Yin Q. A BDSM educator shares her experiences with sex work and explains the troubling implications of commodifying the body. In , I retired from the sex industry. Pregnant with my second child, I was ready to move on to other goals: a writing career and the work of raising children. During my second trimester, I met a young woman at a pre-natal yoga class who disclosed to me over a cup of rose hips tea that she was a surrogate for a gay couple in Manhattan.
The woman was a dog walker, but wanted to return to graduate school. When we try to separate the body from the work that the body produces, we are faced with a conundrum.
No one has a problem that this kind of work can be put forth into the economic market. If you can create a piece of furniture that someone will buy, then off to market you go with no worries.
No one calls this work unless you talk to the pregnant mother. Human lives and their bodies should not be commodified. This basic law protects us from slavery. Babies should not be sold, but the service of incubation and birthingβthat work should belong to the consenting adult woman as an asset that her body can provide. In most states this is accepted, but not in New York. The state does allow for altruistic and uncompensated surrogacy agreements. In the case of commercial surrogacy, many birth mothers and prospective parents draw up the contract outside the state.
Meanwhile, sperm and egg donors are paid well, especially those deemed genetically desirable. Hair can be sold, as well as blood plasma. Organs, though, are not a legal market product and can only be donated. You cannot trade in a kidney to pay your mortgage. The commodification of the body extends into all arenas of the entertainment industry, even those where risks of bodily harm are high. A football player can be paid to play a sport that may leave them in physical disrepair from multiple concussions and fractures.
