Despite [all], some men stubbornly fight for our rights anyway; I don’t mind saying that I find that sort of obstinacy rather sexy. – Maggie McNeill
It’s already getting close to a year since I’ve compiled a list of men who have spoken out for sex worker rights, in defiance of the popular Swedish-flavored narrative which casts sex work as tantamount to rape and a form of male “oppression” of women. In such a climate, speaking out for sex workers is liable to get one labeled a client or even a “pimp”, so “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.” Here, then, is 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 who have chosen to “out” themselves for the cause. As before, this is by no means complete; please make any new suggestions in the comments below, so I can include them in a follow-up next year.
Noah Berlatsky is a freelance journalist who writes often about feminism, comic books and “geek” culture; he’s been published in Slate, the Atlantic, Wired and many others, and he has a book on the Golden Age Wonder Woman comics out early next year. Follow him on Twitter at @hoodedu.
Magnus Betnér is a Swedish comedian who has dared to mock the Swedish model in front of Swedish audiences in Sweden; that automatically qualifies him for this list. Follow him on Twitter at @Magnusbetner; he tweets in both Swedish and English.
Andy Bodle is a journalist and scriptwriter who has written for the Guardian, the Times, the BBC, and ABC. He is out about having hired sex workers when he was younger, and has written several times debunking “trafficking” claims and arguing for decriminalization from a harm reduction viewpoint. Email him at andybodle@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @_Womanology_
Felix Clay is not a cat, but rather a writer for the humor site Cracked who not only writes sex-positive articles, but even defended sex work in one where he admitted to hiring an escort (though he denied having sex with her). Follow him on Twitter at @Felix_Clay
Leonard Fahrni is a regular reader and an instructor at Metro State University in Denver; beside speaking up in person and in a number of blog posts, he also proved hugely helpful to me when I reached Denver on my tour this past June. Follow him on Twitter at @LeonardFahrni.
Robert King is a professor of applied psychology at University College, Cork, Ireland; he writes the blog Hive Mind at Psychology Today, in which he has on a number of occasions defended the legitimacy of sex work. Email him at r.king@ucc.ie or follow him on Twitter at @DrRobertKing
Ed Krayewski is an editor at Reason who has, like so many libertarian journalists, consistently supported people’s right to do whatever they damned well please with their own bodies, including sell or buy sex. Email him at ekrayewski@reason.com or follow him on Twitter at @edkrayewski
Jay Levy is a Cambridge University researcher whose 2012 PhD looked at Swedish prohibitionism as a form of violence against women; he has also written a book on the subject and discusses it in this video. Email him at j.levy.03@cantab.net.
Nicola Mai is a professor of sociology and migration studies at London Metropolitan University; he not only authored an important study debunking “sex trafficking” myths in the UK, but has also supported decriminalization in both scholarly and popular articles. Email him at n.mai@londonmet.ac.uk.
Robert Murphy is a well-known libertarian economist who, though he has not written on the subject of decriminalization before, did so after attending my presentation in Nashville back in July. Email him via this page or follow him on Twitter @BobMurphyEcon
Jim Norton is a comedian who recently came out as a client and published an article about it (in Time, no less), opening himself to the kind of prohibitionist attack that would cause fainter hearts than his to quail. I don’t know if he ever reads this blog, but I have it on good authority that he owns an autographed copy of Ladies of the Night. Email him via this page or follow him on Twitter at @JimNorton
Peter Brian Schafer is a photographer and regular reader who strives in his work to portray whores with dignity and respect and to debunk the Madonna/whore dichotomy. Email him at hookstrapped@gmail.com
Sam Seder is a comedian, writer, actor, film director, television producer-director, and talk radio host; in the latter capacity, he has debunked ridiculous excuses for the criminalization of sex work and had Melissa Gira Grant as a guest on his show, Majority Report. Contact him while on the air via this page or follow him on Twitter at @SamSeder
Michael Smerconish is a radio (on Sirius XM) and TV (formerly on MSNBC, now on CNN) personality who has made at least one persuasive on-air defense of prostitution from a harm reduction perspective, also mentioning clients with disabilities. Follow him on Twitter at @smerconish
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 (don’t be shy; if you don’t tell me, who will?) 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.
Count me in too, Maggie. I believe that sex work ought to be legalied, but regulated and taxed just like any other business; and that sex workers, like ALL workers, MUST have the right to organize into unions for their benefit.
“Regulation” in sex work is invariably a criminal matter, and opens sex workers up to rape & extortion by police & exploitation by crony-capitalist pimps. Only under decriminalization can sex businesses be “regulated” as other businesses are, and that means ignoring sole practitioners just as regulatory regimes ignore other very small businesses.
Hi. Thanks for the shout-out. In the interests of full accuracy I should point out that I am a lecturer rather than a professor (which means something close to “Head of Department” over here).
Best of luck with your continuing education program Maggie.
Rob
When I scanned through your list, I knew I recognized Mr. Norton…
Here he is on a piece on “rape jokes” against feminist Lindy West:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtUb_E1qUHA
He leans on the side of freedom of speech for a good joke whereas the feminist doesn’t like that. She claims to be against censorship.
He states “As long as your trying to be funny it’s okay.”
As soon as you let censorship in, it is there to stay and will be used to suppress anything and everything some people with enough power do not like. That is the road to hell.
As to rape-jokes, I was unsure about that, until I saw George Carlin claiming that you can do it and then pulling it off masterfully: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwMukKqx-Os
Of course, as always in life, intent matters very much here. “As long as your trying to be funny it’s okay.” is a pretty good guideline.
That’s a great video, I put it up on my blog. Thanks, Celos.
You are welcome.
As you mentioned, Maggie, the dilemma is that men who advocate and support women’s sex-work rights and decriminalization face “you-re-a-horny-man, so-of-course-you’d-want-that” discreditation.
I’m a 58-year-old who doesn’t have nor has never had any interest in hiring a woman for any sort of sex work — my wife and I are long-marrieds who’ve been lifestylers and open-marrieds for decades so I’ve enjoyed plenty of sexual partners, but, for myself, professional strippers, pole dancers, massueses, lap dancers, escorts, prostitutes, and erotica actresses have no attraction; something about a woman having sex with me only happening because I directly pay her to do it is ice water on me.
However, I totally support women’s right to sex work, as a matter of civil liberty, as a matter of what I consider healthy sexual attitudes, and for societal benefit. In fact, my wife has done limited sex work for income during our marriage.
During the past ten years, I’ve constantly taken opportunities, informally, on discussion threads and in conversations, to advocate women’s sex-work rights as well as to expose the “sex trafficking” hysteria. I’ve discussed these issues with my several children, including daughters.
What hovers over me whenever I discuss these issues, though, is the awareness of “horny” men being suspected of ulterior motives. Because of that, while I realize women who advocate sex work face the “well-you’re-merely-anomalous-or-psychologically-damaged” dismissal, I do believe it ultimately falls upon women (such as you, Maggie) to effect change, if any significant changes are going to occur.
But I believe that men such as myself serve a vital role in educating and influencing other MEN about these issues. It’s women who ultimately have to convince society that “we women are not victims; some of us have no aversion to selling sex and want the liberty to choose it as work”. But, any societal and legal reforms will necessarily involve men and men’s attitudes. So, as a man, I think the primary focus of men who advocate sex work rights and expose sex trafficking myths should be other men..
[…] to Celos for pointing it out to […]
What I meant by regulation, Maggie, was that the women engaged in the trade would not be abused by anybody. I’m a trade unionists, and I believe what all workers deserve good working conditions. And as I said earlier, sex workers, like all workers, should form unions for their protection.
Well, screwing up my courage, I too will admit to being a “john”, a client of sexworkers, over a period of some 30 years, off and on. And I have linked my IRL name to a defense of the profession and those in it in a very public brief (here) criticizing Canada’s proposed law [Bill C36] that, saliently, criminalizes the purchase of sex while supporting its sale – a classic if not paradigmatic triumph of dogma over logic. And I too have an autographed copy of Ladies of the Night – thank you. 🙂
However, I might mention that I’m not really an unalloyed ally as I think there are more than a few problematic aspects to the profession which more than a few of its practitioners seem somewhat loath to address. And while I will readily admit that it is a complex topic which I sure don’t have enough “twine” to have fully fathomed, it seems to me that a crux of the matter, a keystone, is the set of general social attitudes to the profession, those in it, and those who avail themselves of the services offered – which I will readily attest can be of significant value. Which causes any number of problems, not least of which is the dearth of clients willing to be “stand-up guys”. And the most odious if not the most damning one being, arguably, the crimes subsumed by the Twitter hash tag #StigmaKills – crimes for which I think society has to accept some responsibility.
But I also think that the profession itself, and those in it, need to accept some responsibility for that state of affairs. As I argued in my brief, there seems to be some justification for Stanley Baldwin’s aphorism [1929] that “[enjoying] power without responsibility [has been] the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages” – an attitude that several sexworkers have conceded is, in general, characteristic of many. While I certainly won’t lay the blame entirely at the doorstep of the profession itself as I expect social attitudes have been contributing causes, I do think that the profession – those in it, and its clients – is, to some extent at least and in general, culpable as well.
In any case, thank you for your many efforts, not least of which is your acknowledgement of those willing to go on record to support more sensible – and “human” – attitudes to the profession.
One more stand up guy for the next update: Daniel Borrillo. This Argentinian legal researcher writes mostly in French (he is writing amongst other places to the French on-line newspaper Médiapart – http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/daniel-borrillo ) but his many articles are clearly focused on people’s freedom to dispose of their own body (including sex work, but not only). He was audited by the CNCDH (Commission Nationale Consultative des Droits de l’Homme – i.e. the French human rights consultative body) when France tried to implement the Swedish model, and spoke strongly against it while supporting full decriminalisation.
I couldn’t find any English material related to him, but he published several books (in French again) such as this one: http://www.amazon.fr/Le-droit-sexualit%C3%A9s-Daniel-Borrillo/dp/2130572138
… and one more French sociologist, Lilian Mathieu, who publicly calls (in French) for full decriminalisation: http://www.babelio.com/auteur/Lilian-Mathieu/52849
French readers can read one of his excellent articles here: http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/lilian-mathieu/161114/prostitution-ni-compassion-ni-repression-mais-respect-des-droits-fondamentaux