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.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

But that's not true for everywhere, in Scotland we have had several cases of women being prosecuted for working together

Good. I hope they continue to do so.

I've shared flats in various places, including Scotland. I never really worried about it

Other people besides prostitutes and punters have rights too. I have lived in traditional Scottish tenements. Those are people's private houses. Why should other residents be expected to put up with a flat being turned into a brothel and punters traipsing up the stairs at all hours of the day and night?

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

If brothels were legal for 2 or 3 women it would not be this cosy little collective which the pro pimp/pro punter/ pro brothel kerper lobby try to suggest. It would be a flat with a rota of women.

I don't want to live on the same common stair as a brothel. I really don't care if Gaye comes back and calls me a nimby.

[LauraLee76]

Lass - No-one wants to live right next door to anti social behaviour, that's a given. In my experience though, working flats are just that, not party central. It's in our best interests to be discreet, we don't want to be thrown out and have nowhere to work from.

As for clients traipsing up and down the stairs all day, I wish lol! Footfall is not as heavy as you think at all and I have to say, in the last flat I shared, the students upstairs were ten times worse than any sex worker I've ever met, they just never stfu.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

I don't want to bump into your "customers" I have a couple rental flats. I would evict any tenant I discovered working as a prostitute.

[LauraLee76]

That's your choice, they're your flats. But any flat or hotel room I have ever used for work, I have treated with the utmost of respect. It's not a viper's nest of depravity.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

You are not using it with the "utmost respect" A flat is leased to you as a private house. You have no right to turn some one else's house into a brothel.

[LauraLee76]

Well, there are some landlords who welcome an immaculately tidy woman who is quiet and pays her rent every month without fail.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

I see you and Gaye share the idea that money makes it all fine then. Bit of a contradiction there- on the one hand you and she are bleating on about being a prostitute may be the only resort for a desperate woman and that society should make it easier for you prostitutes to be prostitutes. On the other hand you are selling yourself as the ideal tenant because of the steady income.

[LauraLee76]

I was talking about myself personally, not every sex worker. Again, I acknowledge my privilege, there are many sex workers in far worse circumstances.

[VestalVirgin]

With regards to the system failing, what we should be looking at are the driving forces which push vulnerable people into the sex trade in the first place. So that's poverty, drug addiction, marital breakdowns etc. and ask ourselves how best we can make those situations better.

I agree. I also agree about making prostitution safer. The Nordic Model seems to be the perfect approach for that.

As for your "customers", that is not about them being too loud, that's about them being men who buy women. I would not like to meet such men on the stairs of a house I live in - nor anywhere else.

I mean, considering that a whopping 30% of US university students are rapists in their dirty little hearts (unless that one university the study too its sample from whas somehow worse than others), you might have a point that the students upstairs weren't much better, if they were fratboys, maybe they were as bad.
The difference is that one doesn't know for sure what kind of person a random visitor to some students' flat is.

Well, there are some landlords who welcome an immaculately tidy woman who is quiet and pays her rent every month without fail.

All landlords like this. The problem isn't you, the problem is your "visitors".

With the Nordic Model, this would be less of a problem, as they would have as much an interest as you in keeping it secret why they are there.

Legalisation after the German model would be a catastrophe.

@sixinabed: No, it really doesn't make sense to call three prostituted women sharing a flat a brothel (my definition of that requires a pimp) nor do some other laws that technically allow brothels as long as there are no condoms in the rooms.

I'm for the Nordic Model. Prostituted women can do what they like, for all I care. I don't have a problem with them, I have a problem with men whose mindset is that women's bodies are for sale.

[MatthiasLehmann]

As Laura said above, decriminalisation doesn’t remove laws to prosecute criminal acts. Maybe it’s that the prefix “de” confuses people. All exploitative practices should and would remain criminalised. One doesn’t need extra legislation to prosecute rape. Rape or facilitating the rape of another person is a crime and if a person financially benefits from it on top of that, additional charges should certainly be added, just like when someone kills someone and charges are added if the murder was committed with particular motives, e.g. for financial gain or out of hate for a particular group.

The policy Amnesty is proposing calls for laws to be re-focused to tackle acts of exploitation, abuse and human trafficking, rather than having catch-all offences that criminalise sex workers, their clients and non-exploitative third parties. This also means that businesses facilitating sex work fall under all sorts of regulations like any other businesses, so the repeated claims made by opponents that full decriminalisation would give those businesses a carte blanch are incorrect.

As for Germany, it is true that the situation is not good as it is, but that’s because of zoning laws, bad practices by the police in many jurisdictions, and the continued stigmatisation of sex workers that authorities have done pretty little to do anything against. On the contrary, many politicians have consistently misinformed the public with disproven claims or inaccurate data, thus contributing to the prejudices among the German public.

Speaking of Germany: the police there has very high clearance rates of crimes against sexual self-determination (rape and sexual coercion) and against life (murder and manslaughter), the former consistently above 80%, the latter above 95% (BKA data from 2008 to 2014).

Re: MassiveStrumpet

I cannot speak for Gayle but to summarise her view as “the most vulnerable ought to be able to fall back on sex work because the system has failed them” seems unfair to me. Whenever I’ve talked with her or read her comments, she never gave me the impression that she wanted to solve poverty and inequality in such a way, on the contrary. But she consistently argued, and I agree, that the solution cannot be to take away that option from people whose existence is already under threat. To leave people that option does not mean one doesn’t want to see inequality addressed, including gender inequality, or austerity measures reversed or that one believes men are entitled to buy sex from women. It just means that if you were to take away that option at all, and I am not suggesting you should, then you ought to be able to provide people with other opportunities, and those opportunities should not to be limited to writing “My life as a prostituted woman”-type books and being rolled out at as survivor at panel discussions. (Doesn’t mean people shouldn’t write or talk about their experiences but they should only do so out of their own free will and have access to mental health services to prevent re-traumatisation where necessary.)

Re: LassWiTheDelicateAir

There are plenty of nuisances if you live in a city. If clients of sex workers cause noise at all hours of the day and night, that’s of course unacceptable, but that goes for any disturbances of that kind. Would I like the patrons of the pub nearby to keep it down at night when they pass by my house? Yes, I would. But I’m not calling for anyone to shut down the pub. If anything, I’d either talk to the manager at the pub myself – we live in communities, one can actually talk to each other – or if that doesn’t help, I could contact local authorities to take care of the matter. Whether it’s someone drunk or someone who just paid for sex – if I wake up at night, I don’t care what they did before, I just care about not being able to sleep because they are noisy.

By the way, community research in Berlin has found that more often than not, local residents’ experiences were blown out of all proportions, at least where noise was concerned. Sometimes, they were still upset about a single episode that happened years ago. That particular area was a street where (mostly migrant) street-based sex workers work and the more serious problem there was littering. The answers to that aren’t zoning laws or outright prohibition but more outreach and more waste collection. More outreach especially because the women working in that street don’t necessarily stay for all that long, meaning that certain messages need to be put across regularly, and certainly not only to sex workers but also to their clients in the area. But again, no special legislation is necessary for that. Littering is already an administrative offence in most places, so while I’m not happy if sex workers receive fines, especially not those with already lower incomes, anyone caught littering runs the risk of receiving one, so it surely is better to invest the money in outreach (incl. police liaison officers) rather than only considering punitive measures which detrimentally affects the relationship between sex workers and the police.

Frankly, most often when I hear or read those complaints, it seems that the underlying prejudice against people buying or selling sex adds to the anger, and that’s unfair, in my opinion. Noise is noise, it’s not louder because someone paid for sex before he made noise, so yeah, as Laura said, young folks can be just as noisy or even noisier, and while I like the retired carpenter living upstairs from me, whatever he does in his apartment surely isn’t quiet. What people do in their apartments is nobody’s business, unless it’s repeatedly causing a nuisance to their neighbours. That’s disrespectful to one's neighbours. Having sex is not. And neither is getting paid for it, because nobody suggests that YOU have to sell sex.

[GayeDalton]

Sixinabed

Gaye why is it that you and Laura Lee don't get on?

I mentioned the public aspect very early on in the thread...as for the rest...I WOULD LOVE TO TELL YOU...seriously...I WOULD CRAWL ON BROKEN GLASS...to spend the whole weekend lavishly explaining ever lurid detail.

BUT...

...sadly...truly sadly...

It would be wrong without Laura Lee's permission, no way round that...and we do not talk, as in "ever" so I cannot ask her, and I think she probably saw your post and would have told you her side already if she considered it to be your business, don't you?

Two things I can tell you:

1. I rather think ye harpies "hijacked the thread"
   
2. There is not even the tiniest bit of unstirred excrement between Laura Lee and myself for you to put a wooden spoon - so if it ain't happening already you can't make it happen.
   

I think that last is kinda "Zen"

[Felascloak]

Having sex is not. And neither is getting paid for it, because nobody suggests that YOU have to sell sex
I notice the deliberate omission of paying for sex there. All your arguments in fact totally omit punters, despite the fact vestal and lass (and I agree with them) spelling out that it's being around punters e.g. men who view women's bodies as a commodity, that they have an issue with.

[Felascloak]

businesses facilitating sex work fall under all sorts of regulations like any other businesses,
I know it's been raised before, but what about health and safety legislation? Should prostitutes have to comply, and wear gloves, possibly goggles and condoms at all times? Or would that be waived as it might spoil the service? No other businesses get to waive these things, even if inconvenient.

[GayeDalton]

MassiveStrumpet

I don't really share Gaye's view that the most vulnerable ought to be able to fall back on sex work because the system has failed them.

Really? What would you rather they do? Beg on the streets? Be institutionalised as perpetual children? Commit suicide? Do you have another suggestion that a vulnerable person RIGHT NOW can have in place and solving problems by midnight?

Matthias is right about my thinking in one very big way, but he missed a nuance. There are some, totally innocent, decent, vulnerable people the system can never be geared to, and I am too much a part of that to be able to deny it to myself to feel warm and fuzzy. For some of those, sex work is the last hope they have. You can solve their problems in your own mind by denying them, but they cannot.

[GayeDalton]

Felascloak
I notice the deliberate omission of paying for sex there. All your arguments in fact totally omit punters

NB Laura Lee and I really do not talk, yet neither of us talk about the clients, funny that, but there is a reason for it, in work terms, we do not see the clients as people. I usually refer to them as "the crop" to wind them up while I wake Radfems up to reality, but, in truth, we see them more as "tasks", as a result they are genuinely not a big part of our thinking, ever, in any context.

Let's lose the silly reasons why people object to them. You have no idea how many sex work clients you pass in the street, share table in crowded cafe with, etc and so on. But there is one (objective - no fingernails and handbags involved) problem with what Laura Lee is saying in terms of decriminalisation, and it need to be addressed before it grows into an elephant in the room

I imagine my mother earned about the same money at Laura Lee's age, so here is the real question, if my mother could be prevented from storing boxes of harmless analglypta in her garage by a bitchy neighbour reporting her, why should Laura Lee work in residential premises with impunity?

It must be looked at for decriminalisation to take place.

[MatthiasLehmann]

Re: Felascloak

“I notice the deliberate omission of paying for sex there.”

I wrote above that decriminalising sex work does not mean “one believes men are entitled to buy sex from women”. How is that omitting people who are paying for sex? Loud and clear: nobody is entitled to buy sex. People should only be able to pay someone for sex who consents to being paid for sex.

“what about health and safety legislation?”

Health and safety requirements

Operators of businesses of prostitution must adopt and promote safer sex practices

(1) Every operator of a business of prostitution must—

(a) take all reasonable steps to ensure that no commercial sexual services are provided by a sex worker unless a prophylactic sheath or other appropriate barrier is used if those services involve vaginal, anal, or oral penetration or another activity with a similar or greater risk of acquiring or transmitting sexually transmissible infections; and

(b) take all reasonable steps to give health information (whether oral or written) to sex workers and clients; and

(c) if the person operates a brothel, display health information prominently in that brothel; and

(d) not state or imply that a medical examination of a sex worker means the sex worker is not infected, or likely to be infected, with a sexually transmissible infection; and

(e) take all other reasonable steps to minimise the risk of sex workers or clients acquiring or transmitting sexually transmissible infections.

(2) Every person who contravenes subsection (1) commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $10,000. (3) The obligations in this section apply only in relation to commercial sexual services provided for the business and to sex workers and clients in connection with those services. (4) In this section, health information means information on safer sex practices and on services for the prevention and treatment of sexually transmissible infections. Section 8(2): amended, on 1 July 2013, by section 413 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 (2011 No 81).

Source: New Zealand Prostitution Reforms Act of 2003 www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2003/0028/latest/DLM197853.html?search=sw_096be8ed812df204_health_25_se&p=1&sr=2

[GayeDalton]

Anyway...Aleppo is under full siege, with things being thrown from helicopters at innocent children that I would not throw at Julie Bindel so I am all out of time for harpy baiting.

(In case you are wondering Syria is riddled with citizen journalists that a handful of brave, supersmart people have trained to world class standards, anything, anyone can do to amplify those voices may save lives.)

Hope y'all enjoyed it, you sure as heck showed yourselves up for what you are over and over...

You have the floor Laura Lee.

Bye

[Felascloak]

gaye it's totally understandable how you view clients. It was not aimed at you but at matthias and his "having sex" comments - punters are a massive part of prostitution and I get fed up of all the focus being on the women. In my view its mens attitudes that are the problem and yet it's kind of brushed under the carpet.

[Felascloak]

matthias thanks for the wall of text. It proves my point - NZ regulations for prostitutes are considerably more relaxed than UK regulations for professionals coming into contact with body fluid. As usual women can have some extra risk for mens rights to sex. That's the whole crux of the problrm

[GayeDalton]

Felascloak

I get fed up of all the focus being on the women. In my view its mens attitudes that are the problem and yet it's kind of brushed under the carpet.

But the women are the only parties that count, because, at best, sex work is their livelihood, the way they pay bills, at worst it is their last lifeline...for men it is just entertainment.

Clients would be perfectly ok without sex workers...but sex workers would be in serious trouble without clients.

Now there is a tectonic shift for you...but it's true, sex workers need clients more than clients need them with ridiculously few exceptions.

Whichever direction you attack the sex industry from you are only going to hurt the sex workers in any serious way...so why attack it at all?

If a guy is obnoxious in some way he is going to be obnoxious whether he can pay a sex worker or not.

Commodification? Am I the only person who has ever been to a night club? Hordes of young men turn out JUST to use a woman for a one night stand that she would never want if it was explained honestly. THAT is degrading and traumatic...and too many guys playing feck 'em and dump 'em in succession nearly drove me to suicide more than once...long before I was ever a sex worker.

You think "sending a message" that it is wrong to pay for sex will stop 'em seeing women as fecktoys? Why? They think it's wrong to pay for sex too...in a different way you won't like.

[Felascloak]

gaye how does a society tackle the night club culture that you describe if at the same time it indicates its ok for men to purchase sex? It's all part of the same thing - that some men believe they are entitled to sex. I think tackling prostitution is part of a bigger picture about tackling misogyny and male sexual entitlement in society generally.
Yes changing attitudes will decrease demand for prostitutes business. But in my opinion that's a good thing.
You can't have this argument both ways. You can't say prostitution is a valid employment choice for women, like any other, then complain that legislation might reduce demand and that's unfair on prostitutes who have no choice in their employment.

[GayeDalton]

Felascloak

(In case you were wonder, NO WAY did I have advance warning on "Monty Python's Flying Junta" that kicked off about 5 minutes after I signed off!)

First:
You can't say prostitution is a valid employment choice for women, like any other, then complain that legislation might reduce demand and that's unfair on prostitutes who have no choice in their employment.

Of course you can, in fact it would be a pretty obvious thing to say about ANY "work to live" in the current economic climate. A lot of people have taken jobs that they hate with EVERY FIBRE OF THEIR BEING, out of the same desperation that drives a lot of sex workers. But there is actually another level whereby destroying the market sex workers depend on will thrust some women who chose sex work freely into the position of having no options in the current climate.

But the killer is that I have never said sex work was "a job like any other", for one thing I always see it as the self employment it is, and for another I file it in a special category with mortuary work, high rise window cleaning, coal mining, demolition that some people can thrive on and some people could not do with a gun held to the head.

how does a society tackle the night club culture that you describe if at the same time it indicates its ok for men to purchase sex?

Easy...the two attitudes are diametrically opposite. Sex work clients do not feel "entitled to sex" (that is a complete myth that was cooked up from whole nonsense) that is why they accept that they must pay for it. (Such comments on "the invisible men" that are not helpfully written for them by abolitionists, are written by what the Irish would term a small group of gobshites, they are a tiny minority, and they are always with us, pretty much everywhere in some form. For some of them reviews like that ARE a fetish, remember, fetish is ALWAYS about barriers and depersonalisation...holding at arm's length, not close.).

For the nightclub predators to give ANYTHING (including a drink) in return for the sex they plan to take is a small failure, and not the objective at all.

I was always stunned by how much different my clients were to the feck 'em and dump 'em brigade. A lot of them actually DO fixate on developing a real relationship and have to be discouraged, but you do come out of sex work absolutely spoiled for men that want to relate to you and it takes some adjusting to "feck 'em and dump 'em".

I used go out clubbing after I left sex work, and every time some guy homed in on me I wound up thinking "I could have more respect, better conversation AND get paid for it down the road".

If a man want impersonal sex that (let's be real) women seldom want, I believe he OUGHT to find a sex worker and pay for it. That way everybody gets something out of it.

Sadly I don't think there is much you can do about the feck 'em and dump 'em brigade until at least after somebody cures the racism, football hooliganism and dangerous driving they also like to express themselves through.

You learn a LOT about men as a sex worker, and real feminists should be desperate to pick our brains on that instead of listening to unrelieved BS and moral panic.

[Felascloak]

I'm thinking about what you say, on one hand I agree but on the other I think doing the job probably requires a certain level of denial about precisely what you are doing and with who.
On one hand I hear that punters are men like any other. But then in this kind of conversation it's always raised that somehow paying for sex is more honest than picking someone up or having a relationship (I've heard men on radio phone ins saying that). And it basically to me boils down to men feeling entitled to sex, either through paying for it or through manipulation of women.
I think a more honest option would be to be upfront (plenty of women are fine with casual sex) or wank.
I think to choose to be a prostitute you must also buy into the whole male "need" for sex.