Sexwork and Objectification

Mich stört es, wenn Frauen in jeder Situation sexualisiert dargestellt werden, zb. in der Werbung. Dort schliesse ich mich gerne anderen Kritiker/innen an, welche Objektifizierung anprangern. Wer aber behauptet Sexarbeit sei grundsätzlich objektifizierend übersieht, dass dies auf alle Berufe mehr oder weniger zutrifft. Objektifizierung so wie ich es verstehe bedeutet, dass man jemanden nur als Mittel für etwas betrachtet- funktional, anstatt sich mit der ganzen Person zu befassen. In der Sexarbeit sehe ich nichts falsches daran, als Sexobjekt gesehen zu werden- schliesslich ist es in diesem Zusammenhang auch meine Funktion. Meiner Arbeitsweise entspricht das nicht, da ich hauptsächlich längere Dates anbiete wo man sich zwangsläufig mit vielen Facetten kennenlernt, aber bei kürzeren Dates ist das nunmal so. Genauso wie ich mich auch nicht näher mit meiner Kassiererin befassen möchte- sie soll einfach ihren Job machen.

Objektifizierung in dem Sinne, dass man die andere Person nicht als Mensch ansieht und sich ihr gegenüber Rücksichtslos verhaltet, gibt es natürlich auch bei Sexarbeit- durch die Dehumanisierung von Prostituierten in der ganzen Gesellschaft(zb. durch das Absprechen von Menschenwürde oder gar einer Seele) wohl auch mehr als in anderen Berufen. Aber diese Art der Objektifizierung ist nicht ein intrinsischer Bestandteil der Sexarbeit, sondern reflektiert vielmehr die tiefe Stellung, welche Prostituierten in der Gesellschaft zugesprochen wird.

Hierzu ein Artikel der Sexworkers' Rights-Aktivistin Norma Jean Almodovar


Is sex work objectifying? –
Thoughts from Norma Jean Almodovar

“I have much to say on this whole concept of ‘objectification’. It is one of those esoteric ideas that elitist feminist academics dreamed up because there is no way to prove or disprove that someone objectifies someone else. Equally, even if selling sex does objectify the seller, there is no way to prove if it is emotionally harmful to the objectified individual.

Objectification is the perfect straw man for feminists because there is no way to quantify the alleged psychological damage – if any – occurred. I highly doubt that objectification causes harm as everyone who is objectified by anyone else in any other profession would show some signs of this damage by now.

‘Objectification’ isn’t limited to sex and sex objects but covers a host of situations, including the objectification of domestic servants, wait persons, musicians, show business people, even athletes. We objectify actors and only see them as performers and entertainers, and even though we might want to know about their personal lives, we want them to remain fantasies, upon whom we can have crushes.

I happen to like being objectified – as an artist, writer, etc., and when I was working, I enjoyed being a sex object, because my clients were client objects – some of whom I cared about deeply as friends, but most were in my life because we had a business arrangement. I treated them with respect and dignity and they treated me with respect and dignity, something I don’t get from those fanatic prohibitionists and abolitionists!

Women objectify men, men objectify women. Because that’s the only way we can sort through a complicated life. We cannot have as close personal friends everyone with whom we come into contact, so we have to compartmentalize and objectify people who are only temporarily in our lives and whose interaction with us is very fleeting and impersonal, or sometimes even those who are in our lives regularly. We just don’t have the capacity to process all the data, emotions and feelings required to not objectify those people.

Personally, I don’t have the time or the energy to get to know as human beings those who fix my car, who sell beauty products at the beauty supply store, who clean my clothes at the dry cleaners, who wait on me at the restaurant, my mail carrier etc. And I am sure they don’t have the time or the inclination to get to know me either. So we objectify each other in order to get through a transaction. Sometimes it’s pleasant and we are more friendly toward some than toward others. While one may objectify one’s mechanic, mail carrier, sales person, or server, it does not mean that one treats any of them with disrespect.

So why on earth would a sex worker want her clients to get to know them if the sex worker doesn’t necessarily want to get to know her clients other than as a client objects?

Feminists who use the concept of objectification to argue that all sex work is inherently harmful disregard what sex workers might prefer – to be objectified – and what sex workers do to their clients –objectifying them as money objects – because they presume that sex workers have no intellectual capacity for having a preference. To those feminists, we become ‘rescue objects’ rather than the individuals we are. And we don’t prefer that sort of objectification! At least I don’t.

With all this objectification going on, why aren’t these prohibitionist feminists objecting to all those professions and situations in which somebody is objectified by someone else? Because they don’t care about anyone but themselves and their own hatred of men and of the women who sexually cater to them.”

Norma Jean Almodovar, January 2012

Ich stimme nicht mit ihr überein, dass Abolitionistinnen zwangsläufig Männer hassen (ein haltloser, polemischer Vorwurf), aber ansonsten bringt der Artikel es auf den Punkt.