Moulya Subbaramaiah Week 10

“Forced to Choose: Beyond the Voluntary v. Forced Prostitution Dichatomy”

Jo Doezema

Jo Doezema in her groundbreaking piece suggests that sex workers’ activism abandons the now dominant “voluntary vs. forced” dichotomy of prostitution and highlights the working conditions of sex workers rather than the reasons that underlie those workers’ consent. Doezema shows that since the 1980s the dominant abolitionist ideology against prostitution has been replaced by a new discourse that distinguishes voluntary from forced prostitution, and contends that only the latter should be abolished. Ostensibly, this shift seems to symbolize a respect for prostitutes’ right to self-determination. However, Doezema focuses on the danger of promoting such a distinction in that it reproduces the Whore-Madonna division among prostitutes. The Madonna is the “forced prostitute” characterised as being the child, the victim of trafficking, and one who is exonerated from sexual wrong-doing due to her victim status. On the other hand, the “whore” is the voluntary prostitute: because of her transgression, she deserves whatever she gets. Doezema makes a very valid argument that the majority of local and international organizations claim to support each prostitute’s right to self-determination, but place much more emphasis on stopping forced prostitution than on sex workers’ rights. Many NGOs victimise the prostitutes by emphasising on the “forced” aspects of prostitution. As a result, poverty is used as the rationale to prove that certain prostitues are forced into this situation and that they are therefore eligible for human rights protection. However, this implies that no normal woman would choose this occupation unless forced into it by poverty. Doezema refers to the outcome of such a strategy as the racist and classist implication that prostitutes from Western or First World countries possess agency while those from Third World countries are helpless victims.