It is a disapproval I've also faced on other occasions when using my naked body as a vehicle to deliver a feminist message. That includes the nude portrait of myself that went on display at the Mall Galleries in London in 2014, which I'd commissioned from the artist Anthony Connolly. In this and other such art work I aim to question the traditional division in the art world between a male artist and a female nude, one where the male artist is in command, and one which has resulted in the portrayal of women's bodies from the point of view of men. I wanted to ‘take charge’ in order to challenge the standard depictions of women's bodies, showing the body not of a goddess but of an everyday woman, sending out the message that behind every image of a naked woman is a real thinking being ‒ and one who can talk back. In my view, there is nothing shameful about the female body; shame is a societal construction used to keep women ‘in line’, so much so that I was happy to put my name to the painting, which is what then resulted in a media storm.
Although paintings of anonymous nudes (whether historic or new) do not attract much in the way of criticism, those with names do. We are happy for women to be painted in the nude so long as we know nothing of them except for their body. I tested the idea by exhibiting another of my nudes ‒ a nude sculpture ‒ anonymously. Unlike the one with a label, it didn't raise eyebrows.
Despite the blatant inconsistency in the way we think about anonymous versus ‘real’ nudes, some argued that my painting was objectifying, to which I responded with a public defence.2 A few months later, in the Oxford University annual Encaenia address, summarizing the achievements of the University of Oxford and its various alumni, my ‘apparently’ empowering portrait got a mention. The choice of the word ‘apparently’ says it all, seeming to cast doubt on whether this artistic endeavour really was, as I had termed it, empowering. As if I – the woman in question – am not capable of judging for myself. As if what I think and feel comes second to what other people ‒ primarily heterosexual men ‒ might think and feel in response to my nude portrait. It reflects a society in which the ‘male’ way of seeing women's bodies takes precedence, a society in which, if men see women's bodies as sexual, then a woman who reveals her body cannot possibly be thought of as ‘empowered’.
In many countries, the daily life of women is entirely dictated by the way heterosexual men see women's bodies. It is this male way of viewing that overrides what a woman herself would like to do and how she herself witnesses the world. If she wants to cool down, that comes second to concerns about how a man might view her uncovered legs and arms. If she wants to show off her personality by dressing in an ‘outrageous’ way, that is, once again, overridden by how a man might interpret it. The woman has to be constrained ‘for her own good’. It is only the male way of looking, thinking and feeling that matters.
Worryingly, as I've seen in the response of female officials to my own naked protests, women can themselves be complicit in enforcing such outcomes. Women themselves may internalize the dominance of the ‘male gaze’: they can come to see other women purely through (heterosexual) male eyes; they imagine what heterosexual men might think or feel before determining their response to cases in which women dress too revealingly (or don't dress at all). In fact, at least to date, I have only ever been forced to cover up by female organizers and officials, never by male ones. As we know when it comes to practices surrounding women's bodies (such as foot binding and female genital mutilation [FGM]), women are all too often complicit in restricting the freedom of other women.
Freedom from the ‘male gaze’ does not, of course, mean that people cannot think or feel whatever they want. I am certainly not naive. Instead, it means that those thoughts and feelings should not have to dictate what a woman chooses to do. For women to have true freedom over their bodies, they should be allowed to use their bodies for their own purposes (whether that's monetary or non-monetary), irrespective of what others think about it. The feminist mantra must always be ‘my body, my choice’ in the broadest sense of the term.
When it comes to my art and protest, I often have to pose the question: why should I have to cover my body because of what certain men think? Surely I shouldn't be prevented from being free just because of what some heterosexual men may think ‒ or because of what other women think those men may think? As we will see, it is the very same arguments that I face in resistance to my ongoing artistic nudes and naked protests that are also employed by feminists against sex workers.
If women should be free to dress as they wish, model for artists and engage in naked protest, why shouldn't they also be free to sell sex, should they choose to do so? It would, of course, be hypocritical of me to think otherwise. At its roots, society's dislike of sex work (as with its dislike of revealing clothes and naked protest) stems from the sinfulness with which we see women's bodies ‒ and sex itself.
Feminism Meets Puritanism
Sex trafficking. Sweatshops. Surrogacy. It's not difficult to find stories of markets ‘exploiting’ poor and vulnerable women. Or of profit-seeking pimps, pornographers and even charity workers doing the same, along with couples from rich countries looking to rent the wombs of women in poorer parts of the world. Capitalism seems to see women's bodies in cash terms. It puts women's breasts, their vaginas and their wombs up for rent. For those who see capitalism as inherently exploitative, nothing would appear to be more indicative of it. Natasha Walter suggests that young women are being turned into ‘living dolls’, and, according to Kat Banyard, the modern-day state is conspiring with market forces. What we have is not a liberal and democratic state but, she argues, a pimp state.3 For many feminists, the monetization of women's bodies seems to provide the ultimate example of capitalist exploitation.
Not only are feminists in the West enraged by the marketization of women's bodies, so are extreme conservative social forces. Extremist groups see western capitalism as a threat to female modesty. Their rejection of western values ‒ and their desire to wage war with western civilization ‒ is, in my view, rooted in a belief that western capitalism ‘ruins’ women. Acutely incentivizing their behaviour is the desire to protect ‘their’ rights over ‘their’ women, women who will, in their view, become worthless if they are brought up in a world in which scantily clad women grace advertising billboards and magazines. Women's bodies are the ideological battleground we face today. The association of women's bodies with sin has a lot to answer for.
Feminists who embrace the market ‒ libertarian feminists ‒ believe that individual women should have the choice to use their bodies as they wish; that what they do with their bodies is nobody else's business. This fundamental difference of opinion in regard to women and their bodies is not going away any time soon.
Alison Phipps distinguishes between ‘sex radical’ and ‘sex negative’ feminists.4 ‘Sex negative’ feminists argue that the sale of sex is inherently violent, that it amounts to rape. They see sex as central to gender inequality and, to quote Phipps, ‘porn and prostitution as the pinnacle of women's objectification and the power of men over women's bodies’. Julie Bindel, author of The Pimping of Prostitution, writes that ‘prostitution is inherently abusive, and a cause and a consequence of women's inequality’ and that we should regard ‘prostitution as a form of violence in a neoliberal world in which human flesh has come to be viewed as a commodity, like a burger.’5 By contrast, ‘sex radical’ feminists see sexual freedom as an essential part of women's liberation and society as inherently repressive of women's sexuality. They emphasize the free choice of women, including of sex workers. They see sexuality as a means of empowerment and sexual freedom as a form of freedom of expression. Within this context, Annie Sprinkle defines sex workers as people who ‘challenge sexual mores, help people, are creative, “hot and hip”, free spirits, healers and not afraid of sex’.6 For ‘sex radical’ feminists, a sex worker certainly should not be assumed to be exploited and vulnerable.
‘Sex radical’ feminists have a point. For centuries, men have restricted and r
egulated what women can (or cannot) do with either their bodies or their brains. Over the last century, women have made great strides in terms of their ability to use their brains. However, the same cannot be said of their bodies, which remain taboo. Whilst making money from your brain is to be celebrated, making money from your body is, apparently, not. Perhaps in part because historically women were seen purely in bodily terms ‒ as being without a brain ‒ the monetization of their bodies in the modern day is perceived as anti-feminist. But in a world in which women have the opportunity to make use of their brains or their bodies (or some combination), why should the monetization of the body be seen as inferior to the monetization of the brain? Isn't it inconsistent to allow women to make money from their brains but not from their bodies? In my view, ‘sex negative’ feminists risk looking like a group of ‘clever’ women ganging up to pull the rug from under the feet of women who have physical assets that they would like to monetize; women who monetize their brains are, in other words, denying other women the ability to earn an equal living from their bodies.
The justification we are given is twofold: that women who monetize their bodies don't always know their own minds, and that what an individual woman chooses to do has significant (and negative) consequences for the rest of womankind.
In regard to the first justification, ‘sex negative’ feminists outright deny the possibility that any woman could freely choose to engage in sex work. They argue that free choice cannot be assumed, that women can be ‘socialized’ into wanting to objectify themselves. The reasoning goes that in a different ‒ more equal ‒ world, they would not ‘choose’ to reveal their bodies, parade around in high heels or sell sex, and so, for their own good, should be denied the opportunity to do so in this world. They should become accountants, politicians or lawyers instead. The Nordic Model Now! submission to the Liberal Democrat's consultation on sex work ‒ from a campaign group that is pushing to criminalize the buying of sex ‒ thereby argued that: ‘[S]ince prostitution itself causes harm, positioning “voluntary” or “consensual” prostitution as fundamentally different from forced prostitution is misguided … [it is] damaging for society to consider prostitution consensual sex.’
For libertarian feminists, such as Nadine Strossen, Wendy McElroy and Joan Kennedy Taylor, such thinking represents a complete denial of individual agency; it is a denial that any woman could possibly choose to monetize her body.7 It locks out the voices of consensual sex workers by devaluing their voices; devaluing by assuming that their voices are not truly their own.
Now, of course, not all women want to reveal or to monetize their bodies. But just because you might not want to engage in sex work does not mean that we should assume that no other women want to. No group should be assumed to speak for every woman. If I'm honest, I don't understand why anyone would want to experience the risks and pain of boxing or extreme sports. But to outlaw those things because I can't understand why other people might want to do them – or because I think they shouldn’t want to do them ‒ would be to behave in an authoritarian fashion. Once, I did not understand why anyone would want to pose or protest naked; now I do it myself. How can I, therefore, assume to know the mind of every other woman?
In the words of the sex worker and activist Laura Lee:
I don't ask you to like what I do … what I do ask for is to be allowed to do my job in safety and to be treated with dignity and respect … there is no greater feeling than meeting a disabled person who has never been with a woman and affording them their first orgasm. To bring such happiness and fulfillment into someone's life is something I treasure. Sex work is work, just like any other. And those of us in the industry deserve support and respect ‒ not to be reviled and stigmatized.8
And, in the words of Kirio Birks, a defender of Grid Girls:
[S]urely a woman has a right to be the object of somebody else's desire if she wants and surely it doesn't matter if she is being paid for it? … Rather than sending Grid Girls off into the wilds of unemployment, or providing one less place for would-be models, a far better solution would have been to make sure that they're unionised, properly paid, and protected. If they are, then they have empowered other women to take up work they might otherwise have avoided, in a safer way.9
By denying the agency of women who choose to monetize or reveal their bodies, we conflate two groups: those who really are involuntarily involved in sex work, who should of course be the focus of our concerns, and those who are not. Rather than recognizing the difference, and pointing to the possibility of different degrees of agency,10 those who claim to be working voluntarily are instead argued to be misguided, socially conditioned and suffering from false consciousness. But for other people to assume they know better than you – to assume that they can judge how free you are better than you yourself can judge ‒ is a dangerous road to go down. It risks replacing patriarchy with a female-led plutocracy. It leads us to a world in which the very concept of individual freedom becomes lost behind what a particular group or community thinks you should or shouldn't want.
None of this means ignoring the fact that many women have been forced into monetizing their bodies, either directly, by people trafficking and modern-day slavery, or indirectly, where a particular individual is left with no other option. Austerity, benefit cuts and benefit sanctions ‒ which have had particularly adverse effects on women ‒ have been linked to sex work. If any woman feels she has no choice, then it is of course tragic. However, the solution is not to ban sex work, which merely makes her options even more restricted, it is to tackle the underlying poverty. Similarly, if women are directly forced into sex work, then the element of force needs to be tackled, such as through criminal law and human slavery legislation. To attempt to stop all sex workers, including those who choose to freely engage in such work, because other women are being forced into the business simply does not make sense. Would we seek to stop all women from being cleaners on the basis that there are, sadly, numerous cases of domestic slavery, or to stop people from working in agriculture on the same basis? As with any other area of activity, sex work by choice and sex work by force cannot be treated in the same light. Unless we separate the two, our moralistic thinking about what women should (and shouldn't) be doing with their bodies biases our policy response. Tackling those who traffic women, and ensuring that all women have choices other than sex work, improving education and welfare policy, can be achieved alongside improving the lives of voluntary sex workers by recognizing and supporting their work. Or, at the very least, by not making their lives more vulnerable. If we continue down the route of trying to eliminate sex work, by criminalizing the purchase of sex, by preventing sex workers from having bank accounts or from being able to advertise online, then all we do is make the lives of sex workers more (not less) difficult.11 Why would anyone want to do that ‒ unless, that is, they really do think that sex is evil.
The Effect of Sex Workers on Society
The denial that sex work could ever be voluntary ‒ the idea that women do not know their own minds ‒ isn't the only problem that stands in the way of equal rights for women who monetize their bodies with those who monetize their brains. The second supposed justification for denying individual women the freedom to do what they want with their own bodies is the idea that their choice can have a serious adverse effect on other women: that it encourages heterosexual men to look at all women in a way that is objectifying. Individual freedoms ‒ of women ‒ must, apparently, be restricted in order to put the wider good ‒ of all other women ‒ first.
Josephine Butler is commonly seen as Britain's first anti-prostitution campaigner. She was born in 1828 and dedicated her life to helping sex workers. She argued that ‘[t]he degradation of these poor unhappy women is not degradation for them alone; it is a blow to the dignity of every virtuous woman too, it is dishonour done to me, it is the shaming of every woman in every country of the world.’12 Catherine MacKinnon has followed in her footsteps, arguing that pornography is use
d ‘to train women to sexual submission’.13 Andrea Dworkin similarly argues that ‘[p]rostitution in and of itself is an abuse of a woman's body’ and that prostitution reflects male supremacy:
Male dominance means that the society creates a pool of prostitutes by any means necessary so that men have what men need to stay on top, to feel big, literally, metaphorically, in every way … Every man in this society benefits from the fact that women are prostituted whether or not every man uses a woman in prostitution … prostitution comes from male dominance.14
The 2014 British All Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution argued that ‘[p]rostitution is incompatible with attempts to tackle gender inequality.’ The submission received from the European Women's Lobby argued that ‘[t]he prostitution of women and girls constitutes a fundamental violation of women's human rights and a serious form of male violence against women’. The Nordic Model Now! group's submission to the Liberal Democrat Party's own consultation on prostitution argued that ‘the system of prostitution perpetuates the archaic practice of female sexual submission for male entertainment’; that it involves an exchange in which ‘he has all the power and she has to do what he says’, one that ‘feeds the punter's sense of entitlement and the sense that she has no rights’.15 Their submission was made jointly with eighteen other women's rights and feminist groups.
The Sex Factor Page 13
