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Khadija Magardie crossfire
Any discussion on prostitution is replete with difficulties. Any attempts to critically address the issue, without resorting to decriminalisation, is met with derision and almost always has various gender types foaming at the mouth. To argue that something is fundamentally wrong with prostitution does not necessarily imply any adverse judgement of the women who engage in it. It is rather like saying that socialists who criticise capitalism and the employment contract do so because they are contemptuous of the workers! The bottom line is that the buyer is the source of the problem.
There are those who would rightly argue that to wax lyrical and to indulge in pie-in-the- sky problem solving will do little for the lot of the thousands of women who have to sell themselves to survive. This may be true, but the motivation behind prostitution itself is masked in obscurity. This is not to belie the reasons some women give for going into prostitution, nor is it to assume that all prostitutes are women, or victims.
It is basically to question whether the decriminalisation route has in fact achieved anything substantial in terms of getting women out of what is, at the end of the day, a sad and extremely degrading situation. The standard position is twofold. Firstly, that prostitution is a contract whose legitimacy is equal to that of other business contracts. In other words, individual rights and freedoms mean that women should be allowed to do with their bodies whatever they want. It should, therefore, be decriminalised and allowed to go on like any other form of employment. Hence the new NGO-speak – “commercial sex worker”.
The second is a recommendation that certain aspects of prostitution should be regulated by law. This would involve, for instance, the setting up of “red-light districts” or zoning areas, where prostitutes are free to ply their trade. Some have even called for health checks, where for instance on-site clinics would be set up to control disease, particularly HIV/Aids and STDs. With redrawing the legal parameters, one would assume, will come industry regulation of sorts, where the state would need to ensure minimum standards of service and working conditions, through trade unions, UIF contributions and the payment of income tax. This comes in the light of the very real maltreatment, assault and even death of prostitutes by a variety of pimps, clients and disease. The idea is that prostitutes, because they exist anyway (and have since the beginning of time, as the clich reminds us) should be allowed to continue where they can be protected. This begs the ugly question – to what extent does this notion of a prostitute as a worker like anyone else influence male perceptions about women in general. It is unfortunate that conventional prostitution is also a way of controlling other women who are not culturally defined as such. A feminist writer once wrote that the mere existence of a category of women defined in the category of sex object extends itself to an unspoken rule that every other woman must guard against “slipping” into this cate-gory, or being assigned so by a group of men. There is always the chance that the treatment a man pays to inflict on a prostitute sets the standards by which he treats his wife and daughters. Men who visit prostitutes are denying sexual intimacy as a medium of communication, as an expression of commitment and as the basis for a relationship. It, like the prostitute, is something to be “had”. That women should allow themselves to be used as sex aids, and men should be allowed easy access, is where the problem lies. The fact is, there is indeed something wrong with prostitution. What is wrong is that when we discuss prostitution there is a near complete exemption of the buyer. The only way to eliminate prostitution – and elimination should be the goal – is to remove the male demand for prostitutes. This is what feeds hundreds if not thousands of young girls and women into the industry. This cannot be solved by encouraging wives to go shopping for nun’s habits or thigh- high leather boots “to keep him happy”, but by sending out a clear message that men who treat women as commodities that can be bought and sold will face the wrath of the law.
Men who cruise the streets looking for bodies of pre-pubescent girls need to be stopped, humiliated and prosecuted. Without that, the cycle will continue, with no end in sight. There are no easy solutions, and the status quo serves no purpose. But resorting to a “free for all” is not going to help things either.
Prostitution, whether formally or informally, does little, if anything, to promote “economic independence” of women. The end goal should be its elimination, not its “regulation”.