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December 28, 2005
Prostitution.
Jesu, will these people never learn?
The Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart told the Guardian that it was wrong to regard those involved in prostitution as sex workers. She said tough measures were needed to tackle the markets for prostitution. "I'm not tolerant of the view that prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and there's nothing we can do to reduce it," she said. "Prostitution blights communities. We will take a zero tolerance approach to kerb crawling. Men who choose to use prostitutes are indirectly supporting drug dealers and abusers. The power to confiscate driving licences already exists. We want the police to use that power more."
I’m aware that logic and morals are minority pursuits these days but what conseting adults do with their bodies is no damn business of the gevernment. Perhaps I haven’t thought hard enough about this but is there anything else that is entirely legal, indeed, in many ways enjoys considerable legal protections, which becomes illegal the moment money changes hands?
Umm, thinking about that there’s organ/blood donations and child adoption, what else?
OK, OK, yes, I know, neither this nor any other likely government is going to say "Not our business. Do what you want." Not a part of politician genes that.
But increasing the penalties? Enforcing current possible punishments more rigorously? This simply drives the trade more deeply into the criminal underworld. More pimps, more sex slaves, more people trafficking.
This Mactaggart doozie seems to just love the thwack of firm government more than logic.
December 28, 2005 in Business | Permalink
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Comments
In an ideal world, prostitution might be no more exploitative than any other kind of paid labour. But in the real world, prostitution is so despised that many sex-workers are forced into the trade, if not physically, but then by mental and economic desperation (so, except in the upper echelons, prostitution remains very exploitative indeed). In a world with social and economic justice, that wouldn’t happen. (Of course, that’s also true of a lot of other labour conditions.)
As to policy, I wonder what the result would be if rather than persecuting the prostitutes themselves (with zero tolerance aimed at kerb-walking), they only persecuted their pimps and clients, or even just their pimps. But modern attitudes are so confused between a contempt for prostitutes as ‘whores’ and a sympathy for them as exploited women, that the government always seems to end up persecuting everyone involved in the trade (and I suspect the streetwalkers get the worst of it when they do).
Posted by: Contradictory Ben | Dec 28, 2005 10:09:53 AM
Prostitutes are mainly women, and women and non-white people are the raw material of those employed in the 'industries' most prone to the idiocies of political correctness. They must be treated as fully equal and capable to all white male humans except in their capacity for unwholesome behaviour.
Posted by: simonsimon | Dec 28, 2005 11:25:20 AM
"The Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart told the Guardian that it was wrong to regard those involved in prostitution as sex workers."
Well, I suppose they do just lie around all day, don't they?
Posted by: Gorse Fox | Dec 28, 2005 3:31:06 PM
Writing this from the netherlands, on a stop over on the way home, my firm impresion is that prostituion here is safer and less exploitative. Outlawing it drives it underground into the netherword of people trafficking and human slavery. I have my doubts that the british approach is the best for the women involved. Let's decriminalise the business and ensure it is legal and that prostitutes benefit from legal protections that other people get.
Posted by: rjw | Dec 28, 2005 8:38:43 PM
I tried to critique Ms MacTaggart's proposals succinctly, but found myself with so many arguments against her ideas that it would have taken a massive post to put them all down (something I'm sure Tim wouldn't welcome). So maybe I'll save them for my own blog (one day if I ever get the time).
Suffice to say that Ms MacTaggart is following the standard NuLabour approach to something she finds distasteful to her middle-class, feminist, Islington mindset: Earnest intention to solve a "problem" by means of heavy handed state intervention.
The cynic in me also suspects that one of Ms MacTaggart's motivations is aethsetic rather than moral. Streetwalking tarts and grubby kurb crawlers don't fit in with the NuLabour vision of turning Britain into a giant middle-class Islington.
Although she claims that the customers will be targeted in this campaign, I strongly suspect that the police will choose to pluck the low hanging fruit and as ever it will be the suppliers who will end up getting the worst of it.
As for the battery of support centres etc. this is just another way of loading the poor tax payer with another burden while providing her chums with more places on the gravy train.
I don't know what the solution to the problem of streetwalking may be (if indeed it is a problem that can or should be solved) but I do know that Ms MacTaggart's way is not the answer. Poor idea, poorly thought out and doubtless it will be poorly executed as well. The problem will not be solved though it may "disappear" (which is not the same thing) and the "solution" will probably cause many more problems than it solves.
RM
Posted by: Remittance Man | Dec 29, 2005 7:34:57 AM
"..the government always seems to end up persecuting everyone involved in the trade.."
Yes, and....? It's currently illegal, so this is the right move at this time - spread the misery in an attempt to keep it under control.
Make it legal, and regulated (with health checks, etc and all the paperwork beloved of government) and this problem will disappear promptly. But then, when did a government ever chose the right option over the easy, newspaper-pleasing one.
Tim adds: Not quite. Prostitution is legal. Soliciting isn’t. Brothel keeping isn’t.
Posted by: JuliaM | Dec 29, 2005 8:43:51 AM
In other news, enslaved whores in Turkey are being liberated because the punters are grassing up the slave-owners. It seems they're uncomfortable about women who aren't willing participants. What are the chances of that happening in England? Is it worth suggesting to that English "punter" website?
Posted by: dave heasman | Dec 30, 2005 1:54:40 AM
I'm surprised that Brown doesn't want to legalise it and then tax earnings from it.
Its another source of income for him to throw away (and think of all the beaurocracy which can be built up around it, surely he'd be salivating at the prospect)
Tim adds: Earnings from prostitution are indeed taxable.
Posted by: T Mills | Jan 3, 2006 12:55:38 PM
