2009 Betraying Sex Workers

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Betraying sex workers
9:02 am - January 11th 2009
by Cath Elliott
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In any discussion that takes place these days about prostitution and other forms of sex work it’s virtually guaranteed that at some
point in the debate either the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) or the International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW), or
indeed both, will be cited by someone as being the authentic voice of those working in the industry.
Whenever those of us who are opposed to legalisation or across the board decriminalisation air our views, we’re invariably
shouted down and accused of not listening to what prostitutes themselves want: “Go and talk to the IUSW” we’re told: “they
represent prostitutes: they know what they’re talking about.”
The IUSW in particular seems to be working hard just lately to raise its profile, and has managed to garner support from
Feminist Fightback among others. But then, as the IUSW is a recognised branch of the GMB, one of Britain’s biggest trade unions, it’s not hard to see why a
left-wing, rights-orientated group like Feminist Fightback would be drawn to them.
After all, there’s no doubt that women working in prostitution suffer some of the worst abuses and are some of the most vulnerable women in society, so if
there’s a trade union group out there that can offer them support and representation, then what could be wrong with that?
But as this discussion over at the F Word showed recently, the reality is more complicated.
Are the IUSW really the authentic voice of prostituted women, or indeed the voice of those working in the industry, as they claim? Who are they? Let’s look at
the evidence.
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/01/11/betraying-sex-workers/ 1/115
1) Douglas Fox, who posted comments on the F Word thread, and signed himself off as “D Fox sex worker and IUSW activist” is the founder of and a business-
partner in one of the country’s biggest escort agencies, Christony Companions. The agency was set up by Fox in 1999 in the Newcastle Upon Tyne area, and has
now apparently established itself as “the market leader in the North East.”
Fox and his business partner John Dockerty also run agencies in Edinburgh, York and Carlisle, and have plans to expand into Leeds and West Yorkshire; they’ve
also “franchised the name into Essex and Surrey with other areas coming soon.”
2) But while all this expansion and promotion of the company “brand” has been going on, Douglas Fox has also been busy setting himself up as a IUSW
activist: he’s drawn up template letters for the pro-prostitution lobby to sign in opposition to the government’s latest prostitution proposals; he’s put his name
about all over the net as a representative of sex workers and their rights, and he’s generally done whatever he can to ensure that he’s being recognised and cited
as an authentic voice in the prostitution debate, and a spokesperson for disenfranchised prostituted men and women everywhere.
So a man who makes his living managing escorts is genuinely more interested in securing them their rights than he is in his own profit margins?
3) In a discussion forum on the Christony Companions website, Fox recently put out a plea for funding for a new, campaigning arm of the IUSW GMB branch:
We need money to campaign however so if you do not want to join the union but can donate to the IUSW campaign then please do. I will keep
everyone informed when the changes are finally agreed but if we can have some sugar daddies and mummies and agencies prepared to donate
monthly funds then boy do we need them.
That’s right, a plea for punters and other escort agencies to help fund a branch of the GMB that was set up to provide union representation for those employed in
the sex trade.
4) And it gets worse. In another recent discussion forum, this time over at Punterlink International, a contributor named Elrond posted this suggestion when
discussing threats to the sex industry:
I would again suggest all write and complain to your MP. You all should either donate and join the IUSW as an escort or a friend if you are a punter.
And it’s as simple as that.
5) If you look at the GMB IUSW membership application form it’s easy to see how anyone claiming to be an escort or claiming to work in any area of the sex
industry can take up membership. Confidentiality is obviously at a premium when signing workers up from such a sensitive industry, but as the comment on
Punterlink shows, this also means that membership of IUSW branch is open to abuse: anyone can join.
If the the IUSW is populated with pimps, agency owners, and punters, then it shouldn’t have any credibility in the prostitution debate.
6) No trade union can represent the interests of both workers and employers at the same time, and by appointing themselves as spokespeople for the women they
employ, Douglas Fox and others like him are going against the basic principles of trade unionism itself.
To quote one of the comments on the F Word thread:
A union that invites and accepts pimps and punters into its membership to inflate the figures, decide its direction, be its spokespeople, and then
influence law and policy, that is a corrupt union and I dont give a shit what anyone else tries to sell it as – its time people recognised whats going on
here.
The GMB clearly needs to have a rethink about both the running of and the membership of its IUSW branch. And Feminist Fighback and others need to look
more closely as those they have chosen to align themselves with.
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About the author

Cath Elliott is a regular contributor. She is a feminist, a trade union activist, and a freelance writer and blogger. Also at: Guardian CIF.
· Other posts by Cath Elliott
Story Filed Under: Blog ,Feminism ,Sex equality ,Trade Unions
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Reader comments
1. Spiritof1976 10:51 am, January 11, 2009

I’m going to play devil’s advocate to this post.
Other than the fact that this guy is owner of an escort agency, do we have any evidence that he has,
(a) abused the rights of any of the women who work for him
or
(b) abused his position as a union spokesperson?
If neither is the case, then arguably he has just as much right to be part of this union as anyone else in the sex industry.
Just to make an analogy with my own profession – nursing – senior nurse managers are just as welcome to join those unions that represent nurses (Royal
College of Nursing, Unison, Unite etc) as a regular staff nurse working on the ward. Often those senior nurse managers are some of the most passionate
advocates for those unions.
Okay, you might argue that it’s not a fair comparison. That you can’t compare managers in a legitimate profession like nursing to those who make their living
exploiting prostitutes. But if the point of this union is to legitimise prostitution, then that also means a need to create a legitimate management structure – and
one that respects such standard employee rights as protection from bullying and harassment, health and safety, the right to a fair disciplinary etc.
Therefore, if there’s currently any managers working in the sex industry who equally agree that those things should be provided, shouldn’t they be brought on
board rather than excluded?
2. Cath Elliott 11:04 am, January 11, 2009

Spiritof1976 It’s not the fact that he’s a manager, but that he’s an agency owner that’s important here. You’re right, in most unions there’s scope for managers
and other workers to be in membership together, but in those cases it’s because they share an employee relationship. In the NHS both managers and nurses are
employed by their trust and by the NHS, and so they have a shared interest in working together to negotiate pay and conditions etc.
In Douglas Fox’s case, he is the owner of the company, the employer not the employed. He has no one to negotiate his pay and conditions with except himself.
And the fact that punters can also join the IUSW just makes a complete mockery of the whole thing.
There’s already been some discussion of this over here:
http://toomuchtosayformyself.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/the-great-iusw-con/

Okay, I’ve now had a chance to read that fword discussion that you link to.
In that discussion, Dominic Fox (who, I note, insisted that he does himself work as a male escort, and is therefore completely entitled to call himself a sex
worker) came across as informed, intelligent, and genuinely taking the time to explain his industry and the issues that he was trying to advocate for.
On the other hand, those who were attacking him (including you Cath) came across as a bunch of dogmatic screeching fembots.
Cath, this comment by you particularly appalled me.
Douglas Fox on the other hand has no credibility whatsoever in this discussion and I have no intention of doing anything other than dismissing his views out of
hand.
Sorry Cath, but that comment says more about you than it does about Dominic Fox.
4. Laurie Penny 11:19 am, January 11, 2009

I am tentatively going to accept what you say. One of the reasons I’ve stopped going to Feminist Fightback meetings is a growing awareness that the IUSW
members involved weren’t telling the whole story – actually, I got into a heated argument with one of the members during the last meeting I attended over
whether sex work was ‘work like any other work’. From my (admittedly limited) experience of working in the industry I vehemently disagree.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m almost entirely on board with FF’s platform, both on sex work and everything else.
If Dominic Fox is an escort himself, that really does change the terms of the discussion here. Is there any way we can find out?

Spiritof1976 You could at least provide the whole quote:
“Douglas Fox on the other hand has no credibility whatsoever in this discussion and I have no intention of doing anything other than dismissing his
views out of hand. He set up and is a partner in one of the biggest escort agencies in the country, with plans to expand the franchise countrywide.
His agency offers escorts as prizes in monthly competitions, and he uses the agency’s talk board to solicit funding and support from punters for the
IUSW, an organisation that purports to be the voice for women working in the industry.”

No there’s not Laurie, because as has become clear over the last few days, anyone can join the IUSW and claim to be a sex worker. I could do it, you could do it,
Sunny could do it, and no one would ever be able to prove that we’re not.

Okay, Cath, I did not provide the whole quote – for space reasons – though I did link to the comment so people could read the rest.
But to be honest, including the whole paragraph only emphasises my point. You have not provided any evidence that he has abused his position as a union
activist. All you have given is an ad hominem attack on the grounds that he and his partner run an escort agency.
So, Cath:
1. Do you have any evidence that he is not working as a male escort as he claims to be?
2. Do you have any evidence that he has abused his position in the union?
If the answer to both of these is “no”, then this is just a personal attack based on what he does for a living.
8. Nina 11:37 am, January 11, 2009

anyone can join the IUSW and claim to be a sex worker. I could do it, you could do it, Sunny could do it, and no one would ever be able to prove
that we’re not.
Just out of curiosity how do you suggest that sex workers prove to the IUSW that they are working in that capacity?
9. Elrond 11:38 am, January 11, 2009
I will repeat a post here.
The IUSW has not hidden that fact that it is an inclusive organisation for those who work directly as sex workers, or those work on the periphery. Again this
thread appears as a last minute attempt to discredit the organisation. Please read this article from the BBC with quotes from Catherine Stephens. It clearly states
that some members of the IUSW are parlour owners.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7786629.stm
“But London’s massage parlours, saunas, brothels and streets are the work places of a much wider range of women and men.
The International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW) includes middle-aged parlour owners, men who sell sex to men and girls who work on the street with drug
addiction problems, among its members.
And, like all workers, they face extra financial pressure at Christmas, says IUSW spokeswoman Catherine Stephens. “
I admit to posting the link asking for donations. At the time of writing there was no easy way to directly donate to the IUSW. Joining as a friend was an option.
Now donations can be given easily. The IUSW is not funded other than by donation and membership. Unlike the Governments anti prostitution stance which
appears to have the full resource of Government money to make their point. The IUSW struggle to find the money to produce leaflets and are well with in their
rights to seek donations. I for one will help them with donations and to publicise their need for money where ever I can.
10. Alan Thomas 11:40 am, January 11, 2009

Cath;
Similarly a coal miner could pretend to be a truck driver and join TGWU-Unite. Or a Tesco cashier could say they’re a public sector worker and join Unison. In
fact, if they were so inlined there wouldn’t necessarily even be any need for the subterfuge because anyone can sign up to join most trade unions. Similarly the
GMB is a general union with specific divisions. There are certain to be individuals with deeply reactionary views or even (subjectively) anti-labour politics who
are union card-carriers. That fact doesn’t de-legitimise the unions themselves.
I don’t agree with the IUSW’s every position on everything (not because I simply don’t believe that sex work is a “choice” in any meaningful sense for most
street sex workers). However the suggestion that they’re some kind of malign force within the debate about sex work is wrong. A far bigger problem is ill-
thought-through policy proposals based on a patronising attitude towards sex workers which prescribes solutions based on a “we know what’s good for you”
attitude without hearing the voices of sex workers themselves.
11. Mike Killingworth 11:41 am, January 11, 2009
Well, I have no opinion on the substance of this thread, but I would like to pick up the point about managers as trade unionists. I have known HR managers (this
was in the public sector, local government) who gaily said that when anyone took out a grievance the appropriate thing to do was to sack both accuser and
accused – and they carried Union cards!

Hi Mike
Well, I have no opinion on the substance of this thread, but I would like to pick up the point about managers as trade unionists. I have known HR managers (this
was in the public sector, local government) who gaily said that when anyone took out a grievance the appropriate thing to do was to sack both accuser and
accused – and they carried Union cards!
Fair enough, although I have to say that I’ve heard union members from all strata of employment express disagreeable views on just about any topic under the
sun. But then it’s the nature of a union that anyone can join. I don’t really see any way around that.
If that HR manager actually said that, I’d be interested to see what happened if he/she tried to implement that. Sounds like an open invitation for an unfair
dismissal lawsuit to me!
13. Cath Elliott 12:09 pm, January 11, 2009

Spiritof1976
You have not provided any evidence that he has abused his position as a union activist.
As an agency owner he has no right claiming to speak on behalf of those he employs. Trade unions are there to give a voice to the workers, not to their bosses. If
Douglas Fox wants a forum by which to lobby for his interests he should join a trade association, not a union.
Would you equally defend Stuart Rose if it was discovered he’d joined USDAW and was signing himself off everywhere as an USDAW activist?
It doesn’t matter how sympathetic the employer is to their workers, there’s a conflict of interests when that employers joins and becomes active in an
organisation set up to advocate on behalf of those workers’ rights. Trade unions are about workers organising among themselves, not about bosses organising for
them.
Alan Thomas
Or a Tesco cashier could say they’re a public sector worker and join Unison
No they couldn’t. To join UNISON you have to provide employer details and your pay roll number.
14. Spiritof1976 12:33 pm, January 11, 2009

Cath Elliot that is utter bollocks. Show me a union that excludes people if they run a business.
As a nurse, if I were to set up a nursing agency I would not be automatically excluded from the Royal College of Nursing, Unison or Unite (so long as I
maintained my registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council).
Once again, do you have any evidence that Douglas Fox has abused his position as a union activist? Yes or no?
15. Alan Thomas 12:53 pm, January 11, 2009

Cath;
You can pay cash to the TGWU. And you could still join Unison if you so wished. And besides, you’re clearly missing my main point, which is about white,
middle class liberal “feminists” like Jacqui Smith appointing themselves as those best able to represent the interests of marginalised groups.
16. PC 12:55 pm, January 11, 2009

However, the RCN is not a trade union but a ‘professional body’
17. Douglas fox 1:02 pm, January 11, 2009

chrisnewcescort@googlemail.com
Just to correct inaccuracies.
My civil partner runs CT companions which is an escort agency. He is employed by freelance escorts to provide certain services to them. It is a relationship not
dissimilar to a theatrical agent or perhaps an employment agent in many ways.
The escorts are not employees of his and certainly not of mine. He is also a member of the IUSW/GMB but does not speak publicly. He is a self employed agent
however representing self employed escorts many of whom are also members of the IUSW/GMB.
Myself and Cath Stevens who was also called a pimp (by someone calling herself Julie Bindel despite the fact she is a self employed dominatrix) are sex
workers and finance nearly everything we do from our own funds. The IUSW asks for financial support from everyone who supports the idea of sex workers
having representation by and for sex workers. We are very firmly a human rights organisation supporting an unfairly in our view criminalised sector of our
community which is so often talked about in clichés and reported in caricature.
In recognising rights we also support exit strategies and are firmly against coercion and trafficking. This is clearly evident from our statements. One of the
biggest providers of exit strategies the NSWP who are also conveniently ignored by the government in its proposals and one has to ask why.
Douglas Fox (activist for IUSW and Amnesty International)

@PC
However, the RCN is not a trade union but a ‘professional body’
It’s a combination of the two, actually. It’s not a member organisation of the TUC but it does provide all the functions and services of a trade union.

Hi Douglas
So, just to clarify, you’re not the owner of the escort agency, and neither you nor your partner actually employ anyone?
If that’s correct, I really don’t see what Cath’s problem is.
Also, I have to say this: suppose that some of what Cath says is true (so far she hasn’t presented compelling evidence that *any* of this is true), and suppose
there were some issues with IUSW that left them open to criticism. Should that automatically mean all leftists should refuse to work with them? If I refused to
support any union that I’d ever been left feeling hacked off by or let down by, I’d never support the actions of any union ever. And I was a member of the RCN
for four years: now there’s a union that lets its members down regularly.
But being on the left means you belief in the principle of collective action, and IUSW is providing that. Does that mean one couldn’t criticise IUSW? No, of
course not. But to demand it be completely sidelined from the trade union movement because you don’t like some of its spokespersons – that’s just downright
uncomradely.
Alan Thomas
“And besides, you’re clearly missing my main point, which is about white, middle class liberal “feminists” like Jacqui Smith appointing themselves
as those best able to represent the interests of marginalised group”
And you’re clearly missing mine,which is about agency owners and punters appointing themselves as those best able to represent the interests of marginalised
groups.
Here’s what Douglas Fox had to say on one of his agency’s forums when urging other agencies and punters to sign the petition in opposition to the government’s
proposals:
“Agencies can you please put the link to the petition on your sites please because it is in your interests. If your clients are criminalised you will have
no businesses and if the government has its way you will soon have no web sites or phone numbers. Join the union and have a voice and link this
petition to your pages to encourage everyone to sign. This industry represents thousands so lets show our strength and unity for once because we are
all clients, agencies, Indies and agency escorts under threat.
And when the petition looked in danger of not getting the 200 signatures it needed:
“Where are the names of all the agency owners and independent escorts? It is a shameful exposure of the utter hypocrisy of so many in this industry
and I hope their lack of understanding and lack of decency comes back to haunt them in a big way.
Perhaps they would like to explain why they are unwilling to sign such an important petition that could be used to our advantage to show the
solidarity we should have for the industry that pays our mortgages and rents? Instead the lack of names from the people who should be on this
petition says so much about their attitude”
Douglas Fox is only interested in protecting his business and making money, not in the welfare of the street prostitutes (not agency escorts) that this legislation
has been designed to protect.
Douglas On my site and in other places you’ve mentioned that you’ve been a sex worker for 10 years. So why was there no mention of this in the TV
documentary you took part in? How come in 2006 you made no claim to be a sex worker? How come it’s only since you discovered that you could join the
IUSW you’ve actually started to make the claim?
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/866713.we_dont_sell_sex_for_a_living/
21. delphyne 1:49 pm, January 11, 2009

Does your agency still operate out of your house in Gosforth, Douglas? When Channel 4 made a documentary about you, “The Escort Agency” you and your
partner John were working from there.
When you were prosecuted for living off of immoral earnings, it was both you and John who were prosecuted. How you can claim the business has nothing to
do with you is just amazing.
Here are quotes from the Nothern Echo interview you gave in 2006 (Cath links to it in her original post), before you appointed yourself as the voice of all sex
workers so you could use the IUSW and the GMB as means of lobbying the government on behalf of the sex industry –
“Douglas explains how it all began. “We got into the business because a friend of ours was an escort and she asked me to answer her phone calls, and through
answering her phone calls, more and more ladies and a few gentlemen started calling, asking if I would represent them as well,” he says. “We didn’t set out at all
to get involved in this industry. It was purely by accident.””
“”We’d been established just over a year or so and we went through a huge legal battle that lasted 18 months,” recalls Douglas. “We were accused of living off
the immoral earnings of prostitutes. I think there were a lot of politics involved because John was still working for the police (as an accountant) at the time.”
They suffered the indignity of arrest but when the case came to court, it fell apart. “Luckily, we had a very, very experienced London-based legal team which did
an absolutely brilliant job,” explains Douglas. “Basically, the ladies we represented at the time refused to turn up and the police needed them to admit in court
that they were prostitutes.””
“Douglas is dancing around the issue of what goes on, but he firmly denies that he and John are merely pimps. “Our job is simply to advertise the people we
represent and promote them to the best of our ability,” he says. “When a client rings up we never ever discuss sexual services. We never discuss sexual services
with the ladies. It’s not only for legal reasons – it’s simply that we believe that what happens between consenting adults is up to them. It would be very prurient
delving into people’s sex lives.””
It just goes to show how many people on the left are committed to misogyny and keeping women in prostitution given how prepared they are to listen to pimps
and let them claim to be the voice of women in prostitution.
22. Shatterface 2:00 pm, January 11, 2009

The IUSW might not represent the view of all sex-workers but then it is not a closed shop.
My my own Union (of which I am a rep) is not perfect but it is the best vehicle for collective action we have – and this despiite the fact our managers are
represented by the same body.
If the IUSW is denied a voice simply because of Cath’s disgust at what sex workers do, then who should we listen to? Christian and other groups who wish to
save ‘fallen women’? Right wing bigots and religious nutters who would like to see all prostitutes stoned to death or at least behind bars?
If you think there’s a more representative body out there, lets hear about them. I suspect it will be some group which finds all sex a betrayal of feminism,
whether paid for or not.
Shatterface, the feminist anti-prostitution approach wants to see pimps and punters behind bars and prostitutes themselves decriminalised. We see prostitution as
an abuse of human rights, particularly women’s rights given that overwhelmingly owners and customers are men, whilst the prostituted people they buy and sell
are ovewhelmingly women and children. It is a misogynistic enterprise that destroys women and girls across the world all because a certain sub-section of men
think they have the right to pay to access other people’s bodies.
It’s astonishing to see people on the left being so keen on cosying up to a business owner such as Douglas, particularly one who makes his money from one of
the most abusive types of employment there is. Since when were sexual profiteers the people who the left defended?
Who’s “cosying up” to anyone Delphyne”? I don’t think anyone’s particularly leaped to that Douglas chap’s defence, and I for one don’t know him from Adam.
As I see it, the reality is that the socially conservative solutions to this issue which are being proposed by the government and others will not work, because they
will inevitably drive street sex workers further into the shadows than they already are. They won’t suddenly stop being prostitutes and the trade won’t disappear.
There’s a massive disjuncture in the theory that you can de-criminalise sex work whilst criminalising punters – it merely leaves the trade continuing, just on a
more clandestine basis.
Of course, if enacted as legislation the proposals will be popular, but mainly because they will please the Daily Mail brigade who worry about running into
street walkers on their way back from the restaurant. In that sense, as my co-blogger at Shiraz Socialist Caroline Shepherd puts it, the more ban-oriented
solutions reflect a feeling that sex work is “icky” as much as any desire to find a real solution to the problems posed by sex working among vulnerable groups.
25. Sunny Hundal 2:47 pm, January 11, 2009
Once again, do you have any evidence that Douglas Fox has abused his position as a union activist?
That isn’t her point. Her point is that a union body that is populated by the management cannot reflect the workers, because it goes against the basic idea of what
a trade union is there for. Surely that’s obvious?
26. tim f 3:06 pm, January 11, 2009
I’ve an open mind on this, but I do think that if Douglas Fox wants to build wider left unity, (not that sex workers should necessarily be in thrall to the rest of the
left, otherwise their agenda probably wouldn’t have got very far, so maybe there’s an argument with this premise anyway) lefties would be a lot less cynical if he
stopped trying to make himself the face of the IUSW and left it up to other sex workers (if indeed he is one, I’m taking no position on that) to be the public
voice of the organisaiton. I also think the way he tries to claim his partner does not employ anyone but represents the self-employed is highly suspect to people
on the left, as many employment agencies will have a simliar legal arrangement.
I do think it would be daft to ask for any kind of proof of work before joining a union though and think it’s a bit regressive of UNISON that they do. For a start,
that could place migrants with no legal status – who should be represented by unions just as vehemently as everyone else – in a very difficult situation.
27. redpesto 3:16 pm, January 11, 2009
delphyne:
Shatterface, the feminist anti-prostitution approach wants to see pimps and punters behind bars and prostitutes themselves decriminalised. We see prostitution
as an abuse of human rights, particularly women’s rights given that overwhelmingly owners and customers are men, whilst the prostituted people they buy and
sell are ovewhelmingly women and children. It is a misogynistic enterprise that destroys women and girls across the world all because a certain sub-section of
men think they have the right to pay to access other people’s bodies.
At the risk of going over old ground, this is a paradoxical position: it effectively allows women to work as prostitutes without fear of criminal punishment, yet
deprives them of clientele (and hence income) by prosecuting the very people – oh, lets be honest, heterosexual men – who pay for sexual services (I’ll pass
over the ‘buying women’ trope, because no matter how many times the difference is pointed out, anti-prostitution activists know the slavery analogy works
every time, regardless of any consensual encounter).
If Cath and the F-word have uncovered evidence that the IUSW is being infiltrated by (to use an old leftist term) ‘entryists’ who are employers – sorry, Cath, I
mean pimps – rather than employees – then one soution would be (to use another old leftist strategy) expulsion. That said, I don’t see what difference it would
make to either Cath’s or delphyne’s position re. the IUSW, since the attempt by sex workers to come together, organise and lobby for strategies other than
further criminalisation (of either themselves or their clients) is one that that feminists such as Cath vehemently disagree with. Likewise the idea of a ‘trade
association’ of sex worker employers – sorry, of pimps and whoremasters – would be difficult to set up (as brothel-keeping is illegal) and would immediately be
dismissed by anti-prosititution campaigners as a vested interest in the ‘buying and selling of women’ in the manner of a slave owners’ lobby group (if you’re
going to use a shaky analogy, you might as well go the whole hog…).
So, either the F-word is offering some useful help to the IUSW to get its house in order, or the story is one big ‘Gotcha!’ designed to trash any attempt to
counter the prohibionist anti-prostitution movement (like pointing out the flag-burning nutter at an anti-war demo) or any strategy for unionisng sex workers for
decriminalisation of themselves and their work. The fact that the argument focuses on Douglas Fox (i.e. a man) makes it even easier for him to be dismissed as
unrepresentative of sex workers. (Incidentally, there’s absolutely no indication that Smith, MacTaggart, et al have a position on gay sex workers, even though
any legislation will have to be ‘gender neutral’.) If the IUSW falls apart (or is successfully torpedoed), the field is then clear for only those voices which ‘fit’
with positions such as Cath’s or delphyne’s – which already go with the grain of attitudes towards sex that aren’t about monogamy, marital relations and
procreation – leaving those sex workers who might want to just get on with the job with nowhere to go and no voice in their favour (and, if the the planned
government legislation becomes law and somehow actually works, no money either).
PS – @Spiritof1976 -comment #1:
Okay, you might argue that it’s not a fair comparison. That you can’t compare managers in a legitimate profession like nursing to those who make their living
exploiting prostitutes
Maybe not, but the author Wendy Chapkis makes a very interesting case for the ’emotional labour’ of sex work by comparing it to nursing, using the work of
Arlie Hochschild (see Chapkis’s book Live Sex Acts).
28. Stephen P 3:25 pm, January 11, 2009
Delphyne,
I distrust all posts that declare what a position is, even a feminist anti-prostitution position. Feminists who oppose prostitution have all sorts of stances, as indeed
do feminists who support prostitution.
The original post which gave rise to this thread, both here on Liberal Conspiracy and on the original blog at
http://toomuchtosayformyself.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/the-great-iusw-con/ assaults an entire organisation on the basis of one of its members and attempts to
assert that a union of sex workers cannot be a union or a voice for sex workers if it includes, in this case, someone involved in running an agency.
The word ‘pimp’ is used to classify people like Douglas Fox.
Now ’pimp’ is one of what I call the PET words – ’Pimp, Exploitation and Trafficking’ – with which one has to take very great care in debates because they
mean very different things to different people.
To many people, ’pimp’ means anyone who lives off the earnings of sex work who is not a sex worker. Such people are overwhelmingly characterised as male
in a feminostereotype, though of course they may be of either sex.
One’s thinking advances considerably on this if one differentiates valid stakeholders from others. Someone who contributes something, for example a brothel
owner who contributes a venue, could reasonably be differentiated from a parasite, who simply extorts money from a sex worker for no contribution whatsoever.
In the case of escort agencies, they can contribute a variety of services, including marketing, tax assistance, self employment advice, counselling etc.
Brothel managers, agency personnel, website creators, drivers, etc, additionally provide a network that is very important to sex worker safety.
A sensible sex worker, for example, would ensure she had a driver if visiting a new client for the first time at his home. Besides driving, the driver would wait at
a discrete distance as a first point of call if things go awry, and as such is a very important component of a contingency plan.
Is the driver expected to live off fresh air?
Yet ‘pimps’ as they are known are probably subjected to even more stigma in society than sex workers themselves, a stigma that your post attempts to reinforce.
There are undoubtedly exploitative relationships between indirect sex workers, or ’pimps’ as you like to call them, and direct sex workers, but there is no reason
whatever to believe that all such relationships are inherently exploitative.
For more on the history of pimps, read

Buidging Sex – What’s Wrong with the Pimp? by Kate Gleeson, here:
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/apsa/docs_papers/Others/Gleeson.pdf
29. v 3:29 pm, January 11, 2009
“If Cath and the F-word have uncovered evidence that the IUSW is being infiltrated by (to use an old leftist term) ‘entryists’ who are employers”
I dont think they are being infiltrated, I think they are being run by these people. Douglas Fox says on his own forum that he played a big part in writing the
IUSWs response to new legislation. We have no idea whether this stuff gets voted on, or whether all ‘friend’ and owner members of the IUSW have the same
voting rights as sex workers themselves. The list also of types of sex worker is extensive. Im not convinced that retail staff in a sex shop or phone operators on a
sex line should be voting on IUSW policy on prostitution. Im even less convinced that pimps and punters should be.
I really cant see how anyone could not be hugely suspicious of whats going on here.
@Sunny
Her point is that a union body that is populated by the management cannot reflect the workers, because it goes against the basic idea of what a trade union is
there for. Surely that’s obvious?
I think we’re starting to re-tread over the same ground as before, but my response to that is that, as I’ve already pointed out, nurse managers and people who run
nursing agencies are not barred from joining nursing unions. I don’t see any difference.
Given the vitriol against Douglas Fox, and resounding absence of any evidence that he’s actually done anything wrong, I’m starting to feel that some people
here have, as with the Daily Mail hang ’em and flog ’em brigade, simply not gotten over their hang-ups about sex workers. It’s just that their hang-ups are more
right-on and PC than those of the Daily Mail types.
31. polly styrene 3:34 pm, January 11, 2009
There’s absolutely no union I can think of, other than the IUSW, that allows non employees to join. If I buy things in a shop I can’t join USDAW can I, but if
you’re a punter you can join the IUSW. And there’s a huge difference between employees at different levels joining a union, and owners of businesses joining
one.
The IUSW represents itself as a voice for all sex workers in the UK,
“The IUSW is part of the GMB, one of the UK’s biggest unions with over 600,000 members. We campaign for sex workers’ rights at a local, national and
international level – to decrease stigma and violence against sex workers, improve working conditions and create a clear and fair sex industry.”
They don’t mention on their website how many members they have. But according to an observer article in 2002 the IUSW had 100 members.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2002/jul/28/workandcareers.observercashsection
As opposed to an estimated 80,000 sex workers in the UK. If the nurses union only had 100 members out of 80,000 nurses, would it be taken seriously?
Especially given that a lot of those members aren’t even sex workers.
32. v 3:38 pm, January 11, 2009
spiritof1976:
“I’m starting to feel that some people here have, as with the Daily Mail hang ‘em and flog ‘em brigade, simply not gotten over their hang-ups about sex
workers.”
Funny, cos your mischaracterisation of us is something id imagine would fit right in with the Daily Mail brigade.

We’re feminists with “hang-ups” as you so dismissively put it about PIMPS, spiritof76.
Douglas is an owner, a capitalist, yet the people here who are objecting to his and his partners use of a trade union to further their own business interests are the
ones being attacked and dismissed.
If the left wants to maintain its credibility it would be a good idea to think hard about the idea that it’s a good idea to get on board with the sexual exploiters of
women, because if you do people will start thinking that your real interest isn’t social justice but male supremacy i.e. business as usual.
I never thought I’d see the day when leftists were arguing that capitalists should be allowed to join trade unions. Quite something.
I’m not a Daily Mail reader. I stopped reading the Guardian because it was too right wing, smug and obnoxious (as well as being misogynistic as hell).
@Polly Styrene
There’s absolutely no union I can think of, other than the IUSW, that allows non employees to join. If I buy things in a shop I can’t join USDAW can I, but if
you’re a punter you can join the IUSW.
Erm, where is your evidence for this assertion?
I’m just having a look at the application form for IUSW now (no, I’m not planning on joining). Where it asks you to state your occupation, there’s various tick
boxes for different occupations. “Punter” is not one of them.
Of course, I guess it’s possible that a punter could lie, and pretend they were a sex worker on applying. But as various commenters have pointed out above, that
is equally true of other unions and occupations.
Do you have any evidence that the IUSW is actively recruiting punters? Or are you just pulling claims out of the air?
Delphyne
Douglas is an owner, a capitalist
Douglas has asserted that he does run the escort agency: his civil partner does. He also states that he is a male escort, therefore a bona fide sex worker.
Do you have any evidence that he is lying? If you do not, you are committing libel.

Amendment to above: should read: “does not run the escort agency”
polly styrene
“There’s absolutely no union I can think of, other than the IUSW, that allows non employees to join.”
The NUJ for one allows non-employees to join. Many freelance journalists who employ staff belong, as do some editors. But you are conflating agency owners
with employers.
The structure of the sex industry is very odd, largely because it’s been molded around the peculiarand in many cases antiquated laws within which it has been
forced to operate.
Nevertheless, it sometimes helps to draw parallels from other industries. A manufacturing company (if there’s any left) has direst workers – who actually make
the products – and indirect workers, such as accouintants, cleaners, personnel, security staff, sales and marketing etc. The sex industry also has direct and
indirect workers, the latte rjust as important as in a manufacturing industry but in considerable danger from our antiquated laws, mainly due to the UK having
adopted a prohibitionist stance to prostitution.
polly styrene:
As opposed to an estimated 80,000 sex workers in the UK. If the nurses union only had 100 members out of 80,000 nurses, would it be taken seriously?
Especially given that a lot of those members aren’t even sex workers.
It’s hard to start a union for a line of work for which you could be prosecuted (it’s not illegal to get paid for sex, but doing just about anything to enable you to
get paid risks breaking the law). It’s not as though, say, lap dancers are highly unionised either – and they’re regarded as exploited victims by some feminists
(and are about to fall foul of government legislation) in exactly the same way as prostitutes – and they can (just about) work legally.
As for the 80,00 sex workers – no-one’s sure about the actual figures.
@ v – my point still stands: even if there was a self-organised union of sex workers, if they were committed to a policy of legalisation, anti-prostitution
campaigners would have a serious problem with it.
What is my evidence for this assertion? Erm the IUSW website. Section entitled ‘Who can join?’
If you consider yourself to be working in the sex industry, you can join regardless of immigration or taxation status – whether you work for an escort agency, in
a massage parlour, a private flat, on the street, a shop selling adult videos, behind or in front of the camera making adult entertainment, a strip club or from
home doing phone sex.
You must live in UK but your nationality or immigration status does not matter. You do not need to provide proof of identity and can join using your
professional name. Members are entitled to attend Branch meetings and to stand or vote in elections of officers at Branch and national level.
We also welcome applications for membership from allies, supporters and friends of sex workers”
Oh and apparently in 2008, they had less than 100 members.
http://ww2.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/layout/set/print/content/view/full/63951
The evidence is on this thread. You don’t accept it spiritof76 because it suits your argument.
Also, I don’t think pointing out that someone is an owner in our capitalist society would be regarded as libelous. But anyway Douglas’s own words are quoted in
the Northern Echo, and he and his partner were shown running their agency together on a Channel 4 documentary. It’s also quite clear from their forums that
that’s how it works.
Do leftists normally threaten one another with the libel courts? That’s a new one on me.

And they’ve been going since 2000 requesto. And they still have the same number of members they had in 2002 (well slightly less). And you can’t get
prosecuted for working on a chatline, or being a lap dancer, working in a shop selling adult videso or many, many activities that fall under the heading sex work,
that enable you to join the IUSW.
Also selling sex itself is not illegal in the UK.
Your argument does not stand up.
No, no one is sure about the actual figures, but it’s a hell of a lot more than 100.
43. Elrond 3:58 pm, January 11, 2009
You will find that Douglas would be the first to admit that in a legalised/decriminalised sex industry that separate unions and trade associations should exist for
sex workers and management.
The very nature of sex work makes managers of many women, many start off in sex work, and then start to share premises, or share facilities for advertising and
promotion. They end up creating agencies and owning small brothels helping other women with a safe and profitable working environment. All these owners,
who still work as sex workers are now management or at least a leading role in a cooperative. How would they fit into a normal Union structure which barred
management?
At the moment I see it that the IUSW is made up of sex workers of all types, and supporters some who run agencies. This is openly admitted by Catherine
Stephens
This is not bad at present, because the common goal is to fight for the rights of sex workers by allowing them to work safely. The big barrier at the moment is
unfair legislation which prohibits safe working practises, and promotes the criminal and abusive pimps over fair employment practises. Once the law is changed,
then true unionisation can proceed.
Stephen by ’employees’ I clearly meant ‘workers’. You are being ridiculously pedantic. The NUJ does not, AFAIK, allow allies, supporters, and friends of
journalists to join. You still have to be a journalist. Doh!
45. Lee Griffin 4:03 pm, January 11, 2009
“All these owners, who still work as sex workers are now management or at least a leading role in a cooperative. How would they fit into a normal Union
structure which barred management?”
You’ve got a point about structure, transparency would have to be a key element of union democracy to ensure that business owners weren’t able to essentially
veto the needs of the workers…and we have to accept that the base level workers are the ones that need to have the most say. I mean…you *can* see the
conflict of interest can’t you?
Okay, so there’s a bit about “allies, supporters and friends of sex workers”, whatever that means. It doesn’t necessarily mean punters.
And so what if they only have 100 members? Is it really such a surprise that a body trying to represent one of the most marginalised and stigmatised segments of
society is having to start out small?
So far I’ve been having a look at their campaigning activities. So far it’s all been laudable stuff about protecting sex workers human rights. And nobody who
has been objecting to them on this thread has been able to point to any nefarious activities by the IUSW. Nobody.
Somebody tell me something that the IUSW has done to abuse its members. Anybody?
47. v 4:14 pm, January 11, 2009
repeating what poly styrene said – most of the stuff you can do which you can claim makes you a sex worker is not illegal.
something about lapdancers and other dancing types that are being included under sex work – according to the lap dancing association and many of the women
themselves who were interviewed in recent months by the press over the changes to lapdancing club licences, they do not consider themselves as sex workers. a
big part of their defence against having lapdancing clubs designated as sexual encounter establishments is that they say lapdancing is not sex work. but when
they want to influence policy on prostitution, it suddenly is?
likewise on douglas fox and his escort agency. they claim that escorting is not sex work and most definitely not prostitution. check his own interviews on the
subject ffs. but when he wants to influence policy on prostitution, it suddenly is? his agency both isnt anything to do with sex work yet is at the same time?
forgive me for finding these constant contradictions confusing.
douglas fox on his own escorts site forum has left the message, which cath included in this post but which seems to have been ignored –
“We need money to campaign however so if you do not want to join the union but can donate to the IUSW campaign then please do. I will keep everyone
informed when the changes are finally agreed but if we can have some sugar daddies and mummies and agencies prepared to donate monthly funds then boy do
we need them.”
as well as having sugar daddies and mummies and agencies making up who knows what proportion of IUSW members, he makes public requests for financial
help from these groups to fund their campaign. does anyone seriously believe that “sugar daddies and mummies and agencies” have the exact same idea about
what is best for prostitutes as they do themselves, that there could not be any conflict of interest here?
A campaigning organisation appealed for funds?
Well. I’m. So. Shocked.
I mean, campaigning organisations never appeal for funds, do they? Clearly they’re planning to set up an Exploit-O-Rama theme park.
49. v 4:17 pm, January 11, 2009

“most of the stuff you can do which you can claim makes you a sex worker is not illegal.”
quoting myself there – but this is demonstrated by elrond who claims on caths blog about this that it is okay for him to speak for sex workers because he rents
advertising space online to them.
i mean theres just no logic at all to some of this stuff, but its getting this free pass because why?
Spiritof1976
“Do you have any evidence that the IUSW is actively recruiting punters?”
Elrond is all over the punters’ talkboards encouraging them to join. I’ve already quoted an example of this in the original piece, but here’s another from him, this
time on PunterNet:
“To donate to the GMB, and to make sure it goes on sex work, then send donations to the GMB, with a letter asking it to be ring fenced for the
IUSW work. The problem with sending it to the GMB is it cannot be anonymous, money laundering etc. The IUSW is setting up their own account
for donations, but this is taking a long time to do…..If you are a punter, you can also join.”
polly styrene
And they’ve been going since 2000 requesto. And they still have the same number of members they had in 2002 (well slightly less). And you can’t get prosecuted
for working on a chatline, or being a lap dancer, working in a shop selling adult videso or many, many activities that fall under the heading sex work, that
enable you to join the IUSW.
Also selling sex itself is not illegal in the UK.
Your argument does not stand up.
Funnily enough, I actually made all the points you accuse me of in my post:
It’s hard to start a union for a line of work for which you could be prosecuted (it’s not illegal to get paid for sex, but doing just about anything to enable you to
get paid risks breaking the law). It’s not as though, say, lap dancers are highly unionised either – and they’re regarded as exploited victims by some feminists
(and are about to fall foul of government legislation) in exactly the same way as prostitutes – and they can (just about) work legally. (emphasis added)
If your point is that the IUSW is stuffed full of members who aren’t sex workers (in the sense of prostitution), it’s a fair point, which I’ll have to take on trust for
now. On the other hand, if a sex worker knew s/he could be prosecuted for, say, soliciting (i.e. trying to get work) – plus the issue of the stigma surrounding sex
work – why would they take the risk and join a union? And if sex workers were unionised, and campaigned for legalisation, along with better pay and
conditions, would other feminists who have historically opposed prostitution support them?*
*(My guess, for what it’s worth, would be no, but that would be because attitudes to sexual behaviour and to gender inequality are two separate issues, rather
than the former being a subdivision of the latter – as a lot of feminists assume – besides which, they also have too much invested in a prohibitionist stance.)
52. tim f 4:24 pm, January 11, 2009
#36 –
Sadly, I don’t think we’ve reached the point where being labelled a capitalist is so taboo that it’s covered by libel laws. We’ll keep trying, though, eh?
53. v 4:25 pm, January 11, 2009
“A campaigning organisation appealed for funds?”
appealed for funds and membership from groups of people unlikely to have anywhere near the same aims and priorities as the people the organisation alleges to
represent.
not that that is relevant anyway, cos according to douglas fox the activism is being moved to a different branch of the iusw from the one where the members are,
ie, sex worker membership and voting will soon be even more irrelevant to the activism of the iusw than it already is.
v
You make a good point concerning lap dancing and the use of the term ‘sex work’.
As far as i can make out, ‘sex work’ as a term was intended to be a generic term covering diverse occupations, most of them not involving prostitution, but also
including prostitution. Through the use of the term, bodies such as IUSW and ECP sought to reduce the marginalisation and stigma surrounding prostitute sex
workers.
However, the term ‘sex worker’ has been applied as an (inadequate) euphamism for prostitute so often that many non-prostitute sex workers, such as lap
dancers, seek to distance themselves from it. This creates problems for IUSW recruiting in these areas.
The stigma surrounding prostitution needs to be addressed, as does the stigma surrounding indirect sex workers such as agencies and brothel owners/managers.
Notably, New Zealand has a lkicensing system not for prostitutes but for such indirect workers, which seems to me sensible.
@ v #47:
something about lapdancers and other dancing types that are being included under sex work – according to the lap dancing association and many of the women
themselves who were interviewed in recent months by the press over the changes to lapdancing club licences, they do not consider themselves as sex workers. a
big part of their defence against having lapdancing clubs designated as sexual encounter establishments is that they say lapdancing is not sex work. but when
they want to influence policy on prostitution, it suddenly is?
My point was about unionisation. Lap dancers (as far as I know) can join Equity or the GMB – not that it has stopped some feminist campigners complaining
about the clubs, or regarding the women as exploited victims (just like their claims for prostitutes, oddly enough). If sex workers (as in prostitutes) want to
organise as a union to pursue change, they can join…what exactly (assuming the IUSW is tainted)?
56. Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon 4:38 pm, January 11, 2009
Three points: 1) The academic union UCU includes members who are on short term contracts (in and out of work) as well as professors running multi-million
pound grants from private donors. The latter may employ the former, but may also be the former themselves, whether or not they are employed by the public
sector. Given the many private/ partnerships in the public sector the employer/employee relationship is a blurred area. I would be surprised if the senior
management of one of our private universities were not allowed to join.
2) That it is possible to accuse anyone who has any type of relationship with a sex worker of being a ‘pimp’ is part of the problem with the law as it stands. Cath
Elliot’s stance, and the law as it stands, leads to the isolation from friends family etc or anyone who receives anything from, or does anything for, any sex
worker.
3) I’ve researched the sex industry for 15 yrs and met Catherine Stephens last yr. I saw Ms Stephens and another union officer help and support a sex worker
and their family during a whole week’s trial at court. Through my research, whenever I see sex workers in trouble or in need of help, whether in courts, streets,
police charging suites, or in need of pro-bono legal help for other things, it is IUSW or the ECP who seem to be there at the sharp end rather than the
prohibitionist/ anti-prostitution campaigners. As an observer I’ve been impressed by the ECP and IUSW in judicial settings. However much prohibitionists
parade sex workers’ woes, they aren’t there at the sharp end when I am doing fieldwork obs. They do however seem to be out in force at the ‘glitzy’ end of
things such as parliamentary meetings and media space.
57. v 4:40 pm, January 11, 2009
“However much prohibitionists parade sex workers’ woes, they aren’t there at the sharp end when I am doing fieldwork obs. ” and some other stuff you said –
thats just not true, sorry but it isnt. that may be your experience while youre wandering round taking notes, but its not the experience i have, or many other
people have either.
58. Kate Belgrave 4:43 pm, January 11, 2009
Hi Cath
I disgree, and tend to think that this post digresses from the point that comes to the fore in the next few days – will Smith’s proposals help sex workers? I’ve
posted on my blog arguing that they won’t, and that Smith’s initiative is the latest in a long line of very anti-women initiatives by this Labour government. I
draw attention again to the New Zealand experiment – people have written this (and New Zealand) off as irrelevant on LC before, but research certainly
demonstrated in some details that legalisation assisted sex workers considerably and sex workers have embraced the New Zealand trend. Certainly, New
Zealand sex workers are not GMB members, and Catherine Healy spoke on quite a broad platform here last year.
Look forward to more discussion on the topic, but I doubt very much that Jacqui Smith has women’s interests at heart. She has the interests of middle of the
road voters at heart.
Cheers, Kate
Kate You’re a trade unionist. What’s your view about agency owners, pimps and punters taking up membership of the GMB in order to influence union policy?
… just want to add that surely the telling point is that the government apparently approached neither the IUSW or the ECP for input on its review for the
Policing and Crime Bill? It hardly matters who the membership of either body is in that context – they were ignored anyway.
v – here’s Dr Brooks-Gordon wandering around taking notes. I respect the fact, however, that your online anonymity might prevent you from citing your
experience (as it does mine).
The ECP and IUSW are both listed as consultees on “Paying the Price” the government consultation on prostitution in the UK. It is incorrect to say they weren’t
consulted.
If they mean that the government didn’t accept their proposals (why would they – the represent the interests of the industry, not the workers?) when it framed its
new legislation on prostitution that would be correct.
Cath,
Of course I am encouraging donations to the IUSW and the ECP. They need the money to campaign. The don’t get Government support. The appeal is not just
to clients, but also to the large proportion of sexworkers who post on those bulletin boards as well.
You have also taken an old posting from Punternet. The current posting on PN does not in anyway encourage punters to join. It only asks for donations. After
discussion, and the bank account becoming available the suggestion to join was removed.
Clients are not abusers, and they have the same aim to ensure sex workers have a safe and legal working environment. Prostitution is not illegal, but all the safe
working practices are deemed to be illegal.
Decriminalising prostitution and criminalising punters is a stupid suggestion, and anyway is not something this Government is pursuing with street workers.
Prostitutes need clients and Clients need prostitutes. Supply and demand, capitalism.
Blimey, Dr Brooks-Gordon has written a lot of books! No wonder she had to take so many notes.
So, anyway V, your contribution to the welfare of sex workers has been what, exactly, and how does it compare to that done by the IUSW and ECP?
Hey Cath,
My opinion on pimps, etc, taking up union membership to sway union policy in their favour is, of course, very low – tis much the same, as I think someone
pointed out earlier here, as finding that management is worming its way into union membership, in order to influence union policy. I was arseholed out of
Unison at least partly for being too vociferous on that point. The fact that there are infiltrators doesn’t mean we ignore those who are legitimately involved in
union membership, though. There’s a risk of chucking the baby out with the bathwater there.
I think the point is missed, though. It’s all about Jacqui Smith’s proposals this week, and whether or not criminalisation is advantageous to women or not. I
contend that it is not. As I’ve said, there’s some fairy comprehensive research now that demonstrates sex workers do better in a legal environment. I don’t think
the Poppy Project is misguided – I think it has wrongly concluded that the problem is men and prostitution – not immigration, poverty, and the awful fallout of
capitalism gone mad. Why are women trafficked into prostitution? Because they are desperate to leave war-torn, poverty stricken countries, and they put
themselves into anybody’s hands to do that. Why is Smith pursuing the legislation she is? To help women? Do me a favour. Where was she, and New Labour
generally, when Northern Ireland women were looking for abortion rights:
http://www.hangbitch.com/photobitch/v/photoessays/Northern+Ireland+and+the+demand+for+abortion+rights/
I believe they were doing deals with the DUP on 42 days’ detention. Put in context of New Labour’s poor view of women and women’s rights, I believe my
argument against Smith’s initiatives on prostitution holds very well.
Keep it legal.
Hi Kate,
Very much enjoyed your blog. Actually Vernon Coaker did have one meeting with sex workers in London in the’ Review of Demand’ process, though it’s
interesting that neither ECP not IUSW were credited as stakeholders in the review outcome document.
Sold as an answer to sex trafficking, the new law further imperills every trafficking victim by providing a powerful disincentive to punters to inform the
authorities, as I try to reveal in my own blog here, giving instances were punters have far been crucial to poutting traffickers behind bars::
http://stephenpaterson.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/why-smiths-new-plans-wont-work-criminalising-the-clients-part-1/
Actually, Jacqui Smith herself was recorded by the BBC in a written piece on its website many moons ago as having grave doubts about criminalising punters
because of this very issue, I think she’s been sat on by Harman.
delphyne
“The ECP and IUSW are both listed as consultees on “Paying the Price” the government consultation on prostitution in the UK. It is incorrect to say they
weren’t consulted.”
And until Tony Blair chickened out mini Brothels were going to be allowed.
In the latest Jacqui Smith review the ECP and IUSW are not credited as being consulted.
What’s been your contribution to the welfare of women in prostitution spiritof76? If you’re going to make demands on people you’d better start revealing your
own credentials. Alternatively you could stop trying to bully other participants on this thread. First you threaten me with libel, then you try to shame v.
By the way is everybody aware that not one of the spokeswomen for ECP are actually prostitutes? Talk about being misleading.
Hey Stephen,
Thanks for the comment – I might put the post up here. There seems to be a lot of confusion about the extent to which the two groups were consulted and indeed
what that means – in the article I reference, the groups said that they hadn’t been approached by the Home Office, but they did mention the meeting with
Coaker. I think it was the lack of HO contact and the fact that they weren’t referenced as stakeholders that were the issues. That is serious if the outcome of that
is a weighting towards one side of the argument rather than the other.
I still think the argument should be around New Labour’s approach to women and women’s legislation generally. It had a rather conservative tone last year.
“Paying the Price” was the biggie. Feel free to link to this other review you are talking about, Elrond.
Maybe Jacqui Smith is better informed than most and doesn’t want to deal with a union claiming to represent prostituted women when it is is actually a
mouthpiece for owners, or a collective that doesn’t actually contain any of the people its name would suggest it contains.
71. racaille 5:14 pm, January 11, 2009
Excellent article Cath.
The central issue for me is that the IUSW and its spokespeople are straightforwardly conning people by claiming to be the representative union of sex workers.
Most people take union to mean an organization of workers set up to promote their interests and negotiate pay and conditions with their employers.
The IUSW doesn’t fit this bill for a number of reasons.
Its spokespeople accept that many of its members are in fact self-employed contractors. It seems to admit to membership employers, employees, contractors and
even customers and friends of members. It has no locus whatsoever in the setting of charges to customers or the pay and conditions of its members. I personally
doubt that any collective agreement exists that the union has ever put its name to.
The use of the term union is simply being used to add a spurious veneer of credibility and representativeness to its campaign against proposed legislation.
I think that the interests of those running escort agencies may be twofold: firstly they are concerned at the possibility of being defined as amongst those
controlling prostitutes for gain; second they are concerned at the prospect of the market from which they make their livelihood – male punters – shrinking rather
than growing.
I take with a pinch of salt the notion that a change in the law will bring about fair employment practice and full unionization, as claimed up thread. It certainly
hasn’t happened with lap-dancing clubs.

delphyne:
If they mean that the government didn’t accept their proposals (why would they – the represent the interests of the industry, not the workers?) when it framed its
new legislation on prostitution that would be correct.
The workers are fine, as long as they endorse your position, it seems. Secondly, taking the side of ‘the workers’ in a dispute would probably count as a rare thing
for New Labour, given its track record. Thirdly, given this is about sex, the ‘default’ position is one against any further liberalisation, whether the workers
wanted it or not.
This is the one. Tackling the demand for prostitution
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/tackling-demand?view=Binary

I put my post up here, Cath. I think your article is important, and I think an argument about playing into the hands of this government which has behaved so
badly towards women is equally important. Be interested to know what you think. Cheers, Kate.
By the way is everybody aware that not one of the spokeswomen for ECP are actually prostitutes? Talk about being misleading.
Well, a link or two would help convince people… (or is this another example of delegitimising the ‘opposition’ that I referred to in my first post on this thread?)
Someone prove to me that there are any prostituted people (who aren’t also owners like Douglas) in either the ECP or the IUSW.
How many people in prostitution do they actually represent? Just because these organisations claim to be representing people in prostitution doesn’t mean that
they actually do.
There are 80,000 people estimated to work in prostitution in the UK. The IUSW membership can be counted in dozens and we know for a fact that a number of
those are not prostitutes – Dr Ana Lopes (phd anthropologist) their president was a phone sex operator, I’m pretty sure that Chris Student their branch secretary
does not work in the industry.
Why does anybody think that these groups should have input when they seem to have only the tenuous links to prostitution, unless it is in the capacity as owners
or customers.
77. Sunny Hundal 5:26 pm, January 11, 2009

I wonder if Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon’s points above hold much water. If they do, then they certainly do paint womens groups in a bad light in this particular
matter. Hmmm….
78. Nine 5:33 pm, January 11, 2009
#76: Someone prove to me that there are any prostituted people (who aren’t also owners like Douglas) in either the ECP or the IUSW.
Well, I have at least two friends who are members of the IUSW and work as prostitutes, though I doubt very much they would identify as “prostituted people”.
But how is this supposed to be proved to you? I’m not going to name names because I respect their privacy.
People who want to admire people who assist women who are in prostitution need look no further than the Poppy Project:
http://www.eaves4women.co.uk/POPPY_Project/POPPY_Project.php
run by Eaves Womens Aid, a feminist group.
These are the people who are working at the sharp end of prostitution and have to help deal with some of the worst abuses women in that industry face.
I’m not asking for names Nine, I’m asking for numbers. Membership of the IUSW is tiny and as I said we know that a good number of their members do not
work in prostitution, yet we are supposed to believe that they are the voice of all of the UK’s prostituted people.
delphyne
The IUSW and ECP membership may not be large, I have no idea what their size is. They though do represent sex workers, and for that I will support them.
What other organisations out there represent sex workers.
There are many outreach organisation like Scotpep in Edinburgh who work at the sharp end, and they don’t come to the same conclusions as the poppy project.
Again I admire those people who work for outreach organisations, especially in the current political environment.
Can you tell me what your involvement is with sex workers?
Kate, others –
The whole approach is questionable. Prohibitionism is the world’s second oldest profession, and it hasn’t worked anywhere.
The Scandinavioan mess is being peddled as the latest fashion in abolitionism, the ‘in-thing’, by the dirty mac brigade of Mactaggart and MacShane, with a kind
of ‘all girls together’ approach selling the line that “look, we’ve been getting at the girls all the time when, blimey, if it isn’t really the lads’ fault all along.”
The truth of the matter is that the 70+% of UK prostitutes who work off-street seldonm if ever find themselves in court, and those that work on street get little
more than a slap over the wrist compared with indirect sex workers, who provide much of the security for sex workers and can find themselves imprisoned for
many years as a result with their assets conficated and their mugshots alll over the media.
What’s ignored in all this is that the Swedes know FA about prostitution. They had FA prostitutes BEFORE the 1999 law per head of population. Ttheir official
estimate was only about 2,500 in the whole of Sweden, and 79% of Swedish punters use sex tourism.
For anyone wanting an absolutely excellent paper on how the Swedish law came about, try reading through Dan Kulick’s “400,000 Swedish Perverts” here:
http://tiny.cc/sZSFf
Prohinbitionism feeds upon itself. As it drives the sex industry further and further underground, more and more women get injured, sold, trafficked, killed. This,
cry the prohibitionists, is clearly an excellent case for yet MORE prohibitionism. What’s our latest flavour of the month? Oh yes, let’s criminalise the punters,
these terrible man things.
To call UK sex laws an ass is an insult to global bottoms. Thank God the real idiots are in the Home Office and not on the streets where they could do so much
damage.
‘To call UK sex laws an ass is an insult to global bottoms. Thank God the real idiots are in the Home Office and not on the streets where they could do so much
damage.’
Amen to that.

Whether or not the IUSW is “the” voice of sex workers, I’d be interested to know why people think the MP for Redditch (previous job: economics lecturer), or a
procession of middle-class writers and journalists, are in a better position to speak for them?
Prohibitionism feeds upon itself. As it drives the sex industry further and further underground, more and more women get injured, sold, trafficked, killed. This,
cry the prohibitionists, is clearly an excellent case for yet MORE prohibitionism. What’s our latest flavour of the month? Oh yes, let’s criminalise the punters,
these terrible man things.
Aye. Helping services cannot reach people whom they cannot find, which means that under prohibitionism it’s very hard indeed to get services to street sex
workers.
delphyne:
Someone prove to me that there are any prostituted people (who aren’t also owners like Douglas) in either the ECP or the IUSW.
Sorry, but you made the initial accusation in a previous post, so I think the onus is on you to substantiate it.
Incidentally, it’s not a question of Eaves Women’s Aid’s feminist credentials, it’s a question of whether they have the right or best answers (other feminist
groups may disagree). As for the Poppy Project: a significant number of specialist academics argued that the research they published was ‘seriously flawed’.
PS: That claim about ‘80,000 sex workers’ – as I posted before (you may have missed it) – they’re not sure about this figure:
The consensus is about 80,000. That figure – recently used by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in an interview about the proposed new law – comes from research
done 10 years ago by Hilary Kinnell, when she was working for an organisation providing health services to sex workers.
Ms Kinnell contacted 29 projects that provided services for sex workers to ask how many prostitutes they were working with. She had 17 responses. The average
number of prostitutes per project was 665. She then multiplied that figure by 120, the total number of projects on her mailing list, to get an estimation of the
total number of prostitutes.
“That brought the total up to very close on 80,000, which is still being quoted,” Ms Kinnell says. “And I find that quite bizarre really. The figure was picked up
by all kinds of people and quoted with great confidence but I was never myself at all confident about it. I felt it could be higher, but it also could have been
lower.”
Ms Kinnell is the first to point out the possible problems with her method: the centres responding might be larger than most; some sex workers might use more
than one centre, and some might not be on the radar at all.
87. RenegadeEvolution 6:38 pm, January 11, 2009
Douglas Fox is not the only sex worker “voice” on that F-Word thread, nor the only person highly critical of the proposed UK law. It’s nice when you can focus
on him solely, but just as he is not the “voice of sex work” neither are you. Legislation about sex work should absolutely included sex worker input…from a
wide variety of people who are in it or who have been in it. You Cath, are no more the voice of sex workers than Douglas is, or any one of us is. My question
remains, how many actual sex workers, of ALL kinds, were included in the drafting of this proposed law?
88. PClarke 6:46 pm, January 11, 2009
And you RenegadeEvolution, are no more the voice of sex workers in England and Wales seeing that you are from and live in the USA.

“Helping services cannot reach people whom they cannot find, which means that under prohibitionism it’s very hard indeed to get services to street sex
workers”
Indeed, it is, Alan. Which, of course, is the outcome of anti-kerb crawling drives. What happens there is that the prostitutes get displaced in one of three ways.
They either
a) alter the times they work to more antisocial hours (less people about, work longer, more dangerous) .
b) they leave the areas they’re familiar with + work other areas (more dangerous).
c) they abandon prostitution temporarily while the kerb crawling drive’s on and usually turn to other forms of crime eg shoplifting to make ends meet.
Here’s an interesting account of what happened among one community of street workers when the police ran one in Leeds linked to a John School run by a…
well, if it’s not Julie Bindel. Sex workers LOVE Julie Bindel, they keep little Plastocine models of her in their handbags together with a set of pins).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/aug/17/gender.uk
But of course, the sex workers become INVISIBLE, so the powers that be can say “Look, we’ve solved the problem!” and, in the case of Sweden, brag to
gullible Home Office ministers about how their prostitute numbers have gone down.
Stephen, I’d forgotten about that story: it’s a good example of how some feminist academics kept trying to act as ‘gatekeepers’ on strategies to deal with sex
work and on sex workers’ experiences. Bindel (to be very generous) might mean well, but all she has is a hammer, and all she can see is nails.
PClarke, Ren isn’t claiming to be “the voice of sex workers”, she’s just saying that Labour pols and beltway journos aren’t either.

Renegade Evolution “You Cath, are no more the voice of sex workers than Douglas is, or any one of us is”
I completely agree, which is why I’ve never tried to make that claim.

I was not going to comment further but the comments some are making are simply bizarre.
I am a male gay sex worker which is a group totally ignored in the debate and that alone gives me the right to talk.
Few sex workers speak publicly because of the stigma attached to the work and because they like me would have to justify themselves every time they spoke.
They would have to be totally public about their lives or so it would seem judging by the surgical dissection of myself by some on this and other bloggs. Instead
of discussing how the proposed legislation will hurt sex workers and women in particular this discussion has been about the right of sex workers to even have a
voice.
Many support the union but are afraid to join because they fear any public recognition that they work in the sex industry. This is not about shame but rather
about protecting themselves from the prurient interest of those who dismiss their choices as wrong. This is now changing because membership is growing as
more and more sex workers are braving the wrath and speaking out. This is why the IUSW is being dismissed by those afraid of sex workers standing up for
their rights as workers and demanding the same rights as any other UK worker.
Douglas

Redpesto-
“how some feminist academics kept trying to act as ‘gatekeepers’ on strategies to deal with sex work and on sex workers’ experiences. Bindel (to be very
generous) might mean well, but all she has is a hammer, and all she can see is nails.”
Yes, but I don’t think we can just blame feminists and even less so academics, most of whom seem strongly opposed to the Government’s plans. La Bindel
requires special handling + I’m planning a post on her on my blog.
Fundamentally, there’s a failure to grasp the nettle and make a strategic decision. Part of the problem resulting from prohibitionism is that many areas get
criminalised. This means they become impossible to fine tune. For example, the Government can’t on the one hand have brothels rendered illegal, as they now
are, of course, and simultaneously produce regulations or guidelines on how brothels should be run, everyone would agree that would be farcical. The result is
lots of illegally run brothels which are not as safe as they could be.
Now, you would probably get illegally run brothels in any scenario, because all markets have grey areas. But what you would get in a decriminalised scenario is
a body of legal brothel owners/managers in whose interests it would be to expose illegal operators, who could speak out without fear of prosecution. There is
some evidence for this already in Australia.
In a rare if not unprecedented bout of sanity the Home Office did consult on legalising ‘mini-brothels’ as a result of the Paying the Price legislation, but this
terrified Blair’s No 10 –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/dec/17/comment.politics3
and I can’t see Brown, Cameron and certainly not Harman having the guts.
A brave political decision needs to be made, and frankly I don’t see either main party having the bottle to take it. The current one’s so terrified they can’t even
hold the fort on lap dancing clubs, let alone brothels. Seriously, I get Google news alerts for brothels + the Australians and New Zealanders have just the same
debates about brothels in their community papers as we get about lap dancing clubs. Jacqui Smith’s just done a Pontius Pilate + passed the buck to local
authorities, knowing full well there’s no good reason to ban them.
95. Sudeten 8:07 pm, January 11, 2009

“Douglas Fox on the other hand has no credibility whatsoever in this discussion and I have no intention of doing anything other than dismissing his views out of
hand.”
He doesn’t have any credibility,
‘”Where on our website does it say anything about having sex?” asked Douglas, one half of Newcastle’s premier executive escort agency, Christony
Companions.’
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_/ai_n16657627
So much for being a sex worker.
When I lived in east Berlin and the Stasi would arrive at a bar or club and ask for the homosexuals to be pointed out, I would reply ‘we are all homosexuals”.
So, to claim to sell X in one place and to deny it in another
Credibility that does not make
Sudeten

“But what you would get in a decriminalised scenario is a body of legal brothel owners/managers in whose interests it would be to expose illegal operators, who
could speak out without fear of prosecution. There is some evidence for this already in Australia.”
There is a more evidence of sex trafficking, and brothels employing schoolgirls and directly recruiting them. Brothel keepers often seek out girls high schools to
target.
“Douglas Fox on the other hand has no credibility whatsoever in this discussion and I have no intention of doing anything other than dismissing his views out of
hand.”
It is the reverse of that Douglas Fox style of fypocrisy, if it is ‘a job’ then it makes sense to indoctrinate the young and that is what happens in Australia, schools
are targeted by commercial brothels.
“It is acknowledged that the billboard advertisement is located in a route for school children before and after school. To claim that this educational role played
by advertising and in this instance will assist in helping to debunk misconceptions that are frequently heldby some members of our community with regard to
lawful prostitution. The billboard advertisement in fact plays an importaeducational role.’
http://www.kf2bk.com/res/complaints/15050710058.pdf
They do it quite deliberately.
Sudeten
97. seven 8:28 pm, January 11, 2009

D. Fox:
I am a male gay sex worker which is a group totally ignored in the debate and that alone gives me the right to talk.
Sure, you can talk for male gay sex workers – but they aren’t the majority of sex workers are they? The majority are female sex workers for male clients. Even
gay male sex workers such as yourself have male clients.
However, the issue at hand is the legitimacy of the IUSW. It should be representative of the group for which it speaks (female prostitutes in this case), yet there
mainly seems to be a lot of males in this group, certainly being the most vocal. Many of whom seem to be management. How is that representative?
Instead of discussing how the proposed legislation will hurt sex workers and women in particular this discussion has been about the right of sex
workers to even have a voice.
Certainly an honest representation of UK prostitutes should be heard in this matter. But it’s not the IUSW. And it certainly isn’t gay male sex workers whose
partners run a business off the workers.
In a word, the problem is you Douglas. Don’t you think that women are getting just a little bit tired of having men speak for them all the time? We have had
eons of het men speaking for us, now it seems, that gay men feel just as entitled.
The IUSW should reveal the make-up of their numbers: male/female, street workers, brothel workers, phone sex workers, management-types who employ
others, and of course the so-called friends of sex workers (punters by all accounts I am sure). I would be very surprised if this data was anywhere near
representative of the average female prostitute, for whom they claim to speak.

Sudeten –
I fail to see the relevance of a failed compaint against an Australian billboard to the thread, frankly. The point I made about non-prohibisionist systems is that
they create a category of people in whose interest it is to expose illegal elements. Are you disputing this?
But seeing as how you’ve raised it, where exactly is the evidence that the Australian brothel concerned was seeking to attract the attention of schoolvhildren in
particulkar as distinct from adult clients due to the location of the billboard on a major thoroughfare which may well, like many major thoroughfares, be on a
school run? I see the judgement says:
“The Advertising Standards Board (“Board”) considered whether this advertisement breaches section 2 of the Advertiser Code of Ethics (the “Code”).
In particular, the Board considered whether the advertisement treated sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to the relevant audience. The Board noted that
the advertisement was an outdoor
advertisement and that therefore the audience viewing it would be broad. However the Board
considered that the advertiser treated sex and sexuality very subtly, that there was no nudity or
imagery which breached section 2.3 of the Code and that therefore this section was not in fact
breached.
Further finding that the advertisement did not breach the Code on any other grounds, the Board
dismissed the complaint.”
However, the issue at hand is the legitimacy of the IUSW.
Actually no it isn’t. The issue at hand is whether a right-wing programme of prohibitionism for the benefit of nimbies, which would drive vulnerable people off
the radar of those who would try to help them, should be supported by any kind of political progressives. The “IUSW isn’t a universal union for sex workers”
point is a red herring, as has been shown by the deluge of replies pointing out that the prohibitionists don’t exactly form a body of people who represent sex
workers themselves.

Pickwood Lodge brothel accused of prostituting girl, 14 | The …
10 Sep 2008 … allowing a 14-year-old schoolgirl to work there as a prostitute. … Police allege the girl worked at Pickwood Lodge, in Lygon Street, …
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24325484-952,00.html – Similar pages
That ‘we do them young’ brothel is still open, they were using real schoolgirls.
“Nice and young with blonde hair and blue eye’s, enough to make your grandfather roll over in his grave. Very tasty!.”
Schoolgirl theming may as it happens be actual 14 year old schoolgirls in Australia. So Australia and New Zealand are very bad examples of govt. managed
prostitution.
That escort agency in Newcastle was also accused by CH4 of schoolgirl theming, didn’t they supply British teachers with young girls dressed up as schoolgirls?
The following letter to has two brothels, one targeting schools with billboards and the other brothel actually using schoolgirls. You may have to read it as html
rather than pdf.
Sudeten
Dr Ian Holland
Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committee on Environment,
Communications and the Arts
Department of the Senate
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
[PDF] Submission – Inquiry into the effectiveness of the broadcasting …

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
For example, under the Advertising Federation of Australia (AFA) Accreditation ….. The billboard advertisement is not blatantly sexual and crass. …
http://www.aph.gov.au/SENATE/committee/eca_ctte/broadcasting_codes/responses/ ASB_response.pdf – Similar pages

Stephen P:
…but I don’t think we can just blame feminists and even less so academics, most of whom seem strongly opposed to the Government’s plans.
Unfortunately, however, it appears that the only academics (let alone feminists) who seem to gain the ‘ear’ or access are the ones in favour of the status quo (or
worse). That said, I’m fully aware that this government isn’t averse to ignoring inconvenient evidence-based policy (see drugs classifcation). The ‘mini-
brothels’ idea was not much more than allowing two women to work together (some quasi-feminist solidarity in combatting evil male pimps?), and I wasn’t
remotely surprised when it got ditched.

“I fail to see the relevance of a failed compaint against an Australian billboard to the thread, frankly. The point I made about non-prohibisionist systems is that
they create a category of people in whose interest it is to expose illegal elements. Are you disputing this?”
The fact that it failed is a very good point.
Submission – Inquiry into the effectiveness of the broadcasting & etc.
So complaining about billboards doesn’t do much good, even if a brothel ( as in the case of Pickford Lodge) is using real children and the other The Grosvenor,
is targeting schools with its non-prohibitionist message.
PICKWOOD LODGE – WHERE FANTASY BECOMES REALITY
That was definitely truth in advertising and so that is the particular model of prostitution management in Australia.
“It wasn’t that he didn’t know perfectly well what was going on (otherwise why squirm so uncomfortably about the headmaster who rang up requesting the
youngest escort on the books to dress up as a schoolgirl?),” – Newcastle’s premier executive escort agency, Christony Companions
Is that the same Douglas Fox?

Sudeten
“But seeing as how you’ve raised it, where exactly is the evidence that the Australian brothel concerned was seeking to attract the attention of schoolvhildren in
particulkar as distinct from adult clients due to the location of the billboard on a major thoroughfare which may well, like many major thoroughfares, be on a
school run? I see the judgement says:”
Out of two brothels (in the review document) one stated it was delighted their billboard was in the eyes of schoolchildren, that being the intention and a good
thing, and the other was using real children to sell to its customers for sex.
“otherwise why squirm so uncomfortably about the headmaster who rang up requesting the youngest escort on the books to dress up as a schoolgirl”
The escort agency in Newcastle also seems to have been reported by CH4 as catering for ersatz pedophile adult services, and sold them to British teachers.
Sudeten
The real question immediately behind the thread is ‘What is a sex worker’?
The term, as I understand it, was never intended to be a euphemism for prostitute, though it seems to have sadly evolved into one, but to cover all workers in the
sex industry.
Prohibitionists tend to lump all indirect workers in the sex industry under the heading pimps. They generally present as having the dominant philosophy that
prostitute equals hapless victim requiring ‘rescuing’ and pimp equals ruthless exploiter from whom prostitutes must be ‘rescued’, hopefully with the pimps duly
locked up.
Any alliance between prostitutes (ie direct sex workers) and pimps (ie indirect sex workers) is therefore anathema to prohibitionists, such as an International
Union of (direct and indirect) Sex Workers, as this threatens prohibitionists’ essentially divide-and-rule philosophy, the restoration of which seems to have been
the principle purpose of this post and the very raison d’etre of Cath Elliot.
Is it being suggested here that people who run agencies, or who create websites, or who provide security, or who furnish other services which direct sex workers
require, from gas, electricity, water and a roof over their heads, to food and clothes, or, indeed, who argue their cases in forums in general, sometimes in the
courts or Parliament or on sites like this, do not work?
And it seems to me that any union, employers’ organisation, or indeed any other body, up to and including national government, generally gets on better if it
forms alliances with like-minded bodies, and given the contributions of Jacqui Smith, Cath et al, what more natural than for the direct and indirect sex workers
than to form alliances with their customers, who are, after all, the ones in the immediate firing line if Smith‘s excretions are perpetrated?

“I am a male gay sex worker which is a group totally ignored in the debate and that alone gives me the right to talk.”
What are you going to tell us Douglas?
“It wasn’t that he didn’t know perfectly well what was going on (otherwise why squirm so uncomfortably about the headmaster who rang up requesting the
youngest escort on the books to dress up as a schoolgirl?),” – Newcastle’s premier executive escort agency, Christony Companions
Is that you?
Sudeten
106. Almanac 9:19 pm, January 11, 2009
What’s the big deal about Douglas Fox?
Why don’t we focus on Julie Bindel, who wrote an essay called “Why I Hate Men”, yet is making policy for all Britons? Someone who admits she hates men.
Why don’t we all focus on her?

Perhaps Julie Bindel can go up in front of Parliament and read her “Why I Hate Men” essay in front of every lawmaker there.
Then maybe they’ll get an idea of what a crackpot she is and everyone else promoting this crackpot Swedish model.
“Prohibitionists tend to lump all indirect workers in the sex industry under the heading pimps.”
A prostituted person, that is an opinion worth having, people living off the back of that, why should anybody care what they have to say?
“Any alliance between prostitutes (ie direct sex workers) and pimps (ie indirect sex workers) is therefore anathema to prohibitionists, such as an International
Union of (direct and indirect) Sex Workers, as this threatens prohibitionists’ essentially divide-and-rule philosophy, the restoration of which seems to have been
the principle purpose of this post and the very raison d’etre of Cath Elliot.”
Did you leave out drug dealers? They make things happen, give credit where it is due.
Sudeten
“Why don’t we all focus on her?”
Julie Bindel doesn’t peddle sexually transgressive to schoolteachers. In other words List 99 and the Sex Offenders Register isn’t a marketing opportunity for her.
Pimps on the other hand are in a different line of business.
Sudeten
110. PClarke 9:37 pm, January 11, 2009
OH NO! CiF – everywhere!
“what more natural than for the direct and indirect sex workers than to form alliances with their customers, who are, after all, the ones in the immediate firing
line if Smith‘s excretions are perpetrated??
They often deserve to be in the firing line.
“I really like the plain grey skirt,white blose, small chest in a training bra, black tights and M&S white knickers look. Anyone any suggestions?”
http://www.punternet.com/forum/showthread.php?p=15964
Some of the customers are really nice.
Sudeten

Sounds like a nasty person, of whose personal morals I would disapprove. Should obviously be in jail then.

The behavioral profile worked for me. An ersatz pedophile is a real pedophile, they the same element.
Aw, Gee . . . .
Maybe Julie Bindel should go to the punter site and read her “Why I Hate Men” essay, too.
You see, Parliament shouldn’t be the only one to experience such torture.

“Schoolgirl theming may as it happens be actual 14 year old schoolgirls in Australia. So Australia and New Zealand are very bad examples of govt. managed
prostitution.”
Um, could you clarify for me how you’ve managed to bundle New Zealand governance of prostitution in with Australia’s because of a singular example of a
brothel in Australia breaking a law?
Maybe Cath Elliot and Julie Bindel should get together and write a cookbook called “Men a la Mode”.
And then they can sit down and have a nice dinner of expounding on the intricacies of hating men.
Or indeed how you’ve bundled the sex trade in general in with paedophilia?
This sounds to me like just the sort of puritan hysteria that I’ve been referring to.

An ersatz pedophile is a real pedophile, they the same element.
Even if both parities are well over the age of consent when dressing up? No-one’s told Britney Spears fans, then. (It might be creepy, but it’s not illegal)
<My last comment #119 addressed to Sudeten, following on from Lee’s point.
An ersatz pedophile is a real pedophile, they the same element.
Even if both parities are well over the age of consent when dressing up? No-one’s told Britney Spears fans, then. (It might be creepy, but it’s not
illegal)
And, removing the term paedophile here as it is irrelevant, someone that takes pleasure from the appearance of adults as younger females doesn’t necessarily get
sexually aroused by younger females. Some probably do, but that doesn’t either make them child abusers…and I’d actually say that making it tougher for them
to “get themselves off” with consenting adults acting out their quirks and fantasies is actually more dangerous for those you’re ultimately trying to protect.
So laughable to hear anybody complaining about “man-hating” (the age old cry of woman-haters any time men’s right to abuse us is challenged) on a thread
about prostitution, one of patriarchy’s greatest inventions for the destruction of women.

“So laughable to hear anybody complaining about “man-hating” (the age old cry of woman-haters any time men’s right to abuse us is challenged) on a thread
about prostitution, one of patriarchy’s greatest inventions for the destruction of women.”
You’re not exactly helping keep the thread high-brow either, are you?

It’s so laughable to take anyone like Julie Bindel seriously, when she writes an essay called “Why I Hate Men”.

Look, Sudeten,
Unlike many, I am not here to either defend or attack the sex industry, or its customers. History teaches us that a sex industry is a given. You do not get to
choose whether you have one or not.
For centuries various people have been in a state of denial about this, but it remains a fact. It is a part of that very imperfect thing entitled human nature and the
human condition.
What you get to do, to a limited extent, is to determine your society’s response to the existence of a sex industry. I would suggest that the total number of people
who are happy with the UK status quo on this thread, and its predecessor at WordPress, is none, and that the differences, albeit huge, are over what changes
should be made, not whether changes should be made.
Your UK history has been packed with well-intentioned legislation with unintended consequences. Women die as a result of these consequences. When the UK
banned brothels to protect women in 1885, your prostitutes filled the streets and Jack the Ripper struck three years later.
Jacqui Smith’s legislation is a Traffickers’ Charter. They could have written it themselves. Having alienated just about everyone else they can think of in the
industry, your Government is now trying to alienate the punters, the one group of people the traffickers can’t quite rely on not to report imprisoned trafficked
persons to the authorities, as they did recently in two cases here:
Your Jacqui “Once Around the Block is Once Too Many” Smith also plans a crackdown on so-called kerb crawlers, driving your already far too vulnerable
street workers down dark back alleys for the next Steve Wright to come along.
She also plans to close brothels for up to three months lest any sex workers manage to escape the his clutches and try to get indoors.
She’s also dusted off her old plan to incarcerate any surviving street workers for up to three days if they fail to attend her silly Janet Schools, though fortunately
your prisons are so crammed to overflowing she’s unlikely to be able to implement it.
She should be locked up.
So laughable to hear anybody complaining about “man-hating” (the age old cry of woman-haters any time men’s right to abuse us is challenged) on a thread
about prostitution, one of patriarchy’s greatest inventions for the destruction of women.
Trite and cliched, and avoiding the point.
I believe Almanac was referring to an article entitled “why I hate men”. Hard therefore not to mention man-hating, presumably.
126. seven 10:53 pm, January 11, 2009

So the boys are losing ground … quick! Pull out the Bindel-bashing!
Not content with hurling around “man-hating (shrews)” about, they focus in on one woman – just as a reminder to any other uppity woman who dares speak her
mind. You lot are pathetic. Don’t look now, but your misogyny is showing.
Stephen P:
driving your already far too vulnerable street workers down dark back alleys for the next Steve Wright to come along.
What a totally stupid stance to take. Wright was able to murder those young women because they trusted him as a known punter. They weren’t hiding in any
dark alleys, he simply betrayed their trust to do the worst. The thing about Wright, indeed most violent men, is that they are Everyman. One cannot pick them
out of a line-up, hence streetwalking will always be dangerous, no matter how dark/bright the alley. Women should not be forced into street walking as a means
of survival due to circumstance. Nor is it choice, does a woman weigh up the possibility of street work vs the relatively safer brothel option? No. A woman
works the streets because she has no other options for survival. That makes the punters who procure the services of street walkers, predators. Pure and simple.
If the circumstances that forced women into prostitution were taken away, and there were a small number of women who continued to *choose* the
*profession*, if the pay was the same as working in Tescos, do you think they would still choose it? They do it for the money punters, they do it for the money.
They are not fascinated by your company, they are counting down the minutes until they get paid and can get out.

>>So the boys are losing ground … quick! Pull out the Bindel-bashing!
Not content with hurling around “man-hating (shrews)” about, they focus in on one woman – just as a reminder to any other uppity woman who dares speak her
mind. You lot are pathetic. Don’t look now, but your misogyny is showing.>>
I am a women, seven, and Bindel deserves to be bashed.
>>Nor is it choice, does a woman weigh up the possibility of street work vs the relatively safer brothel option? No.>>
If brothel work is safer, seven, then why are you trying to shut them down?

“Nor is it choice, does a woman weigh up the possibility of street work vs the relatively safer brothel option? No. A woman works the streets because she has no
other options for survival.”
And this Bill will make such a situation better, in your eyes?
>>If the circumstances that forced women into prostitution were taken away, and there were a small number of women who continued to *choose* the
*profession*, if the pay was the same as working in Tescos, do you think they would still choose it?>>
That’s some very sharp thinking, seven. What are you planning on doing about that?
And by the way, did you know that Julie Bindel wrote an essay called “Why I Hate Men”?
Stephen P
Your Jacqui “Once Around the Block is Once Too Many” Smith also plans a crackdown on so-called kerb crawlers, driving your already far too
vulnerable street workers down dark back alleys for the next Steve Wright to come along.”
Just to reiterate what Seven said, because I’m really sick of the way the Wright case is constantly misrepresented by those arguing for decriminalisation. Wright
did not wait down some dark alley to attack and murder his young, vulnerable victims. He groomed them, he gained their trust, he was known to them and
trusted by them: decriminalisation would not have prevented their murders, and neither would legalisation.
“He groomed them, he gained their trust, he was known to them and trusted by them: decriminalisation would not have prevented their murders, and neither
would legalisation.”
Without regulation that leads to storage of records of who uses prostitutes services (which can’t be done without legalisation) they wouldn’t be saved either, nor
would they have been saved by the status quo, nor by further criminalisation. Sometimes bad people do extremely bad things, and short of an all seeing, all legal
situation they will always be able to.
Quoting Steve Wright’s case or not, it means shit to *either* side of the argument.
Lee
“Quoting Steve Wright’s case or not, it means shit to *either* side of the argument.”
I agree.

>>That makes the punters who procure the services of street walkers, predators. Pure and simple.>>
No, seven, that makes them poor. Punters who solicit street workers don’t have the money that other types of clients have. Just like the street workers don’t have
other options.
And the question is, what happens to the street workers after Jacqui Smith’s punishment law becomes in effect. What happens to the brothel workers? Do they
go off into Never-Neverland, somewhere, all peaceful and content?
Please, seven, tell me what happens to *them*.
Tell me something, Cath Elliot, what happens to sex workers after this “End Demand” law?
Do they go off into Never-Neverland, safe and happy?
You don’t give a shit about them, so stop pretending you do. You don’t fucking care about what happens to them afterwards.
136. LBekk 11:23 pm, January 11, 2009

What bit of “some feminists opposition to prostitution” do some of you men on here not understand, that has absolutely nothing to do with “Victorian,
puritanical values”
Feminism and in particular radical feminism has a high percentage of EX sex workers/ prostituted women in their ranks. No, we do not necessarily reflect your
ridiculous and stupid stereotypes of white, middle-class, pearl clutching, frigid harridans working in the echelons of government working to oppose prostitution.
This is why a lot of us have mobilized against the sex trade.
Seriously just go figure.
137. seven 11:23 pm, January 11, 2009

If brothel work is safer, seven, then why are you trying to shut them down?
I want rid of ALL prostitution unless it is TRULY freely chosen. Truly freely chosen includes dismantling the financial incentives and disincentives that push
women into prostitution. 90% of prostitutes want out, so good on you 10%, but I am more concerned about the 90%, roughly the 72,000 estimate.
I am a women, seven, and Bindel deserves to be bashed.
Misogyny is not the exclusive domain of males. I would like to think that it is primarily Stockholm Syndrome, but I fear it is more just to gain cookies with the
boys. BTW, Ms Bindel is a caring and lovely person. Hopefully you don’t call yourself a feminist whilst siding with the boys and bashing activist feminists?
That makes you an Associate MRA, regardless of your genitals.

Seven does not care what happens to sex workers in the streets or in brothels. She and her colleagues care only about proving points not in saving lives or
recognising rights. This new proposed law is designed to send an ideological message that is all.
There is no interest in right and wrong and that is the problem.
Douglas

PClarke: I never claimed to be.

“90% of prostitutes want out, so good on you 10%, but I am more concerned about the 90%, roughly the 72,000 estimate.”
Source?
seven
Yes, Wright did know his victims. Sutcliffe didn’t, as I’ve said before on this thread, he was an abolitionist And yes, street workers are obviously vulnerable, but
to everyone, not just punters. Most (60%) of violence to prostitutes does not come from punters. Much comes from prohibitionists. Sutcliffe wan’t a punter, and
his deranged brain saw every women in a red lught district as a prostitute, hence some of his victims weren’t prostitutes.
What most street saex workers need first and formost is help kicking their drug habits, but toi do that you need to find them and one sure way of not finding
them is with a kerb crawling scheme, which merely displaces stret sex workers and their clients.
The concensus within the industry, insofdar as I can make out, is that the street sex scene will always exist, partly because it’s cheaper and partly because it’s
more convenient.
And women aren’t always on the streets because they’ve no choice. It depends on the streets, but some women choose some streets over brothels because it
gives them a better say over who their clients will be.
Of course most prostitutes do what they do for the money, honey. Most people do most jobs for the money, honey.
The street scene’s always going to be there, the question is what’s the best way to approach it to minimise dangers. I suggest it isn’t with kerb-crawling drives,
but lies with addressing the needs of street workers by effectively addressing, in most cases, their drug dependency.first and formost. To try to combat kerb
crawling is like trying to deal with the wasps around the strawberry jam in the garden on a hot day by extreminating the entire wasp population rather than
covering the jam.
142. LBekk 11:27 pm, January 11, 2009

OMG it’s just CiF set loose.

If some of those who support prohibition are ex sex workers then who are you. If you are proud of your moral/political stance then why do you not reveal who
you really are.
I am open and proud of who I am and what I do. Who is V and Seven and the rest of you?
If I and every sex worker who speaks is to be subject to public scrutiny then it seems only fair that those who question us should be equally open.
Douglas

>>BTW, Ms Bindel is a caring and lovely person.>>
Only if you’re a woman. It obviously doesn’t include men. When I say she wrote an essay called “Why I Hate Men”, I am not making it up. She actually wrote
that essay.
145. seven 11:34 pm, January 11, 2009
>>That makes the punters who procure the services of street walkers, predators. Pure and simple.>>
No, seven, that makes them poor. Punters who solicit street workers don’t have the money that other types of clients have.
Gee, for a female, you certainly have the male interests at heart. Must have *pussy on a plate* for any man, regardless of wealth. Women’s bodies aren’t a
charity service you know. How about human status, full body integrity? Do you offer up your body for the highest/lowest bidder? If not, why not?

“Gee, for a female, you certainly have the male interests at heart. Must have *pussy on a plate* for any man, regardless of wealth.”
That’s not what was said. Can the level of over-hype and hysteria (on both sides of the gender fence) be brought down a notch here. This is bordering on an
intelligent conversation if not for all of the picket lines.
You seem to have ignored though the point made, that if women are on the streets or not, those men that seem to feel they have a right to it will not just
disappear out of existence with them. That doesn’t mean women must be on the street to stop them from further depravity either…but there is a consequence
that needs to be considered.

So disagreeing with Julie Bindel makes you a misogynist, and sex workers are essentially commodities who “offer up their bodies” to the highest bidder, eh?
What apolitical, ranting nonsense.
PS Lee that clearly wasn’t addressed to you!
Douglas Did you miss this question earlier?
On my site and in other places you’ve mentioned that you’ve been a sex worker for 10 years. So why was there no mention of this in the TV
documentary you took part in? How come in 2006 you made no claim to be a sex worker? How come it’s only since you discovered that you could
join the IUSW you’ve actually started to make the claim?
Seriously, a camera crew followed you around for 3 months, and no one noticed you were a sex worker? How?
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/tv–radio/the-escort-agency/2007/08/02/1185648057305.html

>>Gee, for a female, you certainly have the male interests at heart.>>
No, seven, I have the female interests at heart. When the brothels shut down, what happens to the sex workers who work there? When the kerb-crawling is
banished, what happens to the street workers?
I would love to hear your theories on that , seven.

Cath Elliot you could also ask why the documentary chose not to include the hours of discussion we had over sex workers rights and why interviews with
politicians and with Ruth Morgan Thomas from Scots Pep was not included. You could also ask why the producer who sat down and ate at my wedding and
followed me around for months did not even buy me a wedding present.:(
If you believe me to be a sex worker really is irrelevant is it not to this debate. I am very open about who I am and what I do. If my personal work has not been
mentioned is that my fault? Probably is in your eyes but there we are I am imperfect:)

Yes, Cath Elliot. Let’s keep talking about Douglas. Let’s keep changing the subject.
When the brothels shut down, what happens to the sex workers who work there? When the kerb-crawling is banished, what happens to the street workers?
Can you answer those two questions, Cath Elliot?
153. seven 11:52 pm, January 11, 2009

@ Stephen P:
Most (60%) of violence to prostitutes does not come from punters. Much comes from prohibitionists.
Yeah right. Marauding bands of radical feminists beating up and raping prostitutes. Such a likely scenario. It’s the punters silly. 100%.
but some women choose some streets over brothels because it gives them a better say over who their clients will be.
For the interested observer you certainly have a lot of supposed insight. Nope.
Most people do most jobs for the money, honey.
Condescension aside, yes, that was my point. Many women do it because they have no other options available to them. However, most jobs don’t have such a
high risk of death, violence, rape. It’s not *just a job* as is made out. That is the problem with it. Generally only subsistence paid, high risk. Just merely being
female brings with it a fairly high risk of (male) violence, rape, death. Prostitution more so.
the 90% statistic comes from research done by US Academic Melissa Farely, who came to her number after interviewing 200 street based prostitutes in San
Francisco and a few brothel workers in Turkey. Her methodology and findings have been called into question by other academics and her recent work focusing
on the brothels of Nevada is under attack for having used stolen research and only select testiments.
This 90% stat is also applied freely to sex workers across the whole spectrum, rather than the 200 or so street based prostitutes Farley interviewed.
155. v 11:55 pm, January 11, 2009
“Yes, Cath Elliot. Let’s keep talking about Douglas. Let’s keep changing the subject.”
just to say – that is the subject. you know, the original post up there? thats what this thread is about.

Alan:
“PS Lee that clearly wasn’t addressed to you! :-)”
I guessed
Stephen:
“Most (60%) of violence to prostitutes does not come from punters. Much comes from prohibitionists.”
In the interest of fairness, I’d also like to know where you’ve got this statistic from?
RenegadeEvolution: That was my understanding of that figure, I was wondering if she has another source for it.
seven:
“It’s not *just a job* as is made out.”
No, it’s not, because you and people like you try to keep the “job” under criminal terms and thus subject women that either want or are forced to partake to act
under criminal conditions. There is no reality where blanket criminalisation of prostitution can make those finding themselves in the job safe.
157. Stephen P 12:00 am, January 12, 2009

Strands of this thread are about choice versus lack of choice. Some is about choice or lack of choice of street workers. Indeed, some street workers were found
in Bristol in a study needing hundreds and hundreds each week merely to pay for their heroin or crack. These women, surely, have little choice. For them,
eliminating street prostitution would mean having no choice but to go through the consequences of not having their fix. I’ve never experienced that, but instead,
they choose to street prostitution, so one can only presume that they perceive it to be worse than street prostitution.
These people find themselves sex workers. From what I can make out, these people lead truly chaotic lives. Prohibitionists on this thread mock the IUSW for
failing to organise these people – they say, hey, 80,000 prostitutes, how big’s IUSW? I’m sure the IUSW would love to organise street workers. I’m sure the
average street worker dreams of being able to organise herself. Certainly the National Associatiion of Probation Officers thinks the chances of street workers
having the time management skills to attend three rehab sessions required by Jacqui Smith is a sick joke, let alone absorb what’s going on.
The only way to approach the street sexworker issue is by having effective sex worker-centred outreach available promoting safe sex advice and and making
drug treatment including methodone freely available, and properly addressing the drug industry in the area, which in 90+% of cases is the REAL problem, NOT
in running round after punters, of which there will be an endless supply requiring endless criminal justice resources.
158. Almanac 12:00 am, January 12, 2009

The subject is:
What happens to the sex workers after these laws come into effect? What happens when the brothels are shut down? What happens to the street workers after
this?
I really am curious to know your thoughts on that.
159. seven 12:00 am, January 12, 2009

You could also ask why the producer who sat down and ate at my wedding and followed me around for months did not even buy me a wedding
present.:(
Diddums Douglas. The documentary would have highlighted the fact that you were a sex worker, if you had told them. They love the juicy sex stuff. Me thinks
you perhaps didn’t mention it.
160. Lee Griffin 12:02 am, January 12, 2009

For the love of god, can one of you that disagrees with Almanac answer her questions before she explodes? I don’t know how many more times I can see that
question repeated!

Yes, let’s keep focusing on Douglas.
Meanwhile, what happens to the sex workers after these laws come into effect? What happens when the brothels are shut down? What happens to the street
workers after this?
I really am curious to know Cath’s and seven’s and v’s thoughts on that.
Since you care about “prostituted women” so much, you should be falling all over yourselves to answer these questions:
When the brothels shut down after the “End Demand” laws are in effect, what happens to the sex workers who work there? When the kerb-crawling is banished,
what happens to the street workers?
163. seven 12:06 am, January 12, 2009

@Stephen P:
I’m sure the average street worker dreams of being able to organise herself.
From what I have seen, no. They have resigned themselves to a shitty situation and see no way out. Yes, drug rehab programmes are essential, as are exit
programmes.
But none of this smacks* of Happy Hooker.
*Pardon the pun.
BTW, all this cross posting is doing my head in.
>>>From what I have seen, no. They have resigned themselves to a shitty situation and see no way out. Yes, drug rehab programmes are essential, as are exit
programmes.>>>
Man, you are *such* an expert on the situation, seven.
Tell me, when the brothels shut down after the “End Demand” laws are in effect, what happens to the sex workers who work there? When the kerb-crawling is
banished, what happens to the street workers?

Lee Griffin – try the BMJ here
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7306/230
You have to register. It’s a letter by the authors of a London study in which they refer to that statistic of 60% of violence not coming from punters. You have to
register to access that page, but that’s free, I think you have to pay for access to the study.
It makes sense when you think how many sex workers spend their time standing around the streets in areas of high crime in inner cities often late at night. The
40% of violence by punters would likely be very much lower if you deducted the men who assume the guise of punters.
166. seven 12:32 am, January 12, 2009

Almanac, you are such an expert on what punters want.
By indirectly referring to me as ‘man’, you are hereby ignored. You are so far up the patriarchical mindset, you are filed under “don’t bother”. You identify with
men. So be it. That is your lot. But take comfort in the fact you will get all that adoration from the men who want to buy poor women’s bodies. Sleep well.

RenogadeEvolution
“the 90% statistic comes from research done by US Academic Melissa Farely, who came to her number after interviewing 200 street based prostitutes in San
Francisco and a few brothel workers in Turkey. Her methodology and findings have been called into question by other academics and her recent work focusing
on the brothels of Nevada is under attack for having used stolen research and only select testiments.
This 90% stat is also applied freely to sex workers across the whole spectrum, rather than the 200 or so street based prostitutes Farley interviewed.”
This is ALWAYS happening! Somebody does a study of streetworkers someplace, and even when it’s not Farley, even when its a properly researched piece of
academic work from a pro with no axes to grind, it’s immediately seized upon as applying to ALL prostitutes EVERYWHERE.
Communities of prostitutes DIFFER, just like all other communities. A community of street workers inhabiting Mayfair and Park Lane is likely to differ
markedly from a community in St Johns in Bristol or Toxteth in Liverpool. The optimum way to approach one community is not necessarily the optimum
approach in another. Start bringing San Francisco and Turkey into it and God knows where we end up.
I’m convinced giant strides forward could be made if the whole prostitution issue were to be transfered from the Home Office to the Department of Health as
the lead body.

>>>By indirectly referring to me as ‘man’, you are hereby ignored.>>>
Okay, Seven decided not to answer my questions, so maybe Cath or v would care to take a crack at it:
When the brothels shut down after the “End Demand” laws are in effect, what happens to the sex workers who work there? When the kerb-crawling is banished,
what happens to the street workers?

seven –
This prohibitionist vocabulary of punters “buying” sex workers’ bodies even looks silly to some radical feminists, like “prostituted women” and the rest of the
distibctive lingo of the Masonic Lodge of Prohibitionist Feminism.
The most a puinter does is to hire a sex worker’s co-operation for a period. ‘Buying sex workers bodies’ is a deliberate conflation with trafficking.

Well, Steven, at least you aren’t “hereby ignored” like I am.
:-DDDD
Stephen, I ask them some simple questions, and god forbid they answer it. Instead they give me some Stalinistic banishment procedure.
They couldn’t even pretend to care about “prostituted women”.

Seven, do you not realise just how extraordinarily abusive you are being? Hurling accusations of misogyny at men who disagree with you, and effectively
accusing women who disagree with you of being quislings, will really not get you anywhere. Having said that, it really does make you the ideal poster-child for
prohibitionism, at least from the perspective of those of us who disagree with that stance.

Almanac –
“When the brothels shut down after the “End Demand” laws are in effect, what happens to the sex workers who work there? When the kerb-crawling is
banished, what happens to the street workers?”
This reminds me of a TV discussion on the outcome of vegetarianism. When there was suddenly no demand for the farm animals, what happens to them? Are
they just left free to roam the countryside, wander about, graze what they can find, hope to not get obliterated on motorways etc?
It’s actually a very good question. It would be nice to think we’d deal with human beings differently, but I very much doubt it.
The Government doesn’t even have a clue over what’s happened to the 255 trafficking victims it found in the 1,337 premises police visited in the two
Pentameter operations. And all the attention was on the trafficking victims. Heaven help the thousands of women who lost their workplaces in the resulting
brothel closures.
Concensus in London is that they find or form other brothels, I know that’s what Catherine Stephens thinks, but I’m unsure that happens everywhere.
For example, the Norwich bobbies had a clampdown on street prostitution, so the sex workers went indoors, so they then had a clampdown on brothels and the
last I knew, a few weeks ago, they were asking the public for help over a rise in street prostitutes resulting from their brothel clampdown. I’m hoping to get
David Attenborough to do a documentary about it.
The line the prohibitionists usually take on this (to save them looking it up) is that the Government will pour millions into rehab so that former sex workers can
have rich, fulfilling lives, maybe as shelf stackers at Tescos or grading carrots or something. Who knows, maybe some will join the army and do wonderful
things for women in the next country the Government wants to illegally invade, with bombs and things.
174. RenegadeEvolution 1:29 am, January 12, 2009
it’s an excellent question, and one that never seems to get answered.
175. Hercules 1:34 am, January 12, 2009

What happens to prostitutes after brothels are shut down? 4 out of 10 get murdered by johns and the rest get murdered by feminists and other non-john citizens,
and in very painful ways. Or not.
You’re proceeding from a place that implies women who are prostitutes are so talentless, so devoid of any worthwhile skills besides Cum Catcher that if they are
deprived the “right” to let men sexually abuse them for money then they will die.
The women with higher degrees who are frequently touted in the male-dominated media as examples of educated women who choose prostitution are
excellently situated to choose another career. Steve Wright was a forklift truck driver before he was sent to jail for murder, so right there is one job for one
woman freed from sexual servitude in a brothel.
Every day millions of men manage to sufficiently make it through their days, day after day, without prostituting themselves for the money that sustains them.
Solutions about how to otherwise employ former prostitutes, male or female, should sensibly be no different for these impoverished people who are mostly
women than they are for other kinds of impoverished people who are mostly men.

>>>The line the prohibitionists usually take on this (to save them looking it up) is that the Government will pour millions into rehab so that former sex workers
can have rich, fulfilling lives, maybe as shelf stackers at Tescos or grading carrots or something.>>>
Yes, and what guarantee do the prohibitionists have that the government will do this? Have they got it in writing somewhere?
End demand and then, what? Do they just disappear into thin air? It seems to me that if they truly cared about “prostituted” women, they would care about that
aspect as well.
Instead it’s, “you are hereby ignored”. Such a democratic way of arguing, isn’t it?

>>The women with higher degrees who are frequently touted in the male-dominated media as examples of educated women who choose prostitution are
excellently situated to choose another career.>>
I’m not talking about the higher-degreed women, I’m talking sex workers who don’t have the fancy degrees. What’s going to happen to them?
So in essence, Hercules, you didn’t answer the question either.

And as far as former sex workers “just finding other jobs like men do”, well the UK can’t even employ all their people as it is, let alone finding work for former
brothel and street workers.
179. LBekk 1:56 am, January 12, 2009
Renegade Evolution just butt out with your cultural imperialism from the USA.
YOU have nothing to do with our democracy OKAY.
Seriously – get off our turf.
180. Hercules 1:57 am, January 12, 2009

I did answer your question. I said we treat poor women without jobs the same way we treat poor men without jobs. Just because the solution doesn’t lead to a
utopian ideal that fixes everything doesn’t mean it’s not the most equitable, humane way to proceed.
You believe there are large numbers of poor women who are good for nothing but prostitution. I disagree.
>>You believe there are large numbers of poor women who are good for nothing but prostitution. I disagree.>>
And it seems to me that you believe that large numbers of poor women are good for nothing except being on welfare, i.e. they should be treated like poor men
without jobs. Well welfare isn’t enough to live on, if they turn to prostitution.
My whole point is that everybody wants to force these laws down sex workers’ throats, without asking their permission or giving thought to what happens to
them afterwards.

>>>Renegade Evolution just butt out with your cultural imperialism from the USA. YOU have nothing to do with our democracy OKAY. Seriously – get off our
turf.>>>
Renegade Evolution has every right to come here and voice her opinion. She is a sex worker from the US, in which sex work is criminalised for both sex
workers and their clients in most places. I think that’s relevant.

Cultural Imperialism? Someone asks for where a set of stats came from and you give an answer and that is cultural imperialism? Priceless. A Sex Worker
expresses concern with a law? Woooo…evil. Priceless.
Cultural Imperialism…pfft.

Well, Ren, I asked for what happens to brothel and street workers after the law is passed, and I get “you are hereby ignored” as an answer. I’d like to see them
go on the BBC with that little gag they gave to me.
I have to give credit to Hercules for at least answering those questions.
185. Sudeten 2:56 am, January 12, 2009
“Um, could you clarify for me how you’ve managed to bundle New Zealand governance of prostitution in with Australia’s because of a singular example of a
brothel in Australia breaking a law?”
Because both have myriad problems.
In Australia, there are lots of brothels using kids, in New Zealand child exotic dancers are also quite common, and there it is apparently legal.
If the issue is breaking the law, sometimes there are not enough laws, such as in New Zealand.
Sex trafficking and child prostitution is common in Australia.
The Dutch model is completely off the wall with the spent 9mm ammunition! Gangsterism took that over to the greater extent. It became a security threat to
civil society.
Managed prostitution doesn’t work.
Sudeten
186. Sudeten 3:00 am, January 12, 2009

“Well, Ren, I asked for what happens to brothel and street workers after the law is passed, and I get “you are hereby ignored” as an answer. I’d like to see them
go on the BBC with that little gag they gave to me”
The Swedes exported their pimps and pedophiles to Britain.
Some of them were operating in Britain and Sweden. Terrorists allied to the Dutch system, also operated in Spain, Ireland and Britain.
Some of the biggest pimps in Britain came ftom Ireland.
Yvette Doll
187. Yvette Doll 3:07 am, January 12, 2009
“What happens to prostitutes after brothels are shut down?”
Brothels in Holland and Belgium toss them in the street when they get too mesed up on drugs, it is not exactly a job from 18 to 48, the pimps prefer young and
recently arrived.
So the pimps re not exactly saints themselves, they’re ruthless, they’re often turnkeys to the cemetery.
Pimps tend to be self-orientated sickos, just like on TV. I’ve never met a pimp who wasn’t a pedophile and I’ve met at least a couple of dozen over the years.
They don’t see the females as sisters or friends, they’re just ‘product’.
The averahe pimp will sell a 12 year old *if* he thinks he can get away with it.
Yvette Doll

>>>In Australia, there are lots of brothels using kids, in New Zealand child exotic dancers are also quite common, and there it is apparently legal.>>>
No, Sudeten, it’s not legal to have under-aged sex workers in those two countries.
“The Government doesn’t even have a clue over what’s happened to the 255 trafficking victims it found in the 1,337 premises police visited in the two
Pentameter operations. And all the attention was on the trafficking victims. Heaven help the thousands of women who lost their workplaces in the resulting
brothel closures.”
Why do you think they closed any?
As far as I know, P1 closed none. I’m not au fait with P2. I know the earlier stuff related to Blunkett, didn’t close anything, that would be 2004 if memory
serves.
The British spooks ask for a list of brothels to raid, Blunkett said is cost 250,000, but the Yanks simply told the Brits where to go.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/apr/18/immigration.ukcrime2
It was a freebie
The Americans did that for the Home Office. So the P1 and P2 cops pretending to be clever, ere really primed by fairly basic intel from the USA.
It is a bit like the child pornogaphy stuff, Jacqui Smith gets to say self-flattering things ( as British achievements) which were crafted by the FBI.
The Brits didn’t even have a list of brothels in 2004.
Yvette Doll

“The raids, resulting in 58 arrests, come as an Observer investigation reveals a 50 per cent increase in the number of prostitutes working in Britain”
That was linked to Sweden. Some of the investigators were switch from the Baltic to Leeds. And from there the P1 and P2 stuff kind of developed.
Because the women were badly treated, the investigators refused to do any more work for the Home Office. I knew all the people involved.
Yvette Doll
“No, Sudeten, it’s not legal to have under-aged sex workers in those two countries.”
The Prime Minister refused to make it illegal when I asked her.
There is no such thing as an under-age sex worker. Its called child rape at the brothel end. There were girls as young as 12 working in strip clubs in New
Zealand.
What law makes it illegal?
Yvette Doll
ECPAT New Zealand | What’s New

“It disgusts me, and police are also disgusted, but their lawyers tell them there’s no legal age minimum for strippers,” he told the Holmes. …
http://www.ecpat.org.nz/whatsnew-archives2003.html – 24k – Cached – Similar pages –
That’s the New Zealand I remember, Helen Clark, simply refused to do anything when she was lobbying for her legal brothels. I did ask her, I was ( not very
politely) told to go away.
INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.TV: Benson-Pope and the Naked Schoolgirls

27 Feb 2007 … That Benson-Pope physically assaulted a teenage schoolgirl by slapping … after bursting in on them in the shower block at a school camp in …
http://www.thebriefingroom.com/archives/2007/02/benson-pope_and.html – 20k –
Helen Clarke, wasn’t it has to be said schoolgirl friendly.
Yvette Doll
In NZ one did find, if one is being honest, that the pro-brothel people, tended to have large numbers, of you know what hanging around.
Pimps obviously, the celebrations when the legislation passed, that was paid for by pimps, and took place in brothels and it wasn’t a holiday for the ‘workers’.
The thing I really noticed with that prostitution reform campaign, was the pedophiles.
They were all over it
Yvette Doll

This caused some debate amongst the marchers…I heard people repeatedly telling this group to fuck off.
http://flickr.com/photos/msnoir/3058927393/
I also think robust debate, then tell them to go away. Was that a reclaim the night thing?
The last thing reclaim the night needs is sex workers, women want to be able to walk around at night without being asked how much.
Why should Soho be a child free zone, who gave them part of London? People have to put up ‘this is not a brothel’ on their doors.
I also did an ‘age play’ google search on some of the escort web-sites linking to our ‘unionized’ friends, my goodness they’re a sick bunch of pedos
It is not just our friends on the CH4 TV ‘agency’ programee doing the schoolgirl thing.
It was the same in New Zealand, their pro-brothel thing had pedophiles all over the ranch. The gangs were told if they gave up driug trafficking they could have
a brothel!
It is a complete scam, pro-brothel feminism is like the Jew the Nazis allowed to live to trap other Jews.
Yvette Doll

It is a complete scam, pro-brothel feminism is like the Jew the Nazis allowed to live to trap other Jews
I’m sorry but that comment is completely disgusting. If the best you can do in reply to a legitimate question is hurl bilious insults comparing your opponents to
Nazi collaborators and accusing them of being advocates for paedophilia then you really are not worthy of debate.
196. FarleyWatch 8:31 am, January 12, 2009
“Renegade Evolution just butt out with your cultural imperialism from the USA.”
This is rich, in the context of debating Farley’s use (and abuse) of statistics.
Three guesses as to Melissa Farley’s nationality. (And that’s not even going into the financing of Farley’s research by the government of said nation….)
197. FarleyWatch 8:41 am, January 12, 2009

“The Prime Minister refused to make it illegal when I asked her.”
ROTFLMAO
There were girls as young as 12 working in strip clubs in New Zealand.
What law makes it illegal?
Um, this and this .
If what you say is actually true, there’s nothing stopping you from taking it to the proper authorities. In fact, you should.
Stephen P
“Prohibitionists on this thread mock the IUSW for failing to organise these people”
No, I don’t mock them for it, I actually agree that it’s a completely impossible task: I’m simply questioning their claim that they speak on behalf of them, being
as it is so impossible and they have virtually no street prostitutes in their ranks.
Stephen P
The only way to approach the street sexworker issue is by having effective sex worker-centred outreach available promoting safe sex advice and
and making drug treatment including methodone freely available, and properly addressing the drug industry in the area
I agree, which is why I have some reservations about how effective the government’s latest legislation is going to be. Without massive funding and significant
joint agency work going into these areas, the current plans are regrettably bound to fail.
However, and I suspect this is the main point where we’d disagree, I don’t accept that doing nothing is an option, or that criminalising those men who prey upon
these most vulnerable of women (and I am here just talking about street prostitutes: independent escorts, who seem to be the ones most vociferously opposed to
the proposals for reasons I’ve yet to fathom, are an entirely different and separate discussion) is in any way a retrograde step.
I think both sides of this debate acknowledge that those working in street prostitution are the ones most in need of help (and by help I do not mean either
“saving” or “rescuing”). Most are there not through choice, but, as you’ve already mentioned, because of drug and other substance addictions, coercion, etc. A
significant proportion of these women have suffered histories of abuse, both emotional and sexual; many have come through the so-called “care” system, and
again, as you’ve already mentioned, the majority lead chaotic, self-destructive lives.
Almanac keeps asking what will happen to these women once the demand side is reduced through the criminalisation of kerb crawlers etc, and obviously until
the legislation is enacted none of us can know for sure. As I said earlier, my hope would be that agencies working with the women are given the funding they
need to provide effective drug rehab, housing, and education and training, and that through this the women’s lives are vastly improved. (There’s already
evidence of the efficacy of this approach from Ipswich, where the murders there two years ago spurred the local authority into action, and where significant
resources have been put in to helping the few street prostitutes that remain.) My fear is that this won’t happen, and that these women will then fall off the radar
and be placed in an even more vulnerable position: but what I suspect will happen is that different local authorities will deal with this differently, and we’ll have
some areas of good practise, and other less committed areas that fail the women completely.
However, Almanac’s question seems to assume that prostitution is currently providing some kind of solution for these women. It’s not: it’s a significant part of
the problem.
“My fear is that this won’t happen, and that these women will then fall off the radar and be placed in an even more vulnerable position:”
I’d agree with this, especially as you don’t know how many are already off the radar.
“The last thing reclaim the night needs is sex workers, women want to be able to walk around at night without being asked how much.”
You throw around an astounding amount of assertions and assumption without backing them up. This isn’t the daily mail. Stephen P had the courtesy to give a
source for his statistics…can you provide information on just how prevalent asking women, simply walking home, “how much” is? Can you provide
information that backs up your claim of pedophiles being rife in the sex industry?
“I’ve never met a pimp who wasn’t a pedophile”
How many pimps have you met?
“Because both have myriad problems.”
That’s not an answer, that’s an evasion.
200. Nick 10:05 am, January 12, 2009
Who knew it was time to call the Paedofinder general: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaUkt59vY1Q
But I love the Daily Mail logic. As soon as one side is able to articulate a workeable model for safe adult prostitution, the other side (well not all of it, I note)
start screeching BUT THINK OF THE CHILDREN, and start dredging up articles about head teachers looking for school girl scenarios.
201. redpesto 11:37 am, January 12, 2009

Cath @200:
…but the proposed legislation will apply to all prostitutes, regardless of where they work or any possible consensual arrangement, just as the phrase ‘controlled
for another’s gain’ is intended to include ‘has a drug habit (and is controlled by a dealer)’ as well as ‘has a pimp’ even though the two are not synonymous and
assumes a coercive and exploitative relationship as a ‘given’. So, either the government is using a big legislative sledgehammer to deal with a much more
specific problem (street prostitution) best handled through other means (of which the Ipswich project is one example), or we’re stuck with the latest attempt at a
prohibitionist campaign against prostitution as a whole and the men who have sex with – sorry, prey on – on the women involved, using street prostitution as a
pretext (if only because its the most visible). (Incidentally, Cath, which arguments by escorts/other sex workers against the proposals have you read, and why
were they difficult to fathom?)
PS @ Nick – the same thing happened during the 1980s re. pornography. One side wanted to talk about consenting adults; the other side kept shouting ‘kiddy
porn!’ and claiming they’d won the argument.

redpesto
but the proposed legislation will apply to all prostitutes, regardless of where they work or any possible consensual arrangement
No they won’t. How on earth does an independent escort working out of her own flat come under the category of being “coerced for another’s gain?
redpesto,
(Incidentally, Cath, which arguments by escorts/other sex workers against the proposals have you read, and why were they difficult to fathom?)
Nearly all the arguments against these proposals are coming from escorts and other sex industry workers who are completely unaffected by them, and a lot of
them are from American sex work activists. What I haven’t been able to fathom is what their interest is in all this, and why any of them think they have anything
to fear. But having just read this comment on one of US sites, it’s all becoming a bit clearer now:
“We all need to be contributing to the IUSW’s call for funding.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I want the right to work in the UK and I want the option of working for an establishment.”
These people don’t give a shit about the safety of UK prostitutes: just like Fox, their only concern is protecting the UK market for their own financial gain.

Cath –
“How on earth does an independent escort working out of her own flat come under the category of being “coerced for another’s gain?”
The word isn’t “coerced”, Cath, it’s “controlled.” And there’s no definition of what “controlled” means in the Sexual Offences Act, 2003, so the courts have to
make it up as they go along. The Scots define it as anything that aids and abets the prostitution, such as driving a prostitute to a venue and waiting in a car
nearby in case anything goes awry. I’m convinced the Scottish prohibitionists are even more successful in killing prostitutes than the English prohbitionists.
But this misses the point. It’s proposed as a ‘strict liability offence”. This means the clients will be expected to successfully ascertain whether or not a prostitute
is controlled, whatever controlled turns out to mean. If it comes to anything at all, this will result in clients cross-examining prostitutes on the details of their
private lives, which contravenes their human rights and is counter-productive to their safety.
How would you feel if you had to expose every detail of your private life in order to sell something? Don’t these girls expose enough already?
Stephen P Ooops, I thought I’d typed controlled.-, dunno what happened there.
Cath –
“an independent escort working out of her own flat ”
Slightly off-topic but the tenure of flats is interesting. If it was a rented flat the landlord would be under a duty to evict, and the right to do so is part of a
standard lease. Legally,I understand the onus is then on the tenant to prove it’s not used for prostitution. But of course, if it’s he/hisr own flat the question
doesn’t arise, so as you were…
So we can add civil law to common and statute law on the list needing to be dumped.
Cath: No they won’t. How on earth does an independent escort working out of her own flat come under the category of being “coerced for another’s gain?
I’m with Stephen on this: the term is ‘controlled’ – which could mean ‘has an employer’ (or pimp, if you prefer) or ‘has to pay rent to a landlord’ (or pimp, if
you prefer: maybe the landlord doesn’t know what’s going on), or ‘owes a drug dealer’ or ‘works for an agency, which takes a percentage’ (like an actor or
writer). The funny thing is, if it really was ‘coerced’, you could have a broader agreement, because it would (implicitly) recognise the right to consent to or
refuse being paid for sex as well as the act itself; being coerced (in any form) would violate that, and hence be punishable – but then doesn’t the existing Sexual
Offences Act already cover the need for consent regarding sex? As it is, what’s on offer is ‘controlled’, which may mean any sex worker working for anyone
else (or who could be deemed ‘controlled’ by a partner) could fall foul of the law. Given Smith’s position on this, I suspect this is intentional, and not just an
unfortunate by-product of trying to reduce street prostitution. That said, if a side-effect of the law was to enable prostitutes to tell the (male) pimps to f*ck off so
they could earn a living as independent workers without the law breathing down their neck, I’m not sure what Smith or supporters of the legislation would do in
response..
As for the overseas interest in British legislation: maybe it’s the ‘International’ part of the IUSW you overlooked? If not that, then I take it that any overseas
interest – or international solidarity – in supporting your position on this issue is equally (ir)relevant – after all, some campaigners for the proposed legislation
keep citing the ‘Swedish model’ to support their case. Who knows, they may have even commented on the issue on their blogs? It may even be that Swedish
feminists who supported the model have a view on what’s happening here, and are blogging about it at this very moment?
I suspect the international interest is more to do with the time and internet access than anything else.
If the word was ‘coerced‘ rather than ‘controlled’ in the Sexual Offences Act 2003, then the existing and proposed law would be clearer. A lot of the controversy
centres on volition, and whether sex workers are acting of their own volition.
I think the question of volition is the crucial part of the debate. I also think an awful lot of our existing confused, archaic laws could be dumped if we properly
adopted Article 3 of the Palermo Protocol into UK law, having ratified it.
http://untreaty.un.org/English/TreatyEvent2003/Texts/treaty2E.pdf
Now the protocol is concerned with trafficking, and the general approach has been to see this as concerned with movement across international borders.
But that misses the point, and, certainly the potential.

Trafficking can, and in my opinion usually does, take place in one room (or even possibly one street corner).
I don’t know how familiar you are with the definition, so forgive me if I’m teaching my granny to suck eggs.
Article 3 defines traffickers. If a person (A) undertakes certain ACTIONS by (in the case of adults) a variety of different MEANS in order to subject another
person (B) to certain CONDITIONS (including prostitution or sexual exploitation), Person A is defined as a human trafficker.
There’s no crossing of borders required. Nor, indeed, does there have to be a third party.
This is important. If, for example, a punter hired a street prostitute he knew was drug addicted and desperately in need of cash, then (in my book) he RECRUITS
(ACTION) by TAKING ADVANTAGE OF A POSITION OF VULERABILITY (MEANS) to subject her to PROSTITUTION or SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
(CONDITIONS).
The fact he doesn’t waltz off with her to Lithuania or wherever shouldn’t come into it.
Now of course, he may not know she’s drug addicted and in need of cash for her fix, in which case he’d be innocent in my book, but that seems to me to be only
fair.
The fact the Home Office has made a complete pig’s ear out of Palermo and that all we’ve got is that stupid S57-60 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2003/ukpga_20030042_en_5#pt1-pb15
(under which one can be jailed for 14 years for giving someone a lift to have consensual sex in a public loo or to continue their affair with their aunt) may be
indicative of a downside to our UK policy of taking the biggest local idiot who hasn’t yet been jailed or sectioned under the Mental Health Act and confining
them to Westminster for four or five years at a time.
More on trafficking on my blog here:

http://stephenpaterson.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/what-have-uk-punters-got-that-you-havent-jacqui-smith/
208. Joe 3:54 pm, January 12, 2009
Great post Cath.
redpesto
If not that, then I take it that any overseas interest – or international solidarity – in supporting your position on this issue is equally (ir)relevant
Can we stop with the misrepresentation or deliberate misconstruing of what people are saying? Nowhere did I say their views were irrelevant, I simply said I
was baffled as to why they were showing so much interest.

Cath, they show interest because countries moving or not moving along Swedish lines has international ramifications.
Innumerable countries have studied the Swedish legislation but all major players have so far seen sense and rejected it. Not only does its adoption seriously
hinder the prospect of finding and helping trafficking victims, it also makes sex workers more difficult to locate with resultant consequences for HIV/Aids
prevention in the community as a whole in fighting an international epidemic.
It is understandable. then, that when a generally sane country like the UK seriously flirts with this nonsense it causes a degree of international concern.
Cath: I simply said I was baffled as to why they were showing so much interest.
From your earlier post (“These people don’t give a shit about the safety of UK prostitutes: just like Fox, their only concern is protecting the UK market for their
own financial gain.”) and your chosen link, you’ve now decided that it must be money, rather than the ramifications for the safety, well-being or lives of sex
workers – or, as it’s the internet, they’re interested in the issue and what happens in other countries – but that’s your call. I wouldn’t be surprised if overseas
feminists had an interest if they supported the proposed legislation (especially if they wanted to pursue similar legislation in their home countries); it’s odd that
you are (or were) baffled that opponents or critics elsewhere wouldn’t do the same.

I am just curious Cath.
Why should a sex worker not be allowed to work with others? If you can work with colleagues either as an employed journalist or freelance or what ever or if
you can choose to work thought the agency of a third party then why should sex workers be forced by law to work alone?
This is what the argument is from a human rights angle. Why should sex workers be discriminated against and treated differently from others .You acknowledge
it would appear the right of a single sex worker to work alone but only alone which is you must agree unfair and I am sure you would object if you were forced
by law to do so.
Before all the stuff about pimps is again thrown around can I point out that two women working together in a flat/house would mean that premises would be
classed as a brothel and the girl who is the owner/tenant would/could be charged with running a brothel and if she gave instructions to the other girl in any way
she would be controlling.
Do you understand that the laws as they stand and as they will be potentially implemented should the new proposals become law do and will affect real women
leading real lives.
Douglas
redpesto I think it’s the extent of their involvement in the debates that struck me as odd, not that they showed any interest at all, or that they felt compelled to
comment. But yes, point taken. I have after all written stuff about Prop 8 for CiF, so it would be a bit hypocritical of me to take umbrage when it works the other
way.

PS – Cath: If we’re going to cite ‘some guy [sic] with a website’ (especially ‘some guy [sic] posting in the comments on a website’) I’ll just cite a few lines
from the actual post rather than someone in the comments:
Now, I am not in the UK, nor are most of you, but that doesn’t mean this should not matter to us. Sex Workers in the UK are sex workers, just like us, and just as
the UK looked to Sweden for inspiration, there is no guarantee where ever you are might not look to the UK for the same thing… [emphasis added]
…which neatly explains why they might be so interested.
Cath says:
>>>Almanac keeps asking what will happen to these women once the demand side is reduced through the criminalisation of kerb crawlers etc, and obviously
until the legislation is enacted none of us can know for sure. As I said earlier, my hope would be that agencies working with the women are given the funding
they need to provide effective drug rehab, housing, and education and training, and that through this the women’s lives are vastly improved.>>>
My point is that people should think about this BEFORE they enact legislation, not AFTER the legislation is enacted!!!
You hope, you HOPE, that agencies will be given funding. But, golly gee, you don’t know for sure.
And that’s your problem, Cath. If you thought of sex workers as human beings, you would have had a thought to what happens to them after you throw your
LAWS into their faces.

And, Cath, you keep calling them “the most vulnerable of women”.
Well just think how vulnerable they’ll be when you deprive them of work with no place to go.
217. Yvette Doll 10:12 pm, January 12, 2009
“As soon as one side is able to articulate a workeable model for safe adult prostitution, the other side (well not all of it, I note) start screeching BUT THINK OF
THE CHILDREN, and start dredging up articles about head teachers looking for school girl scenarios.”
What model, the ‘paradise’ template just keeps moving from one place to the other, Holland, Australia new Zealand, they’re all rotten.
“and start dredging up articles about head teachers looking for school girl scenarios.”‘
You need to speak to Douglas about that.
Yvette Doll
>>>However, Almanac’s question seems to assume that prostitution is currently providing some kind of solution for these women. It’s not: it’s a significant part
of the problem.>>
A woman working part time at Tescos has two children who have reached school-age. She doesn’t have the money for uniforms, and their birthdays are coming
up. She goes out and hooks for the night. She comes back with the money she needs. Problem solved.
“This is what the argument is from a human rights angle. Why should sex workers be discriminated against and treated differently from others ”
That is not going to work in court in Britain and so you can forget it or you can try it. so it is a fake argument, the de jure actuality, not going to happen.
“If you can work with colleagues either as an employed journalist or freelance or what ever or if you can choose to work thought the agency of a third party then
why should sex workers be forced by law to work alone?”
It is a legitimate state objective, for example kids in Australia, New Zealand, Berlin, and Amsterdam, may have to ennter schools via a side door, Can kids walk
around Soho in the evening? What about their basic rights? So no brothels, no pimps, no red light zones is a legitimate objective of both state and society.
The examples I cite are in varying states of collapse.
Amsterdam is so over.
Yvette
Douglas
I think you probably know who I am. I am well known in Newcastle in relation to media.
I was around in the Warhol era, I produced records and things for that scene, my background is gay liberation, gay clubs, the entire heap.
What’s the agency percentage take on the escort gig you have been conneced to in the media?
How much it turn-over?
Yvette Doll
“A woman working part time at Tescos has two children who have reached school-age. She doesn’t have the money for uniforms, and their birthdays are coming
up. She goes out and hooks for the night. She comes back with the money she needs. Problem solved.”
A few points
One has to be careful not to get the school uniforms mixed up. Maybe an escort agency in Newcastle may have a trade angle.
I don’t think Teso ( knowingly) employs prostituted women and she could lose the only job she has.
Kerb-crawlers are also child molesters, so lets leave kids out of it.
Yvette

“Innumerable countries have studied the Swedish legislation but all major players have so far seen sense and rejected it.”
Not really true, NZ used stuff authored in South Africa & South America. I am not aware of it being seriously studied outside of the Nordic area.
The Brit govt. are ( at the moment) responding to child pornography issues. There is savage lobbying going on from the United States.
I can assure you the Brits are far more worried about bad PR and FBI leaks, relating to child pornography than brothels. THe lap dancing thing is a slightly
different issue.
Groups like object, really did convince, and also there was local govt. support.
The Brits are not that serious about Sweden.
Yvette Doll
Almanac
“A woman working part time at Tescos has two children who have reached school-age. She doesn’t have the money for uniforms, and their
birthdays are coming up. She goes out and hooks for the night. She comes back with the money she needs. Problem solved.”
Genius. I’ll remember that next time one of my kids asks for something I can’t afford. Who would have thunk it could all be so easy.
T*sser.
>>>Genius. I’ll remember that next time one of my kids asks for something I can’t afford. Who would have thunk it could all be so easy.>>>
You didn’t answer my question, Cath. What IS going to happen to the women who can no longer work because the demand isn’t there?
The only so-called “answer” you gave to me is that “my hope would be that agencies working with the women are given the funding they need to provide
effective drug rehab, housing, and education and training, and that through this the women’s lives are vastly improved . . . ”
And also, “obviously until the legislation is enacted none of us can know for sure.”
And my absolute favourite: “what I suspect will happen is that different local authorities will deal with this differently, and we’ll have some areas of good
practise, and other less committed areas that fail the women completely.”
And then you mock me for presenting prostitution as a solution. Well it’s more of a goddamn solution than what you’ve come up with.
I see the UK Net Work of Sex projects response to the propose Government legislation has been published today. I can’t say it is very supportive of the proposed
legislation or the way the Government came to its decision.
http://www.uknswp.org/resources/demandResponse.pdf

Well she could always get the kid’s father to pay for their uniforms. Since when was prostitution the number one solution to women experiencing money
difficulties, Almanac? What world do you live in? My mother was a poor single mother but she never turned to prostitution to support us. I think that would
have been what’s commonly known as adding insult to injury.
It shows quite clearly how prostitution is male abuse of women in poverty and how acceptable some people seem to think that is. Maybe we should lobby for a
man tax when men are rich enough to pay to sexually exploit women, whilst women don’t have enough money to clothe their children.
Cath
– sex workers have all sorts of motivations for getting involved in sex work. Studies show the vast majority get into it for the money, but they get into it for the
money for the vast diversity of reasons that people pursue money. For some, too, sexual curiousity is a major factor. For others, flexible hours.
Many do ir for household expenses, maybe to give their kids a better life. And if someone does it to pay for school uniforms, what business is it of ours? And if
Akmanac knows of such a case and tells you, is that a good reason to call him a t*sser?
You may well deride the women’s decision, but then maybe you’ve never had to take such a decision or, if you have, maybe you haven’t considere sex work as
an option.
In any event, it’s hardly a good reason to call Almanac a t*sser.
I used the school uniforms as an example, Stephen, but it could be anything.
But my biggest, absolute gripe is when people think up laws that affect other people, but don’t think them through to what happens to those people who are
affected. As in like, maybe, just maybe, there’ll be some money to train former prostitutes, but we don’t know for sure, we’ll just have to wait and see.
We’ll just pass the problem onto “different local authorities”, and maybe they’ll help, and maybe not. I mean, it’s not like those women are actual *people*, that
we should worry too much about them.
Right, Cath?
“My mother was a poor single mother but she never turned to prostitution to support us. I think that would have been what’s commonly known as adding insult
to injury.”
So many subjective and anecdotal feelings running around here, why is it that so many of you (on both sides) seem to think your own personal story and moral
outlook is in any way the best measure of the right thing to do for sex workers? So far Stephen has been the only one that’s come here outside of the usual
suspects to actually champion the objective view.
“Maybe we should lobby for a man tax when men are rich enough to pay to sexually exploit women, whilst women don’t have enough money to clothe their
children.”
You know how much inequality exists therefore you know that in practice this is exactly what happens anyway, what a redundant argument. Unless you’re
arguing that we’re all equal, but then I feel that hell will need to ring British Gas.
“Kerb-crawlers are also child molesters, so lets leave kids out of it.”
Once again, back it up if you’re going to say it. Facts, studies and proof please
230. delphyne 12:32 am, January 13, 2009
Lee Griffin, your comment doesn’t make any logical sense. What are you trying to argue exactly?
Almanac is the idiot who thinks that single mothers with money worries should be out on the streets being bought by men. I don’t see you criticising him for his
stupid anecdote or his moral view.
231. LBek 12:57 am, January 13, 2009

And maybe single fathers with money worries should be out on the streets being bought by men too?
Delphyne
“It shows quite clearly how prostitution is male abuse of women in poverty and how acceptable some people seem to think that is…..”
What does? A woman using the money to pay for their kids’ school uniforms?
Errrr…hold on a minute. What about all the women who make plenty of money from sex work, enough certainly to never have to worry about that sort of
spending decision again, and who go on doing sex work?
Regarding ‘poor’ women, however you define that term, it seems to me that prostitution is kargely male alleviation of women in poverty..
Lets take the – studies seem to suggest over three-quarters – of the London sex worker population who are migrant sex workers, who are constantly being held
up as evidence of widespread trafficking Even though the only European study shows the UK migrant sex worker figure to be 37% and the lowest in western
Europe (and Eaves/Poppy received just 47 referrals from the entire Pentameter 2 exercise, according to the provisional minutes of the Home Affairs
Committee).
Now anecdotal evidence suggests large numbers of these migrant sex workers send money back to families living in poverty in their home countries.
Prohibitionists, with some force, argue that street prostitution largely funds the drugs industry – I agree, but I think the answer is to incarcerate the drug dealers
rather than prostitutes and punters – but I don‘t see many handing out plaudits to the punters for alleviating poverty in third world states.
So if and when you find this huge sum of money to ‘rehabilitate’ the 80,000 prostitutes and give them rich, fulfilling lives, will you also be finding a huge
additional sum of money to put back into poor countries what you’re taking away from them?
Let us look at that news story some weeks ago in which the biggest number of allegedly trafficked persons – sixty – were found picking leeks in Lincolnshire
field. Don’t you agree that they wouldn’t have been there if the demand for leeks didn’t exist? What would you have done to the supermarket shoppers that
purchase these products of slavery? Don’t forget, they don’t have to KNOW they’re the products of slavery – we’re playing strict liability here.
Or are you going to give us an opportunity to show quite clearly how supermarket shopping is abuse of people in slavery and how acceptable some people seem
to think that is?
http://stephenpaterson.wordpress.com/
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmhaff/uc318-ii/uc31802.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/19/human-trafficking-lincolnshire

“why is it that so many of you (on both sides) seem to think your own personal story and moral outlook is in any way the best measure of the right thing to do
for sex workers?”
It is about winning, at this stage, it is about not losing. One can be objective about the delivery of a manifesto, or policy, or philosophy.
How can we be objective, if we have been to Cheb, or deat with Ukrainian or Lithuanian pimps?
I spent three years 2001 to 2004 trying not to be murdered as I dismantled as a sex trafficking network. Am I suppposed to think happy thoughts?
Yvette
“Let us look at that news story some weeks ago in which the biggest number of allegedly trafficked persons – sixty – were found picking leeks in Lincolnshire
field. Don’t you agree that they wouldn’t have been there if the demand for leeks didn’t exist? ”
My experience of the sector based scheme in Sheffield, is that UKrainian pimps would charge thusands of dollars, to work in fields or food processing, or if the
female didn’t have the money, something else.
The allegations section of WP-UK was abolished because of me. hich is your other problem, the govenment, hates Daily Mail front pages, the best way to deal
with allegations was to remove the mechanism for obtaining them.
Farms and fields, pimps are interested in that as well, they are ultra-capitalists. Similarly it isn’t that unusual to fiind child pornographers, gambling people, and
similar, in a hotel in Gibraltar or somewhere out of the way. It is money, and that’s it.
Yvette
235. Nick 3:38 am, January 13, 2009
“I agree, but I think the answer is to incarcerate the drug dealers rather than prostitutes and punters.”
But why? The drug dealer is only selling a product in a consensual transaction. Don’t move from one scape goat to the other. There is one major source for all
our problematic street commerce and that is prohibition. Prohibition doesn’t get rid of drugs or sex, it just makes sure that violence accompanies its sale. After
all, if the police won’t protect the transacting participants, someone else will, at greater cost and with fewer institutional restraints.
236. Nick 3:46 am, January 13, 2009

“I spent three years 2001 to 2004 trying not to be murdered as I dismantled as a sex trafficking network. Am I suppposed to think happy thoughts?”
I’d say good luck to you. But do yourself a favour and support safe and legal alternatives at the same time, cos otherwise those networks will spring right back
up. Wanna know why? The US has more than 1 in 100 people in prison, much of it due to the drug war. All those dealers in prison, but still no shortage of
sellers on street corners. I imagine the only thing as impossible to win as a war on drugs is a war on sex.

“The US has more than 1 in 100 people in prison, much of it due to the drug war. ”
Joe Arpaio didn’t like me. He use to refer to me by my race rather than name.
http://www.democracynow.org/2001/6/15/arizona_sheriff_broadcasts_jail_scenes_over
He does it in that, radio, TV, whatever.
Yvette Doll
238. Elrond 9:16 am, January 13, 2009
Cath,
Of course independent escorts are and should be concerned about this legislation. Points about the law on Brothels and Control have already been made.
I would raise two additional points. Independents are concerned that this is the first step towards the implementation of the Swedish law and total ban on the
purchase of sex.
Look at fox hunting. Many people from the shooting and fishing fraternity who did not hunt, supported the huntsmen. The reason was that once hunting was
stopped, the antis could then concentrate their efforts on the next target.
Now the next point is conjecture, I expect many independent escorts are concerned that their independent status will be called in to question in the future. The
criminal element in the sex industry (As there is in all walks of live) has an amazing talent of surviving, and one way this could is that women will be placed
into flats, advertising on the web as independent escorts, but in fact being coerced and controlled. Nobody wants this, least of all independent escorts.
So yes independent escorts should be and are concerned about legislation which could apply to them in some circumstances, sharing flats, two girl liaisons.
They should be concerned that this is the start of a total abolition..

They should be concerned because the ‘independent escort’ may not be independent after all, and this stigma could effect their reputation and also give
ammunition to the abolitionists.
Finally believe it or not, not everyone in this world looks to number one. Yes there are people who are concerned about the welfare of others. Douglas is such a
person.
“Lee Griffin, your comment doesn’t make any logical sense. What are you trying to argue exactly?”
Try reading it again then, it’s really not that difficult to understand.
240. delphyne 11:02 am, January 13, 2009
“How can we be objective, if we have been to Cheb, or deat with Ukrainian or Lithuanian pimps?”
I’d have thought that would mean you were more objective Yvette than the fantasists on this thread claiming that women make huge amounts of money from
being prostituted or that single mums just pop out to the red light district every time their Tescos wage doesn’t quite cover the family clothing budget, or the
ones claiming that trafficked women are now migrant workers simply supporting their families.
Objectivity starts with the facts.
Cath:
“Nearly all the arguments against these proposals are coming from escorts and other sex industry workers who are completely unaffected by them, and a lot of
to fear. But having just read this comment on one of US sites, it’s all becoming a bit clearer now:
“We all need to be contributing to the IUSW’s call for funding.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I want the right to work in the UK and I want the option of working for an establishment.”
These people don’t give a shit about the safety of UK prostitutes: just like Fox, their only concern is protecting the UK market for their own financial gain.”
Actually, no, it is more like this…as this is what I (participator from the US and all) said:
“Now, I am not in the UK, nor are most of you, but that doesn’t mean this should not matter to us. Sex Workers in the UK are sex workers, just like us, and just
as the UK looked to Sweden for inspiration, there is no guarantee where ever you are might not look to the UK for the same thing… ”
And yes, it’s already be quoted, I just wanted to make that perfectly clear.
242. Glen Parry 12:35 pm, January 13, 2009
to fear.”
Cath,
Sorry, but the definition of controlled for gain, as applied in law, could very well affect independent escorts.
Hypothetical situations for you:
1. An escort has a booking & requires transport. She arranges for a friend to give her alift to & from the venue. In return, she offers to make a small payment
towards petrol costs, as many of us would naturally do in a similar situation. By the simple fact that someone other than that excort has facilitated her persuing
her business & received recompense, she can be deemed to be controlled for gain & the proposed legislation would apply to her clients.
2. A sex worker operates indoors, in a flat, on her own & opts to utilise the services of a maid; something Fionna McTaggart has gone on record as saying she
thinks should be excluded from the definition of what constitutes a brothel. That maid, besides doing work that most of us would hold to be typical of such a
role; i.e. cleaning, also assists with the vetting of clients & might answer the telephone.
Naturally, this maid would receive payment for the work she carries out & could be deemed to be employed by the sex worker.
However, because this maid has answered the telephone & assisted in enacting the safety strategy of the sex worker, she would be deemed to be guilty of
controlling for gain & the sex worker’s clients would be guilty of breaching the proposed legislation.
3. If we take a situation in which there is a brothel, with a receptionist working therein. Although the receptionist works on behalf of the management, to
provide a service to the the sex workers; they arrange bookings & deal with enquiries, the receptionist is deemed to be controlling for gain, because of the fact
that they are involved in the process of arranging the meetings between sex workers & their clients.
In many other industries the services provided in all of the above situations; but especially 2 & 3, would be considered perfectly normal, but when linked to the
sale of sex have the potential to land these people in court, with maximum penalties of 7 years in prison & the confiscation of all their assets.
What would happen if we applied the same logic to those who provide such services to the medical or legal professions?
Therefore, to equate controlling for gain with pimping, coercion or exploitation is a far too simplistic & inaccurate presentation of the facts of the matter &
appears to be an attempt to dress the realities up in emotive language, in order to score points, that is far below your usual level of argument.
“a lot of them are from American sex work activists. What I haven’t been able to fathom is what their interest is in all this, and why any of them think they have
anything to fear.”
As has already been stated, the Swedes are quite aggressive in attempting to export their take on criminalisation. If it is possible for UK Government to propose
a variation on the Swedish Model, what is to say that others won’t follow suit; & as you yourself have admitted,it is deemed perfectly normal for supporters of
such legislation to contribute to discussions globally, so opponents; whether they be based in the US, Europe or any where else in the world, have as much right
to comment on such things as anyone.

delphyne
You never did answer my question as to what your involvement with sex workers is. Comment 81
Elrond
“You never did answer my question as to what your involvement with sex workers is. Comment 81”
I’d defend the right of anyone to an opinion + encourage them to express it. What bothers me in all this, though – and I’m not accusing Cath or Delphyne in
particular here – is the large number of people ready and willing to condemn prostitution per sa and to use the issue for their own ends while accusing OTHERS
of exploitation.
Everyone thinks of traffickers exploiting trafficking victims. Many think of punters exploitating trafficking victims. Nobody thinks of politicians, journalists and
prohibitionists exploiting trafficking victims.
If trafficking victims didn’t exist, prohibitionists would have to invent them. As it is, there just isn’t enough. A mere 255 from two national probes tying up 55
police forces. Far short of the 4,000 sex slaves the Home Office promised, the 6,000 a year the Scottish media had promised in Scotland alone, the 25,000
promised by Denis MacShane MP, the 25,000 to 50,000 promised by the Daily Mirror, let alone the…
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ProtectWomen/
…700,000 a year pouring in – roughly the equivalent of the entire[population of Leeds – promised by the prohibitionists, a figure undenied in the Government
response.
Little wonder, Elrond, that none of our four national teams qualified for football’s Euro 2008. A miracle indeed they could find 11 men between them capable of
standing up.
Palermo Protocol trafficking for sex, as most people perceive it, and insofar as it does exist in the UK – which it clearly does – is properly regarded as a totally
seperate matter from prostitution anyway, which is the voluntary selling of sexual services for money, but the exploitation of trafficking victims is crucially
important to prohibitionists to create the necessary moral panic to drive change: it’s only on the basis of the poll result showing that the population would only
countenance measures of criminalising punters in order to combat trafficking that Jacqui Smith’s proceeding.
The problem is, of course, that prostitution continues irrespective of the legal approach adopted. Whilst the Caths and the Delphynes and the Jacqui Smiths of
this world persist, life for both sex workers and trafficked women will get more and more dangerous.
Stephen P
Thanks for the synopsis of the arguments which I totally agree with. I have taken a look through your blog and must add to my blog role.
As I still don’t know what delphyne association with sex workers is. I expect none.
If I started talking on here about the many sex workers I might have met, then I would be accused of being a rapist, and abuser. If I were to even mention
running a website for escorts to advertise on I would be accused of being a paedophile. Those who do the above have far more to say about sex workers than
many commenting on here.

Renegade
I enjoyed your guest spot a few months ago on http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/author/ren/ Yes even some of us look to the US to see what is happening
there.
I have google alerts set up on words like prostitute, and sex worker, and every day you see all the sex workers being caught, the sting operations, and the
Craiglist sting operations in the US. I just wonder if the police effort spent could be better focused on the criminality, and not the consenting sex.
Oh any why do so many independent escorts and sex workers opposed to the law, write about stupidity of the proposed changes. Well because they are strong
willed, intelligent and articulate. Not something that the abolitionists want to give credit to, they would rather think of you as vulnerable.

It’s probably a bit late in the day to be mentioning this but John Dockerty, Douglas Fox’s partner, who Douglas claims runs CT Escorts with only a little help
from Douglas, has a signature on all his posts at the forum that says he is “registered” with the IUSW. That’s underneath a visual of all the credit cards he
accepts.
So even if Douglas is going to tell fibs about not having anything to do with the agency, despite being filmed in a TV documentary helping to run it, we know
for sure at least one pimp is “registered” with the IUSW.
248. Bob the Builder 5:07 pm, January 13, 2009
What is it with all the attempts to write off trafficking as insignificant, and ‘economic migration’ as more valid?
“Eaves/Poppy received just 47 referrals from the entire Pentameter 2 exercise”
Well I am sorry, but 47 women (and the rest) are 47 women (and the rest), trafficked/forced into prostitution because of DEMAND for sexual services by
PUNTERS, DEMAND that is driving the whole industry, including trafficking, which would not exist if it were not for the DEMAND. Do you not think those
47 women (and the rest) are worth worrying about because they put a dent in your unproven ‘economic migrant’ statistics? Those 47 (and the rest) women were
repeatedly raped by punters who may or may not have known their circumstances, but quite frankly, because they are willing to use a woman’s body as a sperm
dumping ground for a few quid, couldn’t give a damn. 47 (and the rest) women’s lives have been brutally ripped apart because of this demand. When are these
punters going to wake up and realise that even if consent takes place, these women are being paid, they do not want you, nor like you, in fact most of the time
they think you are disgusting, vile pigs. What is humane about the behaviour of punters? Rescuing women from poverty? My arse. Psychologically and
physically damaging tens of thousands of women, more like it.

Bob the Builder
– obviously prostitution would not exist if not for the demand. Equally obviously, even one trafficking victim is important, should be rescued and the
perpetrator(s) brought to justice. That does not excuse the further exploitation of these people for political ends.
What evidence do you gave for what you say? You make vast statements. You say 80,000 women think their customers “disgusting vile pigs”. You dismiss
hundreds of thousands of human relationships as “using a woman’s body as a sperm dumping ground” without, I suggest, an iota of knowledge of any of them.
Your ignorance of sex workers and punters is exceeded only by your ignorance of trafficking drives and migrants. Try Googling Laura Agustin + read her site.
– Delphyne
“… Douglas Fox’s partner, who Douglas claims runs CT Escorts with only a little help from Douglas, has a signature on all his posts at the forum that says he is
“registered” with the IUSW. That’s underneath a visual of all the credit cards he accepts….”
So what? The pretext for this post is based on a model in which ‘pimps’ employ ‘prostitutes’. From what I can make out, the agency regards the arrangement as
the opposite, in which case the post is based on a false preconception.
Because the industry lacks regulation, Douglas Fox has attempted to evolve a code of practice for agencies that is equitable for indirect and direct sex workers
and establishes rights. It could be that IUSW becomes a kind of kitemark of standards, which surely all would agree have been sadly lacking in the past. Legal
intereference is prominent among the factors that have meant the sex industry has been unable to evolve in the way other sef-regulkating industries have.
That IUSW reference, anyway, means that the agency recognises the union, that it’s happy working alongside IUSW people, you have a problem with that?.
.
Reflections on last 48 hours – hope everyone on all sides will at least get a smile out of this:
http://xkcd.com/386/
252. Catherine 8:27 pm, January 13, 2009
The International Union of Sex Workers campaigns for full human, civil and labour rights and for full protection of the law for everyone in the sex industry and
for meaningful consultation of people in the industry about decisions which will affect our rights and safety. We believe that everyone deserves freedom to
choose, respect for those choices and the absolute right to say no.
When people deny sex work as labour it forces us to spend our time defending the existence of our work, instead of struggling for its transformation. Alice,
migrant sex worker, London 2007
A group of workers organising to improve the conditions of their work is a union, and so the International Union of Sex Workers was the obvious title for our
organisation. “International” both because there are many migrants involved in the organisation, and also because we are proud to be a part of the global
movement for sex workers’ rights, that spans every continent (except Antarctica!).
Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. Nelson Mandela
We know that the primary difficulty we face is not our work itself but the conditions in which we work. This includes both conditions in the workplace, and in
society as a whole – the stigma and social exclusion many of us experience. We see how legal status and social stigma combine to increase our vulnerability and
enable abuse and exploitation within our industry. Such wrongs are often then blamed on the nature of our work, sometimes by those who themselves perpetuate
them. Sex workers’ exclusion and vulnerability are perpetuated by those who refuse to listen to our complaints of actual violence and real abuses because they
consider all our work to be violent and abusive.
If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.
Lila Watson, Aboriginal activist in Australia
delphyne
“Claims runs CT Escorts with only a little help from Douglas, has a signature on all his posts at the forum that says he is “registered” with the IUSW. That’s
underneath a visual of all the credit cards he accepts.”
The IUSW does not deny members may contain agency owners. They wrote an article at Christmas that actually said that. The IUSW represent all sex workers
from prostitutes to those working in sex shops. Being an escort agency owner is working in the sex industry and they too need representation.
The IUSW is open about this.
I posted that on comment 9
The well being of a good agency will result in the escorts earning more. The success of a good agency and the escorts the agency represent are symbiotic.
Elrond: Thanks. Feministe is nice to take a chance on me every once in awhile.
It’s odd reading a lot of this stuff about views on agencies however. I do not doubt that some are horrible, and run by horrible people, but to assume all are, and
all women who are with agencies are somehow horribly exploited is…incorrect. There are serious benefits to being with an agency; They take all calls, they are
the address used for business, thus protecting the sex workers privacy, they arrange appointments which saves time, they know where the workers are going, and
what their timelines are like, often calling if they have not heard back from the sex worker when an appointment is done, some even offer drivers and security…
and a great many of them are run by former sex workers themselves. Working for an agency can be far preferable than going it alone.
“The IUSW does not deny members may contain agency owners. They wrote an article at Christmas that actually said that. The IUSW represent all sex workers
from prostitutes to those working in sex shops. Being an escort agency owner is working in the sex industry and they too need representation.”
You really don’t understand the concept of trade unions do you? They are not their for owners – they are there to represent the workforce because of the inherent
imbalance of power between employer and employee. Like other people have said if agencies need their own representation they should start a trade association
or join the Federation of Small Businesses or somesuch.
For someone who isn’t a member of the IUSW you seem pretty free on stating what their policies are. Why didn’t you join it when you were trying to persuade
people on Punternet to join Elrond?
“The well being of a good agency will result in the escorts earning more. The success of a good agency and the escorts the agency represent are symbiotic.”
It’s a fundamental of socialism that the interests of capital and labour are in conflict.
As I have stated, my present posting on Punternet is for funding a fight against the Government, and not for punters to join the union, though I do suggest
escorts should join.
I am not a sex worker, so don’t feel right to join.
I agree that in a true union that employees and employers should not be members of the same organisation. To me though the one redeeming reason why an
agency should be allowed to join this union is that the battle is not employee and employer, but the sex industry against the Government.
When the sex industry is allowed to operate in an open fashion with normal employment practices, then unionisation and trade federations can be formed.
Hopefully with the IUSW and GMB leading the way. Until normalisation there is no way this can happen.
As to stating their policies, they are there to be read on their site and in their publications in the media. I read them.
I Know I should be quiet, but I really feel sex workers have a rough deal. Not from the clients, but from the general public and their perception of sex workers,
from the Government and from people like you.
Do you actually talk with sex workers, you STILL have not answered that question. I do, and they feel general sadness about the attitudes you have about their
work..
Dephyne –
“You really don’t understand the concept of trade unions do you? They are not their for owners – they are there to represent the workforce because of the
inherent imbalance of power between employer and employee. Like other people have said if agencies need their own representation they should start a trade
association or join the Federation of Small Businesses or somesuch.”
In terms of trade unions, I myself am most familiar with the National Union of Journalists. It certainly has employers on its books as well as those who work for
them in public relations and in freelance news agencies, I used to collect their subs in one of its largest provindial branches.
Other examples have been given in other comments both here and in Cath’s WordPress blog.
But as far as I can make out, the post precludes the concept of the agency providing services for the escort, which, as I understand it, is the case with the better
agencies. As I understand it, if they don’t find the agency good enough, they’re perfectly at liberty to leave and finds another agency.
The only employers. as I understand it, are the clients.
But that doesn’t stop Douglas and John being sex workers. They’re just indirect sex workers, like all the people in manufactuiring, say, who don’t actually wotk
on the production lines.
John runs the agenvy, Douglas spends much of his time sexonded, if you like, fighting for the cause of sex workers.
How the IUSW organises itself is a matter for the IUSW, and I’m sure it’s had discussions on this and made its decisions. Why should itr exclude anyone who
works in the industry, after all its main problem is fighting stigma, and ‘pimps’ – as people like to indirect sex workers – suffer more stigma than any other
group of sex workers.
RenegadeEvolution
All the benefits of working for an agency, or brothel which are totally ignored by the anti brigade. The good agency in the UK provides all those benefits, but
the more they become involved in the safety organisation, the more they are likely to be considered controlling. Yeah and most agencies have get togthers, and
the chance to chat with like minded people.
Sex work can be lonely, I do a website for one woman, and she is constantly phoning me because I think she gets lonely and wants someone to talk to about her
work. She can’t talk to her ‘normal friends’, because they will more than likely disown her, or tell her child.
This is where the do gooders often cause more harm and danger to sex workers than their clients. Another sexworker I know and, turned brothel owner, do
gooders came up to her 10 year child, and announced to the child and all the childs friends, ‘YOUR MOTHER IS A PROSTITUTE’ . A great days work, one
child harmed for ever.
In my chats with this escort, she loves her clients, there are ones should would want to marry. A far cry for wanting them out of the door as quickly as possible.
Do gooders or antis going for the children is common. I know one escort who arrived to pick her children up at the school gates and leaflets had been ahded out
telling the other mothers that so and so mothers a prostitute and has HIV.
Another escort had paint daubed on her door by do gooders.
Another had leaflets dropped through neighbours doors
The list goes on.
Re clients. I have clients who have seen me for years. They become friends.
Sadly all are monsters to the anti brigade which is a sad reflection on their disrespect for individuals and the circumstances that make their lives tolerable.
What is the saying let those with out sin throw the first stone?
Douglas
“As a nurse, if I were to set up a nursing agency I would not be automatically excluded from the Royal College of Nursing”
For escort agencies, working at them, people get struck off or yellow carded. For running them, they always get struck off.
9/1/09
The ruling said: “Although Mr Beasley’s conduct occurred outside school hours in his own time, away from school premises and with no remuneration, we
consider that his involvement in these films brought the profession into disrepute.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/01/09/porn-teacher-reprimanded-115875-21028897/
“You really don’t understand the concept of trade unions do you? They are not their for owners – they are there to represent the workforce because of the
inherent imbalance of power between employer and employee”
Cadbury or a Rowntree, a model village, free boots, trips to the seaside, that’s not a union, that is closer to squire/peasant, without knocking the goodwill
aspects.
The mine owner is not in the union
—-
“Pimps suffer more stigma than any other group of sex workers.”
It is shocking isn’t it. Are they well paid?
How much do they earn? For example how much does the one in Newcastle gross.
—-
Douglas
I lived in Gosforth, Jesmond and worked every week in Newcastle for years, I’ve had several recent trips in relation to schoolteachers. I’ve spent weeks there
working on LIst 99 referrals and educator misconduct.
Would there be an official record of any of this?
It is not unusual ( as it happens) for people to want to move brothels on.
Yvette
261. AnotherEscort 4:31 pm, January 15, 2009
Cath,
to fear.”
It is strange is it not that even though I am an independent escort I still contribute in these debates. I mean I am going to be ok so why am I bothered. Could it be
that I find this law which is proposed unfair, that I hate all the lies which are being put out to get it through (mainly by the so-called people who say they are
there to help us all) , the fact that I know all the girls this law will affect is going to get a rougher deal out of it and the fact that I care (I know, an alien concept
from the anti-brigade).
I get angry when I see all the comments ‘all pimps are paedophiles, etc’ On the previous debates on CIF it all got thrown in, pimps (Julie Bindel even said some
of her friends thought the CIA was behind the ECP which was rather funny if it wasn’t for the fact that this is the woman the government is getting advice from)
Heck, we even got prostitutes are forced to work with a gun to their head.. All emotive languages to play on people. All the violence we have to endure etc, etc.
As some of you read Punternet, you may wish to take a look into the ‘dangerous punter warning’ section.. I think you may be surprised how few threads there
are in there. But surely it can’t be right, I mean violence is part of being a prostitute, is it not? I have said it before, in the almost 4 years I have done this I have
never once felt threatened.
Again, as usual on this thread we have the men are all after young girls, and they all start at 13 and 14.. Lies, lies and more lies.. Not in the UK!!! I have never
ever heard or got the whiff of an underage escort. I am in my late forties and I am doing very well, how does that go with all men want young girls.
Cath,
“I agree, which is why I have some reservations about how effective the government’s latest legislation is going to be. Without massive funding and significant
joint agency work going into these areas, the current plans are regrettably bound to fail.
I think both sides of this debate acknowledge that those working in street prostitution are the ones most in need of help (and by help I do not mean either
“saving” or “rescuing”). Most are there not through choice, but, as you’ve already mentioned, because of drug and other substance addictions, coercion, etc. A
significant proportion of these women have suffered histories of abuse, both emotional and sexual; many have come through the so-called “care” system, and
again, as you’ve already mentioned, the majority lead chaotic, self-destructive lives.”
I agree with you that those working in street prostitution are the ones most in need of help but exactly where are the barriers to do exactly what you have
proposed now as the laws stands?? Do you really think that if these laws gets passed that miraculously the government are going to set up all these help centres
for the girls? And since they are now going to be more difficult to find due to the new law, it looks like it is a winner!! (ok, maybe not)
You already know that often the problem with the girls on the street is often from the “care” system.. Is this not where the emphasis should be?
I am still concerned about the trafficked victims who will not be working on the street. Instead they will be taken to brothels and controlled from there. If
brothels are legalised, the police will have less power to investigate them; they will become a haven for traffickers and pimps to set up and operate behind the
guise of a legitimate business.
I am not concerned if the numbers of trafficked women are lower than some of the figures suggest, any trafficked (and forced, coerced, controlled, pimped-out)
woman matters to me. Clearly they do not matter to these pimps and ‘happy hookers’ who are carrying out their business, not only on the backs of trafficked,
forced, co-erced, controlled women (and rent boys), but on the backs of all women in society, who will remain endangered and commodified, viewed as sex
objects to be penetrated for the price of a couple of beers, while all this is still going on. Those trafficked women are there purely and simply because there is a
demand for them, from punters who could not give a damn how the woman got there; they simply wish to choose there product from a long list available,
perhaps sampling different ethnicities, or different ages or sizes, not dissimilar to picking out meat at your local butcher.
Don’t kid yourselves that what pimps, agents, ‘happy hookers’ etc are doing is harmless, it is devestating to all. But what do they care? They cash in and run,
leaving the destruction for someone else to clear up.

– Bob the Builder
“I am still concerned about the trafficked victims who will not be working on the street. Instead they will be taken to brothels and controlled from there”
Such few trafficked persons as have been found in the industry have all already been found (with one exception) in the indoor sector in brothels, in which they
are generally imprisoned.
The difference is that under the proposals they are much less likely to be found, because as both the traffickers and the brothel owners/managers have already
been criminalised, the only persons left in the equation are the clients, who are due to be crimionalised under the new legisilation.
They’re hardly likely to queueing to raise the alarm given the propects of £1,000 fines and their mugshots all over the media, are they? So check out this and ask
youirself jow long the victims in these cases would have had to wait for rescue if the Smith plan had been perpetrated:
Firstly, your first paragraph does not make sense, and secondly, do you honestly expect me to believe that because a punter with a guilty conscience, presumably
after he continued to rape the poor woman anyway, makes a report on a couple of occasions, and that the nature of the men who are prepared to pay women to
consent to being raped (yes, this does come from the testimonies of formerly prostituted women who are no longer pretending they like it because they have
escaped and can now stand up to the abuse they suffered) is that they will report a victim that they have just raped or intended to rape? Sorry, I am not that
naive. You keep sticking your sticky back plastic factsheet together in an attempt to justify your cruel cruel, money hungry contribution to this vile flesh trade.
– Bod the Builder

“Firstly, your first paragraph does not make sense, and secondly, do you honestly expect me to believe that because a punter with a guilty conscience,
presumably after he continued to rape the poor woman anyway, makes a report on a couple of occasions, and that the nature of the men who are prepared to pay
women to consent to being raped (yes, this does come from the testimonies of formerly prostituted women who are no longer pretending they like it because
they have escaped and can now stand up to the abuse they suffered) is that they will report a victim that they have just raped or intended to rape? Sorry, I am not
that naive. You keep sticking your sticky back plastic factsheet together in an attempt to justify your cruel cruel, money hungry contribution to this vile flesh
trade.”
To whom is this addressed?

“I am still concerned about the trafficked victims who will not be working on the street. Instead they will be taken to brothels and controlled from there. If
brothels are legalised, the police will have less power to investigate them; they will become a haven for traffickers and pimps to set up and operate behind the
guise of a legitimate business.”
Criminals like legal, despite what some folks say.
Lap-dancing barons earning more money than you can stuff in a thong
LIAM REID and SARAH McINERNEY
“Drogheda-based businessman 45-year-old Jerome Brennan is the main backer behind the Le Chic chain of clubs around the country. He is listed as a director of
two rms, Le Chic and Zahia Ireland, both of which have yet to le accounts.”
https://www.tribune.ie/article/2003/jun/15/lap-dancing-barons-earning-more-money-than-you-can/
He was a child sex trafficker and all he needed was semi-legal or administratively unlawful. For example outside the law, but not the criminal law, for the
premises or ‘front’ operation that is.
New Zealand also fits the Le Chic model of exploitation. The Guardian took a liking to Jerome, I was puzzled about that, he was a wife-beating gobsh*te.
Yvette
BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Ex-club boss jailed for grooming

21 Nov 2006 … A man who opened Northern Ireland’s first lapdancing club has been jailed for internet sex grooming. Jerome Brennan, 49, originally from …
news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/news/int/search/news%2Bsport/models+botanical/-/2/hi /uk_news/northern_ireland/6169042.stm – 36k – Cached – Similar pages
I really don’t get it. If a man is caught ‘having sex’ with a trafficked, forced etc woman, this is rape; nothing less. RAPE. Yet how many men have ever been
convicted of rape of a trafficked/forced etc prostitute? When brothels are raided and men are found raping these trafficked/forced women, they are set free?!?
The new laws will recognise this RAPE as a punishable crime. I don’t understand what is so far fetched about that? It is a no-brainer, as they say. It does not
apply to so called ‘independent escorts’.
Rape report and conviction rates in the UK are among the lowest in Europe, yet 1 in 4 women will be raped in her lifetime (British Crime Survey).
1 trafficked woman is 1 too many.
I refuse to compare rape to picking leeks or taking drugs, or being a victim of burglary.
With public recognition, reports of this ABUSE will go up, police will have more power, demand will go down, victims will be eventually be fewer, perhaps not
overnight, but for success you have to look to the long term. Over time this disgusting crime could be eliminated. That hope is not worth giving up on. All
change is taken in small steps, 1 by 1 countries will pull together on this.
Labelling rape and prostitution as ‘just a job’ gives the green light to exploiters, and sends out the message that women exist as sexual commodities to be bought
or rented. The abuse is not that different for rent boys hired by men. Only men hired by women retain sexual dominance and power for the period of ‘rental’.
There are gender/power issues as well as sexual abuse issues here.
There will always be men who are prepared to rape women; they should be punished, not facilitated.
What do poverty-stricken heterosexual men do when they need to feed their kids and survive?
Only the few who profit from this exploitation have any benefit from it; only those few will continue to fight this law and continue to let men rape trafficked and
forced women and get away with it.
268. Gregory Carlin 9:02 pm, January 15, 2009
“Rape report and conviction rates in the UK are among the lowest in Europe, yet 1 in 4 women will be raped in her lifetime (British Crime Survey).”
The Home Office ‘consent’ campaign had posters of young women in their undies. So the solution had the same mind-set as the problem.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news/consent-campaign
The campaign was barely genuine if you’ll excuse the pun, and was really because of under-spending and so they advertized in Lads magazines.
it was to get rid of the surplus cah.
Gregory Carlin
Irish Anti-Trafficking Coalition

Bob the Builder
“I really don’t get it. If a man is caught ‘having sex’ with a trafficked, forced etc woman, this is rape; nothing less. RAPE.”
No, you really don’t get it, do you? Intercourse when the male has every reason to believe the female consents is not rape. Punters/ clients are unlikely to know
the female’s been forced through trafficking or in any other way unless she tells them, in which case intercourse would be rape, unless, of course, concensual.
But unless she tells them, or they discover in some other way, it is not rape, whatever else it is.
“Yet how many men have ever been convicted of rape of a trafficked/forced etc prostitute?”
About 30 I believe, when they’ve known the woman’s been forced. That was the numbers MPs referred to in a Commons debate a month or two back.
You’re neglecting the fact that under UK law, people can be deemed human traffickers even though the people they ‘traffick’ are over 18 and arrive in the UK
voluntarily with every intention of working as prostitutes in brothels. Check your Sexual Offences Axt 2003 sections 57-60.
So not even all the persons deemed trafficked are forced.
The new Bill will make it far less likely that pinters will tell the authorities of cases were women are forced, as it could mean themselves or their friends being
prosecuted. And love them or loathe them, punters are the only people likely to be able to help forced women on a day to day basis, as they are the only onbes
likely to come into contact with the women other than the brothel management and the traffickers themselves.
Your confidence that independent escorts will be unaffected by this legislation is misplaced.. They can expected to be cross-examined, to establish whether they
are controlled, by potential clients, and to reveal details of their private lives which could prejudice their safety.
SteophenP:
“You’re neglecting the fact that under UK law, people can be deemed human traffickers even though the people they ‘traffick’ are over 18 and arrive in the UK
voluntarily with every intention of working as prostitutes in brothels. Check your Sexual Offences Axt 2003 sections 57-60.”
Isn’t it also the case that, under the terms of this Act, a person can be deemed guilty of human trafficking simply for giving a sex worker a lift to their place of
work & that this situation applies regardless of whether the sex worker has requested this transportation or not (noting that the sex worker need not be foreign,
there need be no financial exchange for this service & that it need only be from one side of the town where both parties live to the other)?
To be honest though, I find the whole issue of whether a union is willing to accept those who, in the role of brothel/agency owner, could be interpreted as being
management or not to be far less important than the notion that the law should be based on the idea of providing protection for those who are vulnerable.
You can debate Douglas Fox, Catherine Stephen’s, ECP or IUSW’s membership rules all you want. It won’t change the fact that the legislation contained in the
Policing & Crime Bill 2009 will simply serve to make life a hell of a lot more dangeroous for the majority of sex workers (male, female or transgendered),
which is harldly surprising when one considers that their input; as well as that of anyone else who disagreed with the predetermined line, was ignore when the
Government Review was carried out.
271. Douglas fox 12:23 am, January 16, 2009
Can someone please answer the simple question. Why should a sex worker be denied the same rights of association enjoyed by every other UK subject or
worker.
Why can a sex worker not have the right to choose to work through the agency of a third party and why can sex workers not be allowed to work together for
safety, companionship and because of the stigma associated with sex work for anonymity.
Every other person is allowed those choses and those choices are respected in law except of course for sex workers which is an abuse of sex workers human
rights.
This is the debate and why the present law is bad law and the proposed law not only endangers sex workers but is simply yet another abuse by the government
of human rights. Any attack on any group but particularly a group who are already persecuted by the state is an attack on all of our liberties.
Douglas
272. maxine doogan 2:04 am, January 16, 2009
Cath,
to fear.”
Sex Workers Across Boarders: We have the right to migrate for work..to anywhere anytime. I don’t want that horrible legislation passed because I want the right
to hire an agency to assist me. I want the right to hire an agency anywhere on the planet.

Glen Parry
An excelent comment. Indeed, it is perfectly possible for someone to be charged (Section 58, Sexual Offences Act, 2003) with trafficking for giving a prostitute
a lift to a brothel at her own request.
In fact, so anxious to cover the subject was the Home Office, that if you read the whole of part 1 of the Act, you dixocer it is possible to traffick people for all
sorts of interesting exotic activities not even involving prostitution at all.
If you are caught having sex ion a public loo, for example, you can be put behind bars for six months. But if your mate gave you a lift to help you get to the loo
to have sex, he/she can be banged up for 14 years for trafficking. Ditto, by the way, if they gave you a lift to have an incestuous relationship with your aunt or
uncle, etc etc.
More on this on my blog here:

http://stephenpaterson.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/what-have-uk-punters-got-that-you-havent-jacqui-smith/
274. Gregory Carlin 2:37 am, January 16, 2009

“Why can a sex worker not have the right to choose to work through the agency of a third party”
Jacqui Smith has been aware for a number of years, of the interest of foreign agencies & NGO actors, including UN officials, in relation to psychosexual
disorders re: schoolgirls & re: escort agencies & brothels.
As recently as yesterday I was lobbying Becta affiliates for a zero tolerance policy for forced prostitution terms relating to primary schools and electronic or
computer generated projects.
I was asking for the filtering of a Czech corporation’s project sharing services. They were using the ‘pimp my homework’ expression or words to that effect.
Jacqui Smith was the Minister of State for Schools in the Department for Education and Skills when she was first approached about educator sexual misconduct.
Some of the ‘neo-con’ (as described) on one or the other blog, relating to the proposed legislation, have also flown to Britain to lobby about teachers.
Whatever the extent, I think Jacqui Smith is in no doubt, that there are issue of public confidence relating to British schools, which could be very embarrassing
if reported upon in the New York Times.
Ofsted acts to reform school in sex scandal – Telegraph

Ofsted acts to reform school in sex scandal. By Paul Stokes Last Updated: 2:06AM BST 14 Apr 2008. A comprehensive school where up to 14 members of staff
had …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1584701/Ofsted-acts-to-reform-school-in -sex-scandal.html
There are hundreds of schools, just like that one, in Britain, is the short summary of what was found via American esearch between 2001 and last year.
The last time I was in Newcastle upon Tyne, it was to deal with teachers with a schoolgirl fetish.
Gregory Carlin
“I want the right to hire an agency anywhere on the planet.”
Maxine
G/TIP affiliates are doing teachers in England! We catch them running brothels.
Scholars and activists pinpoint pornography and the rising acceptance by the mainstream as a major cause for demand of prostitution and trafficking—especially
in wealthy destination countries like the U.S. Mass-media dissemination of pornographic and sexually-explicit materials contribute to a flourishing
commercialized sex industry. The violent objectification of the female body perpetuates sexually subservient roles and second-class social status for women.
Only by focusing on ways to reduce demand will this destructive trade come to an end.
Your group lobbied against that NOW thing?
Gregory Carlin
276. Nick 7:42 am, January 16, 2009
“The last time I was in Newcastle upon Tyne, it was to deal with teachers with a schoolgirl fetish.”
And what problem have you got exactly with a teacher with a schoolgirl fetish? Teachers are allowed sex lives and its no one’s business what the content of it is,
unless it impacts on their behaviour in the classroom. If you are going exclusively after child molesters, then fine, but otherwise please keep your puritan
ideology in your own bedroom.
“And what problem have you got exactly with a teacher with a schoolgirl fetish? Teachers are allowed sex lives ”
As a point of fact their Teaching Council (GTCE) takes a view different to that, largely due to the effective lobbying of our political allies.
“If you are going exclusively after child molesters, then fine, but otherwise please keep your puritan ideology in your own bedroom.”
As it happens, one is also trying to moderate other environments as well.
“The barrister added: “In case the girls couldn’t believe their eyes, forensic scientists found the teacher’s semen on two chairs.” When police confronted the
teacher, Kernaghan said he had had sexual encounters with someone in the classroom. He said that it was not a student but refused to give officers the person’s
name.”
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/imported/ulster-teacher–in-dock-for-lewd-acts-13705095.html
I think we definitely want more puritan in the classroom department.
The little girl in the Mark Little case was able to take police into the wilds of nowhere, and point to a condom, with his semen, there ere members of the jury of
a mind to acquit.
“The court heard on Monday that the defendant took the pupil to the Rixton location where they had engaged in sexual activity and disposed of a condom in a
bush. The year nine pupil pointed the area out and police then retrieved a torn condom which was found to identify the defendant, the prosecution claimed.”
So what we are trying to do is to separate the teaching profession from brothels, sex tourism and pedophile theming & etc. It relates to scientific policing, or
behavioral profiling.
Gregory Carlin
Little case referred to UN in bid to protect children
5:20pm Monday 15th December 2008

By Miranda Newey »
THE case of a Warrington teacher convicted of sexual activity with an under-age pupil will be referred to the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the
Child as an example used to help protect children.
Disgraced history teacher Mark Little, aged 28, formerly of Secker Avenue, in Latchford, was found guilty earlier this month of six counts of sexual activity
with a 14-year-old girl.
Gregory Carlin, of the Irish Anti-Trafficking Coalition, is compiling evidence to be sent to the headquarters in New York and told the Warrington Guardian the
case of Little would be central to their bid.
“Such few trafficked persons as have been found in the industry have all already been found (with one exception) in the indoor sector in brothels, in which they
are generally imprisoned.”
Lap-dancing as well, and British LD agencies were in cahoots with sex traffickers, and gangsters in other parts of Europe, particularly Ireland.
There is a very dark side to LD in Britain.
Gregory Carlin
Irish Anti-TRafficking Coalition

Bob the Builder
” Instead they will be taken to brothels and controlled from there. If brothels are legalised, the police will have less power to investigate them; they will become
a haven for traffickers and pimps to set up and operate behind the guise of a legitimate business.”
I understand the enlightened councils and police in some of our cities allow sex workers and brothel owners to run their businesses as long as drugs and
coercion is not present. A guy from the met admitted they knew where all the brothels were, and only went after the ones they thought were problematic.
Edinburgh licences brothels. A sex worker told me they were sometimes taken aside from the the brothel management and interviewed to check out their status,
making sure they were not coerced by the brothel or by external forces like pimp boy friends. Edinburgh closed down several flats that were not licensed in this
way an were trafficking victims were found.
In Edinburgh the outreach organisation SCOTPEP also visits many of the brothels advising on health, and welfare. Obviously in this they would get to know of
many problems.
Manchester runs similar schemes. Milton Keynes brothels run under the careful scrutiny of the police.
Bob you also forget that the voluntary sex workers are also the first ones to report abuse and sex trafficking where they see this happening. A brothel owner is
not necessarily the culprit it can often be an outside agency placing a woman into a brothel. The other workers and the madam are often the first ones to see the
problem. They have to be able to help that sex worker without jeopardising their own employment. Help they presently provide never normally appears in the
crime statistics. Legalising brothels would give more scope for movement to the better brothels, and the closure of the abusive brothels can still take place.

It would be interesting to hear what exactly people believe constitutes a brothel. I would be highly likely that such perceptions would be at variance with the
legal interpretation.
Why are trafficked/forced prostitutes being referred to as ‘sex workers’? They are nothing of the sort, they are rape victims, and victims of trafficking and
associated crimes. In fact, even using the term prostitute is questionable.
All brothels are abusive, and all punters are abusers, whether they think they are or not, and whether ‘happy hookers’ consent or not. This is one of the reasons
they enjoy it; the act of using someones body to effectively masturbate into, and temporarily ‘owning’ said body as a device.
Nice to hear about that lovely punter Boy George today. Lovely character.
Where agencies are working with prostituted women in inner cities it is because they recognise the industry as abusive, violent, etc etc, and all claim to support
exit services because of this fact. The groups would not exist otherwise. So when the agency supports decriminalisation, what other reason do they have other
than to keep their organisation (and funding) running?
1 trafficked woman is 1 too many.
When a man has sex with a woman forced, who cannot speak out for fear of brutal rape or violence or death from her controller, that is rape. There are very
good reasons why these women do not inform their rapists, sorry ‘clients’, that they are not willing to be there, and it ain’t because they are enjoying being
raped. Perhaps these punters should think long and hard about that.
What have the rape campaign posters with images of knickers got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that when an image of a woman’s knickers, or a real
pair of women’s knickers, are revealed, it makes men want to, or gives men the right to rape a woman?
Trafficking is a complex area. Sometimes women are trafficked to countries knowingly, thinking they will end up with a job and not forced into sex slavery.
Others migrate and are then forced into prostitution. Some are smuggled and forced into sex slavery. It doesn’t really matter.
Lap dancing certainly does have a very dark side. A very high percentage of the commercial sex industry has a very dark side. But what does that matter to the
other small percentage who are rolling in the cash on the backs of the others?
Does anyone care about the extreme gender equality problems that exist in society, and how the commercial sex industry severley contributes to this, or are
women as an oppressed group simply not worth worrying about?
Post 274
Stephen P here argues that a trafficked, forced, co-erced, controlled, pimped women is responsible for declaring that she is trafficked, forced, co-erced,
controlled, pimped. That woman must declare to the punter who is probably desperately hard and gagging to rape his victim, that she is there against her will.
Said woman, must risk the consequences, including being beaten, raped, and possibly killed by her controller if she reveals her status. That woman therefore,
has no right to claim rape if she did not reveal, whilst being held as a prisoner by violent, disgusting controllers, her non-consenting status to the rapist in front
of her.
Should the punter take any responsibility for his desperate sexual action? According to Stephen P, apparantly not. He is an innocent bystander, a poor innocent
man waiting to receive his sexual entitlement from this bonded woman.
Bob the Builder
I said nothing of the sort. I merely pointed out, as you “didn’t get” what rape is… http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/01/11/betraying-sex-
workers/#comment-30816
…what rape is.
It is very clear what you would like rape to be, but that is not what rape is. If a male has every reason to believe a female consents at the time of intercourse,
intercourse is not rape.
Period.
I have nowhere declared that a trafficked or corerced woman is responsible for anything. But if a punter has no reason to believe she is trafficked, coerced, etc,
he is unlikely to be able to approach the authorities with such news. He is unlikely to get the information from anyone other than the woman herself.
The question with the new Bill is whether he is likely to inform the authorities if faced with the prospect of £1,000 fines for him and his friends and
theirmugshots all over the media. I would suggest not.
Furthermore, the way the Bill’s currently perpetrated, the offence lies in actually making the arrangement for the sex, not the sex itself, so by the time he’s in
one to one contact with the woman in a brothel, and she reveals her plight, he’ll already have been rendered a criminal by the Bill and have been given a
powerful reason to keep his mouth shut.
Perfect.
Bob the Builder couldn’t have done better.
Bob the Builder:
“Why are trafficked/forced prostitutes being referred to as ’sex workers’? They are nothing of the sort, they are rape victims, and victims of trafficking and
associated crimes. In fact, even using the term prostitute is questionable.”
Sorry, but you seem to be under the illusion that all sex workers are women & that people are equating this term with trafficking victims. This is not the case.
Hard as it might be for you to understand there are many who choose to work in the sex industry. Cath’s above the line piece was an argument that someone
involved in the management of an escort agency should not be allowed to speak for sex workers or belong to their union. Do ou honestly believe that such a
union is likely include in its membership the sort of enforced sexual slave you are referring to?
“All brothels are abusive, and all punters are abusers, whether they think they are or not, and whether ‘happy hookers’ consent or not. This is one of the reasons
they enjoy it; the act of using someones body to effectively masturbate into, and temporarily ‘owning’ said body as a device.”
Wrong again. You really should read some properly researched material on the nature of the indoor sex markets; I suggest O’connell Davidson, Sanders,
Schoular, Cambell or Kinnell, of which you have no real understanding. Such research has demonstrated that there is an increasing trend amongst both brothel
& agency management towards working practices found within mainstream businesses. The main difference being that the management of such
organisations/establishments are at risk of prosecution & the workers themselves are denied the protections afforded to others by health & safety & employment
law.
Nor is true to say that all punters are abusers. The reality is that the vast majority of commercial sex encounters take place without a hint of violence; the main
risks of violence to indoor sex workers are from those, posing as clients, who then rob or abuse them, not actual clients. Clients tend to observe an unwritten
system of etiquette & to respect the sex worker; it is also noteworthy that it is perfectly possible for sex workers & clients to become friends, in the same way as
is found amongst those who meet, initially, through business in other industries. This is especially true of the regular clients; i.e.those who make regular visits to
one, or a very small number of, sex workers who form the majority amongst clients of indoor sex workers.
Nor do all commercial sex encounters entail intercourse. It is fairly common for sex workers to recount that they have a number of clients who simply seek the
chance to have a chat & cuddle with someone; hence the premium that is placed on the “Girl Friend Experience”.
“Where agencies are working with prostituted women in inner cities it is because they recognise the industry as abusive, violent, etc etc, and all claim to support
exit services because of this fact. The groups would not exist otherwise. So when the agency supports decriminalisation, what other reason do they have other
than to keep their organisation (and funding) running?”
Er, no, wrong again, the majority of outreach projects working with sex workers are more concerned with health provision & assistance for those who want to
leave the industry; they also provide legal & social work services.
“1 trafficked woman is 1 too many.”
Nobody here would argue with that sentiment, but the trafficking of women for sex purposes is only one aspect of human trafficking, & let’s face it, who gives a
damn about cockle pickers or amids who are chained to the radiator at night?
The rest of your 1813 post is big on emotive language & imagery of predatory men besetting desperate women; ignoring the research that proves that most men
abhor the idea of sex, even within a commercial setting, with someone who is obviously coerced, yet makes the common mistake of automatically associating
prostitution & trafficking into issue that can be dealt with by one size fits all legislation. They are not inextrcably linked; even allowing for the limitations,
which she herself admits, of Hillary Kinnell’s estimate of 80,000 sex workers in the UK; this is the estiamate that is quoted in “Paying th Price” & elsewhere, if
we use this as a rough yardstick then it is possible to state that the results of Operations Pentameter 1 & 2 demonstrate that; which were intelligence lead,
indicate that less than 0.3% of this estimated 80.000 sex workers are likely to be victims of human trafficking. Thus the majority of UK based sex workers, of
which indoor workers make up approximately 85 – 90%, do not fall into this category.

“Operations Pentameter 1 & 2 demonstrate that; which were intelligence lead, indicate that less than 0.3% of this estimated 80.000 sex workers are likely to be
victims of human trafficking.”
Don’t be silly the Home Office doesn’t do ‘intelligence lead’. They use newspapers & etc.
If you look at the my web-site that went with the early UKIS raids, that’s how we arranged the operations, we also infiltrated the odd thing with females.
Gregory Carlin
Gregory Carlin
“Cath’s above the line piece was an argument that someone involved in the management of an escort agency should not be allowed to speak for sex workers or
belong to their union. Do ou honestly believe that such a union is likely include in its membership the sort of enforced sexual slave you are referring to”
Name me one pimp who is in jail because of the IUSW/GMB
Gregory Carlin
“Yvette”! Nice to see you without the disguise!
All these electronics and oceans of newsprint devoted to trafficking, the Government isn’t even off the Go square. It can’t even work out what trafficking IS:
http://stephenpaterson.wordpress.com/
“All these electronics and oceans of newsprint devoted to trafficking, the Government isn’t even off the Go square. It can’t even work out what trafficking IS:”
[DOC] WOLVERHAMPTON AND NOTTINGHAM CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION PILOTS

File Format: Microsoft Word – View as HTML
… given the obligatory two prostitute cautions, and on a third or subsequent ….. disclosed that between 1989 and 1995 2380 cautions were issued and 1730 …
http://www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/Data/child_prostitution.doc – Similar pages
There would seem to be scope for a few thousand arrests on the child expoitation sapects.
Gregory Carlin
290. Glen Parry 10:54 am, January 17, 2009
Gregory Carlin:
““Operations Pentameter 1 & 2 demonstrate that; which were intelligence lead, indicate that less than 0.3% of this estimated 80.000 sex workers are likely to be
victims of human trafficking.”
Don’t be silly the Home Office doesn’t do ‘intelligence lead’. They use newspapers & etc.””
In response, I would give you the following; which I’m sure even you could not deny as being an impecable source:
“Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of the estimated number of UK sex establishments Operation Pentameter 2
visited. [243303]
Jacqui Smith: It is not possible to accurately state what proportion of UK sex establishments were visited under Pentameter 2.
Operation Pentameter 2 was an intelligence-led operation which involved a total of 822 premises being visited. Of these 157 were massage parlours/saunas, 582
were residential and 83 were other premises including airports, seaports and hotels.”
Hansard, 17 Dec 2008 : Column 860W
Funnily enough, when attempting to do a search for your organisation’s website, no results are returned.
Glen Parry
291. IATC 11:29 pm, January 17, 2009

For fun
Ask Jacqui Smith how many referrals ( by politicians or others) Home office agencies ( CEOP/SOCA) were given relating to ‘adult’ pornographers using
children.
The Brits are really, very lax. They miss stuff the FBI would front-page, it is their culture to have ‘not fit for purpose’ agencies.
The Brits don’t do intelligence lead operations unless calling me up is the way we are defining it. At times they even said ‘The Daily Mail’ as bei9ng the
problem. The Blair people were addicted to spin and press relations. It was uncanny.
As for my own doings. For example *all* the DWP, DEL, Jobcentre investigations into prostitution, lap-dancing, or sex trafficking would relate to yours truly
and nobody else.
I’ve told Jacqui Smith MP I want tthe credit for that. I too, am fed up to the back teethb reading BS in the media about my work. So 100 percent of those
categories was down to me.
As for, UKIS raids relating to similar in one year 20 percent of the G/TIP review total from G/TIP affiliates in the USA.
smithjj@parliament.uk
Ask the HS to do you a FOI – I don’t mind, the Brits have use our groups to cover their public relations over a number of years.
Why don’t you ask Jacqui Smith how many warnings Tony Blair was given about Jerome Brennan or lap-dancing in 2002 (from America).
The image you need for ‘intelligence lead’ is a Brit cop reading the classifieds in a tabloid.
http://www.withreference2.org/trafficking/index.html
Other people collect our media, we’re G/TIP affiliates.
Gregory Carlin
292. IATC 11:48 pm, January 17, 2009
Glen
For years we were happy to allow dozy Brit cops to take credit for work paid for by G/TIP people inthe USA, in one series of raids the Brits claimed it ( the
intelligence) had cost them 250,000 – the relity was that I provided data including detailed maps for building interiors.
If the Brits were serious about intel, they have thousands of teachers referred to LIST 99 some of them are child pimps, sex traffickers,brothel operators or
belong to image clubs. That would be the obvious place to start.
Thereafter clean up WP-UK in Sheffield, educational visas, Jobcentre, DWP, and ask An Garda Siochana for a set of files for Operation Gladiator or Operation
Quest, get the Dutch/Irish drug stuff from Holland o rCustoms and Excise
I’d do ex-policemen or police employees operating web-sites & escort agencies and teachers to begin with.
Brit ‘intel’ is from the back of a newspaper.
Feel free to FOI my name, IATC, Prof Donna Hughes. The Brits did 11 or 12 brothels in 2002 (taken to court), that’s *all* of them.
I was doing better than all of them put together, if we include Ireland.
The Brits are garbage, because they don’t care.
[DOC] WOLVERHAMPTON AND NOTTINGHAM CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION PILOTS

File Format: Microsoft Word – View as HTML
… given the obligatory two prostitute cautions, and on a third or subsequent ….. disclosed that between 1989 and 1995 2380 cautions were issued and 1730 …
http://www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/Data/child_prostitution.doc – Similar pages
How many pedophiles in jail for the almost 4,000 child prostitution things?
It could be none knowing the Brits.
Jacqui Smith is a very silly person. Ican tell you this, now she knows I am slightly peeved with the IUSW, she will treat their petition as feces.
She also knows that I no longer object to being given credit for my work, previously she knew that ‘personal safety’ issues dictated discretion.
I challenge Jacqui Smith to call me a liar.
Gregory
Gregory Carlin -:
“The image you need for ‘intelligence lead’ is a Brit cop reading the classifieds in a tabloid”
That’s funny, our image for ‘intelligence-led ’has thus far been a CIA agent reading the classifieds in a tabloid, ever since the Washington Post came out with
this over trafficking victims:
“Although there have been several estimates over the years, the number that helped fuel the congressional response — 50,000 victims a year — was an
unscientific estimate by a CIA analyst who relied mainly on clippings from foreign newspapers, according to government sources…”
This in a story trying to explain why they’d only found less than 200 trafficking victims a tear in the whole USA for seven years. Obviously they lacked your
assistance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201401.html
294. Glen Parry 1:10 am, January 18, 2009
Gregory Carlin:
I would ask you to answer the following questions:
1. Are you stating that Hansard is an unreliable source?
2. You make two conflicting claims relating to the Police/Home Office intelligence that formed the basis for the Operation Pentameter 1 & 2 raids. First you
state that you supplied some of this intelligence & then you state that it simply consisted of PCs reading the local newspaper. You can’t have it both ways so,
which is it to be?
3. You advise people to reference your organisation’s website or your personal blog, but a search for these produces no results; it does however show that you
personally are very vocal on a range of subject including Canadian immigration policy, open letters to George W. Bush advocating a nominee for an important
US Government appointment (on, what appears to be, the basis of their religious & moral credentials), Australian interpretations of what constitutes art, school
uniforms & advocacy of abstinence only sex education. Therefore, I would ask that you provide such links to either your organisation’s website or your personal
blog, when advising others to read them, if possible?
4. You have posted comments in this debate using at least four identities; i.e. Sudeten, Yvette Doll, Gregory Carlin &, now, IATC. Why do you feel the need to
do this if you are certain of the veracity of the claims you make?
Glen Parry
Glen
The use of an expression, doesn’t prove the expression is anything more than a form of words, and Hansard has more than its share of misinformation.
(1), I would say that Hansard has a quite a number of PQs authored by yours truly and a number of responses, or written or spoken answers, prepared with my
assistance.
For example I have ( in the past) in relation to UKIS raids, been able to supply Hansard answers to the querying politicians *before* the MP was notified, and
before publication. IN British terms that isa neat trick and requires the private office, or relevant department, to relay the information to me first, or to prepare
the text with my assistance.
P2 relied in part on P1 by which stage the police were buying the newspapers themselves as opposed to using journalists and other sources indirectly or diectly
via the IATC.
The Home Office approached some journalists directly relating to issues such as educational visas (as linked to UK brothels) and also the Home Office kept tabs
on locall police agencies in the same manner.
If reading the advertisements in the ‘Sunday Sport’ is intelligence lead, then so let it be true.
(3) In relation to G/TIP – I organized more media (mostly regional) than any other advocate person outside of the US Department of State. Of course a couple of
CNN will perhaps be more demographically useful than two dozen regional newspapers. It is hard work, and over the last few years, I’ve also worked on a
dozen BBC scripts or programmes.
(4) Yvette Doll as a cultural or artistic phenomena is perhaps more reliable than Hansard in relation to the COC, PNVD, IPCE, PIE, PAL and the GLF.
Sudeten Creche was possibly more about the Kaliningrad Oblast, than about the Czech Republic.
“I was part of sexual liberation, I’m played on radio stations from from Vladivostok to Voskresensk, because I prosletyzed radical ideas, in a political
environment which was difficult to say the least.”
http://toomuchtosayformyself.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/the-great-iusw-con/#comment-426
The last modern art movement was pop art. The mechanical means of production or rendering techniques, can be applied to metal stampers culled from laqueurs
(record cutting room) or silk screen, being a specific component.
An album sleeve, also important in its own right and to that end, it was possible ( as a statement or ‘happening’ if public) for the record not to be released or
sold, or tamped and to exist as ‘a flat’ about fifty inches long or ‘as visual pop art’.
I was certainly in the same room as Yvette Doll on a number of occasions I can’t claim to be as as popular in post-industrial or electro-goth circles.
Gregory Carlin

Stephen
I am to the G/TOP top hierarchy what Yvette Doll was to Kraftwerk or Andy Warhol. I am a cog in the wheel, you can ask me about Cheb, Limerick, or the
Ukraine, I only have a limited understanding of the strategic overview of the United States as a territory..
I am relevant in relation to Jacqui Smith and considerably less so to Alberto R. Gonzales, it is my job to be given perspectives as they relate to the Bush
adinistration rather than to offer opinions authoratively.
The exception to that caveat, is my team leading in relation to pornography and the US military (as actors), or trafficking to Seattle via Alaska & Canada, or
exotic dancer schemes in Japan, Canada, UK and Ireland and intermediate territorities.
The article was discussed by colleagues in the USA, and I was sent a memo by e-mail. I am not at liberty to discuss the detailed contents of that e-mail. There
were issues relating to the people who provided information to Jerry Markon Washington Post Staff Writer
Some journalists are not in the least concerned about facts or balanced perspective, and present information in a way purposefully designed to mislead and
discredit.
Anyone who knows Steve Wagner knows that he would never simply say, “there are no victims.” It’s just ludicrous to think so. Steve certainly believes there are
victims otherwise it would have been pointless for him to start his own non-profit to work on trafficking issues since leaving HHS.
“Steven Wagner, who helped HHS distribute millions of dollars in grants to community groups to find and assist victims, said “Those funds were wasted.”
“Many of the organizations that received grants didn’t really have to do anything,” said Wagner, former head of HHS’s anti-trafficking program. “They were
available to help victims. There weren’t any victims.””
People of good faith can disagree about whether or not Rescue and Restore’s efforts have been effective or not, that is a legitimate line of debate, I am not able
to publicly discuss the quotations attributed to Steve Wagner.
I wasn’t invited to discuss Mr. Wagner’s alleged statement to the WP with my colleagues in Washington DC and it would be quite silly to try to do it here. I was
given a memo about it and I read that memo.
I identified a hundred or so sex trafficking cases vis a vis the USA and Canada and those incidents were detected in relation to work in Dominican Republic and
Romania.
so I would imagine, establishing a problem which had thousands of victims per annum, wouldn’t be that difficult a target.
Gregory Carlin
“Stephen P is correct about how the CIA arrived at the estimate for number of trafficking victims into the U.S.”
Some feed-back from a leading abolitionist, who I won’t trouble to name.
“The discrepancy between the alleged number of victims per year and the number of cases they’ve been able to make is so huge that it’s got to raise major
questions,”
And that is a good question, in my opinion.
As in rape prosecution, the Trafficking Victim’s Protection Act burdens the victim with the obligation to “prove” that she did not consent to the crime(s)
committed against her. The succes rate will therefore not be much higher.
A US professor agreed with the CIA aspects. We also discused sex crime in Sweden, that thing on your web-site. I am personally tempted to think you may have
had a point.
However, It would be a bit swank of me to offer a public opinion before the all-knowing Swedes.
Gregory
I think many of us would attribute your obviously considerable inpiut into thinking on the sex industry in the USA as doing a great deal to explain the state of its
policies in this area today, Gregory.
How’s 4 Downfine Walk, Belfast, by the way?
http://www.grumpyoldsod.com/wanker%20of%20the%20week.asp
That guy is so very strange. I see he has borrowed a photo from a Catholic web-site and has been tracking me via satelite, that’s very keen of him.
he’s wrong about the central heating.
He probably has the square footage right as to the property audit. I think the cell-phone is lost or possibly retired. I’d give him seven out of ten for stalking the
object of his dislike.
He had a theory on Kesgrave school
“I am, as you may have

guessed, well acquainted with Kesgrave High School, and in fact used to
visit it in an advisory capacity when I was still working. It is one of
the best of its kind in the county and has an excellent reputation.
There has never been any suggestion of “drunken pupil/teacher parties””
He was of course wrong.
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Suffolk | Teacher disciplined over drinking

A drama teacher who got drunk with pupils at school parties has been found guilty of unacceptable conduct. Jo Bowen, who taught at Kesgrave High School in
…
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/4678646.stm – 34k – Cached – Similar pages –
I am therefore very happy for him
“At a practical level the Labour Party definitely did open up Jobcentre to sex traffickers, pedophiles and other dangerous criminals.”
I certainly agree with that, I think our schoolgirl selling agency in Newcastle was one of the Jobcentre clients.
“When the NAS/UWT teachers’ union raised concerns about the way the law on pupil-teacher relationships is formulated, Carlin contacted the newspapers and
received copious publicity for his claims that they were trying to legalise sex between pupils and teachers, and even between foster-parents and their charges.”
http://www.grumpyoldsod.com/wanker%20of%20the%20week.asp
True enough, that is their policy in both cases.
“Property Size 57 square metres. It has central heating but no garage, and if you’re obsessive enough you can see it clearly on Google Earth”
As a net-stalker he is definitely getting there.
Gregory
“I was part of discussions between Washington DC based NGOs and the Lib Dem HQ. The party is apparently going to dilute the SOA 2003 and legalize some
child pornography. That is seemingly the policy of the Lib Dems”
That’s true, over several years, the Lib Dems want to legalize hard core porn at 16. There is a block of organizations attacking the SOA 2003
Proposal To Allow 16-Year-Olds

To Appear In Explicit Porn
By Andy McSmith
Political Editor
The Independent – UK
3-21-4
That is true enough.
Gregory
“I think many of us would attribute your obviously considerable inpiut into thinking on the sex industry in the USA as doing a great deal to explain the state of
its policies in this area today”
Stephen
I chaperone US stuff when it arrives here.
I have a reputaon at Westminster and the House of Lords for not making mistakes, that reads as *never* making mistakes with their careers, that’s an absolute
job requirement.
A lot of PQs can spin-out into major media, and it is important to have detail nailed down.
Political clients need to be cared for.
Gregory
“The NAS/UWT’s lawsuit against Carlin for libel and gross defamation will follow in due course – we hope. ”
Chris Keates is wild,
That was funny, because Chris Keates was extensively reported in her own words, from one end of the USA to the other. She wants to derogate abuse of trust in
the UK, at the time US jurisdictions are talking of upping the age to 21 and others want to keep foster relations classified as a genre of incest.
So Chris Keates, a radical by US standards. In fairness some British commentators appreciated that the schoolgirl problem was getting a bit out of hand.
“If this shocks you so profoundly that you believe Ms Keates must have been misquoted, I can tell you she sticks by every word.”
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/64914/Teacher-pupil-sex-can-never-be-a-grey-area
I was delighted by the US media coverage of Chris Keates. The Catholic media were rather fairer to the NASUWT than the British tabloids.
Teachers’ unions back Keates on sixth form sex law | News | TES
12 Oct 2008 … The News of the World claimed that “teachers want right to bed their pupils”. And a reader on the News of the World website added: “teachers
…
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6003533 – 50k – Cached – Similar pages –
There is a lot of support for legal teacher/pupil sex in the UK.
“Teachers’ unions have unanimously backed Chris Keates’ call for the Government to reconsider the law surrounding teachers who have sex with sixth-
formers.”
They have set out their stall, it is what they want. I think the UK is the only country in the world with these kinds of transgressive campaigns bythe very people
who are tasked to protect children.
“Obviously, it has implications for students’ education and inability to concentrate in class,”
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6003533
I just couldn’t make that stuff up
JAN MOIR: Time to teach these predators a REAL lesson | Mail Online
17 Oct 2008 … And a science teacher who spanked a 14-year-old’s bottom and called her a ….. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard
…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1078349/Time-teach-predators-REAL- lesson.html –
That OTOH makes sense. If the abuse of trust provisions of the SOA 2003 goes, would not be illegal for guardians to have sex with foster children.
It is not just one union, the Brit teaching profession in general is making a pitch.
‘John’s denial, though, was much more interesting: an odd hybrid of legalistic game-playing and genuine psychological resistance to the notion that he was
selling sex. It wasn’t that he didn’t know perfectly well what was going on (otherwise why squirm so uncomfortably about the headmaster who rang up
requesting the youngest escort on the books to dress up as a schoolgirl?)’
It is a profitable business, providig age role services for British teachers.
The Brits have a lot of educator sexual misconduct.
Gregory
303. v 5:18 pm, January 19, 2009
is publishing peoples addresses and personal details okay then?
304. Gregory 7:03 pm, January 19, 2009
My stalkers?
If it is a brit web-site, one can get a settlement, it is usually not worth the trouble.
I get a lot of that, teachers and pimps are forever creating false dating profiles etc.
They take my photos of Vatican media. If you pop over to the TES web-site and do a search for n*gger or something, you will get a good idea of what’s in our
classrooms.
That one, was a first for doing my house square footage.
Gregory
I like listening to the voices of prostituted women
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TQydMMjbL5o

Oh, I DO lwelcome listening to the voices of prostituted persons; it really helps me to clarify and re-inforce my existing opinions even further.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PDZvy96EIKg
CATW + Janice Raymond videos will certainly help you reinforce your opinions, Bob the Builder, and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of ‘rescued’ ‘victims’ to pour
over.
I’d just watch out for anyone turning up with any actual facts, that’s all.
If you find UK studies of prostitutes funded or carried out by people like the NHSor the Home Office, for example, you’ll discover all sorts of anomalies, like
the age on entering prostitution being way higher, the client risk being quite low indoors, the fact most hard drug addicts among street sex workers have their
addiction BEFORE entering prostitution, the amount of violence against sex workers from neither clients nor indirect sex workers but from prohibitionists etc.
Raymond is well known in academia for failing to adhere to ethical guidelines or to subject her work to peer review. She’s funded (to date) up to the hilt by
George W Bush’s State Department and adds transphobia to putophobia amongst her hobbies:
http://www.answers.com/“Janice+Raymond”?gwp=11&ver=1.0.8.207&method=3
All of which is not to deny that appalling cases of exploitation occur in prostitution. Indeed, I’d list Raymond as one of the principal exploiters.
308. Gregory 11:45 am, January 20, 2009
“CATW + Janice Raymond videos will certainly help you reinforce your opinions, Bob the Builder, and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of ‘rescued’ ‘victims’ to
pour over.”
In relation to CATW’s initial (2002/2003) interest in Ireland,
we are still looking for dead bodies and missing females from that period.
A one hundred percent unlawful scenario was what we seemingly had in Ireland. I would say Canada, GTA wasn’t much better, Cyprus, and Malta, same kind
of thing.
It is possible to have across the board pervasive abuses.
At the time Janice gave me a presser to distribute, we had endemic gangsterism and slavery without any apparent legal aspects.
It was one gang of hoods after another. We are still looking for missing persons.
Gregory
http://www.withreference2.org/trafficking/2003/2003.06.htm
June 9, 2003
Lap Dancing Raids in the Republic of Ireland
PRESS RELEASE
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)
“Finally, we have some movement from the police and justice officials against the lap dancing clubs in the Republic of Ireland. These raids have implications
for Northern Ireland, Scotland, the UK, other countries in Europe and countries across the globe.
We learn that most of the women in these clubs are from eastern Europe, Russia and the Ukraine. This is not surprising since the clubs are a front for
prostitution, and the women are trafficked from countries in financial and political crisis.
Unfortunately, when police raid the clubs, it’s mostly the women who are visible and thus targeted. This unfortunate reality should give governments the
incentive to pass anti-trafficking legislation, modeled on the new UN Protocol against trafficking, that provides assistance to trafficked women who have been
exploited.
Raids are a good beginning, but much more needs to be done. The police and justice department must go after the real criminals, the traffickers, pimps and so-
called entrepreneurs who make a business out of sexual exploitation. If women are to help the police in prosecuting these perpetrators, they must be given
protection, resources and the ability to live lives free of prostitution. Organizations, such as the Ruhama Project in Dublin, who provide model services to
women in prostitution should be funded also to expand their assistance to women trafficked from out of the country.
Ireland has a golden opportunity not just to initiate raids but to ensure that the traffickers will not be back in business next month or the month after. First, go
after the real criminals. Do not punish the victims. No woman should be punished for her own exploitation.
Second, pass legislation outlawing lap dancing clubs. Don’t give licensing applications to these clubs. Lap dancing are brothels by another name. Lap dancing is
sexual foreplay leading to the main event, which is sexual contact. This means that lap dancing is a part of the act of prostitution. Although clubs may plead that
they do not engage in prostitution, they couldn’t survive financially if they were providing stage or tabletop dancing alone. Neither could the women!
Third, pass legislation in Ireland modeled on Sweden’s law penalizing the buyers of “sexual services.” Invite police, justice and gender equality spokespersons
from Sweden to brief Irish officials. Legislation must get real and address the men who buy the women. Unless countries address the demand for prostitution,
nothing will really change. There’s no supply without demand. The male demand for the sex of prostitution has been the most invisible aspect of the trafficking
and prostitution chain.
Certain clubs emphasize that men watching women strip and gyrate is good “harmless fun” – a boy’s night out. Men don’t go the clubs simply to watch. They
go to get as near to the women as possible. These clubs are about pushing the envelope of sexual exploitation. When will countries have the courage to do
something about the demand?
We are seeing that the sex industry in many parts of the world is trafficking foreign women into all parts of the sex industry, including the strip clubs. Supply
follows demand. The clubs have to provide the kind of “exotic” women men demand.
Fourth, stop issuing work permits for “exotic dancing.” Many strip clubs import women from abroad through “employment networks and contacts.” Foreign
women are being trafficked into Ireland as part of this system of organized sexual exploitation and crime.
Finally, resist the call from self-interested parties to regulate these clubs. Regulation is toleration and legitimation. Where lap dancing is legally tolerated and
accepted, this is state-sponsored prostitution. Just how is any city or country going to evaluate which clubs are “best practice” clubs? Will the Garda Siochana
stand watch over the lap of the customer to see if he pulls down her g-string, or pulls his penis out? Will a monitor accompany every woman who is paid to
grind her body over a paying customer? Not on your life, and not on his! What a chilling effect on the clientele that action would have!
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) favors not the regulation of “best practice” strip and lap dancing clubs but the closing down of these
establishments. Such activities are not and should not be legal. But let’s do it right, and implement anti-sex industry policy, legislation and programs to insure
that the same and other forms of sexual exploitation will not rise from these ashes.
Commercial sexual entertainment is commercial sexual exploitation. Lap dancing clubs are an unacceptable form of entertainment that depends upon women’s
inequality and the sexual objectification of women, where women are viewed and treated as sexual commodities for men’s pleasure. The international human
rights community is watching what Ireland will do. Will Ireland officially promote sexual equality or sexual exploitation?”
Contact:
Dr. Janice Raymond
Co-Executive Director
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)
PO Box 9338
N. Amherst, MA 01059 USA
309. Bob the Builder 6:50 pm, February 3, 2009
Yes Grahambell, you keep telling yourself that they fancy you, that they are not thinking how disgusting you are while they have to look at you and touch you,
that they are not dreaming about other things than the rape (unwanted sex) that they are being paid to consent to, and that the only thing on their minds is not
your big fat cash wad.
310. Gregory 4:13 am, February 5, 2009

“Why can a sex worker not have the right to choose to work through the agency of a third party ”
Douglas
Because of pimps like you.
Gregory
311. peter schevt 1:26 am, February 13, 2009
dear gregory carlin

if you spent as much time campaigning against the paedophilia that exists in the religious industry as you do campaigning against the sex industry,more children
would be saved from child abuse at the hands of paedophile priests.
at long last the pope has apologised for all the child abuse carried out by catholic priests.when will it end?
312. Bob the Builder 8:43 pm, February 13, 2009

dear gregory carlin
if you keep spending all this time campaigning against the rape and violence that exists in the sex industry as you do ,more women would be saved from sexual
abuse at the hands of rapist johns.
at long last the IUSW has been exposed for who they really are.when will it end?
313. Gregory 8:57 pm, February 13, 2009
Deep six that IUSW campaign, it is so over.
An Amnesty conference in Nottingham 08! I was laughing on the phone to the Home Office, “he’s not exactly keeping his head down I said”
They laughed and laughed
Gregory
314. peter schevt 11:23 pm, February 13, 2009

if rich people like gregory paid women £1000 weekly to stop selling sex,prostitution would end
problem solved,then we could tackle the paedophile priests in the religious industry,
315. Catherine Brown 1:24 am, March 10, 2009

Here we go again… Another set of simplistic rants prostitution. There is only one, uncontestable fact about this whole area and that is that it’s FAR more
complex than either side acknowledge.
There is no singular experience of selling sex — are we to take seriously the claim of the gender feminst that there’s no difference between a bonded, child
prostitute in India and a dominatrix working out of a flat in Mayfair?
Cath’s attempt to reduce debate to the level of personal attack based on the background of her opponents is disappointing and ill advised.
Whilst its perfectly possible Douglas Fox’s motives are not entirely selfless, It’s equally true that many working in what now passes for a womens movement,
can be equally self serving – many having made very comfortable livings promoting a hysterical and divisive approach to sexual politics?
316. Gregory 1:42 am, March 10, 2009
“Whilst its perfectly possible Douglas Fox’s motives are not entirely selfless”
Amnesty NZ wrote to me today about him.
Gregory
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2009 Betraying Sex Workers

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3/5/2018 Betraying sex workers | Liberal Conspiracy

Betraying sex workers

9:02 am - January 11th 2009

And it’s as simple as that.

To quote one of the comments on the F Word thread:

About the author

Story Filed Under: Blog ,Feminism ,Sex equality ,Trade Unions

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

1. Spiritof1976 10:51 am, January 11, 2009

(b) abused his position as a union spokesperson?

2. Cath Elliott 11:04 am, January 11, 2009

There’s already been some discussion of this over here:

3. Spiritof1976 11:14 am, January 11, 2009

Cath, this comment by you particularly appalled me.

4. Laurie Penny 11:19 am, January 11, 2009

5. Cath Elliott 11:20 am, January 11, 2009

6. Cath Elliott 11:23 am, January 11, 2009

7. Spiritof1976 11:30 am, January 11, 2009

8. Nina 11:37 am, January 11, 2009

9. Elrond 11:38 am, January 11, 2009

I will repeat a post here.

10. Alan Thomas 11:40 am, January 11, 2009

11. Mike Killingworth 11:41 am, January 11, 2009

12. Spiritof1976 11:47 am, January 11, 2009

13. Cath Elliott 12:09 pm, January 11, 2009

14. Spiritof1976 12:33 pm, January 11, 2009

15. Alan Thomas 12:53 pm, January 11, 2009

16. PC 12:55 pm, January 11, 2009

17. Douglas fox 1:02 pm, January 11, 2009

Just to correct inaccuracies.

Douglas Fox (activist for IUSW and Amnesty International)

18. Spiritof1976 1:09 pm, January 11, 2009

However, the RCN is not a trade union but a ‘professional body’

19. Spiritof1976 1:40 pm, January 11, 2009

If that’s correct, I really don’t see what Cath’s problem is.

20. Cath Elliott 1:44 pm, January 11, 2009

21. delphyne 1:49 pm, January 11, 2009

22. Shatterface 2:00 pm, January 11, 2009

23. delphyne 2:07 pm, January 11, 2009

24. Alan Thomas 2:45 pm, January 11, 2009

25. Sunny Hundal 2:47 pm, January 11, 2009

26. tim f 3:06 pm, January 11, 2009

27. redpesto 3:16 pm, January 11, 2009

PS – @Spiritof1976 -comment #1:

28. Stephen P 3:25 pm, January 11, 2009

The word ‘pimp’ is used to classify people like Douglas Fox.

Is the driver expected to live off fresh air?

For more on the history of pimps, read

29. v 3:29 pm, January 11, 2009

30. Spiritof1976 3:30 pm, January 11, 2009

31. polly styrene 3:34 pm, January 11, 2009

32. v 3:38 pm, January 11, 2009

33. delphyne 3:39 pm, January 11, 2009

34. delphyne 3:47 pm, January 11, 2009

35. Spiritof1976 3:47 pm, January 11, 2009

Erm, where is your evidence for this assertion?

36. Spiritof1976 3:50 pm, January 11, 2009

Douglas is an owner, a capitalist

37. Spiritof1976 3:52 pm, January 11, 2009

38. Stephen P 3:52 pm, January 11, 2009

39. redpesto 3:53 pm, January 11, 2009

40. polly styrene 3:53 pm, January 11, 2009

Oh and apparently in 2008, they had less than 100 members.

41. delphyne 3:57 pm, January 11, 2009