Harlots Parlour

Shelley Stoops has kindly forwarded this article written for Criminal Law and Justice Weekly. It is subscription publication read by magistrates, lawyers, judges and copies are sent to every police depatement. It is an important publication informing the minds of those who judge sex workers in the literal sense.

Shelly Stoops says that violence against sex workers should
not be seen simply as an occupational hazard
Consider this, 135 sex workers have been murdered
since 1991 in the UK. There are an estimated
80,000 sex workers in the UK. Clearly, this is not
an entirely reliable statistic but due to the criminalized,
hidden and secretive nature of sex work, it’s the best
we have currently. Around a quarter (14,000 to 22,400)
of these individuals are street sex workers. Most street
sex workers around the UK are Class A drug users with
many being homeless, living chaotic lives and working to
fund their addiction. So while street sex workers make
up only a quarter of all sex workers, they are the group
disproportionately affected by violence. Violence at high
levels, from a range of perpetrators and this violence goes
largely unreported to the police.
From research in Liverpool conducted in 2008 (Stoops
& Campbell), the women told us that 73.5 per cent of them
had experienced violence at work with 48 per cent reporting
being raped at least once. This reflects comparative
international studies such as Salfati (2009) which shows
73-82 per cent experiencing violence and 37 to 68 per cent
being raped. If we compare data from the Armistead Street
Project (Liverpool Community Health Services) which
operates an anonymous reporting system called “Ugly
Mugs” for sex workers to report attacks against them we
can see that from 2005 to 2010 there were 266 reports from
street sex workers and five reports from off street (brothels)
sex workers. All off street were robberies contrasted with
over 100 rapes reported on street.
Calling to Account
Clearly, we know historically that most crimes were not
reported to the police who cannot act on these crimes unless
they are reported and therein lay the dilemma. We had to
find a way to encourage the clients in Liverpool to come
forward, build trust with the police and CPS and try and
bring these perpetrators to account for their crimes.
Traditional policing focussed on enforcement and
disruption, arresting women for soliciting, men for
kerbcrawling and disrupting these activities. All this did
was move the women into unsafe areas where they were
at increased risk of violence and cause dispersal and this
was just cyclical. So the focus shifted from enforcement to
safety. In December of 2006, we were all shocked by the
tragic events in Ipswich when five women working as sex
workers were murdered, this was the catalyst in Merseyside
for the force to make a public statement declaring all crimes
against sex workers would now be treated as hate crime,
the first and only force in the world to do so combined with
dedicated police liaison officers.
In November of 2006 we had applied for funding from
the Home Office to employ a specialist independent sexual
violence advisor (ISVA) for sex workers who had experienced
rape or sexual violence and assist them in seeking justice,
until very recently, this was the only such post in the UK.
I asked clients to come forward, working from “report to
court” and beyond, in a holistic manner. Almost immediately
women came forward secure in the knowledge that they
would not be judged for being sex workers, drug users or for
being raped.
Unified Approach
In 2009, Merseyside Police set up a specialist team called
“Unity”. It is the first co-located police and CPS team
in the UK who deal only with sexual offences. This is a
fantastic team and we work very closely on all our cases.
The setting up of the team ran parallel to the sexual assault
referral centre opening (SARC) in Liverpool. This means
that all the systems are in place to ensure a quality of care
for victims that I would argue-is second to none.
This is reflected in our data. From 2007 to the end of
2010, we have had 20 (13 for rape-some serial rape with
more than one victim) cases brought to court and guilty
verdicts returned in 16. There are two trials scheduled for
March 2011 and one man awaiting sentence. In 98 per cent
of all our rape cases, clients have gone to the SARC for a
full forensic examination. The attrition rate for rapes of sex
workers is zero. If we contrast this with the period 1999-
2005, there was one case that went to court.
So what is now called “The Merseyside Model” is
considered best practice in dealing with sex workers
who become victims and it works because of trust and
partnerships. Partnerships between the women themselves,
the police, SARC, CPS and the Armistead Street Project.
With conviction rates on average 11 times higher than
“generic” rates, it clearly works and so if you are a sex
worker in Liverpool and are raped-you have an above
average chance of getting the justice you deserve.

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While browsing You Tube I found this presentation talking about sex in ancient Greece. I was especially of course interested in the description of prostitution. I was struck by how little things have changed and again by how much, sadly; things have changed. We still have a multi layered industry as in ancient Greece (something not celebrated enough within activism) but we have lost the appreciation of sex work and no longer understand the sacred and healing nature of sex. We have also lost the acceptance of sexual diversity and instead want to place everyone in safe little boxes ie gay, straight, bi, trans etc etc. I think it is sad that we no longer understand that pleasure is not something to feel guilty about. Monotheism really has damaged mankind and our relationship to each other and to the earth.

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I noticed the link to this article on a face book friends page. I immediately thought that this is exactly the sort of advertising that we need here in the UK. These adverts were created free of charge which suggests that sex work activists in Canada are as short of cash as activists here in the UK. It would be wonderful if an add company here in the UK was to offer to do something similar.

Reading the comments it is lovely to read how many people support the adverts and support sex workers in their struggle. It is equally shocking to read the tone of the moralists as well. Very sad. I noticed that someone pointed out that Christ sat down to eat with prostitutes; which I doubt some of the so called Christians who made some of the hateful comments would contemplate.

A controversial campaign designed by a local ad firm aims to humanize the gritty image of those practising the world’s oldest profession.

At first glance, you might expect the wholesome-looking woman staring from posters in Metro Transit bus shelters to be selling something like milk or granola.

“I’m glad my prostitute made me finish school,” says the jarring copy that accompanies the ads for Stepping Stone, a Halifax group that advocates for and offers outreach to street-level sex workers. And then in much smaller type: “Sex workers are mothers too.”

Another one of the ads shows a grandmotherly woman who looks as if she’s about to offer you a cookie.

“I’m proud of my tramp, raising two kids on her own,” is her double-take inducing message to passersby.

“Sex workers are daughters too.”

A bearded man in a sweatshirt smiles in the third Stepping Stone ad, produced by Halifax’s Extreme Group.

“At my wedding, my younger hooker gave the funniest speech,” says the copy. “Sex workers are brothers too.”

Violent attacks against prostitutes were Stepping Stone’s motivation for the campaign, according to Anthony Taaffe, the creative director at Extreme.

“People have a bad habit of pigeonholing sex workers as not being people,” Taffe said Tuesday. “It’s easy not to care about a certain group within society if you actually don’t see them as people.”

Remove the moral aspect of sex workers’ jobs and the public might relate to them as human beings first, he said.

“It’s easy for people to kind of go, ‘Oh, that woman’s just a whore,’ ” Taffe said. “Well, no, that person is also somebody’s mother or somebody’s daughter or somebody’s sister or something like that. So it helps humanize them a little bit.

“And I think that’s what we want people to really understand is you might not necessarily agree with what they do for a job, but don’t forget that they’re humans and they deserve the same respect that you give to your brother or your father or your mother.”

Extreme, which crafted the campaign for free, couldn’t find local actors willing to volunteer their faces for the ads.

“They didn’t want to face a lot of the stigma,” said Rene Ross, the executive director of Stepping Stone.

Her own grandmother, Doris Lees, is the woman in the ad who looks like she’s about to dispense cookies. “I knew right away that she would be the perfect fit for the campaign,” Ross said.

Extreme employees James Rothenburg and Julie Lawrence are the other two faces in the ads.

Stepping Stone has never reached out publicly in this way in its 20-plus years, Ross said.

“We did want to get people’s attention,” she said. “And we really wanted folks to see sex workers for what they are, and that is people, and to get people talking about the issue, because the reality is sex workers are criminalized in Canada and they face a great amount of stigma, marginalization and violence.”

This would have been a tough advertising assignment, said Ed McHugh, who teaches marketing at Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia Community College.

“I like the execution, I like the theme and I like the shock value of it,” McHugh said Tuesday of Extreme’s campaign. “It makes you stop and read and say, ‘OK, what’s going on here?’ “

Read full article with links “HERE”

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I have written this as a discussion piece. It was prompted by a conversation that I had with an activist who told me that should I (a gay man) speak publicly about sex work; that I should only speak about my personal experiences ie as a gay man selling sex. Interesting though my experiences are; I was annoyed at the limitations I was asked to impose upon myself. I sell sex afterall often to the very same men as my female colleagues with whom I share very similar experiences, yet I could not talk in general terms about our work, only my own.
The process of attracting clients, the sexual acts performed, are; after all very similar. For me it matters not who is speaking but rather what is being said. And if it is a man or woman speaking; should be of little relevance.
I am tired of the media presenting sex work in a way that I don’t recognise and I am suspicious of some (not all) activists who pander to the media and worse our enemies, by playing to stereotypes, segregating sex workers into groups and dividing us into silly little tribes.
Sex workers come in all shapes and sizes and have so much to offer to society. We should be proud of that. But if we don’t challenge presumptions and prejudices who will do it on our behalf?

Prostitution is a woman’s issue. Only women are prostituted and the few “boys” in sex work are just feminised boys, who also (of course) are victims of male aggression? This is rhetoric that we are all familiar with from anti sex work lobbyists. We also know that it is an opinion shared by a media who are uncomfortable with the idea of women willingly selling sex or of same gender sex; whither in exchange for money or not. We know that the sex worker debate is trapped within incredibly conservative stereotypes about human sexuality. But are sex worker activists any different?

In the sex worker debate there exists a quiet consensus among activists to acquiesce to this popular notion that only the voices of women can truly represent sex workers because, they argue; the media and the public assume that sex work is a woman’s issue.
Men who sell sex have of course been studied and written about; but in truth they are a mostly viewed as a sub group, a separate group and particularly worrying; studies of men selling sex have, perhaps unintentionally, pandered to populist assumptions that it is only young men who sell sex. The notion of the “rent boy” dominates which plays to anti sex work lobbyists claims of feminised men.
These presumptions, or are they prejudices, are also shared by some out reach projects. I don’t remember during my twelve years in the sex business as a man selling sex ever being approached by any out reach project offering advice, help, or even free condoms.

Out reach projects by their very nature, tend to concentrate on areas of sex work where social problems exist and these areas are often the most visible sex for sale markets. Young men, under the age of twenty five, perhaps; are more likely to have social and personal problems; but are they the majority. Is the fact that they are more visible reason enough for them to be presumed to represent normality within the male sex for sale business?
There is an historical, cultural heritage that celebrates the idealisation of beautiful boys and of those beautiful young men being desired by older men. This cultural heritage or memory; perhaps explains why young men selling sex is oddly understandable if not acceptable in a society uncomfortable with the idea of men, or rather older men, selling sex as opposed to buying sex.
The idealisation of beautiful boys playing Ganymede to older men is nothing new. The classical world is full of references to” pedastry” and similar systems existed and still do exist in various cultures around the world. (“This article illustrates the use of images of male sex workers and explores the cultures represented in that art” ).

The truth is however; that although Men, regardless of age, are probably a minority within sex work, although no one really knows how many sex workers there are, regardless of gender, their voices should be equal to that of women in the general debate for rights. Does being a minority make men’s voices less than that of women? Sex work is a human issue not a gender issue; no matter what anti sex work lobbyists pretend.
The fact is that men and women sell and buy sex and the selling and purchase of sex is not relevant to gender or age. In sex work activism however; it is the voices of older women who are more dominant. These women quite rightly talk with authority about all aspects of our industry. Where however are the voices of men who sell sex, talking not just about specific aspects of their sex work; but about our industry as a whole?

I find it frustrating that some within activism are more comfortable accommodating populist presumptions and prejudices than with challenging those prejudices and educating society about our industry. I think that it is time that activists celebrated and reflected the diverse nature of the sex industry by welcoming the voices of men and women equally. And not just the voices of men and women who sell sex but of others within our industry, the managers, the drivers and everyone who makes money from the sex for sale industry.
If society is to change and sex workers are to contribute toward a more sexually liberal, progressive and less judgemental society; then we have to challenge the prejudices that not only silence sex workers but divides sex workers. That surely is what activism is really about, challenging prejudices, not accepting them. Teaching people that sex work is a business that contributes toward society. It is an industry that supports many different people, of all ages, from many different back grounds and with varied life experiences. Activism is not just about forming little cliques or pleasing the media but about educating the public about our industry and about being proud of the contribution that our industry makes to society.

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It is so disheartening to read about the implementation of such obviously discriminatory policy in the London borough of Hackney.The council are making a fool of democracy. To dress discrimination and bigotry as some sort of feminist victory is to hammer yet another nail in the coffin of feminism as a pro rights movement, a pro womens movement. Is it any wonder that so many women now are embarrassed to be associated with feminism?

Here is a recent article from the Hackney Citizen talking about recent protests at the councils decisions.

READ ARTICLE WTH LINKS “HERE”.

The results of Hackney Council’s consultation on the licensing of sex establishments have revealed the majority of respondents are opposed to the proposed ‘nil’ policy.

More than 2,700 people answered the questionnaire, which ran from September 20 to December 13 last year.

Of those, 68 per cent were against a ‘nil’ policy for sex cinemas, 78 per cent for sex shops and 67 per cent for sex entertainment venues.

These were echoed by the views of respondents living close to Hackney’s five sex establishments (E1, E2 and EC2 postcodes) where the results were 75 per cent, 83 per cent and 76 per cent respectively.

The report, which is to be reviewed by the licensing committee on 12 January before being put to full council on 26 January, also states that: “While the proposed ‘nil’ policy may result in no further premises being opened, the policy does not require existing premises to close.”

Comments against the ‘nil’ policy included freedom of choice, opposition to the council making moral judgements, legal venues minimising the risk of illegal venues and causing unemployment by closing existing venues.

Expectations on Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch was also mentioned by several respondent as providing valuable safe sex and health advice to the gay community.

Comments in support of the ‘nil’ policy included worries about the objectification of women, residents feeling unsafe walking past the venues, the venues attracting and generating prostitution and general concern about immorality and seediness.

Other consistent themes in the comments were that the council had already made up its mind prior to the consultation and that this policy is part of a wider strategy by the council to clean Hackney up before the 2012 Olympic Games.

Having considered the responses to the consultation, the council is proposing to go ahead with the ‘nil’ policy across the whole borough.

The council qualifies its stance by stating that “given the level of opposition to the ‘nil’ policy from some respondents and in recognition of the existing establishments that have operated in Haggerston for a considerable period of time it is suggested that these existing premises be treated as a special exception to the ‘nil’ in policy in Haggerston only.

“Such exceptional circumstances will only be applied to the existing establishments if they can demonstrate that their premises islongstanding, well-run, and does not generate significant levels of concern among the community and/or statutory authorities.”

Pauline Bristow, partner and licensee of the White Horse on Shoreditch High Street, said she is cautiously optimistic about the news: “We are quite pleased with the results of the survey, but we do feel that we still still be impeded in our renewal application. We feel that Hackney Council will impose some onerous conditions.

“We felt that doing the survey might have promoted the voice of people who are against gentleman’s venues and encouraged them to say ‘we don’t want them here’. I think the wording of the policy is very, very wrong, to call us sex establishments implies that sex is going on behind our doors. It should be exotic dancing venues, it is very misleading.

“People know they have to behave themselves in these venues, they are not allowed to get away with what they are in normal clubs. Police reports show less problems from our venues than ordinary ones, so what is the problem? We are hopeful, but we are not holding our breath,” she said.

Following the adoption of the powers afforded by the Policing and Crime Act 2009 (‘the 2009 Act’) the Council regulates Sex Establishments under Schedule 3 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 (‘the 1982 Act’), as amended by the 2009 Act.

The council adopted the amended powers on 21st July 2010, which consequently took effect on 15 September 2010.

By re-adopting the 1982 Act, as amended the council continues to regulate sex establishments as they did previously. The 1982 Act allows the council to introduce a limit as to the number of sex establishments in its locality, which can be ‘nil’ should the Council deem it appropriate. The amended powers also allow for different limits to be set for the different types of sex establishments, should the council wish to do so.

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