NLGRev 68-2[1].indd - National Lawyers Guild

90 national lawyers guild review
ages the exclusion of the male buyers, and those who make profits from that
abuse, from consideration. But without these considerations, an accurate
picture of prostitution is impossible to achieve. Legalized prostitution exists
for the benefit of men.
It is a socially constructed masculine sexual desire that provides the stimulus
to the prostitution industry. Women cannot become prostitutes without
men’s demand to exercise their sexuality in the bodies of women bought
for that purpose. The prostitution industry exploits the economic, physical,
and social powerlessness of women and children, in order to service what is
primarily a male desire.
Prostitution is not about women enjoying rights over their own bodies.
On the contrary, it is an expression of men’s control over women’s sexuality.
It is the hiring out of one’s body for the purposes of sexual intercourse,
abuse, and manifestations of undifferentiated male lust. It is about gender,
ethnic, age, racial, and class power relations. By no means is it the “consent
of two adults,” when the purchasing party happens to be socially constructed
as “the superior sex,” or “the better class,” “the more mature” or “the lighter
skinned,” among other characterizations.” 207
In western cultures women are conceptualized as freely choosing prostitution
while the male abusers are invisible. 208 Perhaps this is a testament to the
growing acceptance that women possess free choice. More likely, however,
is the observation that men need to remain invisible if the social harm of
their woman-buying behavior is to be hidden from their women partners,
relatives, and workmates. Thus, prostitution, and the sins that it embodies,
remains primarily a “female problem.” This idea of the female prostitute
as the carrier of sin is reflected in the motivations of legalization. When
legalization is enacted in the present, the preservation of public health from
sexually transmitted diseases is generally given as the most important aim.
In fact, the object is to protect the health of the male buyers—not to prevent
women from further harm.
A comparison can be made here with female genital mutilation (FGM), 209
which is often represented as something that women choose for their female
children. This practice is usually carried out by women alone and men are
absolved of responsibility. However, feminists campaigning against FGM
have consistently stressed that FGM occurs so that women may conform
to male ideas of female sexuality, and it is indeed male requirements that
underlie the practice. 210
Further proof that the system of legal prostitution is set up for the benefit
of men and not the protection of women is in Australia’s Occupational Health