The greens and prostitutes

In that guardian article she goes on to say

"It seems a pretty lame preoccupation when there are still eight countries in the world where a woman can legally be put to death for adultery."

Well it makes a change from "but what about FGM!"

Another thing about Rachel Moran - I think some of the people casting doubt on her (and there have been quite a lot) are not doing it just to discredit Rachel Moran personally, but to signal to other survivors what will happen to them if they speak up: they will be called liars, etc, and people will seek to discredit them, too.

Yes, I agree that we should not disbelieve women unless given very compelling evidence. I do believe Brooke Magnati - I also think she's a dickhead. The two are not mutually exclusive. Not only because of her writing on prostitution, but also because she doesn't even come close to qualifying as a feminist. See for instance this shit nugget:

"Genuinely. I've tried to give a shit about maternity leave and who does the housework, and all I can come up with is, if your job doesn't give you as much time off as you want, suck it up or get another job. If your partner doesn't do the washing-up, same."
www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/10/brooke-magnanti-belle-de-jour

A view that would go down like cold sick on Mn, right?

Having said this, I think we should be very wary of anyone who has worked as a pimp seeking to speak for prostituted women. This happens, e.g. this guy who is very prominent in the International Union of Sew Workers...
www.theguardian.com/profile/douglas-fox
why did the guardian even give him the time of day???

and there are more discussed here - prostitutionresearch.com/pre_blog/2012/05/23/pimps_will_be_pimps_whether_ma/

Well put, Flora.

I think the claims against Rachel Moran are ridiculous. She uses her real name and her face is well known. If she had been working in a call centre or going to university during the period she is discussing, there would be former co-workers or flat-sharers popping up to say so.

Still There's no agonising about devising a system whereby children should still be able to acquire illegal fags and booze.

I don't think most feminists are doing this, in general anyway. Theoretically, I would have no objection to it being illegal to sell sex with defences for women who are or have been abused, coerced, are addicts or suffer extreme poverty (i.e. only applicable to "Happy Hookers"). However in practice, that would expose the victimised women to a court process that is generally not favourable to them and which they can't handle. Also, a lot of women coerced by "lover boy" pimps don't recognise the abuse.

I like the analogy with loan sharking - it is illegal to be a loan shark lender but not to be a borrower. That recognises that the consent of the borrower is constrained and subject to abuse.

I think choosing to be a "Happy Hooker" is not a feminist choice (with the acknowledgement that I also have made "not feminist" choices in my own life). I have no problem with this commercial opportunity being removed for the benefit of those women who are suffering in prostitution and for the broader benefit of women in society.

It would probably be tempting to wave away anything I say

I don't want to do that! We aren't going to get anywhere by skewing the evidence in any direction - we need everyone's voices in here to be heard if we are going to make decisions on this, and as I said, I am grateful that you have been willing to come here and talk.

That also means that I don't think it's helpful to cast doubt on Rachel Moran and other survivors. (I've seen "she's not a sex worker" said against other survivors, too, though I can't remember specifics.) As it happens, I do genuinely accept Rachel Moran's account of her own experiences - but even if I had private doubts, I would not want to contribute to the prevailing culture of not believing abuse survivors. And that is what I think all this public doubt-casting on Rachel Moran's account amounts to - telling a survivor of abuse that it didn't happen, she's a liar, etc etc. This is too often the standard response (from all kinds of people, including the authorities) to abuse survivors, and I don't think that any woman in this debate should be adding to it.

#IBelieveHer

I don't really have an opinion of Dr. Brooke Magnanti, either. I've only read very small bits of her blog and have never read her book. Ive never evens watched the TV show. I do think she has plenty to back up her story (I read a long and sort of ranty blog post where she refutes claims by someone or other and seems to have a convincing argument) and other prostitutes I know say that her experience sounds very familiar to their own.

As to why someone would lie about any such thing, I don't know but I do know such things are possible. There are definitely misery peddlers of all sorts, and some of them have been exposed as frauds. It seems that their chief motivation is sympathy or just attention. I have no way of knowing that Rachel Moran is one of those and I would agree that the ordinary correct thing to do is to take people at their word. I just know that she says things that sound bizarre to me. Her pinned tweet is "I answered phones in enough brothels 2 know the most common questions is always "What is the youngest girl you've got?"" While I have never been a teenager working the street I have answered plenty of brothel telephones and never been asked who the youngest girl on the rota was. The bustiest girl, yes. Never the youngest, to my memory.

Since in a heated debate where personal testimony is often key, the discrediting of the opposition on a personal level is a very common tactic and while it may sometimes be useful (if the person is a demonstrable fraud) I think it mostly only makes the entire discourse toxic and useless.

It hasn't happened to me personally, but I know that one way the voices of the Happy Hookers is attacked is to claim that we are actually pimps in disguise or pawns of pimps. As far as I know, everyone who spoke at the conference I went to who claimed to be a prostitute was someone like me (I know their work identities and have seen their AW profiles) Everyone else there seemed to be an outreach worker, a public servant (politician, prosecutor, law enforcement), or an academic. I have heard accusations that some of the voices on our side of the debate are the voices of pimps but I don't know if they mean someone in particular or if they're just generally discrediting in a vague way.

It would probably be tempting to wave away anything I say by saying either that I am being put up to it by someone controlling me or that I am deluded and don't know my own mind. That sort of accusation would probably make me angry and I would struggle to maintain my civility and composure. And so the debate would suffer from that.

I don't think laws against stripping in Saudi are the key issue, bumble...

www.theweek.co.uk/middle-east/60339/eleven-things-women-in-saudi-arabia-cant-do

but there are also quite a few that express worry that she is not there willingly.

KimCar I've only seen extracts from punternet-type websites, but all the reviews I have seen of men expressing this, they've fucked the woman anyway. This doesn't really improve my opinion of them.

I've also seen the accusations against Rachel Moran, and they don't seem to make sense to me, either in terms of motivation or outcome. I've also seen the same sort of accusations against Brooke Magnanti (ie that she made it up). Do you have any opinion on those?

I don't know if there's any way we can prove anyone's bona fides when talking about this, so as wobbly a proposition as it is, I think the only thing we can do is take people in good faith. The alternative is a sanctioned form of "I don't believe her" in order to push one political viewpoint over another by discrediting the source, and that is really not the road any of us should be going down.

#IBelieveHer

I think it was any man who ever paid or sex, regardless of where it was bought, who was a UK citizen.
My maths is a bit rusty but with a population of 60mil, roughly half being men, 1/8 should be around the 4mil mark. So are we to believe most punters leave the country to buy sex? Not doing the business on their own front door, so to speak? If so does that raise political issues?

I don't have links to hand but it sounds about right. The key word there is admitted -as I think many men would still not admit to it.

Yes I agree that the no holes barred is abhorrent but if it is to be done then adding value to it rather than allowing prices to be reduced by using women who cannot leave is not only confounding the problem but creating more in store for the future.

Lion ... the recent report I presume you are referring to stated that it found that around 11% of the men surveyed admitted to having paid for sex in their lifetime, and 4% admitted to having paid for sex in the last five years.

oh, and SE Asia, where very young girls are available to sweaty UK men for pennies.

Lion... don't those figures also include men who admit to sex tourism? Prague is the hot spot for it at the minute, I believe. Lots of poor women from Eastern Europe who have to let men do whatever they please to them for a pittance. And by poor, I mean economically.

I have no idea, lion, but it does make me think even more that at least the Green Party are recognising there's a real problem.

But at the same time we agree men being able to barter a body to £35 an hour no holes barred is repellent?

The "no holds barred" bit is the repellent bit; the price is irrelevant. People have the right to bodily autonomy. If the prostitute is forced to do something against their will, then the punter is guilty of assault and/or rape and should be held accountable.

Sorry saw yr last post after posted that. I thought the recent news reported that 1 in 8 men in UK admitted to paying for sex...so the figures posted earlier seem a little off and far more women must be involved than just over 1mil. Surely this points to abuse amount of trafficking and unreported prostitution or are they all meant to have gone to Amsterdam?

I would love to see a world where prostitution, stripping, lap dancing were seen as being as abhorrent and unacceptable as drink driving or forcing others to put up with passive smoking.

You mean like Saudi Arabia? Or maybe you would prefer the Catholic version of Ireland in the 1930's? What would you do with all the women who failed to live up to your high moral standards?

But at the same time we agree men being able to barter a body to £35 an hour no holes barred is repellent? So surely if you consider legalised prostitution the way to keep a modicum of respect is to keep prices high and keep the product slightly revered?

However, if you tried to make that argument in order to ban alcohol I wouldn't necessarily agree, because I like wine most people I know use alcohol safely, responsibly without causing significant harm to themselves or others.

That's why I wanted to know what proportion of prostitutes are Happy Hookers compared to how many are being exploited. If it were the case that the vast majority happy with their career choice, I'd be more inclined towards legalisation.

lion, I'm making a more general point. We restrict personal freedoms in law in order to protect other individuals, and society as a whole. It is possible to argue that all laws restrict personal freedoms. Which is why the "personal freedom is paramount" and "unlimited freedom of speech" arguments don't wash with me.

In this case, I personally am prepared to accept limits on Happy Hookers in order to protect other individuals and society as a whole. Hence I'm not pro-legalisation of prostitution.

I do think that some women believe I should step away so as to make for a better society.

While I would not be utterly destitute in another job, there is no way I could make the sort of money I do.

There are certainly things I would NOT do simply because I think they are wrong. But, I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. Perhaps in some indirect, theoretical way I am participating in something that isn't great (be that sexism or capitalism or whatever) but this is the situation I have in the culture I live in and I consider myself lucky to have the ability to do this without feeling bad about it.