Gender and Sexuality

by Gender Theories 101

This week in class we talked about gender and sexuality. One of the groups showed a clip from a documentary regarding adults in the pornography business and their life after. Most of the women showed in the clip were stereotypically feminine; they were all pretty, tiny and wore lots of makeup. For the most part most of the women regretted and/ or were ashamed of their past in the porn industry. They talked about how it still effects there life to this day. (eg. One women was let go from her job when someone recognized her) Some girls referred to the porn industry as being dirty and they couldn’t believe that they were that girl, who got involved with it. The one man that was shown was very hyper masculine, he was very buff and bragged about his experiences in the pornography industry; he said he had no regrets whatsoever. I got the impression from the video that the women felt stigmatized and were more stigmatized from their involvement in the porn industry then males were. This reflect societies values that when a guy gets with a lot of girls it is something to be proud of but when a girl gets lots of guys she viewed negatively and it is frowned upon.

This also made me think of prostitution and how laws in Canada criminalize women more so than men. Women are charged consistently more often then men for prostitution offences. More women are found guilty then men for prostitution related charges. When men are charged they receive significantly lesser sentences than women. (Fines vs prison or probation) . The most common charge laid is communicating for the purpose of prostitution; this is interesting because it forces women to communicate with men in back allies or get into their car quickly, so they wont get caught, making them more vulnerable to victimization because they are out of the public eye. It makes it difficult for women; if there not criminalized a lot of the time they are victimized. It is also interesting that the clients, which majority of are men, merely receive slaps on the wrists for charges relating to prostitution yet they are the ones that fuel the business; if there wasn’t a demand for prostitution, it wouldn’t exist.

I find it sad because although there are some women who want to get into porn, or want to get into prostitution, a lot of women end up in these jobs because they don’t have any other options. They end up stigmatized and for women in prostitution they more often then not end up criminalized.