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The Prostitution Papers: A Quartet For Female Voice
Autrice del best-seller 'La politica del sesso', impegnata a fondo nell'attività del movimento femminista americano, Kate Millett racconta in apertura di questo volume come l'esperienza della politica militante le abbia insegnato l'importanza di esprimersi in un linguaggio colloquiale e immediato. Una simile efficacia di registrazione <> caratterizza questa conversazione a quattro voci, in cui il problema della prostituzione è affrontato nei suoi aspetti psicologici, sociali, economici e <>, nella prospettiva della liberazione della donna. Alla Millett e alla sua collaboratrice, Liz Schneider fanno eco, con una incisiva testimonianza diretta, due donne, J. e M., che hanno vissuto per anni quella esperienza.<>, scrive la Millett, <>.
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First published January 1, 1975
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About the author
Kate Millett
38 books332 followersKatherine Murray "Kate" Millett was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a postgraduate degree with first-class honors by St. Hilda's. She has been described as "a seminal influence on second-wave feminism", and is best known for her 1970 book Sexual Politics," which was her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. Journalist Liza Featherstone attributes previously unimaginable "legal abortion, greater professional equality between the sexes and a sexual freedom" being made possible partially due to Millett's efforts.
The feminist, human rights, peace, civil rights, and anti-psychiatry movements have been some of Millett's key causes. Her books were motivated by her activism, such as woman's rights and mental health reform, and several were autobiographical memoirs that explored her sexuality, mental health, and relationships. Mother Millett and The Loony Bin Trip, for instance, dealt with family issues and the times when she was involuntarily committed. Besides appearing in a number of documentaries, she produced Three Lives and wrote Not a Love Story: A Film about Pornography. In the 1960s and 1970s, Millett taught at Waseda University, Bryn Mawr College, Barnard College, and University of California, Berkeley.
Millett was raised in Minnesota and has spent most of her adult life in Manhattan and the Woman's Art Colony, which became the Millett Center for the Arts in 2012, that she established in Poughkeepsie, New York. Self-identified as bisexual, Millett was married to sculptor Fumio Yoshimura from 1965 to 1985 and had relationships with women, one of whom was the inspiration for her book Sita. She has continued to work as an activist, writer, and artist. Some of her later written works are The Politics of Cruelty (1994), about state-sanctioned torture in many countries, and a book about the relationship with her mother in Mother Millett (2001). Between 2011 and 2013 she has won the Lambda Pioneer Award for Literature, received Yoko Ono's Courage Award for the Arts, and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
The feminist, human rights, peace, civil rights, and anti-psychiatry movements have been some of Millett's key causes. Her books were motivated by her activism, such as woman's rights and mental health reform, and several were autobiographical memoirs that explored her sexuality, mental health, and relationships. Mother Millett and The Loony Bin Trip, for instance, dealt with family issues and the times when she was involuntarily committed. Besides appearing in a number of documentaries, she produced Three Lives and wrote Not a Love Story: A Film about Pornography. In the 1960s and 1970s, Millett taught at Waseda University, Bryn Mawr College, Barnard College, and University of California, Berkeley.
Millett was raised in Minnesota and has spent most of her adult life in Manhattan and the Woman's Art Colony, which became the Millett Center for the Arts in 2012, that she established in Poughkeepsie, New York. Self-identified as bisexual, Millett was married to sculptor Fumio Yoshimura from 1965 to 1985 and had relationships with women, one of whom was the inspiration for her book Sita. She has continued to work as an activist, writer, and artist. Some of her later written works are The Politics of Cruelty (1994), about state-sanctioned torture in many countries, and a book about the relationship with her mother in Mother Millett (2001). Between 2011 and 2013 she has won the Lambda Pioneer Award for Literature, received Yoko Ono's Courage Award for the Arts, and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 30, 2019
"Kötü kadın" deriz, aşağılarız, görmezden geliriz seks işçilerini. Küfrederken bile öfkelendiğimiz kişilere onları nitelemek için kullandığımız kelimeyle küfrederiz. Bir kadınla ilk kez beraber olan erkeği "milli" olarak addederiz, alkışlarız; ama bir kadın bir erkekle beraber olmuşsa hemen "fahişe" olmuş olur, hatta onu bir peynire benzetir "kaşar" deriz, o kadın artık isteyen her erkekle beraber olmak zorundadır. Cinsellik kötü bir şeydir, yasaktır, ayıptır, günahtır; ama bir kerecik işlenen çocuğa karşı cinsel istismar suçundan bir şey olmaz, kaldı ki evlenmeden cinsel ilişki yaşayanların çocuk istismarına tepki göstermesi garip bulunur ya da baba kendi kızına karşı bir cinsel arzu duyarsa ne olur diye sormaktan çekinmeyiz. Seks işçilerini kötüler dururuz, şeytandır tüm o kadınlar; ama faaliyetlerini "Genel Kadınlar ve Genelevlerin Tabi Olacakları Hükümler ve Fuhuş Yüzünden Bulaşan Zührevi Hastalıklarla Mücadele Tüzüğü" isimli bir tüzükle düzenleriz. Hatta bir genelev sahibi (Matild Manukyan) bilmem kaç yıl vergi rekortmenleri listesinde üst sıralarda olur. Kadın demeye bile korkarız. Bayan diyerek kibar olduğumuzu sanırız. Kadın demek cinsel ilişkiye girmiş kızdır, bayandır; o da kötü bir şeydir. Bayan diyerek kibar davranırız, edepli oluruz; ama o "bayan"ları taciz etmekten, onlara her türlü şiddeti uygulamaktan da geri durmayız. Bir tek biz böyle değiliz, yanlış anlamayın, dünyanın genelinde zihniyet aşağı yukarı bu şekilde aslında. Değişmesi ümidiyle...
October 28, 2025
Short, but very well written and striking. I really need to read ‘Sexual Politics’. This book details four women’s encounters with prostitution, scribed from a series of tapes.
‘that the experience of all women everywhere becomes, in a sense, our communal property, a heritage we bestow upon each other, the knowledge of what it has meant to be female, a woman in this man's world.’
‘that the experience of all women everywhere becomes, in a sense, our communal property, a heritage we bestow upon each other, the knowledge of what it has meant to be female, a woman in this man's world.’
September 13, 2015
First I should say why I pulled this book down off the shelf. A few weeks ago Amnesty International adopted a resolution stating that prostitution should be fully decriminalized all over the world, in terms both of buying and selling. Swedish members of AI starting resigning en masse in protest, asking that AI look over what's known as the "Nordic model" (originating in Sweden) and which has been adopted in Iceland and Norway as well. Here, prostitution is regarded as an aspect of male violence; "it criminalizes the purchase of sex and makes it punishable with prison sentences. The idea is that rather than going after the supply, it can cut out the demand, and in doing so support the weak over the powerful." Thus, "the burden of law enforcement falls on customers [mostly men], not prostitutes [mostly women]." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/w...
With this book I was hoping to get a little overview and some historical background of prostitution to better decide for myself which side of the argument I was on (yes, there are other sides, but none of them are on MY list).
I found the best part of the book (a full third) to be the introductions (1976 and 1973) and the preface (1971) for that way I could see some perspective and history. The interviews themselves were somewhat disappointing in that I had thought that four prostitutes would be sharing their stories and I was hoping for a mix of reasons, experiences, and outcomes. Only two of the interviews were with prostitutes, however. The other two interviews were with the author and her assistant, neither of whom have ever been in sex work. I wasn’t particularly interested in their views of what they thought sex work would be like, although in other areas they spoke well.
So while it was a “quartet of female voices”, it was not a quartet of prostitutes’ voices.
Quotes that caught my eye:
But the real goal of American prostitutes is decriminalization. Not legalization, decriminalization--because legalization gives the state the right, even the prerogative, to own and sell women and to collect revenue for such transactions, where as decriminalization simply removes prostitution from the criminal code and pass it back into the sphere of private life where it belongs. (10-11)
Even without entrapment, Dr. Jennifer James of the University of Washington estimates, it costs the state $1560.00 to arrest one street walker. This many tax dollars, amounting to millions throughout the nation, thousands of hours of police work, court time—all to what end? “To secure the insulation of innocent men from obscene invitation by females,”…. We all [know] the irony of that—because every female is continually and under the most public and humiliating circumstances subjected to the obscene invitations of males. There is no law against it, or no law applied or enforced. (12-13)
Decriminalization would in no way increase the incidence or availability of female prostitution, but it would frustrate the exploitation of prostitutes by the two classes of men who are their chief predators: pimps and police. The latter function in the same manner as pimps, since the fat earnings of members of the vice squad are acquired through methods of coercive protection. One defines a pimp as a male who lives on the earnings of a prostitute. Since the prostitute is a lucrative source of police graft, forced to endure either extortion or arrest, government has a vested interest in prostitution’s illegality, rivaled only by those states that in ‘regulating’ (e.g., institutionalizing) prostitution, make it a state monopoly. Oddly enough, the other chief opponent of the decriminalization of prostitution is not organized religion, but powerful hotel interests, who see the prostitute’s patronage as insufficiently lucrative to outweigh her possible threat to the public image of the more expensive hotels affluent enough to dispense with her custom. (85-86)
It is not sex the prostitute is really made to sell: it is degradation. And the buyer, the john, is not buying sexuality, but power, power over another human being, the dizzy ambition of being lord of another’s will for a stated period of time—the euphoric ability to direct and command an activity presumably least subject to coercion and unquestionably most subject to shame and taboo. (93-94)
At present prostitutes are subject to arrest at any moment, stigmatized in any area of employment by a record and fingerprints, and offered no protection against the assaults of pimps or police. (107)
Prostitution has flourished always and made fortunes, counting on and aided by the state. Considering the weight of this tradition, one gets a notion of how heavy a job actual social revolution is: bigotry, habit, moneyed interest, physical force, even indifference are so solid. (108)
The fact that sex is directly linked to money only through prostitution represents the devious way in which society deals with its truths. (132)
The actual situation in the city is that prostitution is accepted by everyone—police, judges, clerks, and lawyers. Arrest and prosecution are purely gestures that have to be made to keep up the façade of public morality. The method of dealing with it is simply a form of harassment, not a form of prevention, abolition, or punishment. There is no conviction at any level that prostitution is a crime on anyone’s part, only a total and satisfied acceptance of the double standard, excusing the male, accusing the female. There is also a curious fascination with the prostitutes, ‘the girls’, a geniality toward them, friendliness even, in the sense of familiarity. (134)
Everyone accepts the fact that each woman who comes in will be in again and again, will go through the same routine, maybe stay in the pens overnight, but she knows all the cops and they know her, they accept her and they fuck her and she pays them and gets off: that’s how the relationship is defined, clear and simple. (135)
Prostitution is really the only crime in the penal law where two people are doing a thing mutually agreed upon and yet only one, the female partner, is subject to arrest. And they never even take down the man’s name. It’s not his crime, but the woman’s.*
*The recent New York statute, which declares the male client (the ‘john’) guilty too, in an act of female prostitution, is simply not enforced and may therefore be disregarded in such discussions. [Bear in mind this was written in the 1970s.]
[Here the arrogance of the author’s assistant really pisses me off] Because all I see are the wrecks of what society has done to these particular individuals. I could rap to them about women’s lib stuff for hours. And they are so out of touch with themselves, they cannot hear. Even if you assume that there’s a sense of rage which develops, you can scarcely continue with that assumption when you see their terrible passivity, their remoteness from any consciousness of their condition. (138)
With this book I was hoping to get a little overview and some historical background of prostitution to better decide for myself which side of the argument I was on (yes, there are other sides, but none of them are on MY list).
I found the best part of the book (a full third) to be the introductions (1976 and 1973) and the preface (1971) for that way I could see some perspective and history. The interviews themselves were somewhat disappointing in that I had thought that four prostitutes would be sharing their stories and I was hoping for a mix of reasons, experiences, and outcomes. Only two of the interviews were with prostitutes, however. The other two interviews were with the author and her assistant, neither of whom have ever been in sex work. I wasn’t particularly interested in their views of what they thought sex work would be like, although in other areas they spoke well.
So while it was a “quartet of female voices”, it was not a quartet of prostitutes’ voices.
Quotes that caught my eye:
But the real goal of American prostitutes is decriminalization. Not legalization, decriminalization--because legalization gives the state the right, even the prerogative, to own and sell women and to collect revenue for such transactions, where as decriminalization simply removes prostitution from the criminal code and pass it back into the sphere of private life where it belongs. (10-11)
Even without entrapment, Dr. Jennifer James of the University of Washington estimates, it costs the state $1560.00 to arrest one street walker. This many tax dollars, amounting to millions throughout the nation, thousands of hours of police work, court time—all to what end? “To secure the insulation of innocent men from obscene invitation by females,”…. We all [know] the irony of that—because every female is continually and under the most public and humiliating circumstances subjected to the obscene invitations of males. There is no law against it, or no law applied or enforced. (12-13)
Decriminalization would in no way increase the incidence or availability of female prostitution, but it would frustrate the exploitation of prostitutes by the two classes of men who are their chief predators: pimps and police. The latter function in the same manner as pimps, since the fat earnings of members of the vice squad are acquired through methods of coercive protection. One defines a pimp as a male who lives on the earnings of a prostitute. Since the prostitute is a lucrative source of police graft, forced to endure either extortion or arrest, government has a vested interest in prostitution’s illegality, rivaled only by those states that in ‘regulating’ (e.g., institutionalizing) prostitution, make it a state monopoly. Oddly enough, the other chief opponent of the decriminalization of prostitution is not organized religion, but powerful hotel interests, who see the prostitute’s patronage as insufficiently lucrative to outweigh her possible threat to the public image of the more expensive hotels affluent enough to dispense with her custom. (85-86)
It is not sex the prostitute is really made to sell: it is degradation. And the buyer, the john, is not buying sexuality, but power, power over another human being, the dizzy ambition of being lord of another’s will for a stated period of time—the euphoric ability to direct and command an activity presumably least subject to coercion and unquestionably most subject to shame and taboo. (93-94)
At present prostitutes are subject to arrest at any moment, stigmatized in any area of employment by a record and fingerprints, and offered no protection against the assaults of pimps or police. (107)
Prostitution has flourished always and made fortunes, counting on and aided by the state. Considering the weight of this tradition, one gets a notion of how heavy a job actual social revolution is: bigotry, habit, moneyed interest, physical force, even indifference are so solid. (108)
The fact that sex is directly linked to money only through prostitution represents the devious way in which society deals with its truths. (132)
The actual situation in the city is that prostitution is accepted by everyone—police, judges, clerks, and lawyers. Arrest and prosecution are purely gestures that have to be made to keep up the façade of public morality. The method of dealing with it is simply a form of harassment, not a form of prevention, abolition, or punishment. There is no conviction at any level that prostitution is a crime on anyone’s part, only a total and satisfied acceptance of the double standard, excusing the male, accusing the female. There is also a curious fascination with the prostitutes, ‘the girls’, a geniality toward them, friendliness even, in the sense of familiarity. (134)
Everyone accepts the fact that each woman who comes in will be in again and again, will go through the same routine, maybe stay in the pens overnight, but she knows all the cops and they know her, they accept her and they fuck her and she pays them and gets off: that’s how the relationship is defined, clear and simple. (135)
Prostitution is really the only crime in the penal law where two people are doing a thing mutually agreed upon and yet only one, the female partner, is subject to arrest. And they never even take down the man’s name. It’s not his crime, but the woman’s.*
*The recent New York statute, which declares the male client (the ‘john’) guilty too, in an act of female prostitution, is simply not enforced and may therefore be disregarded in such discussions. [Bear in mind this was written in the 1970s.]
[Here the arrogance of the author’s assistant really pisses me off] Because all I see are the wrecks of what society has done to these particular individuals. I could rap to them about women’s lib stuff for hours. And they are so out of touch with themselves, they cannot hear. Even if you assume that there’s a sense of rage which develops, you can scarcely continue with that assumption when you see their terrible passivity, their remoteness from any consciousness of their condition. (138)
December 17, 2008
Best quote ever, from this book: "Yet one can think of a love thats free based on respect, affection, understanding, tenderness. How great to live that way. And to love many people and love them well. To have the job of that, of what love is without possessiveness, exclusiveness, jealously, property, economic dependence, ego conflicts. How full of flowers, music, highs, conversation, fantastic love making... all of it could be. And I think its worth it. But never let it prevent you from the knowledge and expectation of how hard its going to be, how scary - until we can live that way. And its now only the hedonist but the pragmatist that urges we practice for living the revolution, since surely there wont be once unless weve made some progress at living the new way. And it must be new: revolutions got to be a better way to live, lovingly even. Not hate: we have such a sickening amount of that already."
October 8, 2021
Paar interessante Aspekte, aber man merkt, dass das Buch fast 50 Jahre alt ist.
Und Vorwort von alice schwarzer :|🤢🤢
Und Vorwort von alice schwarzer :|🤢🤢
December 22, 2018
Táto kniha bola pre mňa prvým vhľadom do sveta prostitútok, a preto i napriek svojej krátkej dĺžke veľmi informačná, hoc bola napísaná ešte v sedemdesiatych rokoch. Kate Millett v nej okrem svojich myšlienok uvádza výpovede dvoch žien, ktoré sa vo svojich životoch živili i prostitúciou, pričom sa snaží zachovať ich autentický jazykový prejav. Jedna zo žien prostitúciu vníma ako možnosť vysokého zárobku, druhá sa k činnosti dostala prostredníctvom drôg. Mizogýnia, rasizmus, ambivalencia feministiek ohľadne prostitúcie, neschopnosť porozumenia si navzájom žien z rôznych vrstiev s odlišnými žitými svetmi, pasáci i policajti priživujúci sa na ženskej prostitúcii, celý systém nastavený sexisticky. Niekoľko náhladov ma prekvapilo, mnoho informácií poučilo.
"They´re no threat, but the law keeps on picking them up. They have relationships with the cops, and the judges know them too; the whole system bleeds them sexually and economically. They put out and they pay their fines. Public decorum is satisfied because whores are arrested. This is the justice men bestow on women."
"They´re no threat, but the law keeps on picking them up. They have relationships with the cops, and the judges know them too; the whole system bleeds them sexually and economically. They put out and they pay their fines. Public decorum is satisfied because whores are arrested. This is the justice men bestow on women."
February 3, 2016
Seks işçisi ve translar..
May 18, 2019
J dışındakilerin anlattıklarını okumaya değmez. Eski bir kitap tabii, zamanında etkili olmuştur, ama artık değmez okumaya..
June 29, 2023
“kadınlar da konuşuyorlar hani. Bütün ezilen topluluklar gibi, kadınlar da konuşkan insanlardır, çünkü onlara başka hiçbir anlatım olanağı tanınmaz.”
October 29, 2015
Tout le monde a oublié le Quatuor pour voix féminines de Kate Millett aujourd'hui. J'ai dû faire remonter le bouquin des oubliettes du magasin de la bibliothèque, avec tout un tas d'autres livres sur le genre qui datent tellement que leur côte est "GAYL SILO" - ce qui ne serait plus vraiment acceptable aujourd'hui, parce qu'on n'appellerait plus cette section de la bibliothèque le coin "GAY LESBIEN" mais plutôt le "FONDS GENRE ET SEXUALITES".
Donc, j'ai fait remonter ce petit texte de Kate Millett, et il sentait drôlement la poussière. L'activiste féministe, plus connue pour d'autres ouvrages, livre ici des témoignages intéressants sur la prostitution.
Quatre voix se mêlent, dans des textes originellement publiés en colonnes, l'un à côté de l'autre : deux témoignages de prostituées, et deux témoignages d'activistes féministes sur la prostitution.
Le cadre, les bas fonds de New York des années 70, laisse assez présager le regard qui sera portée sur la prostitution : celle de femmes repenties, qui ne concevaient le fait de se prostituer que comme une manière de se faire vite de l'argent, des femmes droguées, des femmes noires, exploitées par des macs qui faisaient pourtant partie des Panthers, et payées moins que leurs collègues blanches.
C'est la qualité des témoignages apportés qui est ensuite intéressante : le premier est passionnant. La première fois que cette jeune fille s'était prostituée, c'était contre un billet d'entrée pour un concert de Miles Davis.
Le deuxième texte, celui de Kate Millett elle-même, est passionnant : l'intellectuelle y décrit son approche lointaine de la prostitution, comment en parler sans jamais l'avoir fait, comment briser les barrières au sein d'un mouvement féministe avec des femmes qui sont plus exploitées que vous, comment briser les barrières sociales, etc.
Le troisième texte s'intéresse au comportement des prostituées dans le système judiciaire, et à l'oppression masculine des administrations ; le quatrième, du point de vue d'une ancienne prostituée, évoque cette fois la drogue.
Le texte est, finalement, aussi poussiéreux que le livre : daté, dépassé probablement, mais assez charmant.
Donc, j'ai fait remonter ce petit texte de Kate Millett, et il sentait drôlement la poussière. L'activiste féministe, plus connue pour d'autres ouvrages, livre ici des témoignages intéressants sur la prostitution.
Quatre voix se mêlent, dans des textes originellement publiés en colonnes, l'un à côté de l'autre : deux témoignages de prostituées, et deux témoignages d'activistes féministes sur la prostitution.
Le cadre, les bas fonds de New York des années 70, laisse assez présager le regard qui sera portée sur la prostitution : celle de femmes repenties, qui ne concevaient le fait de se prostituer que comme une manière de se faire vite de l'argent, des femmes droguées, des femmes noires, exploitées par des macs qui faisaient pourtant partie des Panthers, et payées moins que leurs collègues blanches.
C'est la qualité des témoignages apportés qui est ensuite intéressante : le premier est passionnant. La première fois que cette jeune fille s'était prostituée, c'était contre un billet d'entrée pour un concert de Miles Davis.
Le deuxième texte, celui de Kate Millett elle-même, est passionnant : l'intellectuelle y décrit son approche lointaine de la prostitution, comment en parler sans jamais l'avoir fait, comment briser les barrières au sein d'un mouvement féministe avec des femmes qui sont plus exploitées que vous, comment briser les barrières sociales, etc.
Le troisième texte s'intéresse au comportement des prostituées dans le système judiciaire, et à l'oppression masculine des administrations ; le quatrième, du point de vue d'une ancienne prostituée, évoque cette fois la drogue.
Le texte est, finalement, aussi poussiéreux que le livre : daté, dépassé probablement, mais assez charmant.
July 9, 2025
THE ‘SEXUAL POLITICS’ AUTHOR SYMPATHETICALLY INTERVIEWS FOUR WOMEN
Kate Millett (1934-2017) was an author and activist. She wrote in the second (1972) Introduction to this 1970 book, “[This book] was written during what turned out to be the most hectic period of my existence—the summer of 1970. ‘Sexual Politics’ was published in July and became a bestseller… [This book] played an important part in freeing me from the academic manner… with which I had begun as a writer… In the months that followed I became something of a full-time activist and organizer for the women’s movement.” (Pg. 24)
She continues, “[This book] was something of a watershed in this process… In the earlier pieces, writing as a participant, I had jettisoned an academic style for one of personal reportage… What happened with ‘The Prostitution Papers’ was quite different. And at first it was agonizing, because through them I began to LISTEN---so that the experience of other women should pour over me. At moments I felt I was drowning in it.” (Pg. 27)
The first Voice, ‘J,’ reported, “There was one guy who wanted to pay me to beat him… when I did it, I felt I really liked it… It wasn’t sexy… I guess I was getting back at all the men who’d done me wrong. I never get sexually excited in any relationship with a john. I’ve never made love with another woman. Now I guess I’m sort of neuter. I don’t have sexual relationships now with anyone.” (Pg. 50)
Later, she observes, “The difference between being a prostitute and being a wife is the security a wife’s got.” (Pg. 56)
She comments, “There are lonely women all over New York, women sitting in bars, who would go with a guy, take him back to their place, make it with him, treat him well too---and be glad to do it. But instead men go to prostitutes … because there are no strings attached… And if you’re married, that’s a consideration…” (Pg. 58-59)
She explains, "what they’re buying, in a way, is power. You’re supposed to please them. They can tell you what to do, and you’re supposed to… follow orders. Even in the case of masochists who like to follow orders themselves, you’re still following HIS order to give him orders. Prostitution not only puts down women, but it puts down sex…” (Pg. 60)
She points out, “Call girls… think like capitalists. But you can’t say… that she has so many other ways to earn an adequate living. Even with an undergraduate degree, chances are that she couldn’t do better than earn $5,000 or $6,000 a year, outside of prostitution. Because it’s VERY hard for women to earn an adequate living and so we do not have much economic choice… And the minority woman on the street---the poor woman---she has no choice at all.” (Pg. 62-63)
She admits, “When I really felt like a wh_re was when I had to talk to them… That’s when I really felt I was kissing their a--. That’s the most humiliating thing----having to agree with them all the time because you’re bought. That’s why it’s not as easy as just saying ‘prostitution is selling a service.’ That’s why it’s selling your soul and not selling a service.” (Pg. 64)
She acknowledges, “I would so much rather turn a trick with somebody than go out on a date. Turning a trick is not anxiety-producing. But going out on a date, I just freak out. Of course, on a date you may kid yourself that it’s your personality they like.” (Pg. 69)
The Voice ‘K’ states, “Somehow every indignity the female suffers ultimately comes to be symbolized in a sexuality that is held to be her responsibility, her shame. Even the self-denigration required of the prostitute is an emotion urged upon all women, but rarely with as much success… I can be summarized in one four-letter word… ‘c_nt.’ Our self-contempt originates in this… That is what we are supposed to be about---our essence, or offense.” (Pg. 94-95)
‘M’ explains, “You can say prostitution feeds a drug habit. Which comes first? Perhaps it’s a kind of circle. You need the sh_t to kill the pain of prostitution; you need the prostitution to kill the pain of needing the drug. Around and around…” (Pg. 114)
Millett’s sympathetic and non-judgmental interviews were somewhat ‘pathbreaking’ when this book first came out. (But of course, there are now abundant videorecorded interviews with prostitutes, etc., so this book is not as ‘illuminating’ as it once was…)
Kate Millett (1934-2017) was an author and activist. She wrote in the second (1972) Introduction to this 1970 book, “[This book] was written during what turned out to be the most hectic period of my existence—the summer of 1970. ‘Sexual Politics’ was published in July and became a bestseller… [This book] played an important part in freeing me from the academic manner… with which I had begun as a writer… In the months that followed I became something of a full-time activist and organizer for the women’s movement.” (Pg. 24)
She continues, “[This book] was something of a watershed in this process… In the earlier pieces, writing as a participant, I had jettisoned an academic style for one of personal reportage… What happened with ‘The Prostitution Papers’ was quite different. And at first it was agonizing, because through them I began to LISTEN---so that the experience of other women should pour over me. At moments I felt I was drowning in it.” (Pg. 27)
The first Voice, ‘J,’ reported, “There was one guy who wanted to pay me to beat him… when I did it, I felt I really liked it… It wasn’t sexy… I guess I was getting back at all the men who’d done me wrong. I never get sexually excited in any relationship with a john. I’ve never made love with another woman. Now I guess I’m sort of neuter. I don’t have sexual relationships now with anyone.” (Pg. 50)
Later, she observes, “The difference between being a prostitute and being a wife is the security a wife’s got.” (Pg. 56)
She comments, “There are lonely women all over New York, women sitting in bars, who would go with a guy, take him back to their place, make it with him, treat him well too---and be glad to do it. But instead men go to prostitutes … because there are no strings attached… And if you’re married, that’s a consideration…” (Pg. 58-59)
She explains, "what they’re buying, in a way, is power. You’re supposed to please them. They can tell you what to do, and you’re supposed to… follow orders. Even in the case of masochists who like to follow orders themselves, you’re still following HIS order to give him orders. Prostitution not only puts down women, but it puts down sex…” (Pg. 60)
She points out, “Call girls… think like capitalists. But you can’t say… that she has so many other ways to earn an adequate living. Even with an undergraduate degree, chances are that she couldn’t do better than earn $5,000 or $6,000 a year, outside of prostitution. Because it’s VERY hard for women to earn an adequate living and so we do not have much economic choice… And the minority woman on the street---the poor woman---she has no choice at all.” (Pg. 62-63)
She admits, “When I really felt like a wh_re was when I had to talk to them… That’s when I really felt I was kissing their a--. That’s the most humiliating thing----having to agree with them all the time because you’re bought. That’s why it’s not as easy as just saying ‘prostitution is selling a service.’ That’s why it’s selling your soul and not selling a service.” (Pg. 64)
She acknowledges, “I would so much rather turn a trick with somebody than go out on a date. Turning a trick is not anxiety-producing. But going out on a date, I just freak out. Of course, on a date you may kid yourself that it’s your personality they like.” (Pg. 69)
The Voice ‘K’ states, “Somehow every indignity the female suffers ultimately comes to be symbolized in a sexuality that is held to be her responsibility, her shame. Even the self-denigration required of the prostitute is an emotion urged upon all women, but rarely with as much success… I can be summarized in one four-letter word… ‘c_nt.’ Our self-contempt originates in this… That is what we are supposed to be about---our essence, or offense.” (Pg. 94-95)
‘M’ explains, “You can say prostitution feeds a drug habit. Which comes first? Perhaps it’s a kind of circle. You need the sh_t to kill the pain of prostitution; you need the prostitution to kill the pain of needing the drug. Around and around…” (Pg. 114)
Millett’s sympathetic and non-judgmental interviews were somewhat ‘pathbreaking’ when this book first came out. (But of course, there are now abundant videorecorded interviews with prostitutes, etc., so this book is not as ‘illuminating’ as it once was…)
February 7, 2023
Un libretto impegnativo, una raccolta di testimonianze sulla realtà della prostituzione su strada tra la fine degli anni '60 e l'inizio dei '70. Una buona base di partenza per comprendere quanto il lavoro sessuale sia una pratica di potere a tutto tondo, che non può essere analizzata a partire solamente dai concetti di libertà di scelta, vincolo economico o ruolo di genere: tutti questi elementi (e molti altri) sono indistricabilmente connessi in un'enorme matassa.
December 23, 2024
Insgesamt eine interessante, sehr ethnographische Arbeit, ich hätte mir mehr Perspektiven seitens der Prostituierten gewünscht. Trotzdem spannend, insbesondere im Kontext der rechtlichen/polizeilichen Diskriminierung, die gut in den gesamtgesellschaftlichen und sexualpolitischen Rahmen eingeordnet wird.
December 15, 2022
The woman... She hides her own life, maybe her hopes, behind the secret yoke...
May 29, 2016
Kitabın özgün adının çevirisi Fuhuş yazıları, Türkçe'ye çevrilirken anlamı yumuşatan, biraz genişleten hem de kapatan 'Sokak Kadınları'na dönmüş. İlk baskı yıl 1975 tabii. İkinci baskı 1996! Türkiye özelinde sokak kadını, fahişe dememek için kibarını kullanmaya kadar gidecekse (kadını ayıp sayıp bayan demek gibi) ne yapacağız, konu kadının erkeğe çekici gelecek parçasını satmasına değil de başka odağa kaçmayacak mı? Onun dışında gayet iddialı, hoş bir çeviri, ifadeleri okurken yapıştırma gelmiyor yaşananlar, kadınların tanıklıkları. Üstelik erkek kardeşlerini korumak isteyen bir yargı düzeninden bahsederken kadın tanıklığı en anlamlı yöntem.
Kate Millett'in kullandığı yöntem ile kendi öznelliğini dönüştürmesi de kamusal sosyoloji adına dikkat çekici bir örnek yaratmış. Yöntemin bir araştırmada ne demek olduğu, neden herhangi bir alt başlık olmadığına dair çok iyi bir örnek. Bir konuyu, teziçelişkisiyle başabaş okumak dikkatimi biraz daha uyandırdı, etrafa olan bitene, argümanlara daha taze bakmayı sağladı.
Fuhuştan geçip gelmiş bir kadının ifadesiyle mazoşistin de aslında hükmetmeye hasta olduğunu filan okumak ise...eşsiz.
Kate Millett'in kullandığı yöntem ile kendi öznelliğini dönüştürmesi de kamusal sosyoloji adına dikkat çekici bir örnek yaratmış. Yöntemin bir araştırmada ne demek olduğu, neden herhangi bir alt başlık olmadığına dair çok iyi bir örnek. Bir konuyu, teziçelişkisiyle başabaş okumak dikkatimi biraz daha uyandırdı, etrafa olan bitene, argümanlara daha taze bakmayı sağladı.
Fuhuştan geçip gelmiş bir kadının ifadesiyle mazoşistin de aslında hükmetmeye hasta olduğunu filan okumak ise...eşsiz.
September 29, 2016
Disheveling. Hard to walk away from this one, not feeling affected. It was a personal challenge to get through, as a feminist, because its substance gets to the root of everything I, as a woman, find upsetting about, well, being alive. Yet it challenges even 'enlightened' readers to reach beyond what they believed about themselves, womanhood, societal expectations and freedom. Definitely check it out.
June 12, 2020
Bir erkek olarak yorum yapmaya belki de hakkim yok.
Oyle ya da boyle her kes gunahkar ve dunya yaranandan kadinlar erkeklerden hep ashagida tutuldu. Bazi toplumlarda bu cok berilirli bazilarinda daha az.
Acaba boyle bir kitap Ortadoguda yazila bilirmiydi, veya yazar hala bu kadar curetkar ola bilirmiydi?
Saygilarla
Oyle ya da boyle her kes gunahkar ve dunya yaranandan kadinlar erkeklerden hep ashagida tutuldu. Bazi toplumlarda bu cok berilirli bazilarinda daha az.
Acaba boyle bir kitap Ortadoguda yazila bilirmiydi, veya yazar hala bu kadar curetkar ola bilirmiydi?
Saygilarla
April 15, 2017
It is a collection of four essays, two written by former prostitutes and two by activists involved with the issue. The setting is 1970s New York, so many things are quite different: primarily the fact that prostitutes used to be criminalised, arrested, prosecuted and fined (sometimes jailed) just for "whoring" (I do not know whether this is still the case in the US), so they ask for "legalisation"; it should be pointed out that where later legalisation has indeed occurred in some form (Germany, The Netherlands, New Zealand) it has been a disaster and that it is safe to assume that this is not what the women of J. and M.'s generation wanted. However, apart from this, so many things still resonate with us today: the reasons that force women into prostitution (any one, except personal satisfaction and fulfilment), the incredibly slippery definition of "voluntary" (J. starts working in order to get money and is not subject to a pimp: this would describe her as a "voluntary prostitute" to a T but on the other hand she experienced only relief when she got out), the male entitlement and the hypocrisy of the johns, the psychological and physical consequences (detachment from oneself, drug addiction, constant humiliation and abuse, fear, later denial...), the absence of love or of any kind of attachment...
Of course, one underlying theme is the necessity to not be patronising towards women in the profession, but if one needs to "listen to the sex workers", as many advocates of prostitution claim, I think these accounts must be taken into consideration, especially / exactly because they are quite old now and are not biased by the terms of the current debates (pro/against Nordic model). Back then, prostitution seemed like a sad but ultimately unavoidable necessity (J. speaks of a utopia): now we are starting to envisage a world where that will no longer be the case, and I am sure that even though in their reports J. and M. only say that they would have liked to exercise freely, what we can and should do today is to provide the idea of a world where the thought itself of providing such a gendered """service""" will be unthinkable.
Of course, one underlying theme is the necessity to not be patronising towards women in the profession, but if one needs to "listen to the sex workers", as many advocates of prostitution claim, I think these accounts must be taken into consideration, especially / exactly because they are quite old now and are not biased by the terms of the current debates (pro/against Nordic model). Back then, prostitution seemed like a sad but ultimately unavoidable necessity (J. speaks of a utopia): now we are starting to envisage a world where that will no longer be the case, and I am sure that even though in their reports J. and M. only say that they would have liked to exercise freely, what we can and should do today is to provide the idea of a world where the thought itself of providing such a gendered """service""" will be unthinkable.
November 9, 2018
It's a relatively brief read compared to Millett's other work that I've read, but I still finished it with the same curiosity and satisfaction that I did The Politics of Cruelty.
Prostitution is something that I've always believed should not be criminal. After all, if a woman is happy to sell her body and a man is willing to pay for her to do it I don't see what the problem is. Swap the genders and I still don't see an issue with it.
My somewhat liberal view (read apathetic) is probably why I felt satisfied reading the book. I didn't need to have my ethics won over or the act of prostitution in any way justified. What I did like as well though is that we get to hear specifically from women who worked in the area and see what they think of it. Yes these specific women are likely to have a bias considering that selling sex is something they literally do, but I'd rather hear from them about the advantages and disadvantages than a politician campaigning with little to no insight.
Millett's position that we should decriminalise the act and not legalise it reminded me very much of my dissertation in terms of what some would consider an issue of semantics, but the wording makes all the difference.
If Millett is someone you're curious to read but not sure where to start I think this is an ideal place. It's far easier to get through than Sexual Politics (which is a great book, albeit heavy) and isn't as emotionally draining as The Cruelty of Politics.
Prostitution is something that I've always believed should not be criminal. After all, if a woman is happy to sell her body and a man is willing to pay for her to do it I don't see what the problem is. Swap the genders and I still don't see an issue with it.
My somewhat liberal view (read apathetic) is probably why I felt satisfied reading the book. I didn't need to have my ethics won over or the act of prostitution in any way justified. What I did like as well though is that we get to hear specifically from women who worked in the area and see what they think of it. Yes these specific women are likely to have a bias considering that selling sex is something they literally do, but I'd rather hear from them about the advantages and disadvantages than a politician campaigning with little to no insight.
Millett's position that we should decriminalise the act and not legalise it reminded me very much of my dissertation in terms of what some would consider an issue of semantics, but the wording makes all the difference.
If Millett is someone you're curious to read but not sure where to start I think this is an ideal place. It's far easier to get through than Sexual Politics (which is a great book, albeit heavy) and isn't as emotionally draining as The Cruelty of Politics.
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