Rebranding prostitution as “sex work” is not dangerous!

On the 7th of June 2016 the Guardian printed an article by Kat Banyard entitled “The dangers of rebranding prostitution as ‘sex work’” where she argues that decriminalising this industry legitimises the abuse of women. We at Affordable Leather Products are not going to give that article extra prominence by linking to it, (you can search for it easily enough if you want), but we thought we’d take a look at some of her arguments.

To begin with we’d point out that there’s a fallacy known as Spurious Logic whereby, if you start from a false premise, you can “prove” anything you want to and, regrettably, this author does exactly that.

She starts off by saying that sexual abuse is inherent in prostitution and then goes on to make various claims to back up her assertion.

For instance she says “The whole point of the sex industry is that it offers men the chance to buy sexual access to women who do not want to have sex with them – otherwise they wouldn’t have to pay.” Excuse us? Where does she get this idea from? If a woman doesn’t want to have sex with a man, she doesn’t have to, whether he pays or not. There’s no law which says that a prostitute must accept any client and even if she’s working in a licenced brothel, no reputable boss would make her do so.

[bctt tweet=”If a woman doesn’t want to have sex with a man, she doesn’t have to, whether he pays or not”]

However there’s also a more fundamental false assumption here: If anybody is paid for a service, do they “not want” to offer that service to the customer, but only do so because they’re paid? Does a lawyer or a manufacturer of BDSM toys or a singer only grudgingly say “well, alright, because you’re paying me I’ll do this”? No, of course not. They offer a service in exchange for payment, if they didn’t want to offer that service, they wouldn’t be doing it.

[bctt tweet=”If an independent sex worker didn’t want to offer that service, they wouldn’t be doing it”]

She asks “How can sexual consent be a thing that can be bought and sold” and goes on to list various “horrors” such as “If, while having sex with someone, you feel repulsed by them touching you, afraid of what they might do, degraded and humiliated by the sexual acts, hurt by the hateful words they’re whispering in your ear, sore because he’s the fifth man you’ve had sex with today, exhausted from it all, traumatised, abused – the fact that you’ll get a bit of cash at the end does not change anything” but again she makes the fundamental and false assumption that, once the money has changed hands, the woman can’t say NO! which is ludicrous.

She goes on to say “Research by the British Medical Journal found that, in three UK cities, half of women in outdoor prostitution, and a quarter of women in indoor prostitution, reported having been subject to violence by a sex buyer in the previous six months”, yet she cannot (or will not) make the connection between the fact that this violence is only possible because of the failure of our current system of laws to protect the women involved.

[bctt tweet=”Violence against sex workers is only possible because our current system fails to protect them”]

If women were allowed to work together for their own protection, employ security staff who wouldn’t be classed as “pimps” or “living off immoral earnings” and, most importantly, neither they nor the clients criminalised for what they are doing, then those who try to engage in violence against these women could be rightly stopped and prosecuted for their actions.

All through her article she cites various Free Market economists and similar experts as if they give her points more credibility, yet she misuses their work because of her fundamentally biased starting position and doesn’t realise (or doesn’t point out) that many of them are of the “take the brakes off and let everything run free” position, something which appeals to the right-wingers who care little about the effects of such neo-liberal theories on the general population provided it makes them richer. She also makes comparisons to human organ trafficking and bonded labour contracts, describing them as “Some trades are too toxic to tolerate”, trying to influence the reader into associating such things with consenting adults engaging in prostitution.

She says “A basic principle that is utterly indispensable to ending violence against women, not to mention to our fundamental concept of humanity, is that sexual abuse is never acceptable”, which is something we absolutely agree with, but then she goes on to say ” Not even when the perpetrator has some spare cash and the person he’s abusing needs money.” Note the clever use of words here “perpetrator”, “person he’s abusing”, “needs money” again she tries to bias the reader by using loaded expressions and weasel words to try to validate her claims.

To end with she says “A market in sexual exploitation, accepted and tolerated, influences who we all are as individuals, and who we are as a people” and concludes “A society that acts in law and language as if men who pay to sexually access women are simply consumers, legitimately availing workers of their services, is a society in deep denial about sexual abuse – and the inequality underpinning it.”

Note the false dichotomy fallacy, if you disagree with her, you’re not the “right” people because you’re accepting and tolerating sexual exploitation, you deny sexual abuse and inequality and there’s no other position allowed which is nonsense.

As has been demonstrated by, for example, the situation in New Zealand, which has been described as “the best country to work as a prostitute” by a sex workers’ advocacy group,

[bctt tweet=”New Zealand is ‘the best country to work as a prostitute’ by a sex workers’ advocacy group”]

The laws regarding sex work in that country were re-written in consultation with the women involved, rather than despite what they thought and it has enabled prostitutes to enjoy benefits that other professions automatically get such as signed contracts and regular pay. Sex workers in New Zealand can report clients to the police if they are abusive, threatening or won’t pay knowing that their cases will be taken seriously and they will not be subject to arrest or harassment (or even rape by the Police as happens in some countries where prostitution is criminalised) and this prevents exploitation.

[bctt tweet=”New Zealand Sex Workers can report clients to police, knowing they will be taken seriously”]

It seems clear that Kat Banyard simply wants to stop prostitution from happening because she is the type of feminist who says “I don’t like it, so they shouldn’t be allowed to do it”.

Feminism is, supposedly, supporting the right of women to make their own choices and not be told by others what they should or shouldn’t do, but Ms Banyard seems to think that women should only have the right to do what she approves of.

Update 1st July 2016 Home Affairs Select Committee calls for sex work to be decriminalised

The Home Affairs Select Committee has called for sex work to be decriminalised and for the laws on “running a brothel” to be repealed.

For more details, see our blog post Home Office interim report on Prostitution here.

What about you?

Are you a sex worker? Have you experienced situations where women tell you that you can’t be a sex worker because you’re “letting the side down”?

Do you use sex workers’ services? Do you think that the laws should be changed to ensure that the workers (both male and female) should be protected by the police, instead of being scared that they will be arretested, criminalised or even raped?

Let us know your feelings in the comments section.