Olympia by Edouard Manet
I grew up on a street with prostitutes on the corner. The Cove Motel on Cicero Ave. teemed with ragged-looking women and unctuous and terrifying men. At the time, I had no idea who these people were or what they did. All I knew is that white people were rare in my neighborhood, so there was something strange about swarms of blond-haired, unkempt ladies getting inside the cars of strangers. I once saw a man expose himself to one of the prostitutes, which in retrospect, must be one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever witnessed. Needless to say, growing up in this neighborhood was less than ideal. I don’t know if this is what prompted my interest in the lives of sex workers. As I grew a bit older and finally understood what was actually happening in front of the Cove Motel, I found it difficult to understand what would compel these women to enter those cars.
When I was 19, I studied abroad in the Dominican Republic. I spent Valentine’s Day weekend at a beach town with my then boyfriend. The streets were filled with old and soft white men with young and attractive Dominican women. Some of the men had even bought their “sweethearts” flowers. Nearly all of the prostitutes were wearing red in honor of the holiday. In addition to the blatant exploitation of these women, something about their choice to wear the color red was heartbreaking to me. It was partly the illusion of romance that the color suggested. It was partly the image I had in my head of a sad, cheap dress draped over a chair in the hotel room of an ugly American man.
I lived in Madrid for a year when I was 22. Calle Montera, which was literally in the center of the city, was full of sex workers, many of which were clearly victims of human trafficking. It was probably the most diverse street in Madrid. The women came in all sorts of sizes, colors, and ages— pretty young women, transvestites, women in spandex who looked like they were probably grandmothers. I always tried to avoid this street, but when I couldn’t, I would observe the transactions— young men stopping by for an afternoon blowjob, old businessmen shamelessly approaching teenagers who looked like they had just emerged from puberty, etc.
When I visited the Netherlands, of course I was drawn to the Red Light district. The blatant and unapologetic availability of paid sex was so compelling. The display windows were shocking to me even though I had known all about them prior to my trip. Again, the assortment of women was endless— from women who looked like models to older and overweight women with missing teeth. Men would unashamedly enter the brothels with the same nonchalance as buying a pack of gum. I could not help but watch this all with my mouth practically agape.
When my boyfriend and I lived in Albuquerque, he briefly lived in a seedy neighborhood next to two motels that were frequented by prostitutes. They would stand outside in sweat pants looking so defeated by life. It seemed that men who looked like fathers and husbands would cruise by on their way home from work. Once, we even found a syringe in front of my boyfriend’s building. His apartment was also infested with roaches, so we like to joke that he briefly lived my childhood.
I think the reason I’ve been intrigued by sex work is because of my fixation on the human body. So much is communicated through it. We often cannot help what our bodies say to the world. They hold multitudes of meanings in every space they inhabit. I can’t even count how many times I reference the body in my poetry manuscript. It has been an obsession in my work ever since I began writing when I young girl. I never intended to look at sex workers as an Othering voyeur, but rather as a woman who is both genuinely curious, empathetic, and outraged at the conditions that force them into this kind of work.
In 2009 while I was still living in Albuquerque, the remains of 11 prostitutes and an unborn child were found in the West Mesa. Though the story made national news, it certainly did not get the incessant coverage that the murder of Natalee Holloway did, for example. But then again, these were not blue-eyed, blond-haired, and conventionally attractive young girls. The media is not interested in poor women, particularly those of color. How many women in Juarez, for instance, must be killed to gain the same attention? In more recent news, the disappearances of the victims of the Long Island serial killer were not even noticed until the bodies were found. According to the New York Times, “The bodies of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of murdered prostitutes — women, men and transgender people — have been found in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut since 1990.”
Obviously, I now understand why those women outside of the Cove Motel got into those cars. I am grateful that this devastating information was somehow kept from me as a child. (The Cove has been demolished for several years now.) While I was in Europe, I was lucky enough to see one of my favorite paintings— Olympia by Edouard Manet. There is something about her poised position and the defiant look of her face that has intrigued me for years. Although I understand that there are many sex workers that truly chose this as their profession and are sexually empowered feminists and all that, the reality is that most of them are like the women buried in Long Island or in the West Mesa of Albuquerque. They are poor women in the Third World wearing red on Valentine’s Day. They are trafficked teenagers from Eastern Europe. Their bodies are perceived as disposable. Now as a 27 year old woman reading about the Long Island killer, I think of all the prostitutes I’ve seen in my life and how precarious their lives and bodies must be. That is, if they are fortunate enough to still be living. And I find it so heartbreaking that their humanity is ever even questioned.
www.ohhellsnah.com is like hot dogs for your brain. It is where a small and sassy Mexican American woman explores the relationships between poetry, politics, and food. She has been published in Witness, Hayden’s Ferry, Whiskey Island, Crab Orchard Review, Hunger Mountain, Hanging Loose, Drunken Boat. and Ms. Magazine. A poem is forthcoming in Pleiades. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship. She also has an MFA in Creative Writing degree that she would often like to set on fire.
That was beautiful, thank you for writing it. My cousin was abused by her older brother(and his friends) and got into drugs and prostitution really young. I met some of her johns, one was a really rich guy. I was surprised how angry I felt. I get that my cousin “wants” to do this, but all I could think is DUDE you are so privaledged and she is so dysfunctional and barely able to survive or think about anything but getting drugs.
It made me so angry. She is dying now of lymphoma. It could be 2 years or 10 years, we don’t know. She’s googly eyed and can’t remember her own words. Sometimes she wanders out of her mom’s house down to the street where she can sell/trade her body for drugs.
I know there are those special circumstances where men “really care” about the sex workers they are paying for sex. But the majority don’t give a shit about the women they have sex with (whether paying them or not) and it makes me so enraged and broken to see we live in a world where people will do such things to each other without caring about the human being in front of them. I hate men who buy prostitutes. I hate them.
Thank you for writing this. I was happy to see that you wrote about Albuquerque, and about the women whose bodies were found on the West Mesa. Until a career change two months ago, I had been one of a community of people doing outreach to and with street sex workers in Albuquerque. My work was in HIV prevention, and I facilitated a team of peer educators that did outreach together in Albuquerque, both on the streets and in shelters. Of course, there are all kinds of sex work, but the street sex work you speak about in Albuquerque is inextricably linked with addiction and insane rates of trauma history. People drive right by these sex workers every day, and just don’t see them, or consider them a nuisance. Cops harass and also sometimes participate in soliciting them.
The West Mesa murders started a huge dialogue about sex work here, but I was often disheartened by the tone and the conclusions that well-intentioned people came to. People come up with all sorts of oversimplified solutions to the “problem” of sex work. They don’t see sex workers as people who have the same kind of complex web of challenges and strengths as they do. They don’t see sex work as part of a huge system of racism, misogyny, transphobia, classism, addiction, abuse, etc. I was humbled by the resiliency I witnessed in the women with whom I worked, and also felt saddened and defeated every day by the odds they were up against. They taught me a lot, not the least which is that nothing about sex work and survival sex is simple. I am grateful that I got to do this work in a community that comes from a harm reduction philosophy, which tells us that people know best what to do with their own lives, that it is not for us to decide what is or isn’t working in their lives, or how to fix the things we perceive as broken.
Hi, darling! This was a really great piece. In a seminar a few years back, we looked at a bunch of films about sex work, and I can’t remember the title, but one was about the sex tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean, and it brought up the same issue you mention: the trope of “romance” and “love.”
While it might seem at first glance that the men who travel to these cities and “fall in love” with sex workers who they then “bring back” with them (sometimes) are offering something of affective value for these women, like you hint at above, it is actually quite the opposite.
On websites where men give each other tips about sex tours, they actually clue each other in to the “trick” of the romance/love/courtship with sex workers: if you pretend you love them, or that you want to be their boyfriend, they’ll do so much more with you, a lot of times for free.
It’s yet another way that these vulnerable women are manipulated and exploited, while these transactions are cloaked in the redemptive notion of “empowerment.”
There are many sex workers who practice happily and healthily, with excellent work conditions and recourse for any abuse or exploitation. Unfortunately, the women you saw in the DR were most likely not among them.
Happily, there are communities (albeit primarily in the “first world”) demanding regulation of sex work, health services, and increased legal and police protections for the most vulnerable populations. We should all join them.
This is one of the best things I’ve read about sex work in a while. Thanks for writing it. It really saddens me to see the way people and people writing in the media get so polarised about it.
Also, Mizsatified, you are so right when you say that “People come up with all sorts of oversimplified solutions to the “problem” of sex work. [...] They don’t see sex work as part of a huge system of racism, misogyny, transphobia, classism, addiction, abuse, etc.”
It’s definitely one of the signs of how fucked up our society is but people are like, ‘well, that problem over there is nothing to do with us and our attitudes’.
I’ve been thinking lately that there’s a continuum that we often just refuse to see. For example the one between the boyfriend who doesn’t respect one seemingly small boundary, the guy you knew who did something that you refused to call sexual assault because you’d agreed to the other stuff and it clearly wasn’t rape-rape, and the serial rapist that makes the headlines for his depravity.
That kind of continuum applies in all sorts of ways I reckon.
@mizsatisfied – “They don’t see sex workers as people who have the same kind of complex web of challenges and strengths as they do.”
THIS!!!! I hope I’m not deraling when I say, and then also interchange the term “sex workers” with – “poor”, “black”, “Indigenous”, “person with a mental health issue/s”, “relies on welfare for support”, “differently abled”, etc.. (and even intersections of these).
@Oh Hells Nah – this is beautifully written, and highlights the messy, difficult and complex social space of sex work and survival sex.
Similar to you, I too am fascinated by the human body, in the way (internally and externally) it is put together and works in its various permutations and combinations, and how the body communicates and is communcated with. Sex (and I include the communication to have sex as part of this) is one way that illustrates the hierarchically ordered way bodies are treated.
I’m really glad that people seem to be making the distinction between supporting sex workers and supporting sex work (read: what is often – but not always – the exploitation of women and/or marginalized people). So many people still fall into the trap of being “sex positive” by supporting both sex workers and the men they service. I think it’s important to support sex workers, but the men who exploit them are just sad. Desiring sexual activity is perfectly natural, but sexual exploitation is disgusting. And I’m tired of hearing people victim-blame sex workers by saying that they’re profiting from people’s need for or “right” to sex. Everyone has a right to subsist by masturbating, but nobody has an inherent right to see other people naked or engage in sexual activity with other people. And when sex workers make fun of the people they service behind their backs, that’s not a part of sex workers “taking advantage” of their customers. In order to take advantage of people in a way that would signify prejudice or power, you first have to have institutional power, which sex workers don’t have over the people they service. Women and sex workers are marginalized people, so they aren’t in a position to “take advantage” of anyone by doing sex work. It’s the other way around.
Side note: Why do so many people ignore the Black woman in Manet’s painting? Certainly, her story is just as intriguing. Also, she’s one of many Black people in European paintings who is looking toward or up at the subject(s) of the paintings (i.e. White people), which actually says a lot about the subjugation of Black people throughout European history. Just another sexist and racially problematic piece, despite what is often interpreted as a humanist approach to Olympia’s emotions and expression.
Bee said exactly what I wanted to write in regards to the “sex positive” messages out there. Sometimes I get the feeling when I read about certain feminists who were prostitutes, that it’s sexist to say anything against the sex industry because it’s comprised of workers who are adults who have decided for themselves. However, that logic disregards completely all of the racism, sexism, and many other -isms that drove them to prostitution. I found this article to be really compelling and sympathetic to the fact that so many women *are* victims within the sex industry. There are, of course, examples of feminists and strong women who chose the work specifically, but it’s hard to believe they are the majority when so many prostitutes are minorities, impoverished, and have history of various abuses. On a side note, I am curious to read more about the Long Island killer, but I’m hesitant to buy any books for the reasons you’ve mentioned- insensitive, racist, transphobic, and sexist messages within the text. Could you recommend a book/article that treats the victims with respect and is informative?
Thank you all for your kind words and your insights. In retrospect, I should have mentioned the black servant in the painting (http://www.hungermtn.org/orchid/). I do, however, juxtapose her with Olympia’s privilege in a poem I wrote (which was the impetus of this piece). I wanted to illustrate how she is also perceived as a disposable commodity. I remember when I was working on this poem someone insisted that I consider sex positive sex work. I was annoyed because that is not the kind of sex work I’m concerned with. (I also find it condescending that they think I’m not aware of this other kind of sex work.) Like many of you have stated, the majority of prostitutes are victims of poverty, addiction, violence, racism, classism, sexism, etc. That’s what needs the most attention. Anyway, thank you so much for reading. I really appreciate it.
Chiming in late to say that I have nothing to say because Feminizzle and Bee said everything I wanted to say, and probably said it better than I would have.
Just about every time we post something critical in any way of sex work, a self-identified sex positive sex worker shows up and calls people out for being prude, judgmental, and not recognizing that women really do have agency and choose sex work as their career (or as an erotic kink, which I was lectured about the last time around.)
The truth is, as has been mentioned here, there’s a continuum of sex work, and it’s heavily weighted in favor of exploitation by the patriarchy and the kyriarchy—i.e. men and usually white ones. If you remove from the continuum all the victims of racism, poverty, war, abuse, addiction, coercion, etc, you’d be left with a vanishingly small number of women. So it seems ridiculous and disingenuous to keep saying “don’t forget that there are women who like sex work!”
I’m not saying that such women don’t exist, merely I am so fucking sick of the “Ivy League hooker” stereotype that seems to be constantly perpetuated on TV and in movies: upper-middle class educated white woman who hooks to pay for their law school or whatever. Whenever I run into these women—frequently in comments on feminist websites—it strikes me as totally absurd that they’re demanding I pay attention to them and want to dominate the debate about sex work. It’s such a function of their privilege: they’re literate/computer-literate, and they have a computer and time to spend on the internet arguing these things. I’m not worried about them—I don’t need to be an activist for them. I’m focusing my attention, instead, on the 99.9% of sex workers who aren’t like them, and who deserve attention and support from us that they will never get from a society that sees them as disposable or invisible.
Wow- ditto, Becky!! That’s exactly how I feel and what I was trying to say.
@oh hells nah – Thank you so much for linking to your poem! I really enjoyed reading it. Or specifically, I enjoyed reading your words, if not so much about the experiences attached to them. It’s a very evocative piece. I read Las Pulgas, too. I appreciate that you use your craft to call attention to sociopolitical and humanitarian issues!
More thoughts on Manet’s painting… Olympia is fascinating because it’s such a good example of kyriarchy in European art. Olympia is clearly the subject of the painting, she dominates it, she’s in the light. And then the Black woman is over to the side and in the shadows. And it’s like, Well, who is *that*? I’m always torn, too, about whether Manet could have had any awareness of kyriarchy and how both women were seen as disposable commodities. But I doubt it… (Not that I know anything about Manet or have formal art training, heh.) The fact that the Black woman, who is a servant, is delivering flowers that Olympia ignores or “scorns”* and the Black woman’s gaze make the Black woman seem more like a prop, just like the cat. (*I’ve read that the flowers are supposed to be from a client, and Olympia’s scorn or indifference to them is another sign of her independence and/or independent personhood since she clearly isn’t wrapped up in them and what they symbolize.) She’s there to inform us about Olympia. All of the directional focus of the piece is on Olympia. In a different time and with a different artist, this could be an intentional statement about kyriarchy, but probably not here.
Also, I agree with everyone that it’s not sexist just to acknowledge the racism, sexism, transphobia, and other human rights issues involved in the majority of sex work. Sex workers’ rights groups can be of the human rights or sex positive kind, but I’m far more concerned with the former and doing things like ending human trafficking. This doesn’t mean that breaking down stereotypes about all kinds of sex workers isn’t really important, too. And it’s just as important to change a society that encourages many, many more women than men to engage in sex work as an option (when it’s undesired) before seeking out other alternatives first because our society doesn’t provide adequate socioeconomic safety nets for marginalized people even in cases when the women are well formally educated and “should” (of course, all women should, regardless of social status) have other options. I definitely don’t think that privileged sex workers should stop speaking out and deconstructing the public’s stereotypes about them. But I would hope that privileged sex workers who are consciously choosing their choice and have other options available to them would support – or at least stop erasing – the voices and rights of more marginalized sex workers who aren’t part of the lucky few. I think it’d be really easy for privileged sex workers to put a disclaimer in front of their statements about their own sex work to acknowledge that they are privileged, that not all sex workers enjoy the same rights, and that they don’t speak for all sex workers. And if you’re a privileged sex worker, don’t take it as a personal assault on your choices when more marginalized sex workers relate their negative experiences and desire to not do sex work. Instead of going against one another, recognize the common enemies of racism, sexism, transphobia, dehumanization, exploitation, etc.
Of course, the biggest problem is about how we get (mostly straight & cisgender) men to stop exploiting sex workers and/or supporting human trafficking. I’ve read wonderful things about Somaly Mam and her foundation (the Somaly Mam Foundation – http://www.somaly.org/programs). Somaly Mam is a survivor of human trafficking and childhood sexual slavery. I’ve also read a few negative things about the foundation, mainly that sex workers are sometimes rounded up along with victims of trafficking and that they’re forced to “rehabilitate” against their will. For the record, the positive reviews outweigh the negative ones, and I think that this problem could be fixed with policy change and better planning/awareness. However, I don’t think that we can dismiss claims from sex workers who say that their right to self-determination has been denied. That’s certainly disturbing and a serious concern. Does anyone know any more details about this issue? I’ve had difficulty finding much about this problem online.
I’ve also heard about DNA (http://www.demiandashton.org/action-center), which is Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s organization against human trafficking. Their tagline packs a little punch – “Real men don’t buy girls”. And they’re raising awareness, which is great! But I fear that DNA might just be the pretty celebrity spokesperson, so to speak, for the issues of human trafficking and childhood sexual slavery. I don’t know how impactful they are. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with being an organization that just focuses on raising awareness, but they definitely don’t appear to be doing in-depth, on-the-ground work if that’s what you’re looking for. Still, publicity of human rights issues is beneficial, yes? I don’t know. Opinions, anyone?
There’s also Free the Slaves (http://www.freetheslaves.net/), which focuses on ending human trafficking/slavery in general.
Does anyone know of any other organizations against human trafficking, sexual slavery, and/or the exploitation of sex workers? Especially if they’re run by current or former sex workers and/or survivors of trafficking?
Also, regarding DNA, it occurs to me that trying to change the dominant culture’s view of masculinity is a way of doing in-depth human rights work *if* you’re effective. And so there’s a question about what kind of cultural impact DNA might have, if any (since I’ve also seen people say that DNA is too pop culture-y and not focused enough to have an impact). Discuss.
Oh, and speaking of corruption, exploitation, and crimes against sex workers, this very recently happened in California – Co-defendant: High-ranking cop stole from hookers: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/13/BA1N1JFUOG.DTL&tsp=1 And the cop’s actions were loaded with racism, too. Charming.
@BeckySharper
“The truth is, as has been mentioned here, there’s a continuum of sex work, and it’s heavily weighted in favor of exploitation by the patriarchy and the kyriarchy—i.e. men and usually white ones. If you remove from the continuum all the victims of racism, poverty, war, abuse, addiction, coercion, etc, you’d be left with a vanishingly small number of women. So it seems ridiculous and disingenuous to keep saying “don’t forget that there are women who like sex work!” ”
Yes!! Thank you for saying this. I went into the work I did with an academic, third-wave feminist fear of being sex-negative that made me feel uncomfortable with my feelings about the kind of sex work I saw. What you said really summed up my problems with the usual dialogue around sex work. I hate hate hate when people either talk about sex work in a totally patronizing, pitying way or a I’m-sex-positive-so-all-sex-work-is-cool-with-me way. I am so happy to see this nuanced discussion about it.
I had a great experience with an organization of more privileged (weird description, but talking about their educational backgrounds, class, lack of coercion and path into sex work) sex workers in Albuquerque who hosted a Day Against Violence Against Sex Workers event to remember the women whose bodies were found on the West Mesa. They really owned their privilege and the fact that their experience of sex work was very different than the majority of street sex workers in Albuquerque, and they created a great space to remember the women we lost. Some family members and friends of the victims came and spoke, as well. It was a great thing.
@ Bee. Thank you so much for reading my poems. I will have to research some of those organizations as I don’t know very much about them. Thank you for the info.
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I always love reading your stuff.