review of Feminism by Deborah Cameron

This is an introduction to feminist theory and shows both sides of the debate. There is one chapter, Sex, that is of interest to me. She confirms that many of the earliest feminists had negative attitudes towards sexual desire.

“Historians of the first wave generally agree that feminist discussions of sex in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were dominated by the impulse to protect women from sexual danger and to reform ‘the beast in man’ (though there were some feminists who contested this, campaigning for women’s access to birth control, abortion, sex education and the freedom to have sex outside marriage).”

The second wave was more positive about sexuality. There were though feminist ‘sex wars’ in the 1980s.

Pornography is said to influence women to behave in ways that they don’t truly enjoy. For example, a woman posting anonymously on Twitter stated that male sexual partners had criticised her for refusing to participate in group sex.

This seems very odd to me. I have never participated in group sex, neither would I want to. I know that group sex is common in pornography but that hasn’t made me feel that it is common in reality. Very few people have done it or would want to do it. I would estimate that less than 1% of the population have tried it. So why would anyone get the idea that only a prude would not want to participate in it? It seems to me that she should have chosen her sexual partners more carefully, either choosing men who are more intelligent or less selfish.

Sex work and the Nordic model are discussed. According to Cameron there are two reasons why some people want the Nordic model. One reason is that ‘the existence of a market where men can buy sexual consent both reflects and reinforces the inequality between the sexes’.

This argument has never made much sense to me. For it to make sense you would have to show that sex is different from other pleasures in life. I haven’t seen a convincing argument for that. For many people it is different. If you have a fear and disgust of basic human sexuality you will feel that, especially if you have chosen celibacy. Most people don’t feel that way though. We all buy other people’s consent every day.

The other reason is that ‘sex should be an exchange based on mutual desire’. I don’t believe that’s the real reason. I rarely hear that argument. It doesn’t make much sense anyway. If I go on a minibus trip to the Lake District I would enjoy it as would the other passengers. The driver might not. As long as he or she is not exploited and has chosen this way of making money I am happy with that.

If I pay for sex, I will enjoy the sex and she will enjoy the money. As long as we both get what we want then we will both be happy.

The more usual stated reason for wanting the Nordic model is that the welfare of women will be improved. We all want the welfare of women to be improved but only some of us are willing to look at the facts of the matter. Does the Nordic model decrease demand? Do women continue to be arrested? Are they helped to leave if they choose? It’s not so difficult to find the facts if you really want them and you are not gullible.

The real reason why some people want the Nordic model is because they hate men like me. I am the type of man that some women think they have a right to hate. They think that the Nordic model will make life more difficult for men like me, and they don’t care how many women are harmed in the process.

They can’t even get that right. Any sane sober man can avoid detection in Nordic model countries. They will only ever get a fine anyway, unlike the young women who are sent to prison for ‘brothel-keeping’. Not all punters are the same. Some are happy to negotiate with a pimp. Others, like me, prefer to negotiate with the sex worker herself. A woman should not be told ‘If you work here you have to do oral sex without a condom’. She should be able to decide for herself, and I have always been happy to comply with her choices.

Cameron states that the Nordic model decriminalises women. It doesn’t. She writes that it is intended to decrease demand. It doesn’t. Neither is much money spent to help women exit.

We should all agree that sex workers should not be arrested and resources should be allocated to help women and men to exit if they so choose. So why can’t we just do that? Evangelicals like Jim Wells, nuns like the ones who founded Ruhama and Radical Feminists like Julie Bindel would never agree. They would say that we can’t have these unless we also criminalise men who pay for sex. Not only does that not make sense, they are insincere. They don’t care about the women.

Cameron states the advantages of decriminalisation.

“They could set up small businesses or co-operatives with other women, instead of depending on the pimps and organised criminals who are powerful players in the illegal trade.”

On the other side of the argument, women risk being assaulted or killed. No sex workers have been killed in Soho since the 1940s, they are never alone in the flat with a customer.

Germany is not a good place for sex workers, the Netherlands is OK, and things are good in New Zealand. Sex workers can be arrested in Germany and the Netherlands but not in New Zealand. In New Zealand workers reap the financial rewards, not ‘wealthy investors and entrepreneurs’.

The last part of this chapter is all to do with heterosexual sex being ‘inherently problematic’ even when it has nothing to do with prostitution. Some feminists choose celibacy. They don’t think women should be having sex with men. So obviously they think women shouldn’t be having sex with me, whether I pay them or not.

Other feminists choose lesbianism. I was aware of the views of Catharine A MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin. Also more recent authors such as Sheila Jeffreys and Julie Bindel. Deborah Cameron mentions two other authors who espoused lesbianism, Monique Wittig and Adrienne Rich.

Julie Bindel's new book

Julie Bindel was on Woman's Hour today talking about her new book. Nice free publicity for her although I don't expect it will do her any more good than with her last book.

She stated that women need to reclaim feminism because of the influence of men. Men are taking leadership roles in feminist groups and that's why some women have started believing things that she doesn't agree with. The idea that prostitution shouldn't be banned, for example.

That's ridiculous though because the books that have influenced me the most are by women authors. Molly Smith, Juno Mac and Emily Kenway. Also the feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum. I can't think of one male author.

She said she wanted to see a world without rape, domestic violence and prostitution. No doubt that will resonate with suburban housewives although I'm not sure how many still listen to Woman's Hour.

Her idea is that feminist policies shouldn't please men. However there are some men who are very pleased with Julie Bindel's policies. Jim Wells for example. He is a religious bigot who, like her, wants to get rid of prostitution, pornography and erotic dancing. Gavin Shuker is very pleased with the policies of Jess Phillips who has worked with him and other Evangelicals in the APPG on Commercial Sexual Exploitation. Gary Haugen of the IJM was very pleased with Laura Lederer. William Hudnut was very pleased with Catharine MacKinnon.

The worst kind of patriarchal men hate prostitution, pornography and erotic dancing. Also gay rights and abortion. They are happy to work with Radical Feminists. The liberal men who Bindel doesn't like don't believe that the way to solve social problems is to give the police more powers and arrest more people.

There is a male influence in feminism that women should reclaim feminism from. In her previous book Julie Bindel quoted 'Mr Wells'. Mr Wells is the Northern Ireland politician Jim Wells, who is a religious bigot. He is an Evangelical Christian. Kat Banyard also quoted him extensively, in her book that came out about the same time. Banyard also used his false statistic.

When Julie Bindel and other Radical Feminists say that men who pay for sex - like me - are like rapists and wife beaters, where does that idea come from? You can understand why right wing religious bigots will say that. They hate promiscuity in all its forms. They associate sex with aggression, violence and death.

They are disgusted by prostitution and don't believe that there are some women who aren't. So they think that sex workers must have something wrong with them, be coerced, or desperately poor. They cannot believe that there are some women who choose prostitution for the same reason that other people choose their jobs; a combination of financial reward, number of hours worked and like or dislike.

They might say if I think it's valid job why don't I do it? I think being a waiter or a masseur is a valid job but I'm not doing those either. I wouldn't want to do those jobs because they like sex work involve meeting lots of new people, anticipating their needs then remembering them if they return. Some people like that. I don't.

On page 71 Julie Bindel states that 'abolitionist feminists' succeeded in 'effectively decriminalising large numbers of formerly prostituted women'. She uses this belief to counter the accusation that her kind of feminist is 'carceral'. Carceral means thinking that you can solve social problems by giving the police more powers to arrest people. It means wanting to arrest men who pay for sex. Radical Feminists have always said that they want to stop women from being arrested, so I don't see how women no longer having to disclose criminal records for soliciting defends them from the accusation of being carceral.

It wasn't the Radical Feminists by themselves who achieved this judicial review. It was academics (who Bindel hates) and 'feminist lawyers' too. She doesn't say if these feminist lawyers were Radical Feminists or other feminists. The judicial review doesn't decriminalise sex workers. Why isn't Bindel campaigning to allow women to work together for safety? Why isn't she campaigning to allow soliciting? Why isn't she campaigning to remove criminal records for brothel-keeping? Other feminists are campaigning for these things. This would be the real decriminalisation.

People who support the Nordic model say that they want to decriminalise prostitutes. They say they want to shift the 'burden of criminality' from prostitutes to their clients, from women onto men. Yet there is no Nordic model country that has done this. People like Bindel don't campaign for it. Occasionally they will say that you can't decriminalise women until you criminalise men. Former Irish justice minister Frances Fitzgerald doubled the penalties for brothel-keeping with the introduction of the Nordic model there. She gave some stupid excuse for that but it seems that genuine decriminalisation for sex workers would compromise the ability of the police and the state to wipe out prostitution. Which is weird because the evidence is that the Nordic model increases demand.

In this book Julie Bindel implies that anal sex is standard for sex workers. She wants to know if men would rather 'take it up the ass' than work in McDonald's. She mentions Rachel Moran and her book several times. Rachel Moran never had anal sex in all the years she worked as a prostitute. She didn't even have vaginal sex for the first two years. She only started vaginal sex after 1993 when a law was introduced which restricted prostitution. Even then she only did penetrative sex 'sporadically', preferring to do domination.

As for oral sex, there is a difference between oral sex with a condom, oral sex without a condom and cum-in-mouth. Lots of prostitutes don't do cum-in-mouth. In fact, lots of sex workers only do hand relief. There are a great many establishments where women do massage and hand relief. They don't do oral sex or penetrative sex. I'm not sure that the word 'prostitute' is even appropriate for these women which is one reason why the term 'sex worker' is better.

Women don't sell blowjobs on Hartlepool harbour for five pounds (page 131). I have never encountered anything like that even though I have been to red light districts where I met drug addicts.

On page 219 she briefly mentions 'women escaping prostitution in Cambodia'. Most prostitutes in Cambodia are not coerced into it. If they work in a brothel they are not kept there and do not need to escape. The only time they need to escape is when they are arrested by the police and taken somewhere, often somewhere run by American Evangelicals such as those in the International Justice Mission.

If you are talking about sex workers who would like to do something different (often after they have built up considerable savings) there is an organisation called Empower in Thailand that did literacy classes for them. Empower was refused funding by the American government because they refused to sign an oath that they do not support or condone prostitution in its many manifestations and that no funds will be going toward harm prevention among sex workers. Some feminists such as Laura Lederer worked with the Evangelicals, they justify it by saying they are fighting trafficking.

In 2003, as part of the Trafficking Victim’s Protection Act Reauthorization Act, the administration announced that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) would stop funding any group perceived as encouraging sex work. The new policy stated that groups “advocating prostitution as an employment choice or which advocate or support the legalization of prostitution are not appropriate partners for USAID antitrafficking grants or contracts” (Hill 2003). This rule meant that nonabolitionist groups doing AIDS/HIV outreach or offering other harm-reduction services to sex workers were no longer eligible for funds from USAID. Among the international programs partially funded by the United States was a sex workers’ literacy class run by Thailand’s Empower, a group that since 1985 has advocated for the rights of women in the entertainment industry in that country.

Running from the Rescuers: New U.S. Crusades Against Sex Trafficking and the Rhetoric of Abolition by Gretchen Soderlund

review of Burn It Down by Breanne Fahs

I came across a book by the American feminist writer Breanne Fahs. It is called 'Burn It Down!'. It is a collection of feminist writings on a number of subjects. The two chapters that were of interest to me were Chapter 51 entitled 'Feminist Manifesto to Support the Rights of Sex Workers' by an organization called Feminists for Sex Workers and Chapter 30 which is the words of Andrea Dworkin.

You can get the impression that feminists believe that prostitution should be banned. That they believe in the Nordic or Swedish model where men are arrested for paying for sex. The truth though is that many if not most feminists don't believe that.

There are 11 points made in Chapter 51. Each is a paragraph with the first sentence in bold text. It's worth me replicating each of these sentences below.

1. We acknowledge sex workers as experts in their own lives and needs.
2. We respect sex workers' decision to engage in sex work.
3. We affirm sex workers' ability to claim consent.
4. We advocate for measures that provide real help and support to victims of trafficking, with full respect for the protection of their human and labour rights.
5. We fight to eliminate all forms of violence against sex workers.
6. We work every day to end misogyny in all spheres of life.
7. We respect migrants’ rights.
8. We respect LGBT rights.
9. We call for full decriminalisation of sex work.
10. We speak up against women's increasing precarisation in labour.
11. We demand the inclusion of sex workers in the feminist movement.

I agree with each of these points. When Amnesty International found out how women are being harmed in Nordic model countries they were accused of promoting the views of pimps. It is clear though that they are promoting the views of many feminists. I don't know who the Feminists for Sex Workers group are, but if Breanne Fahs agrees with them then this must be a mainstream opinion within feminism. What's more, this isn't a watered-down form of feminism - Fahs sees herself as a revolutionary.

They say it is wrong for people to say that women 'sell their bodies' or 'sell themselves'. And that a client buys a woman's body or a woman's consent. And the other false idea that a client can do what he wants to a woman; this has 'dangerous real life consequences for sex workers'.

They say that the Nordic or Swedish model and similar systems 'harm sex workers'. 'The Swedish model pushes them into poverty, reduces their power in negotiations with clients, criminalises them for working together for safety, evicts and deports them.'

Chapter 30 is an excerpt from Andrea Dworkin's influential 1987 book 'Intercourse'. Dworkin believes that when a man has sex with a woman he possesses her. She becomes like a slave. 'The normal fuck by a normal man is taken to be an act of invasion and ownership undertaken in a mode of predation: colonializing, forceful (manly) or nearly violent; the sexual act that by its nature makes her his.'

This confirms what I have learned from other sources that this type of feminist - the Radical Feminist - believes that any time a man and woman have sex it objectifies the woman. That is why they believe women should become lesbians. A lesbian - political lesbian - is a woman who doesn't have sex with men. She doesn't necessarily have sex with other women.

They oppose prostitution because it is one of the ways that men and women have sex. They're not going to tell you that though. They are going to pretend that they are doing it for the welfare of prostitutes. No wonder they hate Amnesty International and will do anything to stop them exposing the harm done to women by the Nordic model.

another false statistic from a feminist

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