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“Consent. As long as the performers are consenting adults, there is nothing really wrong with sex work other than a bunch of people’s personal hang-ups and religious dogma. If you think pornography is wrong, don’t watch. If you think prostitution is wrong, don’t solicit or engage, but just because you think something is wrong doesn’t mean you have the right to tell everyone else how to live.”
These are the types of arguments you will probably hear once you start speaking out against the adult entertainment industry. The first time you hear them, they might sound compelling. But where does this line of thinking lead us as a society? After all, there isn’t a law in the books that isn’t some form of one group of people telling another group of people what they can and cannot do. And, what about the individuals, the real people on the other side of the screen or in the escort ad? There are many in the sex industry who have spoken openly in support and have even claimed that it is empowering to be able to control their sexuality in this way. These are the tough questions that we are going to be tackling today.
Our first big question wrestles with the idea of rights. Is it a legitimate argument to allow any type of behavior as long as everyone involved has given informed consent? The problem is that true consent is wholly dependent on accurate information from the beginning. Of course, there are numerous accounts of coercive behaviors rampant behind the camera’s in the sex industry, where a performer was lead to believe one thing about their rights, their pay, their preferences and then were forced to do something they did not agree to beforehand. Those are legitimate issues with the idea of consent, however, instead of focusing on purely physical or financial misinformation, what about psychologically? One of the greatest antecedents to sex work as an adult is childhood sexual abuse as well as childhood emotional abuse. An average of the studies we surveyed showed that women involved in prostitution had reported being sexually assaulted as children between 70-80%. According to an article titled The Long-Term Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse, “Childhood sexual abuse has been correlated with higher levels of depression, guilt, shame, self-blame, eating disorders, somatic concerns, anxiety, dissociative patterns, repression, denial, sexual problems, and relationship problems.” From a young age, many of these people have experienced a traumatic or, often times, multiple traumatic events that have fractured their views of themselves, sexuality and their relationships with other people. This can set them on a cycle of self-destructive behaviors that continue on into adulthood and it comes back to the fact that early on, they learned to believe harmful lies about themselves and their value at the hands of an abuser.
There is another psychological issue potentially at play, and this one is one that I haven’t personally heard brought up in this conversation before. As we said earlier, there are, in fact, many individuals within the sex and pornography industries who have come out in support and defense of the social validity of sex work. Some have claimed it to be empowering and even a very feminist occupation. For those that do not have a history of sexual trauma, does that mean that they are giving fully informed consent? Well, especially in our current landscape of sexual grooming and scripting through the broader media as well as pornography, which we covered in last weeks video, I am sure that there are at least a good number of people who have decided to start a career in sex work thinking of it as nothing more than a decent paying job where they can do something they enjoy. For many, however, the dream job quickly turned into a nightmare; the freedom and control they were promised to have over their bodies was stripped away, the boundaries of what they would not do that they had given their managers were the very scenes they were compelled to perform in if they wanted to get paid and called back for work in the future. Many people have taken jobs that oversold what they would get out of them and many others have stayed in toxic work environments long after they should have left, even to the point of defending their toxic jobs to family and friends who are pleading with them to leave. This phenomenon is called Corporate Stockholm Syndrome, and I believe it is one of the reasons why many people are choosing to stay in and even defend the sex industry. According to this article in Psychology Today, “The company culture in which Corporate Stockholm Syndrome thrives will have certain traits. It will often tolerate—in fact implicitly encourage—employees to verbally abuse each other when someone isn’t seen as working hard enough or not being a “team player." The inculcation of the “company culture” is viewed as significantly important by the management. This is aimed at cultivating loyalty to the company while it has no similar loyalty to the emotional wellbeing of the employees.” Does the porn and sex industry have a history of one-sided bullying behavior towards loyalty and compliance?
A recent article on fightthenewdrug.com written by a former adult performer named Alia describes her personal experience:
“From the beginning, my manager clearly told me that if I ever felt uncomfortable at a shoot, I could leave at any point. I believed him, and this convinced me to sign contracts with his agency. I showed up at my first shoot in Santa Monica, which was a solo scene in a basement with one guy filming. When I called my manager, as he told me to do when I signed my contract, to tell him I felt uncomfortable and that something was off, he told me that I was being unprofessional. He told me I would not be able to work, I would not continue to get hired if I was going to be so “difficult.’”
The psychology today article continues, “There will be the occasional company-provided perks, of course, but these will be manipulative by design; a key aspect of inducing Stockholm Syndrome is the more powerful party providing both threats and kindness to the less powerful party. When these come from the same source, the psychological welfare of the lesser party can be more easily controlled.”
“He gave me the number of his girlfriend and assured me I would make so much more money in this “modeling” job. He raved about the better hours where I could spend more time with my young daughter, and I was immediately excited about the opportunity... But I was repeatedly sent to shoots that were far over the line I had drawn for myself. I wouldn’t find out that this shoot involved an act, theme, or performer I didn’t want to work with until I arrived on set. Multiple times, I left a shoot crying, in pain, or just plain numb, but I would get a pat on the back and a call from my manager praising me for my “improving attitude.”...Underneath all the jewelry, cars, and expensive clothes, I was broken. I was suicidal.”
We have to remember that, under it all, we are human beings. Sex is not a casual, throw away act and the ability to disassociate while engaging in a sex act is not a sign of empowerment but of deep emotional trauma. Of course, there are rights, but there are also responsibilities. If we want to empower people who have suffered through trauma and abuse, it is not going to happen by enabling and justifying an industry that thrives of exploiting their trauma and abuse.
Childhood sex abuse in relation to adult sex work
Mimi H. Silbert, Ayala M. Pines, Sexual child abuse as an antecedent to prostitution, Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 5, Issue 4, 1981, Pages 407-411, ISSN 0145-2134, https://doi.org/10.1016/0145-2134(81)90050-8.
Simons RL, Whitbeck LS. Sexual abuse as a precursor to prostitution and victimization among adolescent and adult homeless women. Journal of Family Issues. 1991;12(3):361–379.
Childhood Trauma
Hall, M., & Hall, J. (2011). The long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse: Counseling implications. Retrieved from http://counselingoutfitters.com/vistas/vistas11/Article_19.pdf
Psychology Today – Corporate Stockholm Syndrome https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-time-crunch/201403/corporate-stockholm-syndrome
Alia’s Story
https://fightthenewdrug.org/alias-story-sex-trafficked-as-a-mainstream-porn-performer/
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