Girls Like Us Assignment 1

“When we think about children who are sexually exploited in other countries, we acknowledge the socioeconomic dynamics that contribute to their exploitation—the impact of poverty, of war, of the sex industry” (Lloyd 34).

This quotes is referring to the differences in the construction of the sex industry at a global level, where it is viewed as an issue of trafficking of human victims who are exploited, and at a national level, where here it is an issue of sex workers and prostitutes who have chosen this as their profession.

Denying the existence of systems of oppression relating to sex workers in the US is a reflection of classism and racism. There is an idea in this country that the poor are in such a state because they are lazy or happy in that position, and could choose social mobility if they wanted. This is also a sex-negative society that stigmatizes anything outside of the heteronormative Christian image of sex. The illusion of choice is convenient for US society, as it allows us to criminalize victims of sex trafficking and violence and lock them away, out of our sight.

It is not inherently bad that we view children who are sexually exploited in other countries as victims, however it is problematic that we do not extend this to children here. This one-sided view reinforces a hierarchy of nation and culture, constructing global victims as more vulnerable and in need of protection. This hierarchy can be seen on many levels, one being the constructed difference between victims and criminals, applying choice to criminals who may not have any, while denying choice to the victim, who has been made helpless. This helplessness is very problematic in that it denies agency, as “victimhood absolves us from having to decide to have good lives” (Morales 284). This denial of choice to the global victim constructs a person who is already irreparably damaged, unable to attain humanity because of their abuse, and because they never had any in the first place, being from “that part of the world.” The US child prostitute, who is rarely viewed as a child, is automatically attributed the autonomy of choice because of her/his higher place in the hierarchy of national and socioeconomic location. It is this denial of victimhood that disallows her/him to achieve autonomy by choosing to no longer be a victim.

I see this same hierarchy existing within the context of good vs. bad victims. To be a good victim means that you have to be international, someone who has been kidnapped and moved for exploitation, and is completely in the hands of the benevolent US government, who will rescue them. A bad victim resists the figures of authority in the US and tries to blame society for their situation, rather than admitting that it was their bad choice to enter such a disgusting line of work.

I noticed the hierarchy in the article we read in class, when Petro claims that the exploitation of the images of the women is “more troubling” when done by Rachel Lloyd than by Joan Rivers (Petro 1). This assumes that experience is quantifiable and that proximity to the issue of human trafficking is measurable. This statement places more responsibility on Rachel Lloyd and others with first-hand experience to “tell their own stories” and to do it more correctly than every one else in the world, who are all implicated in this system.

Lloyd, Rachel. Girls Like Us. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. Print

Morales, Aurora Levins. “Radial Pleasure: Sex and the End of Victimhood.” Women’s Lives:

Multicultural Perspectives. By Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 283-284. Print.

Petro, Melissa. "The H-Word: Rachel Lloyd vs. The Fashion Police." Bitch Media. Bitch

Magazine, 6 Oct. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. <http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-h-word-rachel-lloyd-vsjoan-rivers-the-fashion-police>.