The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
An autoimmune disease is one in which the body’s protective systems turn from attacking pathogens and other invaders to attack some portion of its own tissues instead. As you might expect, most such disorders are fatal; what you may not realize is that women are disproportionately affected. Women are ten times as likely as men to be affected by such disorders; about 75% of those with rheumatoid arthritis and lupus and 85% of those with multiple sclerosis are female, and autoimmune diseases are among the leading causes of death for all women below the age of 65. The bodies of societies sometimes also develop such syndromes; the systems which were meant to protect society from invaders or other troublesome organisms are instead turned against some of its own systems, sometimes even vital systems. And just as in biological autoimmune disorders, those who are affected most are usually women. I don’t think I need to give many examples of this; the witch hysteria of the 16th and 17th centuries is one, as is the wholesale rape practiced by armies in African civil wars. But the one I wish to concentrate on today is the continuing persecution of prostitutes in England and the United States, despite the obvious social function we serve.
This social autoimmune disorder has been prevalent in modern cultures since it first evolved in the late 19th century, but many countries, including some who suffered from very advanced cases of it, have recovered or at least acknowledged they had a problem and sought treatment for it. Taiwan, for example, long permitted prostitution but in the ‘90s caved in to US pressure and the influence of American “rescue groups” and descended into a particularly acute case of repression; fortunately Taiwan’s prostitutes were well-organized and refused to kowtow to American-style prohibition. They formed the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters to fight the new persecution, and Taiwan will legalize prostitution in November of this year. While the proposed system of red-light districts and permits allows for far more abuse than decriminalization, it’s vastly superior to the pathological American system or the deeply sick English system.
As I reported on January 3rd, “the Association of Chief Police Officers has called for a debate over prostitution laws so as to change them to protect prostitutes from violence. While some local jurisdictions in England (such as Liverpool and Merseyside) have adopted a progressive approach to reducing violence by tolerating prostitution, others (such as Blackpool and Bradford) prefer American-style antics which endanger women by forcing them onto the street; decriminalization (or at least law reform) would put an end to such irresponsible and asinine behavior by prohibiting it from above.” The term “American-style antics” was not chosen lightly; remember this article in which we read about the Detroit police seizing people’s cars for the “crime” of parking near a club they suspected of “facilitating prostitution”? Well, Bradford police are now doing something similar: taking the license plate numbers of cars parked in the red-light district, looking them up in the database and then sending out letters accusing them of “kerb crawling”, i.e. trolling for streetwalkers. And while the letters do not constitute official criminal charges, they are sent indiscriminately to the owner’s home or work address (if a company car) and remain on public record unless the victim wins a lawsuit to have them removed. In other words, the accused are assumed guilty until proven innocent…because they legally parked in a place the police decided was “suspicious”. While the Detroit police department’s stealing cars and holding them for ransom constitutes sheer Chinese banditry, it is surpassed in evil by Bradford’s quiet, cheap Orwellian surveillance resulting in a permanent cloud of publicly-recorded suspicion.
Meanwhile, here in the Colonies, the FBI has apparently decided to attempt to trump numerous court decisions by threatening escort advertising websites with charges of “facilitating prostitution” and “money laundering”; according to an article posted on the website of the Adult Video Network on Saturday (January 8th):
This year’s Arthur Schwartz Legal Seminar featured some of the country’s top First Amendment attorneys giving attendees the low-down on the latest threats facing the adult industry, as well as some of the victories scored over the past year. [The first speaker was]… Paul Cambria [a prominent 1st amendment attorney who]…warned of a new threat: Targeting websites that accept ads for adult services. Cambria spoke specifically of the recent bust of Escorts.com, whose offices were raided by over 100 Philadelphia police and FBI agents in October, although no federal indictments have yet been issued, and Cambria’s own sources have indicated that the Justice Department has no interest in the case. “It’s really new [legal] ground,” Cambria said of the raid, observing that courts around the country have held that advertisements posted on a host website are merely “republished” material, with the host having no responsibility for the ads’ contents. However, he noted, the FBI has taken the position that allowing such ads to be posted on the sites amounts to “facilitating prostitution,” and that the web host could be charged with criminal facilitation and even money laundering—both very serious federal felonies.
The article then goes on to discuss the ongoing attempts by rubber fetishists to force the entire porn industry to cater to their peculiar perversion:
Attorney Karen Tynan, who represents the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM) spoke next, summarizing the several meetings held by Cal/OSHA regarding forcing adult producers to force their performers to use “barrier protections” (condoms, dental dams, goggles, face shields) during sex scenes. She traced the beginnings of the controversy…and spoke of the pressures put on the Los Angeles Department of Public Health by such groups as the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the Pink Cross Foundation and the UCLA Reproductive Health Interest Group. Tynan noted that Cal/OSHA has never won a court case against a company not following state health regulations, and urged performers and producers to get involved in the issue and attend the Cal/OSHA meetings, the next one scheduled for February 8 in Oakland. “You can have a voice in these meetings,” she stated.
[Seminar moderator Jeffrey] Douglas added that the fight is on two fronts: Free Speech is attempting to create workable health regulations for the industry, since the current ones were developed for high-risk hospital personnel, as well as to help companies push back against OSHA inspectors who, he said, will cheat and lie to get the “cooperation” they want.
So while other countries work to eliminate this “social autoimmune disorder”, the countries which pioneered the concept of civil rights – England and the United States – prefer to wallow in sickness. In the UK there is hope if reformist forces win out over those who almost succeeded in establishing the Swedish Model there last year, but in the US governments not only refuse to fight the prohibitionist disease but actually cater to groups either inside or outside the government who want to hasten its progress.
Seeing prohibitionism as an autoimmune disorder is an interesting idea (I vaguely remember having read somewhere a similar suggestion for alcohol prohibition in the ’20s). If I follow the analogy correctly, you’re suggesting that the effort and resources placed in anti-prostitution campaigns and activism are actually part of a ‘social subsystem’ that under saner circumstances would ideally help society protect itself from real threats (the legal system, the police, citizen activism, etc.).
If even white cells can get the wrong message and go after the wrong enemy (and they’re supposed to be simply reacting to chemical cues), we can imagine what to expect from systems that are based on moral, ethical, religious, and philosophical systems for deciding what is bad enough for society to deserve a concentrated effort against it.
A hilarious example of precisely such waste of time and resources on something thoroughly harmless is Texas’ laws against dildos (and other, but not all, sex toys). This video, titled “Dildo Diaries“ (which a friend of mine sent me a link to) made me laugh so hard, I really scared the cat.
Correct. Instead of the police, courts, etc protecting society from pathological organisms (i.e. violent criminals) they are used to attack normal citizens instead.
You know, it’s sort of funny how Swedish model prohibitionists always say that women are driven into prostitution by abject poverty, therefore law enforcement should stop arresting the prostitutes and instead arrest their customers.
Hey dill weed, if you do that, how are these poverty-stricken women supposed to make a living? Can they count on prohibitionists for their next meal, medicine, or a place out of the rain? Can’t have it both ways: they only do it because they’re so poor, but if you take away their only source of income they’ll be fine. MAKE UP YOUR DAMNED MIND!
It’s the old “honest work” argument in disguise. Prohibitionists would rather women live on the edge of poverty working menial jobs and surviving by the public dole (and voting for socialist candidates, of course) than make a good living doing a productive job.
I knew it had to be something in disguise, because this is one of those cases where it doesn’t make any sense even if you DO accept the premise.
Say what you want about prostitutes, they are working girls, and if they do their work honestly, they should be as respected as any other person doing honest work.
Escalator-squash: Brave New World game.
Ah, I didn’t remember! It’s been a very long time since I read it so many of the smaller details have fled my memory. 🙂
What surprises me is that nobody seems to have tried to create it for real, or even as a video game.
I need to get busy on this.
It always seemed to me that, if you really believe in that, the most logical next step would be to try to increase options for those poverty-stricken prostitutes. Why not invest in social programs that allow poorer women more choices, education, etc. rather than simply make their working conditions worse by criminalizing their customers? Would this cost really that much more than the added law-enforcement costs of going after johns?
Exactly. Don’t moan and groan about the poor desperate wretches forced into this life of misery and sin by cruel happenstance if you’re going to leave the happenstance just as cruel as it ever was.
Unless, of course, prostitutes aren’t motivated by abject poverty, but by the sort of rational economic and personal career choices one makes when deciding whether to become an accountant or a sales manager… in which case you’ve lost the whole “THEY’RE BEING EXPLOITED!!!” meme.
Gotta go; have a game of escalator-squash to get to.
Escalator squash?
I read this somewhere of an interview with a Chinese prostitute so I am kinda paraphrasing here a bit. The statement she made went something like – All the posturing and goodwill and programs mean nothing compared to where my next meal is coming from.
So unless we are willing to house, feed, clothe, and basically fulfill all the basic needs of these women – including help care for their children while they go through rehab, education, training, or whatever – they are still going to need to make money. They aren’t able to survive ‘paycheck to paycheck’ yet, it’s ‘meal to meal’. And honestly, you can give these poorer women more choices, education, etc but it’s only a choice and some will still choose prostitution over a job at McD’s.
Even at higher income levels prostitution is often the better choice; university students can make enough to carry them through school without losing valuable study time, and even with a master’s degree I made vastly more in escorting.
The Irish state is considering introducing the Swedish model:
From the Irish Times on 3rd January 2011:
THE GOVERNMENT is considering radical new criminal legislation that would shift the Garda’s approach to prostitution by making it illegal for a man to buy sex but not for a woman to sell it.
The legislation would put the Garda’s emphasis on prosecuting male clients rather than targeting women working as prostitutes.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/0103/1224286669821.html
And the disease continues to spread… 🙁
I knew some auto-immune diseases, such as lupus, were far more likely to strike females, but I had no idea the difference was that severe. I guess as a male with Addison’s disease, I’m even rarer than I realised.
Well our puritanical roots make for an interesting selection of repressed variety at least. We’re the best at feeling dirty and if we just can’t help ourselves then I guess we will just have to display our very naughty inclinations.
[…] three years ago I wrote an essay entitled “Social Autoimmune Disorder”, in which I compared modern society’s persecution of sex workers to a disease “in which the […]