One Is not born, rather becomes ...

One is not born, but rather becomes, a john: shifting the focus of the prostitution debate 

 

Beatriz Ranea Triviño: Feminist activist, researcher for the Complutense University of Madrid and expert in prostitution and masculinity. 

The prostitution debate in Spain has been stagnating for years, but the recent arrest of Spanish “freak porn” director Torbe for child sex trafficking could be a good opportunity to discuss the sex industry. By shifting the focus of the traditional "debate" from the prostitute to the demand, we can question the public perception of the typical sex buyer, and the trivialisation of prostitution in “john” culture. 

Prostitution is a social institution that involves a variety of different groups, so before taking up a position, it is informative to listen to all of them; prostituted women, survivors of prostitution, sex buyers and pimps. For those of us who seek to refocus the debate, it is fundamental to listen to the demand - let the johns speak, invite them out of social anonymity, open the internet forums (like the one created by Torbe), where they exchange opinions and experiences - and to reflect on the meaning that they themselves attribute to prostitution and their role in maintaining it. If we focus debate on the demand, we must begin with a critical analysis of masculinity. Not everyone involved is like Torbe; there are also famous footballers, fathers, brothers, neighbours, friends, workmates, bosses, businessmen, bankers, politicians, judges...

We need to get away from the stereotype of the sex buyer as an ugly old man, or someone lacking in social skills. If we enter the red-light district, the sex club or the brothel, it becomes clear that these stereotypes only correspond to a minority. In fact, studies demonstrate that the male consumption of female prostitution is intergenerational and inter-class. The consumer could be well or poorly-educated, left or right-wing, disabled or non-disabled, of any religion (devout or not), agnostic or atheist, with good or bad social skills, handsome or ugly...the one and only characteristic that they all share is their masculine gender. There are no others as far as we know (as female consumption is so rare that it does not constitute a social phenomenon, and lacks the patriarchal ideology that is used to justify male demand). Therefore, a consumer of prostitution could be any male who has been socialised into the masculine gender. That means that in a society like ours, any man is a potential sex buyer. In prostitution the gender division is so deep that, if all men are potential sex buyers, then it follows that all women are potential prostitutes; prostitution has been built into our identity. Vulnerable women have grown up knowing that prostitution was, and still is, an option for us if things go badly. For the men we have grown up with it has never been an option. 

Prostitution is present in the socialisation of girls in a different way to that of the boys. As Kathleen Hanna says in one of her songs, “we were called sluts from the time we were five”. If we are to refocus the debate, we must not forget that the prostitution of trans people and male homosexuals is also fuelled by male That is why it is fundamental that we repoliticise prostitution by centring on the demand and analysing masculinity.

Beyond the sex buyers themselves, the consumption of prostitution is directly related to the social construction of masculinity in our capitalist patriarchy. It is an institution which makes privilege very explicit: the hegemonic male is at the centre and has socially-devalued bodies at his disposition: women (those who form the majority of the group that "offer" their bodies), trans people and homosexual males. They (their bodies) are converted into objects for male consumption. Buying sex is not a right or a “need”, but a desire constructed in the context of inequality and hierarchical power relations between women and men. Therefore, there is an urgent need to examine masculinity, and reflect collectively and publicly on prostitution’s role in our society. We must shift the focus of the debate because, to paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir; one is not born, but rather becomes, a john. 

Translation by Ben Riddick