Over in the U.K., the war on sex work and porn rages on, with ominous implications for our own situation. Here's the latest from AP:
--AP
LONDON (AP) — Classified ads are the latest target of the British government's crackdown on the sex industry.
Minister for Women Harriet Harman on Thursday urged members of the country's largest women's organization, the Women's Institute, to complain to editors who run sex ads.
She said the ads were often disguised as advertisements for massage parlors or escort services, but she said sex is what is usually being sold.
"Many are young women from Eastern Europe, from Africa or Southeast Asia, tricked and trafficked into this country and forced into prostitution," Harman said.
But a spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes, which promotes the decriminalization of prostitution, said this is not true.
"Most immigrant women working in the sex industry are not being trafficked," said spokeswoman Cari Mitchell. "Members of the WI are being asked to assume anyone coming from another country is being trafficked, which is an absolute lie."
The Home Office last week announced plans to make it a criminal act to have sex with women forced into prostitution — even if the man did not know the prostitute was being "controlled for another person's gain."
Critics say that will only force the sex industry further underground and expose female workers to a greater risk of violence. They also say online versions of the ads will increase.
British lawmakers heard evidence in Parliament Tuesday against a separate ban that would impose stricter licensing requirements on lapdancing clubs.
Peter Stringfellow, who owns nightclubs that feature lapdancing, said the current licensing laws — those that treat his establishments and others like pubs — were sufficient.
"I'm not a sex encounter club, and I don't want anyone coming in my club thinking they're going to get a sexual encounter," Stringfellow told the committee.
The usual yap about trafficking. The usual excuse of imposing restrictions on sex commerce to protect women. The usual victimization of one class of women to satisfy the prejudices of another.
The daily truth of what happens when radfem thinking gets its death grip around the throat of public policy.
Think it can't go that way here? Consider the impact on all those college students of Bob Jensen's traveling dog-and-pony show with his little Reefer Madness movie. He's talking to those who will be making social and political policy in this country in a very few years.
The early effects of this thinking are already visible. Classifieds for sexual entertainment and/or services have already disappeared from publications in this country ranging from alternative weeklies to New York Magazine under pressure from radfem leaning staff members working with outside pressure groups.
Our side has all but lost the battle in much of Europe. Americans tend to be more stubborn about having their personal lives and those trades that cater to them regulated, but the battle over individual sexual liberty is already joined, and judging by the results of the last election, I'd say our side isn't doing all that well.
A sanctuary for supporters of sexual free expression and the adult sexual media.
I don't understand how it's possible to tell if a woman is a victim of trafficking from an advert. It's hardly something that the traffickers would choose to advertise!
ReplyDeleteLooking through my local papers I see adverts for numerous escorts, escort agencies, and massage parlours. The only one that even mentions nationality is an advert for a 'Polish brunette GFE escort'. Should I assume that she's trafficked and under duress, or just that she's a member of the area's large Polish community?
Even if the advert is for a woman who's trafficked, how much would she be helped by that advert being removed? Would that really get her out of the situation she's in?
It seems clear that this is just a way of discouraging newspapers from printing any such adverts. People are essentially being encouraged to harass the editors, implicating them in trafficking, so that the 'erotic services' advertising is more trouble than it's worth.
Even in the internet age, I imagine that this could make the lives of many sex workers much more difficult.
It's not as bleak as you make it out to be. The fact that the UK has apparently moved away from the idea of the Swedish model and is now down to this lackluster criminal extension I consider a success. Even if it passes as proposed, it will be hard to enforce and have little practical effect - assuming that trafficking is indeed as small a problem as we make it out to be.
ReplyDeleteIt will also likely mean that the whole thing is off the table for a while.
In the US on the other hand, you probably have the most extensive free speech protections anywhere in the world. The vagueness of obscenity limitations certainly is a problem, but nevertheless, even the most restrictive piece of legislation that would pass your courts would probably still be miles away from some what I see in my country for example. And to be absolutely honest, in the grand scheme of things, it's not even that bad here. Porn is being produced and easily available. Prostitution is legal. Nobody is making a big stink, maybe because they're busy trying to save the world from videogames (which of course is unfortunate in itself).
So in the short term, I wouldn't worry too much. Though if and how all this will shift with the upcoming generation I don't know.
As far as classifieds go, the government doesn't seem to be involved (not in the UK, not in the US), so while that is unfortunate, it's not an issue of freedom or regulation.
@miracle2k: "As far as classifieds go, the government doesn't seem to be involved (not in the UK, not in the US), so while that is unfortunate, it's not an issue of freedom or regulation."
ReplyDeletePerhaps you did not hear about the 40 state Attorney Generals who signed the petition wrt Craig's List and its erotic services listings? They are the government: http://tinyurl.com/6fm3lx
@Aspasia: Well, kind off I guess. It could probably be considered government pressure, but from what I understand Craigslist (or Facebook, Myspace in similar cases locking out sex offenders, iirc) wouldn't have to cooperate, strictly speaking, right? I wonder what would happen if they refused.
ReplyDeleteErnest writes:
ReplyDelete"Our side has all but lost the battle in much of Europe. Americans tend to be more stubborn about having their personal lives and those trades that cater to them regulated, but the battle over individual sexual liberty is already joined, and judging by the results of the last election, I'd say our side isn't doing all that well."
Yes and no. I do think a certain radfem line on commercial sex is gaining ground among European Social Democratic governments, most notably Scandinavia and the UK, but look at the situation overall – prostitution (both selling and buying) in some form remains legal through much of Europe, even the UK's longstanding indoor escort industry. Compare that to the US, where prostitution is absolutely illegal in all but two states (albeit, when it comes to indoor prostitution, these laws often go unenforced), and performing in porn is legal only by a kind of ersatz legal decision.
Which means that for all the noise the anti-sex work side makes over in Europe, to implement the kind of laws these people want, they effectively have to go against the status quo by banning the now-legal buying of sexual services, a move that's been implemented fully only in Sweden (which has a super-paternalistic history on a number of social issues). In most of the US, legalizing or decriminalizing trade in sexual services would represent the change in status quo, and the current rhetoric of prostitution as across-the-board victimization is employed quite effectively to block any change in that status quo, as it was here in otherwise-liberal San Francisco vis-a-vis Prop K.
miracle2k writes:
"In the US on the other hand, you probably have the most extensive free speech protections anywhere in the world....And to be absolutely honest, in the grand scheme of things, it's not even that bad here. Porn is being produced and easily available. Prostitution is legal."
Prostitution legal in the US? See above – it isn't legal anywhere except Rhode Island and rural Nevada, and as I've said, that isn't likely to change given the current political atmosphere. Porn and stripping are right now generally protected by the strong free speech protections in the US, though as can be seen from the Max Hardcore and John Stagliano trials, that's being eroded away at. And if the prostitution "abolitionists" have their way, all sex work would be defined as forms of prostitution, effectively banning stripping and live-action porn.
@miracle2k: When state-level Attorney Generals tell you to do something, you better do it. You can refuse yourself all the way to jail if you like. They could in theory fight it out in court but do you honestly think they will fight for privacy concerning erotic services? In America? No and HELL NO.
ReplyDelete@Aspasia: Even Attorney Generals need some legal basis to operate on. Either running those ads is legally problematic in the first place, in which case it makes sense a site wouldn't bother to fight it, or it's more like a "please do something or we will have to try to force you through legislation, if we can get smth to pass"-thing, in which case they would presumable act primarily for PR reasons.
ReplyDelete@Iamcuriousblue: I may have been unclear: I was referring to Germany.
The UK Government has a narrow minded view on this. Why are they only focussing on men paying women for sex and they never seem to mention women paying men for sex, women paying women for sex and even men paying men for sex? I live in the UK and it is supposed to be a democracy, it is more like a religious dictatorship disguised as a democracy since most people in the government have strong religious beliefs.
ReplyDeleteThey want to ban prostitution as a whole because some people are forced to do it so they make up facts that say that most of them are forced to do it. If they are going to that cause of the bad/ dark side of it even though it is small why don’t also they make knives illegal cause of knife crime? Or ban all religions cause some religious people are fundamentalists and extremists who hates non-believers? There is a lot of evidence of those (especially for the religious ones) yet they never seem to mention them (I smell cover up). When it comes to strip clubs women who are against strip clubs never seem to mention male strippers which in turn makes people think that these radical feminists groups (especially the ones that even covers fashion magazines as porn) seem to think that men should be sexually objectified instead of them. Maybe we should tell these radical feminists groups that sexism works both ways and that no gender is superior to the other.
Despite their claims they really hate freedom and democracy, they hate anything to do with sex considering most groups (like 98% of them) against these things are religious. I will never pay for sex but if a woman or a man wants to enter the sex industry then I support it as long as they are 18 and over and are doing it at their own free will. I love porn but I don’t watch it often and I support porn as long as it’s the type of porn that is legal. The UK should follow the Netherlands in terms of sex, in terms of porn and in terms of the sex industry. I mean the Netherlands has a low teen pregnancy rate cause the sex education is better, they have legalised prostitution and have more liberal views on sex as long as it’s legal. But of course the difference between the Netherlands and the UK is that religion has pretty much lost it’s influence in the Netherlands but still has it’s influence in the UK, well not much of the UK population but still has a strong influence in the UK government.
I really hope that there will be more pro-porn, pro sex worker and pro-sex in general groups comes out to combat these freedom hating morons.
Suppose these guys get what they want which is getting rid of the sex industry then the porn industry in the UK then where will they turn to next? They will most likely go for the sex toys industry (they will make up bullshit facts about that too), adult dating sites, sex education sites, contracetives, well they will ban anything to do with sex and make up new retarded laws about sex. These guys have hidden agendas and they show their true colours all the time.
ReplyDelete