New Zealand decriminalisation model

I have just been reading a blog written by a sex worker in New Zealand. I think that what she has to say is so important I want to repeat it here. This comes from the post What the NZ model cheer squad get wrong on the Dollar Girl Diaries blog.

If what she is saying is true then it seems that the decriminalisation of sex work has succeeded even better than expected. Sex workers are turning away from pimps because they don't need them. I have always said that sex workers don't need pimps, they can work for themselves.

"So, what happened when we introduced decriminalisation? Something totally unexpected. The paradigm shifted and it shifted radically. The brothels and agencies got wiped out, they were forced out of business. Nobody predicted it. But why did it happen? Despite decriminalisation, the casual independent contractor model for brothel work stayed. The owners had no reason to change it, there was a lot of very good employment case law from around the world saying this was legal and changing would both increase their costs and reduce power over the workers. So they didn’t change it. Decriminalisation however meant you could work outside the brothel system without fear of arrest of police harassment. Suddenly independent work was every bit as safe from arrest as the brothel work. The PRA also includes a provision allowing up to four sex workers to work out of a single location and share the costs equally without a license. Only restriction is all have to control their income independently, you can’t pool the takings and share them out. Gives the safety benefits of a brothel without the exploitation of a manager. Of course this means you’re self employed, with all the issues that brings, but without half your income going into somebody else’s pocket, you can put aside for those things.

Now for the first time, brothel workers had a choice. They no longer needed the brothels and agencies to be safe from arrest. They could stay on in the brothels as self employed independent contractors, with the owners taking around half of what they earned and imposing shift fees, late penalties, controlling their shifts to keep them from complaining, pressuring them to take clients they didn’t want etc. Or they could cut out on their own as an independent worker, maybe get together with a couple of other workers and form one of those new fangled small worker collective brothels. Of course that meant facing the perils of self employment, but they were being treated as self employed in the brothel system anyway. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority elected to cut out on their own. The old brothel system very simply collapsed as the workers found they no longer needed it’s protection. The entire industry paradigm changed. The sex industry in New Zealand is now dominated by independent workers and small worker collectives. Before 2003 there were over 400 hundred brothels and agencies in New Zealand, there are 45 left."

This shows that the proponents of the Nordic model have got it wrong when criticising the New Zealand model. Finn Mackay in her book Radical Feminism on page 211 writing about the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) and the International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW). "Both groups commend the approach taken in New Zealand, where brothels of varying sizes from small owner-operated ventures to larger chains are allowed to operate legally, though the ECP favour small owner-operated ventures over larger big business brothel chains. The latter are thriving however under this regime."

Mackay also writes that there had been plans for a 15-storey brothel in Auckland that didn't go ahead. Three brothels in Queensland closed complaining about unfair competition. That doesn't sound as if big business is thriving.

People who believe in decriminalisation are not the pimp lobby. The last thing that pimps want is the decriminalisation of sex work just like the last thing that drug dealers want is the decriminalisation of drugs.

There are some people who will tell you that the amount of prostitution increased in New Zealand after decriminalisation. Mellissa Farley has said this, and so has Samantha Berg. They are both wrong, and I shall show why below. In the case of Samantha Berg, she doesn't seem to understand how statistics work. Just as with her examination of the statistics to do with Norway, she doesn't understand you have to compare like with like. If you have two statistics related to different time periods then they are not comparable. Christchurch had 100 street prostitutes in 2006 and 121 street prostitutes in 2007. However, we're talking about different time periods and different times of year.

more than two types of sex work

In my last post and the one before I pointed out the prohibitionist argument heavily dependent on the idea that there is a minority of sex workers who make a good living and a majority who are drug addicts and pimped. The idea is that escorts etc are unrepresentative - 'tourists' - and therefore their views can be ignored.

It isn't true though that there are only two groups of sex workers and that drug addicts are in the majority. There are many different types. I think that there are 5 main forms of sex work in Britain. It could be that each of them has about 20% of the total number of sex workers.

1. escorts
They work for an agency. Customers phone the agency and the sex worker travels to where he is. This could be a hotel room or his flat or house. Escorts are also called call-girls. Some of them specialize in domination. Some of them specialize in 'sugar daddies' - older men.

2. working from a flat
Some of them will be independent but not all. Customers find their details on web sites such as Vivastreet. He must phone and make an appointment. Ethnic groups involved in this tend to be Eastern Europeans and Brazilians.

3. working in a brothel
Brothels are often called saunas. Phoning to make an appointment might be encouraged but usually a man just turns up. There could be several women working there and he can choose which one he wants. There may be a pimp or madam involved or the sex workers could be working for themselves. Brothels are illegal even when there is no pimp or madam. Ethnic groups involved in this tend to be British and Eastern European.

4. massage establishments
The word 'massage' like the word 'sauna' can be used in the name of a brothel. The massage establishments I am thinking of though provide massage and usually 'extras'. The main extra is 'hand relief' (HR) also called a 'happy ending'. The masseur, after providing a standard massage, will use her hands to bring her customer to orgasm. Another extra is 'body-to-body'. This is where the woman will remove her clothes and rub herself against her customer. She may cover herself with oil and get on top of him. Oral sex and full sex will rarely be on offer. Ethnic groups involved in this tend to be Thai, Chinese and British.

5. street-based drug addicts
Not all street-based sex workers are drug addicts and not all drug addicts are street-based. They don't usually give their money to a pimp, they give their money to a drug dealer. It won't always be the same drug dealer but even so drug dealers, pimps and boyfriends often merge into one. The most common drugs are crack cocaine and heroin. Often they also get money from shoplifting. Homelessness is common.

When I tell people that drug addicts are a small minority they reply that even if that was so we can't ignore them. We have to criminalise men who pay for sex even if it only benefits the drug addicted minority, so they say. However, the Nordic model doesn't help any type of sex worker. It doesn't get rid of prostitution. It doesn't even reduce it. I have written about this many times on this blog.

Not only does it not reduce demand, it also does not help women to exit prostitution. The funds for this never seem to be forthcoming. Also, women continue to be arrested.

The way to help drug addicts is not to give them ASBOs or to scare away most of their clients. It is through rehab, and helping them with benefits and housing. Sometimes prescribing opiods helps.

So it is clear that no sex worker can be representative of sex workers as a whole. I haven't included Soho walk ups because they are restricted to Soho and Mayfair/Shepherd Market. There is one sex worker in each walk up but two women there (the sex worker and her 'maid'). That makes it safer, working alone in a flat makes rape or robbery more likely. Men just turn up and a popular sex worker has many clients a day, more than any other type of sex work.

I haven't included webcam workers because they don't usually have sex with someone on camera although some of them do. Porn stars have sex on camera of course so this is a form of sex work but there can't be that many of them.

Stripping, erotic dancing and burlesque aren't included because they are not providing a sexual service. They might be included in the sex industry though. There are many minor forms of sex work. I have read a web site that includes women going aboard ships.

In many northern cities teenage British girls have been raped by older men. This isn't prostitution. You may say that many women in prostitution are coerced by violence or threats of violence but this is rare. Addiction is a form of coercion and we know the best way to help them. Destitution could be said to be another but I have never met a destitute woman except for addicts.

We have a benefits system. Jobs are available even if they are minimum wage or zero hours contracts. People take them to avoid destitution. Then when they are fed up scrimping and saving some of them turn to sex work. Most women don't.

review of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry

Chapter 7 of this book is about prostitution and I will limit myself to commenting on this. I will deal with three points that she makes. Otherwise it would be a very long post.

Right at the start of the book we have the idea that an archaeologist will say 'a pit of newborn babies' bones was how to spot a brothel'. One wonders what this is to do with the modern world. If you are interested in the remains of newborn babies in the modern world and not the ancient you will find them in great quantities in the grounds of Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home - up to 800.

I wouldn't just accept what archaeologists say anyway. A skeleton found in Wales was called 'The Red Lady of Paviland'. Speculation was that she was a prostitute servicing the nearby Roman army camp. Later it was realised 'she' was a man.

Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene laundries were run by nuns .They would still be there were it not for the changes in attitudes in society which brought about the sexual revolution. There was another mass grave at High Park Magdalene Laundry, Dublin, this one with 155 women.

In Chapter 7 on page 147 Louise Perry writes this:-

"Decriminalisation or legalisation of the sex industry increases the demand for commercial sex. In countries that have adopted these legal models, the proportion of the male population who have ever bought sex is higher, and the sex tourism industry is larger. Given that the number of women who will willingly enter the sex trade is small, when demand grows, unwilling women must be sought out in order to meet it."

Decriminalisation and legalisation are two different legal models. I support the former not the latter. The only country that has adopted decriminalisation is New Zealand, although Belgium has recently adopted it too. In New Zealand demand has not increased. Some people say that it has but that is not true. I don't know if it has increased in the Netherlands or Germany. I have not seen evidence of that and Perry offers no evidence.

It is interesting that she uses the phrase 'the proportion of the male population who have ever bought sex'. From my analysis of statistics from Sweden I know that there is a difference between the proportion of men who are active sex buyers and the proportion who have ever bought sex. The proportion of men who were active sex buyers before the Nordic model was 1.3%, after it was introduced it was 1.8%. The proportion of men who had ever bought sex dropped from about 13% to about 8% in the same period.

That is because the proportion who have ever done it will change as older generations become too old to participate in surveys. The cut off age is 74 years old. It will depend on factors such as whether the country was at war or whether they had large scale conscription decades ago. It won't depend on recent changes in law. The proportion of men who are active sex buyers will probably change because of changes in the law but will certainly change because of a financial crisis when men have less money to spend.

When demand grows the existing sex workers make more money. They have more customers and each customer will pay more. It doesn't mean that women will be forced to become sex workers. They may be more incentivised to become sex workers, but that is a different matter.

On page 145 Perry quotes from sociologist Elizabeth Bernstein. These quotes however don't support her assertion that well-paid sex workers are 'highly unrepresentative'. Bernstein quite correctly states that there are two ends of the continuum. There are well-paid sex workers at one end of the continuum and homeless women addicted to crack or heroin who are pimped at the other. That doesn't mean that there are only two types of sex worker, and it doesn't mean that the vast majority are the pimped drug addicts.

In fact we know that drug addicts have never been more than about 15% of the total number of sex workers. That is what Professor Belinda Brooks-Gordon has said*. So does that mean that 85% or more of sex workers are the well-paid sort? That is what you would have to believe if you believed that there are only two types of sex worker. Far from being 'tourists' ie highly unrepresentative, these well paid 'call-girls, escorts, exotic dancers and masseuses' would be the norm.

We know that's not the case though. There are many different categories of sex worker. It isn't true that most working-class women in sex work are drug addicts or pimped. Women who come to Britain from abroad are rarely drug addicts. Most white British working class prostitutes are not drug addicts. There is no 'prostituted class'.

There was a revealing television series called Taken: Hunting the Sex Traffickers. Although they were trying to say that traffickers are evil, they didn't manage to do that. One of the Brazilian sex workers had been arrested and deported. They showed her at the airport returning to Britain to resume her life as a sex worker. She said she wanted money for university. Often women come to Britain so that they can invest in their future.

There was an older Brazilian woman who spoke Portuguese and English. Her job was to answer the phone. Every time she directed a punter to one of the sex workers she got £10. The sex workers got £60 or £70. This older woman was prosecuted for being a pimp and a trafficker.

There are thousands of women in Britain from abroad who use their hands for massage and then sometimes use their hands to bring their clients to orgasm. That is all they do. This is the most visible form of prostitution. In the nearest city to me, Liverpool, there are several of these establishments in the centre and even more further out. They are not drug addicts, and often they are saving their money to invest in their future back home.

When Elizabeth Bernstein was writing about pimped drug addicts, it is important to remember that this in America. In America men are prosecuted for paying for sex. Women are prosecuted for selling sex. Yet still prostitution exists in America and is widespread. So how on earth does Louise Perry think that the Nordic model is going to get rid of prostitution? How does she think that she is going to save the drug addicted women of the world?

Drug addicts are helped by rehab. That is the way to help them. Not handing them ASBOs. Not trying to drive away their clients. Not putting all sex work in the hands of organised crime. Benefits and housing are important too. I support spending more money on rehab, benefits and housing. I support welfare workers who ask sex workers what they need. I know that this doesn't happen in Nordic model countries. That is what they promise, help to exit, but as Dr Geoffrey Shannon stated in the official report into the Nordic model in Ireland this has not happened.

The homicide rate for drug addicts is higher. The mortality rate due to drugs or alcohol is higher. Because some prostitutes are drug addicts that can make it seem that prostitution is more dangerous than it really is. Not letting prostitutes work together doesn't help. Not letting them work together means they work alone or for a pimp. That needs to change. It hasn't changed in countries that have adopted the Nordic model.

I have written more about this book here.

*I can't remember where Professor Belinda Brooks-Gordon wrote this. She is Professor of Forensic Psychology and Public Policy, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck University. In one of Dr Brooke Magnanti's books she wrote that the estimate is between 5% and 20%. On this page the estimate is between 3% and 25%. We can say that the proportion of sex workers who are street based and drug addicted can't be more than a quarter. Especially when you think that some street based sex workers aren't addicts. It certainly isn't true what Janice Turner wrote in the Times this Saturday "The vast majority of prostitutes ... were abused as children, lured in by pimp-boyfriends and muffle their pain with drugs or alcohol".

UPDATE: I have found the statistic. Apparently Belinda Brooks-Gordon said "Lots of people mistakenly think that drug addicts form the majority of people in the sex industry. They do not. They are only a tiny proportion. And on-street prostitution only accounts for about 10 to 15 per cent of all prostitution. Decriminalisation makes it safer for people. It could be made no different to any other forms of business - with age guidelines, health and safety rules and zoning areas."

It was reported in this newspaper article.

A Scottish Government report estimates that 90% of sex workers work indoors.

"The scale of indoor prostitution, which is now thought to comprise the vast majority of the market (Police Scotland estimated this to be 90% of all sex sold in 2014), is much less visible than on-street activity and therefore commonly acknowledged as even more difficult to estimate."

There is also this from HIV Ireland.

"Much attention has been focussed by researchers, public commentators, politicians and others on the street sector, as it represents the most visible proportion of the sex industry, yet in most countries it represents only around  a tenth of the industry (Hubbard, 2004; Scambler, 1997; Weitzer, 2005)."

Janice Turner in the Times

Janice Turner wrote an article in the Times about prostitution published on Saturday. She gave a statistic, if you can call it a statistic, that is false.

"But research shows men who buy sex are more likely to rape: trading money for consent reduces empathy, makes a man believe only his pleasure counts and increases his likelihood of partner abuse."

She doesn't give a reference for this research. She seems to have copied what Libby Purves wrote last year also in the Times. You would think that Janice could have asked Libby about this research and checked it before repeating it. You would think that the Times would have made sure that the statistic is correct. It seems though that they don't care that they publish false statistics.

I think I know the research that they are talking about. It is Comparing Sex Buyers With Men Who Do Not Buy Sex: New Data on Prostitution and Trafficking by Melissa Farley. I have already written what I think of this research in my posts student sex workers and more student sex workers.

Briefly, I wrote that Farley seems to be withholding information about this study. She doesn't seem to want to tell us whether men who buy sex report that they have raped more often than other men. Even though they were asked this direct question.

What I didn't know at the time I wrote this is that Melissa Farley is known for this. Consider this from Ronald Weizer's article The Mythology of Prostitution: Advocacy Research and Public Policy.

"In trying to make the case that indoor prostitution victimizes women to the same extent as street prostitution, Farley (2006) reported that a British study by Church et al. (2001) found that workers in indoor venues (private residences, saunas) reported more attempted rapes than street workers. In fact, the Church study reported the opposite: that 28% of street workers said they had ever experienced an attempted rape, compared with 17% of indoor workers. Moreover, Farley failed to mention that street prostitutes were 11 times more likely to have actually been raped: According to Church et al., 22% of the street sample compared with only 2% of the indoor sample had ever been raped while at work. This example is a clear case of both inverting and ignoring findings that contradict one's arguments."

In the article Janice also wrote "It is time that the Nordic model, which decriminalises sex work but makes buying it a crime and has been adopted in France, Ireland and Sweden, is debated in parliament."

What she doesn't seem to know is that it has already been debated in parliament. On 04 July 2018 there was the debate Commercial Sexual Exploitation. You can read what I wrote about it in my page Commercial Sexual Exploitation. All my pages are displayed on the right of this screen.

She wrote "The vast majority of prostitutes are not swinging Belle de Jours but were abused as children, lured in by pimp-boyfriends and muffle their pain with drugs or alcohol". This is just complete rubbish, there is no evidence for this. This isn't even true of drug-addicted street based sex workers. They are a small minority of sex workers anyway.

She ends by stating "No man should have impunity when buying a woman’s body, whether out on a stag night or serving his country". I have never bought a woman's body, I have bought a service.