Policy suggestions on prostitution/sex work

Ian Townson from Left Unity LGBT Caucus writes.

“If prostitution is work, then fighting for self-organisation and rights are a key part of the socialist response. If, on the other hand, prostitution is violence and slavery then the participants are victims who need rescuing.”
‘Marxism versus Moralism: a Marxist analysis of prostitution’, Workers Liberty.

There is an ongoing discussion in the LU Women’s Caucus about the issue of prostitution/sex work. Several feminists have argued strongly against legalising prostitution/sex work, for the complete decriminalisation of prostitutes/sex workers and for the introduction of the Nordic Model which would criminalise men who buy sex from women (and presumably by extension from men).

Those women argue that all forms of prostitution/sex work constitute violence against women and the commodification of sexual relations in keeping with neoliberal notions of market values and freedom of ‘choice’ which in the end amounts to little more than the endorsement of slavery. Much evidence is produced detailing the appalling situation of many women and girls who have been driven into prostitution/sex work out of poverty, ignorance and a history of sexual abuse or through enforced exploitation drawing out the desire of many of them to exit the ‘profession’.

I agree that the notion of prostitution/sex work as a ‘career choice’ is a spurious one (though this may differ for gay men) and that many women are driven into a situation that merely reflects the inferior, unequal economic and social status of women. The power imbalance between men and women also severely curtails any meaningful notion of ‘choice’ for women. The men with economic buying power do the choosing without women in a position to do the refusing. There is also the question of sexually abused children from dysfunctional family backgrounds ending up in care or the victims of grooming being forced on the road to prostitution/sex work. What price ‘choice’ and ‘consent’ there?

The legitimisation of prostitution/sex work runs the risk of simply rubber stamping what already exists in terms of pimping, trafficking and the owners of bars and sex establishments exploiting their ‘workers’ for profit. It also provided the opportunity for the state to enforce controls on sex workers including compulsory health tests and enforced ghettoisation. Hence I am against legalising prostitution/sex work. However I do agree with the position of decriminalising prostitutes/sex workers. After all what is the point of victimising those who are working for themselves or being victimised, coerced and threatened by exploiters. By all means criminalise the pimps, madams, and traffickers whose only purpose is to use and abuse women and children for profit. But leave prostitutes/sex workers alone.

The argument put forward that prostitution is not just work like any other depends on who is exploiting whom. The usual Marxist definition of exploitation consists of the extraction of surplus value from workers by the ruling capitalist class. In other words the employer is exploiting the labour of his/her hired worker to extract more than s/he is entitled to hence profiting from what should belong to the workers. Also the workers never owns the product of their labour. This understanding would certainly apply to pimps, traffickers, brothel and bar owners. This does not apply to individual prostitutes/sex workers or collectives. There is no boss/exploiter to steal the proceeds of another’s labour. What prostitutes/sex workers are doing is selling a service and that service is the use of their bodies or the procurement by the client of more unconventional forms or sexual practice where the clients body is used by them. In that sense the client is not an exploiter because s/he simply pays for a temporary service without claiming the proceeds of the encounter in a temporary arrangement. In that sense prostitutes/sex workers can exist as a commodity, seller of a service and capitalist. Hence the question of exploitation, ownership and slavery does not arise under many circumstances.

“To say that prostitutes are not exploited by clients is not the same as saying they are not oppressed by them. Many sex workers are brutally oppressed by clients who treat them in a degrading and violent way. The state also treats sex workers in this way, often denying them basic human and legal rights.” Ibid

I do not see the answer to the problem of violence against women by individuals and the state in the Nordic Model. The basic assumption behind this in criminalising all men who pay for sex with women is that men are ruthless exploiters of women and inherently violent, brutal and incapable of any other mode of relationship which is simply not true. Also there is conflicting evidence as to how effective this model has been in the Scandinavian countries. Assuming there has been a reduction in prostitution/sex work in these countries what happened to the women whose livelihoods have now been ended? Have they become exploited wage slaves like the rest of us or dumped on the dole or do they have to work in the murky half-light of a clandestine existence with furtive exchanges with clients?

The Nordic Model is patronising in that it strips women of agency in fighting collectively against their own oppression with solidarity from allies. The state cannot not act as an agent for emancipation. It creates a new category of criminal that Theresa May would be comfortable with in her crusade to introduce more and more repressive legislation, longer prison sentences and prison building on behalf of the real or imagined ‘victim’.

Given that patriarchal/capitalist systems thrive on unequal power/economic relationships between men and women I believe that any collective measure that strengthens the hand of women against the male assumption of entitlement over women would be welcome. At the very least collective organisation would end the squalid isolation of many sex workers and remove them from ‘stranger danger’ in a protected safe haven. At most this is as valid a way of securing an exit strategy from sex work. What better way to do this than through the assistance of your comrades (and those in solidarity with their aims) than the cold, remote hand of the state clobbering male clients with the implication of fines, imprisonment and police raids.

Over the past 30-40 years there has been an increase in organisations that fight for the rights of sex workers alongside LGBT, Women’s and BME groups. Their business has not been simply to romanticise prostitution or to fight for middle class professionals in the western developed nations. Their reach is global and involve some of the poorest women in the world. A good example of this (once again quoting from the Workers’ Liberty article) is in India. The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee has 65,000 members and grew out of the Sonagachi AIDS prevention initiative. Here is an extract from their 1997 manifesto:

“Ownership of private property and maintenance of patriarchy necessitates control over women’s reproduction. Since property lines are maintained through legitimate heirs, and sexual intercourse between men and women alone carry the potential for procreation, capitalist patriarchy sanctions only such couplings. Sex is seen primarily, and almost exclusively, as an instrument for reproduction, negating all aspects of pleasure and desire intrinsic to it…The young men who look for sexual initiation, the married men who seek the company of ‘other’ women, the migrant labourers separated from their wives who try to find warmth and companionship in the red light area, cannot all be dismissed as wicked and perverted. To do that will amount to dismissing a whole history of human search for desire, intimacy and need.”

There is no way of predicting how sexual relationships will develop in a future socialist society but the crucial points to bear in mind is that progress in human sexual relationships can only be achieved when sex is divorced from property relations and the strictures of patriarchal/capitalist family life. When women are no longer confined to the powerless and disadvantaged private sphere of domestic life and can fully participate in the public sphere as equals will progress towards emancipation be made. This can only be achieved in solidarity with the wider workers struggle against exploitation and oppression.

Gay Men and Sex Work

Clearly there are differences between women selling sexual services to men and gay men advertising their wares for the consumption of other men. The issues of gender inequality and oppression disappear. A glance at ‘QX’ magazine or any of the LGBT social media sites reveal that the overwhelming majority of advertisers for sexual services are self-employed hence cutting out exploitation by others. The most we could say is that there are ‘petit bourgeois’ businessmen or that there are class/economic/race/ethnic inequalities. Hence the wealthier gay men can afford advertising and a comfortable place to entertain clients while poorer, working class gay men end up cruising the bars or out on the streets. White gay men may ignore black men or make racist assumptions about them. Also gay men are much more explicit about what kind of sexual activities we are into which makes the parameters of what is and is not permissible much clearer. Is this also true of women seeking men and does it guarantee compliance from clients?

Left Unity Policy Suggestions on Sex Work: