#5

The Shelves of a Feeble-Minded Book Slut: Part Two

Feeble-Minded: A Brief History of an Onomatopoetic Adjective

In the early 1900s, “feeble-minded” was a broadly-accepted descriptor of those who sold sex, as evidenced by the term’s ubiquity throughout any prostitution-related writing from or about this particular time period.

The “cardinal symptoms of feeble-mindedness” included “general moral insensibility, boldness, egotism and vanity, love of notoriety, lack of shame or remorse…desire for immediate pleasure without regard for consequences, lack of forethought or anxiety about the future.” Feeble-minded individuals might be those “whose sexual inclinations are abnormally strong or whose power of self control over natural impulses is abnormally weak” and those “who are passive, non-resistant, and will yield to anyone” (Rosen, 22).

The court system established clinics to administering “feeble-mindedness tests.” Though flawed and discriminatory, these assessments served as proof that female criminals—a “surprisingly high” percentage of them sex workers—harbored the trait. By 1913, according to historian Ruth Rosen, the sterilization of those deemed feeble-minded was permitted in twelve states, along with “criminals, idiots…imbeciles, syphilitics, moral and sexual perverts, epileptics, and rapists.”

Feeble-mindedness also served as an explanation for the industry’s very existence, a reason why those in the sex trade had made the decision they did. Of course, when an out-of-touch reformer (of any era) blames the phenomenon of prostitution on anything other than inequitable access to basic resources, we know we aren’t hearing the whole story. It is infinitely more difficult to overthrow ancient systems than it is to blame a cash-poor woman for having a decrepit brain.

However, Rosen argues that feeble-mindedness “had little to do with the women’s mental capacities. … The term instead ‘explained’ both ‘inherited strains of degeneracy’—for which the prostitute could not really be blamed—and willful immoral behavior. … Rather than indicating a mental deficiency, the label feeble-minded instead referred to the prostitutes’ refusal or failure to conform to middle-class values and behavioral patterns” (22-23). Respectability politics at its finest, ladies and gents! Even if the term “feeble-mindedness” didn’t necessarily suggest that Whores’ brains were underdeveloped and weak, I find more nuance between refusal and failure.

Refusal can be clocked as simple obstinance when it is not acknowledged that a “conditional conformity” specific to Whores often extends beyond resourcefulness into intentionality and ingenuity. Into rigor. Conditional conformity is a statement. To dictate the terms of ones’ involvement with an oppressive and/or corrupt authority seems to me an antithetical way of life for someone with abnormally weak will-power, someone passive and non-resistant, someone yielding.

Many sex workers have been told that we aren’t “living up to our potential.” You could be so much more, we are told. You could do so much better. using sex work to feel a sense of control under a capitalist-hetero-patriarchy. However, many of us choose sex work because it appears one of the only tenable ways to exist without going spiritually bankrupt (as in, having our spirits broken) in a society where service industry workers are harassed at penny-wage jobs, educators can’t afford their school loans, and artists are expected to sustain themselves on joy. I choose sex work to afford me more time to read, write, and study. I do what I can so I can do what I love. Sure, to some, my choice lacks sensibility; it appears bold, vain, and shamelessly attention-seeking.

Whores needn’t do anything to qualify for the basic respect afforded other human beings, regardless of income source. Whores don’t owe the world intellectualism, or activism, or aesthetic perfection, or “hearts of gold.” Yet, Whores deliver—time and time again—all four of these elemental gifts to both the connections we create and the spaces we occupy. After working in the front-of-house of upscale restaurants for years, at a certain point I decided I’d rather suck dick than kiss ass. If that makes me feeble-minded, I guess so be it.

All sex workers lack for free money, which is to say I am certain that an infinitesimal number of us who enter the industry do so because we could be considered “independently wealthy.” Some of us consider the industry our best option; some of us lack for an abundance of alternatives. For “part-timers” like me, it’s been one of many endeavors braided to form the rope of livelihood onto which we all grasp.

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Madeleine Blair is an editor, memoirist, sex workers’ rights activist & professional companion based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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