review of Harlots, Whores & Hackabouts by Kate Lister

This is a large book full of illustrations. It is a history of sex for sale. The first chapter is Sex in the Ancient World. There is much about ancient Babylon. I learned much from chapter four, The Honest Courtesans - Selling Sex in Renaissance Europe.

Both St Augustine of Hippo and St Thomas Aquinas taught that although prostitution is immoral, it is the lesser of two evils. Without it much worse things would happen - adultery and sodomy. It doesn't seem that they thought masturbation was much of a problem.

In Renaissance Italy sex workers were called 'meretrice' or 'cortigiane'.

"Cities, like Venice, forbade men from managing the brothels, instead installing older women known as matrons to do the job. A good matron not only looked after her girls, but knew how to keep the customers happy as well. In fact, the iconic Italian dish tiramisu is said to have been invented in the brothels to revive flagging energy levels. Whereas puttanesca, a flavourful sauce served with pasta, literally translates to 'cooked in the whorish fashion' and is said to have been eaten in the brothels when women were between clients. For all the moralizing around sex work, it did allow women to earn their own money, run their own business, and in a few cases, become internationally celebrated celebrities."

Kate goes on to write about Imperia Cognati, known as Queen of Courtesans. I was aware that the puttanesca pasta sauce is associated with Italian brothels, but I didn't know that the dessert tiramisu is too. Kate isn't saying that they were invented during the Renaissance though: they are of much more recent origin. I can imagine Italian sex workers having a hearty appetite, I can only speculate on which pasta shape they prefer. Perhaps farfalle, which means butterfly but is also a slang name in some parts of Italy for vulva: the labia minora resemble the wings of a butterfly.

The attitude of Christians is revealed in this chapter. The real problem came with the Protestants.

"Attitudes to sex work began to change dramatically across Europe following the rise of Protestantism. Protestants utterly rejected Augustinian notions that prostitution could curtail far worse sexual sins. Martin Luther called sex workers 'murderers' and suggested they be 'broken on the wheel'. Protestant preachers utterly condemned any toleration and called for state-run brothels to be closed and for prostitution to be abolished. Catholic attitudes to prostitution were soon viewed as evidence of wider moral corruption. The Vatican responded by ushering in a new era of sexual repression."

Pope Pius ordered them out of Rome and the Papal States, but the citizens of Rome petitioned him, and he repealed his edict.

So it seems that it is the Protestants and especially the Puritans, who came later, who despised sex work. Catholicism in Ireland seems to be heavily influenced by English (and Scottish) Puritanism. Southern European Catholics aren't quite so uptight about sexual matters.

In chapter 11 there are photographs named 'Interior of a brothel in Naples, c.1945'. One American surgeon reported that 'prostitutes from Naples descended upon our encampment by the hundreds, outflanking guards'. Let's hope they brought some tiramisu with them.

more student sex workers

There's something very odd about the Melissa Farley study that I wrote about in my previous post. It stated that men who pay for sex are 8 times more likely to report that they would rape a woman if they could get away with it and if no one knew about it. Also they are 3 times more likely to report that they have engaged in 'sexually aggressive behavior'.

You wonder why they didn't just ask outright in the survey 'Have you ever raped a woman?'. Well, the answer to that question is it looks as if they were asked that. So why aren't we told what these men reported? It can only be because they did not report that they had raped a women more than the non sex buyer group of men.

In the Melissa Farley study (Comparing Sex Buyers With Men Who Do Not Buy Sex: New Data on Prostitution and Trafficking) men were asked a number of sets of questions. One set of questions was the Sexual Experiences Survey (Perpetration Version). In this survey they were asked ten questions. The last three I have shown below.

8. Have you engaged in sexual intercourse when she didn’t want to because you gave her alcohol or drugs?
9. Have you engaged in sexual intercourse when she didn’t want to because you threatened or used some degree of physical force (twisting her arm‚ holding her down‚ etc.) to make her?
10. Did you answer “Yes” to any of the questions 1-10?

It goes on to say that 'Men are classified as perpetrators of rape if they answered “yes” to items 8‚ 9‚ or 10.' This is a bit strange because questions 1 to 7 are not rape. Question 1 is 'Have you engaged in sex play (fondling‚ kissing‚ or petting‚ but not intercourse) when she didn’t want to because you overwhelmed her with continual arguments and pressure?'

Anyway, men were asked if they had used alcohol, drugs or physical force to get sex in questions 8 and 9. So it would be a simple matter to work out how many men in each group have raped a woman. Yet we are not told this, instead we are told about what men say they would do under specific circumstances, and a calculation of sexual aggressive behaviour in general. The sex buyer group had 'a mean of 1.59 types of sexually aggressive behavior'. Never mind about the mean, what answers did they give to questions 8 and 9?

The Nordic Model Now! site use the Farley study to show that 'buying sex makes men more prone to violence against women'. Punters are 'nearly 8 times more likely to rape than other men'. Then people like Libby Purves try to say that the existence of sex work affects society in general and women in particular in negative ways.

Telling young people to just say no doesn't work. Whether it is about drugs or sex work. You can invite them to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each, to themselves and society, but don't try to feed them false statistics because they are too intelligent to be taken in by that. Some will want to continue after consideration and some won't. Then if they proceed you should do what you can to help them avoid the dangers.

I don't want young people to die of drug overdose and I don't want young people to die because they were forced to work alone. Let them have drugs of consistent strength and purity, and let them work together for safety. I would send my daughter to a university that helps them to stay alive. Except that she would make up her own mind which university she wants to go to and how she wants to fund herself.

student sex workers

Some of you may have read the article by Libby Purves in The Times on Monday (15/11/21) called 'Shame on universities that legitimise 'sex work''. Durham University's Student Union (DSU) is providing a course for students and staff to 'explore the challenges that student sex workers can face'.

This is what Libby Purves wrote in her article:-

"Men who buy it, whether online or physically are significantly more likely than other men to rape or commit other violence against women."

She does not give a reference for this statement. Looking around on the internet to try to find research that says that the presence of prostitution causes increased levels of rape I came to the Nordic Model Now! site. They have a page 'FACT: Buying sex makes men more prone to violence against women'.

"Studies of men who buy sex (punters) show that they are significantly more likely than other men to rape and engage in all forms of violence against women. A US study found that punters were nearly eight times more likely to rape than other men."

The US study is 'Comparing Sex Buyers With Men Who Do Not Buy Sex: New Data on Prostitution and Trafficking' by Melissa Farley and four other people that I have never heard of. Melissa Farley is known to be biased. See her Wikipedia page. Or go here.

It is illegal in America to buy sex. So the men that do are criminals. They cannot be compared to men in Britain. America is a violent society, with extremes of wealth and poverty. It has an enormous prison population where people are treated inhumanely. Mental illness is not given the attention it is in European countries. Religious fundamentalism and other reactionary attitudes are common.

Even so, the study did not show that American men who buy sex committed eight times as many rapes. Instead it says, under the heading 'Self-Reported Likelihood to Rape', that 15% of sex buyers reported 'that they would force a woman to have sex or rape a woman if they could get away with it and if no one knew about it' compared to 2% of non sex buyers.

To be a non sex buyer in this study a man had to have 'not been to a strip club more than once in the past year; had not exchanged something of value for a sex act; and had not used pornography more than once in the past week' as well as to have not bought sex. No phone sex or lap dancing either. Buying sex includes hand relief. I don't think this is most people's definition of a non sex buyer.

What the headline should have been is 'American men who don't use pornography regularly or pay for anything sexual - not even erotic dancing - are 7.5% times less likely to say that they would rape a woman under particular circumstances. Not 7.5% times less likely to rape, 7.5% less likely to say they would'.

Maybe they should have checked their testosterone levels while they were at it. Then the headline might have been 'Men with low testosterone levels less likely to use pornography, pay for sex or rape'. What they should have done is to have three groups: men who pay for sex, men who don't but like erotic dancing and pornography, and men who don't do any of these things. Otherwise how can you tell what corelates with rape? Pornography or prostitution?

None of this gives us any indication that eliminating prostitution would change men's attitudes and/or make them less likely to rape. It isn't possible to eliminate it or even reduce it anyway. You can try to eliminate it but that's not going to help.

It isn't the existence of prostitution that causes certain men's attitudes. There isn't a correlation between prostitution and rape. And even if there was a correlation, correlation is not the same as causation. Prostitution does not cause rape, not even some rape.

The second research study used on the Nordic Model Now! page is a UN study, 'Why Do Some Men Use Violence Against Women And How Can We Prevent It?' It was done in Asian and Pacific countries so isn't relevant to Britain. It says that the strongest association with rape is 'having more sexual partners'. That seems to mean more than 2 'lifetime sexual partners'. Whatever that means. Are you a man, and have you had more than 2 lifetime sexual partners? Then you are more likely to be a rapist than a man who has 'had transactional sex or sex with a sex worker'.

Consider these two statements. 1 Men who have more sexual partners are more likely to rape. 2 Men who have sex with sex workers are more likely to rape. The first invalidates the second. When a man visits a sex worker he increases the number of his lifetime sexual partners by one. It seems that it is the increasing of the number of partners that is the thing: the fact that the additional partner is a sex worker is of no importance. It could even be that the fact it's a sex worker and not a woman he met in the office or at a bar is a good thing.

The third research study used on the Nordic Model Now! page is 'Factors Influencing Attitudes to Violence Against Women'. It says nothing about prostitution. It does have something to say about pornography though: "Correlational studies of pornography use in everyday life find that men who use hardcore, violent, or rape pornography, and men who are high-frequency users of pornography, are significantly more likely than others to report that they would rape or sexually harass a woman if they knew they could get away with it." So the author has a different agenda than Nordic Model Now!. He wants to put the blame on pornography not prostitution.

Would it be surprising if a rapist is more likely to sometimes pay for sex? Or use pornography? I don't think so. That would be your correlation, but they have failed to establish a correlation, let alone causation. If you interviewed rapists I'm sure you could find lots of things that they do more frequently. Going to betting shops, for example. That doesn't mean that betting causes rapes.

Young women at university will make up their own minds about sex work. They will not be scared off by people like Libby Purves. They can see through their propaganda. I hope that on the course for students and staff, the one that Libby Purves wants to stop, they can examine the evidence. The existence of sex work does not cause problems for women. Also they can consider why sex workers get assaulted: top of my list of reasons is people in the older generation (like Libby Purves) stopping grants and not allowing them to work together for safety.