Guest Post: The dignity of the prostitute
“Human dignity” demands that we must (never) legalize prostitution
La
st week, a judge in Canada’s largest province struck down the country’s federal laws criminalizing prostitution. Judge Susan Himel of the Ontario Superior Court ruled that prohibitions on prostitution infringed Canadians’ constitutional rights to freedom of expression and to security of the person. If the decision is upheld at the federal level, Canada will join countries such as Germany and the Netherlands and states such as Nevada where prostitution is, to varying degrees, legal.
The legalization of prostitution is not currently a live issue in the United States, but a major policy change from our neighbour and largest trading partner could prompt a re-examination of the issue. Such a debate would likely pit progressive against progressive and conservative against conservative. In the prostitution debate, the camps are separated less by the traditional right versus left dividing lines, and more by a disagreement regarding the meaning of “human dignity.”
Although prevalent in Enlightenment thinking, the idea that states must respect human dignity entered the political and philosophical vernacular following the adaptation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Since then, liberal and constitutional theorists have struggled to define what, exactly, respect for human dignity by the state entails.
Liberal theory encompasses two different conceptions of what constitutes respect for human dignity, which point to two radically different conclusions in the debate over prostitution.
The more libertarian strains of liberalism argue for dignity as autonomy. In this understanding, human dignity requires that each person should be able to exercise his or her autonomy to make choices, consistent with the freedom of all other individuals in society. The state must protect a broad sphere of individual autonomy, so that people can determine the course of their own lives.
On this view, it is the choice-making ability of humans that makes them unique and worthy of respect. Human dignity is violated when our choices about how to live our lives are coercively determined by others or the state. In Rousseau’s evocative language, human freedom is living by a law we each set for ourselves, and dignity as autonomy seeks to capture this intuition. In the prostitution context, the state must allow prostitution, to maximize the freedom and autonomy of individuals, so they can define the ends and lifestyles viagra which accord with their own values.
A thicker understanding of human dignity is dignity as sanctity. This acknowledges the importance of individual choice and freedom, as established by the dignity as autonomy view, but holds that not all choices are equal. Indeed, people can sometimes make choices which degrade their fundamental humanity and the state must occasionally step in and correct these faulty decisions. In the case of prostitution, a “dignity as sanctity” theorist would hold that prostitution allows individuals to be merely used for the pleasure of another person, in manner that disrespects their inherent worth
When you allow another to use your body merely as an object which offers sexual gratification, you cease to be seen as a person who must be respected as an autonomous creature, and become a commodity in the eyes of another. This ‘choice’, while it may be a free one, disrespects one’s dignity and humanity, and the state must step in to prevent this fundamental degradation.
This second view on human dignity and prostitution is the more prevalent one in the US. If we ever rethink our stance, it will require at least one of two ideological shifts. Either we decide that we respect people more by permitting them to choose whatever career they want and to do whatever they want to their bodies. Or we conclude that prostitution does not actually degrade sex workers in the manner many people believe.
Ultimately, if the debate over legalizing prostitution spreads south of the border, we will need to confront exactly what respect for human dignity means for us.
-Joanna Langille
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3 Responses to “Guest Post: The dignity of the prostitute”
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One thing to mention is that prostitution is only the most extreme of many ways that humans can conceivably be commodified.
Marx used to construe manual labor as commodification. We can also consider other professions that objectify human bodies in some manner -fashion and lingerie models, strippers, pornographers, even Hooters waitresses.
And as far as using people for gratification go, people frequently have sex with strangers without the exchange of money. Should such behavior be considered immoral or made illegal? How is it morally different from prostitution? That’s one distinction that I fail to see clearly.
What I wonder is whether the difference between prostitution, other sex-related professions, and one-night stands is qualitative or quantitative, and where and how the line should be drawn.
There might be less here than you think there is. I haven’t read the decision (but we talked about it in crim), but the issue is that prostitution the act is, and has been for some time, perfectly legal in Canada. The things that were struck down were all the things surrounding prostitution, like “keeping a common bawdy house”. I think the violation was that the criminal code was preventing people from doing a legal activity (exchanging sex for money in this case) safely. So the canadian law is in this really weird space between the two conceptions of freedom that you mention here, they are neither allowing people to make free choices, nor prohibiting actions which are inherently degrading. Unless I suppose you think that it’s only inherently degrading to sell sex while you happen to be inside.
g.
in most cases, men degrade women (female prostitutes feel degraded because they have no work skills). however, a pretty woman syndrome where female empowerement and the woman is lifted by the client in more than a sexual gratification role (i.e., romanticized escape path, to a fuller, richer work life through the work ethic of the prostitute) encourages work, is a modern concept since women in the workforce is a modern concept. in muslim culture, women are not permitted to work, and therefore could be perceived as prostitutes / enslaved. why? their currency is physically subjugated to the male muslim worker. the female muslim bears child, raises child (arguably, not paid work), and in this case, arguably, conservative female muslims are considered prostitutes because they have no ‘modern’ view world of work/currency relationships.
this ‘insult’ in western society is not an insult in muslim culture… where wealthy males may marry more than 1 wife. (harem). ownership may have privileges and so does being owned by a successful male (free benefits of food delivery, status, status of beauty / (i.e., gisha girls in japan), etc. judgement of luxury is probably consistent with hiring a prositute or retaining a harem.
degrading an individual for being a prostitute is simply a negotiation for status. we may label it dignity but it is in essence a power-trip to negotiate specific currency (status, money, power, ability to influence) and any attempt to do does not necessarily change the status of all men, women, but the individual who may or may not be capable of further neogtiaitons for one’s rights in employment, food and social status. therefore, the status of:
all prostituates, female prostituates or individual prostitutes should be considered individually at any specific moment in time.
one argues, in consistency–if the currency is food and not fiat money–then everyone, male or female, who earns more than the other retains a prostitute at some point in time because 1. if i cook for my wife and she is not earning anything and i fall out of favor but just want to have sex, prostitution has conceptually taken place (with or without children). we do not want to believe or look at this disparate acts of prostitution (love, concepts of love vs sexual gratification). if i am hungry, feel ‘desperation’ is it an act of love to help another person, with food without sex or if a sexual relationship develops from that act of love does that change things? arguably yes, there is more dignity. (loyalty) between helper and helpee. at any point if that dignity disappears (being taken for granted) does that revert back into a prostitutive state? arguablly all relationships (business or non-business) resemble this (with or without a sexual component). the sexual component is only important for reprodcution, not love or emotional bondage.
therefore, one argues the relevance of the negotiation of sexual bondage, prostitution and the time-relevance of this negotiation within a state or concept of temporaral nature of judgement. For example, trump’s wife resembles a prostitute. is there love? who knows. maybe by someone’s standards, and by others, probably not. are we to judge? he is successful, she does not live without dignity. prostitutes can have status and negotiated benefits. is beauty or cultural physical bias a currency? for status? maybe, maybe not. trump has enough status by money, why does he need a beautiful girl? to set himself off with other males for status? perhaps. does anyone care? what is he achieving? future income? replacement for affection? what goal does he have for ‘degradation’? i don’t believe Trump degrades his wife. but the word prostitute would degrade his wife which in turn, would lower his status.
is trump’s wife a harem bride and is this a better word that prostitute? they have a child so this puts them out of the prosittute class, probably a smart move by trump technically.
is there sexual gratification? maybe, maybe not. possibly. it is anybody’s guess. can you have sexual gratification with a partner and not be a prostitute? a hug or a kiss?
lets say you hire a prostitute for a hug and akiss and no sexual gratification. is that degrading? arguably, that is like hiring a psychotherapist, an honoured professional.
people should think more about the act of degradation and not the title of the job… people people who insult, degrade as a negotiation tactic are the worst kind of prostitutes,…. in any profession.