scottish feminists -

[weeonion]

Dear Sister

As you may know Rhoda Grant MSP is taking forward work to reduce and prevent sexual exploitation, through introducing legislation to criminalise buying sex in prostitution.

Trish Godman MSP held a consultation on this issue in 2010 which resulted in around two thirds of the respondents supporting the proposed legislation. Rhoda is submitting her proposal to the Justice Committee tomorrow (Tuesday 19th June)and is asking that the previous consultation be regarded as sufficient. This would mean that she could then submit her Bill without further consultation. There is also a danger that the expense of a further consultation might deter the Committee from taking forward the proposed legislation at all. This suggestion is being strongly opposed by pro-sex work campaigners as they want a lengthy consultative process that they can prolong in the hope of derailing any new legislation..

I am therefore asking you to send an email to the Justice Committee, today or tomorrow morning, stating that you support proposals to criminalise buying sex, and that in your view the previous consultation was competent and sufficient. The latter is the key at this stage.

This is really urgent. Please email now if can and ask others to do so also.

You email to [email protected]

The clerk is Peter McGrath or you can address it to Christine Graham who is Convenor. If you have time you could also email individual members. All details can be found on the committee page www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/29845.aspx

Many thanks,

I can't imagine prostitution going away any time soon. There will always be plenty of people willing to pay for sex (such as the disabled, unattractive, socially inept as well as "normal" guys who just want sex without the complications of a relationship or a one night stand).

And it's not just men who pay for sex, if you do a little research you will find there are a lot of female customers (shall we call them "Janes"?) who buy sex from male prostitutes. But the media and politicians generally like to keep quiet about this side of the industry.

rachelrabbitwhite.com/women-who-buy-sex-the-secret-life-of-jane/
quicktake.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/zanzibar-where-women-come-to-buy-sex/
(plenty more articles can be found with a quick search)

And there will always be plenty of people willing to be paid for sex (or provide companionship services such as going to a dance or on a dinner date with a client).

An escort in Scotland can earn between £100 and £200 an hour. How much is the minimum wage again?

I'm sorry, I'm being awfully rude, but I was actually disagreeing with your post and the statement in it, not what you can or can't imagine.

Again, I doubt you could ever prove there will always be people willing to pay for sex, and I do think it is rather offensive to cite in your first category there 'the disabled'. Did you mean that to sound quite so rude?

I never suggested it was only men who paid for sex, so we'll leave that by, but I'd suggest you look at the gender split of those paying and those prostituted.

Did you have anything to back up your earlier claim, or was this a tacit retraction?

I didn't say all customers were disabled I suggested customers included the disabled.

And I am serious. Prostitution can be a valuable outlet for many people.

www.tlc-trust.org.uk/welcome/page1.html

Whatever you do, don't feel bad about using sex workers - don't fall for the fundamentalist feminist propaganda that all sex work is violence to women. For a start, many sex workers are men, and most sex workers chose their career because it suits them, and enjoy their work.

A passage from that website (the writers for that website include prostitutes themselves). Interesting how it is in complete contrast to what feminist politicians and some newspapers tell us.

I didn't suggest you said all customers were disabled.

It's considered a bit off to put words into people's mouths, you know. It suggests you don't really have a proper argument.

I am grateful, however, to see that you're going with my suggestion of a tacit retraction of your earlier improbable claim.

What claim was that again?

My post of 21:57, quoting from yours of 20:08.

colleenanderson.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/the-worlds-oldest-profession/

What we can be certain is it has been around a long time.

That is an interesting sight, but not remotely proof of your claim.

I would like proof, or at least better evidence than a blog article on ancient history by someone with what appears to be a healthy sub-degree-level interest in it and a tendency to make sweeping rhetorical statements without evidence.

If you've overstated your case, it's really fine to say so.

ok I will happily retract "thousands of years" and replace with "long time".

But a question for you- Does Scotland have a trafficking epidemic? Is there solid evidence that says most sex workers are being forced to have sex with customers against their will?

www.thescavenger.net/people/numbers-of-sex-trafficking-victims-are-exaggerated-13456-167.html
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated

A quote from the middle link:

The UK's biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country.

Ah, it was actually the point about 'in every single country' that I had an issue with, too.

You see, when people argue using a generalization like this - saying prostitution has always existed everywhere - it's both very, very hard to prove, and implies that prostitution is inevitable.

That's why it's a damaging argument.

I don't understand why you are asking whether 'most' sex workers are being foreced to have sex - surely, if a single one has been forced, there are serious concerns? That would be my stance, at least.

I would also be much more immediately concerned with the women I've met, and the women a family member of mine works with, who felt and feel they've been forced into prostitution, than the people who forced them into it. Maybe I'm more cynical than you, but if a three-year-old investigation failed to find anyone whom they could prove forced others into prostitution, that makes me sadder and more worried about these women, not less.

Someone is doing the forcing - so why is it any consolation at all that we can't find them?

Btw, there is info on how to do links - you need to put at the start and at the end.

The investigation was UK wide involving 55 police forces who raided 822 brothels/flats/massage parlours over 6 months.

If there really was a trafficking epidemic with thousands of victims it's reasonable to believe that investigation would have came up with something.

Yes I agree if one is forced that is one too many, but the point I am trying to make is there is a lot of scaremongering going on by certain politicians and newspapers who want society to think the problem is far worse than it really is.

No, not necessarily reasonable.

It's quite probable criminals would hide, you know.

I think, in all honesty, it is absurd to talk about anyone else 'scaremongering' when you have yourself been caught out in two rather embarrassingly obvious overstatements not based in any facts you've been able to show.

"It's quite probable criminals would hide, you know."

That's one theory, the other theory is these criminals just don't exist in the numbers you think they do.

We can't catch criminals who don't exist.

You don't know what numbers I think these criminals exist in. It's not something I've worked out myself. I'm just making the obvious point that there is more than one way to interpret the evidence you've provided.

I do not like the idea of scaremongering that prostitution has 'always' existed, in 'every single' country, then turning to insist upon minimizing concerns about forced prostitution.

Do you honestly mean to imply that the women who say they were forced into prostitution, are lying?

That is a very sadly familiar narrative, with unsettling parallels with other situations in which women are not believed and their abusers are rarely caught and punished. It's too disturbing.

bebopper76.wordpress.com/even-sex-trafficked-brothel-workers-reject-raids-and-rescues-prostitution-is-not-sex-trafficking/

But it seems there are cases when a woman is not believed when she claims she isn't a victim. Funny that.

It's not funny at all.

Why would you say that?

By funny I mean strange. Not haha funny.

That's one theory, the other theory is these criminals just don't exist in the numbers you think they do.

That's what they say about the 97% of rapists who are not convicted, therefore they don't exist.

I think that there's a lot of hidden prostitution and usually that kind of prostitute is forced into it by someone or coerced into prostituting by some event. I never heard of anyone being paid peanuts and enjoying prostitution.

If you were referring to high profile prostitution, then I can believe all of your statements.

peanuts? Did I mention UK escorts generally earn between £100 and £200 an hour? (that's what they charge, and they get plenty of business)

And I think you're right about a lot of the industry being hidden. Mostly because of the negative stigma escorts and customers generally like to be discreet. Escorts typically travel to a customer's home/hotel room dressed casually like anyone else. If the customer wants the escort to wear a sexy costume or whatever the escort will take it with her in a bag and change into it when she arrives. You could pass escorts in the street who are on their way to a customer and you would never know.

You would have difficulty identifing customers as well. It's not just creepy looking old men with untidy beards and trechcoats who are customers. Stereotypes are just stereortypes- customers can be male, female, aged 18 or aged 80. It's not uncommon for a couple to visit a sex worker either.

It is understandable why a sex worker may want discretion, it doesn't mean she has been forced into it. Many people are not accepting of prostitution and would give prostitutes abuse and call them nasty names. The police may end up harrassing her and confiscating her money and condoms (it does happen even though prositution is legal here).

I know not all sex workers are escorts- at the lower end of the scale there are streetwalkers. In my opinion I believe streetwalking is unsafe and is rightly illegal. At least with escorting (which I believe should remain legal) and online booking the worker has choice over which customers she wants to see and doesn't want to see. Feedback systems are used so if a customer is abusive or disrespectful the worker can say this in his feedback to warn other workers.

I think you want to keep reading to your book.
If you read well what I wrote, high profile prostitution is one thing and prostitution (in streets or illegal bordels) is another. The women forced into illegal prostitution are paid peanuts because it's the ones who exploit them who make the big bucks.

Escorts choose to do that job. I think the debate was about forcing women into becoming prostitutes and I really doubt that any escort was ever forced into becoming one.
As regards people who don't accept prostitutes and call them nasty names, well... it seems you get that even if you're abused and raped, so that has something to do with ignorance and prejudice more than with prostitution itself.

According to evidence submitted to the UK Government (Home Office, 2004), between 50-75% of women entered prostitution before they were 18, with 15 years being the average age of entry.

... an overwhelming majority of women in all forms of prostitution have been sexually abused as children (Silbert and Pines, 1982a; Nadon et al., 1998). Some estimates are as high as 90%. As one woman explained, ?Through childhood sexual abuse, many prostituted women have become conditioned into thinking that this is their choice? It normalises this kind of behaviour and causes many to enter into the trade? (Aumord, 2009).

Research has shown that there is a 75% rate of current or past homelessness among those prostituted in nine countries (Farley et al., 2003).

There is extensive literature documenting that prostitution causes profound emotional damage (Baldwin, 1992; Barry, 1995; Dworkin, 1997; Herman, 2003; Hoigard and Finstad, 1986; Farley et al., 2003; Raymond et al., 2002).

A majority of women who sell sex have pimps who may be called by other names, such as friend or husband. Nonetheless they function as pimps (McLeod, 1982; Farley, 2007).

From the Eaves study, Men Who Buy Sex - who they buy and what they know

The most frightening thing about this study is that the men actually know quite a lot, they just don't care.

@MerlinScot, so if you think escorts are willing do you oppose the upcoming bill to criminalize prostitution outright? Escorts receive payment for time and companionship only so technically they aren't prostitutes but you know what will happen- the police will just treat them as if they were (and treat their customers as criminals) and make life hell for them.

And prostitutes/escorts do not deserve to be called nasty names at all. They are doing a job like anyone else. Some people fix computers for a living, some people drive a bus, some dance topless and some provide a sexual service. Prostitution is a job.