Lately, amid all of the prostitution current event fracas, and the ensuing blogosphere drama (which I stay out of as a rule. I’ve always been mostly a blog lurker at other folks’ online homes, primarily because I suppose I feel like too many people online just like to revel in/enable/create conflict for no good reason) around it, something has occurred to me which may or may not have merit — I’m still ruminating on it — but which I think is worth considering in the spirit of a little mental floss.
That something goes like this:
• Forced prostitution = military draft
• Prostitution/sex work chosen because of being a best financial option, limited availability of or access to further education/life options or particular social/regional limitations = Military enrollment chosen because of being a best financial option, limited availability of or access to further education/life options or particular social/regional limitations (in either case, sometimes these are also temporary situations rather than permanent ones)
• Prostitution/sex work chosen despite having a wide array of other employment/financial options or open availability of further education/life options = Military career chosen despite having a wide array of other employment/financial options or open availability of further education/life options
I think that looking at things this way, we might tend to see (well, I am, anyway) some correlaries when it comes to how many people are in each group for both prostitution and military (and that right now, we’re seeing the most people in both areas of work in that second group, and how those folks get there also have some common factors), and how in that first group, either situation is something one’d probably consider inhumane (though more folks seem to think a forced draft is acceptable, and I’m not sure why), and how, while that third group is where we tend to see the fewest people for both types of work, we certainly cannot deny that group exists.
In both cases we are talking about work which often has dangers many other jobs do not, which often tends to have a short shelf life in terms of sustainability of that work as a career over a lifetime, where after doing either kind of workers workers tend to have wounds, issues or disabilities caused by the work which frequently cost them and are often not paid for (or paid for adequately) by the work they did, and work which people tend to have very strong feelings about which can/do strongly impact the workers.
We also are often talking about two industries in which financially, there is a big divide between the employer/industry or client and the worker themselves, where we often will see certain racial and socioeconomic factors at preferential play. I find it interesting in thinking about both of them together to note that with sex work, we see mostly heterosexual women and gay or feminized men, while with the military we see a majority of heterosexual men or gay or masculinized (or perceived as masculine) women (and the latter is a very recent addition, no less). In the same vein, I think it’s also interesting to note that the clientele of sex work is and has always been primarily male, and the way the military has often been presented is as protection for women and children. Suffice it to say, we’ve also always had very strong links between these two groups in many ways: the military as either clients of sex workers, or as part of forced prostitution, has a long history. As well, we often see many people who, as those served by either type of worker, will defend or champion the work that serves them, but do very little for — or even act in nonsupport of — the workers well-being or care, tangible rights, or social strata, or who rally against a given group of workers yet actively or passively still benefit from them (much like we will sometimes see actively antichoice women as clients at abortion clinics).
It’s perhaps obvious, but I also wonder if looking at this sort of comparison, or some other like it, wouldn’t help to improve some folks’ levels of compassion or understanding for sex workers or about sex work.
Bear in mind I’m talking about these things from the perspective of workers only here (and to be frank, that’s all I’m interested in discussing: in nearly any situation I could give a rats ass about how clients or others who are served by workers benefit before we are assured that the workers have fair conditions where the benefit is at least mutual). I’m not talking about if one or the other type of work or industry has more merit or value, if one or the other is more or less acceptable or positive or how either work or industry may or may not benefit anyone — individually or as a culture or class — who isn’t a worker in it.
So, what do you think? Deconstruct, reconstruct, poke holes, explore, discuss.
(For all I know, by the by, someone else has made this comparison before me, and I’m either reprising it unknowingly, or just missed a page somewhere. If anyone does know anywhere it’s been discussed before or explored, I’d love to know where.)
