Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. – John Kenneth Galbraith
Among the enumerated grievances against King George III included in Thomas Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration of Independence was the following: “he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere…the…King of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market where men should be bought & sold…” The delegates from the Southern colonies (predictably) objected; the words clearly condemned the institution of slavery, in which they were heavily invested. Argument ensued, and the dissenters made it clear that if the offending passage were not removed, they would refuse to sign the declaration. Faced with this threat, the declaration committee had little choice: either the slavery clause went, or the South did. And so the slaves were, in modern idiom, “thrown under the bus”; their rights were sacrificed to a political deal to establish a new nation. And though those men acted as they thought best, their choice erupted into the greatest bloodbath in American history only three generations later.
Though I can understand Galbraith’s point expressed in today’s epigram, I also recognize that it’s a bitter thing indeed to be a member of a group whose rights are sacrificed as part of a political deal brokered among a large group of governments with differing (and often conflicting) beliefs and concerns. Furthermore, I wonder if choosing the unpalatable at the cost of inflicting the disastrous on one’s descendants is really the wise and moral decision. The particular political deal I wish to discuss today is not remotely as momentous as the sundering of an empire, and the sacrifice lacks the enormity of consigning an entire race to continued slavery; I certainly hope the consequences are dramatically less severe than the devastation of the American Civil War. But it’s a serious enough matter for those involved, and as a member of the group “thrown under the bus” I can’t help but resent being sacrificed for a deal from which we will reap no benefit. Here’s how it was reported in the Guardian:
UN officials and activists expressed relief and delight over news that an agreement had been reached at this year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)…After months of behind the scenes lobbying and two weeks of difficult negotiations in New York, the outcome document included strong agreements to promote gender equality, women’s empowerment, and ensure women’s reproductive rights and access to sexual and reproductive health services…the agreement was hard fought and civil society groups expressed “deep concern” over attempts by some conservative member states and groups to derail the process…NGO ActionAid…said… “A small but significant number of countries, led by Iran, Russia, Syria and the Vatican, have pushed hard to roll back language on women’s rights to where we were decades ago”…Vivian Thabet…[of] CARE-Egypt, said… “Women’s rights have become a kind of bartering chip to be traded away for political agendas that have little or nothing to do with the interests and wellbeing of women and girls”…The outcome document emphasised the need to end harmful traditional practices, including child marriage, and called on member states to ensure services were focused on marginalised groups, such as indigenous women, older women, female migrant workers, women with disabilities, women living with HIV, and women held in custody. Protection for sex workers was understood to have been dropped…
There it was, in the last sentence; if you blinked you may have missed it. Several countries (including, you can be sure, the United States) opposed language calling on governments to end institutional violence and discrimination against sex workers, so we were simply bartered away in order to close the deal on some other contentious issue. Perhaps it was the right thing to do in the long run; after all, I have no idea what phrase or sentence my rights were traded for. But I think I’m justified in being annoyed about that only being worth one sentence in the Guardian’s article and no mention at all in that of the Huffington Post (despite complaints about the lack of language protecting gay men in a document concerned specifically with the rights of women). As a result, this is how I read the quotes from delegates and commentators:
“By adopting this document, governments have made clear that discrimination and violence against women and girls has no place in the 21st century.” Except for discrimination and violence against sex workers, which are still quite welcome.
“We will keep moving forward to the day when women and girls can live free of fear, violence and discrimination.” Unless they have sex for reasons with which we disapprove.
“The 21st century is the century of inclusion and women’s full and equal rights and participation.” Except for the right to choose their own work.
“It sends a clear and unified message to the world that there is no place in any society for acts of violence against girls and women.” Except for state violence against sex workers, naturally.
Perhaps I’m being unnecessarily harsh; after all, several UN agencies concerned with health have recommended absolute decriminalization of sex work and the sex industry everywhere, and advocates of human rights are all beginning to recognize the importance of our cause. And as I said above, I have no way of knowing what our exclusion gained, nor can I read the minds of the negotiators; perhaps they were just as agonized as Jefferson and company, and signed us away for something they considered extremely important. What’s more, I can’t be sure I wouldn’t do something similar: What if one day, I’m part of a team negotiating a decriminalization deal, and our political opponents say they’ll accept total decriminalization of indoor prostitution if street work remains criminal? Will I turn down rights for the 90% on principle? Or will I accept the deal, reasoning that we can more effectively work toward street work decriminalization from an improved legal position?
Goddess help me, I only wish I knew.
(This essay first appeared on Cliterati on March 24th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.)
You’re not being harsh. That thought buys into “their” definition of valid public emotions. This news IS horrific disappointment or maybe Krulac can explain on his fcuked up Navy way why I’m wrong
😀
Maggie – the toilet paper in my bathroom has more influence over world affairs than any UN “resolution” or “commission” has.
They could have included sex workers – and it wouldn’t have meant a damn thing. Doesn’t mean ANYTHING for women in general – they’ll see no benefits whatsoever but women will read the words and rejoice that they’ve made an advancement here … when they have not. Proof that the women of the world are often as stupid and gullible as we men.
“Actions – Not Words” … whatever happened to that ethos? It’s been supplanted by government by words and well wishes. After the founders threw the slaves under the bus they at least had the balls to man up and go out and shed blood in a revolution. The UN bloviates and passes resolutions and their members pat themselves on the back and then go out to dinner. It’s pretty damn sickening.
Not that I want the UN in my business anyway and it’s better they have NO power rather than any amount over me. It’s a sideshow – and it’s distracting – and it just adds to the noise which the low information voter is unable to filter out – and THAT is the entire goal of the so-called “United Nations”.
My GNC check-out clerk told me how she won a small claims against one of her renters that screwed her over. I told her … “That’s great news – frame that judgement and hang it on a wall and realize you’ll never collect that money from that woman”.
Same thing with the UN. The UN is like a small claims court – irrelevant.
The United Nations is a concatenation of kleptocrats, morons, and swine. Expelling this international embarrassment and filling that building with a combination brothel and casino would significantly raise the moral tone of New York City. If someone at the U.N. is pushing a scheme to legalize sex work, it should be viewed with deep suspicion; it probably does exactly the opposite. If the U.N. came out with a statement recommending the breathing of air, I would want a second opinion.
The question of whether it would be right bargain for the rights of indoor workers (>80% of workers) at the expense of outdoor workers (<20% of workers) is actually something I've thought quite a lot about. Here in Canada, about 50% of people believe consensual sex work should be decriminalized. My impression is that the major hang-ups people (at least those who might be persuadable) have are 1) belief that a significant number of workers are coerced and 2) perceived community effects of street-based work (e.g., used condoms and needles on streets, men harassed by workers, women harassed by clients, open drug use/soliciting, etc). Both of those may well be false, but the reality is that indoor workers are invisible and so no one has a problem with them; street workers are in the spotlight and the public does not like what it sees*. If public opinion surveys narrowed down to indoor workers and people were convinced that little or no coercion was taking place, then I think public support for such a narrow decriminalization would run close to 65-70% – an easy win in a nominal democracy. Still, bargaining the rights of one for the other leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
*For what it's worth, I think a lot of the various pathologies and risk behaviours that correlate with street work have more to do with poverty and drug use than street-based sex work per se.
Hey Maggie! Kevin brings up an excellent point here …
Haven’t you already said that you’d take decriminalizing the indoor sex work and then later arguing from a position of strength to decriminalize street walkers? I think you have but I’m old and memory fades …
But … doing so would mean throwing the Street Walkers under the bus – at least temporarily.
I agree with Kevin though – I don’t think too many people really care about indoor sex work except dickhead cops. But the sex rays coming off those street walkers is another thing entirely to Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public.
Just wondering – how many street workers are attached to their work being street work in specific? I mean whether by strong personal preference, practicality, or any other restriction.
This wouldn’t be so much throwing them under the bus as scheduling a bus to drive where they happen to be standing. For those who can move without hardship, it’s not nearly as bad. For those who can’t… well, it is.
I expect that women doing street work have found they don’t have any other good option for whatever reason. Truthfully, I understand people being against street workers who litter or harass people, and I’m sympathetic. However, you don’t have to be having sex with a prostitute to throw a used condom in the street, and you don’t have to be a prostitute in order to be hassling people. (I am hassled for spare change almost every time I go to a restaurant in my town.)
If indoor prostitution were legalized, some of these sex workers would likely move into indoor prostitution. Others would continue to break the law and continue outdoor prostitution. From a harm reduction stand point, I don’t see very many negatives from decriminalizing indoor prostitution, even if outdoor prostitution is not included in the decriminalization, except for the fact that the remaining outdoor prostitutes would find themselves even more heavily targeted by the vice squad then they are now.
However, I think that I’d rather people identified the behavior of the the outdoor prostitutes that they disliked (vagrancy, littering, unwanted solicitation) and create laws to deal with those problems (since as I said, they are not unique to prostitutes).
I’ve thought about this a lot – because street walkers aren’t my “thing” but …
There seems to be a demand from certain guys for “seedier sex” or “riskier sex”. For instance, why does a dude go into a strip bar and pay a total of $600 for a one song full-service trist in a VIP room there? They could get an hour with an escort at half the price. I submit it’s the “seediness” of the act in the strip bar that attracts some men.
I think it’s the same thing for the streetwalker industry. Guys create the demand – and the girls are going to be there to fill it.
I think the same thing applies to guys who surf BackPage constantly looking for untested and unreviewed girls. The guys are rolling the dice and could get a bad experience – but that’s part of the appeal to them (I think).
Strip bars, streetwalkers, BackPage – you’re going to have more of a chance of running into some unfortunate girl who’s addicted to drugs and / or may be “controlled” or “coerced”. I think this appeals to some men too.
So the demand is there – but the well-raised ladies aren’t jumping into that pool – therefore, it’s usually the more troubled women who get into streetwalking, etc.
I’d hazard a guess here – but if any guy told a well-reviewed ECCIE lady that he regularly saw streetwalkers … she would likely decline meeting with him. Not so much because he may have a disease – but rather because of his lack of “gentlemanliness” – it’s not JUST the girls on the streetwalker side who tend to have problems – it’s the guys seeing them in many cases also.
I don’t know all that much about streetwalkers, so I can’t comment much about them. However, I do know from the old days that there used to be sections of the boards I visited that reviewed “street action.”
Anyway, whatever the motivations of the guys looking for street action were, I did notice that a lot of what they talked about was price, as in bargain.
Strip clubs, on the other hand, I know a bit about. I went to strip clubs, when I used to go, because they were on the legal side of the law. (I had seen escorts in the past, but I thought that I shouldn’t endanger my career by risking an arrest now that I was starting to climb the ladder and get ahead.)
However, there was then a big crackdown on Tampa area strip clubs and I realized I was probably less likely to end up in contact with the police hiring an escort than going to a club. (Which actually turned out not to be true, but that’s another story.)
I’d say the real problem here is that in addition to frankly insane middle eastern oil theocracies having influence over the outcome of UN resolutions due to their great wealth, is that they find allies in the neofeminist movements in many western countries that would normally be the civilizing influence. The neofeminists can lie as much as they like, and dress up their language in concern for the “poor sex workers” as much as they like, However, because they take a position that is entirely at odds with natural human behavior, and because they can ally with other forces in society to inflict their ideas on sex workers, if not on everyone as they would wish, they end up being sisters-in-arms with those same psychotic middle eastern theocracies I mentioned previously.
American feminists who are in favor of criminalization of prostitution should be ashamed. If they are in favor of imprisoning prostitutes then they are basically taking a position that is pro-murder, pro-rape and pro-physical abuse of sex workers. On the other hand, if they are simply in favor of imprisoning Johns, then that means they want to deprive sex workers of making a living, take food off their table and prevent them from paying rent. (That’s at the very least, it can end up working out the same as normal criminalization if the sex workers want to protect their Johns or lovers. Many sex workers will.).
All because neofeminists take the position that sex between men and women is wrong and bad, and any chance to stop it from happening is worth it whatever the cost. At least the conservative anti-sex position is based on being in the thrall of millennia old traditions. The neofeminist anti-sex position was basically invented out of whole cloth relatively recently by utter lunatics.
What has always puzzled me is not that some interests/people are sacrificed for the benefit of others; but that quite often, the sacrificed keep falling for the same stories and promises that were broken previously (and are routinely broken again). Is it naivety? Hope? Desperation? A feeling that there’s nothing they can do on their own behalf?
@pws: There are occasional efforts to target johns along with prostitutes. These (very short lived) events at least have the rationality of punishing both parties to the consensual crime, rather than deliberately excluding a criminal from charges. (As an analogy, the standard model of vice enforcement is equivalent to arresting drug dealers and letting buyers off with a stern warning.) These efforts are doomed, because some johns wield enough power and influence to quickly divert police attention elsewhere.
Well, though, this is the Swedish model. To use your parlance, punish the drug users and don’t do anything to the dealers (except deprive them of customers).
“The laws on prostitution in Sweden make it illegal to buy sexual services, but not to sell them. Pimping, procuring and operating a brothel are also illegal. The criminalisation of the purchase, but not selling, of sex was unique when first enacted in 1999, but since then Norway and Iceland have adopted similar legislation, both in 2009.” — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Sweden
A way to look at this type of deal.
It’s about details. If a deal decriminalized indoor prostitution and left all laws related to outdoor unchanged, take the deal.
Think of it as a ratchet. grab what little increment you can, wait for the public to realize the world didn’t end, then push again.
If on the other hand, it reduced penalties on one group and increased on another, then turn it down. They are simply trying to divide the group against itself.
(Leaving historical accuracy concerns vs movie version of history out) It’s sort of like in the movie Lincoln, where he threw several thousand more soldiers under the bus by holding off the end of the war, so he could pass the amendment and free millions of present *and future* slaves, because if he knew the war ended before the amendment, he’d never get rid of slavery.
Either way, someone gets thrown under the bus. However, I would agree that decriminalizing the ‘inside’ girls (decriminalizing being inside the girls? 😀 ) while throwing the streetwalkers under the bus would still be a huge positive step, unless the streetwalkers’ lot would be somehow made worse than it already is. Most likely, the escorts would be free to do business, and as someone has said, after a while, people would realize the world didn’t end, and things could be made better for the others, too.
I think refusing to decriminalize 70% because you couldn’t save the other 30% *yet* wouldn’t really be a good thing.
I’ll hazard a guess as to what you were traded away for: the rest of the document. That is, dropping protection for sex workers was grudgingly accepted in place of dropping protection for sex workers and everything else. So you’re not any worse off than before, though you’re also not any better off. I don’t have any inside UN sources, so I can’t say for sure, but that’s my guess, and I’d even bet a teeny tiny bit of money on it.
In the case of the Declaration of Independence, what would have happened if the Founding Fathers had refused to remove the anti-slavery language? The South would’ve refused to join the Revolution, the Revolution would’ve been canceled or lost, and England wasn’t going to free the slaves that’s for sure.
I have to say that I’m glad to see people saying that the UN is ineffective and irrelevant, instead of that they’re going to swarm over America in a sea of blue helmets and enslave us all because, um… well because that’s what damned furiners do!
Whether it’s criminalisation of the sale of sex (attack-dexter) or criminalisation of activity all around the sale of sex (Nordic Model, attack-sinister) the underlying motivation is prohibition of sex work.
It’s the difference between uprooting an unloved plant (dexter) and starving it to death (sinister). The outcome for the plant is the same.
The major bones of contention in the pearl-clutching brigade seems to be as follows:
1) Depriving straying husbands/partners of an easy opportunity to “cheat”; this also suits certain sections of the feminist agenda as well.
2) The “public nuisance aspect” of street-based sexwork.
3) The moral agenda against sexwork, and minority/different sexual orientations. This is another point of contention with some segments of feminism too.
4) The trafficking mythology coupled with “Save the Children”. Since this is statistically <1% of the sexwork population, using the most scientifically reliable data, it's pertinence is to be a moral justification to attack (covertly) the other 99% who are making a choice (regardless of the reasons for it) to take up sexwork.
Threaded through these points is the idea that fundamentally the people who share these issues are not comfortable with the whole idea of sexuality to one degree or another.
Pro-sexuality people (including many feminists) could reasonably be expected to have no problems with 3) and may also be well aware that as far as point 1) goes, the average man is always going to have more impulse to *SEEK* sexual behaviour (of any description) than the average woman (for whom *most* of her sexuality tends to be reactive rather than *SEEKING*).
One must acknowledge that there is considerable disconnect between our profound, ancient sexual and social instincts, which includes many kinds of sexual activity/plurality of participants/etc, and the narrow "acceptable" view being openly espoused by modern people's public moral presentation.
People often publically LIE about what they get upto in secret, as Maggie has shown many examples of in the blog already. The Gobbier they are, the more hypocrisy they generally show when their private actions come to light, too.
Let's look at what happens currently when someone chooses to engage in sex work, and prostitution specifically (where one has consentual sexual contact with another person for payment).
Someone of limited fiscal means is obliged to undertake the least safe scenario for sexwork: Streetwalking.
Why? Since they cannot afford/obtain an alternative location (rent costs money, and landlords can be charged with avails; more than one worker in the same location is a brothel, also an offense, so collaborative renting is problematic too) they must choose whether to see clients at their (own) domestic residence if they have one (undesirable for many reasons, especially if children are present) or go out on the streets.
So the streets turn out to have the least downsides for a sexworker of limited means and/or limited social options. This transpires to be about 20% of the prostitute population. This, however, presents her with less affluent clients, less socialised clients, and the hazards of being visible and easily accessible to the police, vigilantes, criminal gangs and/or criminal clients.
A small minority of the rest of the prostitute population are in the position to be escorts; they have the requisite intelligence, wit, social graces and charm to carry that role; they have the financial base to make entry into this market possible, and since this pays better than street work, the reward to risk ratio is higher, and is easier to enact while staying clear of the peelers. This is about 3% of the prostitute population, and also attracts affluent clients with a vested interest in discretion, too. These factors combine to produce perhaps the lowest risk version of prostitution.
Finally, there are the sex workers who manage to obtain suitable premises but are not otherwise capable/willing of carrying the role of escort. They have typically obtained an alternative location to carry out their work; either the landlord is unaware, or may be cooperative… at a price (a criminal now, recall). These “flat-workers” constitute the remaining %64 of the prostitute populace.
While all three groups are potentially at risk from client violence (3% of the male population, and a much smaller fraction of the rest) the streetwalkers are most at risk; being in a situation where client vetting is at best highly problematic, and the need for clients (being low-paying) is highest, coupled with their easy accessibility to people intending them harm (not restricted to clients) it is a fraught situation. Lacking a physical venue, this gives rise to the issues of walk-ups, litter, police and public harassment, mistaken identity (non-pro for pro, “accidental” arrest of non-pros) and other issues, plus when a client is at hand, the streetworker is isolated with the client to conduct business.
The flat-workers have less exposure to some of these issues, but still work alone, and exchange the hazards of street work for the potential of coercion or summary treatment (landlords, police & other officials, criminal gangs) and suffer the same difficulty accessing justice against these persons.
Both these groups have significant reason to distrust medical professionals; there is increasingly a statutory interlock between public services (medical, judicial and social) with profoundly negative consequences to sexworkers, especially the female majority (particularly those with dependent children).
All sex workers suffer from targeting by law enforcement in stings; this includes sexual exploitation, coercion to legal testimony, asset seizures, stigmatisation and inclusion in sex offender registries, leveraged as threats to force cooperation with legal prosecution of a priority target and/or ”rescue”.
Let’s look at how decriminalisation helps.
Firstly, it makes the cooperative operation of collective brothels legal. It becomes legal to rent your property to a sexworker (or collective). It becomes legal for more than one sexworker to share a flat or more sizeable property.
That’s removed one of the primary drivers for street work: unaffordability of work premises. It also means that collectivism is legal, giving the workers the opportunity to protect themselves from trouble, engage separate security if they wish it, and indeed access law enforcement & medical resources without persecution.
The former sexworkers become just workers; they are able to access the same anti-discrimination and employment laws the rest of us do. This lowers their vulnerability to the unscrupulous as well as the criminals. Since they have greater access to medical care without attached stigma, this removes the spurious excuse that whores spread disease too (even though it is well documented that they are 160x less likely to carry an STI because of barrier contraception use than the general promiscuous population) this explodes a key mythical excuse to make WarOnWhores.
This, in turn, would significantly diminish the issues associated with streetwork from point 2) above, while significantly improving the condition of “flat-workers” too.
But decriminalisation is never going to be accepted; the political class get too many votes from the WoW, the moralists and certain tranches of feminism will (through equally fanatical belief systems) never accept the solution, and the rescue/trafficking mythologists would be undone too; decriminalised prostitutes would be the first people to finger the real traffickers, help the true victims, and those who genuinely want to get out of the profession; the legal barriers to this would be removed. Hello, widespread and genuine Ethical Prostitution. Good for the genuine clients that are non-exploitative, too.
I’ll be honest: I’d be much more likely to engage the services of a sexworker if I knew she was not trafficked/coerced, able to exercise her own advocacy, and doing her work for reasons of improving her economic lot, personal esteem and desire, and having confidence that nobody is twisting her arm. That is, under decriminalisation, an arguable act of decent human behaviour, and mutually beneficial exchange.
Put another way, why *wouldn’t* you help a mother feed, clothe and house her family? Why wouldn’t you grant somebody a fulfilling job that satisfies them? Why wouldn’t you help someone pay off their debts via a profession they choose to do, like any other job?
As to point 1), the only thing I can say about this is: if you agree to become the only sexual outlet for a person, you accept responsibility for their sexual satisfaction and happiness, and have to realise that a man’s desire for you may well exceed your desire for him, sexually, in the general case. But that works the other way around too; we accept to meet each other’s needs, not neglect each other.