AmnestyInternational Prostitution

[JuliaScurr]

Please tweet #Amnesty agm in support of Nordic Model
Pimps out in force

I do not agree, however, that prostitution should be tax-free. Prostitution is not, and should never be, "a job". It should always be a form of self-employment, and liable to the same taxes. No pimps, no coertion, no control.

First...ABSOLUTELY read @mollidesi and ask her questions, she is very friendly. She is a lovely, extraordinary young women who has been through hell and somehow come out the other side throwing sunshine back at the world.

That is someone else who stayed alive by selling sex in a "Slumdog Millionaire" world where you do not even want to think about how many children never make it to adulthood. I defy anyone to be indifferent to whether Molli survived or not.

Sakura, I am REALLY uncomfortable with a woman having to sell sex to pay tax myself, always have been, but it is one of the compromises I have had to make with reality. When you want society to give you something you must expect to give something back.

Besides I have a feeling that if sex work were tax exempt there would soon be a queue of tractors and white vans for "sex work exemption certs", and there is no realistic way to manage that.

I have come to the conclusion that there has to be a two tier approach with "no questions asked" exemption zones for street workers. Apart from hiding sex workers in remote industrial estates there are areas where sex workers would be a positive benefit. For instance, unless it has changed a great deal (it might have!), much of the city of London is ghost town deserted between 7pm and 7am but still needs additional night time security. There are plenty of business districts like that. Also there are unsafe thoroughfares that could become safe for a woman to walk through at night if they were red light districts (being mistakenly propositioned by a kerb crawler is much safer than being mugged!). Digbeth in Birmingham occurs to me as one of those.

The other tier would be registration and taxation for indoor workers.

Indoor and street work are not "classes" of sex work, they are very different forms of sex work that suit different people and circumstances.

Some claim indoors to be safer, some claim the streets are safer and both are right. There are pros and cons to each that are better for different people and different situations.

For instance, independent indoor work requires investment and commitment, street work does not, so street work is more suited to survival and crisis sex workers and indoor work is more suited to those who are following a longer term plan.

When I came back in to this I thought "rescuers" meant well, but I have learned since. They would have to be completely stupid not to realise how much harm they are doing, and how untruthful their claims are.

If they truly meant well they would be desperate for any sex workers input they could get to be sure they were getting it right. In reality they will do just about anything to silence and gag us.

There really are people out there who are willing to knowingly sacrifice real human beings to their own ambition and arrogance as long as they will never be found out. It is horrible.

It can be bizarre. Many of them genuinely see us as not quite human. However much evidence there is in front of them they STILL approach us as if we were children who will believe whatever they tell us, and be whoever they tell us to be.

I cannot deal with them or be in the same room with them. It is too degrading and insulting to be treated like that. I find it hilarious (in a black way) that they claim to want to "build our self esteem" when, in reality just the way the treat us is designed crushes it, and destroy our faith in ourselves and our own judgement.

Are you referring, in any way, to the order of nuns who used to run the Magdalene Laundries, and who continue to benefit from taxpayers money in a let's jail rescue sexually-deviant women sort of a way? The same nuns who refuse to compemsate women for the harm they caused, by trafficking their infant children?

(Sorry, aformer, that was not targeted at you)

aformersexworker, That two tier system you mention is a good idea. Right now, as far as I understand it, a woman working in a "crisis" situation can still be done for not paying taxes, which is just ridiculous.

Hi OLKS :) No, I wasn't referring to those nuns-- just the UK government. And no I hadn't heard of PetitJasmine, but I'm sure that women working in the sex trade are very vulnerable to being judged as unfit mothers and being punished, which is so wrong because it's obvious that many mothers only get into this type of work because it's so hard to find decent, ordinary work when you've got children in the first place.

I'm not sure what the answer is. Some "rescuers" obviously mistakenly believe that trying to get rid of prostitution is the answer to women being treated like second class citizens, but they've got it backwards. You have to change society first so that it doesn't make financial sense for a woman to enter this work. Not sure how to go about that!

I personally wish we lived in a world where men weren't able to buy a woman because I don't think they deserve to be able to do so.

Absolutely - my body is mine to do what I want with and no one has any right to tell me otherwise. This is a human right in it's most basic form.

The trouble with Amnesty taking the both sides decrim stance, is that they do it through a human rights lens. So there is a real risk that a stance taken for pragmatic if unpalatable reasons becomes 'it is a human right to buy sex'.

Amnesty should no more take a pragmatic approach on this than they should on torture. It is not a human right to buy sex. It is a human right to sell sex and to do it in a safe and not exploited way. I don't see why this can't be amnesty's stance.

I only hope that when they re-write the policy paper this is the policy that comes out because pimps and punters deserve nothing but condemnation.

It is a human right to sell sex.

It is a privilege to be allowed to buy sex.

I think the "no policy" (a ridiculously close vote, 507 to 502) may have as much to do with the fact that they are nowhere near the stage of framing evidence based specific policy as anything else. At least I hope it has.

There is more to this than sex work.

Unless Amnesty takes a firm stand against this frightening trend of powerful pressure groups lobbying for legislation with literally no factual or evidential basis and no reference to those affected then what is Amnesty for at all?

Injustice and human rights abuses are not the exclusive province of the third world.

Anti-trafficking hysteria and the Nordic Model is legalised human rights abuse on demand, with nothing supporting it at all except propaganda.

The overview is bad, but the small print tend to read like something out of 1984.

This is not the first example of such I have seen, it is just the worst and most blatant, simply because, given the stigma around sex workers they feel they can get away with it. It often seems a "testing ground" for how far society can be pushed in that respect.

We do not vote for our NGOs, they appoint themselves, and increasingly they appoint themselves to govern us in all but name. This is not an acceptable state of affairs in any civilised democracy.

Not this thread again.
^Anti-trafficking hysteria and the Nordic Model is legalised human rights abuse on demand, with nothing supporting it at all except propaganda.

The overview is bad, but the small print tend to read like something out of 1984.^

Yes I do think this sounds a bit like 1984.

Legalised human right’s abuse on demand is what happens in those countries with large legal brothels like Germany. But perhaps the trafficking victims in those brothels are just someone’s hysterical imagination.

aformersexworker what element of the nordic model is 'legalised human rights' abuse?

ThinkAboutitTomorrow

All of the "Nordic Model" is legalised human rights abuse.

It has not factual or evidential basis whatsoever.

It is legitimises ongoing harassment and invasion of people it declares to be innocent.

It supports and facilitates heavily biased fad ideology.

It supports and facilitates indoctrination in heavily biased fad ideology.

It ignores all the expressed wishes, personal autonomy and fundamental human rights of those it claims to protect, thereby degrading their adult personhood and assigning them subhuman status in the default with ongoing negative impact on their basic human rights way outside the scope of the legislation.

It creates a legal paradox whereby something that is legal in itself becomes unlawful upon payment.

BriarRainbowshimmer

Strange, now that you mention it I am pretty sure "the trafficking victims in those brothels are just someone’s hysterical imagination".

For me those German "superbrothels" would be a personal nightmare, but not because of the sex work.

I hate, and cannot really cope with regimentation, regulation and having to interact among loads of people. I am a lone wolf by nature. However a lot of sex workers tell me they would prefer to work under those circumstances, their lives, their choice, and there is no doubt they would be safer.

The most important thing is to work towards making sure ALL sex workers have the maximum possible choice in whether, or how, they sell sex. Not force them to stop by destroying the markets and coerce them into dysfunctional and abusive "rescue services" they want nothing to do with.

Let me put some fact under that.

My kid brother is a ruthless, unscrupulous little sh*t. Perhaps, at least in part because of this, he built a career in organised crime and is tagged, in the media and more officially as a major crime boss. (We are far from close and I only discovered the extent of his activities two years ago)

If there was huge money to be made out of trafficking and sex work he would have been doing it for years (his "work" has often brought him to Russia and Eastern Europe).

Here is what he thinks about sex workers, as expressed to me, in writing, in a personal context:

“As for adjusting to predatory people, you have already admitted your role as a sex worker, you can’t get much more predatory than being involved in that business. Being a predator is the principle of the job description. There is a far worse name for women that indulge in such activities minus the predatory factor”

Does that sound like the attitude of someone who is accustomed to seeing women chained, beaten and sold by the dozen to you?

BuffytheReasonableFeminist

"do you agree that most women who sell sex would rather not, but have no other option? And that in an ideal world, women would not be placed in a situation where selling their bodies to men to whom they are not attracted is their only option to survive?"

I agree with you, in fact I can put my hand on my heart and say I have agreed with most of your post since I was about 12...and I have been fighting to change all those things, any way I can, for nearly as long...

...and, frankly, I have got sweet bl**dy nowhere.

In fact since Thatcher and now global recession those same things are much (how much horrifies me every time I think of it) worse than when I was 12.

Vulnerable and disabled people are systematically being left to die as official policy...not somewhere in Africa but right in the UK.

I will never forget Stephanie Bottrill...or all the other, thousands of people like her who were easier to hush up.

When the ship may go down you fight to save the ship, when you can't save the ship you focus on getting as many into the lifeboats and launched as possible.

20 years ago I was fighting for sex workers to be left in peace and given real choices (and running into deliberate, often insurmountable, obstruction from the same orgs that now fight for abolition every step of the way.) now I am just fighting for women to have the right to sell sex to stay alive, because anything else is a waste of time.

What the rescue orgs do not bother to tell you is that while they fight for the criminalisation of buyers to be fast-tracked within a year with one hand, with the other hand they insist it takes many years of "personal development" and training, at their hands, before a sex worker could even be "job ready"...

Do the math on that as I have for years...it takes me days to calm down sometimes. I cannot be in the same room with these orgs because I know what they are really like, first hand, for far too long to hold my anger in check.

I also have one other problem. Since I waded back into this is I keep coming across intelligent self aware, genuinely NICE young (and not so young) women who tell me they are more comfortable selling sex than any of their other options and feel it suits their needs far better.

I do not believe anyone has the right to tell them they cannot sell what is honestly theirs to sell if they so choose.

maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/slush-fund/

It doesn't help when the "rescue NGOs" put the grant money from the government into their own personal bank account does it?

"
20 years ago I was fighting for sex workers to be left in peace and given real choices (and running into deliberate, often insurmountable, obstruction from the same orgs that now fight for abolition every step of the way.) now I am just fighting for women to have the right to sell sex to stay alive, because anything else is a waste of time."

aformersexworker Feminists I have spoken to have reason to believe that things have got a lot worse over the past twenty years when it comes to women's status in society, so it doesn't surprise me at all to hear you say that you've gone from fighting for choices within the sex industry to now fighting for women's right to "stay alive somehow".

Given the current state of affairs for women, and the fact it seems to be getting worse over time, I can't see how an attempt to abolish prostitution can help women in the here and now. I get cold shivers when I think about the US, because I heard that over there a policeman is allowed to have sex with a prostitute before arresting her! He actually gets down to business, does it, then arrests her! Patriarchy in action. It makes me sick to think of these policemen. So I think women should be free to operate as prostitutes without fear of arrest or scorn from police.

As for trafficked women, it seems to me that the police are a waste of space when it comes to helping victims of trafficking. If they were really bothered about it they could surely find out what was what, and where it was taking place, and arrest the ringleaders. It can't all be put down to police incompetence. They're just not bothered and they don't give a shit.

Those German brothels sound f*cking awful, as a concept.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist

First, I do not think white wealthy women organising things for their own benefit (which is an apt description of the backbone of the abolitionist industry) is going to be any improvement, in fact, at least for a couple of hundred years until the dust settles, it will inevitably incline to be far worse.

"What I don't understand is how you can see fighting for the rights, dignity and safety of sex workers right now (which I agree is worthwhile and important) as incompatible with fighting to make things better long-term."

I don't and, for me, winning the rights, dignity, safety and autonomy of sex workers, who can, and wish to be self reliant would be a gateway precedent to fighting for the rights, dignity, safety and autonomy of groups of other, vulnerable and disadvantaged people who are being exploited and disenfranchised just as ruthlessly and are not in a position to be so self reliant.

But let me tell you exactly what I would with shoes off over a bottle of wine at 2am:

I am in my second half century now, and I have seen with my own eyes that however far you push the global and empirical pendulum towards greater human rights and justice for all it will, inevitably, swing back just as hard, and, behind the scenes you never really pushed it very far anyway.

Even in the past 12 months I have seen with my own eyes that the last of the very people I have always believed were fighting for human rights and justice too are, in truth, at least as rotten, self serving and corrupt at the very worst of criminals.

"What's your end game?"

I protect, maintain and try to build as many lifeboats as possible for as long as I can survive to do it...

Sakura...

With you about 100% there...

Just to understand though, the argument for the Swedish model rests on a belief that there is not real clarity on what the wishes and beliefs of the majority of sex workers actually are and that studies quoted against the Swedish model are largely mis-representative studies that capture the opinions of a privileged (educated, empowered) minority of sex workers?

That's one of the problems, any sexworker who doesn't agree with the swedish model is dismissed as being "privileged". When in fact they tend to be a typical everyday sexworker.

Buffy, I think women's groups should keep investing in helping women leave prostitution, Problem is, women's groups haven't got any money, and it seems to me that NGOs need to stay out of the political side of things.
I think it probably runs deeper than money in some cases. It could be a rape that starts it all off, with a woman thinking she might reclaim her sexuality by becoming a prostitute. Or another believing that this is what she's for, having been raised on a diet of media images that objectify women. Then there's the fact that a lot of jobs are incredibly mind-numbing, and have you standing on your feet for 8-10 hours a day (factory work etc). Women are still shunted into "pink collar" jobs. I guess money is the major driving force behind women's entrance into the sex industry, but it's not the only force behind it. Women's low status in society is cultural (most politicians, business execs, police officers etc are men), and the money you can earn from prostitution can ease the burden of trying to survive.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist

"Say if you and I got together a group of about 20 current sex workers and had a budget of a couple of hundred grand, what would they ask us to help them organise, in terms of how their lives could be structured?"

I can't answer that...only those 20 women would know the answer!

But I do know some generics are, of course, good affordable childcare (anybody wish to oppose that? I thought not :)). Less known but related are the impossible rat traps many special needs mums and duel carers face where they do not have enough to survive, but there is no way they could ever earn enough to provide care while they worked 40 hours a week to earn it. Both groups are over represented among sex workers.

I have thought seed funding for businesses would be popular even before I was ever a sex worker...the majority of sex workers are people who are temperamentally more suited to self employment than PAYE under any circumstances (that is part of the reason why sex work works for them).

Incidentally, in 6 years as a sex worker less than a handful of clients treated me like dirt once, nobody had the opportunity to treat me lie dirt twice. To date I have never been treated like anything but dirt by anyone connected to the Rescue/Abolitionist org in 20 years.

ThinkAboutItTomorrow

As a matter of hard fact there seems to be literally no verifiable, controlled academic research into a comprehensive overview of sex workers at all. But, at a guess, it is highly unlikely that any of them are in favour of having their income taken away, being made homeless, having their lives and families subject to rigid control by social services and/or NGOs and/or having their work made harder and more dangerous.

(I would personally rather suicide and I hated sex work.)

But you have to ask yourself, whether, WAY BACK in the 20s and 30s there needed to be any research to establish the need for worker's rights when they were jumping up and down in front of the world demanding them in person?

Just the way sex workers from every class and category are doing everywhere they safely can RIGHT NOW!

I just think that anything that legitimizes the attitude of men who buy sex can only be a bad thing and this is what it feels like decriminalisation does.

As Buffy says, it's where this leads which is scary. What is the option to make it safe for women (or men) to sell sex and easy for them to stop when they choose to, whilst not making it ok for men to buy sex?

It is a paradox but one I think needs answering in any useful solution.

Just as you hate the tone of 'protectors' of sex workers from a point of privilege (and I can understand why) I hate the tone of 'defenders' of punters.

But do these always have to be mutually exclusive positions? I thought the Swedish model was trying to bridge this gap, but clearly not satisfactorily.

Sakura,

The first thing women's group need to do is stop the damage and start building bridges with sex workers.

Many are deeply hurt and alienated by the insulting and degrading attitude of the women's movement to the point of being beyond engaging with it. You cannot just wish that away. You have to mend it.

Also, this may shock you (it certainly shocked me when I realised it). In 40 years of knowing sex workers I have literally only ever know one who was probably in it as part of to acting out abuse/self-esteem issues rather than, on whatever level, for the money.

Her abuse issues were directly caused by the exact same religious orders who fund and control the abolitionist movement in Ireland and are gearing up to do it all over again for a new generation.

That surely highlights the need to build bridges if nothing else ever can.