The whore, the prostitute, the sex worker: they are the person who throws a wrench in the machinery of feminism and human rights, and they are a conundrum. They are framed as societal victims, or empowered workers, or trafficked slaves. Thus the prostitute embodies the heart of our disagreements about feminism, and what its real aims ought to be.

Vast legal frameworks exist to define and maintain sanctioned limitations on the use of the female body, with ideological positions on sex, pornography and prostitution viewed, in myriad ways. For some women sex is dangerous, risky, exploitative and damaging; for others women sex is about pleasure, intimacy, and even identity; a healthy, activity, which all women have the right to enjoy.

When it comes to sex, some feminists resonate more with Catherine MacKinnon and her, “Feminism Unmodified.” MacKinnon’s aim has always been to defend the most defenseless among us. She is to be commended for her work advancing women’s rights and protections, particularly in the workplace; however, her stance on female agency is troubling. Catherine MacKinnon and her fellow scholar Andrea Dworkin, first sketched out the idea that persistent structural inequalities between men and women make any traditional heterosexual intercourse morally suspect, and inherently abusive. In a 2006 interview with The Guardian, she reaffirms her position. There is value in this conservative approach to sexuality and feminism. Catherine MacKinnon is not wrong; she embodies the protective mother instinct applied to the universal project of women’s rights. The problem I have with too much “Mother MacKinnon” is the idea that women are essentially living in a constant state of victimhood. By denying female agency in consensual, adult sex, she disempowers the women she intends to protect. Structural inequalities do not annihilate personal agency.

On the other side of the debate are sex positive feminists, whose position is best summed up by this quote from the Young Feminist: “This means that, for me, sexual freedom is closely tied to my belief in gender equality and personal freedom, and that sex has the ability to empower me individually and in sexual and romantic relationships.” Sex positive feminists believe in the agency of female sexuality, and that admitting to it does not harm victims of sexual violence. They do not deny some women are victimized and abused, or that privileged groups experience different versions of sexism. There are structural power differences between the genders, but this doesn’t necessarily make all straight sex morally suspect.

Prostitutes are most often women, poor, isolated, marginalized, and abandoned by their respective communities. Intersectionality means that women of color will experience the worst of those effects disproportionately. Prostitutes who begin working before age 13 are more often African-American. But, it is the idea of the whore that is generally reviled in contemporary American culture. High-end call girls or battered streetwalkers, it doesn’t matter; in the collective eyes of the community whores frequently carry the blame for their own demise. Their disadvantaged position seems to make them easy, inevitable victims for killers and rapists.

The problems surrounding prostitution are persistent and numerous. Legalization is one strategy, it claims harm reduction as a justification. Ideally, it protects sex workers by reinforcing their agency, granting them the right to use their bodies as they wish and giving them legal recourse when they are abused. At the same time, those who buy sex are protected knowing the transaction is legal and safe, and they won’t be robbed. Choice is the centerpiece of this stance, framing women as independent agents with the freedom to choose a line of work that includes the use of their body. Unfortunately, legalized sex trade environments rarely manifest in ideal, empowering ways. Choice is not enough when options are severely limited.

With the legalization of prostitution comes a rash of other problems related to sex work, namely the international trafficking of humans for sexual slavery. Some Northern European countries have tried a different tactic, known as the Nordic Model. Governments in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland adopted some form of legislation that decriminalizes the selling of sex, but makes the buying of sex illegal. This approach attempts to address structural power imbalance by placing all the legal risk on the buyer. The Nordic Model does not legalize, or legitimize prostitution as a job, rather it criminalizes the buyer, and condemns the act. The Nordic model reflects a strong attitudinal shift regarding sex work in the Northern European countries, what was formerly a profession became a sickness. It is notable that Amnesty International came out against the Nordic Model in May of 2016. Their reasons were based on a comprehensive collection of data that indicates these Nordic policies had some unintended consequences for sex workers. From their official statement:

“(Amnesty International) recommends the decriminalization of consensual sex work, including those laws that prohibit associated activities — such as bans on buying, solicitation and general organization of sex work. This is based on evidence that these laws often make sex workers less safe and provide impunity for abusers with sex workers often too scared of being penalized to report crime to the police. Laws on sex work should focus on protecting people from exploitation and abuse, rather than trying to ban all sex work and penalize sex workers.”

Amnesty International’s conclusions are supported by a robust amount of data available on their website. We might see the Nordic model as a somewhat feminist, though maternal response to sex work. It addressed structural inequality with top-down legislative change that was unsuccessful at truly redeeming the whore.

In contrast, Germany has completely decriminalized the buying and selling of sex. It is viewed as legitimate work, comparable to many other types of labor. The result has been a booming growth in the sex trade industry. Statistics indicate that there are between 150,000–700,000 sex workers in Germany. The DPA (law enforcement agency) actively works to mitigate trafficking though problems with violence and abuse persist. In the Nordic countries, some data from the early 2000s estimated that in legal European markets, 14–15% of sex workers are trafficked. This unfortunate finding was one reason the Nordic countries took a punitive stance against buyers. It is an unintended consequence of legalization, which increases volume in the sex trade generally, and thereby the amount of sex trafficking proportionally. Supporters of the Nordic Model hold that prostitution can “never be made safe,” and that it prevents any progress on gender equality as long as it exists. Their claim that legal prostitution leads “inexorably to sex trafficking,” is not wrong, it accompanies legal sex trade markets all over the world. Germany has tried legislative reform, but there remain profound difficulties in determining which sex workers are enslaved and which are not.

When prostitution is legal it becomes a default choice for women in poverty. Research in the U.S. found that approximately 84% of sex workers would leave the profession if they could, but cited financial reasons for being unable to do so. Are we really surprised that sex workers need the money? Environments that breed hardship also breed sex work, it becomes an attractive choice when options are few. But for some prostitutes, the remaining 16%, sex work is ideal. It is what they choose to do, it is what they want to do and the importance of that ought not be disregarded. This noteworthy group suggests a way out of dysfunction and into empowerment. I am arguing for a innovative way of seeing sex work — not as a job, or as a malady, but as a sacred gift.

The Sacred Prostitute

Empowering the seller mitigates the damages of sex work, for it is the seller that allows penetration into their most intimate self. Allowing admittance to the deepest self, physically and psychologically, is a perilous choice even outside of sex work. To offer that intimacy to anyone, is an act of bravery and generosity. Many of those who avail themselves of a prostitute cannot attain human intimacy, sexual release or even simple physical contact any other way and so they buy it. The prostitute’s offer of legitimate physical sanctuary is a public service.

The world is overrun with lonely, damaged and dying people. Sex workers help these unfortunates by offering comforting physical contact and pleasure. It is a life-saving service often filled with compassion or at least good grace.

A 2015 study done in the Netherlands on crime and prostitution found that reports of rape and violent sex crimes dramatically fell in zones where prostitution was legal. A similar study in Rhode Island, when indoor prostitution was inadvertently legalized between 2003–2009, found comparable results. Decriminalization led to a 40% decrease in gonorrhea incidence and a 30% decrease in reported female rape offenses.

This view of prostitution begins with a shift in how we see those who perform sexual services in our communities. If we reframe prostitution as a sacred gift, then the sacred whore becomes part of humanity through her archetypal divinity as the Sacred Lover or Goddess of Love. Buyers can shed their guilt and enjoy a therapeutic experience of pleasure, healing and acceptance.

The Nordic Model victimizes the identity of sex workers. Even if this strategically reduces harm, it invalidates the agency of autonomous sellers. There has to be respect and ideally gratitude for people who choose sex work, as they provide a service for which few are suited. Also, as I have shown, villifying buyers demonstrates a cold indifference toward people who are excluded from more mainstream forms of pleasure and intimacy: buyers such as transgender, genderqueer or intersex individuals, people with disabilities, the aging, the dying, or kink communities. Harm reduction strategies that invalidate seller agency and shame the buyer are not conducive to healthier sex work. For many, the sex worker is also a counselor and the healer of last resort. Whatever its form, a sexual exchange between consensual adults should be seen as unremarkable if the seller has accurate knowledge of the physical situation plus complete autonomy, and the buyer accepts those terms.

Ms. MacKinnon and other hand-wringing feminists would do well to acknowledge that there is power in the female realm of sexual prowess and mastery and we should own it. Women in Western culture have largely forfeited this previously held domain, opting instead for the asexual female divinity of the Virgin. The Madonna is one of the most popular images of female divinity to be found in western culture. Realistically, women are virgins for only a moment in their lives. The Judeo-Christian ethos, offers divinity neither to the sexual adult woman, nor to the Crone. We are allowed only the Maiden archetype, in which the Mother is embedded in a hygienic, restricted way. The Mother Mary icon has no agency; she is an empty vessel, essentially taken by god while in her purist form.

Judeo-Christianity has no female concept of spirit either, and the Holy Trinity notably, does not contain a woman. We learn about “The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost,” but there is no Mother in the Trinity. The exception being Gnosticism, in which the Holy Spirit is revealed to be ain soph or Sophia, a feminine counterpart to the male Christ persona. Crone power is also denied in modern Judeo-Christian society. The wise old woman archetypes of indigenous peoples are transformed into non-threatening and impotent grandmotherly images.

I never warmed to the Judeo-Christian spiritual offerings of my time, probably because I couldn’t relate to the stories and icons. I didn’t see myself reflected there. This lack of feminine divinity creates a spiritual gap surrounding women and sex, particularly in the West. Historical examples to the contrary abound, Tibetan Dakinis are a powerful illustration of sacred sexuality: a clergy of prostitutes that were also sexual adepts. There are many goddesses of sexuality, prostitution, and war, who are conquering, powerful divine feminine archetypes. Sadly, they didn’t make the cut for Judeo-Christianity or Islam. The divine feminine is largely missing from our Western world.

Mainstream Western theology decided long ago that sex was base, animal, instinctual, and therefore unholy, something barely tolerated, and only for procreation. Certainly, sex is a part of our instinctual makeup as mammals, and for better or worse, so is sex trade. Researchers report that exchange of food for sex is common among bonobo chimps. As in a few other primate groups, the social structure of the bonobos is female-centered and egalitarian. More recent experiments with capuchin monkeys indicated a clear understanding of commerce and transaction. Researchers were surprised when the capuchins translated their understanding of currency into a ‘food for sex’ proposition.

Sexuality in primates, and human beings, is part of our most animal instincts but it is also connected to our deepest emotional love. Sex is still an enigma and we still grapple with its dual nature. We all embody the tension of this seeming paradox.

Ideally, a society would remove the economic pressures that compel 84% of prostitutes to keep working in the sex trade despite negative effects. The remaining 16% would be the willing and gifted, for whom prostitution is a sacred practice. Prostitution that included humanity, empathy, and even spirituality, becomes a way of life that empowers its practitioners and customers within a framework of validation, security, and stability. Modern Sacred Prostitution does not imply religion as much as respect, and is a concept that can be translated into today’s secular language and multicultural needs. The important shift is attitudinal and ancient as women once again take ownership of their sexual domain. Feminism can aid this by owning prostitution and taking control of how practitioners are thought of and treated.

To say that whoredom is the oldest ‘profession’ is really a misnomer. Women are commodifiable resources, regardless of their caste or class. They aren’t the “professionals”, they are the product. Whether the trade is sex for money or sexual/reproductive ownership by the male in exchange for protection in a household, the situation is essentially the same.

The conditions of ancient temple prostitutes may not align with our current notions of feminism, but that isn’t the point. The existence of a female role both sacred and sexual is encouraging. The sacred whore archetype was lost to popular imagination a long time ago. Without a divine feminine sexuality, whores are classed as disposable, shameful, dirty, and deserving of their fate. As long as this part of female sexuality is denied and degraded, the whole female gender will suffer for it.

It is an easy insult to call a woman a whore. Men casually infer that all women are whores when they are angry. Women insult other women by calling them whores when they are jealous or spurned or even disapprove of the way they are dressed. If we deconstruct this common insult, it becomes clear that women who literally sell their bodies are not so different from the rest of us who think that we do not. It is only that most prostitutes have fewer choices about what and to whom they trade. The debutante who marries for money is only shades away from the $250 an hour escort and only steps away from the streetwalker who is brutalized for crack. These are all women trading with what they have.

The sooner we forgive women when they are whores, the sooner we redeem the whole female gender. Sacred female sexuality is powerful. Centuries of denial about female sexuality are what keep us debased but The Sacred Whore can prevail.

“You take a woman’s power away. Her work, her family, her currency… You leave her with one coin…the one she was born with. It may be tawdry and demeaning, but if she has to, she will spend it.” ~ Red (from Orange is the New Black)

(This work was greatly improved by the editorial savvy of Pam Daley.)