Toni Gallagher
You’d cross the road to avoid a woman loitering on the corner of Forest Road West, but you wouldn’t do the same passing in passing Lily Phillips; one is a sex worker and one is a porn star. The distinction is one marked by a profound irony. The respective professions, centred around financial capitalism in exchange for sexual acts, are perceived with markedly different levels of vilifications and societal respect, that culminate in a fine set of limits dictating the acceptance of sex for money in one setting and not another.
PROSTITUTES ARE DIRECTLY PAID FOR PHYSICAL INTIMACY, WHILE PORN STARS ARE PAID TO ACT AND PERFORM OF WHICH SEX BECOMES AN ELEMENT OF DRAMATIC EXPRESSION
The distinction is manifested within their financial contexts. Theoretically, prostitutes are directly paid for physical intimacy, while porn stars are paid to act and perform of which sex becomes an element of dramatic expression. The distance between the financial contexts of the professions can be seen in the strictly linear exchange of sex for money that defines prostitution and in that fact that generally in the pornographic industry, the individual paying for sex is different to the individual who receives the benefit of the sexual acts.The financial scope of the porn industry is considerably more widespread than that of the prostitution industry, accumulating a worth of one billion pounds in 2006. This is because the legal backing of which the porn industry is treated to means that the UK government has the ability to tax its’ extensive ecosystem; from marketers, to make up artists, and performers themselves, while in contrast, illegal prostitution solely confers financial benefit upon the sex worker involved in the transaction.
I THINK THE FILTRATION OF SEXUAL ATTITUDES FROM PORNOGRAPHY TO REAL SOCIETY DIRECTLY DISPUTE FEMINISTIC IDEALS
As well as its greater financial scope, the pornographic industry also has great societal reach, ascribing this article with its anti-porn quality, as I think the filtration of sexual attitudes from pornography to real society directly dispute feministic ideals. I use the word ‘ideals’ with caution; porn as a feminist phenomenon does not exist in its current form. Its visibility and normality has detrimentally misogynistic implications on the attitudes of generations, in a way unachievable to the prostitution industry. A particularly contentious figure within the pornographic industry is Only Fans star Bonnie Blue, for which I feel a degree of back seated empathy. Empathy because of the trauma she puts her body through as a woman, claiming to have slept with 1,057 men in twelve hours, but back seated because her deeply misogynistic discourse reinforces so much of what is wrong with the industry. Consistently using dehumanising language when referencing herself and other women means Bonnie Blue propels a view of female sexual roles as solely pleasure givers to men as opposed to autonomous individuals, contributing to a dangerous attitude in which women are sexually dehumanised. No woman is avidly aspiring to Bonnie Blue’s sexual experiences, so why is she such a prevalent female voice in pornography? Because it is an industry established for men.
Bonnie Blue and other famous porn stars are products of the pornographic industry, so while her rhetoric is not excusable, it is explainable; pornography is the source of the issue. Particularly the way in which the internet and ubiquity of pornography has pushed a violent narrative of sex directly before us that suggests an inevitable escalation. I spoke to licensed sex therapist Julie Gravell to discuss to discuss the real consequences of pornographic consumption, who informed me that the average age at which the UK population is exposed to hard core pornography is only eleven. She also reported that the overconsumption of porn often leads to objectification, a desire to emulate pornographic material and a fall in base line of dopamine, with 35-40% of her clients experiencing an escalation to pursuing sex for money.
SEX WORK, IF DECRIMINALISED AND PROVIDED A PROFESSIONAL RIGHTS TO ENSURE REGULATIONS COULD REDEFINE ITSELF
The detrimental societal implications of the pornographic industry are greater in magnitude than all sex worker industry, as a readily public compared to a more discrete phenomenon. The notorious reputation of sex work in the UK can be more attributed to the common transaction of STDs, an inevitable aspect of a legally unregulated industry. In this way, sex works can be seen as less socially damaging than pornography, as it occurs on a more discrete basis that does not penetrate attitudes towards sex to the same magnitude of which porn does. Sex work, if decriminalised and provided professional rights to ensure regulations could redefine itself. Pornography does not exist in a feminist form, and for this reason I am anti-porn.
Toni Gallagher
Featured image courtesy of Mathilde Langevin via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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