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by Katherine Kelaidis
This is not an essay 1) advocating sex work or 2) denying
the need for repentance. This is an essay asking us to reconsider how we
treat sex workers.
If there is one thing that even the most theologically illiterate can
accurately remember about the life of Christ, it is that he hung around
with a questionable crowd: tax collectors, zealots (the ideological
equivalent of fundamentalist terrorists in 1st-century Palestine),
prostitutes. This was no small thing for a pious Jewish man in
1st-century Palestine. Pious Jewish men did not spend any social time
with sinners. It was among the first things that roused the Pharisees
suspicions: “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus answered them that “it is not the healthy who need a physician.”
God does not come to the holy when they are ready, as most supposed in
the ancient world. He comes to those who need Him wherever they are, in
whatever state. It was a radical, revolutionary idea then and it still
is now.
This total reconfiguration of social norms and religious expectations
that was at the center of Christ’s life and earthly ministry has always
been a difficult reality for Christians and the Church, particularly
since the Church left the catacombs for the glow of the imperial courts
and the cliquish comfort of suburban barbecues. The Gospel of Morality
and Respectability has replaced the Gospel of the Risen Christ. There
has been plenty of discussion in recent years about many on the margins
of society and the Church (though arguably not enough productive
change). The isolation of LGBT people. The mistreatment of women. The
persecution of ethnic and racial minorities. The exclusion of the
disabled. These are, and should continue to be, important issues in our
communal life. And yet, even then, we haven’t even begun to step out
into the reality of Christ’s reign.
Take, for example, sex workers—a group whose members and former
members are disproportionately represented in the gospels. Sex workers
(and I use the term here in the broadest sense) are a group easy to
dismiss with parochial moralizing and, consequently, to shun.
Respectable people, nice Christian people, do not hang out with
prostitutes. Consequently, those who do sex work are marked as
untouchable forever. Even when sex workers do what we seemingly want
them to do and leave the profession, they are frequently stigmatized. Jesus let a former prostitute wash his feet, and we will not let her teach school in New York State.
Now, in the case of sex workers, fortunately (or not), we actually
have a real opportunity to repent, because sex workers and sex work are
in the news. The FOSTA-SESTA bill was signed into law by the president
on April 11th. The bill, commonly known as the “anti-trafficking” bill,
creates criminal penalties for websites where sex work is discussed,
advertised, or bought and sold. And nearly every expert agrees, it is
the absolute wrong approach for addressing the blight of human
trafficking. Instead by shutting down the online forums where consensual
sex workers find their clients, FOSTA-SESTA puts these women and men at
greater risk. Because internet forums have become a way for sex workers
to screen their clients and organize with one another for safety and
support, helping to make just a little safer what is, inevitably, an
incredibly dangerous line of work. For example, a 2017 study by economists
Scott Cunningham (Baylor University), Gregory DeAngelo (West Virginia
University) and John Tripp (Baylor University) found a causal link
between that the appearance of Craigslists “erotic section” and a 17.5%
drop in the female homicide rate in cases where the perpetrator was a
stranger to the victim, a demographic in which sex workers are
disproportionately represented. Traffickers do not care about the safety
of their victims and so will soon find other, probably less safe, ways
to advertise. But consensual sex workers, sex workers working for
themselves, they do care. They know that there are risks involved and
they have come to rely on the internet as a way to mitigate some of
those risks. FOSTA-SESTA does not fight human trafficking. It simply forces sex workers back into much more dangerous work on the streets,
work often controlled by pimps, while giving us a sense of (false)
moral satisfaction that we have done something to stop trafficking.
The impact of FOSTA-SESTA is already being felt. Craigslist.com has
shut down its “Personals” section, and Microsoft has changed its “Terms
of Service” to eliminate the exchange of pornography across its
platforms. Backpage, a popular forum for the advertisement of sexual
services, has been seized by the Department of Justice. The easy ethics
of suburban Christianity might suggest this is something to celebrate,
but the deeper moral universe of a life lived in the often messy light
of the Incarnate, Crucified, and Risen Christ offers something else.
These actions help corporations avoid liability under FOSTA-SESTA and
make good PR fodder for corporations and government bodies alike, but do
nothing to stop human trafficking. Rather these new policies
endanger sex workers by making it more difficult for them to screen
clients and engage with support networks. We know this, because that is
what sex workers are telling us and it is what the data shows.
This is the Gospel of Respectability. It says that the sickness of
sin can be removed by law, by more rules, by more silence, by more
shame. That is not what we see in the life of Christ, where sin is
eradicated not by making up more rules that push the rule-breakers
further to the edge. Instead sin and even death are destroyed through
encounter with the Divine, by the calling of everyone into community. It
is a strange message to forget in the same season in which we sing the Hymn of Kassiani.
Judas, the Betrayer of Christ, accused the repentant woman who washed
Jesus’s feet with her tears. Judas wanted only the money that the sale
of her ointment would garner, and he knew exactly how to get it. The
man, of whom Scripture tells us it “would have been better for that man
if he had not been born,” counted in part on the fact that nothing and
no one is lower than a whore. Behind that prejudice, he could hide his
theft, his avarice, his deicide. But Jesus, he wasn’t going to allow
that. He defended her. He told Judas to leave her alone, to leave her
alone to worship Christ. He knew that what would heal her, what would
safeguard her ability to “go and sin no more” was not more shame, not
more rules, but an encounter with Him.
Moreover, it is clear that Judas could not slut-shame away someone’s
essential right to be heard, to be seen, to be safe. You cannot
slut-shame away God’s love for his creation. If someone does try to
pretend that being that particular kind of sinful makes someone less
worthy in the eyes of God, well, check the money box.
If there is any way in which the message of the Gospel, in which the
life of Jesus Christ, departs entirely from the message of the world,
from the life we live in this fallen state, it is here. Before anyone
freaks out at me on Facebook, let me assure you: I am not interested in
the Assembly of Bishops issuing someone sort of anti-FOSTA-SESTA
encyclical. Even I know better than that. Instead, I am merely asking
all of us to reflect and repent. That we stop choosing the Gospel of
Respectability over the Paschal proclamation.
So, here are some questions we should be asking:
- What are the nature of our thoughts and words around sex workers and sex work?
- Do we support policies which punish or endanger sex workers?
- How do we legitimize such support?
- What are we doing as individuals and parishes to assure that the woman who washed the feet of Jesus would feel welcomed to hear the hymn written about her?
- How can we has individuals and communities reach out to sex workers, who in the light of FOSTA-SESTA, are facing a frightening time?
If we can ask and answer these questions, we will be better for it.
If we can act on those answers, we will be closer to the Kingdom. Next
up: drug addicts.
Katherine Kelaidis is a writer and historian whose work focuses on early Medieval Christianity and contemporary Orthodox identity in non-traditionally Orthodox countries.
*Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in this essay are solely the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Orthodox Christian Studies Center
