Comment on Christine Overall - What's wrong with prostitution Shrage Signs 1994 19(2) 564-70

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Comment on Overall's "What's Wrong with Prostitution? Evaluating Sex Work"
Author(s): Laurie Shrage
Source: Signs, Vol. 19, No. 2, (Winter, 1994), pp. 564-570
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174826
Accessed: 29/05/2008 23:11
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http://www.jstor.orgCOMMENT AND REPLY
Comment on Overall's "What's with Prostitution? Wrong
Sex Work" Evaluating
Laurie Shrage
N PREPARING the for the moral and groundwork political I
of feminist theorists have tried to a develop analysis prostitution,
account of and social evolution of the prostitution- single origins
a of how arises in that account is, society. general prostitution any
to if the social forces that rise are Presumably, give prostitution morally
Alterna- then so too is the social itself. problematic, resulting practice
moral if has then its tively, prostitution morally unproblematic origins,
character needs to be reevaluated accordingly.
Two stories have in the feminist literature origin predominated regard-
One has been offered socialist feminists who ing prostitution. by argue
that is caused and The other has prostitution by capitalism patriarchy.
been offered libertarian feminists who that is by argue prostitution
caused "natural" sexual desires for abundant and diverse sex.1 Yet by
these social and the moral evolutionary tales, analyses they support,
suffer from a lack of cultural and historical contextualization.
In a recent issue of Christine Overall offers a new version of the Signs,
socialist feminist to "sex work is an origin story. According Overall,
defined the intersection of and by capitalism inherently unequal practice
One with earlier narrations of this (1992, 724). problem patriarchy"
theoretical is that forms of labor can be traced to many general approach
the of societies and the social rise inequalities they patriarchal capitalist
we must either to all of these labor forms or show Thus, object engender.
that is more than other prostitution morally objectionable apparently
similar kinds of work.
1 in or derived from the fol- For the socialist feminist is articulated position example,
and Lerner Rubin Goldman 1975; Jaggar 1980; 1983; Engels 1985; lowing writings:
has been advanced for various 1986. The libertarian feminist view by spokespersons
as St. of and has been taken civil COYOTE) prostitute rights groups (such Margo James
and defended in the Richards 1979 and Ericsson 1980. up following essays:
Women in Culture and vol. no. 2] Journal of Society 1994, 19, [Signs:
? 1994 Laurie All reserved. Shrage. rights by
564 SIGNS Winter 1994 COMMENT Shrage
Overall this weakness in accounts and to recognizes previous attempts
a contrast between and other oc- bolster them prostitution by drawing
from and that to derive the economic social cupations appear inequalities
of and She looks at low-status work capitalism patriarchy. especially
where the laborers are female and the customers or bosses are primarily
male: for clerical and housework, work, primarily example, nursing,
child care.
with other that women Comparing prostitution jobs particularly place
in subordinate Overall "sex work differs in a crucial roles, states, way
from other forms of women's labor.... While and cooking, nursing,
child care need not be sex work is defini- necessarily commoditized, by
tion the commoditization of sex. What is essential to is not prostitution
sexual itself but the of sexual Pre- activity buying activity" (716-17).
and child even when conceived as sumably cooking, nursing, care, work,
can be in social where are ex- performed ongoing relationships they
in on a basis. Yet when as changed kind, reciprocal sex, work,
to cannot be on a or non- according Overall, exchanged nonmonetary
commoditized basis. For when sex is on a or exchanged
is work" noncommoditized basis, Overall claims it not "sex but "a sexual
event or that not does involve service for the sake of material relationship
when and child care are (717). contrast, gain" By cooking, nursing,
on a or noncommoditized basis are still exchanged nonmonetary they
do not become a event" or work-they "cooking "cooking relationship,"
or a event," and so on. unlike "housework" or "child Thus, "nursing
work," to treat sex as work is to treat it as a that commodity-something
is outside social in order to maximize exchanged ongoing relationships
material gain.
Overall that sex work not involves the com- Furthermore, argues only
moditization of sex but also forms of social requires pernicious inequal-
"Prostitution is a and sexist in which ity: classist, ageist, racist, industry,
the sell services to those who are more disadvantaged (717). privileged"
With sex the sex is more work, buyer always socially class, privileged by
and than the sex to Overall. For this age, race, gender seller, according
reason she claims that is not "reversible": it has no "value prostitution
of the conditions of sexual and economic under independent inequality
which it is That sex work has value when performed" (718). is, qua only
it is defined inferiors for their defined performed by socially socially
It has no value or when it is men for superiors. purpose performed by
whites for middle-class for women, blacks, people working-class people,
adults for or even women for men for and so on. children, women, men,
contrast, Overall that other forms of and domestic By argues nurturing
which work, women in subordinate roles vis-a-vis currently place men,
Winter 1994 SIGNS 565 COMMENT Shrage
are "reversible": "That there is in the nature of the work is, itself, nothing
from insofar as we can it its that would conditions, separate working
it from men for women for men, women, prevent being performed by by
most men for women. the labor of office or, Moreover, significantly, by
sales and child care workers has a value clerks, cooks, cleaners, workers,
of the conditions of sexual and economic under independent inequality
which it is and much of it would still be in a done, socially necessary
world" But sex work would be postcapitalist, postpatriarchal (717-18).
"in a for it socially unnecessary postcapitalist, postpatriarchal world,"
has little or no value when it is not of a commoditized transaction part
between a member of a class and a member of a socially privileged
class. socially underprivileged
While Overall's of isolates fea- prostitution many disturbing analysis
of work in our it fails as an account of sex work in tures sex society, many
ones. Overall intends other even other societies, Yet, patriarchal capitalist
In her to to all societies. this analysis apply regard,
in For on one there is a fundamental contradiction her account. the hand,
she claims to be at within looking prostitution only patriarchal capitalist
contexts and to be the attributes it has in those contexts- isolating
attributes that are to be On the other likely contextually contingent.
because she sees as caused the transcultural forces hand, prostitution by
of and she treats of capitalism patriarchy, many aspects prostitution
within these contexts as essential to all contexts- attributes-applying
rather than as attributes. contextually contingent
because Overall sees and as social Moreover, capitalism patriarchy
that create the conditions for sex she necessary work, systems together
all contexts as alike with to sees essentially respect patriarchal capitalist
sex work in a of sex work. Yet, considering range patriarchal capitalist by
non-Western we see that the societies nonindustrial, ones), (especially
its are distinct. social contexts that meaning interestingly shape
out that much sex work in For Overall patri- example, rightly points
involves customers archal societies privileged by gender, race, capitalist
and/or first white and and class, adult, bourgeois world, males) age (e.g.,
all of the same factors (adolescent, socially disadvantaged by prostitutes
and