For a nation so obsessed with sex, why is the sex industry still so heavily stigmatised, marginalised and criminalised?
A thing of a stigma. Ava Caradonna
Ava Caradonna is an awfully smart and determined lady, who has worked as a prostitute for over 4 years now. She began her journey in a brothel in Australia at the age of 23. Here is what she has to say about the stigma:
“There is an incredibly caricatured and clichéd understanding of who works in the sex industry. And that same stigma that is attached to sex workers – as whores, as loose women, as deviants, as drug addicts, as people who basically won’t go and get a 9 to 5 job and be bored for the rest of their life, – a similar stigma is attached to the men and increasingly women who purchase sex”.
The Ginormous White Elephant and The “Ugly” Adverts
The sex industry is a ginormous white elephant that is too awkward for any single force of society to handle.
With a distinctively conservative approach to sex and the role of sex in society, Harriet Harman, Labour’s Minister for Women, believes buying sex should be made a criminal offence, like in Sweden. That was in 2006.
Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on October 28 this year, Harman drew links between the "ugly" classified adverts in some local newspapers and human trafficking in the country.
The crusade on the “ugly” and the “vice” speaks of a strong desire to push prostitution out of sight, and preferably – out of mind.
Ava Cardonna, on the opposite end of the spectrum, considers this move a ‘short-sighted, moralistic stab’. “By banning adverts, you are certainly not taking away the reasons why people are involved in prostitution”, she says.
De-criminalisation vs Legalisation
According to the Prostitution Reform website, the use of prostitutes in the UK is believed to have doubled over the last ten years. Times Online also reported a noticeable change in the demographics of clients of prostitution.
However, legal regulations around prostitution still create huge barriers for the safe conduct of sex for money. While selling sex is not illegal in this country, plenty of activities associated with it are heavily penalised.
Advertising sexual services, street prostitution, as well as running brothels with more than one prostitute working in a flat – all are essential yet illegal activities in the UK. The pursuit of street prostitutes from a car, otherwise known as kerb-crawling, is also illegal in most of the UK, with the exception of Scotland.
But importantly, taking away the laws that criminalise sex for money is very different from putting in laws that regulate commercial sex. Ava explains: “Over-regulation of the sex industry is counter-productive. Many people work in the sex industry precisely because they don’t have to pay tax and they don’t have to have immigration status”.
Illegal does not mean non-consensual
Legal measures tackling the negative consequences of prostitution are mostly based on a victim mentality. The Poppy Project, for example, provides support for women who have been trafficked into prostitution.
This movement is based on the assumption that trafficked women are forced into prostitution. While this might be true in an overwhelming majority of cases, there is also a growing number of illegal immigrants who choose to enter the UK with the very aim of engaging in prostitution.
These women pay huge sums of money (some Thai women reported paying up to £20,000) to illegally enter and remain in the country. They do not need to be rescued or sheltered. For them, this is just an investment. And deportation means loss of investment.
Telling people how to live their lives is counter-productive. Acknowledging that prostitution can be a choice and facilitating people’s choices, on the other hand, could be yet the best way to help.
