[PEN-L:11680] Re: Prostitutes and "Choice"

["James Michael Craven" <CRAVJM@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 7 Aug 1997, James Michael Craven wrote: >
> > These women were slaves, pure and simple--which is not
> > to say that  "prostitutes" are doing what they are doing out of
> > some "choice" or without coercion.
>
> Jim: Thanks for your comments. In general I agree with them. I do think,
> however, that not to see that many prostitutes have in fact "chosen" their
> line of work (given their limited options) means also not to see their
> subjectivity and struggles. I have a graduate student (a Japanese woman)
> who is doing field work with Thai prostitutes in Japan and she has
> collected detailed and convincing information from them about their
> choices and how they struggle. The "limited options" just refered to, of
> course, are why this choice looks good. So within a larger context their
> "choice", like that of workers more generally, is hardly a "free choice".
> Nevertheless, the common view of prostitutes as pure victims does not do a
> great many of them justice, nor accord them the respect they so richly
> deserve for their struggles.
>
> Harry
>
> PS: My graduate student's detailed dissertation proposal can be found at:
> http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/satprop.html
>
> ...........................................................................
> Harry Cleaver
> Department of Economics
> University of Texas at Austin
> Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
> Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 478-8427
>                (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
> E-mail: hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cleaver homepage:
> http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
> Chiapas95 homepage:
> http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
> Accion Zapatista homepage:
> http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
> ...........................................................................
>
Harry,

Thanks for the response. On one level I can see what you are arguing
and why. Yes, I too have known prostitutes who have told me directly
that yes, they know well the probable costs (risk of AIDs and STDs,
beatings by pimps, murder or beating by a John, psychological damage
from dehumanization, incarceration, payoffs and favors for cops,
rapid aging and a jaundiced view of life etc), that they regard sex
as a business and that housewives and girlfriends are essentially in
the same business they are in, and that they have calculated costs and
benefits and calculated that probable benefits outweigh probable
costs and risks. But these women are very few and studies show that
almost all of them suffered physical and sexual abuse at young ages
suggesting they may be simply rationalizing their limited options and
the real reasons for their "free choice".

And yes, there are Filipinas, Koreans, Thais and women from other
countries going to Japan who know they will be involved in
prostitution (as opposed to being lured by promised jobs as "maids",
dancers, nannies etc). But even those who know they will be involved
in prostitution, scarcely have any real idea what is waiting for them
(passports taken away, peonage practices promoting perpetual debt and
servitude, extremely brutal sexual practices, Yakuza violence,
isolation and alienation in Japanese society etc, police protection
of pimps.)

I know that there are some Japanese, I am certainly not suggesting
that your graduate student is one of them, who, driven by their own
"nihonjinron" and "Japanese nationalism" focus on the "free
choice" aspects of prostitution by foreigners in Japan in order to
cover-up the predatory, brutal, racist and sexist attitudes and
practices prevalent in may corners of Japanese society that lead to
larg-scale importations of these desperate women as well as
oppression of some Japanese women as well.

Thanks for your comments.

                                   Jim

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