Guest post: "As sex workers, our lives depend on decriminalisation"

[JosephineMumsnet]

I was 19 years old when I made the decision to sell sex. An unorthodox choice, certainly, but one which helped me get through university without crippling debt, and later, a choice which would allow me to return to university as a single parent and complete my second degree. Please don't fall into the trap of assuming that because I'm a white, middle-class, educated woman I can't possibly understand the abject misery that is sometimes seen in our industry. I stood on Burlington Road in Dublin in the dead of winter, often drunk or out of my head on cocaine, or both, selling sex at £30 a time. That's not privileged. Now, with over 20 years behind me, I can finally put that experience to use, and educate people about the realities of our industry, and what would make us safer.

As the debate around the sex industry gathers steam, there are two schools of thought. Punish the punters by making it illegal to purchase sex, or decriminalise the laws around sex work. Let's look at both.

The law that criminalises the punter was introduced in Sweden in 1999 and has been an abject failure. Its aim was to reduce prostitution by reducing 'demand', but the Swedish government admits there has been no change to the number of buyers, or sellers. So what has changed? Violence against sex workers has increased sharply, with police targeting their homes to arrest buyers, often resulting in their being made homeless. The most vulnerable sex workers on the streets cannot be reached by outreach services, to facilitate condom distribution or needle exchange, as they need to work away from police detection. Sex workers are refusing to report violence to police, as they know they place themselves at risk from the very people supposed to protect them. Stigma has increased, with sex workers in both Sweden and Norway reporting having their children removed, and deportation of migrant sex workers is rife.

One of the most infuriating strands to the current feminist discourse around sex work is the assertion that we are abused, or even raped, every time we sell sex. That statement is injurious and grossly insulting to those who have survived abuse and rape, and it also strips sex workers of our agency. As much as we campaign for the right to say 'yes', we absolutely reserve the right to say 'no'. I detest the use of the word 'empowerment' in any debate on sex work. My job is no more empowering than anyone else's; it allows me to support my family and pay my bills. But as a community, there is no doubt that we are more empowered to say 'no' when we are permitted to work together for safety.

Under current legislation, and even more so under the Swedish model, sex workers are not permitted to work more than one to a premises. If I ask a friend to share an apartment with me so I feel safer in accepting visiting clients, we can be arrested and charged with 'pimping' from each other. That practice is commonplace. As cash, mobile phones and laptops are often removed as 'evidence', the women concerned are left with nothing but a criminal record, simply for wishing to stay safe.

So what is decriminalisation? Not to be confused with legalisation, it refers to the removal of all criminal prohibitions and penalties on sex work. In doing so, it protects the human rights of sex workers, as acknowledged by WHO, UNAIDS, The Lancet and more recently, Amnesty International.

Decriminalisation allows us to work together for safety, which is crucial. Decriminalisation also makes it easier to access justice and support services, and facilitates a better response to true exploitation in the industry. When the police work with us, not against us, we are best placed to identify and report others in danger.

On June 1 2015, the Northern Irish Assembly made it illegal to purchase sex. I have launched a High Court challenge to that law and will take it to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. You may not like or be comfortable with the exchange of sex for money and that's fine - that's not what this debate is about. It's about our right to safety in the workplace. 154 sex workers have been murdered since 1990. We ask for your support for decriminalisation. Our lives depend on it.

Read Kat Banyard's post here.

When I used to drive past the saunas in Bristol I would always see smack head prostitutes come out never normal women who have "chosen" that work. Mmmmm. Brothels.

Zeraeph - Mine - derivative of "seraph" my original email and ID - always clearly identified except on Wikipedia
Xereaphia - Mine - Zeraeph was already taken - always clearly identified
mechanima - Still my main email and twitter log in - always clearly identified
Blitzen - My band name at mp3.com and matching (recently defunct) email publicly anonymous privately always clearly identified
Susiejo - Woman I know from US
Ooomaa/Echo/Porphyria - Woman from Texas who stalked me (and a few others) for years, pm me if you want name them you can track her down to use as a weapon and inherit a WORLD of grief as, if she is still alive (no idea) she stalks everyone.
RebornBitch/Lor - No idea
Lindystar - No idea
Omicah - No idea
SkittishKitten - No idea
Clovergarlic - A private joke with someone I ain't gonna name
Seva_d - A review of a worthwhile work (so worthwhile I can't remember what it was) that would attract trolling for above if under my own name
GD - GEE WHIZ I CANNOT IMAGINE WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN USING MY INITIALS facepalm

("GD" Is how I sign of when I am really, REALLY pissed off)

So anyway, is Thereal a family name or did your parents get it out of a book?

Felascloak

if a man has paid to use another persons body for sex he has bought them. And sex is not a service - a masseuse decides how he/she will massage their customer. In prostitution the buyer decides, as all those disappointed punters on the invisible man project show.

Not for you to say (unless, of course, it is your body). I think you might learn a lot more about sex work by listening to sex workers than but reading abolitionist web sites.

I want a situation where buying sexual services from anyone is seen in that light.

...and you don't care of all the people who count on sexual services die slowly in torment as log as you get that.

Gotcha, crystal clear.

You are entitled to your opinion, but it's hardly a good basis for legislation.

So again, for the women 'dying slowly in torment', the solution is to legislate for a sticking plaster, not attempt to solve the actual issue?

I'd understand if you were coming from 'women need to do this', but you are coming from 'the government need to do this' and there are better things they can do!

Making some massive generalisations there Gaye. I've never read an abolitionist website In my life. I don't even know what abolitionists are but I'm pretty sure I'm not one.

Maybe you could answer my points about child abuse and heroin rather than accuse me of wanting people to die in torment.

BeyondBeyondBeyondBeyondBeyond

So again, for the women 'dying slowly in torment', the solution is to legislate for a sticking plaster, not attempt to solve the actual issue?

To repeat myself a bit, a bird in the hand is worth a whole flock of imaginary bluebirds somewhere over the rainbow.

Sex work is that bird in the hand, and you do not snatch the bird out of somebody else's hand unless there is ALREADY something else to put in it's place. I am not sure why that is so hard to accept.

I have been watching (and sometimes campaigning) on a variety of loosely related social issues for decades, only to see them, overall, get considerably worse, not better.

Apart from that the political pendulum is still swinging to the right in the Europe and US (bringing a lot of nasty stuff with it like racism) and until it swings quite a long way back things will only get much, much worse. What is happening to disabled people in the UK is half past terrifying (yup I have campaigned on that issue too when there is something I can achieve)

So you make sure the bird in someone else's hand is as safe and comfortable as possible and hope to God nothing else makes it take flight for the forseeable future...or you are responsible for someone else not having a future.

(Remember, sex work is not a lot of use without a market)

Years ago I used hope, even half believe that when people realised the truth they would see what so many sex workers are owed for the callous disregard and ignorance that put them in that position, but what is happening now is a cruel sick joke, with organisations that refuse to treat sex workers as autonomous adult human beings abusing them as political capital behind a mask of very fake pity.

Incidentally, if things had gone the way I believed they might I still wouldn't be campaigning for the abolition of sex work because I believe in letting other adults make their own decisions.

I always stand up for choice and never for control.

Felascloak

You quote abolitionist websites by TELEPATHY...that's impressive.

I answered your point, it just wasn't an answer that suited you.

Who dies slowly in torment because they had counted on sexual services? The men who have blue balls?

No one suggests that prostitution should be banned. Nordic model only criminalizes punters.

And many prostituted women die slowly in torment because they were attacked by men, who could do so with impunity because buying women is legal. So there is that.

Your arguing reminds me of "Third world needs sweat shops or the poverty would be even worse" theories. Which are proven to be untrue. (Turns out, the payment of the workers actually only makes a difference between one and two euro in the final price, and the rest is what you pay for expensive brands.)

Besides, you try to, at the same time, paint women in prostitution as poor victims in need of help, but then say the government should not help them. Which one? Either they are poor and desolate and need the punters' money, in which case they also need the government's help ... or they don't, in which case they harm ALL WOMEN for their own personal gain, in which case that should be illegal.

I haven't quoted any websites

Ok I see you did kind of respond to my point about heroin
So you are saying if heroin is given away free it is harmless, it is only when you introduce money into the equation that it causes misery? Because that is what you are saying about sex.
Only if you believe sex between prostitute and client is directly comparable to sex as part of a relationship (even a casual one). Most people don't believe this, hence why most people don't buy or sell sex.
My main point was farmers in a very poor part of the world rely economically on heroin we still enforce activity against the drugs trade. Your point that sex workers in Thailand rely economically on the sex trade so we shouldn't take action against it could be made.
You know this though so you are being very disingenuous and setting straw men up all over the place.

I

Prostitution is a demand led business. The more men buying sex is normalised, the more demand increases. When demand increases, supply of product has to increase which leads to Romeo pimps, drug pusher pimps and pimps luring young girls from villages. This is how Germany ended up with girls living in mega brothels working all hours and not going outside rather than the idealistic women's collectives. People like Laura Lee are not the people who would be a significant force in a decriminalised sex industry. It's mind boggling that anyone could look at what's going on in Germany and think that is a desirable situation.

VestalVirgin

Who dies slowly in torment because they had counted on sexual services? The men who have blue balls?

No hun, it was a typo should have been " because they had counted on sexual services for an income"

No one suggests that prostitution should be banned. Nordic model only criminalizes punters.

You can't make money without a market.

FloraFox

Prostitution is a demand led business.

So is every business...women's demand for money and men's demand for casual, no strings sex...

...and as the market is close to saturation most of the time, and way past it in recession the more demand, the more sex workers benefit.

VestalVirgin

Your arguing reminds me of "Third world needs sweat shops or the poverty would be even worse" theories. Which are proven to be untrue. (Turns out, the payment of the workers actually only makes a difference between one and two euro in the final price, and the rest is what you pay for expensive brands.)

See there you go AGAIN...it's all about you...not one single thought for what the people who are desperate enough to work in sweat shops with no work at all...I guess you are happy as long as they starve quietly? Maybe they don't agree.

mymythbuster.wordpress.com/myth-children-would-rather-starve-than-work-in-a-sweat-shop/

You do know that many of the women selling sex in the far east are escaping sex shops? And most of the women "rescued and rehabilitated" are forced to work in them (and I do mean actively forced).

Couldn't care less could you?

Wow Posie I am impressed-you can spot a crack-head coming out of a Sauna in Bristol from a moving car (post of Tue 12-Jul-16 13:32:28) perhaps you could get a job with airport security?

It’s especially odd since the Bristol Saunas were well surveyed and the health and drug use of women working in 13 of the 15 Saunas were examined (Jeal N & Salisbury C 2007 Health needs and service use of parlour-based prostitutes compared with street-based prostitutes: a cross-sectional survey BJOG 114, 875-881 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-0528.2007.01379.x/full ) and very few Sauna workers used drugs. (and incidentally the mean age of entry into prostitution was 23.1years (not 12 as you claimed in an earlier post))

But I am sure you can tell more form a moving car than experienced researchers actually interviewing and testing prostitutes. Or maybe things have changed between the survey dates and the time of you wonderful X-ray vision?

Felascloak

My main point was farmers in a very poor part of the world rely economically on heroin we still enforce activity against the drugs trade. Your point that sex workers in Thailand rely economically on the sex trade so we shouldn't take action against it could be made.

...but my second point that heroin is equally harmful whether paid for or free and sex it not knock that one out of the water...

But you are darn right those farmers WE encouraged to grown opium poppies in the first place in order to subdue China are getting one hell of a raw deal as collateral damage...

Tangoman, perhaps you've never lived in a city where traffic is slow....
We call it rush hour, it's where lots of lots of cars build up and can't drive fast. It's a funny phrase, I know. But I would be sat in a queue of traffic waiting at the traffic lights near city centre sauna and another establishment where girls/womens self esteem goes to evaporate. Just down the road from that was One25, that's a charity that help street workers... you may have seen it on Secret Millionaire.

Fancy being so invested in the prostitution of women and aligning yourself with the self confessed narcissist Gaye.

Anyway.

In prostitution, women are the supply, not the demand.

One25 is the only organisation in Bristol specifically supporting street sex-working women. These women are amongst our city’s poorest and most vulnerable individuals. Each year we help around 230 women. 150 of whom are street sex-working.
Most of the women we see on the streets are homeless, acutely malnourished and addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, because of this their safety and health is neglected. We see women who are deeply traumatised – from childhood abuse and the violence of life on the streets. Each year our beneficiaries report many violent attacks against them. Yet these courageous women show tremendous skills and potential: in their supportive peer relationships, their creativity and humour and their survival.
Of the 150 women sex-working on the streets:
• 99% are addicted to one or more Class A drugs and/or alcohol: average age of first use was 13 years old
• All suffer from chronic ill health and half suffer from acute ill health (requiring immediate medical attention)*
• 80% experience homelessness within any given year
• 92% suffer from malnutrition
• Women in street prostitution are 12 times more likely to be murdered than the normal rate for all women in the same age group in the UK*
Of all the women we support:
• 100% have reported childhood abuse or neglect
• 38% have been through fostering or children’s homes*
• 32% left school at 14 or younger and only 41% have any qualifications
• Their age range is 18-55
Jeal, N and Salisbury, C (2004) Self reported experiences of health services among street based prostitutes’ British Medical Journal 65 pp 123. [Based on One25’s service users]

• Jeal, N and Salisbury, C (2007) Health needs of parlour based prostitutes compared with street based prostitutes: a cross sectional survey’ International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 114 pp875-881. [Based on One25’s service users] One25’s own stats* Salfati, C. G. (2009) Prostitute Homicide: An Overview of the Literature and Comparison to Sexual and Non-Sexual Female Victim Homicide, pp. 51-68. In D. Canter, M. Ioannou, & D. Youngs (Eds.) Safer Sex in the City: The Experience and Management of Street Prostitution

FloraFox

In prostitution, women are the supply, not the demand.

Don't be silly, sex workers are not inanimate objects...WE WANT OUR MONEY!

TheRealPosieParker

the self confessed narcissist Gaye

I BEG your pardon?

What's wrong with calling someone a narcissist Gaye? You do it all the time.

Right Gaye so your opinion is that sex work is a valuable employment to women who need money and punters should be supported too or the market dries up which damages the women who need money. And that because people have sex for free selling it causes no harm to women or society at large.

That is so far away from my own view that we are never going to agree so I am not going to contribute further.