Posted in Escorting Lives, tagged brothels, Madam Becky on 31 March, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
On the 15the Feb Madam Becky Adams gave this talk on brothel keeping at the London All Ears Story Telling.
Madam Becky Adams has spent the last 20 years running brothels in the Home Counties. Convent educated, her story of middle class prostitution, police harrasement and fleeing the Uk to pick walnuts in France is both witty and thought provoking. The truth really is stranger than fiction.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Canada, education, pornography, Sex Work, USA on 30 March, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Two stories a couple of weeks apart about former porn performers being outed as having once upon a time appeared on video while shagging, and having been outed, been sacked from jobs in schools. One of them was from the USA, the other from Canada. Both are remarkably similar in content.
The more recent one, from the Quebec region, has commentary provided by Amanda Marcotte @ Slate (via The F-Word Blog). Key comment from Ms Marcotte: “I don’t care where you fall on the pro- or anti-sex-work divide, but the double standard for workers and customers galls me to no end. You might want to argue that a sex worker isn’t a good “role model,” but far worse in the role model department is sending the message that sex workers are for using and then throwing away.”
I learned of the other story from reading Metro on the bus a couple of weeks ago, and here’s what I wrote about that story at my blog (I kind of feel that it’s valid for both stories!):
***
Tera Myers (Tericka Dye), who formerly appeared in pornographic movies under the name of Rikki Andersin, but now has felt compelled to resign from her current role as a teacher in St Louis, Missouri after this fact of her past was discovered by a student.
The only other report that Google News turned up was a blog entry from Babble (“for a new generation of parents”). It is somewhat encouraging that the tone of the Babble piece was given by these extracts:
I’d just like the record of whoever teaches my daughter in the future to be void of any violent crimes and to really love and appreciate that they have the privilege of attempting to turn young minds on to learning each day.
…
I’m scratching my heard that Tericka Dye, or Tara Myers, will not be in a classroom for the rest of the school year because of activities from 15 years ago.
Now, there’s a number of issues here. Ms Myers described appearing in porn as “the biggest mistake of my life”, and I have no further information about why she said that. It may have nothing to do with the problems of finding other employment after leaving the business. There are plenty of other reasons why an individual might regret such a decision (but not necessarily why everyone would).
But the key point is simply this: there should be no reason why a history in sex work should affect one’s chances of employment in any industry. The fact that it can lose you your job is designed to punish and slut-shame women (and, conceivably, men, although I don’t know off-hand of any stories of men losing their jobs for having been in porn?) for daring to be sexual at any point in their lives. Honestly, if any parent objected to it, I think the appropriate response would be “She’s teaching your kid. That’s proof that you two fucked at some point. So I did it on film, so what?” Although I suspect using the word “fucked” in that context might be considered reason for being sacked even if the past wasn’t!
Even if your feminism is of the anti-porn variety, I would hope that you would want that women who for whatever reason have appeared in porn should be able to leave porn and be secure in a different job instead. In fact, I think it should be explicit in law that firing someone because of their previous employment in any legal industry (which includes porn, particularly in California where Ms Myers did her porn work) should be illegal and grounds for compensation for the sacked employee and punitive penalties against the company. The sources available suggest that Ms Myers was very good at her job as a teacher, and that the fact that once upon a time someone put their cock in her on camera had no effect on her ethical or functional ability to teach and help guide young people through their education. If it takes legislation to force businesses to realise that what you do in your private life or your past has no effect upon your ability to function as an employee, then by all that’s beautiful that’s what we should campaign for.
Posted in Escorting Lives, Feminism, tagged Mumsnet, Politics of Sexuality, Sexuality, Women on 27 March, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Taken from http://bbwclaire.wordpress.com
I have been visiting Mumsnet again. I really shouldn’t go there so often because they’re guaranteed to get my blood boiling – but it’s a little bit …well, like picking at a scab, I suppose. You know you shouldn’t, it’s going to bleed, it will probably be painful and you’ll have to wait for it to heal all over again. But you still do it.
I have always known that I think rather more like a man than a woman on many subjects. I relate to men and usually have a fair understanding of their feelings, attitudes and reactions, whereas women often leave me completely lost for words, scratching my head and looking like Stan Laurel after Ollie’s dropped him in the doo-doos again. Visiting Mumsnet has reaffirmed that belief considerably. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that most women are mental.
Specifically, there is a poster there using the name ‘Dittany’. I reckon she ought to shorten it to ‘Ditto’, to be honest, since I’m convinced she has her argument against prostitution saved as a Word Document and simply employs the old ‘cut n’ paste’ technique when she wants to weigh in with an opinion! The shorthand version of her oft-repeated diatribe is that men who use sex-workers are rapists, and women who choose to be sex-workers have been so subjugated that they don’t know any better. When presented with the question ‘Am I only allowed to make my own decisions if they are the same as those that you would choose to make for me’? she goes strangely quiet…
What offends me the most is that in essence, her argument hangs on the belief that anyone who disagrees with her must be inherently stupid and cannot decide for themselves whether or not they are happy. This, rather naturally, grates on me a bit.
I am not stupid, nor blinkered. I know without a shadow of a doubt that there are some f**king awful things happening out there to women who are for whatever reason unable or unwilling to prevent what is done to them. But to assume that because it happens to some it is happening to all, is as ridiculous as it would be to believe that because some people dislike bananas, all people dislike bananas.
I am 37 years old and I have enough life experience under my belt to know when I am happy. It may not please these women to acknowledge the existence of the Happy Hooker but I’m here, I’m happy, and I’m going to keep on hooking as long as that’s true.
Posted in Feminism, tagged Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism, MacDworkinism, Oppression, Policy, Radical, Sex Work, Victim on 27 March, 2011 | 2 Comments »
This is in two parts – or even longer!! Let’s just see how this develops.
I am tackling this in sections so that the information can be put over as clearly as I can. The first part is going to deal with Andrea Dworkin and possibly a little on Catharine Mackinnon and their brand of feminism. The second or other parts I am going to look at are the ongoing influence of this “ideology” on the present day policy makers and how the MacDworkin combination is reflected, and reverberations of their “culture” and ideology within our political and social framework is felt.
I came across the term MacDworkonite some months ago and I didn’t have a clue what it referred to, so I looked it up, and of course did some reading around it all, and was thoroughly amazed at what I read, but it did answer some questions that I had and some observations that I had during my own feminist development.
I went to a lot of women conferences in my teens and early twenties and I read a lot of work by female writers, and my shelves contained many paperbacks with The Womens Press iron logo and other writers, such as Anne Dickinson, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, and many important classics. I read what I could get my hands on, not all feminist ideology, but certainly of female writers.
But I was aware that not all was right with the feminist movement at that time. There was a lot of anti-male sentiment and “victim” culture of the women, and not enough work centred on actual equality issues or looking at the “positive” culture of women and moving forward, being progressive.
Female Crucifixion - The Victim
I was unaware of Andrea Dworkin or Catharine MacKinnon, I had not came across them or read their material until now. This is probably due to the fact that I distanced myself from the womens groups at that time, simply due to the fact I had my life to get on with and I couldn’t be doing with “victim” culture. I never understood the need to construct women into “victims” and I often wondered where it came from, it certainly did not help women that had been through trauma, it kept them in that position of trauma. It kept those women down and they were never free of it. Yet, I always thought that feminism was about developing a world where women benefit from an equal share of the rights and power in a progressive approach and not in a repressive/regressive way.
So, now I have gone back to reading some literature and have read Dworkins work, such as, “Intercourse” and her speech on “Prostitution and Male Supremacy” (at the symposium “Prostitution: From Academia to Activism,” 1992) and “Pornography: Men Possessing Women” (warning – please read with care, not for the faint hearted), along with some of her other works.
As I said, I read a lot of her work and a lot of that writing was on porn and more porn and even more porn and reflecting her anti- male mind-set. I seriously found her anger, hate, use of vile language and imagery totally offensive.
She has a massive distaste for heterosexual sex, and a distrust of men, and yet she has immense pride for lesbian sex ”…… and that pride shines as bright as the summer sun at noon.” (Lesbian Pride, 1975). Fair enough, its great that she feels so much pride about her sexuality, and that is as it should be. But she put so much energy into her anti-male, anti-heterosexual beliefs; it’s quite clear that her beliefs consisted of a full blown passion of hate.
The Radical notion that women should be treated like children
In her writings the heterosexual woman is ridiculed and we are informed that our choices are wrong and we are infantilized by her. That we cannot get any pleasure from the intercourse with man, as all intercourse is with man as the user, the occupier, and for women who enjoy heterosexual sex are labelled ”collaborators, more base than other collaborators have ever been: experiencing pleasure in their own inferiority.” For Dworkin the heterosexual woman was inferior as we are the “occupied” and “occupied” by men. “Physically, the woman in intercourse is a space inhabited, a literal territory occupied literally: occupied even if there has been no resistance, no force; even if the occupied person said yes…” (Intercourse, 1987)
I got extremely tired and totally gob smacked at her continuous abuse of the heterosexual act. I have never met any man that fits her description or of any woman in such extreme oppressed servitude and how she truly believes that (as cited on the inside cover of “Intercourse”) “the essence of female oppression is rooted in nothing less than the act of sexual intercourse itself”. In “Intercourse” she examines five writers (Tolstoy, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Kobo Abe and Isaac Bashevis Singer) and uses their work to reflect and demonstrate “the deepest veins of male obsession and revulsion with this most basic act” her writing is disturbing and full of hyperbole and rhetoric, and she focuses a lot on incest within her writings and also in her speech on Prostitution at a Trafficking Conference in 1989.
Also she states that “The men as a body politic have power over women and decide how women will suffer: which sadistic acts against the bodies of women will be construed to be normal. In the United states incest is increasingly the sadism of choice”. So is this true? Do men sit around and organise themselves in such a way that they decide how women will suffer and by which sadistic acts? And apparently in the US it is incest??? Again she focuses on this in her delivery in 1989 stating that many of the women are victims of incest and many are prostituted by their fathers (see link above). Again an over exaggeration of the truth, where are the facts in this?
Dworkin also states that “f…..g is inherently sadistic” and that “Pregnancy is the confirmation that woman has been f….d” and is “ ………..punishment for her participation in sex” For her, even pregnancy is filled with hate and is “pornographic”.
She discusses sexual freedom and states “Freedom is the mass-marketing of woman as whore. Free sexuality for the woman is in being massively consumed, denied an individual nature, denied any sexual sensibility other than that which serves the male.” (“Whores” Pornography: Men Possessing Women, 1981). There is relentless and continuous use of offensive language and imagery within all of her text.
Tools of the Trade for the Radical Feminist
Dworkin has demeaned women in her language and in her imagery and her continuous declarations that women are victims and that “Being female in this world is having been robbed of the potential for human choice by men who love to hate us” (Intercourse 1987).
Dworkin, along with Mackinnon engendered or highlighted a radical feminist approach to women’s oppression. For the radical feminist the sex worker does not act out of free choice but is a “victim” of coercion.
The radical feminist position is both emotionally and politically focused in its use of language. The radical feminists tend not to separate their campaigns from their philosophy.
They are unable to, as their focus is on widespread cultural or social change rather than on academic debate and they focus on men as the oppressors.
These radical feminists do not regard sex work as a harmless personal transaction. The opposite is true as they believe that it reinforces and continues “the objectification, subordination, and exploitation of women.” Everything is framed as “degradation” and “oppression” of women, maintaining women as “victims”.
Unfortunately this excessive use of the same descriptive language and generalisations are all too frequently used as stereotypical concepts of what a sex worker is and it has framed a lot of political theory and policy making in sex work legislation.
Policy makers that have this radical feminist outlook/philosophy have continuously illustrated a fragile understanding of the nature of sex work and of that of the sex workers themselves.
The sex worker-client relationship can be more complex than initially thought by either the radical feminists, or society itself, who only know the typical extreme media produced image, such as the glamorous high class escort or the street worker.
Clients do find sex workers company soothing and beneficial. Many times a client can be looking for the simple things, such as, tenderness, human contact and communication, even though sex is the initial definer in the meeting, it is not always the main thing that is required.
The majority of sex work is very different from the extreme media portrayals and it’s important that its diversity is honestly observed.
The sex worker-client relationship is not always a perfunctory process as portrayed by the radical feminists, it can be a meeting where concern and humanity are revealed and respect developed.
Concern, Humanity and Respect
But thankfully not all is lost in this sea of hate packed feminism as there are feminists such as Daphne Patai who describes herself “a “still-avowed feminist” who rejects the presupposition of a rigidly patriarchal world in which men are innately predatory while women are inherently virtuous and potential victims.”
Patai singles out Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (along with Mary Daly) as “notorious heterophobes,” condemning their “pathological aversion to men…and antipathy to heterosexuality.” She effectively points out the fundamental argument that women are not protected by such views (or legislation arising from it) but infantilized by such fanaticism and that we should never attempt to erase sexuality from the structure of existence.
So, although there are many such feminists such as Patai out there, they don’t seem to make that same impact on policy as those such as Dworkin and MacKinnon, and why is that? I am not too sure, but it’s something I will definitely think upon.
Meanwhile, this topic is being re-visited and discussed very soon in part two, coming up!!
Some links I read when researching MacDworkinism, along with the text mentioned in the blog.
By Sady at Tigerbeatdown
Daphne Patai Who wrote “Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism” 1998
Andrea Dworkin
Plus many more, I have a list if anyone wants a few days reading material 
Posted in Uncategorized on 25 March, 2011 | 4 Comments »
I would like to introduce a new writer to harlots. Morven has been a fan of Harlots for some time and has written this interesting piece questioning the impartiality of government research and of those who are awarded the tender to do that research. It is from an historic perspective very obvious how governments have validated policies by the subtle (or perhaps not so subtle) manipulation of information and of the evidence to support that information.
Through out the world we have seen how much government (thats public money) is awarded to rescue organisations. The greater subsequent credos later given to that research gathered by groups with a very clear anti sex work agenda sort of leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
So again part of our job as activists is to inform the public of this bias and to demand that if public monies and public support is being given to research that the research carried out is unbiased.
As a fan of the TV series ‘Yes Minister’ I am often surprised by how this 20 odd year-old programme still remains true to life.
Take a look at this exchange between Jim Hacker and Bernard Woolley regarding a planning inquiry;
Jim Hacker: “I thought these planning inspectors were supposed to be impartial?”
Bernard Woolley: “Oh really, Minister. So they are, railway trains are impartial too, but if you lay down the lines for them that’s the way they go.”
So, what has this got to with anything?
While looking at the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) website regarding the ongoing Inquiry by Baroness Kennedy I came across this on the latest news page;
Inquiry latest:
Tender for research: experiences of people trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation in Scotland
The Commission is inviting interested parties to tender for a research study to investigate the experiences of people trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation in Scotland. If you are interested in tendering for this research, please see full details of this tender in our procurement section. Deadline for submissions: 14 September 2010.
Invitation to quote: draft, analyse, report for Human Trafficking Inquiry in Scotland
As part of its Inquiry into human trafficking in Scotland the Commission invites quotes from parties to undertake evidence gathering work with public authorities that have some responsibility for preventing or combating human trafficking in Scotland. If interested please consult the invitation to quote for this evidence gathering in our procurement section. Deadline for quotations: 6 September 2010.
This got me to wondering a few things;
Who has been awarded the contracts?
Who was asked to bid and who was aware of the opportunities?
Are the people who have been successful going to be providing unbiased information, or could it be that the research will be steered in a particular direction?
Two answer the first two questions I sent a couple of Freedom Of Information (FOI) requests to the EHRC and received some answers.
The research study has been awarded to Professor Roger Matthews and Dr Helen Easton of the Crime Reduction and Community Safety Research Group based at the London South Bank University, while the other tender went to Sandhya Drew, Barrister, Tooks Chambers
A follow up FOI request elicited this information about the bidders and deliverables for the research tender;
The bidders were;
London South Bank University
Collaboration between Eaves Housing and National Centre for Social Research
Options UK
Women’s Resource Centre
Harris Howard
The deliverables are to “produce a research report that sets out experiences of those that have been trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation in Scotland, as well as an analysis of the impact of relevant agencies, policies and practises on victims of sex trafficking”.
I was also told that the tender was advertised on the WHRC website and “an email was sent to academics drawing their attention to the advertisement”
Now, as a layperson, and sometime cynic, this last sentence gives me cause for concern as it seems to suggest that the EHRC holds some form of list of academics that they use, and so it begs the questions such as to who is on this list? , how it is maintained?, and is it properly representative of the academic community?
However, my overriding concern, regards the impartiality of the research. After all, the Inquiry can only deliberate and pronounce based on the information it has, and it seems in this case, that third parties will provide a substantial amount of this data.
How impartial will Roger Matthews and Helen Easton be? Well, having come across this piece in the Guardian website;
Posted in Uncategorized on 21 March, 2011 | 5 Comments »
The question of choice.
How often have we been told that women (men rarely mentioned) turn to sex work because they have limited choices or are forced into sex work because of poverty. This is an excuse used not only by the rescue industry but also by some sex worker rights activists.
It is an argument that angers me. It angers me because it suggests a stereotype that eases the consciences of middle class types on either side of the sex worker debate. It angers me because it suggests that poor women are different and have no options but to open their legs to earn a pound or two. It is insulting to the millions of poor women who do not sell sex to survive but actually choose other options and yes, mostly, unless someone has a gun to your head, there are other options.
The vast majority of us are limited in our work choices by our socio-economic environment and sex workers are no different. The vast majority of people choose not to sell sex but the fact that some do is only proof that for some selling sex is a better option. It is the reasons why selling sex is often a better option that should be discussed more and not the excuses used to explain why some people choose to sell sex. I am so tired of sex workers being interviewed and bullied into agreeing that they wish they did not do sex work. The truth is that most people, if pushed; would wish they did not have to work at all, full stop.
Of course there are variances within sex work where women and men on the street for example often sell sex to feed drug habits or sell sex in exchange for shelter. In these circumstances there is a more obvious economic inequality and limitation of choices but choices still exist and these sex workers represent the minority and not the majority of sex work experiences. The inequality represented by this group reflect failures within society to provide adequate social care services. The fact that so much rhetoric on sex work revolves around minority groups however to justify negative legislation that both institutionalises inequality and endangers sex workers lives only serves to emphasise the peculiar obsession with selling sex that pervades our culture.
There is an hysteria about sex trafficking which is disturbing in its assumptions about the choices or lack of them among sex workers. Few anti sex work lobbyists bother themselves to explore the human drama involved in any form of migratory work other than as a negative reflection of their own middle class prejudices about human sexuality.
The real reason why women or men choose sex work regardless of their economic circumstances or social back ground is because sex work offers flexible hours and relatively good rates of pay and does not require great academic skills. Its that simple and that basic. The reason for so many migrant workers sex workers flocking to the major cities of the world is that the stigma around sex work makes the anonymity of selling sex not only in a city but in a foreign city very desirable. If you are from a poor country the temptation to earn relatively easy and quick money in anonymity in the wealthy west is especially tempting. These are real, very human and even aspirational reasons for sex work and for high levels of migratory sex work. Far more plausible but less sexy than lurid tales of trafficking that fuel a very lucrative rescue industry. If you were to be conned into believing with out question the vast numbers of trafficked victims reported on some abolitionist websites you could be forgiven for imagining vast slave auctions on the Kings Road in London or on the champs elysees in Paris. The truth is that like any form of labour sex work is a choice made depending on individual circumstances and is no more the fault of economic or social pressures than any other choices that we all make in life. The only difference is the ickiness felt by some within the rescue industry and government about humans selling sex.
Sex work is a lucrative labour option that offers flexible hours. This is why so many people sell sex, nothing to do with poverty or limited choices but a whole lot to do with wanting more money for working less hours. Sex work is often a means to an end and should be understood as an option some are prepared to take in order to achieve the goals that they set themselves in life. Certainly because of the stigma and the degrees of criminalisation that exist it is not always an easy option but it is mostly one made freely.
So please, on both sides of the argument over sex work can we have less of the prejudices aired to excuse your personal and shared societal ickiness over the idea that any woman or a man can earn in one hour what most nice middle class types can earn in a day simply by offering a sexual service. You may feel sorry for us but the reality is that if it was not for the prejudice against sex work we would all be selling sex and some argue that we all do anyway, just less honestly.
Posted in Campaigns and Groups, Escorting Lives, Government Brutality, Human Rights, Law on 20 March, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
I was alerted to this article by a face book friend. It poses a serious question that seems to be almost accepted as fact by sectors of society and certainly by some legislators.
Although the article once again talks primarily about limited choices for sex workers which is an idea I personally have some issues with it does illustrate the mentality of those who think that acts of violence and even murder against a sex workers is sort of allowed by society. In a sense this thinking is correct because as long as sex work is criminalised and marginalised and therefore stigmatised then sex workers will remain vulnerable targets unprotected by the law.
I have said before that the real traffickers and pimps and abusers of sex workers wear suits and often have government titles. The rescue industry are equally culpable in perpetuating abuse toward sex workers by demanding the criminalising of our clients and the closing of safe places to work. We have a duty to remind the public of this truth and if I were able to finance an advertising campaign then this simple message would be at its centre.
GOVERNMENTS ABUSE SEX WORKERS NOT CLIENTS
You can read the full article with links “HERE”
Illustration: Charlie CanfieldAs MoJo reporter Mac McClelland pointed out earlier this week, murdered prostitutes don’t often make the news these days. When they do, their deaths may be dismissed as more occupational hazard than crime. Here, for example, is how St. Francis County sheriff Bobby May explained the fatal shooting of trans prostitute 25-year-old Marcal Camero Tye: “You know, prostitutes, these types of folks—it’s a risk. Whenever you’re soliciting, things of this nature happen sometimes.” Translation: If Tye hadn’t been trans and/or a prostitute, the murder would have most likely never happened. But why is it so easy to deny a prostitute’s right to safety?
Some sex worker advocates say that if the media did more work to humanize prostitutes, violence against this demographic would occur less frequently. Cyndee Clay, the executive director of Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive, is one. The Washington, D.C.-based counseling and outreach center reaches about 7,000 sex workers a year and has a 24-hour crisis assistance center for sex workers who have been victims of crime and/or who want to transition out of sex work. A few years ago, HIPS submitted its study of police abuse and misconduct cases against trans and female clients to Amnesty International. And recently, it helped prepare a United Nations report vying for sex worker rights in the United States. Clay spoke with me about prostitute safety, decriminalization, and the real reason people get into sex work.
Mother Jones: Based on the people you’ve worked with at HIPS, why do most people get into sex work?
Cyndee Clay: There’s not one story of why people do commercial sexual exchange for money, whether that’s formalized sex work or whether that’s entering into a relationship where you know that being intimate with someone means that you’re going to receive some financial assistance or shelter. I think what we do see is that the more economically disadvantaged or educationally disadvantaged, or the less power you have in the community already, tends to increase the likelihood that you’re going to be or feel coerced into sex work.
MJ: In your experience then, is prostitution a choice?
CC: In my experience at HIPS, probably the majority of people coming into our offices given a variety of choices probably would not choose to do sex exchange as their main source of income. Many of them are doing it because of circumstance.
MJ: In which case, why does HIPS emphasize providing health and welfare services to sex workers rather than alternative employment to rehabilitate them?
I don’t see sex workers as people who need to be rehabilitated. The clients who come into our offices and ask for assistance, they’re not saying I had sex with someone and they gave me money and that really hurt me.
CC: My issues with the word rehabilitation are somewhat problematic because I don’t see sex workers as people who need to be rehabilitated. The clients who come into our offices and ask for assistance, they’re not saying I had sex with someone and they gave me money and that really hurt me. Some people say that but it’s by far not the most common issue in all the 15 years I’ve been here. What people come to me with is I have these charges against me because I was arrested for prostitution.
We had one woman who worked with our program. She had struggled with drug abuse. She finally got to a point in her life where she could hold down a steady job. She had a food service job, so she was up at like 3 every morning, left her shelter, went to go to work at her job, and then after that would come and volunteer at the agency. She actually got let go of her job because she had a prostitution charge, which was a misdemeanor from ten years ago. I’ve heard of countless stories of people who were transgendered, who when they start transitioning or when they show up for their first days of work, because their gender doesn’t match their ID, they get fired or they get told that they can’t work for some reason. So when these people need to eat, when they need to support themselves, body labor, sex work is something that they turn to. Those are the issues that I think we need to work on instead of trying to abolish sex work. It’s those societal forces that are making sex work the best possible option or an option among very few options.
MJ: So you think prostitution should be legalized?
CC: I tend to talk about sex work in terms of decriminalization because I definitely don’t feel like we need more laws around sex work. But through decriminalization we would, in some ways at least, change the relationship that sex workers have with law enforcement, so that law enforcement can spend their time helping people who are victims of abuse, or people who are victims of domestic violence, or people who are victims of sexual assault or robbery. We wouldn’t be spending our time policing people for trading sex which would free up resources to take care of these more real issues for sex workers. Criminalization of people of color and poor people in general is more of what our clients deal with on a day-to-day basis. Lacking jobs, housing, and being profiled and feeling like you’re under the gun all the time. Those are the things that keep people from being safe, that keep people from accessing resources that they need like housing, like medical care, and other social services.
I know a woman who chose to do escorting because it meant as a single mom she could be off at 3 to be home with her child.
People are violent against sex workers because they think it’s okay, like Jerry Ridgeway who said specifically that he targeted sex workers because he knew they wouldn’t be missed because no one cared about them. We had a guy in DC who started off attacking exotic dancers and then moved to attacking escorts, women who worked on the Internet. I know a woman who chose to do escorting because it meant as a single mom she could be off at 3 to be home with her child. Of the economic options available to her, escorting was one that allowed her to have flexible schedule, and allowed her to take her kid to soccer. Probably like a lot of people she had good days on the job and bad days on the job. But the man who was targeting escorts said, “What you’re doing is illegal and what I’m doing is illegal, so no one’s going to care if I hurt you.” A lot of sex workers at that time were really afraid to come forward and afraid to go to the police, and it’s due to criminalization for the act of paying for sex and the treatment of sex workers by law enforcement. Decriminalization isn’t going to stop all of these problems but at least it would allow us to put a lot of resources into solving the larger societal problems that are causing the abuse, causing the violence, causing the different factors that make people feel like sex work is their only choice. I think sex work can be a choice. It may not be the choice that you want your friend to make, but I wouldn’t want my friend to work at Wal-Mart or McDonald’s for that matter.
MJ: What is the country missing out on by not decriminalizing prostitution?
CC: The real thing for me is at what cost? At what cost to society do we continue to lock people up for prostitution? At what cost do these laws allow us to continue to treat sex workers or people who do sex trading as criminals and not as members of society. We were in court and met a woman who was going to jail and was potentially going to have to be involved in a four-month diversion program and weekly trips to court for drug testing and potential incarceration for what amounted to a $10 exchange of money for a sexual act. How much are we spending on the judicial system and on incarcerating these individuals? And then we she get’ out of jail she’s still going to have a charge that’s going to keep her from getting a job because having a prostitution charge on your record can be the terms for not hiring someone or if it shows up in a background check, people lose their jobs. It’s happened to many people at the agency. We’re just setting up a revolving door where we lock these people away so we don’t have to think about them. And it’s not an effective means of doing what we really need to do which is help increase the options available for people so they can lead self-determined lives and be happy and healthy.
.
Posted in Uncategorized on 18 March, 2011 | 14 Comments »
I would like to ask a question. “Would the real sex worker please stand up”. The reason I ask is because both for the enemies of sex worker rights and some on the left with in sex work activism this taxing question apparently requires a definite answer.
The arguments primarily revolve around sex worker unionisation, in particular the UK example.
The British GMB Trade Union recognises and supports a London sex worker branch that welcomes all who work in the sex industry, including sex work managers and even clients.
Criticism of the GMB sex worker branch have concentrated on the this wide membership base. Critics claim that allowing managers and clients membership of a trades union established to represent sex workers weakens the voices of sex workers. Arguing from an historical, nineteenth century understanding of trade unionisation they claim that the purpose of a trades union is to represent workers in dispute with owners and managers. Allowing managers and business owners especially equal membership they argue compromises sex worker solidarity in any potential disputes. They argue that allowing managers to join the branch and to potentially hold offices within the branch weakens the branch as a trade union representing real sex workers.
The reality however is that sex work is not a traditional industry with traditional employee and employer relations. It is an industry of the self employed that often has complicated working relationships that do not reflect the simplistic nineteenth century mindset reflected within the criticism. In truth I doubt with few exceptions this understanding of trade unionisation has much relevance in a modern world where the majority of workers are transient and few work in the world of traditional industries that trade unions and the labour movement in general once reflected.
The criticism revolves primarily around prostitution although the branch accepts membership from anyone within the adult entertainment industry including porn and erotic dance etc. Within prostitution however so called managements, escorts agency owners and brothel owners are like those they represent self employed and are employed to do a specific job by other self employed sex workers. There are no legally enforceable contracts with the result that managers are often at the mercy of those they represent rather than having any real, enforceable authority over those who pay them to represent them. Being married to an agency owner I know and understand the demands put upon him by successful escorts who have a wide variety of work options open to them.
Sex workers are perhaps the most transient of workers, moving from place to place and working as and when it suits them. Sex work is a peculiar industry in that it is populated by workers who genuinely reflect, perhaps more than any other industry, our diverse society and its social/economic make up.
There are sex workers who work to meet a specific want ie a new hand bag and others who work to feed a drug habit. There are workers who work full time and others who work once or twice a year. Sex workers can be very high earners and jet set around the world or they can be subsistence workers living literally hand to mouth. From high class to courtesans to migrant street workers the sex worker branch of the GMB welcomes and does its best to represent them all.
Managers within sex work often work sexually with clients themselves as well as manage or have at some time in the past worked. Sex workers within brothels and agencies often employ their own drivers and maids or work from their own premises which they also rent at a profit to to other workers. Often sex workers work from brothels and through agencies and also do independent work. There are few if any direct comparisons with traditional worker experiences within sex work. Criticism of the branch for representing the diverse experiences within sex work is more political ideology than a true representation of sex workers working experiences.
Those who use their bodies directly within the sex industry and those they employed to manage aspects of their work are equally the victims of prejudice and stigmatisation because of their labour and because of this they share a unity of purpose that is decriminalisation and recognition of their labour rights regardless of the form that labour takes within sex work.
My personal response to critics of unionisation and of the GMB branch is that this is our industry and our branch and we as sex workers will decide who can or cannot be recognised as a sex workers and not you. There is no argument or any need for debate but instead a need for absolute unity and support of a trade union brave enough to recognise justice and to support those who are persecuted unjustly by all UK governments.
The GMB branch may not be perfect but it exists and with a wide and diverse membership through out the UK it stands proudly as a symbol of the future for all sex workers regardless of how they choose to work or the role that they play in our industry. Our challenge as sex workers is to realise our common ground and to negotiate ways to make our sex worker branch more reflective of the diverse nature of our industry. We may be workers but our industry is unique and our branch should reflect that uniqueness.
The term sex worker was adopted as a generic term by sex worker organisations and activists to legitimise claims that sex work be treated as real work. As a term it has been very successful with media and governments increasingly using the term sex worker rather than prostitute. I argue that we should not weaken that meaning or that use of the term to please either our enemies or for political ideological rhetoric but rather celebrate sex worker as an inclusive term for all who work and make money within the sex industry.
And so I ask again. “Would the real sex worker please stand up”. Who legitimately can claim to be a real sex worker? Someone who works once or twice a month offering a massage with a happy ending or an escort who works three days a week and then rents her rooms at a profit to other escorts or a manager who works a ninety hour week to generate work for sex workers? Who legitimately is more in need of union representation? Who is the real worker in the sex industry that legitimately needs union representation more than another?
Posted in Health, Human Rights, Law, tagged UN, USA on 10 March, 2011 | 2 Comments »
The US Government had to respond to a number of questions on its human rights record. They responded with this statement on prostitution. Will this mean sex workers can get tested for STDs in the US without fear of arrest
We agree that no one should face violence or discrimination in access to public services based on sexual orientation or their status as a person in prostitution, as this recommendation suggests.
While cities like New Orleans who imprison sex workers for long sentences, I some how don’t think so.
Posted in Uncategorized on 10 March, 2011 | 2 Comments »
I was alerted to this article by a friend on face book. It is an article in the “Globe and Mail”
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Reporting on the appeal by the Canadian federal government to be heard in June against the judgement made last year that Canada’s anti sex worker legislation placed sex workers in danger.
I find it amazing that any government would even consider arguing that it does not have a duty to defend its citizens. Sex workers in Canada are legal but similarly to the UK any way in which they work that makes their LEGAL work safer and better for themselves and their clients is illegal.
It is an absurd idea that a legal mode of work should be deliberately made dangerous by government simply because the government disagrees with that work for what are totally moral reasons. It is a little like saying that a soldier is legal but allowing them to fight together for safety is not. It will be interesting if the courts acquiesce and support the government or actually do their job and defend those being persecuted by unjust laws.
Sex-trade workers voluntarily enter a world known for violence, drugs and death, the federal government will argue at a June showdown over the embattled prostitution laws.
In a legal brief filed with the Ontario Court of Appeal, government lawyers argue that the state does not owe prostitutes a promise of safety if they choose a profession that is fraught with danger.
“The law does not oblige individuals to engage in an activity that could risk their security,” it states. “It is the practice of prostitution in any venue, exaggerated by efforts to avoid the law, that is the source of the risk to prostitutes.”
The historic test case has burgeoned into a five-day appeal that will be heard by a specially convened panel of five judges. They will decide whether Ontario Superior Court Justice Susan Himel was correct last year when she struck down the laws governing pimping, keeping a brothel and communicating for the purposes of prostitution.
The federal brief insists that Judge Himel was wrong to suggest that individuals are entitled to engage in prostitution, and that Parliament “is not obliged to minimize hindrances and maximize safety for those that do so contrary to the law.”
However, sex-trade workers and advocates who argued for the law to be struck down maintain that since prostitution is legal, it is dangerously hypocritical to make it impossible for sex-trade workers to operate in safety.
In her judgment, Judge Himel agreed with them. She said that laws set up to protect prostitutes endanger their safety, forcing them to engage in hasty transactions conducted in shady locations.
Last fall, Court of Appeal Justice Marc Rosenberg stayed the effect of Judge Himel’s order until April. The stay was recently extended until the hearing in June.
Alan Young, a law professor who succeeded in having the prostitution law struck down, said that he agreed reluctantly to the extension.
“Justice Himel agreed with our argument that these laws endanger women, so in principle we are fundamentally opposed to the idea of allowing this law to continue in force by agreeing to a stay of judgment,” Prof. Young said in an interview.
“However, with our limited resources we need to pick our battles,” he said. “It is far more prudent to put our energy into preparing for the June appeal so that we can get rid of this bad law forever, instead of fighting over a stay which will only decide whether this law should continue in force for the next two months.”
The appeal has attracted a collection of would-be intervenors who are scheduled to argue Friday that they should be included in the appeal hearing. They include the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.
Two other organizations that work with hundreds of sex-trade workers – Maggies: Toronto Sex Workers Action Project; and Prostitutes of Ottawa/Gatineau Work Education and Resists (POWER) – argue in legal briefs to the court that they ought to be included since they alone actually represent the people most affected by the laws.
Maggie’s position is that “all consensual sex work is legitimate,” the brief said. “The criminalization of prostitution, in all of its forms, creates barriers to health, safety, status and social well-being for women in the sex trade.
“Indoor work sites are the most economically viable and secure sites for women in the sex industry,” it added. “There are few other legal professions, if any, where individuals are forced to choose between their physical well-being and legal status.”
Lawyers for POWER maintain that personal autonomy is at stake.
“POWER will argue that the challenged laws interfere with sex workers’ ability to make fundamental choices in respect of their bodies and their employment, the latter being an essential component of a person’s identity, personal dignity, self-worth and emotional well-being,” its brief said.
The group argued that prospective intervenors who support the laws insist on “moralizing” about how prostitution is sinful and amoral.
“POWER’s view is that there is nothing inherently degrading about sex work,” the brief stated. “It is the criminalization and stigmatization of sex work that has diminished the dignity of the trade.”
The federal brief insists that the prostitution laws survived a challenge in a 1990 reference case that ruled out reconsideration of its constitutionality.
It also argued that prostitution harms communities by attracting the drug trade and underworld characters. “People no longer feel safe in their neighbourhood, children are exposed to johns, pimps and prostitutes, and to the public display of sex for sale,” it said.
The government disputed an argument that decriminalization would get prostitutes off the streets and into regulated brothels, where they could practise their trade in relative comfort and safety.
“The police, experiential and expert evidence was that prostitutes are physically at risk regardless of the venue of the initial encounter with the john, or the location in which the act of prostitution takes place,” the brief said.
