Making it Rain, A Feminist Manifesto on Sexual Self-Determination.

by Staff April 24, 2012 8 Comments News Opinion Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) In a free society prostitution should be legal—perhaps up for a morality debate or even discouraged—but certainly not criminalized. Therefore, while not casting judgment on the specifics of their case, I have to applaud the chutzpah and media savvy of a quartet of Denver “making-it-rain” strippers, predominately white, who created an on-line petition defending their lifestyle and companion, alleged pimp, Germaine “Jell-O” Wallace, black of Denver.

Though we are supposedly all Shangri-La post-racial, the investigation into the alleged Denver prostitution ring oozes with sexual and racial tension, raising the specter of the prison industrial complex that seems to collar a disproportionate number of black men, while touching upon the taboo of bondage and S&M the likes of Fifty Shades of Grey, a sex-abundant New York Times bestseller. Is the commanding Jell-O an Othello-style Christian Grey funding the opulent lifestyles and fulfilling the sexual desires of his many Ana Steeles, as the young “dancers” would have you believe through their “Prejudice Justice against Jermaine Wallace” petition? Perhaps their candor is his best line of defense.

Sex and prostitution, submission and domination, and its place with the modern woman and even with the modern (married) man, has burst upon the national scene through a cornucopia of sexual entanglements, e.g., the Secret Service prostitution scandal and the John Edwards’ trial for alleged election law violations stemming from hush money furnished to an impregnated mistress. With the popularity of E.L. James’s piquant Fifty Shades and other high profile prostitution arrests like that of Anna Gristina, the tony Manhattan madam and soccer mom–unseemly and steamy, taboo sex is headlining everywhere.

Given that the threat of prosecution, disease, and public humiliation has not slowed the world’s oldest profession, arcane property law analogies through a retrospective lens of Victorian moral hypocrisy, can provide the most compelling arguments against prohibition.

For women, political, economic, and social equality vests with her absolute domain and sovereignty over a unique and coveted feminine form—over mammary glands, female sex organs, and her right to choose. Feminine anatomical dominion, which has historically been denied, relies upon society’s ability to unconditionally respect female sexual freedom and reproductive rights.

Long ago, but not so long ago, and still today depending upon geography, women were denied the right to own property, sovereignty rights, authority over financial assets, as well as complete control their bodies and sexuality. Yet like property, women were bartered and exploited paternalistically through matrimony by their families for strategic, social and financial advantage.

The full right of return to control women’s most valuable property—their bodies—through complete sexual and reproductive self-determination, is radically and organically feminist, humane, and modern. As an adult, in the pile of sticks liberty represents, the individual right to full and free sexual determination, as well as the right to marry regardless of gender and sexual orientation, represents a big stick of liberty. The ability to etch out the contours of one’s sexual identity—to experience the realm of infinite sexuality possibilities if so chosen and to be what authors Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt termed an “Ethical Slut”—even if that allows for the consensual sale of affection—is a highly sophisticated and feminist understanding of freedom and liberty. And one does not have to be a member of the female gender to be a feminist or ascribe to the tenants of feminism. Likewise, there are prostitutes of all genders, male, female trans, who warrant protection and not dehumanization.

To criminalize prostitution is antifeminist, in that it ascribes to the prostitute the assumed misogyny and shame of the institution as it is today, while presuming that women are incapable of balancing sexual power relations. Legalization, or at least decriminalization, would allow for a more comprehensive sex and public health education for sex workers and even the johns. As in Nevada, legalization would allow prostitution to be taxed and regulated, which would encourage further public safety and disease prevention.

Making it rain and getting it rained on is not necessarily shameful or dirty, and certainly should not be criminalized, which is at the heart of the Denver quartet’s plaintive petition. In their public plea, the “dancers” represent that they have made a deliberate and independent, life-style choice, which they enjoy and find highly rewarding. And their right to privacy and sexual freedom, even if it includes the alleged monetization, should be respected as long as children or third parties are not harmed.

Likewise, criminalizing and humiliating consenting adults entering into uncoerced sex-for-sale relations, while driving the behavior dangerously underground and reaffirming a misogynistic sexual paradigm, is absolutely shameful and as antiquated as the mythically pure and chaste, and very much oppressed, Victorian era woman.

Staff Writer; Joy Freeman-Coulbary

Feel free to connect with this lawyer via Twitter; enjoyJFC.

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I knew says:
July 7, 2013 at 4:34 pm
In 2007 Mr. Wallace was taken in on charges of rape, coercion and force while he and strippers who worked as prostitutes in DeJaVu strip club. One famous girl actually was a part of the coercion charges and aiding and embedding. She began to work for Mr. Wallace in Virginia Beach. The girl was quite young, perhaps under age. The FBI was a part of the case that began November 1st, 2007. Allegations that were dropped because he dehydrated, raped, and forced the stripper he coerced from a strip club with ideas of helping her afford a better life as a dancer, not a prostitute. The dancer had just turned 18 years old. She was coerced, robbed, beaten, and raped. Her escape was in La Jolla, CA. One of these dancers “petitioning” lured her to the pimp, Mr. Wallace, who at the time had gone by Jello, Magellan. There were cocaine, animal abuse, firearms without permits, kidnapping, rape, human trafficking charges on his plate. This article is well written, and advertises women’s rights. Women or human beings who have real equality don’t need to prostitute. Also, these women rely on a pimp. The brainwashing and psychological abuse endured by these women is immense and often misunderstood as women standing up for themselves. The pimps exist because the women cannot be “free range hos” where they earn their own money and keep their own money. This is not the case with Mr. Wallace. All of the cars, clothes, money and even the women’s bodies belong to Mr. Wallace, as I once heard him say. I knew him from one experience, and I must say, please find a better example of woman standing up for their sexuality. Mr. Wallace is a rich pimp who beats women into “their place”. His lawyer is on a retainer and these women were coached. I knew one of them and she is usually so high off of coke, she doesn’t know the difference between her father and Mr. Wallace. May God have mercy on these women and their refusal to accept the reality of their pitiful acceptance of their reality. Excuse typos.
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Janet says:
April 25, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Kate Roiphe would be interested to hear about “her” 50 Shades of Grey. The book was written by one E.L. James; Roiphe has written a widely disseminated column *criticizing* the book.
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DG says:
April 25, 2012 at 2:48 pm
I really enjoyed the article and the logic that it applied. I to question of legalized prostitution when the premise of prostitution is the consenting exchange of sex for money. I think you made a good distinction between the premise of sexual liberty and the inherent contradiction of this liberty that is illegal prostitution.
One thing though I have to agree with NAME below is the issue of “reproductive sovereignty”. Like NAME said in the post before me there are consequences to sexual freedom that distort choice and place the burden on those who don’t have choice which is in and of itself a form of oppression. So we can simultaneously say anti-abortion is oppressive to women, but in the same form we should also hold that mandatory child support for men who had no say in the choice is also a form of oppression of we are logical. I know that is controversial but I don’t see any way around it.
If we feel that the highest state of liberty is the capacity to be free from government coercion to the highest degree possibly within the context of a large society, how then can we simultaneously say women can choose, but men must pay for that choice?
Like NAME eloquently said, if you have sexual reproductive rights, but by virtue of you as a women executing those rights and me having no say in your execution of those rights, I am then coerced by the government to pay for a choice you made that I had zero say in by my definition that is oppression.
To me that is the antithesis of the premise of a feminist based argument when it comes to abortion.
But very thought provoking post JFC.
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Name says:
April 25, 2012 at 1:48 pm
” … For women, political, economic, and social equality vests with her absolute domain and sovereignty over a unique and coveted feminine form—over mammary glands, female sex organs, and her right to choose. Feminine anatomical dominion, which has historically been denied, relies upon society’s ability to unconditionally respect female sexual freedom and reproductive rights. … ”
This may be slightly off-topic, however, it’s interesting to consider a different aspect of this: The full exercise of the “freedon” this article describes can have consequnces, such as the birth of the child. The woman has “a right to chose” – to abort that child or not. The man does not. In the case where the woman’s conduct with the man leads to a child birth, the man has no say, for example, as to questions regarding the legal obligation to pay child support. The woman, however, can chose to have an abortion, take the easy way out, and entirely avoid the responsibility for her choice and avoid taking on the duties of being a parent, but the man cannot chose that. He is put in the position of having to accept the consequences of the woman’s choice, or, possibly be jailed for contempt of a court order. … This is a complex area. There are moral questions here. There are valid reasons why completely unrestricted sexual “freedom” (by either sex) has been met with disapproval for most of the time in which human civilisation has been around. A person should have freedom, to the extent he or she uses that freedom responsibly. However, human nature, very often, is to be irresponsible.
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JFC says:
April 25, 2012 at 7:15 am
The essay was not to encourage prostution but to question whether it should be legalized and regulated like in Nevada. However, let me point out to be clear that the article references behavior between consenting adults, uncoerced…And does not refer to the of trafficking minors or even human trafficking, which is not uncoerced. I am not minimizing the importance of rape or statutory rape laws.
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Martin says:
April 25, 2012 at 2:55 am
What about the large percentage of hookers that were sexually abused as children? If the statistics are inaccurate, why do in countries such as Germany where prostitution is legal are the majority of hookers foreigners?
Legalization will not eliminate the exploitation of black-market sex-work.
The Swedish & Norwegian prostitution laws prosecute only “johns”. Germany did not legalize prostitution as an endorsement, but as the lesser of evils, since the majority are foreign-born immigrants who would be further exploited if prostitution remained illegal in Germany.
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npspider says:
April 24, 2012 at 9:56 pm
This article raises a really valid question…why is prostitution illegal? Is it just about the sex? In this case, is the element of a black man with white women a issue?
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Jocelyn says:
April 24, 2012 at 8:48 pm
Its always interesting that the only power that women have full domain is always being attacked by the powers that be, namely our sexuality and our uterus!!!!
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