The message of this book is that women are forced to become prostitutes because of poverty. Early in the book she says that she had the opportunity of living with a family but she declined the offer because she felt contaminated by prostitution. This was before the 1993 law which made life more difficult for prostitutes when she had to have penetrative sex (although she never had anal sex).
"These things felt too pure for me, or rather, I felt too dirty for them." Chapter 8 page 70
So even she had another option. She felt she couldn't take this other option because she felt contaminated. It sounds as if it was attitudes to sex in Ireland that were causing the problem. Attitudes to sex are changing in Ireland but the traditional culture is that the most acceptable women are those who don't have sex - the nuns. Priests and monks aren't supposed to have sex either. If you can't be a nun then you should be celibate before marriage then faithful after, so that you only have sex with one man ever.
"The prostitute knows that she lives in a society which, however saturated with sexual imagery, is still steeped in the veneration of virginity, and she has the wit to know that since she is placed on the opposite end of that spectrum she will not find herself venerated any time soon." Chapter 4 page 28
Lust is seen as lowering us to the level of the animals. Lust contaminates. Semen stains the soul. A prostitute who has had sex with hundreds of men has the lowest status. A wife shouldn't enjoy having sex with her husband. It's different for men, unless a man can become aroused then sex and conception won't be possible. So men can enjoy sex, but can't talk about it. Unless it's in the pub. Then it will be talked about in a vulgar way.
If you are raised to think that sex is animalistic then it's not surprising that when you have sex you behave in an animalistic way - or what you think is an animalistic way. Sex is associated with aggression and violence.
When I chose a bull to be my symbol for this blog it wasn't because I'm the sort of man who owns an aggressive breed of dog. A bull is not an aggressive animal, he uses his strength to defend himself and the herd. Christians think that to be reduced to the level of an animal is the worst thing. Others who have a secular or a pagan way of thinking don't believe that. We have drives that we share with animals, we seek out food and sex, and there is no need to suppress these drives. It's when we suppress these drives that aggression arises.
I've just said that secular people don't think this way, but some do. The philosopher Kant was secular but he invented the theory of objectification to find a secular reason why sex outside of marriage is wrong. A philosopher should be able to challenge the attitudes of the society he lives in and not try to find new ways to justify them.
My family were secular but had old-fashioned attitudes to sex. Very common at the time. I have tried to overcome the inhibitions I gained in childhood. It seems that one group of feminists persist with these old-fashioned attitudes. Roman Catholics, Evangelical Protestants and Radical Feminists use each others' false statistics to try to ban prostitution. In the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland and Sweden they have persuaded governments.
When the nuns who ran the Magdalen laundries showed aggression towards the young women and girls incarcerated there it was because of suppressed sexual desire. It was a hatred and fear of sex and a disgust at people who they thought freely expressed their sexual feelings.
When a man who has been steeped in this culture visits a brothel he's going to think that the thing to do is behave like an animal. Or what he thinks to behave like an animal would be. He will tend to be disrespectful and even aggressive towards the sex worker. He might enjoy the feeling that he is raping the woman.
There is another book about prostitution in Ireland. It is called Slave by Anna. In this book a woman is kidnapped on the streets of London and taken to Ireland. She is raped many times. Some of the other women she meets are taken to Northern Ireland and Sweden but none of them are taken to London or Manchester. This is curious. There are plenty of brothels in London and Manchester. The only way we can explain this is by saying that some Catholics in the Irish Republic and Evangelicals in Northern Ireland like to have brutal sex. They think that is what sex is - brutal and animalistic.
"These things felt too pure for me, or rather, I felt too dirty for them." Chapter 8 page 70
So even she had another option. She felt she couldn't take this other option because she felt contaminated. It sounds as if it was attitudes to sex in Ireland that were causing the problem. Attitudes to sex are changing in Ireland but the traditional culture is that the most acceptable women are those who don't have sex - the nuns. Priests and monks aren't supposed to have sex either. If you can't be a nun then you should be celibate before marriage then faithful after, so that you only have sex with one man ever.
"The prostitute knows that she lives in a society which, however saturated with sexual imagery, is still steeped in the veneration of virginity, and she has the wit to know that since she is placed on the opposite end of that spectrum she will not find herself venerated any time soon." Chapter 4 page 28
Lust is seen as lowering us to the level of the animals. Lust contaminates. Semen stains the soul. A prostitute who has had sex with hundreds of men has the lowest status. A wife shouldn't enjoy having sex with her husband. It's different for men, unless a man can become aroused then sex and conception won't be possible. So men can enjoy sex, but can't talk about it. Unless it's in the pub. Then it will be talked about in a vulgar way.
If you are raised to think that sex is animalistic then it's not surprising that when you have sex you behave in an animalistic way - or what you think is an animalistic way. Sex is associated with aggression and violence.
When I chose a bull to be my symbol for this blog it wasn't because I'm the sort of man who owns an aggressive breed of dog. A bull is not an aggressive animal, he uses his strength to defend himself and the herd. Christians think that to be reduced to the level of an animal is the worst thing. Others who have a secular or a pagan way of thinking don't believe that. We have drives that we share with animals, we seek out food and sex, and there is no need to suppress these drives. It's when we suppress these drives that aggression arises.
I've just said that secular people don't think this way, but some do. The philosopher Kant was secular but he invented the theory of objectification to find a secular reason why sex outside of marriage is wrong. A philosopher should be able to challenge the attitudes of the society he lives in and not try to find new ways to justify them.
My family were secular but had old-fashioned attitudes to sex. Very common at the time. I have tried to overcome the inhibitions I gained in childhood. It seems that one group of feminists persist with these old-fashioned attitudes. Roman Catholics, Evangelical Protestants and Radical Feminists use each others' false statistics to try to ban prostitution. In the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland and Sweden they have persuaded governments.
When the nuns who ran the Magdalen laundries showed aggression towards the young women and girls incarcerated there it was because of suppressed sexual desire. It was a hatred and fear of sex and a disgust at people who they thought freely expressed their sexual feelings.
When a man who has been steeped in this culture visits a brothel he's going to think that the thing to do is behave like an animal. Or what he thinks to behave like an animal would be. He will tend to be disrespectful and even aggressive towards the sex worker. He might enjoy the feeling that he is raping the woman.
There is another book about prostitution in Ireland. It is called Slave by Anna. In this book a woman is kidnapped on the streets of London and taken to Ireland. She is raped many times. Some of the other women she meets are taken to Northern Ireland and Sweden but none of them are taken to London or Manchester. This is curious. There are plenty of brothels in London and Manchester. The only way we can explain this is by saying that some Catholics in the Irish Republic and Evangelicals in Northern Ireland like to have brutal sex. They think that is what sex is - brutal and animalistic.
There are no cases that I am aware of in Britain where a woman has been kidnapped from the streets and raped. If you read in the newspapers about cases of men and women prosecuted for trafficking they don't involve coercion.
It's no coincidence that it is the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland who have introduced the Nordic model where the idea is that men are prosecuted for paying for sex. They have ignored all the evidence that shows that it doesn't work. The 1993 law made things worse for sex workers (as Moran says herself) and the more recent Nordic model makes things worse still. Moran says nothing about women kidnapped and raped in early 1990s Ireland.
The worse it gets the more examples they can give of women damaged by prostitution. They can renew their efforts to stamp it out. The more they try to stamp it out the worse it gets. Just like in prohibition America. Or the war against drugs. But they are the ones who have created this situation. And they have no interest in eliminating the poverty that they say is the cause of prostitution. They want to take away this way of escaping poverty.
In Ireland sex workers feel impure and feel they can't escape. They are more likely to find sex repulsive and the men who pay for sex make it even more repulsive by their attitude. Religious people call for harsher laws which make things even worse. The worse it gets the more they want to crack down on it.
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