| Photo: JFGananca via Flickr |
The anthropological record begs to differ. In his ground-breaking enquiry into the origins of social violence and Sexual repression, Saharasia, geographer James DeMeo studied a database of 1200 ancient cultures and classified them according to the presence or absence of patriarchal or matriarchal customs, beliefs and institutions.
Patriarchal attributes include male gods, male-dominated authoritarian and hierarchical institutions, including families, and a fundamentally negative attitude to sex. Such Societies are based on competition and deny individual agency, particularly to women. Matriarchal attitudes are democratic and egalitarian, including sexual openness. Such societies are based on co-operation and individuality is valued.
DeMeo posits three preconditions for prostitution to take root in any given society: “Strict female virginity taboos which block sexual access to females by young men,” women who are “economically dependent upon men” and “Older men with surplus wealth.” Patriarchal societies tick all the boxes. DeMeo’s research into the origins of Patriarchy explains why.
In addition to classifying societies by their values, DeMeo plotted their geographic locations and timespan. The collated data revealed a striking pattern. The earliest societies were egalitarian. However, from around 6000 BC, patriarchal societies arose almost simultaneously in three different regions—the Sahara, the Arabian Peninsula and Central Asia—and rapidly overran their defenceless neighbours. Obeying Darwin’s dictum on the survival of the fittest, patriarchy became the world’s dominant social model and gradually replaced other societal models. That process continued into the 20th century.
DeMeo documents how the rise of patriarchy in what he terms Saharasia coincided with a period of climate change that turned the savannah-like conditions of the Sahara, Arabia and Central Asia into the deserts that we know today. This loss of habitat turned the region’s previously peaceful occupants into rapacious clans bent on survival at any cost. This created stratified cultures where the warrior class was exalted. Sex-starved males made the most ferocious fighters and were rewarded with rape. Sexual access to the women who bore these violent males was fiercely guarded. Sex—outside of narrow, proscribed limits—was both shameful and dangerous. This fear and shame was internalised as sexual repression and unconsciously passed from one generation to the next. Virginity became a virtue, meeting part of the first of DeMeo’s preconditions.
Egalitarian societies naturally eliminate the second and third preconditions required for prostitution. But what of the other half of the first precondition—blocking young males’ sexual access to females?
Polish anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski lived in the Trobriand Islands of Melanesia for extended periods. At the time of his arrival in 1915 this was a relatively egalitarian society without sexual shame. In stark contrast to patriarchy’s fear of teenage sex, the Trobriand Islanders sanctioned it through the provision of bukumatula, huts where adolescents could co-habit or just have sex. The result was a society where teens transitioned into sexually healthy adults and none of the preconditions for prostitution existed. By the time Malinowski left in 1929, the bukumatula system was waning under the influence of missionaries as patriarchy took hold.
This comparison of the two social structures reveals that prostitution is an inevitable product of patriarchy. The structure of patriarchy inherently creates a sex-deficit society and, equally inevitably, prostitution arises as a mechanism for reducing that deficit: sexually deprived men and economically deprived women are natural bedfellows.
Patriarchy’s inherent problem-solving methods are violence, shame and legislation. Over the centuries all three have been employed to combat prostitution and all three have failed because the preconditions noted by DeMeo have not been eliminated. A recent example comes from Sweden, where criminalising the purchase of sex without addressing the structural issues has simply driven prostitution underground, increasing the risk of violence to already marginalised sex workers.
Rather than championing structurally flawed, one-size-fits-all legislation that conflates sex trafficking with prostitution and endangers exactly those women it claims to help, those who wish to end prostitution should note Einstein’s caveat that “problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
As a direct product of patriarchy, prostitution cannot be eliminated by patriarchal methods or within the context of a patriarchal society. Only through the creation of a society that fully embraces economic equality, sexual openness and individual agency can all the structural drivers for prostitution be eliminated. Notably, it is courageous sex workers such as Laura Lee who are actively promoting such a society.
RELATED POSTS
RELATED POSTS
- Grimm reality behind Swedish prostitution laws?
- The real crime of Jennifer Thompson
