books about sex work

I have just finished reading a new book about sex work called Unashamed: A memoir by Elizabeth G. I'm not going to review it although I have reviewed other positive books about sex work, namely Paying For It by Scarlett O'Kelly and Lucky Girl by Violet Ivy. All three of these books were written by sex workers or ex-sex workers.

There is a new article on the Feminist Current site by Meghan Murphy. In this article she writes:-

"Despite my efforts over the last decade+ to explain my position, which was developed through study of various legislative models throughout the world as well as through interviewing and reading the work of countless experts on prostitution, including women who were once prostituted themselves, but had managed to exit the trade, freed to assess their situation clearly and speak the truth about the industry, the accusation remains the same."

It is commonly asserted by Radical Feminists that a women can't 'assess their situation clearly' while they are still in the sex industry. Once they have left then they are all against it. However, we can see clearly from the three books I have mentioned that this is not the truth. It is an attempt to silence sex workers.

I am not sure if these three books were written by sex workers or ex-sex workers. To my mind it doesn't matter. Dr Brooke Magnanti is an ex-sex worker though and she doesn't back the Radical Feminists. They would say that she is a 'tourist' and unrepresentative of the majority of 'prostituted' women. As I have written elsewhere, there are many different types of sex worker, and escorts are as representative as anyone is.

They might talk about 'luxury beliefs'. If you believe in the Nordic model you can accuse people who believe in decriminalisation of having luxury beliefs. Well, that's all going to depend on whether you think that the Nordic model reduces demand, reduces murder, stops women from being arrested and helps them to leave. Much of this blog is looking at the evidence for all of these things.

To my mind though whether somebody has luxury beliefs also depends on how willing people are to find out the facts. If you can't be bothered then don't accuse others of luxury beliefs. Don't pretend that your motivation is helping women. If you insist, for example, that 'the Nordic model has demonstrated that it is possible to curb demand' (see Murphy's article) despite having been told that the statistics you use are wrong, then you are the one holding luxury beliefs.

The Nordic model lobby aren't going to like Unashamed. They are not going to like Stacey Dooley's programme about Nevada prostitution. Just like they didn't like the similar programme about the Sheffield brothel. The Nevada sex workers seemed to be having a great time. They will say not all sex workers are like that. This is of course true, but the point is that it could be true of many more of them. It's our choice (or American or Nevada voters). What isn't our choice is to curb demand.

Many people think that prostitution is legal in Nevada. The fact is that individual counties within Nevada can choose to allow it. Wouldn't it be great if one county allowed a form of prostitution where the women themselves make the rules and take the profit? No mega brothels allowed, only something like the SOOBs they have in New Zealand.

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 a Magdalene laundry. The Magdalene laundries in Ireland where young women and girls were incarcerated. The laundries that would still be there were it not for the changes in attitudes in society which brought about the sexual revolution.

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.

review of Radical Feminism by Finn Mackay

Finn Mackay has a lot to say about sex work in her book. Before we come on to that I want to tell you about her attitude to political lesbianism and celibacy. Radical Feminists often say that women should become lesbians: it doesn't mean having sex with women but it does mean definitely not having sex with men.

I've always suspected that this means that most of them don't have sex with anyone, they are celibate. They are trying to stop men and women from having sex together, and this is their main motivation in wanting to ban sex work. It's not that they are full of compassion for sex workers and wish to end their suffering.

Let us have a look at what is the clearest explanation of how political lesbianism usually means celibacy. Page 67.

"Contrary to much rumour since, the paper was not suggesting that women should simply pursue same-sex sexual activity. It was about the political choice to dedicate one's life to women. In fact, in the paper, the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group clearly reassured heterosexuals that the lesbian bit is not compulsory, and that celibacy is always an option."

The idea of heterosexual lesbians is an interesting one. Particularly as they are always telling us about reality and fiction. It is a fiction that a man can become a woman, it is not reality, so they tell us. Considering that most people are heterosexual, then most political lesbians would be celibate. Like the nuns of Ruhama they want to stop men and women fornicating. Ruhama campaigned for the Nordic model in Ireland.

The paper she is referring to is 'Political Lesbianism' by the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group which was led by Sheila Jeffreys. Jeffreys wrote "all feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women." 

Mackay explains that there are in fact four different types of feminist. The Radicals and the Revolutionaries, who are similar. Then there are the Liberals and the Socialists. I don't think this includes Third Wave feminists, who she doesn't have much time for.

Mackay quotes the opinion of an activist about sex work: "It is a form of exploitation, slavery: and a very specific one. I don't like the red umbrellas one bit." Page 207. Slaves don't get paid, neither do they choose their work or how they work. Sex work is the opposite of that: they are paid more than most people, and they do what they do in preference to the alternatives, having a great deal of autonomy in how they do it. Of course, there is modern slavery within sex work just as there is modern slavery within other types of work.

Mackay writes that so many feminists oppose prostitution because "they are against the presumption of a male right to sexual access to women's bodies."  Page 208. I don't have a right to have sex with any sex worker, she can turn me down if I don't meet her criteria. Lots of sex work involves a masseur using her hands not just for massage but to bring her client to orgasm. Is that 'sexual access to women's bodies'? If not, then presumably she doesn't have a problem with it. Except of course she does because they always have a problem with sex between men and women, even in marriage.

She writes that under the Nordic model 'women are not criminalised'. She also writes that 'Any such legal move must go alongside a large and dedicated financial investment in both harm-minimisation and exit services ... ' (page 210). She doesn't know that women are arrested in Nordic model countries for brothel keeping just like in Britain. Women are evicted from their homes and deported. The promised exit services don't materialise and the authorities don't like anyone giving them condoms.

She doesn't distinguish between legalisation and decriminalisation. She writes that the ECP (English Collective of Prostitutes) and the IUSW (International Union of Sex Workers) advocate the New Zealand model. The ECP 'favour small owner-operated ventures over larger big business brothel chains.' Page 211. The big business chains are thriving in New Zealand though, she writes, and there was a planning application for a 15-storey brothel. Well, that's not true.

She writes that legalisation would result in a bigger demand and more women involved in prostitution. She also writes that there will be an illegal sector. Page 212. However, in New Zealand there was not an expansion of prostitution after decriminalisation.

There is no reason why exit services should not still exist under decriminalisation. If a factory worker wants to retrain to become an office worker they should be helped to do that. If a sex worker wants to retrain they should be helped too. They should be offered advice about debt, benefits and housing. For the minority who take drugs they should be offered rehab.

A sex worker is not a commodity. She is not like a bale of cotton that I can take home with me and later sell. She is offering a service, like millions of other people.

There is no reason why sex work needs to be more dangerous than other forms of work. It isn't true that 'the average age of entry into prostitution worldwide estimated at around only 14 years old.' Page 211. There is no credible evidence that the Nordic model reduces the amount of prostitution or the number of murders of prostitutes.

She goes on to write about 'markedly gendered' and 'structural inequalities' as if these phrases mean anything. They 'cannot be overlooked' she writes, without spelling out precisely what she means.

Below I have quoted from her book and replied to what she has written:-

Page 217. "To put it bluntly, being a builder does not involve making one's body sexually available to one's employers; the same is true of journalists, academics, waiters etc."

She is trying here to say that sex work is different from any other type of work. The only thing that she can come up with is that sex work has distinguishing characteristics. All types of work have their own distinguishing characteristics though. Working in an undertakers is the only work where you have to handle dead bodies: that doesn't mean that in essence it is not work.

Page 217. "But the debate around prostitution cannot and should not be shut down by turning to the refrain that all work is like prostitution - because it patently is not; and the great majority of people understand this."

In what way is all work not like prostitution, or prostitution not like all work? People have customers, they negotiate a price for a service. They choose their form of work by looking at how much it pays, how long it takes to earn money, and what it is required for them to do. I can see how celibates will never be able to accept this.

Page 220. "No feminist I know is arguing for those in prostitution to be criminalised."

She obviously hasn't read the web site of Nordic Model Now! They say quite clearly that they do not want the repeal of the law that criminalises women for running a brothel. This is the main law used to arrest women in prostitution. That law always stays in place when a country adopts the Nordic model. There is in addition the law that gets sex workers evicted from their homes.

Page 220. "It would be nonsensical to suggest that all those people - women, young people, men - earning an income through prostitution are forced or coerced in the bluntest sense. However, the fact that there are probably some people successfully navigating the 'sex industry' without any negative experiences, for both the love and the money of it, should not negate the fact that research suggests this is far from the experience of the majority."

There is no evidence that most sex workers are coerced, either in Britain or around the world. Some sex workers have had a negative experience. That is the same as in other types of work. Sex workers can minimise these experiences by working together. Another way is to end up with a limited number of regular clients. Some sex workers only see men that they have seen before, they don't have to advertise and they can refuse to see a man they don't like. When police raid a flat they arrest women who work together and confiscate their phones thus disrupting safe activity. 

Page 221. "It is usually acceptable to say that one is against trafficking, although some sex-industry lobby groups do try to suggest that it is extremely rare and they prefer to talk about 'migration for sex work'. Indeed reliable statistics are hard to find when dealing with an illegal trade where people are hidden or hiding and I do not deny that some government attempts at statistics can never be anything else than guesses."

There is a reason why experts on the subject of trafficking say it is rare and instead talk about 'migration for sex work'. Before George W Bush became president the word 'trafficking' had to by definition mean coercion or deception. He put Evangelical Christians in positions of authority and they decided to change the definition. They didn't want to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary sex work.

The UK decided to do the same. The rest of the world didn't. So it's not surprising that experts don't use the US and UK definition and instead stick to the Geneva Protocol. Below I quote two paragraphs from a recent Daily Mail article by Julie Bindel:-

"A few years ago, I attended a conference in Vienna about prostitution. I was one of only four delegates out of 185 who sat on a panel declaring we were troubled by the vile trade at all. The others held the view that all aspects of the sex industry should be decriminalised."

"Progress on the issue has been slow in recent years, however — at least in part because the language around prostitution has been unhelpfully sanitised. The trade in women has been cleaned up as ‘sex work'. Pimps are often described as ‘managers' and, especially within academia, the trafficking of women into prostitution has been rewritten as ‘migration for sex work'."

We should listen to what the academics say, not Radical/Revolutionary Feminists such as Finn Mackay or Julie Bindel.

Page 222. "it is not surprising then that global research finds that around 90 per cent of those in it would leave if they had the economic freedom to do so (Farley et al 2003)."

The 'global research' she mentions is not lots of researchers around the world. It all comes from Melissa Farley who is a Radical Feminist. I have dealt with this particular piece of research here.

Page 223. "It is time to envision a society, and a world, without prostitution. This may sound idealistic, but the theory matters, the direction of travel matters, the aspiration matters, because if we can't envision such a society, then we cannot even begin to build it."

Page 224. "This is not natural, it is not inevitable, and it can be reduced, maybe ended; at the very least it can be challenged, rather than glamourised, normalised and condoned.

The real question about prostitution is the question of men's rights and, whether we as a society believe that men have the right to buy and sell women's bodies or whether they do not."

Page 224. "Imagine if every country stood up and said that this is not acceptable, as Sweden has done, stood up and said that every woman is worth more than what some man will pay for her and that we will criminalise rather than condone men who assume the right to buy the body of another human being."

There is no reason to believe that the Nordic model reduces the amount of prostitution. They have manipulated the statistics to make it appear so. The official report into the Northern Ireland law says that there has been an increase. The statistics from Sweden show an increase in the proportion of Swedish men who are active sex buyers and an increase in the proportion of Swedish women who have sold sex at some time in their life. They also show a decrease in the proportion of Swedish men who have bought sex at some time in their life, the widely reported drop from 13% to 8%, followed by an increase.

If it were possible to end prostitution, that would be one thing. But to burden sex workers and make their lives more difficult with no end in sight is not something we should contemplate.

I have never bought a woman's body. Trying to link it to slavery doesn't make any sense. I don't believe that women are only good for sex - only worth 'what some man will pay for her'. This explains more about why punters are hated - people are being told that we buy women and that we think that women have no value apart from sex. This kind of hatred can only come from a repressed sexuality.

If I go to see a doctor, and it turns out to be a female doctor, do you think that I would say 'I don't want to see you, you're a woman, you're only good for sex'? Of course not. I have respect for women, and I have respect for sex workers.

Page 225. "This is despite the changes in the Policing and Crime Act 2009 under the last Labour government, which were indeed a step forward, for the first time directing the eyes of the law onto those who fuel prostitution - punters. This victory was a result of the tireless campaigning by women's groups, led by the feminist, abolitionist 'Demand Change' campaign."

She must be referring to the law that can criminalise a man if he pays for sex with a woman who has been coerced or deceived, even if he didn't know. In some parts of the country no man has been convicted. The law was based on a false idea that most women in prostitution are coerced or deceived. It's not surprising that celibates like Finn Mackay believe that.

According to this study "section 14 had not been used by the majority (81%) of police forces across England and Wales". According to MP Fiona Mactaggart "In the first year of that being law there were 49 prosecutions—I was a bit disappointed because I did not think that was very many—with the men being found guilty in 43 cases. The following year there were 17 prosecutions, with 12 guilty verdicts, and the year after there were nine prosecutions, with six guilty verdicts".

So it's hardly some kind of great victory for the prohibitionists. They obviously thought that it was going to be their foot in the door. However, they are just wasting everybody's time. We would have to be mad to introduce the Nordic model in Britain.

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.

review of Sex Power Money by Sara Pascoe

The popular comedian has a lot to say about pornography and prostitution. There is no index for this book, I would have liked to look up 'Nordic model' and 'decriminalisation' to see what her position is. You have to read the whole book but even then you're not sure what she believes.

She doesn't mention the Nordic model, where men are criminalised for paying for sex. She mentions decriminalisation once, on page 310 of the hardback edition.

"I am listening to the people who want to sell sex - I think the law should respect their wishes and they should be decriminalised and supported. I think all human beings should be free to use their body how they want ... unless that involves buying access to another person. Then I think they should have a wank and shut up."

That sounds as if she believes in decriminalisation as in New Zealand instead of the Nordic model as in Sweden. However, people who believe in the Nordic model usually think that it is about decrimalising sex workers as well as criminalising their clients. That is not the reality though, as I have detailed elsewhere on this blog.

Her position is unclear. That could be because she doesn't understand what she is talking about. Or it could be deliberate. By coming down on one side or the other she risks alienating a lot of people.

On page 2 she wrote this.

"I went on PunterNet when I got home. It was mostly men discussing the parking restrictions around sex workers' houses. These men are breaking the law by paying for sex, but they're only worried about traffic wardens."

That is false. Men who pay for sex are not breaking the law in Britain. How could she make such a basic error? When I read that I felt that she doesn't know what she is talking about, but I persevered. What she is writing other people will be thinking. Whatever she writes will influence many young people.

Is it possible that she is not calling for men who pay for sex to be criminalised because she thinks they already are?

You might think that she is the sort of person who tells it like it is. However, finding out what she believes and why can take a long time. The most irritating example of this is where at the end of a chapter and section she writes.

"I also can't simply sign off on 'sex work is work', even if for some people it is. It is not so simple as sex for money, because of the imbalance of power."

I have heard this phrase many times before, 'imbalance of power' or 'power imbalance'. I have never heard it explained. Sara does explain it, but you have to wait till the end of the next three chapters. She takes three whole chapters to make a convoluted argument that no prostitute has a choice to do what they do. They hate it but they have no other option to get money to live or to eat.

Punters are delusional, thinking that sex workers have a choice, or that they enjoy it.

"And it's the 'choice' that means real-life Stewart and all the other real-life Johns can defend their behaviour because the people they pay for sex are doing so of their own volition. 'If they didn't want to do it they wouldn't,' they rationalise. 'No one is making them.'"

This suggests that prostitutes are poor, uneducated and have limited employment opportunities. Considering that in the rest of the book she quotes academic studies frequently to support her arguments, it is interesting that she offers no evidence for what she says.

Has she looked for academic studies that throw light on this belief? She wouldn't have to go far to find one. In the further reading section at the end of the book she suggests Brooke Magnanti's book Sex, Lies and Statistics. Her other non-fiction book is The Sex Myth, which covers a lot of the same ground.

In The Sex Myth Dr Magnanti quotes a 2009 study called Beyond Gender: An examination of exploitation in sex work by Suzanne Jenkins of Keele University. It comes from detailed interviews with 440 sex workers of many different types. This is what Dr Magnanti writes.

"Sex work is frequently assumed to be a choice suitable only for the uneducated. But 35.3 per cent of the men and 32.9 per cent of the women had degrees, and over 18 per cent of the total held post-graduate qualifications. Only 6.5 per cent had no formal educational qualifications."

Even the examples that Sara uses in the three chapters don't back up what she writes. In the film Indecent Proposal the alternative to being paid for sex is driving a cab and waiting tables. That's what millions of people in America do. Not the worse thing that can happen to anyone. Not something that must be avoided at all costs. She speculates that the men who are paid for sex by her friend Stewart might be facing eviction, but she doesn't know that.

In the three boring chapters she gives a number of scenarios. Someone eats in a restaurant but can't pay. The manager could force her to wash dishes or he could force her to have sex.

"I think it is reasonable to consider a forced sex act as something that will hurt and harm someone, while washing dishes or stacking shelves for a few hours will not. Is that fair?"

There is another scenario, one that she doesn't present us with. One that is more in accordance with reality. Imagine a group of women who eat in a restaurant but can't pay. They are all told by the manager that they have to wash dishes or stack shelves. One of the women says "Can't I just give you a blow job instead?". She is the one who knows she will not be hurt or harmed by it because her attitude to sex is different from the others. Nobody is telling any of them they have to have sex.

Some women don't want to work for a minimum wage and just get by. They could do that, or they could train to be a professional, which brings its own problems, like burnout. Or she could do sex work. Or she could do the kind of work she likes even though it doesn't pay much and top up her income through sex work. That way she could get her National Insurance contributions paid which is always a good idea for the future. Or she could do sex work while she trains to be a professional, instead of something like waitressing or bar work. More time for study and more time for fun. Or maybe she just responds to having clients which is always more demanding and to some people more rewarding than working in a factory.

That's for her to decide. She can decide if she will be hurt or harmed by it. Don't say they don't have options when it is you who is taking away their options.

So Sara says that they have no choice, but then she contradicts herself. On page 318 she writes about a disabled sex worker called Jane.

"She performs as a dominatrix, which gives her the power to refuse things she doesn't want to do, and is adamant that she enjoys her job sometimes."

All sex workers have the power to refuse things they don't want to do. They don't have to do anal sex, for example. Yes, some of them do enjoy it some of the time. Sara told Jane about a exit strategy scheme.

"When I excitedly told her about an exit strategy scheme I've heard of, where sex workers in northern Europe are given jobs in old people's homes and they're 'really good at it because they are not grossed out by the human body', Jane replies, 'I find that very patronising.' She says, 'I can earn £200 an hour - I don't want to earn minimum wage in an old people's home.'

When I started writing this book I assumed that anyone in sex work or prostitution would want to get out of it at any cost. And that is not true. There are people who have options and choices, who opt and choose to sell sex. It is possible to be well-meaning and wrong. This is where feminism has not supported sex workers properly. When some of them have told us, 'This is my choice - please help me to earn my money safely,' our own feelings get in the way - 'I don't want you to do that'; 'you will always be a victim to me.' Kind feelings can create more problems."

Very sensible, but it won't earn you many brownie points with the Julie Bindels of the world. It's as if this book is written by two different people. Perhaps her reason and emotions are saying different things. She needs to realise that not everyone has the same emotions as she does, especially the hate.

So does she still believe that punters are 'psychopaths'? This is what she writes at the beginning of the book. They are delusional, thinking that sex workers enjoy having sex with them. Or the opposite. 'Pain, discomfort or unwillingness turns them on. It makes them feel more powerful.'

Perhaps there are a few punters who are delusional and a few who want to inflict discomfort. Most punters though will realise that sex work is like other jobs. Sometimes good, sometimes bad but mostly neutral. A cab driver loves the occasional trip out into the country and hates being stuck in traffic. When bored he or she may think about what they are going to have for dinner tonight, but it doesn't make sense to call that dissociation.

Some people would refuse to drive a cab even if it meant having to live on benefits. The ones who do it and stick at it are glad that option is available to them. Legally and safely. You can say that they don't want to drive you somewhere, the fact that you have to pay them means they don't want to do it. But of course they do want it - they want your custom. And they don't have to take you south of the river if they really don't want to.

I have put more about her book on this page.

Taken: Hunting the Sex Traffickers

On Monday there was an interesting documentary about trafficking on Channel 4 called 'Taken: Hunting the Sex Traffickers'. I don't know why the first word of the title of the documentary is 'Taken' because it is quite clear that none of the sex workers had been coerced.

They didn't explain that the internationally accepted definition of trafficking as stated in the Palermo Protocol involves coercion. According to this definition none of these women were trafficked. I am aware that British law says something different. Documentaries like this don't intend to inform the public about trafficking, just make good TV.

Women from Brazil come to Britain on tourist visas. There are three set-ups (this was news to me). The first is that there is a 50-50 split between the sex worker and the management in the money handed over by the client.

The second is that the management get £10 for every client sent to the sex worker (or is it 10%, I can't quite remember). That's for answering a phone call and directing a client to the flat. The rest of the money she keeps for herself.

The third is that the sex worker pays rent then the rest of the money she keeps for herself. Even if the money from the first three clients goes in rent she will still be making lots of money. 10 clients a day is the figure mentioned.

None of these scenarios seem like exploitation to me. A police officer said that it may seem a good deal to a Brazilian street girl to come to Britain but it is still exploitation. She's in a bad situation and this is a bit better. However, very few will be street girls.

British street girls are usually drug addicts and are not accepted in brothels. It could be different in Brazil though. It could be that they are just poor. If that's true then working in Britain could be a permanent step up for them. Many of these women will be other types of sex workers and many of them will be ordinary women wanting to save money for a special reason, which could be paying for university.

Do you not think that for an 18 year old the prospect of coming to Britain on a tourist visa and making a lot of money having sex with men is an attractive one? Yet if the police find them they deport them, then pretend they are treating them as victims.

We heard the words of 'Sylvia' who was one of these women. I don't think it said in the documentary that she was deported back to Brazil. 'Sylvia, who now lives in Brazil after being deported, has given up sex work.' it says here.

Sylvia said “I was robbed by men with knives, which was very traumatic and left me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." Sex workers are not allowed to work together. So whose fault is it that sex workers are robbed by violent men? The clients? Men like me? Or people who stand in the way of any change in the law which allows sex workers to work together? I'm quite prepared to believe that Sylvia suffers from PTSD. They say that sex workers often do. If that is true then it's because of robbery, rape and other violence against them. All of it easily preventable. None of it a necessary part of sex work.

Sylvia was raped by a man without a condom who then told her he had HIV. She had to go to hospital and take drugs for 28 days. This could not happen in a well-managed brothel or a Soho walk up where there are always two women in the flat.

“We can’t let vulnerable people be put into dangerous situations. These are lives being ruined. We have to stop this and the way you do that is to take out people like Mark Viner.” says Detective Inspector Peter Brown (not his real name). No. It is the law that puts vulnerable people into dangerous situations. Stop prosecuting women who work together for safety.

He also said “We all know drug dealing is a crime but a lot of trafficking takes place much more in the public eye, not just in brothels but in nail bars, car washes or the exploitation of workers in food factories,”. Does he intend to 'take out' the owners of nail bars, car washes and food factories? Why not help the workers in nail bars to work for themselves - without deporting them.

a whole new world

I have a laptop but I don't have wifi at home. It's rare for me to use my laptop for the internet. When I do I like to look in the cache to see what it has downloaded. If you're not familiar with the cache it is folders where files are stored that you haven't chosen to download but will be related to searches you have done or sites you have been looking at.

I only found out about it by chance when I came across a pornographic photo I didn't know was on my laptop. I found folders full of pornographic pictures. It's best to clear browsing data/delete browsing history to get rid of them. I thought I had done that recently so I was surprised when I found hundreds of pictures. I remember that I had done a seach on webcams. This is where someone performs sexually in front of a camera.

It's possible to interact with them by sending them a message which they can read and then may do what you say. You have to pay for this. I have never looked at live webcams but I have seen recordings of some of the best sessions. It seems that 28 pictures from each of a large number of webcam performers were in my cache. Most of them were of women, some were gay men, and a couple were trans women (they had penises and were masturbating).

They were an odd assortment of people. Some were nice to look at and some quite ugly. Some seemed to enjoy what they doing but many looked bored, often looking at their mobile phones. Some looked like student girls. Some looked like they were in poor countries. Some of them showed a lot. Some were having sex with other people, heterosexual or homosexual. One young blonde woman called shycinderella just sat/lay with her legs apart showing her pussy, looking bored. A pretty latina woman called Patricia Lopez (yourlittlepervert) showed mostly closeups of her face.

Another latina-looking woman called missniley was attractive with enormous breasts and a tiny bikini top. She took it off in a couple of pictures. A young brunette girl called pavlovacolluci cavorted around naked in a room full of sparkly balloons. A classy brunette woman called eve_evans lay on a bed in stockings with a fucking machine up her bum (it's a machine that moves a dildo up and down, in and out of a pussy or bum). Apparently the viewer can control the speed of the machine, make it go faster by paying more money.

cathleenprecious danced around naked covered in baby oil. bunnylia was a pretty blonde but her body was very thin. Lots of them were very thin. The best one was Pamela Shinee (pamelashineebb) who was very pretty, doing different things including masturbating and seeming to enjoy herself.

Pamela Shinee

bunnylia

pavlovacolluci

Patricia Lopez

missniley

None of them held any great attraction to me. I think what I would like to see are five women sitting around a private swimming pool. Sometimes they would swim naked underwater and there would be an underwater camera.

If Pamela Shinee has found a suitable way to finance her way through uni instead of waitressing then good for her. She can earn the same amount in a much shorter time. So more time for studying and more time for fun. If missniley has a baby and prefers to spend time with her baby instead of working eight hours a day with her baby in a creche then good for her. She's not working in a minimum wage job and spending most of her earnings on creche fees. Also they are safe, in the way that sex workers aren't anywhere in the world apart from New Zealand. Apparently there's a relatively new site called onlyfans.com that makes it easier for them to do it.

Here are a few more blonde studenty types.

lalli_milla

ashlyeroberts1

agnetta_love

The last one looks as if she has received an improper suggestion and she's thinking "You want me to do what? ... I'm not going to do that." I think Pamela would have done it. She looks as though she might.

prostitution in developing nations

I know about prostitution in Britain through experience and research. I know about it in Ireland too through research. I don't know much about prostitution in developing nations. I always assumed that there must be coercion of some sort going on there because you see that in other types of work such as factory work.

I have read two books recently, one about Vietnam and the other partly about Cambodia. The first says that during the Vietnam war sex workers earned much more than other workers. In 1975 when South Vietnam was about to collapse hundreds of Vietnamese sex workers bribed their way onto evacuation flights out of the country. They were the ones who had the money and especially the dollars. It wasn't hundreds of pimps, it was hundreds of sex workers.

The second book says that about 10 years ago the American State Department was 'pressuring the Cambodian government to take a stand against sex work or else lose aid from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)'.

"What happened once the sex workers rounded up in brothel raids were unloaded from the trucks and moved to the so-called rehabilitation centres? They were illegally detained for months at a time without charges, as were others who worked in public parks and had been chased, beaten, and dragged into vans by police. The Cambodian human rights organization LICADHO captured chilling photographs of sex workers caught in sweeps locked together in a cage - thirty or forty people in one cell. Sex workers who had been detained reported being beaten and sexually assaulted by guards in interviews with LICADHO, Women's Network for Unity, and Human Rights Watch. Some living with HIV, who had been illegally held in facilities described by the local NGOs that ran them as "shelters," were denied access to antiretroviral medication. In one facility sex workers were "only able to leave their rooms to bathe twice a day in dirty pond water," Human Rights Watch reported, "or, accompanied by a guard, to go to the toilet.""

The American State Department then upgraded Cambodia's compliance ranking. In Brazil it was a different story: "The groups had been strong-armed by the US into signing loyalty oaths declaring their opposition to prostitution in order to keep their AIDS funds. Rather than sell out sex workers, the entire country of Brazil refused to sign the pledge and gave up $40 million."

The book says about Cambodian women that 'many have also worked in garment factories, and left the factories due to low wages to move into sex work'. So, again, we see that sex workers earn more than other workers. And yet the people who want to 'rescue' sex workers say they want to teach them how to operate sewing machines. Women don't do sex work to avoid starving, they do factory work to avoid starving and when they are fed up scrimping they turn to sex work. As we saw with the biography of the Duke of Westminster, the choice is to stay in your home town and be unemployed, move to a city and work for little money, or become a sex worker and have a better lifestyle.

Who are these influential Americans who are harming women in developing countries? It can only be the Evangelicals and their Radical Feminist supporters. I'm sure they, and especially the Radical Feminists, would say that they never wanted women to be locked up. They would say they support the Nordic model where prostitutes are decriminalized. But in every Nordic model country women who work together are arrested and sex workers get evicted from their homes. When Amnesty International exposed this abuse and hypocrisy they were demonized. It was said that Amnesty International works in the interests of pimps and traffickers, whereas (as I wrote in my last post) they are expressing the views of many (non-Radical) feminists.

Sex workers know what they need to escape from and how to do it. They don't need Evangelicals and Radical Feminists trying to stop fornication/objectification. There is coercion but not so much from pimps and traffickers, more from the police, the State, and neocolonialist America. It's not as if the people of Cambodia haven't suffered enough from the Americans*. It's only going to increase pimping and trafficking.

The first book is Vietnam by Max Hastings. The second book is Playing the Whore by Melissa Gira Grant. If there are any Vietnamese former sex workers who left in 1975 reading this I would like to hear from them. I'm sure they have an interesting story to tell.

This is an interesting article about Cambodia. There is a book called Sex, Love and Money in Cambodia by Heidi Hoefinger. Everything You Think You Know About Cambodian Sex Workers Is Wrong

https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/07/19/streets/arbitrary-detention-and-other-abuses-against-sex-workers-cambodia

According to this site: "Empower Foundation, the sex worker organisation in Thailand, was represented by Liz Hilton who reported that wages in other industries that commonly employ women, such as agriculture, fisheries and factories, were so low that even the lowest paid sex workers were earning twice the minimum wage."

Meghan Murphy, Rachel Moran and Rupert Everett

I had an interesting exchange with Meghan Murphy, a leading feminist in Canada. I commented on her site, called FeministCurrent. Her reaction to one of my comments was to reply "Oh gawd. You are full of shit. Stop lying. This is a waste of time if you are just going to be dishonest."

What was my comment that provoked such a reaction? She had written that her abolitionist movement was led by prostitution 'survivors' and that I (unlike them) didn't know what I was talking about. My reply was that Rachel Moran and Rebecca Mott - both 'survivors' - have said things that don't make sense to anyone who knows about the subject.

She accused me of 'saying things that aren't accurate' then of 'lying' and being dishonest.

I thought I had heard Rachel Moran on radio saying that prostitution can't be a job because anal penetration isn't part of a proper job. It wasn't on radio though, it was on a TV documentary with Rupert Everett called Love For Sale: Why People Sell Sex (episode 1). What she actually said is this:-

"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. What we need to understand here is that unwanted sex  - even if you are paid for it - is damaging. And it's very flippant and I feel totally inappropriate to compare that to what goes on in a factory."

Which is interesting, because in her book she wrote that she never did anal sex. She wrote that she avoided vaginal penetration too for the first two years, by which I assume she only did oral sex. She also wrote that some fellow prostitutes disliked oral sex and refused to do it.

So it seems that I was accurate when I wrote that 'they don't have to do things they don't want to'. As a punter I know this from experience. Juno Mac and Molly Smith explain this in their book Revolting Prostitutes. Why is Rachel Moran telling people that prostitution is men abusing women in any way they want to, something that wouldn't be tolerated in a workplace, and therefore it can't be a real job? Is that not dishonest?

According to Juno Mac and Molly Smith, Rachel was 'hurt' by people not believing she had been a prostitute. "My truths do not suit them, so my truths must be silenced" she said to Meghan Murphy. Silenced? She's been on radio giving a false statistic (127 prostitutes murdered in the Netherlands after legalization) and on TV saying that prostitution can't be a real job because someone will 'put his penis up your anus'.

Which of your truths do you expect people to accept, Rachel? The TV truth or the autobiography truth? For the record, I do accept that you used to be a prostitute, but if you want people to believe you then you have to stop the false statistics and the contradictions.

When you were a prostitute, was that a real job because nobody put his penis up your anus, and they only put their penis in your mouth because you preferred that to vaginal penetration?

There are women who claim to have been prostitutes, write a book about it and change government policy (as you have done). We know for sure that at least one of them has fabricated it. In the Netherlands there was a woman called Valérie Lempereur who did just that.

Many jobs have unique features. They can still be compared to working in a factory, if you are pointing out that people do it because they need the money. You don't go into a factory and have to handle dead bodies the way an undertaker has to. You don't go into a factory and have to kill hundreds of animals the way a slaughterperson has to. People gravitate towards what they dislike least. Some people would hate handling dead bodies, and some people would hate someone putting his penis up their anus.

If you don't want a penis up your anus you can still be a sex worker, because most don't do anal sex. Can you imagine an undertaker saying he or she is only prepared to handle women's bodies, or a slaughterperson saying he or she is only willing to kill sheep but not pigs? In that sense it's not like a real job. In most jobs there's less choice, you do what you're told.

When Rupert Everett said to Rachel Moran in the documentary that factory workers too are forced into what they do by poverty, she replied that she was offended by what he said. Then she said 'You don't go into a factory and have the boss put his penis in your mouth ...'. I don't see why she was offended, he made a valid point. I am offended by her dishonesty, as we all should be.

Below I have put a transcript of my exchange with Meghan Murphy. When I first started commenting on her site I used my usual persona 'Pyramus', same as on this blog. More recently though I was on Facebook and instead of bothering to log in with Google and my usual persona, I used my Facebook persona which is 'Jennifer Shaw'. I have had this Facebook persona for years and it has been useful but I don't expect Ms Murphy will be happy when she knows Ms Shaw is really a man: she doesn't seem to like women who are really men, which is what she thinks trans women are.

This is the transcript:-

Meghan Murphy: The women leading the abolitionist fight are women who survived prostitution... Also transition house workers, grassroots activists, etc. You don't seem to have any idea who or what you are talking about. It is ridiculous to claim that either people who have lived this or women who are fighting male violence against women, for no other reason beside the fact that they care about women's lives and wellbeing, are 'seeing everything through ideological blinkers' or 'don't care about victims'. You should actually get out and talk to the people you claim to be critical of. You are the one who appears to exist in a bubble of your own making.

Me (Jennifer Shaw): How do you know that I'm not one of them? You know, when Rachel Moran comes on radio and says prostitution is not a job because what job is it when you get anally penetrated, that might sound plausible to anyone who doesn't know about the subject. But people who do know that most sex workers don't do anal, they don't have to do things they don't want to. When Rebecca Mott comes on TV and says men used to punch her unconscious to avoid paying, that might sound plausible to anyone who doesn't know about the subject. But people who know know that men always pay first, so what is she saying, that men have sex with her unconscious body? You should read some of the academics like Dr Nick Mai, Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon and Dr Brook Magnanti.

Meghan Murphy: Again, because you are saying things that aren't accurate. You don't understand the politics or activism of those you are attempting to criticize.

Me (Jennifer Shaw): So why is it that you don't seem to have any concern for the victims of other types of modern slavery? Why is it that you use false statistics? Why do you want the Nordic model when you know damn well that it doesn't work?

Meghan Murphy: Oh gawd. You are full of shit. Stop lying. This is a waste of time if you are just going to be dishonest.

There was another revealing discussion I had with Meghan Murphy on the same web page. The page is about feminists and right-wing social conservatives coming together in campaigns. What I said was that these two groups often have a hidden agenda. They say that they want to help women involved in prostitution, but really they just don't like men and women having sex - especially if it's outside a long-term relationship.

She said that I should 'engage with people's arguments with integrity, fairly and in good faith' and not accuse people of having a hidden agenda. My reply was that she had called Amnesty International as 'pro-prostitution' and having 'trafficker allies'. I then went on to say that radical feminists such as Julie Bindel, Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin believe that women are objectified if they have sex with men - even if they are married - and espouse lesbianism.

She didn't believe that she had said that about Amnesty and challenged me to say where the quote came from. She didn't believe that Bindel etc had said women shouldn't have sex with men. She wrote 'What on earth are you talking about? No one has said this. Not Bindel. Not Dworkin. You really need to try reading and listening before attempting to form arguments. You just sound dumb.'

So I gave a Bindel quote from a Guardian newspaper article and a quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy about MacKinnon and Dworkin. Her rather pathetic reply was that I just didn't understand their theories.

She didn't know about their theories. When I told Murphy about them she didn't believed me. When I gave quotes that proved I am right she said I didn't understand their theories! Years ago I wrote a page about the various theories of objectification from Kant, through MacKinnon and Dworkin, to Nussbaum. And she says it is me who sounds dumb!

And she says her site is "Canada’s leading feminist website"!

I have put on my blog a page with a previous conversation with Meghan Murphy. I gave lots of evidence that the Nordic model isn't working and harms women. I also have a page where I criticize what Rachel Moran has said.

guide to types of women in Soho walk ups

1. The Enthusiastic Amateur
If you go with this girl you will either have the best experience ever, or the worst. If she likes you, you may get the best service. If you are young, attractive and outgoing, and willing to spend more than the minimum amount, there's little that she won't do for you. You might get oral sex without a condom. If she doesn't like you, then she might not bother with you hardly at all. She might give a bad service, and have an attitude 'What are you going to do about it?'. She can be immature like a petulant teenager. She can also be a bit mad.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Anna, Angela
• examples of this type in the past: Jazmin (aka Kim)

2. The Time-server
This girl saves up her money to buy her house back home, and is willing to give a good service, but will only do the minimum for the money given. Anything different you might want to do costs extra. If you touch her on the bum she won't like it, especially if you haven't paid yet. She probably spends her hours fantasizing about her dream home back in Eastern Europe. She's usually quite passive, not at all raunchy. She can be sweet and innocent.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Rebecca
• examples of this type in the past: Nelly

3. The Totally-committed
This type knows that there's not much point in being there unless she maximizes her earning potential. She will go out of her way to please every customer. She will smile at him, she will flirt with him, and perform a range of activities sometimes at no extra cost. She wants those return customers, she wants those reviews and reports that will enhance her reputation.

She can take one look at a man and determine what type he is and what it is that he needs. To some men she will be foul-mouthed, to others she will be well spoken. She can give a Porn Star Experience (PSE) or a Girlfriend Experience (GFE) and usually you won't have to tell her what it is that you want.

Even towards the end of a 12 hour shift she is bright and perky. She is always professional, like a businesswoman. She might even have a business on the side or own property. Sometimes you don't know what she is thinking. She says she remembers you from last time, but does she really? She says she likes you, but does she really? She can seem a bit robotic sometimes.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Meena, Alena
• examples of this type in the past: Natalie

4. The Pleasure-seeker
This one enjoys her work. Not necessarily because she is a nymphomaniac. It could be she likes flattery or the buzz of meeting lots of people every day. She likes to talk about sex and she might like you to pleasure her. She is the most reliably raunchy type, although types 1, 3 and 6 can be raunchy too, but unlike type 1 she's professional enough and emotionally mature enough to give a good time to any man who comes through the door.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Eva, Angie, Yaya
• examples of this type in the past: Paris

5. The Girl Next Door
She's not really happy being there. She'll go through the motions, although if she's in a bad mood she can be no fun. She likes to make people happy, and tries to do so, but can't always succeed. She might try doing something else for a while, but often she comes back to it because she doesn't have the determination to succeed at anything else.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Sandy
• examples of this type in the past: Andra

6. The Real Woman
This type likes to make people happy. She doesn't just lie back and expect you to get on with it. She encourages you with smiles, maybe opening her legs wide and moving her pelvis in a very seductive manner. When you're on top of her she might whisper things in your ear to encourage you. If you lack confidence then she might talk to you about it and say you shouldn't worry so much.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Monica
• examples of this type in the past: Mimi (Polish Mimi)

2 different types of prostitution in South London

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