What..Prostitutes?

They prefer to be called street based sex workers. In case you're wondering. Prostitutes, that is. 

Is this societies only view of prostitutes?

A wonderful set of thoughtful and beautifully composed photographs were captured and presented by my Visual Communication lecturer Jemma at the last lecture. The genuine and revealing photo series portrayed a number of sex workers based in Grey Street of St Kilda.

"They're fucking prostitutes!" one chimpanzee said to the pack. Not a set-up for a joke - just a somewhat sad reflection of the generation of youth I belong to. Laughs and high fives ensued, prompting the group to turn the entire lecture into an appalling display of male chauvinism and bigoted remarks.

To stop myself from sounding like an old grandma resenting youth and noise, I want to make clear it was not the noise that annoyed me. Lectures are noisy - students have lives, friends and things to catch up on, sometimes that happens during a lecture. Everyone has been guilty of talking a little too much during a lecture. What upset me was the obvious display of disrespect and disgust for a women, simply because of her profession.

This is not a feminist rant, about how 'if it were a man they would not have said it', because frankly, who knows. This is about societies habit of judging people far too quickly; the habit of associating far too many other traits automatically. The fact is, we are judged by our professions, and to some extent we should be. What we do is a reflection of who we are - within reason. Take a lawyer for example, I feel that defending guilty persons and deflecting blame and punishment is incredibly degrading. Regardless, I would not let my judgement of such a person be clouded by their job.

There was a very interesting interview/ discussion on the radio not that long ago. The series focused on sex industry worker and the dangers they face. At the start of the interview, both hosts seemed to be quite judgemental towards the sex workers. However, as the series progressed, and the industry worker presented their side of the story, their views, both the hosts and public comments seemed to soften. One women, a former stripper, made the point that she felt that strippers and sex workers were providing a service to the community, albeit quite dangerous at times. When asked to evaluate, she made the argument that sex worker often prevent sex crimes from happening by providing release to certain people who would, without brothels and strip clubs, have to otherwise often have to resort to drastic measures for sex - i.e assault. This side is really interesting and I have not seen it explored much in the media.

So where does this attitude towards prostitutes come from? And how is it still so prevalent and persistent that young males are comfortable in openly expressing their disregard of a human, if they're a prostitute? Unfortunately, one doesn't have to look far to see evidence of this attitude in advertising and media. Billboards treating women as objects, video games bashing prostitutes (Grand Theft Auto anyone!?) and men's magazines. Unfortunately the media has a lot to answer for