I got into a bit of a disagreement with a friend of mine yesterday. Brenda and I usually don't disagree on things...except when it comes to the idea that a woman can be empowered by sex industry work.

I know there are a bunch o' feminist tomes and learned essays that say how empowering sex work can be for women. How when they are taking money from men for sex, they are thumbing their noses at a perceived status quo that tells them what they can and cannot do with their sexualities...this status quo usually being the Patriarchy (not other women who might be passing value judgments either--oh, I forgot, women make those judgments because of the patriarchy and not just women's need to dis other women in order to capture an alpha male).

Then, there's some feminist stuff that says sex work is all spiritual or is a goddess-centered and valid way to make a living, or that sex workers are women who can process an excess of male energy---well, I've heard all these excuses and none of them quite wash. The idea of a "holy prostitute" as was configured in Ancient Greece is a concept that we, several thousand years of civilization later, cannot fully comprehend. And as for the whole male energy thing--well, I file that one under "Wifty New Age Stuff Not Proven or Shown In Any Science or Scholarly Work." In other words, it's a fine style but there's no substance.

Not to mention that these excuses never take into consideration the number of male sex workers that are out there.

Nor do these ways of thinking take into account how males acutally think about sex work. Oh, they pay alot of lip service and say that it's great that women express their sexualities in such a manner--just as long as it's not their women. Just as long as it's not their wives or daughters or cousins or their mother. Sex workers are always someone else's women, not the women of the man's personal clan.

Women tend to forget just how territiorial men are. And in their territorial natures, men can see things in black and white. Sex workers are The Other, or "foreigners." And it doesn't really matter what happens to foreigners--they are someone else's family and paying others for sex rather than their own makes the men feel that their families are superior. A man never thinks that his own women might be into sex work because it would mean that the man is degraded.

So, sex industry work is really not about women being empowered thru free sexual expression...it is about men being able to see the women of one group or family as less than the women of their own in order that they can use those "foreign" women for sexual gratification.

Kind of complicated, isn't it?

There is, though, more to the sex industry than this. The Sex Industry World occupies two spheres--the Sexual Glamourworld and the Sexual Underworld.

The Sexual Glamourworld is the world of Playboy and Penthouse....of $500 an hour escorts and pro-dommes, high paid porn actresses and dissolute heiresses...where all the johns are called Clients and are good-looking actors or athletes or beautiful boy-dilletants looking for fun.

There are never any nerds, skanky old guys, losers, wimps, or perverts. There's never anyone over 40.

All the women are stunningly, effortlessly, beautifully, pneumatically sexual-- and under the age of 30. Even if they really aren't.

It's a place where the Air is quite Rare and few reach those heights.

The Sexual Underworld is vast, and deep and dark. There's money to be made, for sure, but there is a price to be paid. It is where the performance of sex becomes more important than sex for love or for fun, and one can forget when to turn the performance off and be real. Sometimes one doesn't have the option of turning the performance off. It is where the acts of sex get bigger and grander and more perverse and the worker must be something like a trained athlete to perform those acts, on cue, when necessary with no emotion at all. She must learn to disassociate from her body to perform long enough to earn the Big Cash. It is where the competition for the handsome client can be far more fierce than it was for the captain of the football team in highschool--but only if he has beaucoup bucks. If he doesn't, than the old guy with the big wad will suffice.

It is where men are dollar signs and women are cunts or asses or mouths.

In its darkest parts, the Sexual Underworld is where women are traded like cattle, work for less than American minimum wage and in conditions that make sweatshops look like fun.

The average woman who goes out to seek empowerment thru sex work is more likely to find her way to the Sexual Underworld first--unless she groomed in a certain manner to gain entrance to the Sexual Glamourworld. But if she doesn't play her cards right in the Sexual Glamourworld, she could end up working in a "high class brothel."

But a brothel's a brothel....you're still not meeting Prince Charming... but you are definitely kissing alot of frogs....who've paid you not to refuse.

If you do not have the power to refuse, are you truly empowered?

So, while sex work isn't going away, women shouldn't necessarily lie to themselves about its realities. If a woman feels a need to go into sex work because there is some burning issue that compels her, or some curiosity about the darker natures of men (as was my reason) or some other Wester psychologically-based reason for doing so, then perhaps she should. But she should not hide behind faulty philosophy that considers Western women's sexual expression thru sex work a separate issue from men's opinions of sex work or from the fates of non-Western women trapped in sex work.

Women should always think of the Sex Industry's two Worlds and the natures of those worlds. The Sexual Glamourworld is like a big beautiful club, and there are gatekeepers more ruthless than those who used to prowl outside Stuido 54. The Sexual Underworld is like the club down the street, where the admission is high, but it will let anyone in. Just remember what Mom always said about going to clubs--look for the Exits and at the first sign of trouble, get out.