Inside A Well-Regulated Brothel
There’s a lengthy and interesting feature in Business Insider about a Nevada brothel called Sheri’s Ranch. It struck me that the reporter approached the story with an open mind, and it’s free of most of the sex-negativity we’ve come to expect from this kind of story:
Sheri’s Ranch is a compelling demonstration that legalized and well-regulated prostitution can be safe, functional, and profitable.
There’s an ineffable welcoming quality to Sheri’s Ranch. There is no shame, no fear, no judgment to be found anywhere near the place. There’s no illusion to maintain – you’ve arrived, hat in hand, to pay for sex. Not only do the ladies know this, but they’re glad you’re here. Where America’s sexual culture seems far more repressed than that of other countries, Sheri’s turns this paradigm on its ear and welcomes you to indulge in (mostly) whatever it is you want. Their business depends on it.
Fair warning: as you may not know unless you are keeping up with current trends in sex-worker activism, there’s a recent push to stigmatize the use of the word “prostitute” and replace it with “sex worker”. Although prostitute was until recently the polite word used in civilized discourse to replace derogatory terms like “whore” and “hooker” and “street walker”, sex worker advocates and activists now consider “prostitute” to be derogatory as well. This nascent development has not yet been fully communicated to the mainstream, and the reporter of this story is someone who clearly has not yet received this particular memo. I think it’s obvious upon reading that the reporter is using “prostitute” in a descriptive manner with no derogation intended, but those of you who find such usage offensive may be offended by this story nonetheless.
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Will there be any words left that don’t offend someone?
Brothels are going to exists regardless of the laws. It’s nice to see more work being done to make these environments safer for the people working in them.
Ken, linguistic drift is a continuous process with words of insult and prejudice. The old terms fall into disfavor among polite society, euphemisms and less-freighted synonyms are substituted, then over time those new words begin to take on some of the negative connotations of the old ones until a new set of polite words becomes necessary. This has happened for many centuries, but modernly, activists of various stripes have sought to hasten the process by condemning the current polite phrases and urging more rapid adoption of new, temporarily-inoffensive substitutes.
With regard to replacing the term “prostitute” with “sex worker:
In this modern high-tech world, the speed of linguistic drift is exponential. The term “sex worker” has already had a good run. It’s time to replace it BEFORE it becomes (even more?), offensive.
With this recent trend to define a term, as a more politically correct way of replacing it, I propose something on the order of “financially challenged individual deriving income by offering personally pleasurable activities”.
Of course, there is this other trend to create abbreviations or acronyms due to tweeting and instant messaging, so it’s only a matter of time before it’s acronym becomes a spoken term pronounced something like “phukie-dee-boppa”, which will shortly be associated with such offensive terms as “flibbertigibbet”, and we’ll have to find a new term for prostituting oneself, or rather “sex working” oneself, I mean fkidiboppin or fkidiboppering oneself…
Where is Dan Savage when we need him?
I still miss the TV show Firefly where they had “registered companions” who were held in the highest esteem, and also did a bit of whoring according to some less genteel types.
Most of the people I know involved in prostitution are pretty comfortable calling themselves prostitutes. A lot of them are OK with “whore” and “hooker,” too. (“Street walker” describes a specific kind of prostitute, as does “escort.” Some escorts take offense at being called street walkers!)
The shift to “sex worker” is less about those described being offended and more a deliberate choice to emphasize the “work” aspect of what they do. “Sex work is work” is a repeated slogan among the SW activist set.
I’m no fan of cumbersome neologisms, but “sex worker” doesn’t strike me as too clunky. It’s not as specific as “prostitute” (because phone sex operators and porn stars are sex workers, too), but it’s still direct.
Lola, in case I wasn’t clear, I think that sex worker is a better phrase in many cases. But there are folks now who aren’t just saying it’s more descriptive; some are actively arguing that using prostitute is automatically offensive. I don’t think that’s true (yet) but then again as you point out it’s not even true of whore and hooker, not %100 anyway.