Echte mannen eten geen kaas (2008) by Maria Mosterd

This book is a story of a teenage girl who claimed to have been involved in prostitution via a relationship with a loverboy. As I've once again been reading books about prostitution and trafficking, it seemed only appropriate to read one of the most famous ones. The edition I had from 2009 was the 22nd printing of the book (sequels were written, numerous interviews were made, and film writes had been sold,) - and then came the scandal. The true story was filled with lies (see the dutch article on wikipedia). Most notably, the lawsuit against the school for neglect was dismissed - in the book, Maria claims to have attended class only on days when there were tests, which should have raised questions and caused the school to contact her mother, at the very least. Maria did not skip class at any level of significance (and significant contact was attempted with her mother). Classmates/friends of Maria testified in public to her presence around school - and that she had a good imagination. There is little doubt any more that significant parts of the book are fictional.

Before reading the book, I knew about the scandal - and I'm sure that influenced my reading. I found the book itself hard to believe; yet, at the same time, in the midst of this rather nasty and depressing story, I am concerned about the fact that at least some of it isn't fiction. As for the parts about power and violence, I tended to skip over - they seemed untrustworthy enough that it wasn't worth the effort to sort through their validity. And the way that Maria related to her loverboy also came across as strange - because it was the wrong kind of strange. The relationship with a "loverboy" - a dutch term for a guy that uses the guise of love and promise of a future together in order to convince a woman to prostitute herself for his benefit - is for me, by definition, strange: a woman, because she has "fallen in love", accepts things that are not loving. The relationship gets more complicated with time, but the desire of the woman for her loverboy and his (positive) attention to her remains, irrelevant of everything that has happened. Maria tries to convey that desire, but it falls flat as it misses the echos of a longing for an addiction that you know you need to rid yourself of.

Maria herself, as she presents herself in the book, is not a sympathetic character. She is unmotivated and lazy with regard to school and studies. She claims to be looking for trouble in the beginning of the book. She claims to know how to manipulate people well. She acknowledges lying (or at least withholding information) in regard to police actions in a rape case. She regularly does drugs. She doesn't appear to care much about other people - she expresses some desire of protection for her friend and sister - but generally seems indifferent. If such a character were to write a book, what kind of book could we expect? A book that bends the truth and tells people what they want to hear (i.e., manipulates) seems not unlikely.

Yet, even if I find Maria rather unlikable, I do find it a pity that her story has been completely dismissed. Her book suggests that she knows a lot about having sex with strangers - and not good sex, and only partially because she was a minor when it happened. It is also obvious that she was mixed up and hanging out with a bad crowd. Both of these things should raise questions amongst Christians and Dutch society (see Guardian article from 2009) in general. It should also raise questions about how much catering to popular taste messes with truth - both on the side of the writer and on the side of the reader. Have we avoided the real story - both with Maria and others - because a story was written that would sell?

Health, Migration, and Sex Work: The experience of TAMPEP edited by Licia Brussa

A more technical book concerning prostitution of women in Europe, focusing especially on migrant (and illegal) workers in prostitution. Although it contains a significant amount of facts, it contains very little personal details and/or quotes from the prostitutes themselves. In the Netherlands, they point out the crackdown on illegals working in prostitution has been detrimental to the women involved, often forcing them into seeking second-hand assistance for prostitution (and thus causing them to lose their independence, either to traffickers, pimps, madams, husbands, etc.).

Whom to trust? (2003) and Hope: Diana's Story (2007); by Fouchina Catherina

Both books are published by Oogstpublicaties in connection with Scarlet Cord located in Amsterdam. Both tell the stories of two women who have left prostitution. Grace (Whom to Trust) comes from Nigeria, whereas Diana comes from Eastern Europe. Both leave their country of origin in order to escape poor situations back home (Grace leaves poverty and a relatively hopeless future whereas Diana leaves a bad marriage and a lack of custody of her children). Neither was entirely certain that prostitution was what they were getting into; more so, once in the Netherlands, both needed to stay and work to pay off the debts incurred to get them there. Both their stories are plausible; yet, there is something about them that feels fake or over-edited. Having read words from other prostitutes makes it feel like something is missing in these books, although I am not certain what. Perhaps I am merely recognizing in them the motive found on the inside cover of hope: "This organization does not promote, support, or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution." Such a statement, although honourable, does not necessarily reflect the brokenness of the world around us nor necessarily provide a means to protect further the women in the story. Nor does it have a place for women that are still in prostitution - and not yet able to leave even if they can see the damage of it.

The Politics of Prostitution: Women's Movements, Democratic States and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce, Edited by Joyce Outshoorn

A highly technical book involving the recent policy and politics related to prostitution in various countries, including Netherlands, Canada, and the USA.

The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C.S. Lewis, Edited by Walter Hooper (1984)

C.S. Lewis is a bit too black and white for me at times but it is black and white in directions that I tend to agree with. I’ve appreciated him tremendously.

His entries for 27, 30, 31 march all discuss sex [They are originally from Mere Christianity, Bk III, Ch. 5]. They provide provide a wonderful balance to some of the predominant views found in the books on prostitution. The last comment also provides a nice correction against the 'evil-ness' that many Christians make sexual sin to be (especially something like prostitution).

“the old Christian rule is ‘Either marriage, with complete faithfulnesss to your partner, or else total abstinence.’ Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instinct, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong…
The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true that most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function.
Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a striptease act. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?”

“Our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so ‘natural’ and ‘healthy’, and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them. Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour. Now this association is a lie. Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth … that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’, and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal. Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense. Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness. For any happiness, even in the world, quite a lot of restraining is going to be necessary; so the claim made by every desire, when it is strong, to be healthy and reasonable, counts for nothing.”

“If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self, which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.”

The Prostitution Prism by Gail Pheterson (1996)

As the books I’m reading all tend to blur, it’s probably a sign of saturation. Pheterson’s book emphasizes the differences between female and male deviance. Men can use or not women sexually as long as these are within specific relations (husband, lover, customer of a prostitute). However, women are deviant if their sexuality is practised or even made known outside of every context except marriage – and even then it can be deviant if their desires and perceived rights do not coincide with their husbands’ perceptions. She points out that females can be dishonoured as a ‘whore’ without ever having received money for sexual services (the common definition of prostitution) but are considered dishonourable because of class, race, or deviance from expected female behaviour. She thus displays the unfairness of the accepted standards of our society, as well as showing that every women (and even some men) are not as separate from prostitutes as most of us would like to think. This lack of distinction between prostitutes and the average woman in some ways is a means to build solidarity and thus an ear for her proposals for legal reform concerning mainly prostitution.
Although I agree with her to some degree, especially about the unfairness of society’s standards and the depiction that none of us are really all that different from those we might want to condemn (see John 8 and the story of the woman caught in adultery), I’m not comfortable with a lot of the assumptions she has made about the amount of validity inherent in both feminism and prostitution.

Prostitutes’ Well-Being and Risk by Ine Vanwesenbeeck

well done. a very solid introduction and a good look into the reality of life as a prostitute (especially in the Netherlands). she points out that most studies try to address the why of becoming a prostitute, which tends to produce judgement or pity, whereas looking at the reality of being a prostitute gets beyond these simplistic responses to be able to see prostitutes as real people (and not just as a cause or problem). Things are complicated when it comes to the reality of prostitution: there is much to be sad over, as the following comments illustrate:

“Despite of differences between western and non-western women, it must be acknowledged that women all over the world still have limited money-making options. There are virtually no other occupations available to unskilled or low-skilled women offering an income which compares to prostitution. It is indeed, as Davis already mentioned ‘not the hard question why so many women become prostitutes, but why so few of them do’.” Vanwesenbeeck, Prostitutes, 29.

“Not only is the work of an extremely intrustive character, calling for the ‘switching off’ of certain kinds of awareness and consciousness, but it is also ‘emotion work’ as referred to by Hochschild (1979, 1988). Prostitution is a kind of labour where one has to act in an a way that is known to be false or that actually transforms one’s feelings. Prostitution work is to a certain extent built up from fake behavior and untrue emotions on the part of prostitutes: they play the whore, they are on the game. In this context it is extremely likely that problem feelings of all kinds are being split off, denied and dissociated. In addition, stigma and secrecy are an excellent soil for internal coping. A lack of alternative coping resources and supportive social structures add to this.” Vanwesenbeeck, Prostitutes’, 151.

She concludes by saying, “Implicitly or explicitly, it has often been assumed that deciding on prostitution work is the ultimate illustration of having travelled a down-slope track and having reached an absolute low in life….Our study has shown that prostitution need not be the absolute low by definition, at all. However, for those who are already troubled, as a consequence of violent life-histories, econonomical sorrow, or both, prostitution work is often an extra burden.” Vanwesenbeeck, Prostitutes, 161-62.

And most of all her book points to something of utmost importance. those who most Christians would like to dismiss as sinful are real regular people like us, who delight in a wave from a one-year-old the same way that anyone else does.

Prostitution, Power and Freedom by Julia O’Connell Davidson (1998)

much of this repeats the other literature that has been mentioned here previously. what she does well is her descriptions of very different kinds of prostitution, each with differing degrees of freedom and power. she describes those who for whom prostitution is the only option (whether by force or general circumstances) and those for whom prostitution is hardly their only option but the one they still choose because of the opportunities it presents. and when it comes to freedom and power, the range is from strict boundaries on payment, actions, and time to being given almost no boundaries. the former clearly seems safer and healthier except in the case of sex tourism, where the ambiguity and the relational nature of the event (a tourist hooks up with someone, who along with being involved romantically often helps out with little (cultural) things, and then receives presents or is ‘just helped out a bit because they’re having a bit of trouble now’) allows for being taken advantage of but also provides opportunity for extra generousity while keeping the natural boundaries found in most relationships.

Joanna Phoenix, Making Sense of Prostitution (2002)

a friend of mine has been joking with me about how i´ve been reading all these books on prostitution as part of the methodology stage of my research :) and i would laugh, except that this book was quite helpful in looking at methodology and assumptions that are made and conclusions based on certain research. it was a good mixture of analysis of other research in this area and prostitute´s own stories. the best part of this book was how it looked at the contradictions that are part of prostitute´s lives and how one learns to live with those contradictions. Some of the contradictions are woman as victim vs woman as survivor. men as opportunities for money but also as cost. women as businesspersons but also loving individuals. prostitution as opportunity and cost. for instance, prostitution was a way of becoming independent and earning enough money not to be homeless, but often caused dependency on men who used them or caused them to lose their homes. for me, it shows a strong sense of survival - of attempting to learn to live with difficult situations to which there does not seem the possibility of leaving, even if one wants to.
my question after all these books is how do we, as Christians and society, help those who recognize the damage prostitution is doing to them but can´t see another alternative?

I never thought this would happen to me: Prostitution and Traffic in Latin American Women in The Netherlands by Fanny Polanía Molina & Marie-

Along with providing a continuing perspective on prostitution (not that much of which was new considering all I´ve been reading), this book dicussed a lot of the advantages of the legalisation and making prostitution a business like any other - as it would provide a legal means for women for other countries to be prostitutes here - and possibly better their situation.
The more I read, the more I see how complicated prostitution is. With Latin American women, the introduction into (illegal) prostitution in the Netherlands is not so much trafficking by kidnapping but instead is through someone trustworthy offering a chance to make a better life, even if one is not fully aware of the cost involved. One woman put it this way: as a Columbian the only way she can get ahead is by being a criminal or a prostitute - so even if her story has belied that this is not a life that she is all that happy about, she ´chooses´ to remain in her window.

Jeremy Seabrook, No Hiding Place (2000)

a fairly technical book about instances when home countries have convicted someone for sexually abusing children in a foreign country. It was hopeful in the sense that countries and people are realizing the necessity of holding people accountable but still saddening in seeing how much we`d still like to deny that good people like us can do such things (and we have a habit of letting them get away with it).

Belinda J. Carpenter, Re-thinking Prostitution: Feminism, Sex, and the Self (2000).

This is part of learning about the world in which i live:
One of the main ideas of the book was that we needed to re-think some of the false dichotomies we have in terms of prostitution (for example that the prostitute is either the object (usually of abuse) or the subject (the one making all the choices)). As well, we need to consider how prostitution is both private and public. It was rather fascinating, although somewhat technical and a lot of sociological language. The points that stuck with me are that a woman is given money because as a female she tends to exist as a bodily person (i.e. having emotions and not just as a rational being) but yet most prostitutes see it as only a job - and they are not fully present in their body during their work, and that we have socially accepted the idea that men need sex.

Claude Jaget, ed. Prostitutes: Our Life (1980)

The book is prostitutes telling of their lives and their choices in becoming a prostitute. Although the book is a little old and discusses only the lives of street prostitutes (not those in the windows like we have here), it was fascinating to hear their stories - and their strong argument that they were ordinary people who had often taken this choice because there was limited other choices available to them. and they only did it for the money. and although they´d get out of it soon (and didn´t want their families involved) that the rules against them in France (and England) made it very difficult to lead normal lives once they´d been convicted - or even to have friends, as anyone associating with them could be charged with some kind of association with prostitution (like pimping). they seemed to be saying that this was their choice as a way to survive in a world that doesn´t give a lot of choices to women, especially single moms.

even though i know much was not said, i appreciated being able to see the real-ness and ordinary-ness of people who have felt the need to make such different choices than i. and i feel like my eyes are opening up a bit more to the world around me here.