I used to think that the Nordic Model might come to Britain. It already has in Northern Ireland. Recently though it seems that we are moving the other way. Julie Bindel is worried that this might be happening. She wrote an article in December subtitled 'Young Left-wing MPs ignore the exploitative reality'.
In this article she criticises a number of women politicians for speaking in favour of decriminalisation. Nadia Whittome, Dawn Butler, Charlotte Nichols and Zarah Sultana from Labour. Caroline Lucas and Natalie Bennett from the Green Party.
About Nadia Whittome: "She was delighted when feminists lost their fight to put a cap on lap dance clubs in Bristol, despite evidence that men outside the clubs sexually harass women on their way home".
Julie Bindel doesn't give a link to this 'evidence' although she gives links to other things. If you follow the links though they never seem to support the points she makes.
Caroline Lucas used to support the Nordic model but changed her mind after talking to Paris Lees. One link given in this paragraph doesn't have anything to do with Caroline's ideas about prostitution though. It is a link to a debate where Caroline was present but didn't speak.
Another link is intended to support her assertion that 'the psychological damage as a result of prostitution is well documented'. The link is to a study titled 'Posttraumatic stress disorder among female street-based sex workers in the greater Sydney area, Australia'. It is not about sex workers in general, it is only to do with women who are drug addicts and street-based sex workers. They are a minority of sex workers and their psychological damage is as much to do with drug addiction and homelessness as it is to do with street prostitution.
Julie Bindel states that in New Zealand HIV and rape are thought of as "industrial injury".She links to a document called 'A Guide to Occupational Health and Safety in the New Zealand Sex Industry'. The version she links to is not a seachable version but I found one here. The word "industrial" is not found anywhere in the text. The document is meant to help women avoid harm, it doesn't say that sex workers have to accept harm as a necessary part of what they do.
There can be a sex industry where harm is minimised or a sex industry where harm is not minimised. What is not possible is to have a society without a sex industry. You can try to ban it but it will not work. It hasn't worked in any Nordic Model country.
She believes that legalisation increases trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children. She links to a study done by the London School of Economics. The study however has nothing to say about the exploitation of children. The study says that the more prostitution there is in a country the more trafficking there will be. It doesn't seem to distinguish between women who are coerced and women whose motivation is to make more money.
Some countries have more prostitutes and therefore more trafficking. The study establishes that the amount of prostitution and trafficking increased in Germany. It does not establish that the amount of prostitution and trafficking increased in Denmark or decreased in Sweden. Germany, Denmark and Sweden were the three countries studied in some detail. It says nothing about New Zealand, which is the only country to have had decriminalisation in place for a number of years, where we know there has been no increase in the amount of prostitution.
Denmark has more prostitution than Sweden, but there is no evidence that this is because of the difference in the laws. So that cannot be used to say that there is more prostitution and trafficking because of differences in law. It can even less be said that legalisation causes an increase in prostitution and trafficking ('legalisation of the sex trade increases both' in Bindel's words), and the study does not say that. We know that did happen in Germany, but we already know that what is happening in Germany is not the right way to go.
Bindel writes that "The commercial sexual exploitation of children is rife, for example, the buying and selling of Albanian refugee children in Kent". The article she links to does not say that though. It says that Albanian children have gone missing. It doesn't say anything about them being bought and sold, or even sexual exploitation.
"Tina sold sex from high-end London hotels for years and was forced to sleep in handcuffs every night." I don't know where this comes from. The Space International site she links to in this paragraph has nothing about Tina or handcuffs. It has testimony from 'women who have escaped' but I can't find a Tina. Rachel Moran doesn't mention anyone being forced to sleep in handcuffs every night in her book.
There are horror stories and they want us to believe that they are typical of the sex industry.*
Nadia Whittome gets another mention in an article that suggests there has been a big change in the attitudes of the police towards brothel keeping. The police closed many brothels in the 2010s.
"Commenting on the police officer's remarks, Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, told The Independent: Right now, too many sex workers work alone for fear of prosecution, increasing the risks they face.
Changing the law on brothel keeping so that sex workers could work from the same premise would be an important step in the right direction."
Christine Jardine, a Scottish Liberal Democrat, agrees with Nadia Whittome. So it looks as if Julie Bindel will have to add Christine Jardine to her list of female MPs who she despises, along with Nadia Whittome, Dawn Butler, Charlotte Nichols, Zarah Sultana, Caroline Lucas and Natalie Bennett. She will have to add the Liberal Democratic party to the Labour and Green Party. That seems to leave just the Conservatives left for her.
It's not that Whittome et al ignore the exploitative reality. Bindel and people like her have failed to convince them. Most prostitutes don't get PTSD. Decriminalisation doesn't increase the amount of prostitution, trafficking or the sexual exploitation of children. It's not surprising that people think that Julie Bindel and her Evangelical allies are pearl-clutchers.
What is Julie Bindel's real motivation? Does she really believe that women need to be freed from handcuffs? Or, as a political lesbian, does she think that women shouldn't be having sex with men anyway? Does she think that she can stop some women having sex with some men, which is some way towards her ideal society?
* The worst horror story that I know of - and a real one - is that of the the four Gonzalez Valenzuela sisters. It's quite interesting but not relevant - it comes from 1940s Mexico. They were the perpetrators, not the victims.
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| the victims of the Gonzalez Valenzuela sisters |
