Falz vs Transactional Sex…but not really
Tags: Sex Work, Falz, Nigeria, Feminism, Music

Sex work has not always been touted as the bane of human society, ancient Greek and Roman societies did not treat sex work with a heavy hand and sex workers were not vilified as they have been in the modern era. With the domination of the world by the Abrahamic religions however, we’ve seen a change in the treatment of sex work, constantly mentioned and depicted in the company of thievery, murder and tax collection, it is seen as the ultimate degradation of the human soul by the Abrahamic religions and has retained that outlook up to the present day.

In this, Falz is not different from billions of people that have come before him. In modern Nigerian society, Falz seems to see it as his duty to sing about the evils of sex work and specifically, escorts popularly referred to as “runs girls”, often putting them in the same category as fraud, corrupt politicians, and fraudulent religious clerics.

In the past week, a video made the rounds on Nigerian twitter, where Falz articulated why he does (and will continue to) talk about runs girls. Here are his words:

“Shamelessly, I’ll continue to say, I detest transactional sex. It’s my thing, what I believe in. You’ll continue to hear it in my music whether you like it or not and I’ll explain to you. Now, the same feminists that will say that the woman is free to do what she wants to do and who am I to say to the woman not put herself up for money is the same feminist that will say women are being objectified and that is not allowed. Now, you and that same person that is going ahead to commodify yourself. You've turned yourself into a commodity. Self-objectification. Self commodification. I detest it and I will continue to detest it and continue to speak against it…”

Many Nigerians agree with Falz of course but few are able to articulate their reasons as well as he has. With such an extensive explanation, there is a lot to unpack here in order to deal with the validity of Falz’s claim(s).

“I detest transactional sex”

First, what is transactional sex? As Falz (and as most Nigerians tend to understand it), transactional sex is basically having sex with someone for money/payment. But, this seems an inadequate definition especially as not all transactions involve money. For example, if two people agree to perform a favour for each other, that is a transaction. If you take a person on a date and you expect the person to have sex with you because you have taken the person on that date, that is a transaction. Why therefore should one hate transactional sex? Sex is an action, a service, and like every single form of labor, it can be commodified. Bricklayers commodify their strength, soldiers commodify their bravery, musicians commodify their voice. Does sex differ significantly from these?

“You’ve turned yourself into a commodity. Self-objectification. Self commodification”

Here, Falz claims that sex workers are commodifying themselves and that self commodification is also self objectification. But as we have seen, we do not commodify ourselves, we commodify our skills. In 2016, French club and new Superclub Paris St. Germain paid £200m for the services of Neymar from Barcelona. PSG paid that amount to Barcelona to release Neymar from his contract for them and allow him to work for them (PSG). If Neymar was a commodity, would that not make Neymar a slave? Slaves do not collect wages, Neymar collects wages, is Neymar a slave?

Neymar collects his astronomical wages because of football skills. It is his skills that he has commodified not himself. Furthermore, it is clear now that only agents can commodify their skills. In other words, only a person with agency and ability to exert that agency can commodify their skills/labour. On the other hand, an object (for example, a vase or a slave) cannot have agency. Neither a slave nor a vase can commodify their labor because they ARE the commodity. Clearly, one cannot commodify their labor AND objectify themselves like Falz claims. Runs girls commodify an activity but they retain ownership and control of themselves.

However, let us assume that Falz is correct that performing labour is tantamount to self commodification. Should he not also be against all forms of labor instead of just the one? (Runs girls). Should he not be as viciously against musicians that commodify themselves? I know what you’re thinking: “That is different! Falz is singing, runs girls use their bodies.” Is it really different? It is his vocal cords that Falz uses, what differentiates his voice from the vagina? They are both parts of the body. Are his vocal cords different from a bricklayer’s hands? A financial analyst’s brain? A model’s face?

Falz’s argument fails in itself so many times and it does a disservice to someone attempting to focus on social issues. The validity of sex work is two-pronged: is it economically viable? Is it moral?

It certainly passes the first test but it is the second where problems really lie. Most people have a problem with sex more on religious grounds. We have often been TOLD that sex work is bad and have accepted it as such. Under the auspices of religion, the “role” of women has often been touted as nurturers, birthers. There is often no space for the expression of female sexuality in Abrahamic religion and when women, in the modern age have sought to make modifications on that world view, there has often been ferocious pushback. While men are shown with multiple concubines (Solomon notoriously had a thousand partners and David had multiple concubines), women are rarely shown with anything approaching that.

It is this hypocrisy that Falz and many of his supporters display when participating in this topic about runs girls. Falz claims that he hates the objectification of women but how does he combine that view with his display of scantily clad women in his music video or does his cognitive dissonance prevent him from seeing this? Many of Falz’s supporters that claim morality (especially those on religious grounds) seem to have no issue with premarital sex (which Falz sings about and actually encourages) or smoking marijuana (which, like sex work, is illegal). While there may be a real concern about the morality of sex work, Falz and those that support his message have perhaps betrayed their true intentions. The moral outrage on sex work is couched in hypocrisy, hiding a layer of discontent for what sex work actually means.

The real hatred for sex work/runs girls appears to be the dislike that something that *should* be free, isn’t. If society sees women as having the role of nurturer/birther then any small (or major) attempt to redefine that will be met with resistance and we have seen it with women in the workplace, women in the military, women in leadership. If we have seen some resistance to all these areas, the resistance to sex workers is not shocking, perhaps even expected. Runs girls in Nigeria get far more insults than say boys that participate in fraud. And perhaps even more damning is that Falz doesn’t talk about MALE sex workers even though there are a multitude of them littered around Nigeria. Why is that? Why the solitary focus on the women and the negligible (one may even say non existent) focus on the men?

Sex work is not without its problems. Because of the level of demonization that sex work has received since the dawn of Christianity, it has receded deeper into the darker areas of society. Away from proper legislative and regulatory oversight, exploitation is rampant. Sex trafficking of young girls and boys to be sold as sex slaves is rampant. 90% of women trafficked into Europe from Nigeria are from Edo state (source here). The dearth of data does not allow us to examine the truth of child trafficking but consider this: Nigeria is the poverty capital of the world. If you can find children begging on the streets of Lagos and other states in the Republic, what do you think is happening to the children elsewhere?

The truth is that the real problem that plagues sex work in Nigeria (and most parts of the world) is that the industry is exploitative. Just like every industry that is not regulated, it has a lot of exploitation. A lot of sex trafficking occurs and leads to people being enslaved. This is not an issue with sex work per se, it is an issue with a system that doesn’t protect its most vulnerable; in Nigeria there is an epidemic of exploited domestic workers (including children) who get punished daily even as they do important yet undervalued work because they are vulnerable. In the UAE manual labourers are forced to work for hours under unfavourable conditions for a pittance without any protection. Exploitative scenarios like these are a result of marginalization, and you don’t tackle it by telling people that runs girls are part of what ails Nigerian society, you tackle this by telling people not to exploit sex workers and to support laws that will protect the rights of sex workers. Help remove the threat of sex slavery and collect taxes while you’re at it. A structured system that actually benefits all.

But Falz chooses (and continues to choose) the easy path. People agree with Falz that corrupt Nigerian politicians are a plague, we agree that fraudulent religious leaders are exploitative. Falz did not open the eyes of Nigerians when he sings about these problems, he instead acts as a conduit for the collective consciousness of the Nigerian people and for that, he surely deserves commendation.

But on this issue, he has contributed to the stigmatization of an already marginalized group and tragically, he does so with a deeply flawed argument. Falz has the potential to contribute significantly to moving the needle on how much men (especially in Nigeria) should be better and those that have rallied against him have done so because they believe, rightly in my opinion, that Falz should know better and when he could actually help in opening the eyes of Nigerians, he has instead chosen the road most traveled.