I have read Rachel Moran's book Paid For and it doesn't say what people think it says. She doesn't say that she was forced into prostitution by a violent pimp: she says that she did it because she needed the money. One of the weaknesses of this argument is that most people do the jobs they do because they need the money.
When Rupert Everett put this to her in his documentary she said she found that offensive. So she's trying to avoid the question. She said "You don't go into a factory and have the boss put his penis in your mouth. And the janitor put his penis up your anus". Yet in her book she said that in all the years she was a prostitute she never once had anal sex. She also said that she knew a woman who refused to do oral sex. So to suggest that oral and anal sex are essential requirements for being a prostitute is wrong.
Every form of work has its own unique characteristics. You don't go into a factory and have to handle dead bodies, as undertakers have to. You don't go into a factory and have to kill animals, as happens in an abattoir. If the idea of handling dead bodies disgusts you then don't start a job in an undertakers. The jobcentre won't make you work at an undertakers or an abattoir.
She also says in her book that for the first couple of years she didn't have any form of penetrative sex. She only started after the change in law in Ireland in 1993 which restricted the activities of prostitutes. Even then she only did it 'sporadically'. People should think about how laws can affect prostitutes adversely and not be so glib about supporting something like the Nordic model which seems to be counterproductive. It doesn't make life better for prostitutes and it doesn't decrease the number of active sex buyers.
The 1993 law in Ireland forced women into the hands of pimps. Anyone who could afford a mobile phone and to rent a flat could become a pimp.
She goes on to say that "unwanted sex ... is damaging". But she has falsified the evidence. In her book she says that 38% of Irish prostitutes have attempted suicide. That's false. There were 3 excellent studies of prostitution in the 1990s done by Ann Marie O'Connor and her colleagues. In one of them she says that 38% of a small group of drug-addicted street prostitutes in Dublin had attempted suicide. That's drug addicts in Dublin, not prostitutes in general in Ireland. Most prostitutes are not drug addicts: estimates vary but drug addicts are likely to be no more than 15% of all prostitutes.
O'Connor was quite clear that drug-addicted street prostitutes are a different population from most prostitutes. She listed the stress factors in their lives, drug addiction and street prostitution obviously but also having to avoid arrest and not being able to see your children. So to say that prostitution in itself is so damaging that 38% have attempted suicide is wrong.
What's more they have tried to hide the facts. Moran got the statistic from Ruhama. Ruhama is an organisation that was started by two orders of nuns both of which were involved in Magdalene laundries. Ruhama says that it got the statistic from one of O'Connor's studies. When you look at the study that they refer you to it says nothing about suicide or depression.
If you hunt around enough you can find the 38% statistic, in a different study by O'Connor, and you can tell from the title that it is about drug addicts in Dublin. 29 out of the group of 77 reported having attempted suicide.
She said that she is offended by Rupert Everett saying that the reason someone becomes a prostitute is the same as the reason anyone gets a job.
Well, I'm offended by someone on national television saying one thing and saying something different in their book. It's wrong to imply that prostitutes have no control over what their customers do to them. I'm offended by someone using false statistics where women's welfare is concerned. I'm offended by religious bigots who hide the evidence when it doesn't suit them. I'm offended when they abuse the good will of drug addicts who participate in surveys to promote laws which harm them further.
That's not the only statistic that she has falsified. She went on national radio and said that 127 prostitutes had been murdered in the Netherlands since legalisation. As far as I can tell this statistic came from Jim Wells the Northern Ireland politician. He is an evangelical Christian, a creationist. He has got into trouble with his views on abortion and homosexuality. He used this statistic to help get the Nordic model passed in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
So how is this law going in Northern Ireland? According to the report the amount of prostitution has increased. That seems surprising but what people like Rachel Moran, Jim Wells and Ruhama don't tell you is that the proportion of men in Sweden who were active sex buyers increased from 1.3% to 1.8% after the Nordic model was introduced there. Think about the prohibition of alcohol in America a hundred years ago, totally counterproductive.
How is this law going in the Irish Republic? The report has nothing to say about a change in demand but it says that no more money is being spent on helping women to exit prostitution and women are still being arrested.
How is the law going in New Zealand, the one that has decriminalized prostitution? According to the official report it is going very well. Rachel Moran however contradicts this. She stated in a newspaper article that prostitution has increased in New Zealand - 'a massive expansion in the trade'. Melissa Farley, a Radical Feminist, wrote this despite the official report saying that it cannot be true that prostitution has increased. A complaint was made against Melissa Farley for saying something that she knew not to be true.
How is the law going in New Zealand, the one that has decriminalized prostitution? According to the official report it is going very well. Rachel Moran however contradicts this. She stated in a newspaper article that prostitution has increased in New Zealand - 'a massive expansion in the trade'. Melissa Farley, a Radical Feminist, wrote this despite the official report saying that it cannot be true that prostitution has increased. A complaint was made against Melissa Farley for saying something that she knew not to be true.
In the newspaper article it says "Moran's older boyfriend coerced her into prostitution". That was not her experience. Many things that Rachel Moran has said can be shown to be untrue.
The name of Rupert's documentary is Love For Sale: Why People Sell Sex (episode 1)
This is the research by Ann Marie O'Connor where you find the 38% statistic: Drug Using Women Working In Prostitution
For Northern Ireland we have A Review of the Criminalisation of Paying for Sexual Services in Northern Ireland by the School of Law at Queen's University, Belfast (2019)
For the Republic we have The Implementation of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, Part IV – An Interim Review by Dr Geoffrey Shannon (2020)
The best document for giving all the relevant statistics from Sweden is Prostitution in Sweden 2014 The extent and development of prostitution in Sweden by Mujaj and Netscher (Länsstyrelsen 2015)
These are the posts where I have reviewed Rachel Moran's book Paid For
I got the images above from a feminist site
No comments:
Post a Comment