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Christin Rosado WGS 100 Assignment 09: Property, Capital, and Prostitution

Throughout the history of the world there have been various societies present across the globe. These societies have consisted of numerous working parts. After reading Aberrations in Black by Roderick A. Ferguson, I will be discussing the relationships between property, capital, and prostitution. Property is an object, piece of land, or in barbaric cases people that a person owns. Capital is a means of wealth used by citizens in many societies to purchase both necessities and desires. Prostitution is the action of an individual using their sexual practices to obtain wealth.

Roderick A. Ferguson does a great job of explaining how property, capital, and prostitution relate to each other. We the citizens are property. When we work, we become property to the various institutions that we work for. Not only are we property to our employers but we are property to the very thing we are trying to obtain from our work which is capital (Ferguson, 2003). We citizens become a form of property so that we can obtain capital. Many people in the world are driven by their desire to accumulate a large amount of wealth and this desire sometimes influences people to engage in “immoral” acts. We the citizens are then prostitutes. We become prostitutes by selling ourselves and our work to obtain capital. Citizens are like prostitutes because we must sell our services to receive capital and to survive (Ferguson, 2003).

In Ferguson’s piece Aberrations in Black he speaks extensively about “queer of color” and its relevance to the relationship between property, capital, and prostitution. I believe that “queer of color” is slightly like prostitution because they are both believed to be an enemy to heteropatriarchy. Both prostitution and homosexuality are viewed as vices that aim to destroy the integrity of heterosexual males. Also, prostitution was deemed as a cause of gender and sexual confusions and I believe that “queer of color” brings up these same confusions (Ferguson, 2003). Lastly, property, capital, and prostitution are believed to be factors that have negatively impacted the practice of heteronormativity in America. Similarly, “queer of color” can be seen to do the same things because it goes against the natural roles that the state has institutionalized among its citizens. Just like the three factors listed above “queer of color” can be seen as a threat to a society and as a vice that aims to taint the idea of a “normal” American.

Ferguson, R. A. (2003). Aberrations in Black. University of Minnesota Press.