by Sara Pascoe
* I explore this baffling area of female sexuality in Animal, if you want to find out more.
The Oldest Discussion
Two years ago I was walking to the station after a gig. I had my guitar in its case on my back because I was going through a phase of pretending I could play. My headphones were in as I listened back to my terrible comedy. A man coming in the opposite direction spoke to me, gestured for me to stop. I removed an earbud grumpily. As I said before, I don’t want to talk to men on dark roads.
‘Are you working?’ said the man.
In my experience of being a woman, certain men will use any excuse to speak to you. Any banal question, any stupid pretext. This has slowed down as I’ve aged, and I’m grateful for it. In my teens and twenties I tried not to read in public because an open book was a creep magnet. Over to the bus stop or cafe table the man would saunter: ‘What ya reading?’ ‘Fuck off,’ I would think while having to engage in unwanted small talk. What did these men think was going to happen? That I’d get so aroused explaining the plot of Lord of the Flies that I’d be like, ‘Forget the bus, let’s screw in an alley!’? It should be against the law to interrupt a person who is engrossed in a book. All books should be titled Leave Me Alone, so that anyone asking what you’re reading will get the message. GOD, I should have called this book Leave Me Alone, I’ve really missed a trick … I wonder if it’s too late to change it? ‘Yes, it is,’ says Laura, my editor, in an email that would have been friendlier if I hadn’t missed my deadline by six months.
‘Are you working?’ the man repeated. He wasn’t that much older than me, white-skinned, stubbly. ‘I’ve finished work,’ I told him, contempt underlining my words. Maybe he recognises me, I thought, he’s asking if I’m on my way to a gig – I should be nicer.
‘Can’t we go somewhere now?’ He looked around him for ‘somewhere’ and I realised that, far from being keen on comedy, he’d misidentified me as someone selling sex. That’s what the ‘work’ meant – ‘working’ girl, sex ‘work’.
‘I’m going home.’ I started walking away. I was embarrassed by what he was asking of me and angry with him.
‘Can I come with you?’
I put my headphones in. He followed me for a couple of minutes, baffled by my rejection. He kept talking to me. I didn’t turn my head, strode widely until I reached a busier street, then lost him. On the tube home, I looked down at my outfit to see what he saw. Skirt and thick tights, winter uniform. Knee-length black boots. Sure, in cliché-land boots might signify a streetwalker but they’re ubiquitous in cold weather. Knee-length boots are a rare combination of warm and flattering, there should be parades in their honour every October. My coat – oh dear, here was my mistake. It was fake fur in leopard print. I’d covered the breast with brooches, because my friend Katie said no one wore one brooch any more. I had seven brooches, they were all fake pearls and peeling gold paint and had belonged to Nanny Babs. I loved the jacket, I’d defended it – rowed with my boyfriend when he’d described it as too ‘vampy’ to go to the pub in. But now it had spoken to a stranger, telling him I was sexually available.
I felt insulted by this man. I’d grown up being called whore, slag, tart, only in insulting terms. Being called a prostitute in the playground was intended to belittle and humiliate. If anyone at school called your mother a prostitute, that meant you had to fight them, teacher or not. You had to, for her honour. So a man treating me as if I sold sex – I felt it was abusive, offensive. How dare he look at me in my normal boots and vampy coat and make a judgement about what I would do for money? Did I look poor? Did I look desperate, did I look like I needed drugs? ‘Where was his logic?’ I thought – I had a guitar. I’d sell that for crack before touching an ugly man’s ugly penis.
This reaction, my reaction, to his mistake illustrates my shameful judgements against sex workers and prostituted women. My hurt feelings are the result of conscious and unconscious bias. I’ve formed stereotypes about the people who work in the sex trade, about why they’re there, what they look like. I am not the only person to discriminate in this way. A brief search of newspaper headlines using the words ‘murder’ and ‘prostitute’ will demonstrate how frequently we’re all absorbing the message that people who have sex for money become ‘other’, are defined by it. If you work in admin, a report of your death wouldn’t differentiate you from fellow victims. Sexual behaviour in any form commands a disproportionate amount of human attention, and newspapers reflect this. In 2006, as police searched for a serial killer in East Anglia, the victims were described by The Times as ‘prostitutes and other young women’.
OTHER young women.
The distinction is significant – some young women are young women and others have graduated, not via the ageing process but with their first ‘trick’, to being prostitutes. Some young women are young women and others are defined by their jobs. Imagine if this distinction happened in any other way – ‘young women and Geminis’, ‘young women and blondes’, ‘young women and dog lovers’. But star sign, hair colour and pet preference don’t fascinate and repulse the public the way sex for cash does.
When police were hunting the Yorkshire Ripper in the 1970s they differentiated between the people he attacked, using the chilling phrase ‘prostitutes and innocent victims’. Describing some of the women as ‘innocent’ insinuates that some were not. The suggestion is that in choosing (or being compelled) to sell sex, some of those attacked by Peter Sutcliffe were complicit. That by willingly getting into his car or negotiating a price they had done something to deserve being hit with a hammer and stabbed with a screwdriver. I’m thinking back to that man propositioning me in the street. If he’d been a murderer – and let’s face it, he definitely was – my death would have been reported differently depending on whether I’d ever sold sex. If so, my tragedy would be tabloid: ‘Call Girl Dumped in River’, ‘Hooker Stuffed in Bin Bag’, ‘Whore Killer Strikes Again’. The end of my life reduced to sex and violence to titillate and dehumanise.*
Even if it was my first time … if I had followed him willingly to my demise, the language that reported it to others would have blamed me. I would’ve been a dead thing rather than a deceased person. This sort of language reflects ignorance and cultural morality and it serves to devalue certain people’s lives. This is doubly relevant as those same people, those who work in the sex industry, are far more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than women in the general population. They are eight times more likely to be murdered.
There are evolutionary and cultural forces that combine to create stigma around sex work as well as making sex workers extremely vulnerable. For people who do not choose sex work but are forced or compelled into it, being prostituted, pimped or raped for money is a crime against them in itself. There is also a wide spectrum between the two. It is not as simple as some people choosing and some being forced.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of George Ryley Scott, I hope he’s not your great-grandad or something. He wrote a history of prostitution called A History of Prostitution, which was published in 1936, back in history itself. Most of the book annoyed me, so I wouldn’t recommend you add it to your Audible wish list. The introduction contains this assertion: ‘Every woman is a potential prostitute, just as every man is a potential consorter with prostitutes. It is mainly a question of price.’
When I read that I threw his book across the room, but my initial reaction may not be correct. Now I am rolling that statement around in my head, it’s like a bottle of water in the boot of the car, annoying but vital. There is an argument that all sex is transactional, that all human interaction is giving and receiving. It is not enough to throw away sentiments (and books) because I disagree emotionally. We must deconstruct this as logically as we can.
For instance, when the murderer man approached me in the street I was affronted, partly because I found comparison with a sex worker hurtful, but also because I resent being presumed sexually available at all. I resent being co
nsidered ‘for sale’. To be a woman is to occasionally feel, thanks to a few men, as if you are a shop – a department store with orifices on every level. It can feel like persecution. You’re trying to check a bus timetable or call your mum, while simultaneously advertising sex without meaning to. I’ve gone on about this already with the ex-looking-at-teen-in-shorts incident, but it’s worth repeating that when men approach women uninvited, when they shout ‘Show us yer tits’ from cars or ‘Give us a smile’ from building sites, they are asserting what they feel is a right: to be sexually entertained by women. So this ‘every woman is a potential prostitute’ statement is problematic for me because the assumption that an entire gender is purchasable effectively removes real choice, autonomy, humanity from women. It is the extreme end of male sex entitlement. How could anyone respect someone they consider to be fundamentally bartering for the right price? It’s this kind of thinking that has led to the rudeness and resentment of rejected men, the insanity of incels and the film Indecent Proposal.
* See also any reporting about ‘rent boys’.
Indecent Proposal
The strapline for Indecent Proposal was ‘What Would You Do for a Million Dollars?’, which is misleading. It should really be ‘Who Would You Do for a Million Dollars (and Is It Robert Redford)?’ ‘What Would You Do’ pretends the film is giving you options, but it isn’t. You can’t offer to wash his car for a year or name one of your children after him. This proposal is indecent. When the film came out there was a common joke. A woman in middle age would say, ‘A million quid to shag Robert Redford? I’d do it for free!’ Then everyone in the pub would laugh because the idea that a movie star would pay for sex with Audrey the pigeon-toed school teacher was absolute bants. This joke was responsible for 25 per cent of all humour in 1993. The other 75 per cent of jokes were provided by quoting Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Like if someone said, ‘Lend me your ears,’ you would pretend to throw your ears at them, and if you had a facial mole, you’d move it to a different place for every scene.
The ‘I’d do it for free’ sentiment is integral to Indecent Proposal remaining within the genre of ‘romantic comedy’. The film’s premise is a gushy ‘imagine if someone you were willing to have sex with made you a millionaire’, rather than ‘imagine a world where poor people are unable to refuse the whims of the rich’. Indecent Proposal could also be considered a dystopian horror: ‘imagine if billionaires could rape anyone they wanted as long as they paid husbands generous compensation’. So maybe that’s enough with the jokes, Audrey.
You really can take the fun out of everything.
Yep. Picture us in the cinema together. I’m yabbering on, telling you my theories and opinions, analysing subtexts, having memories, googling facts I’ve forgotten – generally embarrassing you to the point of fury. But I bought the tickets, your Snickers ice cream and the popcorn – should you politely ignore my unreasonable and antisocial behaviour just because I paid? Can my money buy your compliance? What a great analogy. START THE FILM.
Indecent Proposal begins with a happy white couple called Diana and David Murphy. They have a cute back-and-forth catchphrase and have been together since school. This detail is important – stressing that they’re long-term creates more tension when a strange man suggests he can buy the missus. If these guys had met three weeks ago on Plenty of Fish there would be far less at stake. ALSO, this plot point portrays the female character as sexually inexperienced. Her husband may be her only sexual partner ever. Her innocence and fidelity are crucial. If the couple were swingers or she was Samantha from Sex and the City the central dilemma would be far less important. Some billionaire offers a sweet mil for your wife, and you’re like, ‘Sure, as soon as she’s finished banging the gardener.’
These two are sexy, though. There’s an early scene where they argue about clothes. He’s messy and she’s picking up his shorts and being so furious that she throws a knife at him. In Hollywood, this kind of violent behaviour is a sign of passion. One minute you’re attempting to shank your lover, the next he’s bending you over the laundry basket. In real life (where we live), missiles, violence – these are signs of deep psychological instability and/or abusive relationships.
After the knife throwing, David and Diana bone on the floor. They are unrealistically attracted to each other for a long-term couple, they are too keen even for people hooking up on Grindr or having an affair. But I get it – this is fantasy. No one’s entertained by the grim reality of living with someone who leaves their dirty pants on the floor. You ignore them for a couple of days, thinking, ‘She’ll notice eventually,’ but she doesn’t. You concentrate on pretending you can’t see them, walking around them sighing at the exertion, until you’ve had enough – five days! You shouldn’t have to live like this, you’re a man, not a pig. ‘Why doesn’t she respect me?’ you think. ‘Why doesn’t she respect herself?’ you think even louder, seething with resentment, yet when she’s woken by the grinding of your teeth and asks what’s wrong you say, ‘I’m FINE,’ to clarify that you’re furious but will never speak of it to someone you cannot bear yet cannot leave because you share a mortgage.
David and Diana also have a mortgage and they cannot keep up the payments. David’s an architect, he’s built another house and doesn’t have money for that one either. The couple talk sadly about the economic downturn. This gives David a great opportunity to say something cool like ‘I can’t duck this recession like I did your knife’, but he doesn’t. We realise as an audience that the economy is the real enemy. Diana is scared: ‘What are we going to do?’ David reassures her that they will survive. He will drive a cab, wait tables. And this is exactly what he does not interesting enough as a plot. This is not a film about a couple who behave sensibly when confronted with financial issues, this is a film about twerps. David borrows 5K off his dad and takes Diana to Las Vegas, not to sensibly work as cab drivers but to gamble their money.
Here’s the thing: if you have a small amount of cash you can swap it for no cash via a roulette wheel or pack of cards. And this is David’s plan. David is an architect, yes, of his own demise.
At the casino it’s all going great to start with. Diana steals some chocolates and finds a dress she likes in a boutique. She holds it up to her body but gasps at the price. A creepy guy strolls over and offers to buy it for her: ‘I’ve enjoyed watching you, you’ve earned it.’ Diana doesn’t have a knife handy to throw so she whips out some sass instead: ‘The dress is for sale, I’m not.’ This is called ‘foreshadowing’. We know what the film is about, it’s only David and Diana who don’t. They start gambling with some dice and win some money, then even more money. The creepy guy creepily watches them winning and kissing each other. Then it’s bedtime. David and Diana have $25,000 in cash. They are really thrilled and go home to pay their mortgage have sex on the money.
In the morning David and Diana head back to the gambling games. They are trying to double their cash into $50,000 by winning but instead divide it down to $5,000 by losing. Then they go to a sad cafe, which is my favourite scene. They are talking about how they promised they wouldn’t go below the five grand they arrived with. This would be a good time for David to say something cool like ‘This is my dad’s money, I should respect that and not chuck it down the toilet’, but he doesn’t. Instead they decide to risk everything, because what could be worse than only having $5,000? Having no dollars. The waitress who is serving them coffee rolls her eyes like she’s seen it a million times. I’d like to see her backstory: when the recession hit she reassured her family, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes, I’ll wait tables or drive a cab.’ Then she actually did that. Her film is called Minimum Wage in Exchange for Labour Proposal and it ends with her driving the yellow taxi back to a house she still owns, then having sex with her husband on the few dollars she made in tips.
Surprise surprise, David and Diana lose all the money. This is where the waitress would come in to gloat if she wasn’t a one-scene character. Now, despite having no
cash left and no reason to be there, the couple continue to hang around the casino waiting for plot to happen. They don’t have to wait long. As they wander around the tables of gamblers they see Robert Redford. They’re told his name is John Gage and that he is a BILLIONAIRE. David and Diana don’t ever forget and accidentally call him Robert Redford, and I think this is very professional of them. Robert Redford is playing with chips that are worth $10,000 each, and he is throwing them around the table like they’re just little coloured bits of plastic.
I still don’t understand why D&D haven’t gone home. Maybe they think this rich man will leave money lying around they can have sex on? Or do they want some of the free refreshments I’ve heard casinos offer? Either way, I’m annoyed. John Gage spots them and asks David, ‘Would you mind lending me your wife?’ Not for sex (yet) but for luck. The man asks the other man if he can ‘borrow’ a woman, as if she were ketchup or an iPhone charger. David rightly points out that his wife is not an object and should be asked herself. She says yes, I don’t know why. I DON’T KNOW. She can’t believe she IS lucky, she just lost twenty-five grand in an afternoon. What is she up to?
Anyway, she kisses his dice. It’s all very charged and dramatic. The billionaire bets a million dollars and then wins another million dollars for free when the dice roll correctly. Gage doesn’t punch the air or cry with joy, as he already has a thousand million, that’s what a billionaire is. This new million will simply join the others in an overcrowded bank account offshore somewhere.*