Am I My Brothel's Keeper?

Author and former sex worker Tracy Quan talks about human trafficking, legalizing prostitution, and 15 years in The Life.

Kerry Howley | November 7, 2005

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Quan: They are trying to say prostitution is a human rights violation. It's an absurd idea to me. Anti-prostitution activists have found an issue, human trafficking, that they can exploit and that pushes a lot of peoples' buttons. We're living in a time when we don't think slavery is acceptable. Which I would agree with. But people who are naive, who have never worked with a prostitute or hired a prostitute, people who have no natural organic contact with prostitutes, are easily manipulated into believing anything about prostitution.

Reason: The sex worker organization portrayed in your second novel uses a sewing machine with a line through it as a logo. Do you see the anti-human trafficking movement as potentially pushing women into sweatshops?

Quan: It's difficult because you have people like [New York Times columnist] Nicholas Kristof who seem to think it's better and possibly safer for a teenager to be working in a sweatshop. I don't know which is safer. I'm not entirely convinced that it's safer to work in a sweatshop around big machines in countries where factories are not regulated.

As a friend of mine once told me, affluent people can't imagine what it's like to have a child and want your child to work as a prostitute at the age of 13. Yet on the other hand nor can affluent people know what it's like to choose between sending your child to a factory or a whorehouse. You cannot argue with a machine, you can't negotiate with a machine. You can negotiate with a human being. You can appeal to their empathy or get more money out of them; get them to help you and your family.

Reason: Kristof seems to be writing about slavery, not a voluntary sex trade.

Quan: Kristof's ideas about slavery are not very sophisticated. He has written about sex between African slaves and European slave owners, about how the races mingled. My family is from the Carribbean. Since I was a child I've known that there was an African slave who slept with a Dutch slave owner; this is part of my ancestry. Kristof describes this kind of thing as female slaves being seduced and exploited. I had always assumed that my ancestor might have seduced her owner. People do what they do in order to survive. This is all very shocking to someone resistant to seeing nuances in human behavior. You don't have to be in favor of slavery to see that.

Reason: Do you consider indentured labor a form of slavery?

Quan: My Chinese ancestors were indentured laborers and I've often had this conflict in my mind. I know a lot of prostitution activists who are opposed to prostitutes being involved in indentured labor. But this is how some of my ancestors got to the New World. It's not a pretty story. It's what it is. And while I don't think we should duplicate the conditions under which they came, I get nervous when I hear well meaning Westerners possibly depriving other people of a chance to move around the globe.