Warning: hot topic. Clivorous. Often not very nuanced. The following remarks will however be very nuanced. A call for reflection, dialogue and the dream of a better world: a world without (or at least tending towards less) prostitution.
To put an end to the “fatality” of prostitution, above all.
This is a bit the mission that the playwright Véronique Côté has given herself, who signs a text (and a staging that will be presented next fall at the Théâtre La Bordée, in Quebec) upending in the process many received ideas on sex work, or rather prostitution: Women’s peace (a nod to the homonymous Swedish law, which criminalizes the purchase of sexual acts, while decriminalizing the sale, with the aim of reducing demand).
Véronique Côté’s text dares to question (or at the very least question) the vision (fairly generally accepted socially) of prostitution as work (the oldest in the world in addition) with subversive potential. Or even emancipator. A job to be protected, through decriminalization.
Conversely, the playwright opposes another vision to it, less popular, certainly, or less “comfortable”, as she puts it: prostitution as exploitation. Domination. Prostitution as a crime against the person.
If you are familiar with feminist wars, perhaps you will have recognized two antagonistic positions here: that of the pro-TDS (sex workers) on the one hand (a position generally associated with the progressive left) and that of the abolitionists of the other (less popular point of view, therefore, certainly less present in the media, often misunderstood, wrongly perceived as anti-feminist, anti-sex, downright conservative).
And yes, the author sits here (and not without some feelings of “conflict of loyalty”) on the less popular or “comfortable” side of the debate.
But before you step up to the plate, read on.
Disturbing questions
Because as the subject required her no less than two years of research, Véronique Côté signed as a bonus, and with her friend and research partner Martine B. Côté (no relationship, but a lot of complicity), an essay on the subject: Uniting, war and peace around prostitution as a fatality, published in the Documents d’Atelier 10 collection.
We met them to discuss it recently, in the pretty local places of their publishing house, rue Beaubien.
At the origin of the reflection and this questioning, there is a sentence. A quote, “capsizing”, of a woman working with ex-prostitutes. ” All the women […] we know that in case of absolute necessity […] we could do that. We could end up with prostitution, ”Rose Dufour, anthropologist and founder of the Maison de Marthe, a community organization in Quebec City, once told Véronique Côté. And his words “blew her away”. “It changed my life”, she confirms, in her soft, calm voice, of a thoughtful woman who has thought a lot about her, precisely.
Hence the disturbing questions: are we all “prostitutes”, really? Is this a “fatality”? Do men have such a “right” to sex, “because their need for sex is irrepressible and it is therefore necessary at all costs to find a way to meet it”?
It was through contact with women who had been in “industry” that the two authors realized that they could no longer take sides: on the side of the “abolos”. Even if, for the most part, the women we met did indeed “choose” to prostitute themselves. “And we never dispute that choice! », Retorts Martine B. Côté.
Except that the fact of choosing does not save many people from the consequences …
Martine B. Côté, activist and co-author
And not the least. Think: financial insecurity, physical and physiological harm, post-traumatic shocks of a hidden life, “a little publicized experience because it is difficult to speak. Most can’t, their families often don’t know ”!
Not to mention, adds Véronique Côté, the number of attempts required to leave the industry (“that says something…”), the average age of women when they enter it (“for many who are still minors…”), and above all, the “nightmarish” consequences of decriminalization (a noble choice “on paper”) in the countries which have taken this path, in particular Germany and Spain, in terms of the explosion in demand and the creation of a black market. Everything except the protection of women that we wanted, what.
“For me, the sum of all these disasters makes it obvious. The fairest position is to try to eliminate or reduce the demand for prostitution, ”summarizes Véronique Côté.
Utopian? Like the fight against climate change or poverty. May be. “But are we stopping working on this?” ”
Women’s peace, a play by Véronique Côté, has been postponed until next fall, at the Théâtre La Bordée, in theaters and in recording.
Women’s peace
Véronique Côté
Parts, Workshop 10
129 p.
Make body
Véronique Côté and Martine B. Côté
Documents, Workshop 10
102 p.