April 26, 2010
The Man in the BMW
By Namit Arora
(An excerpt from a longer work of fiction.)
On their way to China Town, they pass an area with red curtained massage parlors and hookers pacing the streets in tight clothes. They stop at a red light behind a BMW. A hooker approaches its curbside window, talks to the driver, and hops in. Ved notices Liz shaking her head in what appears to be disapproval.
‘Consenting adults!’ he provokes her.
‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ she says sharply.
‘Why the disapproval then?’
‘Because it is so sad. I just wish these women had other options.’
‘Maybe they do. I doubt they are doing this against their will, at least not in San Francisco.’
‘Just because they do this, quote-unquote, voluntarily, doesn’t mean they do it because they are happy to. It’s because they don’t recognize other options. Or they are addicted to abuse, or full of self-loathing and given to self-destruction.’ Her voice bristles. ‘It doesn’t mean they like it, or choose it with a healthy frame of mind.’
‘But if they do it voluntarily—so let’s exclude the drug addicts—can we say we know better? Who should be allowed to save people from themselves? So many others don’t like their jobs either, or choose them with a healthy frame of mind. I have met—’
She sighs. ‘I know that line of reasoning, but taking a job flipping burgers is not quite comparable to letting a horny customer finger your private parts.’
‘But many still choose the latter. They may not want to be saved, or pitied as victims of exploitation.’
‘Listen,’ she raises her voice. ‘I don’t know what the solution is,’ she throws her hands up. ‘I just wish things were different, OK? All I’m saying is that prostitution springs from socioeconomic disadvantage and serious emotional problems. And it exploits women weakened by their circumstances.’
‘Yes, but prostitution will be around whether or not we like it. All we can do is try to minimize the crime and abuse and diseases associated with it, and treat it like a regular services sector job, as they do in parts of Europe.’
‘Yes, I also believe in legalization. I think it’s better for the women.’ She resumes after a pause, her voice charged with emotion, ‘At the end of the day, I guess, for me it really comes down to how each of us projects our sexual power in the world, and the kind of world it creates. What bothers me most about prostitution, to put it bluntly, is the way men approach sex.’
He looks at her quizzically. She continues, ‘I might as well tell you right now that this is my hot-button issue—a personal hang-up—that sex ought to be shared respectfully. I think these women must die a little bit every day. Do you know what it is like dealing with foul manipulation, degrading language, being reduced to a mere sex toy by strangers, and even by men whom one has known and trusted? Do you know what it feels like to be used? Let me tell you: you don’t, you can’t, because you are a man.’
He wants to say: we all have different thresholds of desecration and violation, your own thresholds are not universal. You are rashly conflating paid sex with disrespect. Even in conventional unions—lovers, husbands and wives—payment for sexual favors, negotiated a lot less openly, occurs in other forms. At least this is more honest and clear-cut. But he remains silent. He cannot dispel the whiff of a loophole in his reasoning.
Without warning, she begins to sob. He is dismayed by this development. He wasn’t expecting tears on their second date. Who knows what history provokes this? He extends his right arm and gently squeezes her shoulder. ‘Come, come, that’s not allowed.’
‘I am sorry,’ she pulls a napkin from her bag, wipes her eyes, and then blows her nose into it. ‘With some men, even I have felt like I am beheld by eyes that belong to another kind of creature, who cannot see me in here. They only see what they want to see, which is not nearly who I am. I am a means to their sexual ends. Women have sexual needs too, you know, why can’t men control themselves like we do? Why do they have to be so cavalier, so …?’
Unthinking, preying, sordid … he silently shuffles the words. So true, and how curious that we once placed ourselves a step below the angels. He recently dwelled on the fact that each day so many men rape women, that one in six of all American women have been raped at least once. For the first time recently, this vividly at any rate, he tried to imagine himself inside the mind of a rapist, how it operated—creative empathy one might say. And it filled him with revulsion for his sex. Such cruelty lurking just beneath the skin of men.
He knows he has it in him to reduce women’s bodies to objects of pleasure, to see them as little more than three holes and two hands. Yes, yes, he knows that gaze. It’s rooted in a primeval force in him that he cannot wish away, only try to tame. Today’s popular porn, the so-called gonzo porn, thrives on it and even cultivates it. So many women now depend for their livelihood on men—fathers, neighbors, coworkers—exercising that gaze. How different is he from these men?
She resumes in the vicinity of China Town, ‘I don’t know how to defend this rationally, but I would feel emotionally unsafe with a lover who has frequented prostitutes. In a very personal, visceral way, I would feel hurt by the knowledge, somehow, knowing full well that it had nothing to do with me.’ When he glances at her she is quietly staring out the window.
‘I’m glad you’re not like that,’ she adds.
Not like what? Like the man in the BMW? He does not ask.
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Image source.
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More writing by Namit Arora?
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Posted by Namit Arora at 12:25 AM | Permalink
Comments
Namit,
Thank you for one of the most intelligent, thought-provoking pieces of writing I've seen in a while. There does seem to be something missing from the standard pro- and anti- legalization arguments: they ignore what may be a more fundamental problem, the problem of male sexual objectification.
"The Gaze" you speak of is something I've thought about a lot. I think that most of us have a duty to confront this strange psychological beast within them, the one that can reduce a person to a non-person. We must also confront this beast with an eye to a particular problem: that objectification within stable, long-term relationships does not seem to be so problematic. How can this be, and what is the true enemy, here?
I am also particularly interested in your male character's "knowledge" that his objectifying gaze is rooted in some sort of primeval instinct, which is then exploited by industry/patriarchy/etc. The confrontation many of us have with our ability to objectify can be easily resolved by reference to this story: since it's a "natural" or "genetic" or "evolved" thing, I'm not responsible for it, and what I should do is control it as best as I can.
I worry that this a profound disavowal of responsibility for oneself. First, the whole story depends on the validity of a strong evolutionary psychology. Ergo, it doesn't even stand on very solid scientific footing to begin with.
More importantly, though, I think this kind of story depends on the idea that whatever our "natural" drives are, we have no responsibility to change them. I do not see that this is self-evident.
The man in your story is doing what we should all do: honestly confronting demons within and facing up to them as bravely as possible. But I wonder if the recourse to "natural drives" is a final act of cowardice, an inability to embrace the true difficulty involved in becoming a better person.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Apr 26, 2010 5:11:01 PM
Nick-
I'm not sure I follow your point, or entirely see where your interpretation of the narrator in the story comes from. Accepting the existence of natural drives does not mean that one must surrender to them. The narrator accepts that he has sometimes reduced women he sees to mental grist for sexual fantasy, but he seems to reject the notion that he must let such thoughts dominate his relationships with the other sex.
Isn't this a healthier perspective than denial? One can not wish genetics away. I understand the reluctance to embrace a credo that rests on genetic determinism, but it is equally as bad to act as if one can change absolutely that which is inherent.
I also want to push back a bit against the idea that it is always wrong to imagine another person in an imaginary sexual context. As long as one is capable of making the distinction between their fantasies about a particular person and their actual relationship with them, such temporary reductions to one dimensional caricatures can be part of the healthy process of emotional and physical release via fantasy. Prostitution is so disturbing because it explicitly violates this boundary, and invites the "customer" to impose their fantasies on a real person.
Cheers,
Cyrus
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Apr 26, 2010 6:17:32 PM
Who speaks for sex workers?
Posted by: Sagredo | Apr 27, 2010 3:09:01 AM
Truly interesting, Namit -- like sitting in the same train compartment with strangers having a discussion that fascinates you. I don't have better answers than Liz or Ved -- but these are the questions.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 27, 2010 1:41:53 PM
Hi Cyrus,
Thanks for the response. I do appreciate the force of what you are saying, but I am still uneasy.
When we don't really know that the "objectifying gaze" is "inherent" or "natural", what role is it actually playing, here?
If there actually were some solid science which connected all the right dots (there isn't) then we'd at least have one piece of the story in place: we'd still need to make the ethical claim that people are not responsible for drives they are "born with". Given that people can and do change their deep drives over time (genetic determinism is not fatalism), what role is the ethical idea playing?
An ideal person can simply do as you say: they can recognize drives and keep them in check. But we are not ideal, and we so often tell ourselves stories to rationalize away our evils. When the "deep drives" story is not actually supported by a complete scientific picture, and when it rests on an ethical idea that is not obviously true, then we have to wonder if this isn't just an ad hoc rationalization. One which serves to help us avoid the difficulty of just becoming a better person.
(Never mind the social effects that any "boys will be boys" story has... the way such stories multiply and end up justifying terrible behaviour is truly loathsome)
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Apr 27, 2010 2:17:28 PM
Nick -
I think my comment may have been slightly off target, and possibly overstated the scientific case. However, I think the general argument holds, even without science weighing in one way or the other.
For the sake of argument, lets ignore what genetics may or may not know about male objectification of women, and rather agree that society believes, rightly or wrongly, that such objectification is natural. This view does not reside at the surface level, but has been shown to be both deeply held and to be so across large portions of society. Here I can hold up much social science to solidify the point: studies on the prevalence of pornography, male views on sexual desire, law enforcement that historically focused of prostitutes and not johns, etc, the list goes on. To ask such people to out-right reject such views after they have been deeply socialized is, I believe, to be unrealistic. They seem real to the person who holds them, and they are so deeply ingrained that many people who hold them do not even realize it.
This is not to normalize "boys will be boys" behavoir. Rather, it's to suggest a different, more conservative tack to begin to handle the problem. Since many people are so deeply socialized (in our assumed world) that they don't even realize they hold the negative views to begin with, asking them to change those views is useless. But a more moderate process of pointing out the existence and detriment of such views, and asking men to separate their fantasies from reality, can work (or so I believe from anecdotal evidence).
Sexual desire and objectification are not the same thing. However, sexual desire seems to often lead to some level of objectification (i.e., sexualization). The growth in my personal understanding of this dynamic allowed me to more clearly separate what is natural attraction, undeniably genetic in cause, and objectification, for which we will remain vague as to its cause and nature. But there is a gray area between the two, from where one recognizes feelings of sexual attraction, to the point where one is reducing a person merely to their sexual traits. That area in-between, no matter where it may come from, is what we all have to learn to deal with.
Cheers,
Cyrus
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Apr 27, 2010 9:01:04 PM
I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading.
It was honest and sounded like a real person instead of an infomercial
Posted by: Edward Depp | Apr 27, 2010 11:45:44 PM
So Namit read this piece on a woman selling sexual service to pay for drugs, and we get this little dialogue. But, the voices of the actual people who are the key to the ethics of this dilemma, those over whom the fuss is about, are curiously missing. I've seen this before. Perhaps prostitutes are like children, de facto a species of minor, not in full knowledge of their own interests and who must be spoken for by advocates. Should Ved or should Liz be the advocate?
But never mind that. Ved excludes drug addicts, but I think Tee of the referred article raises an interesting moral dilemma for her clients; that is, should they do business with her?
If they choose to have whatever kind of degrading sex they're willing to pay money for, they exploit the vulnerable. Even in a dry economic view, at the very least, they pay much less than fair market value for such labour.
If they choose not to, Tee ends up doing more of whatever is next on her list of things to get money, apparently theft. Is this better? Tee doesn't think so. It means likely jail time. Except the comforter might have been for herself and actually she wouldn't be any good at thieving for cash, and the next thing on the list is begging - I can't tell. Or perhaps the actual prostitution doesn't matter, but that it is simply unethical to give addicts money they will use to buy opiates, since opiates have subverted their true will?
Posted by: Sagredo | Apr 28, 2010 1:58:38 AM
"Why can't men control themselves like we do?" This seems like an odd thing for Liz to say, but Namit, what would happen if women didn't?
The phrase "objectifying gaze" conflates attitude with behaviour. We need to consider them separately.
The attitude is not an enemy, not a beast, not a demon. The "nature vs. nurture" argument is not very relevant, actually, because it should be obvious that it is quite deep-rooted and that's all that matters. It is desire, and a way of seeing that focuses on the sexual body. It is, superficially, instrumentalising, but it has depth for anyone willing to follow it and that depth extends outward to and with and through the desired. Actually I like to think that "anyone" includes most adults.
Nick, have you ever been physically desired without obvious reference to your mind? Have you ever been physically desired and liked it?
The behaviour of staring at someone sexually is sometimes appropriate, sometimes appealingly flirtatious, but often it's obnoxious. This is part of a plague of incivility in society: perhaps it's even the major part of that incivility. But if one cares, it's not hard to be civil.
Posted by: Sagredo | Apr 28, 2010 2:45:35 AM
Sagredo, I understand your position, but what I am trying to do is ask why the assertions you're making (particularly about the supposed clean difference between attitudes and behaviours) are justified.
More generally, you cannot simply assert that objectifying sexual desire is basically unproblematic. In the dialogue, the male character confronts the possibility that it is this same drive which is primarily responsible for sexual assault. That seems at least possible, and its truth would force me (and I hope anyone else) to classify the drive as seriously problematic, if not straightforwardly evil.
Cyrus,
I like your clarification of the issue: perhaps it does not matter what source the drive has, so long as it is widespread and prevalent.
But then: perhaps it does. "Socialization" is not just this thing that descends on us from the sky, it's something we are all constantly doing to each other. If we establish that socialization is responsible for a problematic drive, then we seem to have a straightforward duty to stop socializing each other to have it. In this particular case, it would seem that men ought to stop setting examples for younger boys that normalize female objectification. And surely the most effective way of doing this is just to do whatever you can to knock the damned thing out of your psychology.
I mean, sure it's hard to uproot deep-seated desires, but no-one ever said that becoming a good person was easy. All this kind of rational discussion can do is establish what a good, rational person should do, not what a stubborn, irrational, recalcitrant person will do.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Apr 28, 2010 3:01:56 AM
Actually, I have no doubt it's the same drive as that for sexual assault. That does not make it, of all the conditions necessary for sexual assault to happen, the evil one. If you're looking for the evil condition, it's greed, it's envy, it's malice and lack of empathy.
Think of it like this: sexual assault stops when sexual desire stops. Equally, sexual assault stops when greed stops and empathy starts. Which is better?
Posted by: Sagredo | Apr 28, 2010 3:29:05 AM
I don't see either greed or lack of empathy driving sexual assault. It's power. It's the need for control. Sexual desire may or may not be present.
It's a pernicious myth that sexual assault is the product of a sexual desire that is normally restrained by empathy or conscience or fear of punishment. That's nonsense unless you think that the outcome of sexual desire is degradation. After all, degradation and domination are generally the goal of sexual assault. It's one reason why perpetrators of sexual assault often prove impotent and resort to instrumentality, or assault despite the existence of other willing partners.
I'm not trying to dispute the fact that the exercise of power is often sexualized. And it is most certainly the case that an energetic engagement with ones prospective partner is the natural product of sexual desire. But it's a mistake to confuse these two things; when the goal of sexual interest is the subjugation of another human being, desire has been perverted into something else entirely.
Posted by: Ed Hall | Apr 28, 2010 8:07:23 AM
Nice, Namit.
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Apr 28, 2010 9:13:48 AM
"That seems at least possible, and its truth would force me (and I hope anyone else) to classify the drive as seriously problematic, if not straightforwardly evil."
Except for the fact that the drive towards objectification is inexorably linked to the cause that we are all here, discussing about its alleged 'evilness'. Trying to uproot it is as absurd as trying to wipe out greed (which any big supporter of capitalism will undoubtedly claim is the 'engine of progress'). There's nothing wrong with sexual objectification, as long as it does not become the defining element in a relationship and, as everybody knows, incessantly prattling about its allegedly horryfying nature won't erase a drive that's biologically predetermined.
And I thought castrati were a thing of the past.
Posted by: Pepito | Apr 28, 2010 10:17:00 AM
Pepito, you cannot possibly provide conclusive support for your claim that the modern male's objectifying gaze is biologically predetermined. Because there just isn't any. Your undefended assertion of its truth is precisely what makes me so nervous about the story in the first place. Rather than contradicting me, you stand as a perfect example of why the biological story can be so frightening.
I mean, really, linking maleness (non-castrati) with seeing other people as objects, not as people? Give me a break.
Ed Hall,
You're right to question the (sole drive)--->assault model, it's ridiculously simplistic. Obviously a host of factors play a role in the behaviour. All we could do is establish that a given factor plays some role.
But remember that this isn't about "sexual desire", it's about a particular act of objectification. I think a case can be made that the objectifying-gaze drive does play a significant role here. First: the drive itself allows a person to see another person as a thing, an object. Surely this can only aid the slide towards violence against that other.
Second, (and this is just evidence), what is the western country where (a) Women's bodies are most publicly sexualized, highly tuned to the gaze itself, and where (b) sexual assault rates are highest? The fact that this is one and the same country is at least reason to think that there is a problem here.
However, there is (I hope) some actual research out there. Maybe the link here is totally bogus. But if it isn't, I repeat that we do have a problem.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Apr 28, 2010 2:11:53 PM
Unless we want to say that buying services from a prostitute is an attenuated form of sexual assault -- and I am not ready to equate being a john with being a rapist -- then it's important to remember that rape is considered a crime of violence against a woman who can easily be victimized. This is why many rape victims are NOT scantily clad young beauties, but women who are elderly, physically infirm, alone in largely unfrequented public places, or known to be home alone in an easy-to-break-into premises. It's not quite that rapists desire these women to distraction and loss of self-command, it's that these women are more easily overpowered than others, and the getaway is easier. Also, try not to forget -- most rapists don't ejaculate.
These facts about the most extreme form of sexual assault should -- and do -- remove it from the list of bad things men do when they are tormented by sexual desire beyond their ability to stay inside the law.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 28, 2010 2:59:45 PM
"Rather than contradicting me, you stand as a perfect example of why the biological story can be so frightening."
Why? Does my comment somehow prove I am the prototypical abusive, objectifying male you decry?
You are right that there is no evidence for my assertion, although I suspect I am not too far off the mark when I claim that there must be a strong biological component to sexual objectification. But even if my suspicions were wrong there is no proof of a causal relationship between objectification and abuse, as you readily assume. The point is that, as creepy as you might think it is, I find objectification perfectly acceptable and even healthy, as long as it does not turn into a defining element of relationships. To claim otherwise strikes me as hypocritical and as another misguided step towards advocating the erradication of thoughtcrime.
I do not think any of us is in a moral position to criticize other people's sexual fantasies, as bizarre as some of they might seem, so I disagree with your position, notwithstanding the fact that it is well-intentioned.
" I mean, really, linking maleness (non-castrati) with seeing other people as objects, not as people?"
As I said before, let's not be hypocritical. Sexual objectification is a mostly male practice (by the way, if you haven't noticed, this particular point happens to be a fundamental part of Namit's narration). And I resent your assumption that the occasional sexual objectification of others implies 'not seeing' them as people. Most of us human beings have several dimensions to our personality and can very well value the many qualities other than sexual attractiveness in other members of our species, which is why your qualification of the sexual objectifying as 'straightforwardly evil' strikes me as, well...straightforwardly dumb.
Posted by: Pepito | Apr 28, 2010 3:02:17 PM
Rereading my last comment, I want to strengthen and clarify my language again.
Sexual desire is a completely natural phenomenon. It is neither "good" or "evil," it just is. This intrinsic desire can lead to sexualization and objectification. But the base desire is not something that can be "uprooted," not would it be desirable to do so even if it could.
I'm not sure our discussion over whether objectification is natural or not is all that germane. In all likelihood, it is a mix of the two. I appreciate your point that those parts of the problem that stem from socialization should be looked at, analyzed, and struggled over. But I have a deep suspension that it's a relatively small step from viewing the opposite sex as sexually attractive to, at times, letting that thought run a little wild. It's the extent and control that matter more than the act.
Also, since no one has mentioned it, women objectify too. There's a whole genre of books based on it. It may not be equal opportunity, and there are certainly different social mores guiding it, but objectification is not a uniquely male thing.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Apr 28, 2010 4:49:14 PM
In my experience, so much sexuality involves what Nick calls "objectifying gaze-drive", both as desire itself and as the desire to be the object of it, that if it were entirely torn out with the zeal of moral purity, it's not clear to me there would be much of value left.
Posted by: Sagredo | Apr 29, 2010 12:11:50 AM
OK, well, I think this has gone as far as it's going to. To make my position clear:
Namit's dialogue made a point which we are repeatedly ignoring: the distinction between sexual desire and objectifying sexual desire. We are perfectly capable of desiring people without turning them into objects or instruments. I would not claim that sexual desire is problematic and I would not disagree that in some very limited sense sexual desire is "natural".
However, its stunted younger brother appears to be very problematic and a manifestation of modern culture (not "universal" or "natural" in the required way.)
We cannot ignore the all-too-plausible link between the objectifying gaze and sexual crime: so many criminals are able to do what they do in part because they do not experience their victims as people, but merely as objects or instruments over which they can wield power.
We have to confront the fact that in many ways we are a sick society, one in which half of the population can count on a lifetime of being effectively reduced to the status of a wall painting or an eggbeater by an ever-present objectifying gaze. What are we going to do about that?
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Apr 29, 2010 12:16:31 AM
Nick, it's a false distinction. There's not much left of sex without "I want to do this with your body". Is that desire instrumentalising or objectifying? What about "I want to make you feel this way"?
The ethical key for me is whether there is also the kind of empathy that abhors the suffering and desires the pleasure of the other.
I think this is connected to the problem with the word "objectifying". People are already objects. We're physical objects and we're the objects of others' desires, and instruments in their plans. Our humanity and everything else adds to that, but does not negate or detract from our status as objects. Only to be dehumanised is the problem.
Equally, our drive to use another's body is not problematic. Indeed, it is often desired by the other. Only to lack empathy is the problem (also in answer to your last question).
Posted by: Sagredo | Apr 29, 2010 1:38:58 AM
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