By Deshna Saraogi, Junior Editor
Very recently, Mia Khalifa tweeted about supporting the #FarmersProtests currently happening in India to which a very popular Indian comedian with an impressionable following replied by tweeting “Even Mia Khalifa understands the problem better than the government”. At first glance, this tweet won’t even sound misogynist to most. But you know, that is the key characteristic of the ‘male gaze’- its presence is so pervasive that it has been seamlessly integrated into our heads. The use of “even” not only has strong misogynistic implications but also puts Mia Khalifa in a bad light for really no reason. And can you even imagine – the comedian was just trying to be funny. (Also, 20k people have liked his tweet.)
Therefore, in this article I will try to explain what exactly the male gaze is, how it has impacted sex work, porn and our daily lives and what capitalism has to do with all of this.
Let’s start with the basics, what exactly is the male gaze?
It is a theory that initially came out of film and media studies, that talks about how most of the film or media that we consume is presented to us from the perspective of the male gaze – either directly from the gaze of the male characters in the film or for an audience where the gender or the sexuality is generally presumed to be cis-gendered heterosexual men.
However, the male gaze isn’t just what men find attractive. It is a patriarchal construct that is deeply tied to toxic masculinity and how men are socialized to view women and sex. It is an extremely objectifying phenomenon where women or femme presenting bodies are made into objects to be gazed upon. It is also dehumanizing because it completely ignores a woman as a human or an individual personality.
Some examples in the media industry could be the way cameras tend to exclusively follow a woman’s figure, or the way the sex scenes are portrayed. Extensions of the male gaze can also be seen to influence how women make basic choices in everyday life – what to wear, where to go etc.
Similarly, the tweet is also an extension of the male gaze. It simply symbolizes how the male gaze views porn and especially women associated with it and clearly that is not something to be made fun of at the least.
What is wrong with porn?
Nothing is wrong with porn. Rather what is wrong is the way it is made, produced and executed.
In her interview with BBC, Mia Khalifa talks about how she is trying to change the narrative with respect to the porn industry. Khalifa spoke up about her experience in the porn industry, claiming that despite becoming one of the most-viewed performers on Pornhub, she had made a mere $12,000 out of some 11 videos posted over a span of 3 months.
In a number of interviews, and through her social media posts, Khalifa has repeatedly said that being young and naive, she was taken advantage of and ended up signing unfair contracts. She has also accused the website, BangBros, for still using her videos even though she wants them off the internet. She has tried filing petitions for the same as well but all her efforts have been in vain.
She talks about how so many young girls and women are sex-trafficked, forced into porn and taken advantage of by men. These young girls fail to understand the so-called jargon in the contracts and fall prey to the agencies’ cheap tricks. She talks about how, the way other people view porn and the individuals (especially the women) associated with it, needs to change. How the way women are approached and made to sign contracts should be changed. How the entire process can be made less manipulative and intimidating to a woman.
Not only is porn produced for the male gaze, the manner in which the entire process works is also really capitalist. Khalifa said that the actors and actresses have very little control over the content created and all decisions are made by the agencies of the porn industry – an industry which stands at billions of dollars right now.
Sex work:
Sexwork represents the exchange of all kinds of sexual services, performances or products in exchange of material compensation. Sex workers are predominantly females and most of their clients are males. When we talk about women in sex work in general, one important thing to remember that most (not all) of the women get into sex work because they need to – as the last resort.
A large proportion (68%) had suffered from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), with a level of severity comparable to that experienced by Vietnam War veterans, as well as psychological dissociation.
Two different schools of thought:
Regarding the existence and working of prostitution or sex work, we observe two schools of thought.
First school of thought:
Third wave liberal feminists equate sex work to wage work and believe that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it. In their opinion, in and of itself, porn and sex work are not inherently oppressive to women or those belonging to marginalized communities. It is the culture that has grown around it is very unequal and disadvantageous to women.
Because we live in a largely capitalist society, nearly every single job is exploitative.
Second school of thought:
On the other hand, the other group of feminists believe that there is a systemic issue with sex work itself and therefore sex work must be abolished to protect sex workers and women. This school of thought puts sex work as an extremely capitalist concept where the structure (instead of the culture) is built in such a way that it leads to exploitation of the workers.
To understand prostitution, its racist character must be acknowledged. Women who were and continue to be forced into prostitution are disproportionately women of colour. In her book, sociology professor, Mimi Goldman, describes how prostitution in America is built on racist, sexist, and capitalist foundations. She discusses how, although enslaved black women were not technically prostitutes, they were “at their masters’ sexual disposition.”
Sex work can be dangerous mainly because of the power imbalance between the sex worker and the client; because the client doesn’t need the service the same way the sex worker needs the client’s money. Therefore, the sex worker is most likely to be taken advantage of. The irony in all of this is that women face the social, psychological, and legal repercussions for what men view as such a casual act.
Brownmiller, feminist journalist and activist, acknowledges the essential point that women’s bodies are viewed as a commodity, which is yet another form of alienation that sex workers face. The female body is not treated as a body which actually brings us back from where we started – the male gaze. It is treated as a means of economic survival, since, in the capitalist patriarchy, sex work is often a woman’s last resort. The argument that sex work is liberating because it allows women to choose their own hours, and work less for the same amount of pay as a traditional 40-hour a week job, highlights the inherent flaw in capitalism. Capitalism subjects people to working 40 or more hours a week in jobs they do not find fulfilling or socially necessary. The women who use sex work as a way to escape this system teach us that it is the system that needs to be changed, as both men and the institution of capitalism work together to elicit coercion in this way.
Decriminalisation of sex work:
However, it is mostly seen that these two schools of thoughts agree on one aspect – de-criminalization of sex work. Criminalization of sex work does not help solve these issues or even abolish sex work. Rather it is seen that it only makes matters worse. Sex work in itself can only be “abolished” by eradicating poverty. Therefore, instead of attacking sex workers for getting into their line of work, we should be attacking the system that got them there in the first place.
The entire sex work industry has a capitalist model. Most of the sex workers endure bad and unsafe working condition and sometimes even violence. A large reason why sex work is as exploitative as it is, is because of the laws surrounding it.
Feminist sociologist, Kathleen Barry, summarizes this phenomenon in her book, The Prostitution of Sexuality, with her discussion of pimps. Pimps are people (usually men) who solicit customers for a prostitute in return of a certain share of the sex workers’s earnings. If in case the pimp takes advantage or manipulates or threatens or exploits the sex worker, the sex worker cannot do anything. Since prostitution is criminalized, if a sex worker turns in their pimp to the police, they expose themselves as well. She states that “the criminal justice system, by treating women as criminals, closes them out of the legal system”. If a woman turns in her pimp, the person who profits from her work, she herself can be punished.
Pimping is just one such example. Many sex workers have to endure sexual and mental harassment by their clients because they cannot report that to the police. This makes prostitution in specific and sex work in general very unsafe for the workers.
Legalisation and specifically decriminalisation has proven to tackle these issues in a better way.
So now the question is, what exactly do I mean by decriminalization?
It is the removal of criminal penalties for sex work. Anywhere sex work is decriminalized, sex workers receive the same protection as workers in other industries.
The tricky part is that decriminalization is not the same as legalization. Legalization implies controlling and regulating how sex work functions and that would differ from one country to other. For example, Denmark has completely decriminalized sex work whereas Germany legalized it by further mandating compulsory health care and paid leaves for sex workers.
Similarly, if you see, in India prostitution is legalized but with a lot of restrictions. Pimping, owning brothels and all kinds of soliciting services are strictly illegal. So, unless someone is selling sex indoors and by their own, which is not possible for most sex workers, they are committing a crime.
To conclude, I would say that at the very least there are certain things that we could do from our sides to understand and maybe eradicate the issues related to the male gaze, porn and sex work. Firstly, we can read up and educate ourselves on what is exactly going on in these industries including studying the way the government is playing a role in it. Secondly, we must try to be more empathetic to the people working in these industries instead of outright slamming them in public (or with misogynistic and senseless tweets). The future of the porn industry and sex work is strongly linked with the way we question capitalism and propel feminism and we can only hope for the best.
References
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/08/07/why-sex-work-should-be-decriminalized
Books that could be read to gain more perspective:
The Prostitution of Sexuality by Kathleen Barry
Revolting Prostitutes by Juno Mac and Molly Easo Smith
YouTube Videos for Additional Context:
How We Talk About Sex, Sex Work, and Liberation (Mexie’s video on the male gaze, porn and sex work)
Mia Khalifa: “Porn is not reality” – BBC HARDtalk (Mia Khalifa’s interview with BBC)
onlyfans & sex work (Jordan Theresa’s video on sex work)
Arthashastra 
Thats a great post thank you for the hard work