Discussion | Sociology homework help
- You learned about a lot of different concepts and perspectives in Weeks 8-11. Select one concept or perspective covered and expand on it in some way that was not covered in the course content. For example, you may have wanted to learn more about skin bleaching, the global gag rule, trafficking, or campus sexual assault. You can take this opportunity to do your own research and report back on what you find. ( 150 words minimum; 1 in-text citation and full reference required; must be from outside course content, 2 points)
Sexual & Body Politics Dr. Victoria Burns There are various terms, ideas, theories, concepts, and perspectives that will be presented in this module. These are intended to be presented in an objective manner and not as an endorsement of what you should personally believe. You may decide that certain concepts/ideas are worthy of your personal belief. Understanding a concept/idea does not mean that you are required to believe it or agree with it. In addition, there may be other definitions or perspectives you have heard for these concepts/terms. I encourage you to share with me additional or more comprehensive definitions you may have come across.
SEXUAL POLITICS*
When discussing pornography, prostitution, and trafficking, feminist scholars often consider supply and demand issues. They consider: Why people are engaging in pornography, prostitution, commercial sex trafficking (all linked to the global economy) Worldwide poverty and its relationship/facilitation of exploitation Context why and how do people become involved? Many scholars argue that folks who want to truly address these issues should aim efforts at decreasing poverty instead of criminalization For example, production of pornography shifted towards countries with low labor costs and little state regulation to save money Increase in webcam cyber sex trafficking and webcam pornography *Lee & Shaw, 2011; Terre des hommes, n.d.
SEX TRAFFICKING
The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act where such an act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age* *Definition from U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Retrieved from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/otip/fact-sheet/resource/fshumantrafficking#:~:text=Sex%20trafficking%3A%20the%20recruitment%2C%20harboring,attained%2018%20years%20of%20age%3B Sex Trafficking vs Human Trafficking* Human trafficking is the overall umbrella term used to describe different forms of trafficking Sex trafficking is a certain form of human trafficking People talk about sex trafficking but use the word human trafficking and this is confusing Many times, people are talking about sexual exploitation only but use term human trafficking Sex trafficking and human trafficking for regular labor are different Statistics can be misleading because human trafficking and sex trafficking used interchangeably when they are different *Lee & Shaw, 2011; U.S. Department of State, 2022 Sex trafficking potential causes Globalization/poverty Increasing reliance on women as low wage workers; women of color especially expected to bear social costs of globalization by working harder for less Women forced to migrate to sell their labor: but barriers to legal migration may lead women to consent to be trafficked into another country in hopes of a better future Documentation issues can prevent women from having rights once they consent to being trafficked Destination countries helping undocumented trafficked women could essentially protect their well-being War Women abducted during military conflict Poverty and danger of military conflict force women to search for work in other places *Brewer, 2008; Government of British Colombia, 2014; Lee & Shaw, 2011 Sex trafficking vs. Sex Workers* Many anti-trafficking laws and initiatives can hurt adult women and men sex workers
Some sex workers are in the profession because:
Long history of sex work in their communities A way to stay competitive in the global economy Of a sense of responsibility for the economic well-being of their families Some sex workers do not feel “tricked” or “abducted” into sex work, but may feel forced into the profession due to poverty or discrimination that makes other employment difficult or non-existent *Global Network of Sex Work Projects, 2018; Lee & Shaw, 2011
SEX TRAFFICKING
*Who gets trafficked? Abducted and/or forced into it Tricked into applying for jobs and but instead sold into brothels Some poor families do sell their children Poverty Military conflict and war “On any given day, an estimated 40.3 million people were victims of trafficking [modern slavery], 4.8 million of them in “forced sexual exploitation.” Over one million of those in “forced sexual exploitation” are children (ILO, 2016) LGBTQ+ homeless youth comprise 20 to 40 % of the homeless youth population (Ray, 2006; Quintana, Rosenthal, & Krehely, 2010; Moreton, et al., 2018) These youth are at high risk of being forced into sex work (U.S. Dept. Of State, 2017) Discrimination in hiring has been linked to feeling forced into sex work for some transgender people (Fitzgerald, Patterson, Hickey, & Biko, 2015) *Lee & Shaw, 2011
SEX TRAFFICKING
Less wealthy countries are often considered the source or origin countries Affluent countries often serve as destination sites Some countries are hubs or transit countries, where the women are actually bought and sold. Hubs usually have highly developed sex industries (Thailand, the Philippines) or powerful organized crime sectors (Albania, Turkey, Nigeria). Some people believe this classification of soirce, destination, and transit countries is problematic because countries can fall under each of these categories at various points Lee & Shaw, 2011; U.N. (2016)
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
*Florida has been cited as the third largest hub for human trafficking in the country According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline (2021) Florida was third in the nation in calls to the Human Trafficking Hotline *Within Florida, Miami ranks the highest followed by Tampa and Central Florida *Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, 2021
References
Government of British Colombia (2014). What makes someone vulnerable to human trafficking? Retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/justice/criminal-justice/victims-of-crime/human-trafficking/human-trafficking-training/module-1/vulnerabilities Lee, J. & Shaw, S.M. (2011). Women Worldwide: Transnational feminist perspectives on women. McGraw Hill National Human Trafficking Hotline. (2021). Retrieved from https://humantraffickinghotline.org/en/statistics/florida Osceola County Sheriff’s Office. (2021). Human trafficking awareness. Retrieved from https://www.osceolasheriff.org/human-trafficking-awareness/#:~:text=Human%20trafficking%20is%20the%203,rd%20behind%20Miami%20and%20Tampa. Terre des hommes, n.d. Retrieved from https://www.tdh.ch/en U.S. Department of State. (2022). Understanding human trafficking, Retrieved from https://www.state.gov/what-is-trafficking-in-persons/
ER KEISHIN ARMSTRONG JENN IF
.,.;;. ♦ J4WWW@~OWSEX-A-rJ5"TAE c Y HCfLDSUP IN T E 1 I•. #f\11 ETOO ERA (2018) ..J• I ·f Keishin Armstrong is a writer wh k Jenni er . 0 spent a decade on staff at Entertainment Weekly. Since then, her wor Peared in BBC Culture, The New Yo k r B · h has ap . . r imes oak Review, Vice, New York Magazine, and Billboard. She is t e of Semfe/d,a: How the Show Abo t N h ' haut or u at mg Changed Everyth ing (2016); a history of The Mary Tyler Moore Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted·(2013)· d d hShow, . · , an Sex and the City and Us: How Four Single Women Change t e Way We Think, Live, and Love.(2018) S-ex and the City premiered on HBO [more than] 20 years ago . . . staking its claim to a bold thesis: maybe women want sex as much as men do, and maybe they don't need men for much else. This represented a huge shift at the end of the millen nium, a time when sex was on everyone's mind and newscast: Independent Counsel Ken Starr's inves tigation into President Bill Clinton had just taken a prurient turn by focusing on Clinton's sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and the nation was hanging on the in timate details. But the dominant narrative was still the tale of a powerful man taking advantage of a much younger woman. Sex and the City had a different story about sex to tell. Over six seasons, the series presented its case for Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha as the models of a new kind of womanhood: they supported themselves, they made their friends their family, and they had lots of sex. Some of it was good, some of it wasn't, but all of it was central to Sex and the City's vision of female freedom. But the show's landmark portrayal of women's sexual freedom is exactly what can make it feel anachronistic now, in the age of #MeToo. Amid the four main characters' many encounters with men, very few involve danger, nonconsensual sex, or even harassment. Such incidents that do occur are played off as jokes, "bad sex," or occasions warrant ing no more than an eyeroll. Sex and the City had a good reason to favor the fun and frivolous side of sex: it was meant to portray a glittery, glamorous version of the single woman. Before the show, single women in media were spinsters, cat ladies, and "Cathy" comic strips; if they were lucky, they were Mary on the 1970s's Mary Tyler Moore Show (required to be perfect in exchange for her freedom), or Ally on Ally McBeal (unhinged, baby-crazy ...), which ran from 1997 to 2002. The last thing single women needed at the time of Sex and the City was another Looking for Mr. Goodbar (indiscriminate sex results in brutal death, 1977) or Fatal Attraction (desperate single women are coming to steal your husband and boil your bunny, 1987). Sex and the City's unrealistically positive depiction of women's sexual freedom was one of its most revolutionary qualities. In an era that has seen the rise of such shows as Girls, Broad City, and The Bold Type, it's easy to forget just how groundbreaking Sex and the City was when it came to HBO on June 6, 1998. An adap tation of Candace Bushnell's newspaper column turned-book, the show followed a fashionable, Bushnell-like character named Carrie Bradshaw and her three best friends: romantic Charlotte, success-driven Miranda, and libertine Samantha. The formula sounds familiar, right down to the core foursome of distinct personalities. But this wasn't just a younger version of The Golden Girls. It included some of the most graphic sex talk ever Jennifer Keishin Armstrong #How Sex and the City Holds Up in the #MeToo Era.w Vanity Fair, June 6, 2018. Copyright c Conde Nast. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. 169
170 SE UALITY
featured in a prime-tim t Jevision show targeted t th ma . Its spot on premium cable allowed thi , of course, but what made it even more radi cal was that the sex talk happened among women who were presented as the norm, not some fringe exception. The sex scenes themselves reflected the female gaze. The women looked great during their bed room romps, but they weren't objectified. The scenes were played more for humor, insight, and character development than for eroticism. Sex, the show told us, was hardly ever perfect, but it was often fun and/or funny. As show-runner Michael Patrick King told me in an interview for my book, Sex and the City and Us: How Four Single Women Changed the Way We Think, Live, and Love, "Sex, up until Sex and the City, was sort of dipped in black, and it was dark and dirty and oily. After us, sex was seen differently. We made it pink. And fizzy. We took it into the light and made it something em powering, but also funny." At the time, it seemed impossible to pull sex out of the dark depths and into the pink and fizzy while still addressing its more dangerous side. So there is very little #MeToo in Sex and the City sex. This was of a piece with the many bargains Sex and the City seemed to strike, intentionally or not, as a show that raised hackles. It was sex-positive but apolitical, and in one episode, even anti-political. When Carrie dates a politician . . . she reveals that she's not even registered to vote. The message seemed to be: Don't worry, guys. We're only exercising our newfound power in the bedroom; we're not coming for your public sphere, too. The show demonstrated women's financial independence, but mainly through extravagant fashion and lifestyle spend ing. Don't worry, guys. We'll just be over here shopping. This approach worked: Sex and the City became not just a hit, but a worldwide phenomenon. It made rabbit vibrators, Manolo Blahniks, nameplate necklaces, cosmopolitans, and cupcakes trends across the globe. It was nominated for 54 Emmy awards and won seven. It spawned two movies that broke box-office records, even though they were widely regarded as less than great. Countless people have watched the show in reruns, streaming, and on DVD since. It has become a rite of passage for women and &ay"' in particular. ·11e~ Ofcourse, as younger generations have w . h atch and even as older generat10ns ave re-watched eq, modern eyes can spot a few stray Sex and th '°lit e c·moments worthy of #MeToo reflection. The 1ty . . h d"d ' re asome passmg mstances t at 1 n t register .te most of us at the time-like when the "mod 1~1th . d I d . e IZer•films his sex with mo e s an uses 1t as art w· h It OlJ concern for consent, or when Charlotte wand t "d . h ersiran older artist is cons1 enng a s ow at her &all only because he finds her "charming." Carrie ery "h ld h" . b asksif he wants her to o 1s pamt rush." Mir anda "If he so much as suggests what she's suggesr · you give me a call and we'll sue the hell O ing, Ut of him. That's the only proper way to trade sex t ,, or power... . The most classic #MeToo encounter happens in the sanctity of the fashion closet at Vogue '"h , ·• ere Carrie is freelancing. There, an editor who h as taken a liking to her ... drops his pants after plyin her with martinis and rare shoes. She rejects hi~ and runs ... In another, murkier situation, Carrie puts u with physically punishing-but consensual-se~ with Charlotte's husband Harry's best man. Carrie shows up at the wedding hunched over with a "sex sprain" and dismisses the experience as "jackrab bit sex." She declines a second round with the per petrator and incurs his wrath: "If I'd known you were just using me," he says, "I wouldn't have made love to you like that." Let's just say a lot of us have been there, and it's exactly the kind of problem that would be solved by more affirmative and enthusi astic consent practices.1 All of these are perfect examples of typical in cidents in many women's lives, the kinds of things we've always assumed are just normal-because they have been. The show models exactly this: it doesn't imply that these guys are right, but it shows how women have long dealt with such situ ations. You complain about it to your girlfriends, then move on. The #MeToo movement is liberating because it allows us all to verbalize such experi ences in public-to not explain them away or joke about them, to acknowledge that they chipped away at us. sex and the City did give us one great tool for more ered sex lives, whether we're seeking better ernpoW . eriences in bed or trying to process how sex has :~n used against us in the past: brunch. The show's classic girl-talk scenes were its most revolutionary and lasting contribution to women's culture. They modeled open and honest talk about sex positions, kinks, and relationships, and-critically-they al lowed each of the characters to debate and clearly verbalize her own likes and dislikes. This allowed them to create a conversational version ofwhat's known as a yes/no/maybe list2-a lengthy menu ofsexual options thatyou can peruse alone or with a partner to determine what you're into. If you're with a partner, it allows for the clear est enthusiastic consent possible. If you're alone, you're setting boundaries for yourself so you're dearer about them in the heat of a moment, or during the shock and confusion ofa nonconsensual 171How Sex and the City Holds Up encounter. If you're with your friends at brunch, it serves the same purposes, along with extra bonuses like learning others' boundaries and alleviating shame and guilt. Carrie Bradshaw may not have been as enlight- ened about sexual harassment and assault as we are in 2018. But her couldn't-help-but-wonder attitude did help us get here. .. . NOTES 1. Samantha Cooney, "The Aziz Ansari Allegation Has People Talking About 'Affirmative Consent." What's That?" Time, January 17, 2018, http://time. corn/5104010/aziz-ansari-affirmative-consent/