Sex sells. It's one of the truisms of marketing and capitalism - we use images of sex to sell everything from deodorant to cheeseburgers, cars and shaving foam. So why do so many people who embrace capitalism decry the actual selling of sex? Why can we suggest that, hey, wear this tie and you'll get a blowjob, but saying hand over some money and get a blowjob is beyond the line? Why are marketers and advertising agencies held up as creative geniuses for using sexual imagery to sell products that might seem unrelated to sex, while women and men who sell sex directly are seen as disgusting or damaged or both?
Writing in the Independent, Alice Jones worries about the increasing number of students who are participating in a "demeaning way to earn a bit of cash-in-hand after lectures" - namely, stripping.
Why do we think students might want to strip to earn money? Could it be the combination of tuition fees and a terrible job market, with what few jobs there are available often set up as zero-hours contracts and/or paying the minimum wage? Jones worries that as well as this there's the effects of "the pornification of society."
The women who've made the choice to take this work are apparently: "entirely unfazed by having taken their first tottering steps into the sex industry. For them, dancing naked for cash is 'sociable and fun', 'like going on a night out' or 'just like a party night' ... a growing number of middle-class students from well-off families, who begin stripping for the 'excitement of engaging in a transgressive world', with the added bonus that they can keep their tips."
So t's both completely mainstream and transgressive, which is impressive: "This is profoundly dispiriting, although not all that surprising. The less exciting reality, of course, is that their chosen part-time job also offers exploitation, financial and bodily, with the potential for promotion into far murkier worlds. For those young people who start stripping whether for fun, or because they believe that they have no other option, further education, of the kind that starts long before they leave home and school, is what is most needed now."
Why do we think students might want to strip to earn money? Could it be the combination of tuition fees and a terrible job market, with what few jobs there are available often set up as zero-hours contracts and/or paying the minimum wage? Jones worries that as well as this there's the effects of "the pornification of society."
The women who've made the choice to take this work are apparently: "entirely unfazed by having taken their first tottering steps into the sex industry. For them, dancing naked for cash is 'sociable and fun', 'like going on a night out' or 'just like a party night' ... a growing number of middle-class students from well-off families, who begin stripping for the 'excitement of engaging in a transgressive world', with the added bonus that they can keep their tips."
So t's both completely mainstream and transgressive, which is impressive: "This is profoundly dispiriting, although not all that surprising. The less exciting reality, of course, is that their chosen part-time job also offers exploitation, financial and bodily, with the potential for promotion into far murkier worlds. For those young people who start stripping whether for fun, or because they believe that they have no other option, further education, of the kind that starts long before they leave home and school, is what is most needed now."
| I'm not sure how education would help anyone who takes a job because they need the money and they don't have any alternatives. Perhaps we could educate these women into making what Jones obviously sees as the right moral choice, and either forego university until they have the decency to have richer parents or better finances. | How can we criticise women for making what looks like, in most respects, an entirely rational choice? |
I'm sure most of us who went to university did some shit jobs while we were there. My worst one was probably the telesales job selling double-glazing and conservatories to annoyed homeowners. Well, attempting to, I never did make a sale. The 'office' was a boiling hot room over the shop where a small group of us sat and dialled numbers, started reading a script, got sworn at and hung up on and then repeated the process. I did it for two months over the summer until the manager, an unpleasant guy in his 20s who made off-colour jokes and stared openly at the younger girls working there, didn't turn up to unlock the building and let us in. He never came back and never paid us.
If women are fitting work around study that feels like a "night out dancing" and they enjoy it, then more power to them. How can we criticise women for making what looks like, in most respects, an entirely rational choice?
Compare and contrast Jones' patronising attitude to the words of a woman who is paying for her university education (in the United States) by working in pornography.
The 'Duke University Porn star scandal' should have been that one of her co-students exposed her identity in a way that put her at risk; but of course it was seen as being that a female student had made pornography.
Her post at xojane talking about her experience is thoughtful, nuanced, and interesting. She writes about how her experiences in porn have been positive, about taking charge of her sexuality.
Nichi Hodgson in the guardian argues convincingly that the response to 'scandals' like this, and attitudes to sex-workers more generally, are about slut-shaming: "What's more, given the social stigma that persists around female sexuality, sex worker narratives are still forced to express moral accountability and, more often than not, a political position, even though we don't let sex workers feed directly into policy-making.
If you're against capitalism and exploitation, then talk about those things. But don't pretend sex work is the only place you see them in action and don't patronise and put words into the mouths of women who can speak for themselves and probably have something much more interesting to say.
Squeamish Louise
If women are fitting work around study that feels like a "night out dancing" and they enjoy it, then more power to them. How can we criticise women for making what looks like, in most respects, an entirely rational choice?
Compare and contrast Jones' patronising attitude to the words of a woman who is paying for her university education (in the United States) by working in pornography.
The 'Duke University Porn star scandal' should have been that one of her co-students exposed her identity in a way that put her at risk; but of course it was seen as being that a female student had made pornography.
Her post at xojane talking about her experience is thoughtful, nuanced, and interesting. She writes about how her experiences in porn have been positive, about taking charge of her sexuality.
Nichi Hodgson in the guardian argues convincingly that the response to 'scandals' like this, and attitudes to sex-workers more generally, are about slut-shaming: "What's more, given the social stigma that persists around female sexuality, sex worker narratives are still forced to express moral accountability and, more often than not, a political position, even though we don't let sex workers feed directly into policy-making.
If you're against capitalism and exploitation, then talk about those things. But don't pretend sex work is the only place you see them in action and don't patronise and put words into the mouths of women who can speak for themselves and probably have something much more interesting to say.
Squeamish Louise
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