What's Wrong with Prostitution? Evaluating Sex Work

Abstract

T HI S ARTICLE originated from the recognition of two problems concerning the nature, meaning, value, and circumstances of prostitution within capitalist patriarchy. The first of these problems is the apparent conflict between some sex trade workers and many feminists in regard to the acceptability of prostitution. Women who work in the sex trade industry often feel condemned and rejected by many feminist women. One sex worker, for instance, writes resentfully of "the apparently immutable feminist party-line that [sex] work was degrading and oppressive to women," adding that feminists and sex trade workers "are split into good girls and bad girls-just like society's Good Women and Whores. Only this time the fears of moral inferiority and uncontrollable sexuality are couched in feminist political language."1 This notion is echoed in the anthology published by the Toronto Women's Press, Good Girls/Bad Girls: Sex Trade Workers and Feminists Face to Face, a partial transcript of a 1985 Toronto conference at which Canadian feminists and workers in the sex trade discussed sex work.2 Both great good will and anger are palpable among the participants. The workers did not want others to speak authoritatively about their lives; they resented the assumption that their work was necessarily demeaning and never freely chosen. Instead they defended their "right" to be prostitutes and the value, dignity, and liberty of the work, which