Radical feminists generally lay out the argument that all prostitution is rape as follows: all work under capitalism involves coercion due to the fact that people must earn money to survive, any sex where someone is coerced is rape, therefore prostitution is rape. This is a very simplistic explanation of the argument, but anyone familiar with critiques of capitalism will easily be able to see how they reached this conclusion.
The issue, as I see it, is one of understanding consent and also how we use language to describe harm. All consent that humans give is impacted by the context in which we live. We have words like “coercion” to describe when this consent is manipulated or forced in an extreme enough manner as for that persuasion to negate (or lessen the strength of) their consent. When it comes to matters like rape and slavery
It’s true that within a capitalist system where we have to earn money to survive, that system acts as a constant threat which coerces us to work. We still make choices, despite that situation, which matter. The ability to choose one job over the other, to quit if the job becomes so bad that we’d prefer the alternative of having no job at all, to take breaks or holiday or ask for accommodations – all of these factors make work under capitalism different enough from chattel slavery that we have different terms, because the distinction is important and consent is always impacted by various factors.
All sex that humans have is impacted by patriarchy, by social pressures, and by the desires of our partners. There are expectations that married couples have sex, and marriages in many places are required to be consummated via sex. Does this make all sex within marriage a type of rape? When someone’s partner mentions wanting sex, placing no pressure on the other partner and perfectly willing to accept a “no”, their asking may still prompt their partner to consider having sex with them to make them happy even if they don’t currently have a desire for sex. At what point is something considered coercive enough to negate consent?
I understand why this more complex understanding of consent is difficult for people, including survivors of sexual trauma – it makes things complicated and messy and means some situations are in a grey area where we’re unsure whether to call them assault or not. I think it’s important to recognize that whether or not we admit that consent is always impacted by the context we live in, it is, and that problem remains.
Some people like to fall back on legal definitions of rape or sexual assault. Given that a tiny percentage of cases of sexual assault ever make it through the legal system to a guilty verdict, and the majority of cases are never reported at all, that doesn’t make sense to me as how we judge harm day-to-day. The police don’t protect victims of sexual violence and laws around sexual violence rarely seem to be enforced.
People will say consent needs to be informed and enthusiastic and free from coercion, and to that I’ll say that without defining terms I’m not sure anyone can meet that standard. How informed? Does one need to know the impact of every possible STD or effect of pregnancy, or do they just need to know the specific sex acts the other person wants to perform? How enthusiastic does the person need to be, and is that enthusiasm allowed to be about the results of the sex (trying for a baby, earning money) or only the sex itself?
I do not see how my consent to have sex for money is less valid than a person choosing to have sex with their partner to have a baby. We both have goals that are not the sex itself. Let’s take it a step further, and say I actively do not feel like having sex but do want to earn money, and for the sake of argument I want that money to spend it on something I do not need… why is my consent considered less than the consent of someone who’s not in the mood but decides to have sex with their partner because they’re ovulating and they want a baby (which they also do not need)?
While I find these arguments frustrating, because it is evident to me through experience that selling sex is not automatically a type of rape, I try to be sympathetic to those making the claim. I’ve been raped, I’ve sold sex, I know when I do and do not feel violated. I know that I’ve sold sex many times where I’ve felt perfectly happy afterwards and would gladly do the exact same thing again. I’ve had casual sex that isn’t for money, which no-one would call rape, which left me feeling far more uncomfortable or upset. The idea that someone wants to call it a sexual assault seems so ridiculous that it’s not worth arguing, but the response is constant. People tell me I don’t know my own mind, that I’m repressing the trauma or that I’m deluded about the nature of my work. So, I’m stuck explaining to people that I’m not being raped when I sell sex. Great.
When I put up an advert on an escorting site, with the hope and intention that someone will respond to that and pay me for sex, and then I do exactly that and the client respects all the boundaries I laid out, considering that to be rape does not make logical sense.
If the standard we are being held to is that our choices must not be coerced by larger systems, like capitalism, which can threaten our ability to live… most sex that’s considered consensual doesn’t pass that bar. Anyone who relies on their partner financially, whose partner might theoretically eventually leave them if they don’t have sex with them, would be experiencing capitalist coercion. Having a partner who is the sole earner in a household creates a power dynamic where the person earning the money can much more easily abuse the other, but I’m sure most of us would agree it’s not inherently abusive to financially provide for someone you’re in a sexual relationship with.
Personally, I think about sexual abuse in terms of the harm caused to people and who that is by. Sex workers are often harmed by clients, but most of the clients we see are paying us for services so that we can continue to pay our bills. The issues we face are with capitalism making it so we have to earn money to live and with stigma against us. It doesn’t make sense for our clients to all be called rapists or for all of us to be called victims.
Claiming “all prostitution is rape” doesn’t protect sex workers, it harms us by shifting the blame to the client instead of capitalism itself. We’re all compelled to work by the system we live in, where money is required to survive. That system is the cause of the problem, of any of us having to do jobs we don’t want to do, and when that job is sex you should be no angrier than when it isn’t.
If you want to be consistent and start advocating we place the clients of all industries into prison, from customers at a bar to clients of sex workers, these arguments would at least be funnier to watch.
Jack Talks About Sex Work 