Before reflecting on
the special characters of commercial sex, it is necessary to become aware of the
three myths behind the claim on universally abusive nature of prostitution. Firstly,
it is based on the belief that usually private sex is pleasurable (for a woman)
when commercial sex is not. Quoting Carole Pateman (1988, 198) ”prostitution is
the use of a woman’s body by a man for his own satisfaction. There is no desire
or satisfaction on the part of the prostitute.” Secondly, it assumes that
satisfying sex is not possible (for a woman) without emotional affection (Barry
1979 & Dworkin 1987).
The empirical material
questions these myths. Even if sexual desire is not self-evident, either in private
or commercial relationships, still most of the interviewees say that pleasure
and orgasms are one part of their work. Sexual pleasure isn’t the main point
but it’s still there: very rarely do you meet a prostitute who is seriously
addicted to sex or one who finds sex repellent.
Of course sex workers
probably have as much heterogeneity in relation to their sexual pleasure as
people in general. Some limit it clearly to the area of private relationships
while others only to commercial sex. Maija feels that she is responsible for
the satisfaction of her customers but in her private sex she lets men satisfy
her, she is ”totally selfish”. Sirkka considers that sex could be more
enjoyable in a commercial context because when the man has to pay for the sex
he values it more highly.
In Mari-Elina
Laukkanen’s study (1998, 61) of male prostitutes she noticed that while some of
the men worked for money, some of them
were mostly motivated by their own sexual pleasure. ”That’s why the hustler is
not only the object of consuming customers, he is also the consuming subject as
well. Paying customers ensure him a varying and never ending playground of
sexual fantasies.” Similar motives for sex work was found in interviews with
Swedish homosexual male prostitutes (Eriksson & Knutagård 2005, 35-36).
In my material sexual
pleasure and making money more commonly exist side by side in the same
interview as in Laukkanen’s study, but the same hedonism is still present. Even
Taru, who stresses how prostitution is only a matter of income for her, says
that there was a time when pleasure was a very important motivation to work. A
few years later she faced many disappointments in her private life and decided
to satisfy her desires exclusively by using customers:
…Then I decided to start
using [men] just for sexual satisfaction. If I do it anyway and get money from
it, then I can also take my pleasure from it. And I succeeded in it so well
that I really began to see men only as a walking piece of meat or something.
That they can give to woman nothing else than sex. (Taru)
Its also quite common
that the pleasure found in sex work could be very variable for an individual:
Kaarina says that her own enjoyment is dependent on how she relates to the
customer. Lilja told me that at the time she was using amphetamines, she was
”awfully hooked on sex” with clients. Tiuku started as a sex worker by taking
customers only when she missed sex. Later she kept a professional distance from
her own pleasure in commercial relationships:
It isn’t a pure business
relationship. At first it was very clear, that clients were there for me and my
desires. I mean, I satisfied my desires with clients. (Tiuku)
There is a wide range
of experiences. In light of my material, getting an orgasm is just one of many
ways to find enjoyment. Sexual pleasure can mean all those sensations,
reactions and acts which people conceive as sexual and which produce pleasure
at a physical, mental or spiritual level. Some sex workers link their own
sexual pleasure with almost every act with clients; while for others it’s more
like a memorable exception. Even if we remember that perhaps the most common
rating for clients or acts would be ”indifferent”, it is possible to see that
there are no clear cut distinctions between private and commercial sex in
relation to prostitutes’ sexual pleasure. It is true that sex workers make the
distinction between work and private life but my material do not support
(compared with eg. Teela Sanders 2002, 561 who does) the claim that the
distinction is made by placing pleasure and emotions mostly in private
relationships.
Contrary to some of
the most common myths, also women can enjoy commercial sex and often without
any emotional affection. If it is not the sexual satisfaction, then what is the
difference between private and commercial sex? My interpretation is that the
more important divide is the way sex workers value sexual pleasure. While it is
not so important in commercial sex, successful private sex usually presupposes
that it is enjoyable for both. In sex work, a different set of criteria need to
be applied. Even if a prostitute’s sexual pleasure was a part of commercial
sex, it is not the determining criterion. And even if prostitutes usually considered
orgasm positively, it isn’t self-evident that it constitutes on ideal act for a
prostitute:
They say that
prostitution is easy money. So, once I had a trick who didn’t come whatever I
did. It took two and half hours of sucking before he came. Well, it wasn’t so
bad, I had three orgasms and got three hundred euros, but still. You should
suck a dick two and half hours and then come and tell me it is easy money.
Thank God he was so small that my jaws didn’t get tired out. (Minna)
This is
the crucial difference when we compare commercial and private sex from the
perspective of the sex worker. Even if these two acts look the same and both are
called sex, for the sex worker they are two different practices: sex as work
and sex as joy.
