Guest post: "The sex trade can never be made 'safe'"

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

Recent decades have witnessed an unprecedented expansion of the sex trade. During the 1990s the number of UK men who pay for sex almost doubled, between 1997 and 2011 the number of lap dancing clubs increased tenfold, and a recent BBC survey revealed almost a quarter of young people have watched pornography by the time they reach their teens. So what should we do?

Nothing - is the answer implied by common descriptions of the sex trade. If prostitution is "the world's oldest profession" and "will always exist", as the Economist assures us, why bother trying to curb it? If porn is "fantasy", and not "real sex", like the online advice guide for young people The Site bills it, where's the need? And if groups such as Open Society Foundations (OSF) are right and selling sex is simply work - "sex work" - then aren't men who pay for sex just regular consumers, their growth in number no cause for concern?

These relaxed takes on the burgeoning business of prostitution do allow room for a bit of tinkering around the edges, mind you. For instance, governments ought to "[promote] safe working conditions" for women in prostitution, according to OSF. Their policy prescription? So-called 'full decriminalisation'. That involves making brothel-keeping and pimping legal, and removing any specific laws restricting the sex trade's operations. One of their exemplar states - New Zealand - has produced a health and safety guide for brothels.

But responses like these rely on a fatalistic acceptance of continuing demand for the sex trade. They presuppose it can be made safe. And they require us to buy in to the belief that a society that sanctions the sex trade can also be a society committed to securing equality between women and men.

It can't. The sex trade can never be made 'safe'.

At the core of this enterprise is a very simple product concept: a person (usually a man) can pay to sexually access the body of someone (usually a woman) who does not freely want to have sex with him; otherwise he wouldn't have to pay her to be there. This is not a regular consumer transaction, this is sexual abuse. The buyer's disregard for mutuality, and ability to treat another person as a sexual object, are fundamental to the act. It is, as activist and prostitution survivor Diane Martin CBE calls it, "violence against women". Responses to the sex trade which have attempted to skirt over this inherent harm, to sanction it as legitimate business in a bid to quash attendant harms, haven't just failed - they've made it worse.

Germany, which took the decision to legalise prostitution in 2001, is now home to a chain of 'mega-brothels' and a sex trade worth 16 billion euros annually. The result has led Helmut Sporer, Detective Chief Superintendent of the Crimes Squad in Augsburg, to dub his country "the El Dorado for pimps". The Netherlands legalised prostitution in 2000 in a bid to "purge it of criminal peripheral phenomena". Yet in 2008 the national police force reported that between 50%-90% of women in the trade "work involuntarily". Researchers at VU University Amsterdam concluded, "the regulation has hidden the legalised sector from the view of the criminal justice system, while human trafficking still thrives behind the legal façade of a legalised prostitution sector. Brothels can even function as legalised outlets for victims of sex trafficking". Indeed, research shows that countries in which prostitution is completely legal experience significantly higher rates of trafficking.

Demand for the sex trade is not inevitable. The sexist attitudes of entitlement that underpin it can be tackled. But that won't be achieved by state sanctioning this exploitative practice in a hopeless bid to contain the dangers associated with it. Sexual consent is not a commodity; sexual abuse can never be made 'safe'.

If we are serious about wanting equality between women and men, then we have to work to end commercial sexual exploitation. As Diane Martin CBE says, "We should be creating the most hostile environment on both a social and legal level for those who sell, control, exploit, pay for and benefit financially from the sale of the bodies of women". That means adopting 'end demand' measures like the Sex Buyer Law - which criminalises paying for sex but decriminalises selling sex, providing support services for people exploited through prostitution.

Crucially, it also means dispelling myths that provide cover for the industry - and justification for its users. Myths like 'demand is inevitable', 'selling sex is regular work', and 'fully decriminalising the industry makes women safe'. Because without these myths to hide behind, the sexist core of this trade becomes clear - and so does our ability to bring about change.

Pimp State: Sex, Money and the Future of Equality by Kat Banyard is out now (Faber & Faber, £12.99).

Read Laura Lee's post here.

[HelenaDove]

I posted this on the other thread Thought i would put it here too.



I took sex chatline work back in 2001 after being on New Deal/workfare i had a choice I had already done workfare in a charity shop and for my local council for my JSA Then those bastards at Reed/Pelcombe wanted me to do 3 months in a soup factory for my JSA The only PAID job i was being offered was in a sex chatline office so these were the only 2 choices i had therefore i took the chatline job.

Had i got to the sex chatline office after signing off and discovered there was more to it than i had been told at the interview i cant honestly say that i would have said no and gone back to the Job Centre to sign on knowing for a fact that more workfare was awaiting me.



As it turned out i was treated with a bloody sight more respect there than i ever got from workfare providers.

Im on the fence with this I want sex workers to have rights and be protected.

But because i was faced with fuck all chioce FIFTEEN YEARS AGO i could certainly see it happening again now.

[GayeDalton]

Xenophile

That is all complete nonsense and, as such, meaningless to me.

[Thomasisintraining]

Yep Helena. It could definitely happen. Especially with the forceful 'sure it is just another job' that the lobby tries to promote and then doublespeak well we could never force women to take it up like it is not coercive for a woman to have absolutely no other viable choice to feed themselves or their family as is probably the number one reason across the world for prostitution other than of course the university fees reason we hear spouted again and again

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

I despise the way the "it's just another job" lobbyists for pimps and punters always try comparing prostitution to real jobs, such as supermarket work or McDonald's.

They trot out the canard of "well it's better than shelf stacking or burger flipping"

No it isn't. Both those jobs are useful , serve a valid purpose and harm no -one. It's hugely disrespectful to the "shelf stackers", "burger flippers", cleaners and all the other necessary and useful workers.

[GayeDalton]

Thomasisintraining

for a woman to have absolutely no other viable choice to feed themselves or their family as is probably the number one reason across the world for prostitution

What would you prefer they do? Starve? Suicide?

You are not getting it, that is a real situation, and it happens all over the world, in the third world it happens in groups, in the 1st world it happens in isolation, but in every case it is not something you can deal with by "sitting sitting tight and not doing anything to reinforce the patriarchy like selling sex".

Disaster, crisis, catastrophe, on whatever scale, are not dress rehearsals, they are the real thing. Often you get one shot at overcoming them, sometimes you get no shot at all.

You should try it some time. You might learn something.

[LurcioAgain]

I think we have a choice.

Either accept the status quo and campaign for legalised prostitution thus legitimising the idea that there is nothing that can be done about women being disproportionately represented among the poor other than to give a seal of approval to sexual slavery.

Or we campaign for women to have access to the same economic resources as men, campaign for decent social welfare, decent childcare, and the removal of the other obstacles that mean poverty hits women disproportionately, and say loud and proud that we are not going to accept being consigned to the "sex slave class".

Guess what - I choose the latter. Gaye it would seem is happy to choose the former, throwing all women under the bus because she can't be arsed to campaign for real social change. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

(Incidentally you said you'd only ever met one woman coerced into prostitution - I call bullshit on that one. If even I, in my sheltered life, have met and talked to former prostitutes that were coerced into the trade as young teenagers and manipulated with access to heroin, then it bloody well isn't as rare as you're making it out to be.)

[Thomasisintraining]

Gaye you don't live or operate in that environment so you can stop pedalling that story here in the uk snd Ireland.

[GayeDalton]

Or we campaign for women to have access to the same economic resources as men, campaign for decent social welfare, decent childcare, and the removal of the other obstacles that mean poverty hits women disproportionately, and say loud and proud that we are not going to accept being consigned to the "sex slave class".

Women already have the same rights and resources as men.

How long do you think it would take to get all the other things?

It would take 5 years minimum to get back to 2010 levels, and they were not adequate, meanwhile the desperate can all die destitute in the gutter ( which, by the way, is mental, physical and emotional torture for as long as it takes to be over). That is what you want, how sweet of you.

Incidentally you said you'd only ever met one woman coerced into prostitution - I call bullshit on that one.

You can call what you like, it still happens to be true.

Gaye you don't live or operate in that environment so you can stop pedalling that story here in the uk and Ireland.

Actually I have spent most of my life in the environment for very, very real, and a short fall that could happen any minute from it for the rest.

Brexit was my deferred death warrant, as I have known it would be for more than ten years (thats "lie awake all night shaking" style knowing) and I was taking the plunge into self pity at last...when a young Syrian journalist of 25 died, fighting to try and protect the innocent and desperate and I didn't feel I had the right to whinge any more.

But PM me contact details and I will make sure you know where to gleefully pee/dance/whatever on my grave.

[Xenophile]

Gaye, sorry, you don't just get to dismiss people in 140 characters here and then block them. I'm sorry MNHQ didn't explain that this ins't like your usual metier of Twitter.

You have a vested interest in the status quo.

Your answer to credible research is to stick your fingers in your ears and pretend it's not real. Your answer to women's lived experience is to continue to assert that men's right to paid sex is more important than women's right to bodily autonomy. Your answer to facts is to state they have no meaning for you. It's a bit sad really.

[GayeDalton]

Gaye, sorry, you don't just get to dismiss people in 140 characters here and then block them. I'm sorry MNHQ didn't explain that this ins't like your usual metier of Twitter.

I block people when they are talking abolitionist BS learned by rote because I haven't got time for it...I can't identify with their need to prioritise the approval of a dysfunctional group over justice, so if anyone is going to change their mind it will not be me.

When they get to the stage of trying to abuse me into assent on the deepest level they can think of they repel me and make me feel nauseous.

You have a vested interest in the status quo.

Do I? Feel free to explain what that is.

Your answer to credible research is to stick your fingers in your ears and pretend it's not real.

I do not regard fake statistics, guesswork, references that don't check out with the text and bare faced lies as "credible research". Then there is the "reality check" factor...if people are saying things that do not bear the slightest resemblence to anything I have seen in 40 years of knowing sex workers in 4 countries it is reasonable to assume they are invalid without hard proof.

The is not one single piece of hard proof for the cult of abolitionism.

Your answer to women's lived experience is to continue to assert that men's right to paid sex is more important than women's right to bodily autonomy.

That is something I have never said one way or the other...nearest I ever came was here, explaining why I never refer to the men in this - because the women count more.

Doesn't "bodily autonomy" mean I get to choose how I use my body...not you and your women's workshop?

Your answer to facts is to state they have no meaning for you. It's a bit sad really.

No, that's my stock answer to BS - I can never see the point in listening to it...I am not likely to learn anything from something someone made up to manipulate people now, am I? So it just irritates me.

[venusinscorpio]

Gaye. You're just a person, with your own lived experience, but all you have is anecdotes. Other people have different lived experience and different anecdotes.

It's not convincing. Whether statistics and studies are wrong or not, they are generally more convincing to people because they carry an air of authority. Unless they are debunked people will take them in good faith. You'll have to do better than just call them bullshit. Can you prove they are?

Why would people listen to your opinion when they've heard other people who have exited the sex trade say the opposite?

[VestalVirgin]

Women in Germany are regularly forced to take jobs at brothels - just recently read about a case where a woman was asked by the job centre to take a job working at the bar of a brothel.

It is not the same thing as working at a regular bar. The men who come there hate women, want to use women like commodities, and will quite likely treat ALL women working there as whores, regardless of whether this specific woman is the bartender.

I once applied for a job at a video store. Found out that it was an "adult" video store, i.e. porn. Didn't take the job. In retrospect, I am lucky that the person who interviewed me for the job was a woman.

[GayeDalton]

Thomasisintraining

Gaye you don't live or operate in that environment so you can stop pedalling that story here in the uk snd Ireland.

Something just struck me...has it never occurred to you that lots of women DO live and operate in that environment and someone who has been there might actually care about that - enough to want to stop people making their lives worse?

Are all the people you deal with so self centred that you default to not realising people can be any other way?

THAT IS SCARY

[GayeDalton]

venusinscorpio

Gaye. You're just a person, with your own lived experience, but all you have is anecdotes.

Er no...actually I was one of the first people to start digging up evidence
to debunk the now notorious fake abolitionist stats...and even I was appalled by what I found. Statements referenced to statements referenced to statements referenced to sources that said totally different even opposite things to what they were abused to support...

I also use a lot of logic and common sense...

Other people have different lived experience and different anecdotes.

Now we are into the more subjective area of experience and common sense...if you have been a footballer all your life and someone claims to have been a footballer and starts to go on about how dangerous football bats can be, you cannot avoid smelling a rat.

It's not convincing.

So what? It is still true.

Whether statistics and studies are wrong or not, they are generally more convincing to people because they carry an air of authority.

Have to admit I am lazy on that one - someone else usually shows up with real statistics so I leave it to them. But the real valid stats always seem to accord with my experience, logic and common sense.


Unless they are debunked people will take them in good faith.

Are you actually boasting about "selling" BS satistics here?

You'll have to do better than just call them bullshit. Can you prove they are?

Course I can...Queens University Belfast...most recent and formal study, and Jay Levy Sweden easy enough to google (no idea how may links I can put in here)

Why would people listen to your opinion when they've heard other people who have exited the sex trade say the opposite?

They usually do though, don't they?

It's no mystery why, there is a reason for that. The truth has different content to an untruth (whether a lie or a subjective exaggeration or even false memory) people pick up on that on an unconscious level.

[GayeDalton]

VestalVirgin

Women in Germany are regularly forced to take jobs at brothels - just recently read about a case where a woman was asked by the job centre to take a job working at the bar of a brothel.

That gets regularly debunked:
feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/job-seekers-required-to-work-as-prostitutes/

It is not the same thing as working at a regular bar. The men who come there hate women, want to use women like commodities, and will quite likely treat ALL women working there as whores, regardless of whether this specific woman is the bartender.

YOU CAN READ MINDS???

Even so, I do not believe ANYONE should be forced to take a job against their beliefs...let's take a simpler example...like forcing a vegan to work in a butchers.

It is a much bigger issue than sex work. (Apart from which I cannot imagine what good a person would be to any business they disapproved of?)

However, NOBODY wants legalisation German style, which is active regulation of the sex industry. All we want is passive decriminalisation that takes everything out of the range of the criminal code.


I once applied for a job at a video store. Found out that it was an "adult" video store, i.e. porn. Didn't take the job. In retrospect, I am lucky that the person who interviewed me for the job was a woman.

I wouldn't work in a adult video store...I can't stand porn...but the people who sell porn tend to be some of the nicest people around. Just fact...

[VestalVirgin]

YOU CAN READ MINDS???

I know, it is unbelievable, but men actually SAY what they think. Even if it is vile misogynist drivel! You just have to listen!

Google the invisible men project. They did a thing where they post the things that men who use prostituted women as commodities post online.

However, NOBODY wants legalisation German style, which is active regulation of the sex industry. All we want is passive decriminalisation that takes everything out of the range of the criminal code.

Uh ... how does Germany regulate the prostitution industry?
If it was actually treated as a "job like any other", it would not be legal.
Or the prostituted women would have to work in full rubber suits with gloves and all, as they have contact with infectious bodily fluids.

Forget having to use condoms (which was suggested by a woman in the Green party, but will not be enforced ever). Fully clothes all the times it is.

The prostitution industry, if subjected to the workplace safety regulations any other industry in Germany is subjected to, would not be profitable anymore, it would not appeal to anyone except some few fethishists who like rubber suits.

What Germany does looks a lot like the passive decriminalisation you want, if not in intention, then in effect.

[venusinscorpio]

It is not the same thing as working at a regular bar. The men who come there hate women, want to use women like commodities, and will quite likely treat ALL women working there as whores, regardless of whether this specific woman is the bartender.

YY. A hundred times.

[venusinscorpio]

Are you actually boasting about "selling" BS satistics here?

No, it's just a fact of life. I don't find your arguments compelling, and nor do a lot of other people. Tell us why, specifically, the studies are flawed.

[GayeDalton]

venusinscorpio

No, it's just a fact of life. I don't find your arguments compelling, and nor do a lot of other people. Tell us why, specifically, the studies are flawed.

I already have, I am not repeating myself, and I don't care if you find my "arguments compelling" I only care that I am telling the truth...

[GayeDalton]

VestalVirgin

I know, it is unbelievable, but men actually SAY what they think. Even if it is vile misogynist drivel! You just have to listen! Google the invisible men project. They did a thing where they post the things that men who use prostituted women as commodities post online.

Y'know something? I have a bee in my bonnet about any form of "review" or "karma" about anything...sets my teeth on edge...so...one of the first things I checked out were the review boards, a couple of years before "The Invisible Men" project. I didn't like them, but they were nowhere near as extreme...any idea why that might be?

Some men like to talky murk...it's part paraphillia, part defence mechanism, if you don't like it don't create log ons to read it.

But, WHATEVER...those men only want to hire an hour of sexual services...

"abolitionists actually SAY what they think. Even if it is vile misogynist drivel! You just have to listen! Google abolitionism they do lots of things thing where they post the things that women who use sex workers as commodities post online."

Thing is, you want more than an hour of sexual services, you want to dictate and control our whole lives, and you want it for free.

[venusinscorpio]

No, that analogy doesn't work. However much you try to make it fit.

[GayeDalton]

venusinscorpio

No, that analogy doesn't work. However much you try to make it fit.

Au contraire, the analogy is a perfect fit. (If any of you cared about current sex workers you would not only ask them what they wanted but also ask their permission before intervening in their lives, and run any intervention by them for approval, you never have and you never will.)


Now I have other things I need to do with Sunday than hang out my real name for ye horrible (totally anonymous - HOW BRAVE) lot to try and use as a punchbag...

Bye

[VestalVirgin]

Ahhh, nice. Finally we can have a reasonable discussion in this thread without someone coming in yelling in all caps that we cannot possibly know what johns think, only to then turn around and claim that they were sooo much nicer before prostitution was legalised ... oh, wait - perhaps it is the legalised prostitution in so many places that leads to a more entitled attitude?

But even if they were only a quarter as bad before, they were still the vilest scum that ever walked this earth.

And no, I do not think that interacting with this kind of scumbag in a setting where he feels entitled to your body, can ever be safe.


Has it been mentioned yet that prostitution leads to men thinking they are entitled to women's bodies? This is relevant. A woman's "choice" to prostitute herself is not made in a vacuum. It affects other women, too.

Your freedom ends where mine begins.

And I do not want to be treated by men like a commodity they can buy.

[venusinscorpio]

Bye Gaye.

BTW, it's Saturday, not Sunday. Either you're a bit confused or you've copied and pasted your error from your previous post.

[TheRealPosieParker]

Eh? What is this nonsense?
A thread on prostitution with decent research and evidence, written with clarity and conscience.

Laura. What's her face should take a look