Liberal feminists: “Listen to women of color! The feminist movement needs to do a better job of including, addressing, and prioritizing the needs of marginalized women!”
Me, a black woman: “I oppose the sex industry because it is making fat sacks of cash off of perpetuating stereotypes, sexualizing racism, fetishization, and portraying my sisters as exotic fuck toys for white people’s consumption. This is inherently dehumanizing and degrading to us as a class. And it affects me personally down the line because it’s conditioning all of these pornsick teenage boys to view me and other women of color not as complex human beings, but toys. It’s sickening to see my sisters reduced to a porn category (“Ebony”). Also, can we address the fact that a lot of women in prostitution are poor black and brown women with nowhere else to turn?
Liberal feminists: “OMG! Die evil SWERF! Why do you hate sex workers!1! Stop being whoreophobic, you’re just a conservative in disguise! #HerBodyHerChoice !”
Tag: prostitution
‘It’s like you sign a contract to be raped’ | US news | The Guardian
There is only one place in the US where brothels are legal, and that’s Nevada – a state in which prostitution has been considered a necessary service industry since the days when the place was populated solely by prospecters. There are at least 20 legal brothels in business now. Not so many, you might think, but these state-sanctioned operations punch above their weight in PR terms.
Take HBO’s hit documentary series, Cathouse, which features the most famous of the Nevadan brothels, the Moonlight Bunny Ranch. Tune in and you’d be forgiven for thinking that all prostitutes in Nevada are on to a good thing. The women speak coyly about loving their work, their customers, their bosses. “The series sheds light not only on the numerous joys and challenges of working at a legal brothel,” says the HBO website, “but on the therapeutic benefits that customers take with them after a stint at the Ranch.”Given such great PR, a new book – Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections – makes interesting reading. During a two-year investigation, the author, Melissa Farley, visited eight legal brothels in Nevada, interviewing 45 women and a number of brothel owners. Far from enjoying better conditions than those who work illegally, the prostitutes she spoke to are often subject to slave-like conditions.
Described as “pussy penitentiaries” by one interviewee, the brothels tend to be in the middle of nowhere, out of sight of ordinary Nevadans. (Brothels are officially allowed only in counties with populations of fewer than 400,000, so prostitution remains an illegal – though vast – trade in conurbations such as Las Vegas.) The brothel prostitutes often live in prison-like conditions, locked in or forbidden to leave.
“The physical appearance of these buildings is shocking,” says Farley. “They look like wide trailers with barbed wire around them – little jails.” The rooms all have panic buttons, but many women told her that they had experienced violent and sexual abuse from the customers and pimps.
“I saw a grated iron door in one brothel,” says Farley. “The women’s food was shoved through the door’s steel bars between the kitchen and the brothel area. One pimp starved a woman he considered too fat. She made a friend outside the brothel who would throw food over the fence for her.” Another pimp told Farley matter-of-factly that many of the women working for him had histories of sexual abuse and mental ill-health. “Most,” he said, “have been sexually abused as kids. Some are bipolar, some are schizophrenic.”
Then there is the fact that legal prostitutes seem to lose the rights ordinary citizens enjoy. From 1987, prostitutes in Nevada have been legally required to be tested once a week for sexually transmitted diseases and monthly for HIV. Customers are not required to be tested. The women must present their medical clearance to the police station and be finger-printed, even though such registration is detrimental: if a woman is known to work as a prostitute, she may be refused health insurance, face discrimination in housing or future employment, or endure accusations of unfit motherhood. In addition, there are countries that will not permit registered prostitutes to settle, so their movement is severely restricted.
Those who support the system claim that the regulations may help prevent pimping, which they see as a worse form of exploitation to that which occurs in brothels. According to Farley’s research though, most women in legal brothels have pimps outside anyway, be they husbands or boyfriends. And, as Chong Kim, a survivor of prostitution who has worked with Farley, says, some of the legal brothel owners “are worse than any pimp. They abuse and imprison women and are fully protected by the state.”
The women are expected to live in the brothels and to work 12- to 14-hour shifts. Mary, a prostitute in a legal brothel for three years, outlines the restrictions. “You are not allowed to have your own car,” she notes. “It’s like [the pimp’s] own little police state.” When a customer arrives, a bell rings, and the women immediately have to present themselves in a line-up, so he can choose who to buy.
Sheriffs in some counties of Nevada also enforce practices that are illegal. In one city, for example, prostitutes are not allowed to leave the brothel after 5pm, are not permitted in bars, and, if entering a restaurant, must use a back door and be accompanied by a man.
So how did Farley gain access to her interviewees? Those in control of the women were confident that they would not be honest about the conditions, she says. “Pimps love to brag, and I know how to listen,” she adds. Although left alone with the women during interviews, Farley noted that they were all very nervous, constantly looking out for the brothel owners.
Investigating the sex industry – even the legal part – can be dangerous. During one visit to a brothel, Farley asked the owner what the women thought of their work. “I was polite,” she writes in her book, “as he condescendingly explained what a satisfying and lucrative business prostitution was for his ‘ladies’. I tried to keep my facial muscles expressionless, but I didn’t succeed. He whipped a revolver out of his waistband, aimed it at my head and said: ‘You don’t know nothing about Nevada prostitution, lady. You don’t even know whether I will kill you in the next five minutes.’”
Farley found that the brothel owners typically pocket half of the women’s earnings. Additionally, the women must pay tips and other fees to the staff of the brothel, as well as finders’ fees to the cab drivers who bring the customers. They are also expected to pay for their own condoms, wet wipes, and use of sheets and towels. It is rare, the women told Farley, to refuse a customer. One former Nevada brothel worker wrote on a website: “After your airline tickets, clothing, full-price drinks and other miscellaneous fees you leave with little. To top it off, you are … fined for just about everything. Fall asleep on your 14-hour shift and get $100 [£50] fine, late for a line-up, $100-500 in fines.” (The women generally negotiate directly with the men over the money; what they get depends on the quality of the brothel. It can be anything from $50 for oral sex to $1,000 for the night, but that doesn’t take account of the brothel’s cut.)
Farley found a “shocking” lack of services for women in Nevada wishing to leave prostitution. “When prostitution is considered a legal job instead of a human rights violation,” says Farley, “why should the state offer services for escape?” More than 80% of those interviewed told Farley they wanted to leave prostitution.
The effect of all this on the women in the brothels is “negative and profound,” according to Farley. “Many were suffering what I’d describe as the traumatic effects of ongoing sexual assaults, and those that had been in the brothels for some time were institutionalised. That is, they were passive, timid, compliant, and deeply resigned.”
“No one really enjoys getting sold,” says Angie, who Farley interviewed. “It’s like you sign a contract to be raped.”
Meanwhile, illegal brothels are on the increase in Nevada, as they are in other parts of the world where brothels are legalised. Nevada’s illegal prostitution industry is already nine times greater than the state’s legal brothels. “Legalising this industry does not result in the closing down of illegal sex establishments,” says Farley, “it merely gives them further permission to exist.”
Farley found evidence, for example, that the existence of state-sanctioned brothels can have a direct effect on attitudes to women and sexual violence. Her survey of 131 young men at the University of Nevada found the majority viewed prostitution as normal, assumed that it was not possible to rape a prostitute, and were more likely than young men in other states to use women in both legal and illegal prostitution.
The solution, Farley believes, is to educate people about the realities of legalised abuse of women. “Once the people of Nevada learn of [prostitutes’] suffering and emotional distress, and their lack of human rights, they, like me, will be persuaded that legal prostitution is an institution that just can’t be fixed up or made a little better. It has to be abolished.” The prevailing attitude in Nevada remains as it was a few centuries back though – that men have sexual “needs” that they have a right to fulfil. Outside one of the legal brothels a sign reads: “He who hesitates, masturbates.”
· Some names have been changed.
“Farley found that the brothel owners typically pocket half of the women’s earnings. Additionally, the women must pay tips and other fees to the staff of the brothel, as well as finders’ fees to the cab drivers who bring the customers. They are also expected to pay for their own condoms, wet wipes, and use of sheets and towels. It is rare, the women told Farley, to refuse a customer. One former Nevada brothel worker wrote on a website: “After your airline tickets, clothing, full-price drinks and other miscellaneous fees you leave with little. To top it off, you are … fined for just about everything. Fall asleep on your 14-hour shift and get $100 [£50] fine, late for a line-up, $100-500 in fines.” (The women generally negotiate directly with the men over the money; what they get depends on the quality of the brothel. It can be anything from $50 for oral sex to $1,000 for the night, but that doesn’t take account of the brothel’s cut.)”
this is exactly what strip clubs are like. a lot of people don’t know how expensive it is to work in the sex industry – there’s always hosts and doormen and managers and bartenders (and unsurprisingly most of these people are men) who demand money from you just because they can. and it’s not like you can say no if you want to keep working there.
alexa albert wrote in her book on mustang ranch that women there aren’t allowed to leave to get food and have to pay for airport-level expensive food inside the brothel. the club i work in charges us $4 for bottled tap water – like you can read the label and it’s “municipal source water” from the city where their corporate headquarters are. we make millions for the company and they charge us for tap water.
brothels and strip clubs are literally so fucking exploitative. they have the MOST predatory business models to the extent they make illegal prostitution look appealing because at least you get to keep more of the money that you work so hard to earn.
‘It’s like you sign a contract to be raped’ | US news | The Guardian
‘It’s like you sign a contract to be raped’ | US news | The Guardian
There is only one place in the US where brothels are legal, and that’s Nevada – a state in which prostitution has been considered a necessary service industry since the days when the place was populated solely by prospecters. There are at least 20 legal brothels in business now. Not so many, you might think, but these state-sanctioned operations punch above their weight in PR terms.
Take HBO’s hit documentary series, Cathouse, which features the most famous of the Nevadan brothels, the Moonlight Bunny Ranch. Tune in and you’d be forgiven for thinking that all prostitutes in Nevada are on to a good thing. The women speak coyly about loving their work, their customers, their bosses. “The series sheds light not only on the numerous joys and challenges of working at a legal brothel,” says the HBO website, “but on the therapeutic benefits that customers take with them after a stint at the Ranch.”Given such great PR, a new book – Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections – makes interesting reading. During a two-year investigation, the author, Melissa Farley, visited eight legal brothels in Nevada, interviewing 45 women and a number of brothel owners. Far from enjoying better conditions than those who work illegally, the prostitutes she spoke to are often subject to slave-like conditions.
Described as “pussy penitentiaries” by one interviewee, the brothels tend to be in the middle of nowhere, out of sight of ordinary Nevadans. (Brothels are officially allowed only in counties with populations of fewer than 400,000, so prostitution remains an illegal – though vast – trade in conurbations such as Las Vegas.) The brothel prostitutes often live in prison-like conditions, locked in or forbidden to leave.
“The physical appearance of these buildings is shocking,” says Farley. “They look like wide trailers with barbed wire around them – little jails.” The rooms all have panic buttons, but many women told her that they had experienced violent and sexual abuse from the customers and pimps.
“I saw a grated iron door in one brothel,” says Farley. “The women’s food was shoved through the door’s steel bars between the kitchen and the brothel area. One pimp starved a woman he considered too fat. She made a friend outside the brothel who would throw food over the fence for her.” Another pimp told Farley matter-of-factly that many of the women working for him had histories of sexual abuse and mental ill-health. “Most,” he said, “have been sexually abused as kids. Some are bipolar, some are schizophrenic.”
Then there is the fact that legal prostitutes seem to lose the rights ordinary citizens enjoy. From 1987, prostitutes in Nevada have been legally required to be tested once a week for sexually transmitted diseases and monthly for HIV. Customers are not required to be tested. The women must present their medical clearance to the police station and be finger-printed, even though such registration is detrimental: if a woman is known to work as a prostitute, she may be refused health insurance, face discrimination in housing or future employment, or endure accusations of unfit motherhood. In addition, there are countries that will not permit registered prostitutes to settle, so their movement is severely restricted.
Those who support the system claim that the regulations may help prevent pimping, which they see as a worse form of exploitation to that which occurs in brothels. According to Farley’s research though, most women in legal brothels have pimps outside anyway, be they husbands or boyfriends. And, as Chong Kim, a survivor of prostitution who has worked with Farley, says, some of the legal brothel owners “are worse than any pimp. They abuse and imprison women and are fully protected by the state.”
The women are expected to live in the brothels and to work 12- to 14-hour shifts. Mary, a prostitute in a legal brothel for three years, outlines the restrictions. “You are not allowed to have your own car,” she notes. “It’s like [the pimp’s] own little police state.” When a customer arrives, a bell rings, and the women immediately have to present themselves in a line-up, so he can choose who to buy.
Sheriffs in some counties of Nevada also enforce practices that are illegal. In one city, for example, prostitutes are not allowed to leave the brothel after 5pm, are not permitted in bars, and, if entering a restaurant, must use a back door and be accompanied by a man.
So how did Farley gain access to her interviewees? Those in control of the women were confident that they would not be honest about the conditions, she says. “Pimps love to brag, and I know how to listen,” she adds. Although left alone with the women during interviews, Farley noted that they were all very nervous, constantly looking out for the brothel owners.
Investigating the sex industry – even the legal part – can be dangerous. During one visit to a brothel, Farley asked the owner what the women thought of their work. “I was polite,” she writes in her book, “as he condescendingly explained what a satisfying and lucrative business prostitution was for his ‘ladies’. I tried to keep my facial muscles expressionless, but I didn’t succeed. He whipped a revolver out of his waistband, aimed it at my head and said: ‘You don’t know nothing about Nevada prostitution, lady. You don’t even know whether I will kill you in the next five minutes.’”
Farley found that the brothel owners typically pocket half of the women’s earnings. Additionally, the women must pay tips and other fees to the staff of the brothel, as well as finders’ fees to the cab drivers who bring the customers. They are also expected to pay for their own condoms, wet wipes, and use of sheets and towels. It is rare, the women told Farley, to refuse a customer. One former Nevada brothel worker wrote on a website: “After your airline tickets, clothing, full-price drinks and other miscellaneous fees you leave with little. To top it off, you are … fined for just about everything. Fall asleep on your 14-hour shift and get $100 [£50] fine, late for a line-up, $100-500 in fines.” (The women generally negotiate directly with the men over the money; what they get depends on the quality of the brothel. It can be anything from $50 for oral sex to $1,000 for the night, but that doesn’t take account of the brothel’s cut.)
Farley found a “shocking” lack of services for women in Nevada wishing to leave prostitution. “When prostitution is considered a legal job instead of a human rights violation,” says Farley, “why should the state offer services for escape?” More than 80% of those interviewed told Farley they wanted to leave prostitution.
The effect of all this on the women in the brothels is “negative and profound,” according to Farley. “Many were suffering what I’d describe as the traumatic effects of ongoing sexual assaults, and those that had been in the brothels for some time were institutionalised. That is, they were passive, timid, compliant, and deeply resigned.”
“No one really enjoys getting sold,” says Angie, who Farley interviewed. “It’s like you sign a contract to be raped.”
Meanwhile, illegal brothels are on the increase in Nevada, as they are in other parts of the world where brothels are legalised. Nevada’s illegal prostitution industry is already nine times greater than the state’s legal brothels. “Legalising this industry does not result in the closing down of illegal sex establishments,” says Farley, “it merely gives them further permission to exist.”
Farley found evidence, for example, that the existence of state-sanctioned brothels can have a direct effect on attitudes to women and sexual violence. Her survey of 131 young men at the University of Nevada found the majority viewed prostitution as normal, assumed that it was not possible to rape a prostitute, and were more likely than young men in other states to use women in both legal and illegal prostitution.
The solution, Farley believes, is to educate people about the realities of legalised abuse of women. “Once the people of Nevada learn of [prostitutes’] suffering and emotional distress, and their lack of human rights, they, like me, will be persuaded that legal prostitution is an institution that just can’t be fixed up or made a little better. It has to be abolished.” The prevailing attitude in Nevada remains as it was a few centuries back though – that men have sexual “needs” that they have a right to fulfil. Outside one of the legal brothels a sign reads: “He who hesitates, masturbates.”
· Some names have been changed.
“Farley found that the brothel owners typically pocket half of the women’s earnings. Additionally, the women must pay tips and other fees to the staff of the brothel, as well as finders’ fees to the cab drivers who bring the customers. They are also expected to pay for their own condoms, wet wipes, and use of sheets and towels. It is rare, the women told Farley, to refuse a customer. One former Nevada brothel worker wrote on a website: “After your airline tickets, clothing, full-price drinks and other miscellaneous fees you leave with little. To top it off, you are … fined for just about everything. Fall asleep on your 14-hour shift and get $100 [£50] fine, late for a line-up, $100-500 in fines.” (The women generally negotiate directly with the men over the money; what they get depends on the quality of the brothel. It can be anything from $50 for oral sex to $1,000 for the night, but that doesn’t take account of the brothel’s cut.)”
this is exactly what strip clubs are like. a lot of people don’t know how expensive it is to work in the sex industry – there’s always hosts and doormen and managers and bartenders (and unsurprisingly most of these people are men) who demand money from you just because they can. and it’s not like you can say no if you want to keep working there.
alexa albert wrote in her book on mustang ranch that women there aren’t allowed to leave to get food and have to pay for airport-level expensive food inside the brothel. the club i work in charges us $4 for bottled tap water – like you can read the label and it’s “municipal source water” from the city where their corporate headquarters are. we make millions for the company and they charge us for tap water.
brothels and strip clubs are literally so fucking exploitative. they have the MOST predatory business models to the extent they make illegal prostitution look appealing because at least you get to keep more of the money that you work so hard to earn.
‘It’s like you sign a contract to be raped’ | US news | The Guardian
Of Course I Have a Fucking Moral Problem With Prostitution
“…What is it with liberals and accusations of “moralizing?” Right before reading Bazelon’s piece, I was scrolling through the comments on a subreddit where someone had shared my last post on prostitution. There too, the most common response by far was a curt dismissal on the grounds that I just have a “moral problem” with prostitution.
Well, here’s my confession: They’re right! I do have a moral problem with prostitution. I think buying sex is wrong. It’s bad. It’s not okay. It’s unacceptable, reprehensible, indefensible, shameful, disgraceful, appalling, and every other word the Left has banned for fear of “moralizing.” But buying sex should be moralized, because buying sex is immoral. It’s something a person ought not do.
That’s not all, though. I don’t just want to call it immoral — I want the government to enforce that morality! I want the police and courts to punish men who purchase sex. I want them fined, or even thrown in jail, and I want that done solely because what they are doing is immoral.
I have no idea why anyone would think I pretend otherwise.
On the subject, I have moral problems with some other things: Police brutality, domestic violence, religion, capitalism, and the entire global system of industrial civilization, to name a few. I think it’s objectively immoral to assault your partner or appropriate the means of production for private profit. A white cop murdering an African civilian is impermissible to me. And destroying the entire planet in an orgy of white supremacist, patriarchal settler colonialism for the profit of shareholders and CEOs is certainly something I think a person ought not do. These things are wrong, like buying sex is wrong, and that is reason enough to abolish them…
Left-wing men have cordoned off sex from ethics because ethics is, at its heart, a search for rules that transcend desire. Most of them don’t desire to run a Fortune 500 company, or dig an oil well, or invade another country, so they don’t mind prescriptions on behavior that restrict those things. But many, many men on the Left want to fuck female strangers, or want the power that comes from knowing those fucks are an option. No wonder, then, so many oppose “moralizing” around sex.
But of course they don’t actually escape a moral system — they just construct a remarkably shitty one. Don’t tell women what they can and can’t do with their own bodies. If it’s consensual, you have no right to judge. Don’t be a prude. What are all of these things except universal prescriptions on behavior, which is all that morality ever was? Someone needs to remind these men that Thou Shall Not Slut Shame and Thou Shall Not Lie With Mankind as With Womankind are equally commandments.”
Left-wing men have cordoned off sex from ethics because ethics is, at its heart, a search for rules that transcend desire. Most of them don’t desire to run a Fortune 500 company, or dig an oil well, or invade another country, so they don’t mind prescriptions on behavior that restrict those things. But many, many men on the Left want to fuck female strangers, or want the power that comes from knowing those fucks are an option. No wonder, then, so many oppose “moralizing” around sex.
Perfect post, A+
yesterday in class, a girl from Africa (not sure where exactly, she didn’t elaborate) was talking about women in prostitution and the terrible systems of human trafficking in her home country and this white girl honest to god raised her hand afterwards to be like “while I think all of that is totally important, I also think it’s important we call them ‘sex workers’ and not ‘prostitutes’” and I hit peak liberalism fifty times in the span of four seconds
I hate libfems
yesterday in class, a girl from Africa (not sure where exactly, she didn’t elaborate) was talking about women in prostitution and the terrible systems of human trafficking in her home country and this white girl honest to god raised her hand afterwards to be like “while I think all of that is totally important, I also think it’s important we call them ‘sex workers’ and not ‘prostitutes’” and I hit peak liberalism fifty times in the span of four seconds
I hate libfems
MeToo Means Standing By The Most Marginalised. It’s Time To End Prostitution
Today marks the first anniversary of Ireland’s Sex Buyer’s Law – the Act that makes criminals of those who control and use prostituted women.
Changing the legislation required a hard-fought battle led by survivors of the sex trade, against an organised and vocal industry. Ireland’s law is now the inverse of current UK law, which criminalises the women who sell sex, rather than those who purchase it.
I find it extraordinary that the purchase of a woman’s body for sex is legal in the UK.
A place where women have been disproportionately hurt by savage cuts to public services and welfare, struggle to access work against the most expensive childcare in the world, where one in four experience domestic violence and coercive control – in sum, make up two-thirds of the UK’s poorest amid growing violence against them – and then are told that it would not be fair to curtail their ‘choice’ to rent themselves out for money, should they wish.
Where attempts to frame the prostitution of women as violence against them are greeted with accusations of prudishness and control.
Where those same women are shunned while their punters walk the streets unnoticed.
Where no-one has yet provided an answer to why Telford, Rochdale, Oxford and other massive cases of organised sexual abuse of vulnerable girls keep happening; but men’s right to access the inside of a woman for orgasm whenever they wish is never questioned.
Also this week, the National Crime Agency reported the highest number of victims of slavery and trafficking since it started collecting data, with a third of those cases relating to sexual exploitation. Across Europe, demand for women and children’s bodies is on a larger scale now than it ever has been.
We must start joining the dots and tackling the root cause of sexual exploitation: Demand.
As Mia de Faoite, a survivor of prostitution, says, placing the criminal burden on the men who buy sex is a forceful deterrent because it makes clear beyond all doubt who is responsible for this gross violation of human rights.
She told me: “It is a sad day for humanity if prostitution is seen as an acceptable answer to female poverty. Ireland decided it was time to make the buyers who willingly sustain this cruel system accountable and responsible for their actions. It has formally removed the female body from the market and now social change for the greater good is not just a possibility – it is inevitable.”
Criminalising buyers saves women’s lives. According to Home Office research, 50 percent of women in prostitution in the UK started being paid for sex acts before they were 18 years old. More than half of women involved in street prostitution in the UK have been raped or sexually assaulted – the vast majority of those assaults committed by sex buyers. Women in prostitution are 12 times more likely to die than women in the same age groups in the general population. Lifting the fear of prosecution helps women to come forward to access justice and the support and services that can help them exit prostitution.
The last year has seen an extraordinary uprising among women tired of being abused, harassed and discriminated against. Women are taking to the streets and to social media in their millions to demand their equality. In a time when we are challenging that culture for women in every workplace, we should not abandon the most marginalised women to be bought and abused by men.
I am proud to lead the only party in the UK that has as core policy the intent to introduce a Sex Buyer’s Law to end demand for women’s bodies – and the trafficking and slavery that grows every year in order to meet that demand.
Accepting the prostitution of women, under any conditions, contributes to a culture of men’s entitlement to women’s bodies for sexual gratification and power. It allows the message to continue that there are categories of women for different purposes. Those categories limit all women’s lives. It’s time for all women to be free. It’s time to change the law. Join us.
Wow they really published this on HuffPo
It’s progress
MeToo Means Standing By The Most Marginalised. It’s Time To End Prostitution
MeToo Means Standing By The Most Marginalised. It’s Time To End Prostitution
Today marks the first anniversary of Ireland’s Sex Buyer’s Law – the Act that makes criminals of those who control and use prostituted women.
Changing the legislation required a hard-fought battle led by survivors of the sex trade, against an organised and vocal industry. Ireland’s law is now the inverse of current UK law, which criminalises the women who sell sex, rather than those who purchase it.
I find it extraordinary that the purchase of a woman’s body for sex is legal in the UK.
A place where women have been disproportionately hurt by savage cuts to public services and welfare, struggle to access work against the most expensive childcare in the world, where one in four experience domestic violence and coercive control – in sum, make up two-thirds of the UK’s poorest amid growing violence against them – and then are told that it would not be fair to curtail their ‘choice’ to rent themselves out for money, should they wish.
Where attempts to frame the prostitution of women as violence against them are greeted with accusations of prudishness and control.
Where those same women are shunned while their punters walk the streets unnoticed.
Where no-one has yet provided an answer to why Telford, Rochdale, Oxford and other massive cases of organised sexual abuse of vulnerable girls keep happening; but men’s right to access the inside of a woman for orgasm whenever they wish is never questioned.
Also this week, the National Crime Agency reported the highest number of victims of slavery and trafficking since it started collecting data, with a third of those cases relating to sexual exploitation. Across Europe, demand for women and children’s bodies is on a larger scale now than it ever has been.
We must start joining the dots and tackling the root cause of sexual exploitation: Demand.
As Mia de Faoite, a survivor of prostitution, says, placing the criminal burden on the men who buy sex is a forceful deterrent because it makes clear beyond all doubt who is responsible for this gross violation of human rights.
She told me: “It is a sad day for humanity if prostitution is seen as an acceptable answer to female poverty. Ireland decided it was time to make the buyers who willingly sustain this cruel system accountable and responsible for their actions. It has formally removed the female body from the market and now social change for the greater good is not just a possibility – it is inevitable.”
Criminalising buyers saves women’s lives. According to Home Office research, 50 percent of women in prostitution in the UK started being paid for sex acts before they were 18 years old. More than half of women involved in street prostitution in the UK have been raped or sexually assaulted – the vast majority of those assaults committed by sex buyers. Women in prostitution are 12 times more likely to die than women in the same age groups in the general population. Lifting the fear of prosecution helps women to come forward to access justice and the support and services that can help them exit prostitution.
The last year has seen an extraordinary uprising among women tired of being abused, harassed and discriminated against. Women are taking to the streets and to social media in their millions to demand their equality. In a time when we are challenging that culture for women in every workplace, we should not abandon the most marginalised women to be bought and abused by men.
I am proud to lead the only party in the UK that has as core policy the intent to introduce a Sex Buyer’s Law to end demand for women’s bodies – and the trafficking and slavery that grows every year in order to meet that demand.
Accepting the prostitution of women, under any conditions, contributes to a culture of men’s entitlement to women’s bodies for sexual gratification and power. It allows the message to continue that there are categories of women for different purposes. Those categories limit all women’s lives. It’s time for all women to be free. It’s time to change the law. Join us.
Wow they really published this on HuffPo
It’s progress
MeToo Means Standing By The Most Marginalised. It’s Time To End Prostitution
Celtyradfem 