to obtain it, it’s necessary to you. Maybe in your ideal fantasy relationship you don’t have that need and you don’t need to rock the boat to obtain that need, but if our needs aren’t being met, we should rock the boat. We shouldn’t find satisfaction in secret and pretend that we’re okay.
We also discussed the virgin/whore dichotomy (lady in the street, freak in the bed) and how some people (perhaps without acknowledging it) may prefer their partner to be untainted by these fantasies. They’ll go to someone who is already “dirty” to be dirty with.
But what about marriage being sex work? If we bring along our negative associations with prostitution, some may find it an offensive statement. But let’s break down sex work into the simple exchange of something for some type of physical or emotional sexual/intimate encounter. Doesn’t this happen all the time in relationships? Even if we don’t actively “use sex” to get what we want, we’re aware of the inherent worth of sex. We’re aware of the power our bodies have. We’re aware of how our behaviors may influence our sex lives.
We grow up being told that we have “self-worth” or “value” and some people grow up thinking they are “worthless.” What does this do if not establish that the body can be used in exchange?
What do you think? What constitutes sex work? How should someone fulfill those fantasies they have within the boundaries of their long term commitments?
