Neo-liberalism and the Criminalization of Certain Bodies

This week’s lectures were both very thought-provoking. Both touched on the idea that in a neo-liberal society there is a construction of what is considered to be a “good sexual subject.” The good sexual subject is one who is responsible – it is a person who does not engage in “risky behaviours.” Neo-liberalism tells us that there is an equal playing field, and since some people do not have to engage in risky behaviours for their livelihoods, then all people have the capacity to not have to. Of course, I think we realize that is simply not the way the system works in the lived day to day of people’s lives. In sexual assault cases, this then works to create a binary of responsible vs. risky victims and who is deemed to be a good or bad victim – it creates the narrative of an “ideal victim.” This was clearly illustrated in Shauna’s talk today when she discussed how many sex workers won’t report sexual assault because it’s seen as something that simply “comes with the job.”

There seems to be a disconnect between the lived realities of people with HIV, sex workers and other marginalized groups and what the neo-liberal system thinks should happen. This week’s lectures also made me think of the prison industrial complex, militarization, education, compulsory able-bodiedness, etc. and how closely tied together all these systems are. We move from one system to the next, and each informs us on how we should be. We have little to no agency. This makes me think of Angela Davis and how all these systems are a part of our common sense understanding of the world. She explicitly said “we do not question whether [they] should exist,” it simply is a part of how we understand our reality.

With neo-liberalism, there is a turn to a legal approach to deal with social issues. Criminalization is the go-to response for HIV nondisclosure, and for sex work. We rely on the state to solve these issues through the courts. But sometimes, the state doesn’t listen to the courts and instead of following a set rulebook, does whatever they feel like. This past March, the Harper Government wanted ban supervised injection sites/ clean needle exchanges (such as InSite in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside) through Bill C-2 which was ironically titled the Respect for Communities Act – even though the Supreme Court stated that shutting such a site down was causing direct harm to a community of people (and Shauna reiterated how important needle exchanges are for safety). You can read a bit about it here. I think it’s important to bring up this example to highlight Lise Gotell’s point about how in law, precedents are set, but the highest levels of the state don’t necessarily follow them (and decisions trickle out into other cases that are unrelated – as was seen with the Mabior case). Shauna emphasized how important community approaches were to create support networks, and meet people where they're at. What this criminalization and emphasis on state-solutions rather than community based approaches comes down to is a normative idea of how certain bodies should behave, and who is deemed valuable and worthy of protection in society - and the repercussions for any bodies who are not deemed "good" bodies, and who do not act as they should.