The thought that Harriet Harman is being touted as possible leader of New Labour should fill us all with deep foreboding … nothing personal, Harriet, it’s just that the world has moved on from ’68 identity-led feminism.

For those interested, I expanded on my piece above on the Blog ‘As It Happens’ – http://asithappens.tppr.info – although it adds nothing substantive to the core position.

On a more general point, and I’m sure this has been made above, it seems to be quite obvious to me that, regardless of what we think of something or how bad it may be for people, nothing is ever better when controlled by criminals and by people who are not at all accountable in any formal way for their actions. So it would be clear that prostitution and all it entails (buying/selling/etc) should be legalised and regulated. That would surely make it safer for many and easier to deal with the underlying problems that cause people to get involved in it.

Shit, well now you’ve pointed this out it *must* be true 😉

This is the fruit of allowing progressivism of the American type, single issue activism and identity politics (in which minorities claim to speak for majorities) to displace both socialism and liberalism of a more traditional type. Politically inexperienced activists and ideologists attempt to hijack the wider community and then force through ill-considered ‘moral’ solutions.

First, there is no point in legislation without massive infusions of capital to deal with exploitation – and the legislation would not be required if the appropriate infusions of capital were directed at dealing with the social conditions that create the supply of prostitutes in the first place.

Take the key issues outlined above. Familial abuse requires a serious commitment of resources to community engagement in social services and policing provision, especially in very low income and migrant communities.

We are fully responsible for the appalling state of care for minors in this country – I know of cases where projects to create improved skills in care homes are not taken through because of ‘cost’ and yet the idiots who claim to be our government have not worked out that this cost is small against the later costs in crime and social collapse.

These ideas from Government and feminists are cowardice because they are substituting yet another restriction on liberty to get the matter off the middle class tax agenda and make it a matter of policing and social control. without adequate resources It is a disgrace.

Second, moralistic legislating on how human beings relate to each other sexually in the cause of equality is more than absurd – it is cruel and indicates the intervention of people of limited sexual imagination against people of greater sexual awareness in an unjust and discriminatory way. The ‘moral’ undertone is not just against exploitation but against liberty.

Claiming that the world is made up of either enslaved or free sexual relations shows a massive ignorance of the human condition. People change and play with submission, equality and domination, have different gender preferences, have differing levels of sexual drive and need, and this is all played out in the context of economics. Free choice is the right of the poorest as well as of the richest and the issue is to give prostitutes full free choice and not withdraw it from their customers.

Third, the assumption that the mind may be sold for cash (as in any form of employment) but not the body is philosophically unsound and discriminatory against certain classes. When I let policemen (see the Swedish case above) makes moral choices, then I know we are on the slippery slope to community fascism …

The poor beautiful and uneducated woman is told that she is to be deprived of a choice (which may be lapdancing and not necessarily prostitution, as a result of the current moralistic war on such establishments) but yet she can work for a relative pittance mindlessly managing the checkout at a supermarket. She can be a PA or work as an underling in a law firm but not educate and feed her child (maybe have more money or leisure) by selling her physical skills. Get educated and you are free. Not be quite as bright and you are serf class, obliged to another’s morality.

Surely, a socialist response is to fund education and increase working women’s choices (not remove a choice that pushes them back into low pay) while a liberal response is to regulate against health risk and exploitation but allow the women the choice. Feminist progressivism, on the other hand, just seems to resent the fact that some women make some choices that they do not think are worthy of women as a class – but the issue here is not the identity or sisterhood of women but class itself. These proposals come from a faux patronising sisterhood that scapegoats the most vulnerable amongst their own.

Finally, no one seems to be asking what working women want themselves and that is because they are scared of the answers. Working women want safety and alternatives and free choice. This costs money. Our sick Americanised society will do anything rather than do what is necessary – redistribute resources to assist those classes whose circumstances gives them no choice except to engage in prostitution or the prostitution of the mind, taking any job that comes along.

The feminists involved in this campaign should be resisted. And a three point plan instituted:-

1. Working girls should be asked directly what they need to make rational choices. Government should, within reason, redistribute resources to give them those choices. If they came out of abused families or care, they are OUR responsibility not just to be fobbed off with a bit of conscience-salving legislation.

2. Legislation should be centred not on demand (in case, feminists had not noticed, some people of both sexes really get fulfilment and meaning out of sex and some fulfilments can be reached only through contract, including, some would say, marriage) but on the conditions of supply, not only trafficking but healthcare, conditions of employment, minimum standards and ‘exit’ – in other words, full regulation and reasonable inspectorate in the public interest.

3. The right of unexploited women to employ their assets rationally and at the highest value in safe circumstances should be asserted. It is idiot moralism that fails to allow some women to become the footballers or lawyers of their profession and contribute to the tax pool as equal citizens. They are no threat to the rest of us. They might shake up a few women in marriages to understand that men are different and have needs and rights too. They might actually culturally liberate women not to become lawyers and MPs (which seems to be the limit of metropolitan activist women’s aspirations) but anything they want. If we have to have a celebrity culture, why not one which honours courtesans alongside singers and models. And a rule-based approach to contracted consensual relations might help remove the vicious side of male exploitation and would certainly limit the role of organised crime.

Moreover, we all know what wil happen in practice from these daft proposals. No extra government funds will appear. The rich will pop over to Paris for their jollies or get their lawyers to hire girls as ‘PAs for the night’. The ‘middle class’ working girl will disappear. The poor entrants will be forced underground and treated as cattle because of the risks of prosecution. No one will speak of the matter and the real victims will not be helped.

Sometimes I despair at the ill-educated approach of idealists. Like we can just march into Darfur or Tibet and Burma – and now can stop prostitution in a country of 60 million people, where the law enforcement authorities can scarcely hold down some neighbourhoods, just by scaring the pants on off some lonely middle class men whose wives have lost interest in sex.

No wonder the Left is dead on its feet …

http://www.salli.org/info/lib/kulick-un-talkswe.pdf

The English Collective of Prostitutes is completely against the government’s proposals because driving the industry underground always greatly increases the risks to sex workers, and they are in a far better position to know than politicians. See the ECP’s petition at

http://www.petitiononline.com/swsafety/petition.html

The British Medical Journal are also opposed to the government’s proposals. See

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7535/0-f

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7584/52

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/334/7586/187

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7586/187

I find it very difficult to see why such an authoratitive journal would oppose the government’s policy if it were based on fact and reason.

The government’s policy is actually based on ignorance, prejudice, dogma and guesswork, which is why they have decided to ignore the views of the women actually involved. A very strange way to empower them.

The laws the government are proposing would in any case be impossible to enforce, not least due to the growth of the internet, and would divert resources from the prevention of trafficking. The police have also expressed reservations about further criminalisation.

It’s also very noticable that the government’s enthusiasm for persuading sex workers to leave the industry and find ‘proper’ jobs somehow never quite seems to extend to actually offering them jobs!

Sex between consenting adults should always be based on informed freedom of choice, and it is not therefore a matter for the criminal law in a liberal democracy.

If someone has the freedom to refuse to participate in the transaction, there should be no question of criminalisation, as this equates to a tyrrany of the majority. Regulate for safety, by all means, and make the most strenuous efforts to do so, but all and any attempts at absolute prohibition flies in the face of the accumulated knowledge of history.

As for any research into this seedy area of human experience, I, for one, regard any comments by current/former participants with a large dose of suspicion. Having survived at the sharp end of abusive relationships even and especially the most abused sex slave will have an awareness of the ascribed roles in the power-play and of their ability to manipulate a situation to their own benefit, so we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be lead by any sympathy we may have for their plight at the expense of the rights and wrongs that this may obscure.

I’ve pointed to other studies where people willing to ask more than just street workers about their feelings and situations have come to the same conclusion about the effect of street prostitution on women and the demographics that make up that section of prostitution, yet find completely different statistics in terms of how enjoyable women find the work and how emotionally deficit they feel when talking to brothel house workers (with call girls being in between).

If this argument is JUST about street workers then we’re all on the same page, criminalise it completely, where we differ is on the attributable feelings and backgrounds of brothel workers, whether they’re really that different to street workers or not, and thus whether or not there is an avenue here that can be explored for legalisation and regulation. Frankly, until someone else can put another study on the table that objectively looks at all aspects of the trade in a european country (street/call/brothel) the debate is only half informed.

Something of a non-sequitur since I don’t recall claiming to be objective.

Having participated in innumerable debates on this topic, my post was a challenge to the poster upthread who claims to be a sex worker and thus claims some kind of superior knowledge over the issue of what sex workers think / want. My post was merely a demonstration of your later point, that all ‘types’ of prostitutes should be listened to – not just those who happen to agree with ones own position.

(Notwithstanding of course, that endless research and consultation with prostituted women has demonstrated over and over again that the largest category of sex worker never wanted to be in that line of work in the first place)

Anyway, Spicy, that is possibly the furthest from an objective source of information you could hope to find…a good find, but doesn’t really solve the issue which is that you need to talk to ALL types of prostitutes, not just those wanting to speak up against it because they never wanted in to it in the first place.

Whatever our moral views about prostitution, it is impossible to eliminate it by laws or police interference. What is required, therefore, is effective policing of the abuses and exploitation associated with it – most of which is the direct result of the criminality which surrounds it. As I have said before, there are already enough laws in place to do this if they are effectively and honestly applied.

The 1957 Wolfenden Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution said:
“Unless a deliberate attempt is to be made by society, acting through the agency of the law, to equate the sphere of crime with that of sin, there must remain a realm of private morality and immorality which is, in brief and crude terms, not the law’s business.”

This still strikes me as sound, pragmatic liberal philosophy, and it is up to those who disagree to prove their case which so far on this thread they have not done.

To act as is suggested by the authoritarian advocates of ‘protecting prostitutes from themselves’ would be a gross invasion of the citizen’s freedom of choice and individual liberty.

Yes let’s listen to actual sex workers. Here’s what they had to say at a press conference at the European Parliament

Survivors of Prostitution and Trafficking Manifesto
Author(s): Various

Survivors of Prostitution and Trafficking Manifesto

“Who Represents Women in Prostitution?”
October 17, 2005

We, the survivors of prostitution and trafficking gathered at this press conference today, declare that prostitution is violence against women.

Women in prostitution do not wake up one day and “choose” to be prostitutes. It is chosen for us by poverty, past sexual abuse, the pimps who take advantage of our vulnerabilities, and the men who buy us for the sex of prostitution.

Prostitution is sexual exploitation, one of the worst forms of women’s inequality, and a violation of any person’s human rights.

Many women in prostitution have been severely injured, some have died, and some have been murdered by their pimps and customers.

Physical violence, rape and degradation are often inflicted on us by customers, pimps, recruiters, police and others who gain from prostitution. The public either judges us as “whores” or thinks we make a lot of money.

The condition of women in prostitution is worsened by laws and policies that treat us as criminals and the scum of society, while customers, pimps, managers and sex business owners are not made accountable. Our condition is also made worse by giving licenses to prostitution enterprises and legal protection to pimps, customers and the sex industry

Most women are drawn into prostitution at a young age. The average age of entrance into prostitution worldwide is 13.

Victims of prostitution and trafficking have almost no resources to help them exit.

Programs that provide alternatives for women in prostitution are very few.

Women in prostitution dream of a life free from oppression, a life that is safe, and a life where we can participate as citizens, and where we can exercise our rights as human beings, not as “sex workers.”

We, survivors from Belgium, Denmark, Korea, the UK and the United States declare:

1. Prostitution must be eliminated. Thus, it should not be legalized or promoted.

2. Trafficked and prostituted women need services to help them create a future outside of prostitution, including legal and fiscal amnesty, financial assistance, job training, employment, housing, health services, legal advocacy, residency permits, and cultural mediators and language training for victims of international trafficking.

3. Women in prostitution need governments to punish traffickers, pimps and men who buy women for prostitution and to provide safety and security from those who would harm them.

4. Stop arresting women and arrest the perpetrators of trafficking and prostitution.

5. Stop police harassment of women in prostitution and deportation of trafficked women.

6. Prostitution is not “sex work,” and sex trafficking is not “migration for sex work.” Governments should stop legalizing and decriminalizing the sex industry and giving pimps and buyers legal permission to abuse women in prostitution.

As survivors of prostitution and trafficking, we will continue to strengthen and broaden our unity, help any woman out of prostitution, and work with our allies to promote the human rights of victims of trafficking and prostitution.

What isn’t in the report is any kind of quantification of if this reduction is complete, and whether or not the practice has just gone more underground (it only deals with internet and briefly skims over the idea of hidden prostitution)

Also there is mention of people not “daring” put their women on the street, thus harming profits, for fear of her being found to be trafficked. Firstly, this doesn’t mean that these women aren’t being used in other ways, and secondly it leads for me to assume that if the fear is that they will get found out, by making the trade licensed and thus impossible for trafficked women to get in to the trade surely this is the best measure you can take to really harm the practice of human trafficking for this purpose?

The report suggests that transactions arranged via the internet are increasing in Sweden as elsewhere, and that criminalising people who buy sex isn’t preventing this. But it does find that street prostitution has fallen, that the law is felt to be a deterrent to traffickers, and that violence and prostitution are clearly linked, whatever legal system is in place. And, indeed, the report itself is a product of the Swedish government’s focus on trying to understand and reduce prostitution as part of efforts to reduce violence against women in society.

Criminalising punters isn’t a magic bullet, and as the report suggests, other measures including a wide range of preventative measures are crucially important (likely to be even more so in Britain where there is a generally lower level of equality and spending on social services). But on balance, I think that (for once) what Harriet Harman is suggesting on this one is right.

http://tinyurl.com/2pl7o4

And take particular note of the evidence which shows that this law has…

a. had only a limited (and seemingly declining) impact on street prostitution, and

b. moved the ‘problem’ into other arenas (i.e. transaction arranged via the internet and mobile phones) and, generally, driven prostitution deeper underground.

Whatever political claims are being made for this law, the actual picture emerging in evidence is considerably more mixed and uncertain, and there is little reason to expect that the position in Britain, were a similar law introduced, would differ.

Except that I don’t believe that this or any government would actually honestly report the numbers, aside from the ethical problems of potentially making sex workers’ lives worse in either period if it resulted in a poor outcome, and that the numbers in the case of illegalization would be pretty tricky to come by, almost definitionally.