Also known as the 'crap, my Internet/laptop/life is broken so make the most of the access while you can!' post...Except this is actually a serious blogging. Which must make a change. Right, better get on with it, then...
There are some things about my job that I really, really enjoy, to the point that it becomes so much more than just a job to me. One of these is the research project I'm currently undertaking - and have been doing off-and-on for a while now - on prostitution. What started as a throwaway comment in a meeting six months ago and then became a request to find out a bit more from my boss a few months later has shifted and turned into something that is now making me question my morals, opinions and everything I ever thought I stood for.
I have to be honest - while I would always have considered myself a feminist for my unswerving belief that women should not be subservient to men, a lot of the 'big issues' that feminists have discussed over the years kind of passed me by. I guess I was very fortunate that I was born when I was; my generation didn't have to fight and die for the right to vote and, by the time I'd started work, much of the original fighting for equal pay had been done. There are still battles to be fought on that front for sure, and like many young women my age I suppose I've been a bit lax and blase about the whole thing and done very little about it, but the fights over pornography and prostitution which characterised the early feminist marches never really entered my sphere of thought. I knew they happened, but I never gave much thought one way or the other to whether I considered them 'offensive' or not. As far as prostitution was concerned I had a vague notion that it ought to be legalised, if only to help protect the prostitutes themselves, but the amount of research I've done into this has made me completely and utterly rethink my opinions on the subject. If I'm honest, I'm still not entirely sure where I stand, but I know that I'm fascinated - hello, 4 new text books on the subject - and I'm almost positive I've found a cause...
The main feminist stance on this matter seems to be the radical feminist one, which basically states that all sex work equates to a violent misogyny and therefore is used by the patriarchy and its institutions to oppress women. This 'violence against women' discourse does NOT refer to the assaults, rapes and murders which sex workers endure; instead, it focuses on the idea that the actual SELLING of sex, the commodification of women's bodies (because in this view of prostitution, male and transgender sex workers are non-existent) is violence against women. Whether you're a student pole-dancing to help pay your extortionate tuition fees at medical school, a mother working in a massage parlour to help supplement your benefits, or a street sex worker funding a drug habit, you are all victims of this violence because (allegedly) a woman's essential being is so invested in her body and her sexuality that she is intrinsically damaged by being paid for sexual acts. I clearly missed this memo...Anyway, flippancy aside, I have serious, serious problems with this stance. Yes, I can sort of see the commodification argument, but I am deeply uncomfortable with the implied notion that 'violence' in this case DOESN'T focus on the higher-than-average rates of ACTUAL violence (murder, rape, attempted rape, assault etc) that sex workers face. This also implies that all men who pay for sex do so because as a gender they have an innate need to victimise, degrade and dominate women; that male sexuality is not about pleasure but a perversion born of their need to control and subjugate. Now I've met some bastards in my time, but come off it; how naive would you have to be to believe that every single bloke on the planet doesn't give a damn about anything other than reasserting the patriarchal dominant order every time he sleeps with someone? The human race would have died out long ago if that was the case.
A lot of the feminist opinion also highlights the plight of trafficked and exploited women and children in the sex trade. Now I'm not stupid; I know the sexual exploitation of children DOES happen and that women and children ARE trafficked across the world, but actually the numbers are not as high as certain sections of the community and media would have you believe. Where this happens, of course, we should do everything we possibly can to catch the perpetrators and help the victims (although just sending them straight back to their country of origin can often lead to them being resold to other traffickers, so there's lots of international work to be done there). Similarly, I fully support the flip side of the argument that there are sex workers who CHOOSE this line of work and again, I think we should respect that decision. It's not for everyone, but then again neither's flower arranging and we don't condemn florists in the Daily Mail. Personally, I guess I'm in the middle ground here; while we should support those who choose sex work and help those who are being trafficked and exploited, the majority of prostitutes are plying their trade to fund drug habits, supplement their incomes etc. There are a huge number of social and economic factors that drive people into prostitution; make headway on those and you'll start to deal with the issue itself.
There seem to be three main schools of thought on the prostitution problem and how to solve it: legalise it, or at least parts of it, as in the Netherlands and parts of Australia; regulate it, as in Ireland, or decriminalise the sex workers and instead focus on the 'punters', as in Sweden. The 'Swedish model' is what the last Government was seriously considering in 2006 when they last reviewed the situation; quite what the ConDem Nation (thanks, Ryan!) will do remains to be seen, but I have reservations about all three approaches. Legalising brothels, as in Victoria in Australia, or having managed street zones were touted as being safer for sex workers; however, illegal prostitution rocketed in Australia and so did the numbers of criminal gangs controlling the industry, which also happened in Amsterdam and led to the mayor removing the 'tolerance zones' in 2003. The managed areas often have strict codes of conduct as well, which can lead to prostitutes with drug problems not being permitted to work in indoor settings; and in countries such as Greece or Germany, where registration is a legal requirement for sex workers to regulate them, many simply refuse to sign up as they don't want the stigma of prostitution following them for the rest of their lives, especially if sex work is only a short term thing. The Swedish model focuses on arresting punters rather than prostitutes, which may well stop the 'revolving door' problem of fining sex workers and forcing them back onto the streets to pay said fine, but means that punters will be more nervy and may drive away the 'decent' ones, thus exposing the sex workers to even more harm.
And it's the harm statistics that have really opened my eyes to how horrendous the situation actually is. The mortality rate for sex workers is twelve times higher than the general population and in several different studies across the UK, over two thirds of the women spoken to had been attacked in some way. The rates of assaults, rapes, robberies and murders are horrendous; sex workers, especially street-based sex workers, are among the most vulnerable groups in the country. And not just by punters, either; in December 2003, a 25 year old woman who worked as a prostitute in Ipswich named Cara Martin-Brown was kicked and beaten to death by a local man who was NOT a punter. Be honest - you haven't heard of Cara, am I right? That's another thing that has made me feel ashamed: thank the Gods, the serial murder of women who work as prostitutes (because they are SO much more than that stereotype, thank you, mass media) doesn't happen very often; Peter Sutcliffe, Steven Wright and Stephen Griffiths are thankfully anomalies rather than the norm, but how many women who work as prostitutes who have been raped or beaten do we hear about? For that matter, unless it IS a serial killer running riot, the murder of sex workers generally goes unreported. These women are highly vulnerable; to enact laws that drives the sex trade further underground and forces sex workers to make snap decisions about which clients they'll go with is frankly irresponsible. For all the handwringing that went on at the time of the Ipswich murders, the country as a whole has done remarkably little to change either its opinions, moral judgements or anything to try and improve the situation. Handwringing doesn't save lives. Actions do.
I don't know what the answer is - if I did, I'd be either ludicrously rich or an insufferably smug know it all - but one thing I DO know is that, unless Britain as a whole wakes up and collectively does SOMETHING to get to grips with the issue of prostitution, even if it's just starting a debate on the subject, more women will be raped, beaten, robbed and killed on our streets. Jack the Ripper wasn't the first; Stephen Griffiths won't be the last. Not unless we do something.
I also know this: putting aside all issues of prostitution's morality, inevitability and the radical feminist and other debates, as you read this blog somewhere in the UK a woman is going out to sell sex. She might be lucky and come home again safe and sound; she may be robbed, or beaten or killed, but she will be out there and no amount of horrifying statistics is likely to change that. I know because I've spoken to several of the girls in the local area who work as prostitutes; I've done outreach with them and I've seen what they endure. I hope I never hear that any of them have been murdered, and I'm hopeful that the work I'm doing at the moment will go someway to bringing in a local strategy that can help us tackle the issue. I don't know. But I think about them a lot, and this whole thing has made me think again about my own moral judgements and opinions. It's not going to be easy, but we HAVE to start thinking about this otherwise we risk sending out the message that, as a society, we're content to condemn an entire section of the population to violence and death. After Ipswich we said never again. After Bradford we said never again. How many more times do we have to say never again before we really mean it...?
There are some things about my job that I really, really enjoy, to the point that it becomes so much more than just a job to me. One of these is the research project I'm currently undertaking - and have been doing off-and-on for a while now - on prostitution. What started as a throwaway comment in a meeting six months ago and then became a request to find out a bit more from my boss a few months later has shifted and turned into something that is now making me question my morals, opinions and everything I ever thought I stood for.
I have to be honest - while I would always have considered myself a feminist for my unswerving belief that women should not be subservient to men, a lot of the 'big issues' that feminists have discussed over the years kind of passed me by. I guess I was very fortunate that I was born when I was; my generation didn't have to fight and die for the right to vote and, by the time I'd started work, much of the original fighting for equal pay had been done. There are still battles to be fought on that front for sure, and like many young women my age I suppose I've been a bit lax and blase about the whole thing and done very little about it, but the fights over pornography and prostitution which characterised the early feminist marches never really entered my sphere of thought. I knew they happened, but I never gave much thought one way or the other to whether I considered them 'offensive' or not. As far as prostitution was concerned I had a vague notion that it ought to be legalised, if only to help protect the prostitutes themselves, but the amount of research I've done into this has made me completely and utterly rethink my opinions on the subject. If I'm honest, I'm still not entirely sure where I stand, but I know that I'm fascinated - hello, 4 new text books on the subject - and I'm almost positive I've found a cause...
The main feminist stance on this matter seems to be the radical feminist one, which basically states that all sex work equates to a violent misogyny and therefore is used by the patriarchy and its institutions to oppress women. This 'violence against women' discourse does NOT refer to the assaults, rapes and murders which sex workers endure; instead, it focuses on the idea that the actual SELLING of sex, the commodification of women's bodies (because in this view of prostitution, male and transgender sex workers are non-existent) is violence against women. Whether you're a student pole-dancing to help pay your extortionate tuition fees at medical school, a mother working in a massage parlour to help supplement your benefits, or a street sex worker funding a drug habit, you are all victims of this violence because (allegedly) a woman's essential being is so invested in her body and her sexuality that she is intrinsically damaged by being paid for sexual acts. I clearly missed this memo...Anyway, flippancy aside, I have serious, serious problems with this stance. Yes, I can sort of see the commodification argument, but I am deeply uncomfortable with the implied notion that 'violence' in this case DOESN'T focus on the higher-than-average rates of ACTUAL violence (murder, rape, attempted rape, assault etc) that sex workers face. This also implies that all men who pay for sex do so because as a gender they have an innate need to victimise, degrade and dominate women; that male sexuality is not about pleasure but a perversion born of their need to control and subjugate. Now I've met some bastards in my time, but come off it; how naive would you have to be to believe that every single bloke on the planet doesn't give a damn about anything other than reasserting the patriarchal dominant order every time he sleeps with someone? The human race would have died out long ago if that was the case.
A lot of the feminist opinion also highlights the plight of trafficked and exploited women and children in the sex trade. Now I'm not stupid; I know the sexual exploitation of children DOES happen and that women and children ARE trafficked across the world, but actually the numbers are not as high as certain sections of the community and media would have you believe. Where this happens, of course, we should do everything we possibly can to catch the perpetrators and help the victims (although just sending them straight back to their country of origin can often lead to them being resold to other traffickers, so there's lots of international work to be done there). Similarly, I fully support the flip side of the argument that there are sex workers who CHOOSE this line of work and again, I think we should respect that decision. It's not for everyone, but then again neither's flower arranging and we don't condemn florists in the Daily Mail. Personally, I guess I'm in the middle ground here; while we should support those who choose sex work and help those who are being trafficked and exploited, the majority of prostitutes are plying their trade to fund drug habits, supplement their incomes etc. There are a huge number of social and economic factors that drive people into prostitution; make headway on those and you'll start to deal with the issue itself.
There seem to be three main schools of thought on the prostitution problem and how to solve it: legalise it, or at least parts of it, as in the Netherlands and parts of Australia; regulate it, as in Ireland, or decriminalise the sex workers and instead focus on the 'punters', as in Sweden. The 'Swedish model' is what the last Government was seriously considering in 2006 when they last reviewed the situation; quite what the ConDem Nation (thanks, Ryan!) will do remains to be seen, but I have reservations about all three approaches. Legalising brothels, as in Victoria in Australia, or having managed street zones were touted as being safer for sex workers; however, illegal prostitution rocketed in Australia and so did the numbers of criminal gangs controlling the industry, which also happened in Amsterdam and led to the mayor removing the 'tolerance zones' in 2003. The managed areas often have strict codes of conduct as well, which can lead to prostitutes with drug problems not being permitted to work in indoor settings; and in countries such as Greece or Germany, where registration is a legal requirement for sex workers to regulate them, many simply refuse to sign up as they don't want the stigma of prostitution following them for the rest of their lives, especially if sex work is only a short term thing. The Swedish model focuses on arresting punters rather than prostitutes, which may well stop the 'revolving door' problem of fining sex workers and forcing them back onto the streets to pay said fine, but means that punters will be more nervy and may drive away the 'decent' ones, thus exposing the sex workers to even more harm.
And it's the harm statistics that have really opened my eyes to how horrendous the situation actually is. The mortality rate for sex workers is twelve times higher than the general population and in several different studies across the UK, over two thirds of the women spoken to had been attacked in some way. The rates of assaults, rapes, robberies and murders are horrendous; sex workers, especially street-based sex workers, are among the most vulnerable groups in the country. And not just by punters, either; in December 2003, a 25 year old woman who worked as a prostitute in Ipswich named Cara Martin-Brown was kicked and beaten to death by a local man who was NOT a punter. Be honest - you haven't heard of Cara, am I right? That's another thing that has made me feel ashamed: thank the Gods, the serial murder of women who work as prostitutes (because they are SO much more than that stereotype, thank you, mass media) doesn't happen very often; Peter Sutcliffe, Steven Wright and Stephen Griffiths are thankfully anomalies rather than the norm, but how many women who work as prostitutes who have been raped or beaten do we hear about? For that matter, unless it IS a serial killer running riot, the murder of sex workers generally goes unreported. These women are highly vulnerable; to enact laws that drives the sex trade further underground and forces sex workers to make snap decisions about which clients they'll go with is frankly irresponsible. For all the handwringing that went on at the time of the Ipswich murders, the country as a whole has done remarkably little to change either its opinions, moral judgements or anything to try and improve the situation. Handwringing doesn't save lives. Actions do.
I don't know what the answer is - if I did, I'd be either ludicrously rich or an insufferably smug know it all - but one thing I DO know is that, unless Britain as a whole wakes up and collectively does SOMETHING to get to grips with the issue of prostitution, even if it's just starting a debate on the subject, more women will be raped, beaten, robbed and killed on our streets. Jack the Ripper wasn't the first; Stephen Griffiths won't be the last. Not unless we do something.
I also know this: putting aside all issues of prostitution's morality, inevitability and the radical feminist and other debates, as you read this blog somewhere in the UK a woman is going out to sell sex. She might be lucky and come home again safe and sound; she may be robbed, or beaten or killed, but she will be out there and no amount of horrifying statistics is likely to change that. I know because I've spoken to several of the girls in the local area who work as prostitutes; I've done outreach with them and I've seen what they endure. I hope I never hear that any of them have been murdered, and I'm hopeful that the work I'm doing at the moment will go someway to bringing in a local strategy that can help us tackle the issue. I don't know. But I think about them a lot, and this whole thing has made me think again about my own moral judgements and opinions. It's not going to be easy, but we HAVE to start thinking about this otherwise we risk sending out the message that, as a society, we're content to condemn an entire section of the population to violence and death. After Ipswich we said never again. After Bradford we said never again. How many more times do we have to say never again before we really mean it...?
