These days it takes some serious balls for a man to stand up, demand rights for sex workers, and actually sign his real name to the thing. – Maggie McNeill
A year and a half ago I published “Stand-Up Guys”, in which I saluted men outside the sex industry who dared to stand up and speak out for sex worker rights, despite the rising tide of “end demand” and other Swedish-flavored prohibitionism. Things have grown only worse since then; prohibitionists viciously attack men who support sex worker rights, hinting that they are “pimps” or “sex traffickers” even when they don’t identify as clients. What’s more, some sex worker activists appear to have imbibed the neofeminist Kool-Aid and foolishly shun the help of clients or other men; some even proclaim themselves misandrists, which looks to me a lot like using one’s own feet for target practice. And yet despite all that, some men stubbornly fight for our rights anyway; I don’t mind saying that I find that sort of obstinacy rather sexy.
So today I present another list of male allies; remember, this doesn’t include men who are directly involved in our industry, since it’s as personal for them as it is for us. It does, however, include clients (and one former sex worker) who have chosen to “out” themselves for the cause. As before, this is by no means meant to be a complete list; if you have any suggestions who didn’t appear on either list, please mention them in the comments below!
Tim Barnett The New Zealand MP who sponsored the Prostitution Reform Act (which decriminalized sex work in 2003) is now his party’s general secretary, and still often speaks in favor of decrim both in New Zealand and in the UK. Follow him on Twitter: @tim4858
Dave Barry The famous humorist has libertarian leanings, and has spoken out about the injustice of prostitution stings. Email him at nolowflow@davebarry.com or follow him on Twitter: @rayadverb
Chester Brown Well-known comic book artist who wrote Paying for It, in which he detailed his experiences as a client of Toronto sex workers; the book’s appendix contains a strong argument for decriminalization. I’m also proud to say that he’s a regular reader and a friend, and drew the cover art for my upcoming story collection Ladies of the Night. Chester can be contacted through his publisher, Drawn and Quarterly, at info@drawnandquarterly.com
Graham Ellison
Professor of Criminology at Queen’s University Belfast, a staunch proponent of decriminalization and outspoken opponent of the Swedish model; I have linked a number of his essays in my TW3 columns. Email him at g.ellison@qub.ac.uk
Rupert Everett This British actor came out as having done sex work when he was young and struggling, and is now
supporting an anti-Swedish model campaign by the English Collective of Prostitutes and Queer Strike. He can be contacted by mail through his agents.
Zander-Dexter Falcon A regular client in Saskatoon who recently came out in the process of fighting legislation that endangers sex workers. Email: zanderfalcon@sasktel.net or follow him on Twitter: @furyofpatience
Ally Fogg Freelance journalist in the UK who generally writes on social justice and gender issues,
including strong support for sex worker rights. He prefers to be contacted via Twitter: @allyfogg, but his website also has an email contact form.
Chris Hall Freelance journalist in the US who can be counted on to consistently write about sex workers and our rights in a respectful and eloquent manner. Follow him on Twitter: @literatepervert
Michel Houellebecq French novelist who has repeatedly states that he loves prostitutes, and has often featured us in his books. You may email him at houelle@magic.fr
Karl Lagerfeld The famous fashion designer prefers escorts to unpaid companions, and often speaks of his admiration for us; he also helped former underage hooker Zahia Dehar get started as a designer herself.
He may be written at Karl Lagerfeld Group, 12 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, France.
Matthias Lehmann is a German sex work researcher whose articles (especially those debunking prohibitionist lies) I have referenced many times. Email him here or follow him on Twitter: @photogroffee
Scott Long Veteran activist for human rights, especially sexual rights, who unlike many in that field does not
seem embarrassed to speak out for the rights of sex workers. Follow him on Twitter: @scottlong1980
Paul Maginn Urban planning expert who is especially interested in the sex industry; I have linked his anti-criminalization essays several times. Email him at paul.maginn@uwa.edu.au or follow him on Twitter: @planographer
Marc Randazza Prominent First Amendment lawyer who has gone to bat
not only for porn, but for the speech rights of hookers as well. You may email him through this page, or follow him on Twitter: @marcorandazza
Mike Siegel Astronomer, libertarian/conservative blogger, regular reader and friend who has written on numerous occasions in support of sex worker rights. Follow him on Twitter: @Hal_RTFLC
Jesse Walker Though virtually all libertarians
are against criminalization, some are more actively vocal about it; this historian, Reason editor & writer of The United States of Paranoia is one of them. Email him at jwalker@reason.com or follow him on Twitter: @notjessewalker
Ken White Respected First Amendment lawyer, popular blogger, defender of those threatened by censorious twatwaffles, geek extraordinaire and personal friend. Read his thoughts on sex work, email him at ken@popehat.com or follow him on Twitter: @popehat
Kevin Wilson
Professional research consultant, graduate student in epidemiology and friend who became interested in sex work research through reading this blog. Email him at Wilson2@dal.ca or follow him on Twitter: @WilsonKM2
Tim Worstall Economist and journalist who writes often on the absurdity of prostitution law; he also debunks “trafficking” myths. Email him at timworstall@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter: @worstall
I apologize
for anyone I’ve forgotten. If you’d like to be on the next list of this type, just email me with a link to whatever public statements you’ve made about sex worker rights under your real name, and we’ll see about adding you to the next one (and you needn’t be shy, either; Aphrodite knows I’m certainly nothing of the kind). If I did forget you, please don’t be offended; most of y’all know how busy I am, and things that shouldn’t often slip through the cracks. In the meantime,
keep your eyes peeled for “Stand-Up Guys” in my weekly TW3 column, where I’ll mention guys who come to my attention without having to wait another year and a half.
I like the idea, I’ve found even attempting to have any discussion on the topic of the sex industry usually results in ad hominem attacks rather than logical discussion.
My interest in this industry was due to my mother working as an escort during my early teens, due to the lack of real discussion and information on the subject I had very mixed (and confused) opinions on the entire subject (not to mention sex itself), I tend to read a lot and attempted to read more about the subject, however certainly at that time their simply wasn’t readily accessible information on the subject, or rather what was available was heavily biased, which only later led to even greater confusion.
I was far more politically active when I was younger and at one demonstration their was also a demonstration by sex workers, I can clearly remember at the time thinking perhaps I could talk to one of them. However I didn’t, to be honest I really didn’t know how to open up discussion on the subject (were to begin) and I felt that they had far more pressing concerns and difficulties and that it would be selfish of me to bother them with my ignorance.
In the end I had to wait 25 years before I stumbled across Sex Myth by Dr Brooke Magnanti, which helped tremendously in clearing up a lot of confusion I had on the subject, after reading the book I did some search’s on Google which led me here, reading this blog simply re affirmed my opinions that I gained from the Sex Myth also because the ideas, thoughts, opinions and facts made logical sense (unlike a great deal of information I had read earlier which made no logical sense, hence the confusion).
Now why am I not trying to add my name to the list?
Well currently I don’t have an influential blog, I don’t have a twitter account and I don’t necessarily feel my incessant squabbling on Facebook really counts, but I will do what I can when I can and should I become influential in some way or another not hesitate in publicly supporting the right of sex workers to work as they desire in a safety without fear of persecution.
I will do this not as a client or potential costumer but as someone who feels that should any women, mother, sister or daughter (as they all are), should be able to work in a manner of their choosing in safety and without persecution.
Its strange when I say this now a days, I feel like I’m stating the obvious.
Hi Walkswitheyesopen, I’m not the author of the blog, and I’m fortunately not that eloquent as her :), but I must admire your efforts to understand your mother and why she was doing it.
That you’re trying to understand by gathering information from different sources. I applaud that 😉
Thank you Aphrodite, fortunately things are so much easier with the Internet, during my teens their simply wasn’t access to the resources their are today.
As a single child in an all boys boarding school from 9 to 13, my understanding and experiences of women and girls was probably for more limited then most young boys.
Unfortunately the literature at the time (well the sort of literature a 13 year old boy could get hold of), wasn’t particularly great, its not as if a 13 year old boy could go into the public library and request books on prostitution and the sex industry to go with a copy of The Magic Faraway Tree.
Perhaps I should have tried, probably would have been worth the look on the librarians face.
Well, Maggie used to be a librarian. So not all librarians are prudes.
I spent 11 years in the library industry, I think even the most open minded librarian would think twice or at least wonder why a 13 year old boy is taking out books on the sex industry and I don’t think I would have had the courage to explain that I was interested in learning more about my mothers career choice.
Although does remind me of my first day on my first tea break in my new job in an academic library.
I was asked by the head of reader services what shops I liked most about the city I was then living in (I was new to the area), my response was the pawn shops, at that point she sort of crossed her arms and didn’t say anything.
However one of the other librarians started talking about were all the other pawn shops where and which ones she preferred, I said I didn’t know about these other shops but I liked this particular one because it held lots of brass instruments like trumpets and saxophone.
At this point both of them looked at each other, the head of reader services said “oh you mean pawn as in P A W N”, me oblivious at the time responded “yes why what were you talking about”?
I got told that they talking about exactly the same thing I was talking about. 🙂
Speaking of supporting the cause, I suggest one way to start is to get over to Cato Unbound and let the essayists know what you think of their respective essays. I would especially like to hear from others, like Maggie, who have experience as providers. All of the essayists have posted the first round.
Done.
I would echo Anyfool [now that is an awkward construction for the credibility of my post ;-)] that folks head over to Cato and check out Maggie’s essay and the respondents. I’d also like to add my congratulations to Maggie for her entre into that forum.
Maggie, will there be a followup round where you will have the option to respond to the respondents?
In addition, I’ve been trying to find the poster that you used in one of your essays; it was a demotivational type poster that, as far as I can recall, showed 3 women dressed in adolescent clothing and the caption read; “Feminsism: The Radical Notion that Adult Women should be Treated Like Children.” I think that it was in response to some or other trafficking nonsense that infantilized sex workers, but I’m not certain of that. A search on google on the caption or on your website didn’t yield anything but if you can point me in the right direction (without expending too much of your time on it) I’d appreciate it.
Thanks.
My first response will be published on Thursday (I think). Here’s the poster you’re referencing:
Thanks Maggie!
7 Minutes Flat! You probably have a better search heuristic than I do.
I’ll check out your response on Cato 2 days hence.
Or she remembered that it wasn’t ‘adolescent clothing’ – they were dressed as the powerpuff girls. That makes a much tighter search.
Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. An American attempt to do mahou shoujo. That it was successful makes me uncomfortable.
I remembered what the image was called, which made it easy. 🙂
We are now apparently onto 4th wave feminism:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/fourth-wave-feminism-rebel-women
One extremely tiny correction. I do indeed inflict journalism on people but I’m not actually an economist. I might even do journalism about economics occasionally but I’m still not an economist.,….
As to being a stand up guy why thank you. But I hardly think it brave or difficult to advocate what is clear and obvious to anyone with an IQ higher than their shoe size.
Please continue to commit journalism. Even when you discuss EU matters, in which I have no stake and no opinion, I still thoroughly enjoy getting to the end of a post and thinking, “No, tell us how you really feel, Tim.”
besides those that publicly advocate for changes to the laws regarding prostitutes and their rights there are a great number of men that haven’t been clients and never will be that support this but will never be heard from
I am humbled to be included in this group of stand-up guys. It’s been a good week, pat-on-the-shoulder-wise. Thank you for your encouragement, Maggie. I’ll save it for a rainy day.
I read the link on marxism/feminism and the misandrists…
I’m surprised there hasn’t been more pushback against femen…
one of their images even shows a womyn (sic) with a sickle and a castrated pair of testicles…
http://femen.org/front/images/header/femen-sait-02.jpg
To me that shows “men as teh oppressor class” and the oppressed (womyn) righteously fighting them. It’s not the image of a woman fighting a man trying to rape her. Do these empowered womyn feel all men are pigs? Their brothers, fathers and even sons? Sure looks like a hate movement to me but I suppose they have some rhetorical BS like the oppressedessed class kahn’t hate, it is not hatred to mutilate someone because, like patriarchy donchya know…
What is it with these women and boobs? I think they just adopt the “feminist” stance because it gives them an excuse to do what they really want to do: show off the titties.
Now, I’m a big fan of titties from way back, but I wish they’d just do lad’s mags or something, and not try to have it both ways.
Thanks, Maggie. 🙂
Here’s a pretty good article in Slate:
“When the Times writes of a “growing consensus” in Europe and the United States over how to best legislate prostitution, they don’t mean a consensus involving the sex workers themselves. Each time laws based on the Swedish model, like the one in France, are proposed, sex workers are among the loudest opponents. In the past few months alone, we’ve seen protests from sex workers demanding to have their voices heard on sex work laws, demanding voluntary care and services without the threat of arrest or prosecution, and demanding justice from those who target them for violence, including the police, When sex workers protest their victimhood and demand full inclusion in society, we need to start listening.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/12/sex_work_laws_the_new_york_times_praises_france_s_new_legislation_and_gets.2.html
Is it possible that at some point, in the face of sex workers defending their interests, the prohibitionists will just flip the narrative from prostitutes being slaves to the more traditional prostitutes are evil criminals narrative? The religious prohibitionists and cops would definitely have no problem with this because the fake concern for “sex slaves” appears to be so laughably feigned from those sectors. I don’t know what misandrist neo-feminists would say if they adopted this storyline. I doubt they would be so brazen as to call sex workers “gender traitors” but I would be concerned about the possibility of narrative swapping if trafficking hysteria starts to be seen as the witch hunt it is.
For what it’s worth, I am a happily married man with two well balanced happy kids who simply thinks it is the right of women to choose how to deal with their condition in life as they think fit, that adult sexuality is never a matter for the community except where there is coercion and that a consensual trade in anything that does no physical and material harm is a matter for the individuals concerned.
I have signed petitions in my own name and I have used that name to comment on Guardian threads (one censored simply because I spoke that truth too clearly). I run many lively groups on many subjects on Facebook and the largest is one on sexual politics (over 800 members) where these matters are debated openly. It is precisely because I want my kids to grow up making free choices that are theirs and not that of ‘society’ that I do this openly. We are nothing without the free choices that make ourselves what we are.
Whatever we think of sex as a commodity (and I have never purchased sex and choose never to do so not because I am a better man than others but simply because I know who I am), the way forward for those who don’t approve is not to raid establishments, criminalise people (or put them into labour camps as they do in China) and to treat women as infantilised subjects of ideology but to work together to create the sort of wealth that means that no woman feels they have to make that choice rather than work in some mindless retail or clerical gunction and the sort of society where men and women can speak openly of their desires and find partners who share them instead of being forced into a secret life.
Such a society is perfectly possible though it may take some time to achieve. A society that is largely one of well balanced people who have sufficient resources and have had good childhoods may always have room for some courtesans welcome to take tea with the vicar. They would be welcome in my home if they were no different otherwise from my friends.
Comedian Magnus Betner has done a show about the absurdity of criminalizing prostitution. Does that count too? 😉
Well, there is Michael Smerconish.
Having no blog, or anysuch, but found Maggie’s blog via another blog I read, I can clearly see the solid common sense that Maggie blogs about.
I’ve run into some people on twitter as a result of stating support for decriminalisation & sexwork and have been branded variously “A pimp lobbyist”, “Part of the Patriarchy”, “a hit dog that hollers”, “a vile male”, “a rape apologist” and a “did you just #notallmen me on the internet-er” by a number of women and one man I’ve never met.
If that’s a *real* crossection of current feminism, my message is :
“Please sod off the island and check your brains on the way out. No one will notice the difference.”
Yes, the situation with gender issues is crap.
I know its crap.
Some of us males even give a shit.
But tarring those of us that give a damn with the big brush aimed at the bastards who don’t, isn’t going to get the cause of equality more support.
The opposite, in fact.
It doesn’t help that the most rabidly vocal on the feminine side of the = sign are espousing an anti-male anti-sexuality fundamentalist religion. We’ve got enough fundamentalist religions on all sides to sink the Ark.
As for the rampant employment of “junk science” in various corners (insult to both science AND junk, to be hoinest) that just makes serious discourse even more impossible.
Maybe in the next generation, eh Maggie?