| Prostitution – a personal view by Jack Gold | | Print | |
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At Edinburgh Group's September Meeting, Not for Sale, Speaker Catherine Harper from S.W.A.P. (Scottish Women against Pornography), made a sympathetic case for female prostitutes. To my surprise I found myself disagreeing with many of Catherine's basic views about prostitution. Due to time constraints we did not get the chance to see her DVD but I am sure, from what she explained, that the humanity of the girls who were interviewed on the DVD would have, to some extent, replaced our stereotypical views of prostitutes and prostitution. I should begin by expressing my admiration for Catherine's obvious dedication to a worthwhile cause. However, I reserve the right to disagree with her on a number of issues. Most fundamentally, I believe that many aspects of human society are based upon TRANSACTIONS and prostitution is just another transaction - I will explain my views in more detail further below. Catherine's main points are that female prostitutes rarely become so out of choice, and are often the products (she deliberately avoided the better word 'victims') of either poverty or International Pornography Syndicates in particular, and men in general. What is more, Governments apparently support the Syndicates but she had no actual evidence in support of this claim. The way forward, she said, is to make it an offence for any male to seek the services of a prostitute. (At this stage it is worth noting that only kerb crawling is illegal in the UK, and not everywhere - just in some jurisdictions). Licensing is not a solution for Catherine because, to her, it would simply continue the unsafe and unhealthy status quo in a different form and little would change. To Catherine, prostitution is always a harmful act, despite the fact that it may involve consenting adults - for her it is the transfer of money that makes the difference. One questioner asked why Catherine thought Governments everywhere are reluctant to make it a crime for males to seek sexual services.Her response - International vested interests, male-dominated Governments and the general acceptance in our consumer society that a female's body is a commodity that can be purchased for a price. Maybe, but my own feeling is that our prisons are full enough and numbers would certainly swell if such a law was passed - politicians are therefore choosing a pragmatic approach by not passing a law that will alienate and criminalise a large number of the male, and probably female, population. Catherine believes that there is not enough attention to sex education in school. A "comprehensive sex education programme" is another part of her proposed solution. However, in my recent experience, having brought up two children who are now nearly past their teens, the opposite is true, there is indeed a very good programme of sex education in schools. A retired primary teacher at the meeting confirmed that such lessons do occur as part of the school programme. Parental consent is required and is usually given willingly. In fact the average Martian could be forgiven for thinking that our record for 'highest teenage pregnancy in Europe' may actually be the product of too much sex education rather than too little - but that's another discussion. Catherine believes that it is the exchange of money for sex, the financial transaction that forms the basis of this particular form of what she sees as female exploitation. I wonder, if no money was involved would the term 'consenting adults' then apply? As long as humans have been human, transactions for sex have probably occurred whether in barter or money form. Transactions are how we do business, how we do deals, and human relationships also fall into this category. Even marriage is a transaction, less so now in this post-feminist era perhaps, whereby male sexual gratification is implicit (conjugal rights) in return for protection and support for the female and children by the male. This is a transaction, a deal, a publicly witnessed and binding Contract. And this is where I differ from Catherine. Firstly, of course I accept that there are national and international crime syndicates that exploit women through trafficking, organised prostitution, pornography, drug addiction, pimping etc - I wish it did not happen. But it does. And it is there because it is a business, albeit an illegal business. And for a business to succeed you must first have a supply, a demand and transactions. There is a male demand of course, there always has been. Sure, criminals attempt to manage and monopolise the supply, but let us just imagine for a moment that all the criminals are arrested and incarcerated. Now, there are no gangs, no trafficking, no large scale porn or prostitution rings. I do not believe that transactional sex of this kind will disappear because there will always be women who are prepared to offer sex to men in return for money and there will always be men prepared to offer money in return for sex. It needn't be money either - even in a barter economy the transaction would be material in the form of food, clothing and shelter. I am also a worried about the issue of personal responsibility. Certainly there are outright victims of abuse who are caught young and are almost bound to fail as their lives proceed in a vicious circle of exploitation and addiction. But what about the others in the ‘sex industry’, those who are outside organized crime and make a living as prostitutes even when there are alternative, but considerably less lucrative, occupations available? High-class call girls and escort agencies are examples. For those in abusive situations, somewhere down the line they made a poor life-choice, but still a choice, for which they must take personal responsibility. Such people certainly deserve our help but their plight is often of their own making and we should not forget that. Catherine has a usual suspect list of reasons used by people to justify the existence and continuation of prostitution, an example of which is - the importance for an underclass of women to exist on the outer margins of society, women who can diffuse the ardour and fantasies of frustrated men in order to protect the respectable women at the centre of society; and many more - too many for this article. One example she seemed to miss, a good one I think, is the idea that people with severe disabilities need loving too, but the reality of their life is one of loneliness and isolation, therefore prostitutes perform an important role for such people. I wonder whether it would be correct to criminalise a wheelchair-bound MS sufferer in this situation, by making it illegal for males to seek out transactional sex. And which brave politician would step forward with such a proposal. Iran officially banned prostitution ruling that the only sex permissible is heterosexual sex within the confines of marriage. As a sign of how strongly they feel about this they regularly put young homosexuals to death. But somehow it is still possible to visit a prostitute, marry her then divorce her before parting company, which gets round the problem quite neatly. Whether this facility is available to everyone or just high ranking officials I don’t know. Which only goes to show how prostitution can survive even the most arid religiously orthodox environment. Another questioner mentioned one of the wackier examples of human behaviour, where men in positions of authority such as judges or Formula 1 Moguls, seek the company of madams and ladies of the night role playing as Dominatrix. Catherine insists that even although no penetrative sex may be involved this is still an act of prostitution because money is transferred. Even although pain is inflicted upon the male by the female, somehow according to Catherine the female is the one being exploited. The average Martian would struggle with this interpretation and would probably find it simpler if the judge was being paid by the Madam to permit her to inflict pain upon him - in which case it could be argued in court that the judge was the one being exploited, not the madam. (if it ended up in Court, I hope the presiding Judge would not be the same one). It is useful to remember that every time we collect our wages, or otherwise receive payment for services rendered, we are also participating in a transaction. Our mental and physical abilities are sold in exchange for a payslip. Like it or not, that is the transactional deal for anyone who earns a crust and receives a wage. I am not a Socialist or Communist, but I know Karl Marx would call it wage slavery, and the participants wage slaves. We take workplace prostitution for granted, just like sexual prostitution because they are both part of our natural environment. Seen in this light, exploitation and prostitution are the natural order of things - it's just that sexual prostitution exposes females to dangers and health issues that everyone can agree are unacceptable. In the ocean of prostitution there is a supply, a demand and a transaction and, as King Canute knows, nothing can stop the relentless tide. The nasty side of prostitution is where gangsters form huge national and multinational businesses with vast amounts of money attempt to create and dominate porn empires, no matter how much misery it causes. But does this mean that we must judge prostitution to be 'wrong' and embark on a Quixotic campaign to wipe it out? Or are we intelligent and honest enough to absorb the oldest profession into our social fabric in a properly managed way. Catherine thinks not, but I think licensing is the best way forward if it can be achieved discreetly and avoid NIMBYism. Let's face it, we are sexual beings - it is part of what makes us human. We can be neurotic and we can also be erotic, although in the UK we would sooner confess to the former than the latter. Perhaps we should acknowledge this fact rather than, if I may use this expression, throwing the baby out with the bathwater in a Cromwellian attack on personal liberty from the point of view of both the buyer and the seller.
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