The Lady and the Tiger: A "Sociological Experiment"

Once upon a time, the phrase "The Lady or the Tiger?"--taken from an 1882 short story of that name--was a byword for impossible choices. The story took place in a mythical kingdom where justice was dispensed through the workings of chance. The accused were presented with two identical doors behind which awaited opposing fates: one concealed a hungry tiger, who would immediately devour the accused, while the other concealed a beautiful woman, whom the accused would have to marry on the spot. This doesn't present a problem until the accused man is the lover of the King's daughter; when the lover asks the princess for a hint as to which door to choose, she has to decide whether she'd rather see him dead or married to another woman. The story ended without the author revealing the princess' choice or the lover's fate; the unresolved puzzle thus secured the story's role as a topic of speculation and "thought experiments" for generations to come.

This is by way of prologue to the economic sociological news that an American woman was recently offered a live tiger in exchange for her virginity. Now the woman has been running an auction for her virginity since September, so the offer didn't come entirely out of the blue. But still, the offer of a live tiger (by a zookeeper in an undisclosed location) is incomparably bizarre.

It's also deliciously ironic, in that it brings "The Lady or the Tiger?" into a 21st century Western context, in which everything can be legitimately and publicly commodified so that there is no longer an irreducible opposition between lady and tiger. Instead, they are being offered as equivalents for exchange. Reduction of everything to a price tag puts everything up for grabs, and everything on an equal footing.

I stress the legitimate and public commodification of virginity, because of course, intact hymens have been put on the auction block for hundreds--perhaps thousands--of years. It still happens openly all over the world: Nick Kristof of the New York Times has done an excellent series on the selling of young Vietnamese girls (by their own families) into sex slavery in Cambodia. It even happens in the US, albeit under cover; since selling other people's bodies is against the law, we only hear about it when there is a criminal investigation or a dramatization, like those surrounding the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints.

But what if you want to sell your own body? And what if you want to define it as an act of free market rationality--"I have something of value, and I should be compensated for it." Or how about framing the sale of one's hymen as a feminist act, by keeping the profits rather than having them expropriated by men or older women, as was the fate of Moll Hackabout (see below)?

These are precisely the ideological claims of the lady--one Natalie Dylan, aged 22, of San Diego--who is being offered a live tiger in exchange for being sexually penetrated for the first time. Dylan's reasoning, in her own words, is as follows (the phrases in boldface are my emphasis):

And the value of my chastity is one level on which men cannot compete with me. I decided to flip the equation, and turn my virginity into something that allows me to gain power and opportunity from men. I took the ancient notion that a woman’s virginity is priceless and used it as a vehicle for capitalism... And for what it’s worth, the winning bid won’t necessarily be the highest—I get to choose.

Bidding for this prize was up to a reported $3.8 million earlier this month. Natalie's ability to construct a narrative of empowerment and autonomy around the auction stems in part from her training in Women's Studies, in which she received an undergraduate degree from Sacramento State University. She says the auction started as a "sociological experiment" on the value of virginity, as well as a practical means of raising money to fund her graduate studies in marriage and family therapy. She was inspired in part by her older sibling, Avia, who earned enough in three weeks working as a prostitute at Nevada's Bunny Ranch brothel to put herself through graduate school. Sisterhood is powerful!


Sisters doing it for themselves: Avia and Natalie Dylan.

So Dylan presents herself as a feminist capitalist, extending the logic of the market to an extreme that only slightly surpasses what Madonna and other female "entertainers" have been doing for decades. Dylan adds that she has been praised for her "entrepreneurial gumption" by an unnamed Fortune 500 CEO--a claim I have been unable to verify independently. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it were true, given what Frankfurt School sociologist Jürgen Habermas calls the creeping "colonization of the life-world" by capitalism, in which "systemic mechanisms –for example, money – steer a social intercourse that has been largely disconnected from norms and values."

Habermas means that concepts, values and modes of thought associated with the market have intruded into daily life to such an extent that individuals become increasingly unable to think--or act--outside the hegemonic system. Everything gets (re)packaged in market terms--that is, everything is (eventually) assigned a price. This impoverishes our world and our relationships, as if we eliminated words, images and gestures from our communication, and replaced them instead with number systems like binary or hex. More "efficient" and "precise"? Possibly. But can those qualities really be traded off against the powers of allusion, metaphor, and symbolism?

Habermas' ideas have their roots in the work of founding sociologists, like Karl Marx (who wrote of the "internal colonization" of humans by capitalist ideology) and Max Weber, who observed the competing relationship between value-rationality (in which entities can be measured on their own terms, and cherished for their own sake) and instrumental rationality (in which entities are measured by their exchange value). The increasing dominance of instrumental rationality is linked to the process of modernity, and it not only "flattens" the world by reducing everything to its value vis-a-vis something else (usually money), but it reduces our own autonomy as humans. As another contemporary social theorist put it in a recent essay,

The life-world, by and large, characterized by value-rationality, begins to be eclipsed and absorbed in instrumental rationality, making persons become means to political and economic ends not in their interest, nor under their control.

Herein lies the fallacy of Natalie Dylan's empowerment reasoning, and--to be fair to her--the reasoning of the many, many men and women who make the same claims. Dylan and people like her have no real "autonomy" or "control" in the market system. According to Habermas, and to Kant, when you live in a world turned upside-down, where instead of socio-economic structures serving human needs, humans become subordinated to the systems, you have no means to mount an effective challenge. By profiting from the trophy status of her virginity, Natalie Dylan isn't doing anything new--consider all the marriage markets, past and present, in which a woman's ability to command a wealthy husband is contingent in part upon her intact hymen--and she's certainly not subverting anything. This isn't her fault, or a weakness on her part; it's the human condition in what Max Weber would call modern, rational-bureaucratic societies.

This scenario differs from the plot of The Matrix only in that there is no cabal--no specific people or institutions--who can be overthrown in order to change the system. The horror of it all is that many people and institutions contribute, often unknowingly, to the commodification of themselves and others, making the system incredibly difficult to change. So Natalie Dylan isn't "hacking" the system of women's sexual commodification, nor is she going to alter it with her auction. Certainly, the process will change her, and from what I've read of her, she seem to both underestimate that change and overestimate her own power to control her experience within this colonized life-world.

While writing this post, I've been conducting a little thought-experiment of my own: what would I have done if Natalie Dylan had been my student? Answer: I would have tried to do what I aimed for with all the students I ever taught, which was to inform them, and show them how to think critically and clearly. I doubt that just discouraging her, or conveying my concern about the effects the auction might have on her, would have made much of a difference. And for a 22-year-old, even parental disapproval would likely be ineffective (though I've wondered how her parents responded--something I have not seen addressed in any of the news coverage).

So, had she been my student, I would have asked Dylan to do three things:

• First, read about the colonization of the life-world by the market, using selections from Habermas, Marx, Weber, Kant.
  

• Second, write a paper describing a world in which selling sex (or reproductive material) wasn't the only way for a young woman to make a big pile of money quickly, just to see if she could imagine such a thing--and to help her begin to see what it means to be "colonized" by an idea (somewhat like the strategy employed by the high school counselor working with the white supremacist teenager in American History X).
  

• Third, I would ask her to analyze her auction plan in relation to the valuation of other women's virginity: what does it mean that she expects to command enough money for her hymen to put herself through graduate school, while the Vietnamese parents interviewed by Nick Kristof (see above) can barely clear enough from the sale of their virgin daughters into brothels to open little huts selling rice and vegetables? Is it acceptable to her to profit from the same social system that led soldiers in Sierra Leone, the former Yugoslavia, and many other war zones, to target virgins for rape in order to inflict maximum damage on the enemy?

Perhaps none of these exercises would have changed Dylan's mind. But I think we'd be hearing a lot less from her about empowerment. Instead of claiming "I'm seizing control of the commodification of women's sexuality for my own benefit," I imagine she'd say something more like, "I'm willing to enter into this corrupt and unfair exchange because it's the only way I can make a fortune in a few months." I'd prefer unpleasant accuracy to pleasant (self)deception any day. And maybe a more accurate perception of herself and her actions would lead her to do something positive, like donate proceeds of her auction to help the women whose trophy-virginity was taken without consent or compensation.

Market Meltdown Brings Brothel Boom! or, A Harlot's Progress

Are you still cruising on an Obama-related endorphin surge? Wallowing in the afterglow of Inaugural optimism? This news story will snap you out of it like a cold shower:

MOUND HOUSE, Nev. -- A downturn in the economy means an upturn in applications to some brothels.

A brothel owner says his industry’s resilience is attractive to many who are out of a job.

“There’s so many girls wanting to go to work because of the economy,” Dennis Hof, the owner of the Bunny Ranch says. “There’s layoffs in every sector of the economy… We get a lot of people from New York City wanting to come to work.”

“Air Force Amy” has been in the business for 19 years. She says she has seen a change in the types of woman applying for employment.

“We do see ladies with a great education, Masters degrees. And woman from all walks of life,” according to Amy. “It’s lot different from 20 years ago where it was just a street hooker from under the bridge. It’s a totally different ball game now.”

Sweet! Now the US can boast some of the most well-educated prostitutes in the world. In your face, Thailand!

If it weren't so sad--at least to this female with a master's degree, who's thinking "there but for the grace of god go I"--the story would provide hours of entertainment. The potential for hideous puns seems virtually limitless, starting with the name of the city in the byline: Mound House. (Cue snickering by Beavis and Butthead .) It rivals even the mock-worthiness of Rudy Giuliani's "welfare-to-work" program, which trained unemployed New Yorkers to read Tarot cards in preparation for glittering careers as "Psychic Hotline" operators. But I have Important Sociological Points to make, so the punning will be left as an exercise to the reader.

Being sarcastic provides me with a welcome--albeit temporary--distraction from this extremely depressing reminder that while America can elect a black man President, it can't do much better by its female population than 18th century England once did. I'm referring, of course, to the series "A Harlot's Progress," by legendary engraver William Hogarth, which traces the sad fate of an innocent country girl who comes to big city--London--seeking employment. Instead of finding the employment she'd sought--as a tailor or a maid--she ends up working as a prostitute and dies in squalor shortly thereafter, of venereal disease.

"Moll Hackabout has arrived at the Bell Inn in Cheapside, fresh from the countryside, seeking employment as a seamstress or domestic servant. She stands, innocent and modestly attired, in front of Mother Needham, the brothel keeper, who is examining her youth & beauty." William Hogarth, Plate 1 of 6, April 1733

Allow me to digress for a moment, in order to acknowledge the people who claim prostitution is an "empowering choice" for women--a job, just like any other, except that it pays better than most employment held by women (i.e., waitress, retail clerk, etc.).

There are many reasons to be skeptical of this argument, including the ways that current and former sex workers describe their experiences of and feelings about prostitution in first-person accounts. A post on the blog LuckyWhiteGirl.com expresses some other reasons for skepticism about the "benefits" of prostitution for women:

...[such] approaches argue that "prostitution is one of women's best economic choices." It pays well. And that's a good thing, they say. But we have to ask why is it one of our best choices? Why are our bodies the most valuable possession we have as women? Getting more money isn't the end all and be all of liberation. It's a pseudo-liberation. It is not full liberation if it preserves the underlying structure of inequality which exists under the global capitalist system we have today. There's something inherently wrong with a system that makes women's bodies their most valuable possession.

Right. Which leads back to the classic question for economic sociology: how do humans assign value to things, like human bodies, or pieces of artwork, or cars?

My point: Why is prostitution still the default job for women, particularly in the United States, which boasts some of the finest universities and highest per capita incomes in the world? If we have the resources to educate women so well, to endow them with so much human capital, why can't they translate that into economic capital (i.e., wages and salary) as effectively as men? After all, men have the physical ability to earn money for sex--why isn't prostitution the last-resort job for most of them, as it is for most women?

To put it simply, men have more choices in the labor market than women. That doesn't mean that men have it "easy" or that they don't suffer from un- or under-employment. But it does mean that when men can't work in the occupation of their choice, their alternatives are much more varied and appealing (economically as well as socially) than those facing women. As this chart from a 2007 United Nations report shows, while the United States is still leading the world in wealth and opportunity, those assets are so highly concentrated in the hands of men that even the poorest countries in the world do a better job of allocating resources fairly. Simply put, the left-hand column of the table shows that American women get about the same share of their country's resources as women in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe; while the Americans' share may be much larger in absolute terms, their position relative to men is as disadvantaged as that of women in countries that are barely functioning at all, let alone claiming to be the land of opportunity:

The human development index (HDI) measures average achievements in a country, but it does not incorporate the degree of gender imbalance in these achievements. The gender-related development index (GDI), introduced in Human Development Report 1995, measures achievements in the same dimensions using the same indicators as the HDI but captures inequalities in achievement between women and men. It is simply the HDI adjusted downward for gender inequality. The greater the gender disparity in basic human development, the lower is a country's GDI relative to its HDI....Out of the 156 countries with both HDI and GDI values, 106 countries have a better ratio than United States's.

Table 2 shows how United States’s ratio of GDI to HDI compares to other countries, and also shows its values for selected underlying values in the calculation of the GDI.

What's shocking is that education--human capital development, in sociological parlance--is supposed to broaden one's opportunities, regardless of gender, race or age. On this basis, many people have fought long and hard for equality of educational opportunities in the US (e.g., Brown v. Board of Education). But it turns out that the "return on investment" in human capital is entirely different for women versus men, whites versus non-whites, and so forth. So, all other things being equal, a woman won't get the same labor market benefit (i.e., salary, status, advancemet opportunites) from a master's degree as a man will.

Unfortunately, President Obama's plans for the economy are likely to exacerbate these problems. His economic jump-start program will create lots of new jobs--but almost entirely in occupations dominated by men, like construction. What about reversing the trend, to inject some distributive justice into those plans. This would be a great time to rebuild the country on a more equitable basis. That's change we still need.

LOLMarkets!

Anyone reading this blog is probably aware of the LOL-fad: the addition of witty captions to photos of cats, fashion models, and so forth, which has taken the interwebs by storm.

So in a moment of inspiration, I wondered: why couldn't we do the same for economic sociology? I mean, I know I'm not the only one who spontaneously thinks of puns that mash up pop culture with "The Great Transformation," right? Right? [Tap, tap, tap.] Is this thing on?

If the blogosphere is good for anything, it's for allowing microscopically small interest groups to band together and share the kind of thoughts that would be greeted with disbelief or incomprehension by others. If the Ferret Fanciers of Greater Milwaukee can do it, why can't economic sociological punsters?

Rather than keeping those gems of humor to ourselves, let's enjoy them together. Friends, Romans and economic sociologists, send me your LOLs!

Here's one that came to me when I ran across this picture of the Angel of Death during the earily days of the market meltdown--I know you can do better! So send in YOUR LOLpix! Operators are standing by!

"Talk to the Invisible Hand!"

UPDATE!

I knew someone was on this...ladies and gentlemen, I give you LOLFed.com, the funniest site I've seen in ages. Here's today's LOL with some of the accompanying text:

This one’s for all you crazy kids out there who said Sandy Weill’s experiment of creating a banking supermarket could never work, that its sheer size and the scale and multitude of services offered under a single roof were unsustainable, that no one management team or board of directors could possibly oversee its many arms. You were absolutely right!

Film Club: "Repo Man" Turns 25

The cult classic film "Repo Man" turns 25 this year, and I'd like to mark the occasion by quoting this exchange between two of the lead characters. The context here is the moral justification for taking away people's cars by stealth and subterfuge--an activity that looks very much like simple auto theft--when those people fail to make their contractual payments. According to Bud, the wizened Yoda to Otto's Luke, repo work not only isn't "stealing," it's a blow for justice and the American Way:

Bud: Credit is a sacred trust, it's what our free society is founded on. Do you think they give a damn about their bills in Russia? I said, do you think they give a damn about their bills in Russia?

Otto: They don't pay bills in Russia, it's all free.

There's something poignant now, even charmingly retro in the post-apocalyptic financescape of 2009, about the phrase "Credit is a sacred trust." It seems to belong to another world.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan might have been thinking of Bud when he said in a 1990 commencement address at Harvard College,

Trust is at the root of any economic system based on mutually beneficial exchange. In virtually all transactions, we rely on the word of those with whom we do business...If a significant number of business people violated the trust upon which our interac­tions are based, our court system and our economy would be swamped into immo­bility.

Prophecy, or just a gloss of the Gospel According to "Repo Man?" You decide.

As for Otto's utopian vision of the Russian socio-economic complex, credit cards and cowboy capitalism put an end to all that. For an excellent account (no pun intended), see Prof. Alya Guseva's recent book, Into the Red (Stanford University Press, 2008).

Meanwhile, Happy Birthday "Repo Man!"

Militant Snail Says...

..."Housing is a right."

Preach on, brother snail.

From a wall in Genoa, Italy, August 2006. He's still scooting across the Atlantic to protest foreclosures in the US.

Dispatch from the Class War

That's funny, I thought the Saxon aristocracy was using LORAN.

Snapped near the Museuminsel in Berlin.

Tidbit o' Economic History: Private Fire Departments

I snapped this photo of placard over the front door of a house in Seville, Spain, because it records a state of affairs that has largely been forgotten: a time when public goods that people in developed countries take for granted, like the availability of a fire department to come to your aid when your home is ablaze, did not exist. Used to be that if you wanted emergency assistance, you had to join a kind of club with private membership fees. It worked like this: you ponied up the membership fee, the club gave you a plaque to put over your front door, and then if fire swept through the neighborhood, the club dispatched help, but they *only* assisted paying members. So if you didn't have that plaque over your door, the fire rescue teams would pass you right on by. It would not be uncommon to find that your house burned down while the one next door--if it had that club membership plaque alerting the fire rescue team to stop there--would be saved. Some would call it savage and inhumane. Since the Reagan 80s, others have called it just desserts: if you don't have the smarts or the money to insure yourself, then you must bear the consequences of not taking "personal responsibility."