Stigma: Past and Future
The stigma around prostitution is not static. Every culture addresses prostitution on its own, and the strength and style of stigma varies throughout time and place. When the chief doctor of the French army visited Algeria in the early 1800s, he remarked on Algeria's lack of stigma. He marvels at how “after two or three years exercising such a trade, the Ouled-Naïl girls, enriched with a small nest egg, are returning to their native tribe where they are very popular in marriage. Reintegrated into family life, no memory of the past will affect their consideration; nearly all affirmed they are renowned for their good behavior as mothers and wives.” (Translation: Greggor Mattson; orginal document attached) Of course, the chief doctor of the French army (who were invading Algeria and who had very rudimentary, racially charged, western-biased understandings of Algerian culture) is hardly a reliable source on the cultural stigma around sex work. His surprise says more about French culture then it does Algerian culture. He was expecting ex-sex workers to be undesirable, to be so burdened with stigma that they could not re-enter mainstream culture, likely because this is how he thought they were received in France. It is possible there is stigma in Algerian culture around sex work, the doctor of the French army is not an authoritative source. But what is clear is that the stigma was different than French stigma.
France at the time had it’s own complicated relationship to stigma. Once again, this one man is not able to illustrate an entire country’s cultural beliefs. We can turn to other sources to get ideas about how sex work is approached. Police documents from early 1800s France reveal stigma was not an agreed upon presence-- concerned citizens wrote in urging the police to more heavily prosecute prostitution. One man articulated, “Their presence aggravates the corruption of morals that a good government must search out instead of suppress, --it allows a sort of legalized disorder– they multiply the seductions and the moral and physical degradations that follow,” (Translation: Greggor Mattson; orginal document attached)naming prostitutes as a social evil whose existence has negative impacts on society. The fact that a man felt this view needed to be stated implies that it was not entirely agreed upon-- meaning the stigma around prostitution was not entirely agreed upon. This discussion in these police records can hardly represent all sides and all corners of French culture, but it lets us know that there was a discussion happening.
If stigma is not omnipresent and uniform, this means it is not implicit to sex work itself. Stigma is defined and regulated by the society that sex work occurs in. Different societies with differing power structures will create a cultural perception of sex work that suits their status quo and that serves a purpose in their culture. As I argued earlier, in western culture, the heart of the stigma around prostitution is women’s agency. Stigmatizing sex work serves to remove women’s freedom over their bodies and reinforce patriarchal ideals about when sex is permitted. Cultures with different relationships to patriarchy and sexuality will generate different stigmas and different stereotypes. But what we can see through these french examples is that stigma is merely a creation of society, not an ideological truth. It is fungible, and so we are not saddled with it forever.
Throughout this exhibit I have highlighted pro-sex work campaigns made by sex workers rights organizations. The message many of these campaigns seek to get across is that sex workers are humans like everyone else, and every woman who engages in selling sex is a complex person who has more to her then this job. The first step to fighting the stigma is listening to the women who are stigmatized. Moving past stereotypes, we must broaden our understanding of sex work and the narratives around it. Experiences vary, and the line between victim and free agent is not as clearly defined as we would like. The books cited in this exhibit shed light onto this situation, as do countless other writings on the topic. Incorporating these works into the debate and legislating around sex work is the only way we can form a comprehensive picture from which to act, and the only way we can move past harmful stereotypes to give these women the respect and agency they deserve.
