As a woman, and a feminist woman at that, you cannot but take a stance over the issue of prostitution in society. Even though attitudes have shifted over the years, the topic is as current and explosive as it was over a hundred years ago, when feminist associations first started addressing the issue of prostitution.
Prohibition, abolition or regulation?
Today, most European countries reject the American model of prohibition, which criminalizes all forms of sex work, usually to the disadvantage of sex workers, who risk their safety working underground and have no right to social services or benefits.
Many European countries, such as France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, have all found different legislative approaches to dealing with prostitution through governmental control. They either follow the model of abolitionism, which criminalizes clients (Sweden) or only the third parties benefitting from sex work, such as pimps and traffickers (France), or they enforce strict regulation through decriminalization (Germany and the Netherlands), which allows for brothels and independent prostitutes to operate as long as they are legally allowed to work and are registered.
While prohibition can be rejected as the least desirable form of legislating prostitution, both abolitionism and regulation have not been able to reach their ultimate goals: to eliminate human trafficking as part of the sex industry and/or to decrease the demand for prostitution in general. I am going to refrain from referring to any particular numbers here, as any study on this topic must be taken with a grain of salt, since getting accurate statistics dealing with borderline illegal subjects is nearly impossible.
Feminists have sometimes aligned themselves with one movement, sometimes with the other, and there has yet to be an established consensus. As feminists, can we allow for the symbolic meaning of making sex work a legitimate business in our society, or should we stop and listen to those directly concerned?
orlan "le baiser de l'artiste" (1977)
Can the subaltern speak?
This debate about prostitution has always generated a lot of hypocrisy and ignorance on all sides, making it a very sensitive topic to discuss, not unlike the ongoing pornography and burqa/veil debates. With delicate issues such as these, which involve legislative and moral decision-making, choosing one positition over another always carries the risk of eventually forming certain alliances with groups one would otherwise consider antagonistic.
As with the burqa debate, I usually feel hesitant to discuss these subjects at all and want to leave it to the ones who are directly affected by this issue – in this case the sex-workers themselves. But as with the burqa debate it is difficult to simply leave it at that, because even those directly involved with the issues may fail to see the greater picture, the wider social implications of their decisions.
Naturally, sex-workers as well as anyone else, will most likely argue their case in a way that is most beneficial to their immediate needs. In the case of prostitution, which is considered a profession, this need is often economic. Why would sex workers argue in favor of the Swedish model, the punishment of their clients, which would inevitably lead to less business? The major demands of sex workers are clear: total decriminalization and the acceptance of sex work as legitimate employment.
sex workers protesting in brussels, 2005
However, it cannot be denied that the voices we hear from sex-workers (in the media, in blogs, at demonstrations) generally represent only a small percentage of all men and women offering sex for money. After all, the voices of most victims of human trafficking remain silent and unheard, as they have to fear violence, loss of anonymity and expulsion. Again, numbers for how many prostitutes work involuntarily are hard to find, and they also force us to define what we mean by “voluntary”.
Prostitution: a job like any other?
Imagine this scenario: If you could work in an office job or as a sex worker for the same hourly rate, which job would you choose? I am fairly certain, the majority of women would choose the former. I have no data to support this claim; it just seems like common sense, and this is coming from a sex-positive woman who has never found it particularly difficult to engage in sexual acts with men I was only little acquainted to.
However, the decision may get a little more complicated when presented with the choice between scrubbing toilets all day for 6 Euros an hour and having sex with a man for twenty minutes for 50 Euros (that is not a random figure but apparently the established rate for the average Amsterdam sex-worker). The percentage might increase in favor of the latter but only slightly. The problem arises when you look at how a day’s work having sex with strangers pays the rent and even a little more, while offering you flexible working hours, whereas the cleaning job will force you to do another less exciting job on the side, just so you can get by. For many single mothers and migrant women, who come to Western Europe untrained and without speaking the language, this is the only “choice” they have. So much for “voluntary” prostitutes.
After all, prostitution is not a job like any other, regardless of how one feels about sex. The risk of unwanted pregnancies, STIs and physical and emotional violence is immensely high in this type of work, and no governmental regulation, regardless of how scrutinizing it is, will be able to prevent this.
Conclusion
As I have suggested before, economic reasons play almost always a role for why women decide to work as prostitutes. Whether or not Marxist feminists are right in arguing that prostitution is a direct consequence of capitalism may be debatable (and no, I am not opening that can of worms here), but we cannot deny that social measures are the first means to address when talking about eliminating prostitution. To prevent disadvantaged women from exercising the only profession they are able to obtain, seems like a cruel thing to do, especially when other government measures force them into this position. This, however, does not necessarily speak in favor of the regulation model, which still classifies prostitutes as legal and illegal. Therefore I would argue that before we look at prostitution legislation, we need to look at immigration legislation and our social welfare models and ask whether they provide adequate alternatives.
ad campaign by COYOTE, via Sociological Images
However, I am doubtful as to whether there will ever be an ideal solution, for as long as there is a demand for prostitution. I am a strong believer that everyone has a right to sex, but not to have sex with anyone other than oneself. Potential clients of prostitutes, almost exclusively male, will have to ask themselves why they should have the right to buy sex and whether they feel comfortable to do so with women who may or may not be doing it “voluntarily”. Because you can never be 100% sure that you aren’t in fact perpetuating an industry which is inherently violent and exploitative.
As feminists, we can do all sorts of handwringing about what may be the best way to address this issue; in the end it is the men who purchase these services who could have the most impact. We should not let them off the hook by resorting to biological essentialism. There are alternatives to prostitution, because there are alternatives to patriarchy and poverty, but these need to be explored first and foremost before resorting to the curing of symptoms.
My comment is an excerpt from my book, entitled Are They Bad Girls or Brilliant?:
I’ve always liked the expression “right livelihood.” The term has its basis in Far Eastern religion, and it conveys a sense of perfection and peace. It implies the sort of employment that fits your inner nature, lets you express who you are, and lo and behold, even pays well!
Unfortunately, many of us are sadly aware that not every job feels “right.” Does your job feel like right livelihood? So often in my working life, I’ve experienced my livelihoods as wrong.
For instance, every time I’ve worked in an office, I’ve known on some terribly visceral level that I’m not supposed to be there. I can’t stand having to sit all day long. It makes me restless and flabby. I can’t stand the overhead lighting. It always bothers my eyes. So does staring at a monitor all day.
I can’t stand the lack of fresh air.
I can’t stand being dressed in office attire. It makes me feel imprisoned. I can’t stand being stuck at a desk, surrounded by business machines.
Whenever I’ve worked in an office, I’ve always felt some urgent resistance building up in the pit of my stomach. In that spot, deep inside, where I’m always either eager or tired, I’ve incessantly felt some deep instinct demanding: Get the hell out of here!
I’ve had to fight the impulse to kick off my shoes, rip off my pantyhose, run out of the building, and dash to the nearest patch of trees. And get my work done there, somehow.
I guess I’m just an intense child of nature. I have trouble with environments far removed from the earth. Put me in any city, and I always end up where it’s green. Thank you, thank you so dearly Mr. Olmstead, for the presence of Central Park!
I’ve often wondered what I would do if I were offered a “desk job” that would pay me six figures a year. For that kind of money, would I put up with life in an office? I guess so…but I’d be in a lot of discomfort, and I’m sure I’d develop some health problems.
I can’t stand to work in lounge locales, either. Every time I’ve cocktail-waitressed, soon I’ve had to quit. There’s something about schlepping around all night, helping people get sloshed, that gives me the same feeling that I get in an office. The atmosphere is noxious, and I just want to get free.
That even feels true when great music gets played, and I do love my music. I guess that’s why it’s never occurred to me to strip, to tease, to dance topless. I’m sure I could do it in a heartbeat. I love to excite men, I love to dance, I love to move to sexy beats; I’m sure I could cavort on a stage. But that stale-air, drunken club environment is someplace I don’t want to be.
So is the prospect of owners and managers, telling me what to do.
At least there’s no smoking allowed anymore, in all the clubs in my region. Years ago, when I tried my hand at serving drinks, the air in every square foot of those places was heavy and hazy with poison. I don’t know how I stood it. I guess when I was younger, not yet a sex worker, and desperate to make extra money, I was willing to take more abuse to my body.
Serving food was a little more bearable. Unlike working in an office or a bar, waiting on tables with big loaded trays made my heart, lungs and muscles feel engaged and alive. I was required to dash around, hefting. Some people hate to have to do all that, but I, the perpetual fitness buff, was happy to oblige. And because I was feeding people, I was sort of in the role of a nurturer. That was a little bit more like me.
But it’s crazy, so downright unnatural, to be stressed in a busy eating emporium, trying to “get the food out” from a kitchen that’s essentially a bedlam. And the money can be iffy.
I’ve done some time in childcare. That was nice. Little ones are hell, but they’re also a lot of fun, and they give you the constant feeling that life is compelling, and has meaning. They desperately love you and need you, every waking moment, and every waking moment, you’re teaching them something important.
I might have stayed in childcare, but the income wasn’t enough.
I’ve substitute-taught English at high schools. If the money had been there, I might have remained. I might have pursued getting hired fulltime. But just as I’ve already mentioned in Book One, the pay would have had to be much, much more. (Teenagers!!!#@%*&#%!!!!)
I could have borne the indebtedness and gone through the rigors of earning a Masters, and then a Ph.D. But this single mom wouldn’t go for that gamble. Not for the slim pickings in English professorships, in the places where I want to live.
I’ve cared for the sick and the dying. I’ve worked as a “health aid,” in the comfort of peoples’ homes. As with many in that cozy employment, however, in the end the work burned me out. You do your time helping the patients near death, and then you just need to get back to well people.
But I might have stayed with it, had the money been enough.
Once, I got into landscaping. Now that was the right job for me. I was outdoors, sucking in fresh air, and working in the earth. Three of my deep needs were getting fulfilled: my need for a healthy environment, my need to be physically active, and my aesthetic need to make beauty. But landscaping is seasonal work, and even when the time of year’s right, you can’t work much when it rains. And too many people are in it, so I couldn’t earn what I needed.
You’ll recall from Book One that I’ve worked as a fitness consultant in health clubs. I liked that even more than the landscaping. As I’ve told you before, however, the pay was just like peanuts, and when I aspired to personal training, getting enough clients to pay for that service was often impossible.
I’ve never once considered the medical professions. That wouldn’t work for me. Not with all my issues with conventional American medicine. And besides…I can’t pass a college math course. In college, that effectively disqualified me from virtually all business or medical majors.
I’ve held down a few jobs in sales. I got hired because my employers could see that I’m a good communicator. Then they made sure that my “people person” instincts got overworked and exploited. I realize how dearly our economy depends on the powerful mechanics of selling, but you can count me out of that high-pressure manipulation.
I never pursued any entry level positions that English and Journalism graduates go for, like ad copy writing, website proofreading, and such. I was already a single young mother, and the low pay is legendary, and besides, those jobs generally tend to command about three hundred applicants per.
When I got into prostitution, the first thing I noticed was that it felt right. The work itself felt natural to me, and the short hours fit with being a mom. And of course, the money was great.
In all the other types of work that I did, I had never been fully present. Wherever I’d worked before, even if I liked the job there was always a big distraction, a terribly deep clench of worry: the hours away from my family were too long.
But when I got into the work of the escort, I was able to give myself to it without that sense of wrongness as a mother. The reason was that I was able to leave it. I was able to give myself lots of breaks, and be at home a lot with the kids. Remember, I’ve always been a self-employed sex worker, not answering to agents or madams. They might have coerced me to work too much.
Their coercion can be subtle, but it’s real. I’ve heard that if a woman doesn’t always submit, showing up at the snap of agents’ fingers, she can find herself not getting thrown much work. Agents tend to favor the women whose time they can control. In Callgirl, Jeanette Angell complains about that. She writes that whenever she told Peach no, she wasn’t available to work, she’d find herself ignored by Peach for days and days thereafter.
In other types of work, such treatment by the boss might be useful as a motivational prong, but not in the work of the escort. The prostitute is literally selling herself. That’s a very personal feat. She should be the only person deciding how often the world gets to have her. And when she needs to take a break, she should never have to feel disfavored.
As an escort I’ve avoided the deplorable position of the girl in the novel called Whore. Author Nellie Arcan’s working-girl character sees eight clients a day. She sees each for at least half an hour. The brothel she works for requires it. She has to give the brothel half her earnings. She’s so overworked, and so sick of the work, that she thinks “how filthy men are, the way they spread their sperm whenever they have a minute.” At one point she remarks, “It’s the repetition that makes this profession disgusting.”1
No sex worker should ever see so many men that her outlook goes the way of the hateful. And I feel that it’s worth overemphasizing—if I’m being redundant I don’t care—that no sex worker should ever use her body to make money for someone else.
But if a woman does sex work the right way—autonomously and with self-love—then there’s much to the situation that makes things feel right. For instance, the lighting almost always is gentle. And if it’s not, I don’t hesitate to tell the guy to please shut the blinds, or turn off the overhead lamp. I’m usually dressed in soft, silky fabrics that feel heavenly on my skin. I’m never cramped up at hard desks, or loading up trays in frenzied kitchens, or wiping the shit off of toddlers, or putting up with adolescent insolence, or serving drinks to drunks, or watching people die, or praying it won’t rain so I can plant, or praying my sales prospect will buy, or praying that the person I’m personal-training will continue to keep at it, and pay.
My work is about relieving stress in the natural, healthful way. My clients almost always show up. Demand almost always exceeds good supply, and I’ve become financially solvent.
Life is good.
You’ll recall that I visit my clients in their homes or in hotels. Those places tend to run the gamut from comfortable to downright luxurious. The men are usually lovely to me. They’re usually concerned for my well being. And I get to hear a most enjoyable noise: the sound of them counting my money.
Cash makes a very distinctive sound. It’s not like other paper. Frush, frush, frush, frush. That’s the music of cash being meted in someone’s two hands. That’s the sound of the men making sure that the bills all equate, or exceed, what I charge.
Frush. That’s the sound of the universe humming smoothly along. Frush. That’s the sound of getting very well paid, just for being sensual, just for being compassionate, just for being comfortable, just for being me.
Oh, I can hear it now. I can hear the big ugly wheels grinding. The wheels of puritanical masochism. Especially the wheels for women.
Work is not supposed to feel good. Hours are supposed to be long. Life is supposed to be hard. How dare you get off so easy!
I’ve had to learn to look at that, squarely, deep inside myself.
And tell it to fuck off.
My life has been hard enough, thank you very much; and now I’ve found a harmonious way to make a comfortable living. Well, a lot of people don’t like that. But I won’t spend this chapter complaining about them; wherever I do, I start seething. No, I’m just going to talk about the happiness, here. I’m going to shed the light.
Norma Jean Almodovar writes: “Although this kind of work is not for every woman, if prostitution was ‘acceptable,’ a lot of underpaid secretaries, data entry clerks, waitresses, customer service reps, and even traffic officers would leave their jobs.”2
She continues: “The hours are great because you make your own. As a [self-employed] callgirl you pick and choose your clientele, and by practicing safe sex there is very little worry about AIDS and other diseases. What horny woman wouldn’t opt for such a lifestyle?”
It’s certainly been agreeable for me.
If you’re a woman who’s never been delighted by the physical attentions of men, who doesn’t much like to be touched by them, and who hates to suck a penis, then you’d definitely hate this work. You’d love the great money and freedom, but you’d probably suffer to get it. In order to be happy in the work, you’ve got to have true affection for men. You’ve got to love their caresses. You’ve got to really love their maleness. You’ve got to understand their lust.
I found out I qualify!
The feminists who oppose prostitution don’t get it. They assume that we whores are all in it because we don’t have alternatives. That may be true for some of us, but certainly not for us all. Whores like me don’t need alternatives. We really love being whores.
No, they don’t get it at all. According to their pretty much unspoken rule, feminists think that all women should be crashing the testosterone world. We’re supposed to seize the male occupations. We’re supposed to excel in male roles. Competitive sports star, software titan, surgeon, CEO—the feminists think we should all love and covet the traditionally masculine jobs.
Here’s what they really don’t get: autonomous sex work is right up there with presiding over men in corporate skyscrapers. The only difference is, we’re in beds.
Feminists will no doubt be quick to retort that in the whore/client transaction, it’s the men who possess the most monetary power. They hold the keys to the kingdom, and whores are just laborers. Feminists have a big problem with that. They imply that no woman is liberated until she’s grabbed a huge share of male-dominated assets. She’s nowhere until men are her subordinates. Feminists want to see women turning everything around; they want to see the females employing the males.
Well, that’s okay with me; point taken. If a woman wants to wheel and deal like a man in this cutthroat world, nothing should be out there to stop her. But what feminists need to consider is that female sexual power is mighty. It’s just as empowering as material assets. And escorts prefer that natural clout to taking on male occupations. The lifestyle of garnering wealth with our sex is less stressful than the corporate ladder scramble. To many of us, it feels righter. To many of us, it feels healthier.
We don’t like being buttoned up in the trappings of male occupations. On the contrary, we’re the escape from those buttons. We enjoy working naked as nature itself. And we love our high monetary value.
Whenever I’ve felt that instinctive compulsion to run away from certain job sites, it’s because every cell in my body is saying those places aren’t healthy for me. And whenever I’ve given pleasure for a living, with gentle men in comfortable environments who respond to me gratefully, every cell in my body has told me: This is right. This is healthy. This is the temple. This is good.
And whenever I walk out of that job site, my wallet is happy, too.
I suppose that we escorts aren’t very different from stay-at-home wives who embrace domesticity. We all feel that feminine joy. The difference is that we sex workers are financially independent. And that’s putting it very mildly.
Here’s the thing that true whores understand, that other women in feminism apparently do not: it’s okay to be a feminist and also be dependent on men. And to even feel good about men! The priestess whore gives feminism permission to be both.
Now let me ask you this: in any other profession, isn’t it expected for a businesswoman to need and appreciate her clients? That’s all that we sex workers are doing with men.
Dolores French can be counted on to support my points with humor. As a self-proclaimed “workaholic” who’s likely to encounter a far greater number of weirdoes and jerks than I do, French is in a perfect position to assert that even exasperating clients are basically no problem. So what if they’re a pain in the ass? The money we’re paid makes it worth it!
“One of them wanted me to get into the Jacuzzi in my garter belt and stockings. I said sure. I had done it before. What were $8 stockings when I was getting paid $500? But by the time I got wet in the Jacuzzi he had changed his mind and wanted a massage. Meanwhile I was standing there in wet stockings. I thought, Puh-leeze. But one of the reasons we get paid this kind of money is because these aren’t things a woman would do willingly on a date. It’s tiring and irritating—about $500 worth of tiring and irritating.”3
In another passage that left me agrin, French describes a frustrating occupational hazard.
“I have a terrible time [retaining] housekeepers. Once they get the hang of what I do for a living, they quit cleaning houses and start working as prostitutes, at which occupation they can earn more money.”
Because of the fact that my sex work saved my family, I can assume that the profession saves other families, too. I’d be willing to bet that I’m not the first single mother who’s uplifted her family that way. And I’d bet that I’m hardly the first one to say, Hey, this job works! This really fits! This job covers my bases!
And when I consider the whole world, I realize I’m probably the fifty-millionth single mom making that claim. Indeed. When I read through books like Global Sex Workers, it’s abundantly clear that in many ports of call, women with children are sex working in droves.
Though a lot of people don’t like to think of a mother as a whore, it’s logical for a poor single mother to be one. No matter what environment she hails from, the First World or the Third, if she’s not being forced or ripped off—that is, if she’s working by her own choice and only for herself—then she needs that situation—that great money and short hours—a thousand times more than the childless women do.
But many believe that whore mothers all need to get “rescued” from that work.
To do what, I’d like to know. Leave their children for ten hours a day for crappola wages in a factory? Leave their children for ten hours a day for crappola wages in an office? Leave their children for ten hours a day for crappola wages cleaning toilets?
Yeah, okay.
Thank you for your comment, or should I say excerpt? I get it, other jobs are exploitative, too. You are certainly right about that. And you enjoy your work and for that I congratulate you. I’m sure not many people can say that. But you do realize that you are painting a very glamorous picture there, that has little to do with the experience of other sex workers? You say that you only work for yourself, you can choose your clients and they are always nice and invite you to luxurious hotels. You are the lucky minority and you may continue that way as long as you want (or as long as you are “wanted”). But don’t pretend you are doing the world or the women a favor by catering to men’s desires only and leaving all the power and decision-making to them. The connection you draw between prostitutes and domestic housewives is very telling. I also don’t appreciate your generalizations about feminists. They are simply wrong.
I appreciate your response, but I have to say that you’re wrong about me leaving all the “power and decision-making” to men. No man is making decisions for me in my life. No man has power over me. It is preceisely the opposite. I make all the rules and the men have to follow them. I realize I’m speaking personally, not globally, but man/woman relationships begin with the personal. Legislation follows.
You are incorrect in your assumption that my sex worker experience is the minority one. Most independent escorts experience the work much the way I do. The problem is the usual: feminists bear witness to mostly the victims, and in the process, develop an unbalanced view.
I never once said or even implied that my work is glamorous. If you were to read my 740 page book, you’d see that I bear witness to the fact that the work is not glamorous. Right livelihood it is, for me; and often quite comfortable, but never glamorous.
I knew that feminists would jump all over my comparison of sex work to the housewife’s. Where did you lose the subsequent sentence I wrote: that unlike the housewife, we are financially independent??
I did not mean to say that you personally leave the power to men; I was thinking about your comment where you criticized that “feminists” “think we should all love and covet the traditionally masculine jobs”, by which you mean positions of power and influence. I say, if women didn’t strive to be active politically and to make positive changes in society by demanding co-determination, we still wouldn’t have the right to vote. Women have to take power, but that does not mean that they will do it in the same way as men. So while you are right that the personal is political, the political also shapes the personal in many ways. But that’s another story and I am derailing my own thread…
Your experience, as you perhaps point out correctly, may be the majority among “independent escorts”, but I hope you are aware that those young women standing on the street and sitting in the windows are mostly not “independent escorts”. You seem to have a very limited concept of prostitution. But hey, if you are doing so well, what is your point? I am not trying to hinder you in doing what you like to do. In fact, I couldn’t care less. I am interested in those that are marginalized, suffering and exploited. Could you please at least acknowledge their existence?
Other than that: what stephenpaterson said.
This is in response to your comment of today (11/30). There was no “reply” option yet for today.
I TOTALLY acknowledge the existence of the marginalized, suffering and exploited!!! If you read my 740 page book, you would know that!!! As a sex worker I am perhaps even MORE PASSIONATE about ending their suffering than anyone!!! They are my sisters in a profession that was sacred 3000-plus years ago and is now horrendously defiled!! No one wants to correct that more than I do!!!
The difference between me and anti-prostitution feminists is that I would not only rescue the suffering; I would not only offer them means to leave the work; I would also show them ways to EXALT in the work as a valid and viable option.
Our dialogue is proof of how much this dialogue is needed between self-determined sex workers and rescue-oriented feminists. We are much more on the same page than is generally perceived. Imagine how much we could accomplish TOGETHER in the effort to end sex worker exploitation and suffering. I have prayed for that development for years.
By the way, when I compared the indie escort lifestyle to the life of the stay-at-home wife, I was simply making the point that indie escorts make enough money to be able to be at home a lot. That’s an indescribably great perk for single moms.
Brilliant article, concise and neatly presented, and I really appreciated the lack of statistics-bashing, which all too often only obfuscates the deeper moral analyses of the subject in favour of technical debates about number-making.
What I most appreciated, however, was the link that you draw between the (lack of) welfare provision to irregular immigrants and their over-representation in the informal sex industry. A classical ‘rational choice’ model, in focusing on the individual as the central unit of analysis, will tell us that anyone who has a preference to earn money through ‘sex work’ (euphemism of euphemisms) should be allowed to do so, as it is their personal preference, based on their free and rational choice to sell sex rather than, as you say, cleaning labour. The former is chosen simply because it is both more profitable and more flexible than the other, this is allegedly therefore a rational and legitimate choice for anyone in this situation. For such analyses, the problem of prostitution is a purely regulatory one: how to make it an orderly and functioning market in which both ‘workers’ and ‘clients’ can maximise their individual preferences, without doing one another too much harm in the process?
The major fault of such theories however -and which your analysis quite subtly corrects- is to consider the present socio-economic configuration as given, and therefore to consider situations in which prostitution becomes a viable career-path as a ‘choice’. Clearly, a certain group of people (I am here thinking of undocumented immigrant women in Europe) is structurally channelled into making this choice with an undeniably greater probability and frequency than other groups of people (such as educated white Europeans). This is a direct result of policy choices that unequally structure our social and economic chances, even before we are born. Were less people exposed to the necessity of such “choices” (through humane welfare provision to migrant women at risk of exploitation, for example), perhaps the ranks of ‘undocumented sex-workers’ would shrink accordingly. It is thus ridiculous, in my opinion, to speak of the ethical viability of ‘prostitution’ without looking at the society-wide economic structures that allow it to exist.
But then again, I guess I am one of those Marxist feminists who would argue that prostitution is a consequence of neoliberal capitalism…
Since you feel this should be more an issue that needs to be addressed by men who are the buyers, how do you feel then about the large increase in sex tourism by women? This may often not even involve money, but instead food, shelter and clothes possibly making life even more difficult for the men trying to live off such work. It seems to me that your assumption it is always men is itself gender essentialism, rather than simply that society allows men greater sexual freedom. When women are also granted that freedom they make the same kinds of choices.
When sex tourism by women starts becoming a global industry, i’ll look into it. In the meantime, I think you are comparing apples with oranges and you are completely ignoring the dimension of patriarchy.
Hi HD,
I think you should be very careful about your use of the term ‘exploitation’ here. I am mindful of a study a year of two back in which rather more indoor sex workers considered themselves to be exploiting than exploited – expressing concerns that they were taking advantage of their clients’ loneliness or requiring payments larger than their clients could reasonably afford.
Generally, places like Germany and Holland are regarded to adopt a regulatory approach as distinct from decriminalisation. For examples of the latter – which is the preferred option amongst many academics studying the issues – you would have to look further afield to places such as New Zealand and New South Wales.
History is littered with moral crusades to ‘eliminate’ prostitution. The high moral ground of the crusaders, however, tends to be crowned with sinking sands. How can laws permitting police crackdowns on brothels which force sex workers to work in isolation, or on street soliciting or ‘cruising’ which force sex workers into ill-lit alleys or places unknown to them where the handful of truly dangerous clients are also unknown to them – claim anything other than moral bankruptcy?
Feminism or not, the human condition is not perfect, and what we know as prostitution is a social phenomenon and will remain irrespective of the laws of a particular state, up to and including (the Taliban) beheading the sex workers. What nations laws do is SHAPE their sex industries: they certainly do not eliminate them. However, the misplaced efforts of both nations and so-called ‘radical’ feminists to eliminate prostitution obstructs and often renders impossible appropriate harm-reduction interventions aimed at minimising violence and achieving public health goals.
I do not know of any state setting a goal of eliminating trafficking or reducing demand by regulating prostitution, though it is generally accepted that the more transparent the industry, the more likely that trafficking can be detected and dealt with. Whilst one case of trafficking is in any event one too many, numbers of sex trafficking victims detected are trifling compared to the numbers of sex workers, certainly in western democracies.
You state: “For many single mothers and migrant women, who come to Western Europe untrained and without speaking the language, this is the only “choice” they have. So much for “voluntary” prostitutes.”
But why have they come, then? Despite occasional, well-publicised cases of trafficking, studies reveal that the bulk arrive with the express intention of being sex workers and are not unhappy with their lot:
http://www.londonnet.co.uk/news/2011/oct/london-prostitutes-choose-their-job-not-forced-sex-trade-says-survey.htm
I don’t know if prostitution can ever be eliminated altogether; I certainly hope the industry behind it can. To simply say “impossible” sounds like resignation and will only lead to political apathy. As you will see in my text I am making suggestions of steps to take to approach this issue, and no, forcing prostitutes back on the streets is not one of them. In fact, I am quite critical of these regulatory practices, which don’t seem to have too many positive effects anyway. As for these studies you mention, I precisely did NOT want to use any of them, because I simply believe they are not worth much. You have to wonder, which sex workers were asked to answer these surveys (tip: probably not the trafficked and illegal ones), which responded earnestly, and in the end you still have a large number who don’t do it voluntarily but because they have to in order to pay the bills.
“But why have they come, then?” Hm, I would imagine, because they come from really poor countries looking for a marginally better life, not because they dream of being prostitutes in Western Europe…
H.D. – Short of an environmental disaster, severe repression or a famine, people do not generally just up sticks and waltz off into areas where they do not speak the native language on the off-chance they may somehow make out. Patterns of migration are far more planned and nuanced, and the women of Eastern Europe are a great deal more savvy than you suggest. You should read a book entitled ‘My Name is Not Natasha’, and/or perhaps some of Laura Agustin’s work, for a fuller understanding of this.
I can fully accept that studies of sex work/prostitution can be conflicting and confusing, that some are downright scewed, and that none of them can give us a comprehensive picture, but I don’t think that is a good reason to bin the lot and proceed regardless through the dark without lights and with neither road map nor compass, especially as it is others’ lives as distinct from our own that are affected. We should proceed with caution, but surely in the light of what information is available from peer-reviewed material, insofar as is possible from neutral sources.
When you talk of eliminating ‘the industry behind’ prostitution, this is easily said but this is the foundation of our present laws in the UK, where anyone providing relatively safe spaces for sex workers to work is hauled before the courts and imprisoned under brothel law. In many ways our system gives sex workers a choice between being legal on the one hand and being safe on the other. And then, when someone gets attacked, we throw up our hands in horror and despatch our parliamentary draughtsmen to make more laws to make the situation worse.
Nowhere have I implied that migrant women come to Western Europe randomly and without any plans. However, I am certain that the majority of those that end up in sex work do so because they have already worked as prostitutes in their home country, mainly for economic reasons, or they get into it because they have no other choice, again for economic reasons, not because they enjoy it so much. Why is that so hard to accept?
The texts you mention should certainly be taken into account, but are you claiming that the studies conducted by the UN and NGOs are worth nothing? Because they shed a different light on the situation, so in order to get a comprehensive picture, one needs to look at all sides of the story.
In case that didn’t become clear, I am not advocating the UK model; I am in favor of social measures that are pro-immigration and support the economically disadvantaged, so that migrant women have an actual choice, but I am not willing to think of prostitution as a job like any other. There is too much at stake.
This is in response to your removal of my last comment. I’m sorry you thought I was advertising. What I’m doing here is trying to have a real dialogue with a thoughtful feminist who leans toward antiprostitution, which is never easy for someone in my position to do. I was excited about it.
I thought that perhaps you would welcome the viewpoint of a real sex worker, the kind you seldom see in the open. I am not someone who simply speculates; I am the real deal. I thought that perhaps that would add something valuable to your blog.
Would you be willing to continue our discussion via private emails? I am still excited about it.
By the way, that short story is not for sale; I’m not trying to sell it. I wrote it just to communicate some very relevant issues.
I know you weren’t trying to “sell” your short story, but you have to understand this is not how blogging works. My articles are not “for sale” either; that doesn’t mean I would post them as full text under other people’s blog posts. That’s what links are for. I would prefer you commenting in the same way you have a conversation or debate with other people. Otherwise the dialogue becomes a monologue. Feel free to email me; the address is on my “About” pages discipline.anarchy@gmail.com
Aphrodite Phoenix – I think that in lumping all feminists together, we make the same error as those who lump all sex workers together. H.D. is quite right in making the point that feminists are very divided on the issue, and we do neither sex workers nor feminism a service by identifying the radical feminist stance as the only feminist stance. Try Sarah Bromburg’s paper here: http://www.feministissues.com/index.html
Thank you Stephenpaterson for your great point about “lumping” on both sides. If you take a look at my most recent comment (11/30) to HD, you’ll see that I’m thrilled to be getting past the “lumping” syndrome with her. If she can appreciate that she has the real thing in front of her right now, a real indie sex worker with whom to confer, then she and I can make a minute but meaningful dent in the detrimentally huge wall of lumping.
I will read Bromburg’s paper shortly. Thanks again.
Dear Aphrodite,
In case you were wondering why I removed your last comment: don’t take it personally but I cannot allow such blatant advertising on my own blog. It distracts from the actual article and disrupts the flow of the comments. If people are interested in reading your stuff, they can just go to your website, no? Sorry, and thanks for all your other comments.
H.D. – I’ve no doubt that when their home countries from the former USSR joined the EU, sex workers were among the economic migrants to the west. Whether the disposable incomes in their previous economies were capable of sustaining the numbers of migrant sex workers that have actually materialised in western Europe is another matter, and I suspect that stories of the success of the first migrants filtered back home and inspired further migration.
I would never reject a paper solely because of its source. Rather more material considerations would be whether the study was conducted under the ethical guidelines of a respected academic institution; its methodology; and whether its findings can be justified by the data it reveals. You mention the UN and NGOs. I wouldn’t be without the UN, which does excellent work in a huge variety of fields, but it is very common for some parts of the UN to be completely at loggerheads with other parts of the UN. Thus you will find UN bodies who think the so-called Swedish Model of criminalising clients is the best thing since sliced bread, while other UN bodies, such as those fighting HIV/Aids, campaign very actively for the decriminalisation of the sex industry to improve transparancy and improve public health. Things would change, I imagine, if the UN ever had to face election.
As for NGOs, whilst I wouldn’t reject a paper solely because it originated from a particular NGO, certain NGOs have a reputation for alarmist scaremongering, unethical approaches, and sloppy or non-existent methodology in papers that obfuscate debate and are primarily about fundraising and profile raising for the NGO concerned. Other NGOs, however, do fine work The question is whether the papers concerned have a solid evidence base.
I disagree with DCDB that it is a, “Brilliant article, concise and neatly presented.” OK, I take some of that back; it is fairly concise and it is neat. There are indications that the author has attempted an even handed analysis but don’t be fooled. At the end of the day we are left with the same old radical/Marxist/socialist feminist rhetoric, repackaged. The one place where we (HD and I) might agree is that the dialogue is in deadlock. The trouble is that people think that they can persuade people like HD with reason, analysis and argument. But they can’t. HD is locked into an anti-prostitution position as surely as North will be North for the foreseeable future.
1. Women may appear to be undertaking a cost benefit analysis and making rational choices but sadly (she shakes her head despairingly) they aren’t. The author doesn’t use the word coercion to describe the women’s condition but many feminists do. And that is, of course, what she means. “For many single mothers and migrant women, who come to Western Europe untrained and without speaking the language, this is the only ‘choice’ they have. So much for ‘voluntary’ prostitutes.” You see, women never simply choose to become prostitutes. Actually, I’m glad that she specifically referenced East European women and Amsterdam prices (she’s only partly right about the prices). The women she is referring to set out from Eastern Europe with the intention of working as prostitutes; they don’t set off for Amsterdam (for example) unprepared and unskilled and simply fall into prostitution (and they may or may not have been prostitutes in their own country. And if so, so what?). They often arrive in Amsterdam (for example) months before starting work in order to get a work permit, and speaking only one language; they pretty soon learn another (English) and to a high standard. They come across as intelligent and self confident, and they display a work ethic which many ‘regular young men and women’ wouldn’t even begin to understand. I find (on their behalf) the inference that they are vulnerable poor souls who wash up on a foreign shore and get sucked into prostitution at the height of their despair patronising, arrogant, ill-informed and offensive.
2. I “am going to refrain from referring to any particular numbers here” – because I know that if I do the ground will be hacked from under me. Lawyer’s strategy II: avoid introducing anything into the argument which might come back and bite me.
3. “As feminists, can we allow for the symbolic meaning of making sex work a legitimate business in our society, or should we stop and listen to those directly concerned?” Well, yes, unless her name is Aphrodite Pheonix and she is coming across as a bit too persuasive. If all else fails, block her postings.
4. However, I’ve thought of a tactic for heading off sex workers who look as though they might undermine my arguments: “it is difficult to simply leave it at that, because even those directly involved with the issues may fail to see the greater picture, the wider social implications of their decisions.” And in all farness, it’s only a little bit patronising to sex workers the world over for me to adopt this position of superior insight – sometimes known as mummy knows best, and always a feature of totalitarian regimes.
5. Look, just because you say it, it doesn’t make it true. “After all, prostitution is not a job like any other, regardless of how one feels about sex.” Try this rephrasing: After all, prostitution is just a job like any other, albeit more complex and requiring a larger skill set than many. There is, for example, a service, a place of work, remuneration, a scale of charges for services, overheads, advertising, and a need for highly developed man management skills, and so on. And let’s not forget, prostitutes who are operating within a supportive legal framework pay taxes just like the normal people who are fronting the rescue industry.
6. “I am a strong believer that everyone has a right to sex, but not to have sex with anyone other than oneself.” What an absolute pile of sanctimonious tosh! (And tosh was not the first word to come to mind.) Or put another way, I guess that “I am a strong believer” could read …. I really have a problem with someone paying for sex. I know it’s irrational, selfish and arrogant but that’s just silly old me, I guess.
7. The feminist’s equivalent of fool’s mate is worth a shot. This is the argument that “you can never be 100% sure that you (men) aren’t in fact perpetuating an industry which is inherently violent and exploitative” (Objection your honour) (Sustained). I don’t want to be a kill joy or promote a one dimensional model of prostitution but there’s no alternative, see? Got to shut the whole industry down. No other choice. And anyway, I can’t be bothered to think of another approach. You don’t say that, but it’s where this kind of rhetoric is headed.
8. “As feminists, we can do all sorts of hand wringing about what may be the best way to address this issue; in the end it is the men who purchase these services who could have the most impact.” Why didn’t you just come out and say it: let’s go for the Swedish model and be done with it. We’ll tell everyone that we have the best interests of women at heart and that the women are victims and that they need to be saved and, meanwhile, we’ll criminalize the men. Or maybe I’ve misunderstood and you are saying that if men voluntarily stepped down on this one (a totally naïve proposition), and the demand evaporated, all the women who elected to enter prostitution will be obliged to do something else. Anything. I don’t care what it is as long as it’s not prostitution! Frankly, I don’t care if there’s no work at all. The world will conform to my mind-model and I will be happy – and that’s what really matters!
9. “I hope you are aware that those young women standing on the street and sitting in the windows are mostly not ‘independent escorts’. As I understand it, you aren’t prepared to quote statistics but you are prepared to make an unsubstantiated wild assertions prefaced by the word mostly.
10. “You seem to have a very limited concept of prostitution.” Actually, what comes across is that it’s HD who has the limited concept of prostitution. And there is no way that anyone can start a sentence with “I hope you are aware” without sounding sanctimonious, prissy and utterly patronising.
11. Aphrodite wrote: I TOTALLY acknowledge the existence of the marginalized, suffering and exploited!!! But HD isn’t really interested in that, is she? She’s interested in her own agenda. Feminists who have a problem with prostitution always present the case as concern for ‘her’, when in fact the case is concern for ‘me’. (Please don’t protest. It positively drips off the pages). Her responses to postings betray her dogmatic position, which translates as: Thanks for that insight but it doesn’t fit my view of the world so I’ve decided to ignore it. She’s not aware of the extent of female sex-tourism, for example. All I can suggest is that she tries to get out more.
12. I loved Aphrodite’s (and other’s) voice-of-reason response (s). Wasted. We could have a million testimonies like hers and each one would be swept aside: I’m not talking about you (Aphrodite), I’m talking about all the millions of others (oh, sorry, forgot that we weren’t using statistics). Unfortunately, this is typical of members of the rescue industry. If their case is undermined, they simply claim to be talking about something else. The counter-argument does have an important place, though, and that’s in persuading those who are undecided (and they are the important people in this debate). Let’s hope that a lot of ‘undecided’ people access this web page.
13. Finally, I’m wondering what the point of the original article was (except to make me angry maybe). It doesn’t seem calculated to get us anywhere. HD has had her say (we’ve heard it before), other people have had their say (Stephen’s and Aphrodite’s inputs are brilliant) but they are wasting their breath, and we are really no further forward. I think that it would have been better to take the following line. Where we can agree that there are real problems, eg, genuine exploitation (ie not go back to arguing that all prostitution is exploitation/violence against women by definition, or manufacturing exploitation where none exists) and where it is clear that manageable and affordable economic interventions can provided an alternative to prostitution that a woman who is contemplating prostitution finds acceptable, how might we (individually and collectively) make a difference? Unfortunately, it’s not within the feminist nature to buy into this kind of compromise, is it? I guess that means it really is deadlock (to answer the original question).
@Marcus: No, we do not agree that the debate is in deadlock, because before you came along we were debating here just fine, thank you. If you had bothered reading my article and the comments in detail, you may have realized that no one here has been arguing in a condescending, debate-terminating manner but you.
1.&2. You seem to know all about prostitution. I suppose you have done a lot of research on the subject. So have I and the reason for why I don’t cite any studies was because the numbers of different studies contradict each other, as I have discussed with Stephen Paterson. But if they are so important to you, why don’t you cite any yourself? How about this recent article on the failure of the legalisation model in the Netherlands: http://www.lemonde.fr/m/article/2011/12/23/pays-bas-flop-de-la-legalisation-de-la-prostitution_1621755_1575563.html
I apologize for not having the English version here, but it basically cites the following numbers: 50-90% of sex workers are doing so involuntarily, only 2% admit to liking it. These numbers, compared to those of other studies, are confusing, which is why I admit that we simply don’t know. But I’d rather err on the side of caution and focus on the ones that show that there is a huge problem.
3. Aphrodite and I may disagree in some ways, but we have had a very grown-up and respectful discussion about a very sensitive topic. I am sorry you cannot acknowledge that. The only reason I blocked one of her posts was that it didn’t meet the standards of a blog comment and she has understood my reasoning. We do, in fact, listen to each other whereas you seem to read only what you want to read.
5. No, prostitution is not a job like any other and I have mentioned why, which you fail to address. I am not concerned with the legal framework here, whether it exists or not. I am talking about physical and emotional damage being done to sex workers frequently, not ALL of them, mind you, but a lot of them, and that’s bad enough.
13. The compromise you are suggesting is exactly what I have been writing about in my article, so why are you pretending that I am not interested in anything other than anti-prostitution? You seem to just want to put me in a box and label me, thereby completely contradicting yourself.
There are some other comments you made which I refuse to respond to because your interpretation of my words is crude and unnecessarily hateful and they show that you are completely unwilling to engage in any sort of argument. You seem to have your opinion and you are unwilling to budge, which is fine by me, but why do you come here and accuse me of doing that?
Btw, “the same old radical/Marxist/socialist feminist rhetoric”? You say that like it’s a bad thing…
That Le Monde article appears to be more in the true tradition of the News of the World than anything else. ‘Facts’ plucked out of thin air, like a Poppy Project press release. But you refer to it as a ‘study’. It isn’t a study, it’s newspaper article. If it was a study, it would have ethical approval from a recognised body, a clear methodology, produce evidence and propose conclusions based on them, and be subject to peer review.
We all know that Amsterdam is currently in the grip of a socially conservative Mayor. Nobody, as far as I’m aware – certainly amongst UK academics or sex workers rights activists – has seriously advocated the Dutch or German regulationist approach to sex work as a preferred model for the future anyway.
The only utility of the Amsterdam model, as far as I’m aware, has been as a mechanism for first and second division civil servants at the UK Home Office to divert UK ministers to in order to prevent them viewing the New Zealand and New South Wales decriminalisation models. Instead, regulationist Holland is routinely presented as a model of ‘liberalism’ gone wrong, cf Sweden. And indeed, English ministers are likely to find the ‘in your face’ nature of window prostitution very shocking, coming as they do from a nation where street prostitutes are expected to function without the protection afforded by windows and to do the decent thing and get killed in order to ferment and justify the next wave of misandry and repression.
“…err[ing] on the side of caution and focus[sing] on the [studies? rumours? whatever?] that show that there is a huge problem” is exactly what got us into this mess. It’s what caused the UK Government to outlaw the ownership or management of brothels in 1885, throwing thousands of women onto the street and setting the scene for Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel murders three years later and aiding maniacs up to and including Peter Sutcliffe, Steve Wright and Stephen Griffiths.
It is a newspaper article, of course, but it is referring to a study. Unfortunately the article doesn’t tell us which study it is referring to, which is of course rather stupid. But the sociologist in the article is a left-wing progressive, it seems.
Sorry for not replying more, but I am on holiday now and will get back to you later.
Thanks for your response. It helped me to understand where you are coming from, as they say. And had I checked your ‘about me’ page before writing, I might have handled it differently.
I might have said something like:
Look, I’m not very sympathetic to your arguments and responses to postings but I don’t think that it will be helpful to try to dismantle them. You’ve had some good observations and feedback from informed people who have responded before me. I do sense, however, that there is a tendency to fight your corner and shore up your arguments rather than to take other points of view on board (that’s just how I read it).
As for your question, I really do feel that on a global level the debate is in deadlock. The same arguments and counter-arguments (a lot of them encountered here) go round and round and round. I wish I was smart enough to break the deadlock but I’m not.
I do think that some positions on this subject are unhelpful and, I have to say, (in, my opinion) sometimes dangerous. Some people think that I am inclined to lump all feminists together. Nothing could be further from the truth. I admit that I find it convenient to reference Marxist, Socialist and Radical feminists in the same breath when talking about prostitution but I consciously and deliberately leave the Existentialists and Liberals to one side. (For reference, I see myself as a Liberal masculinist.)
I have to say that I can’t help feeling that your gut instinct to avoid statistics was the right one. And research, as I see Stephen has pointed out to you, is not always helpful. It’s definitely the case that a lot of researchers find what they are looking for.
Meanwhile, I would be interested to know if the feedback that you have had from different quarters has led you to modify your analysis. If you were writing the introductory piece again, would you change anything? And if so, what?
Finally, I would be interested in your thoughts on a couple of issues.
1. Where do you stand on helping women who want to exit prostitution and those who want to remain working as prostitutes but with improved conditions which reflect observance of their human rights?
2. How do you think we might set about addressing the very obvious and unpalatable stigma that is attached to prostitution, and do you think that it might be a necessary step in helping, protecting and serving the interests of women who are engaged in prostitution?
@Marcus: Thank you for your more level-headed response.
I do not feel like changing much of my article, because I had already seriously questioned and contested my own position before writing it. I might rephrase the very last part a little, simply because it does make me sound a little naive and blue-eyed. However, I am not letting men purchasing sex entirely off the hook, because I do believe that they need to be held accountable in some ways. Talk about stigma! Sure, there is a general idea out there that prostitutes are ripping off clients, lying, stealing and unclean, STI-ridden, etc. I don’t want to repeat all of that here. Those are stereotypes that are being cultivated by both men and women of all social backgrounds. But never have I heard more demeaning and dehumanizing speech from anyone but the men who pay for prostitutes themselves or go deliberately to the red light districts to stare at them like animals in the zoo. The windows in Amsterdam are a prime example how prostitution of that kind furthers misogyny. I’m all for eliminating the stigma, but where to start when men feel justified in treating women as objects?
In case that still hasn’t become clear: I am not in favor of any laws that make prostitutes lives more miserable, on the contrary. I am in favor of positive social measures that allow women to work in a dignified way, and that means loosening immigration laws, ensuring adequate wages and work hours, education and health insurance. I don’t have any numbers to back this up; it’s just a hunch, but I believe it would cut the number of “voluntary” prostitutes in half, at least. After all, I am not willing to accept prostitution as we have it today as a normal byproduct of every society, because men are “naturally” sex-crazed animals and women “naturally” enjoy trading their bodies for currency.
H.D. – I do not know in which jurisdiction you reside. Certainly in the UK there are adequate social insurance measures in place to cover the needs of the UK population. Difficulties arise in the case of, for example, persons with extraordinary needs, such as those addicted to hard drugs, or those for whom there is no social provision eg migrants, especially ‘illegal‘ migrants.
It is always difficult, I think, to properly write or draw conclusions about ‘prostitution’ as a whole. It is highly stratified, and what one might conclude about a cohort of survival street sex workers is entirely different to what one might conclude about in-call and out-call ‘escorts’ and different again from those inhabiting saunas and massage parlours, and all these things vary not only from nation to nation but from locality to locality.
Various studies have been made into what motivates sex workers. Whilst the need to find a drug habit is high among many street sex workers, it is not amongst indoor workers, who are generally accepted to form around 75-85% of the nation’s sex worker population.
Whilst money is invariably the top attractant into prostitution, many escorts, for example, are also attracted by flexible working hours, independence, and the opportunity of meeting people.
And what is this money used for? If we blame their clients for funding the drug habits of a minority of sex workers, should we praise them for providing a lifeline for many poor families in eastern Europe as a result of remittances?
Indeed, if the survival street sex workers are also financing partners’ drug habits, as is often the case, and if, deprived of their drugs, those partners resort to much less benign forms of crime than sex work, as is not infrequently their wont, is not even the client of the drug-addicted street sex worker performing a useful function?
How many millions of women and children world wide are, rightly or wrongly, dependent on prostitution? Were it to disappear tomorrow, and every client of every sex worker on the planet instead take a cold shower, what would the resulting balance of joy and misery look like?
With the number of clients of sex workers, it would be extraordinary if there were no misogynists among them. Certainly misandrists have a penchant for prostitution debates, and I think both sides grow one another. Having said that, if one takes five or ten minutes to glance through the dialogue on, for example, the Punternet forums (which one can do without joining), the banter is certainly not generally characterised by misogyny, and if one looks at ratings that sex workers and clients give one another on a variety of sites, the vast bulk are complimentary in both directions, and less of it is about sex than you might think.
Hi, Henrike.
Thanks for introducing the Le Monde article. I think it’s a significant contribution to the debate – largely because it is a fairly typical journalist’s story. I see that Stephen has already commented (and I could leave it at that), but since I took the trouble to chase the article down to see what it was actually about, I’ll contribute a few observations. The short version, I guess, is that we should be suspicious of news articles like this rather than reliant upon them to support arguments.
THE DUTCH ARE BEGINNING TO REGRET THE LEGALISATION OF PROSTITUTION is just another weak piece of journalism (despite the provenance of the author), which makes unsubstantiated assertions. Unfortunately, most people aren’t going to stop, find it, translate it, analyse it, question it and try to sort fact from fiction. After all, what reasonable person wouldn’t be against coercion and organised crime? And it appeared in a newspaper and it did reference an academic, so it must be true.
I can’t help but be suspicious of an unidentified “study”, which is “highly acclaimed”. I can’t find any reference to it, so I guess that, at best, we are probably not talking about a published work.
“The Dutch regret legalisation of prostitution.” We actually have Evelien Tonkens (founder of the feminist activist movement called Hard Core, and critic of liberals) and the Mayor of Amsterdam (who has got a bee in his bonnet about prostitution) regretting it. This isn’t exactly ‘the Dutch’. And there are studies which suggest that 80% of the Dutch population are in favour of legalised prostitution.
The same old hack journalist’s ‘facts’ are presented as news (to my mind it reads like propaganda):
1. The majority of women working in windows and massage parlours (Amsterdam RLD) have been coerced (‘work under duress’). Surely any statistic which ranges from 50% to 90% must merit ridicule, especially when it is applied to a transparent system like the Amsterdam red light district, which has a relatively stable window population of about 200 women.
The coercion argument is an evergreen. Prior to 2004 (as a response to legalisation), it was vociferously argued that the majority of ‘window girls’ had been coerced into the work and that the army of coercers was made up predominantly of Loverboys (a piece of fiction spawned by a Dutch journalist). In 2004, the Willem Pompe Institute for criminal sciences, Utrecht, (with unprecedented access to prostitutes) published a study which effectively relegated the notion to the status of urban legend.
Subsequently, though, we have come to expect a steady flow of articles from journalists (in western Europe) which rekindle the fire with statements such as: “Since 2004 (how cunning is that?), there has been a steady increase (etc, etc.) in coercion ……” This is one myth which won’t die, however much research is done. It makes no difference that the union of prostitutes (Amsterdam) and individual prostitutes consistently refute the assertion.
Having said this, one has to acknowledge that from time to time some dubious practices are uncovered and dealt with (like in real life).
2. The women routinely have their passports taken on entry to the country (except, presumably, the one’s who come and go freely and regularly). If we asked every ‘window girl’ to bring in her passport tomorrow, and she did, it still wouldn’t appease the doubters, would it? (Obviously the women would simply have been given them back for the morning.)
3. We are advised that only 2% of (apparently 6000 – who counted?) prostitutes in Amsterdam love their work. Obviously prostitution must be a bad thing if only 2% love the work, and obviously it is pre-requisite for doing the job at all. But what if we considered asking the population at large the same question? It is a fatuous observation and a useless statistic.
4. The area is rife with criminality and mafia activity in particular. Why is it that the Dutch are so inept at dealing with organised crime which is taking place in an area the size of a football pitch, I wonder? When authoring policy 1012 (the zip code of the area identified for rejuvenation, which includes, but is not entirely about, the red light district) the authorities were careful to refer to crimogene (in order to justify some actions) – a deliberately vague term used to describe functions (prostitution and coffee shops which sell cannabis, for example) that encourage the promotion or advancement of, or susceptibility to, criminality (but without necessarily doing so). They made a point of saying that they were not actually accusing ‘businesses’/people in the area of criminal activity.
That’s clever. You can lead people to believe that the area is rife with organised crime when you know that it isn’t, or that it isn’t the kind of crime that you are trying to persuade people to believe in. For the most part, the criminal activity refers to low-life pick-pockets and self-employed low-life drug pushers.
As for organised crime, the emphasis has been on getting businesses in the area (review bars, bars, coffee shops, DVD stores and restaurants) to provide evidence of transparent accounting systems which can be audited. Seems fair.
Instead of saying that the law is an ass (it is legal for coffee shops to sell cannabis, but illegal to supply them), we will refer to organised criminal gangs in the area (the producers of cannabis) and encourage the public at large to believe that we are actually referring to prostitution.
And when policies fail to turn up truck loads of criminals/traffickers we’ll call it unsuccessful in addressing a real problem (with the crafty old criminals staying one step ahead of the authorities once again), not a misplaced and misguided policy which was chasing phantoms.
5. The melddmisdaadanoniem system is presented as a failure because there is a low reporting rate of suspected abuse. It isn’t, apparently, because there isn’t more to report, or evidence of, for argument’s sake, a coercion-free environment.
The whole article is based on assertion and is, it seems to me, an exercise in misdirection. The assertions aren’t evidenced. And the testimony of prostitutes contradict the assertions. And if criminality was endemic in the system we should be seeing a lot of prosecutions. It is rhetoric which is based on the principle of: “say it loud enough and often enough and people will eventually believe it.”
Maybe the French will buy into it.
Oh, were it not so true…that “perception is reality.”
Whether the journalist who wrote that article is reporting fairly or not, and whether the sources sited are accurate or not, the thing about Dutch prostitution that always bothers me is the blatant third-party management. The women are not independent sex workers; they are, by and large, brothel workers. As it goes in any sort of managed employment, they are bound to feel exploited at times. Because of the intimate nature of sex work, this is inacceptable to me.
In the most intimate helping profession on earth, the providers should be totally in charge. Their protectors should be in the wings, not the driver’s seat, and hired to protect, nothing more.
I quote here from my book, Are They Bad Girls or Brilliant?:
The trick is to be full of self-knowledge and love. To behold to only that radiance. You’ve got to be the person in charge of your work. I can’t repeat that enough. No one but you should be dictating things: how many, and when, and with whom, and how much; it’s your soul and body, after all.
Hi, Aphrodite
“In the most intimate helping profession on earth, the providers should be totally in charge.”
I can’t say that I disagree with that in principle. But I suspect that good old fashioned pragmatism has to play a part in this somewhere.
For some reason (unknown to me – and you) women (in Amsterdam in this instance) choose to work on the streets (self managed), or in the windows (self managed) or in brothels (often referenced as clubs, with obvious constraints). Others will be escorts who undertake outcall work and control every aspect of their working life and others will be escorts who work through an agency and agree to pay, for example, a fee for introductions.
I have no idea how the numbers of prostitutes relate to the various models so I would hesitate to use the word most when discussing autonomy.
We have to assume that the women are rational and that they are making informed decisions, which includes weighing up the costs and benefits as they make tradeoffs between one system and another. Working in a ‘secure environment’ like a club might be a powerful motivator for some, while working on the streets, with no overheads might appeal to others. Some women who engage in outcall work will favour total independence and control every aspect of their working life (and keep all the money). Others will be escorts who work through an agency because (for example)they enjoy the benefits of having advertising, introductions and collection of payment organised for them.
The women take the option which suits them. And if, subsequently, they change their mind, they have the option to change their environment.
I think it would be an interesting piece of research to discover why women chose one system over another.
At this moment, I can’t say that one model strikes me as being more desirable than any other – because I’m not inclined to tell any of those women how they should live their lives and/or what is important to them.
The issue (I think) is the extent to which any agreement made in the context of a managed service is ‘fair’, acceptable to the woman (including services which she will and will not provide and with whom), transparently non-exploitative, and that services are provided in an environment which at least satisfies regulations required of places of work in general.
A real issue for prostitutes in the UK is the fact that they have autonomy thrust upon them. They are obliged to work independently (alone) and although many have ‘maids’ who provide some basic levels of support (which the prostitutes value) this level of support is illegal. Many (possibly most) UK prostitutes would welcome the introduction of legalised brothels and the opportunity to operate in a regulated managed environment.
They see their current situation as unfair, a compromise of their human rights – and potentially dangerous.
But to drag you back to the world for a moment – it’s important that we challenge misinformation at every opportunity (and I hope that you will join me in that next time).
You may be well placed to take it, leave it, or ignore it because you see it for what it is. Unfortunately, there are too many people out there who believe this stuff and then repeat it as though it were true. And worse still, some of them are in positions of power and influence.