Criminal-lovin' funsters

I'm not usually one for trawling around the radfem blogs looking for fights, and today would be no exception except for the fact that "Cows gone Wilde", the blog of Polly Styrene, turned up as a response in a google search for "Snowdrop explodes" that was a referring URL in my stats counter. So, I trundled over to see what the reference to lil' ole me might be. It looks as though whatever it was has been edited out since (which don't make no kinda sense to me, but hey), because when I searched the blog for "snowdrop", it came back "it looks like what you're looking for isn't here" (the existential irony of which I found quite amusing, both on a practical level and on a figurative or metaphorical level).

Normally when I end up picking a fight with a radfem post it's because some sex-positive blogger or another has posted a link, and the fight has already started without me.

All of which preamble leads to me finding a fight with Ms. Styrene. The fight is something that already started a few days ago now: namely, the fight over the Finnish Model/Jacqui Smith Model of prostitution control that New Labour are going to push through if they can. This post's title is a reference to my contention that the new law will work in favour of the criminally-minded - that is, those who are intent upon doing violence to sex workers.

Polly Styrene is of that family of radfems who love to talk about using "logic" to support their arguments, and suggesting that anyone who doesn't agree with them is lacking in logical and analytical skills.

I am of that family of feminists who studied logic as a part of my degree course, and who has a very strong background in rhetorical and logical debate. So let's have a look at Ms. Styrene's "logic".

...whenever a new piece of legislation is proposed, the likes of Benjie Westwood [campaigner against the extreme porn laws that come into force on 26th January], ... get the idea that the legal process operates like this.

1)Law is passed:

2)Immediately, by a magical process all people who break said law are immediately transported to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect £200. Where they languish in irons being fed bread and water

Now, my first remark to this is that this actually seems to be the way that New Labour think, and not those who campaign against their draconian measures.

But Ms. Styrene continues thus:

No of course that doesn’t happen. What happens is this. New law is passed. No one is prosecuted.

Which will come as a surprise to those who have been prosecuted under, for example, the anti-terror legislation.

Now, what follows is where logic really falls through the looking glass (or down the rabbit hole):

Ms Styrene quotes accurately the fact that the Finnish Model, in Finland, has thus far failed to result in a single conviction. She also quotes Jenny McCartney with the reasonable point that actually proving in a court of law that a sex worker was controlled for another's gain (i.e. was a prostituted woman) would be close to impossible.

I have no problem with this step in the logic chain. It starts to go a bit funny next, though, because Ms Styrene goes on to say:

In other words the legislation is designed to DETER clients of sex workers from going to places where women might be controlled in the first place.

Oddly enough, this is exactly what people opposed to the new laws are saying. The logic FAIL here isn't in the conclusion, it's in the supposed effects of that conclusion. Ms Styrene thinks that what will happen is:

...they lose their trade, and then stop operating.

As I pointed out in my essay "Sex Work into - What Work?" sex workers will tend to return to sex work as their only viable source of income unless there is very robust support for them getting out - which in Jacqui Smith's programme, there just isn't. Similarly, the evidence from Finland and Sweden is that punters don't stop seeking out prostitutes, it is just that they are more cautious about how they do so. And the more law-abiding, less violent punters are the ones who are deterred, while the violent and dangerous ones are not.

Ms Styrene acknowledges the truth of this, and the falseness of her previous statement, in the very next paragraph:

Now of course amateur social worker Douglas Fox is going to get upset about this. He will have to move to a less salubrious part of town than Gosforth. But you know what, it just might work.

The disconnect is only in Ms Styrene's mind. Because it follows from this that, if Mr. Fox has to move from Gosforth to "a less salubrious part of town", does it not also follow that streetwalker prostitutes will also have to move to even less salubrious parts of town than where they already operate? Opponents of the law say it will, and they say that this is because the crackdown will mean that prostitutes have to operate in darker, more dangerous areas, in order to pick up custom. Which, as explained above, they will continue to need to do. It doesn't matter whether it is the hooker or the john who is targeted by the law, whenever there is a crackdown by the police, it has this effect. This has been documented time and again, both in Sweden (where the johns are the target), and in Britain (where the hookers are).

But let's continue, and see what else Ms Styrene thinks is logical:

Now none of this will threaten street sex workers - the most ludicrous claim I have heard in this whole debate is that they will have less time to assess if a client is dangerous. Because the police might screech up and arrest them if they take two minutes instead of three. Behave. The police NEVER arrest kerb crawlers (kerb crawling is already illegal) in my considerable experience of living in a red light district. And how exactly is a women meant to judge if a man is dangerous anyway. Look for the ‘violent rapist’ tattoo all violent rapists have?

There are three points to be made here. Firstly, what is currently illegal is "persistent" kerb crawling - a car would have to go a few times around the block before an arrest would be proper. Ms. Smith's proposals are to change that and make any kerb crawling illegal. Ms Styrene, this is called "knowing one's facts". The second point is that it doesn't matter whether the police actually will act. As Ms Styrene herself already made clear, the purpose of the new laws is not to create arrests, but to create a fear of being arrested. That means that punters will feel as though they have less time to purchase the sexual services of a woman, and that if a woman takes too long to decide whether or not to accept his money, she will lose his custom.

Finally, I get sick and tired of this argument: "how exactly is a women meant to judge if a man is dangerous anyway. Look for the ‘violent rapist’ tattoo all violent rapists have?" No. One might instead imagine (I don't know, not having done sex work, and not having read any detailed explanation by anyone who has been a streetwalker) that the assessment of the threat level represented by a client is performed based on such things as: body language, tone of voice, language use, behaviour. Of course a dangerous person (especially an accomplished psychopath) may well be able to disguise any "tells" in those points, but the more time a prostitute has to observe the potential client, the more data she has on which to build an assessment of whether he is likely to be dangerous. Furthermore, reports from sex workers in Sweden suggest that the possibility of being arrested tends to put extra anxiety on the would-be client which can throw off the "read" of his demeanour and make it harder to decide whether a person is likely to be a threat.

Oh you’re saying it will drive sex workers ONTO the street. Well here’s an idea for the Marxists of the ECP and IUSW. Encourage women to work collectively. You heard. Draw up a proper agreement as a collective. Douglas Fox’s lawyers might help. Then there’s no question of being controlled for gain.

Welcome to epic logic FAIL #2. Earlier we had Ms Styrene proclaiming, "the legislation is designed to DETER clients of sex workers..." and that nobody was likely to be arrested over it. But now, apparently, it can all be made good just by some fancy legal twists, and the clients will presumably just come flooding back in. The problem being that for the clients, no amount of "legal" paperwork is ever going to be enough to make the certain that they can visit the establishment without breaking the law. That is the whole point of the "deterrent" aspect of this legislation, as Ms Styrene and Ms McCartney pointed out. Incidentally, as far as I am aware, operating as a collective (i.e. forming a brothel) is actually illegal in the UK (I have heard no news that this will be changed by Ms Smith's proposed legislation), and the legal document would form an "immoral contract" that had no legal weight. On the other hand, there is at least one country in the world where it is explicitly legal to create such a collective. That country is, of course, New Zealand - where sex work has been completely decriminalised.

Ms Styrene continues:

Running brothels is already illegal. But they exist in every town and are usually advertised in the local newspaper - they’re called saunas! Soliciting and kerb crawling are already illegal, but in every town you see street sex workers. So the ‘underground’ that apparently sex work is going to be driven into - are we talking like - tunnels? - already exists. And everyone knows about it.

The "underground" referred to is the dangerous, dark, hidden areas. Figuratively, yes - we are talking like tunnels. We are talking about driving sex workers into the areas inhabited only by dangerous, vicious, deadly rats. As I explained above, sex workers in the UK are familiar with this danger from countless "crackdowns" by police forces around the country. While ever sex work is a subject of criminal investigation just because it's sex work then sex workers will have to hide in places where nobody sees their potential attackers except them. And that favours only the attackers.

Now, I do not feel that this piece would be complete until I dealt with a couple of the canards put forward in the comments thread at Polly Styrene's post, so let's have at them:

From 'v':

i see this legislation as a first step - if they acknowledge the punters as criminals in these limited situations, they have to acknowledge the victims of the crime too.

Lovely idea, but whom are you defining as the victim of kerb crawling, for example? And, if you're talking about the trafficked women who are supposedly going to be protected by this law, most of the time they end up getting deported - where they end up back in the hands of the traffickers (at least, this is the evidence of the Swedish Model).

From pisaquaririse:

There’s also that Logic Gem that suggests *fully criminalized* areas will only go FURTHER underground with a swedish-style DEcriminalization policy.

Not quite sure to what this is referring here. I don't recall anyone suggesting anything quite of this ilk, but anyway, let's recap my point from earlier: "The crackdown will mean that prostitutes have to operate in darker, more dangerous areas, in order to pick up custom... It doesn't matter whether it is the hooker or the john who is targeted by the law, whenever there is a crackdown by the police, it has this effect." And this is exactly what we hear from Swedish sex workers about the effect of the Swedish Model on their safety.

We can also follow the logic back to Ms Styrene's own arguments: "Despite the fact that Douglas Fox ... was charged with living off immoral earnings" ... "Douglas Fox is going to get upset about this. He will have to move to a less salubrious part of town than Gosforth." One example of a criminalised area going further underground? Let's see what else Ms Styrene has to say: "Running brothels is already illegal. But they exist in every town and are usually advertised in the local newspaper - they’re called saunas! Soliciting and kerb crawling are already illegal, but in every town you see street sex workers." Now, I don't know about you, dear reader, but to me that says that there is indeed a "further underground" to which these illegal activities might be driven. But Ms Styrene and pisaquaririse ridicule the idea that that might happen, or that it might be harmful to sex workers.

But my conclusions is this: there is no evidence at all that these proposed laws will do anything to help the most vulnerable and most exploited among sex workers and prostituted women. And there is strong evidence from Swedish sex workers' experiences, and from the experiences of British sex workers whenever the police decide to crack down on prostitution, that it will make their lives more dangerous and more difficult.