What puts the term stigma at the center of prostitution debates is exactly what puts sex work at the center of feminism. It is the disqualification, often criminalization, of women for self-possession. Although many women have gained a significant modicum of independence over the last century, their autonomy is still construed as a series of rights to be demanded, defended, and earned, a sharp contrast with the automatic entitlements of the men in their communities. The social asymmetry between those struggling for rights and those accustomed to entitlements leans on a branding only of the oppressed. Female gender stigmas reinforce subordination, divide women among themselves, and leave men untarnished. The whore stigma is the most fraught of female gender stigmas since it publicly invokes the sex work, both obligatory and forbidden, at the core of the sex class system.
My reflections on stigma as a political weapon evolved over fifty...
