As a socialist, I look to feminism for political guidance. In matters of love and sex I absorb its periodic revisions, its erstwhile acceptance of romantic love and more recently the idea of wild sex - sex as something which, inherently, doesn't conform to ideology or good manners and not something necessarily expressed within a loving relationship. We've recently read The Guardian articles on "the new man" which try to answer the questions: Can a Good Man be Sexy? Can a Sexy Man be Good? - but sadly they were inconclusive. Not a few women know the sexual boredom of partners who are far too good for them and know the truth of Lawrence's poem that finishes "...but the unhappiness of a wife with a good husband / is much more devastating / than the unhappiness of a wife with a bad husband".
Perhaps the next cry to go up from women will be: Man, be authentic! To thine own self be true?
Am I bad? I have a developed social conscience with regard to other social areas; I'm not insensitive. I feel no profanity in the acts I perform with prostitutes except with regard to this word which is used exclusively by our society with which to abuse or demean someone. I feel reverence rather than hostility. In a more humane climate I feel we would recognise and be much more grateful for the services of women whether for sex or other things, whether for money or for free. Women also benefit economically from selling sex and others are fascinated by it, enjoy strolling in safety the sex streets of Amsterdam, London and Paris. Much female clothing is sexual display, the show of the leg and breast just that much more with working prostitutes.
| Much female clothing is sexual display, the show of the leg and breast just that much more with working prostitutes |
Sex is not one thing but many, serving a variety of psychological and physical needs. As the film sex therapist said to Nola (the deviant lover of three men in Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It): "the best sex organ is the one between your ears". Perhaps for me it is the fantasy rather than the copulating which, prior to the act, is what motivates me. I sometimes regret the expense but I get value for money when the excellence of the encounter is physically as good as anything I've had in my serious relationships. I'll never forget one relief massage, a special touch that resulted in an enormous high.
Rachel is a woman I visit for straight therapeutic massage. When her hands press deeply and sensually down the front of my body I wonder at what point in the passage of her hands towards and over my genitals would she become "a prostitute" and what if I ejaculated? Clearly, she doesn't become a prostitute until or unless she thinks she is one even though money is exchanged - for nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so as the Bard tells us. If you like, you become "a prostitute" only if you feel degraded by what you do. So, if I could bring philosophy into the service of my argument I would cite intentionality as the most useful peg to hang it on. If Rachel actually went on to fuck with me, for whatever reason, no essential "prostitution" - in its derogative popular sense would have taken place. And if it has, what is its essence? - the fact that the contact was genital? Or the fact that money changed hands? I believe it belongs to another factor - the shockingness of sex encouraged within our "liberated" society as part of social control, a society that needs scandal and suppression as much as it needs crime and stock markets in order to survive. Because how powerful and richly satisfied would our subject population be if the remaining chains of sexual freedom and love and lust became untied?
I have read sociological and psychological explanations of prostitution, but they do not override my intentionality, governed by a personal ethic handed down by John Cowper Powys who said "do what you want to do except be cruel to others". In the event, life is not reducible to sociological analyses of power as, in the past, it was not reducible to sermons from a pulpit. Even my dreams pointedly collude with my desires - telling me to let go, take the risk, all will be well. Counselling - again feminist - has freed me from feeling bad and secretive and I've begun to allow "my secret" to crop up in conversations with friends.
With its strong emphasis on sociological analyses, mainstream feminism sometimes seems short on other aspects which may get less than a holistic treatment of the subject under discussion. Feminists themselves complain of this bias that will treat sexuality in a non-sexual way (for example Hollibaugh and Moragna in Snitow's "Desire: The Politics of Sexuality", Virago 1984). Sociological analyses speak of prostitution as another avenue of male power relations and supremacy over women, yet it is not as simple as that. Men do have the power of purchase, but so too do many numbers of women, some of whom can and do buy sex, though to a very much smaller degree.
Unlike buying a straightforward material good however, the actual service, can be and most often is, controlled by the prostitute. What the client often seeks most of all is what is usually not on offer and what most prostitutes refuse to make available: intimacy, kissing and cuddling, "love" and reciprocity of feeling. Prostitutes, like other professionals, are not mean minded but neither are they commonly "golden hearted". They need to protect themselves from subtle as well as overt abuse and yet, within these parameters, they can and do offer skills and contexts of a sexual-professional kind to do with fantasizing, unusual stimulations and an uncomplicated service with a precise duration, as in other professions. Lawyers and psychotherapists have a genuine concern for their clients well-being as do some prostitutes and, if Flaubert's accounts still stand, she will also be providing a sensual voluptuousness that is probably unmatched in many long term relationships.
| Prostitutes, like other professionals, are not mean minded but neither are they commonly "golden hearted" |
Of increasing interest to many westerners are the profound and holistic Medicine Wheel teachings that are associated with the American Indian native. The teachings put an emphasis on balance in the human personality: balance as between intellect and feeling, intuition and reason, physical and mental, and so on. Within this system, encouragement is given to people to fulfil themselves not just in one life goal but in several, so that you see yourself as something more than a banker, a housewife, a parent or whatever. The shaman will talk of other major roles and invite us to explore the other archetypes whether male of female, e.g. our godliness, our priestly nature, our "wild man" nature, the harlot in us, the warrior, etc. None of these are "good" or "bad", but whether we choose to act our fantasies, hopes or "vision quests" in these areas it does not matter so long as we own up to or honour those secret or undeveloped parts of our whole beings. Clearly here is a perfectly adequate philosophy within which this writer can feel happy with his vice.
There is an added moral-libertarian point to all this: few would want to forbid women to make a living in this way, even if many would seek to eliminate or diminish the social causes on which such a dependency or inclination is based. That being so, it also behoves any woman or man to not hassle or reprimand men (or women) who form the necessary clientele of this trade.
If only shame or guilt-free visual erotica was available in our society then partnerless men and women could more easily celebrate and share the joys of lust. Classy advertising and third-rate porn kept on the newsagents' top shelf serves only to keep us in sexual subjection promising much but failing to deliver the goods. There is a lot of excellent fruity writing to be had, but reading itself is only a private not communally shared activity. Very few films celebrate pure lust - there is "In the Realm of the Senses" by the Japanese director Oshima and parts of a few art films. It's rare for television to adopt a healthy, open, non-sniggering attitude to sex. No reason is given as to why the hero in "The Singing Detective" should not be seen having his cock ointmented by the nurse so we have to settle for a snigger and a smirk instead of something more powerful and relevant. When are we going to be treated as adults?
The German Green parliamentarian Petra Kelly has called for a society that is altogether more erotic. I agree with her and others who call for "an eroticism that is anchored in the spiritual" and not so much centred on the male penetration of women. That is a long term agenda, but if we could reform and humanise prostitution then men and women might look forward to buying "contact time" with each other that offered more diffuse, generally sensual enjoyments and comforts than we can expect at present. For me there is an important agenda of political-sexual education to proceed with, as yet only dreamt about within the confines of a small part of the women's movement.
Am I exploiting the women I have sex with? I deplore the conditions and risks that attend the work of prostitution as I deplore the sweated labour of the makers of my jeans and tee shirts. Most technology I use now depends on thousands of Asian women losing their sight in the manufacture of silicon chips (who, incidentally, go on to become prostitutes in order to make a comparable living). Under capitalism we all depend on is a vast hidden proletariat of low paid workers whose services we all enjoy and rarely challenge. Is sex a uniquely different, or worse form of exploitation? A prostitute once said "my cunt is not the most intimate part of me. I know I'm not giving my soul to a man".
I have the purchasing power - and choice - which some money gives me. Yet very often, as a client, I am subject to the power of, or limitations set by, the prostitute, with regard to important aspects of how we couple and the duration and possibility of repeated assignations, if desired. There is room for quality improvement on both sides. Copulation may be the crudest kind of sexual touch with so many as yet unexplored areas of ordinary tenderness and sensuality. Even wrestling, cuddling and simple escorting could be more on offer if only we were free from the sexual stereotypes. As it is, as a nation we're not even good at shaking hands when it comes to physical contact.
If consorting with prostitutes is attributable to fault of character or lack of will power it may be that there is a phase in a person's life when, following the Arab proverb, "it is necessary to stoop in order to draw water from the stream". There may be some truth in Edwin Muir's reflection, when he said there was a need for him "to be bad before I could get better". My visiting prostitutes may well be an infantile seeking after lost bliss or instant gratification, or, a failure to sustain satisfactory object relations (though the evidence of modest success in my relationships tells me otherwise).
Health risks? In Britain the universal use of condoms is probably why, in a London survey of 250 prostitutes, only four had HIV and three of these were drug users. The risk is a lot less than that of party or other sex.
I am losing my sense of hostile feminist finger-wagging at what I - presently partnerless - get up to. I have a clutch of women friends who still speak civilly to me for they know there are many styles of sexual behaviour, not one, and enforced celibacy might be as undesirable or unsatisfying as the alternatives.
| A prostitute once said "My cunt is not the most intimate part of me. I know I'm not giving my soul to a man". |
My view of the ills of society is that the reason they add up to such a profound cultural crisis is because collectively we have lost touch with both our pleasurable, "wild" animal instincts on the one hand and fail to find satisfactory life meanings in spiritual or aesthetic matters on the other. In my own life I go for lust as well as stuff of the spirit and see no clear moral dilemma. This approach to life - wanting it both ways as Brecht, at the end of St Joan, said we should - seems replicated in the life of a black woman prostitute I know who has an open bible on her table and attends a lively protestant church every Sunday. She, like Flaubert, is cheerful in her chosen profession - one which depends on people like me for a livelihood. And was Van Gogh so ill or unusual when he cried out from his heart for the company of a woman? Thus expressing with great passion what millions of men and women are feeling in their personal and social isolation. Do we have to tolerate sexual loneliness?
Van Gogh resorted to prostitutes and also loved and lived with one. Perversely, he was one of the most selfless and spiritual of modern men - if you like, the converse of an exploiter; all his life driven to giving his all, while others after him netted millions from his work. Where does that leave his vice?
I was recently told of a German feminist book, which argues for "a right to lust". Perhaps in another century, we will see a revised Charter '88 that incorporates such a right - regulated and unregulated male/female prostitution as one way of meeting a human need.
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
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