Northern Ireland have moved a step close to making it a criminal offense to pay for sexual services ( see here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-29699626 )
in the very mistaken belief that this will prevent the terrible things that happen to some young women: being raped, trafficked, kidnapped, etc. We've heard those harrowing stories on the news.
The men who do those terrible things to women (the kidnappers and traffickers) do not care about the law, they are already breaking many laws. The idea behind the new law is to take away the demand side so that there is no financial gain to be had from pimping, from trafficking women, keeping them prisoner and renting their bodies for sex.
The logic of this argument is beyond belief, to me.
It is akin to saying that because some children are kept as slaves to work in factories in appalling conditions with out rights or reasonable pay we will ban all imported clothes, or ban factories, or make cotton an illegal commodity. Ridiculous. We do not assume all foreign factories are bad employers, we do not assume working in a factory must be inherently inhumane.
Take my work, by contrast.
I am a qualified massage therapist living in an area where £40 per hour for a massage is the usual rate. It is an area over run with qualified therapists, however, so it could be extremely tough to attract enough clients to make a living from massage.
I'm happy to take my clothes off, I'm happy for my clients to be naked, I could perhaps charge more for a naturist massage. I like doing the erotic massage that is described on my website for which clients pay between £120 to £190 per session (not enough time in one hour). Clients know exactly what to expect because I have given a full description of the service on the website, I can earn a reasonable amount (I'm not a high earner it's just a living) doing a job I like.
If such a law was to be passed in England, overnight my clients could be turned into criminals. They are lovely, decent respectable people (like most men). I do not know if clients would continue to visit me. I expect existing clients may keep coming but it may be hard to reassure new clients that there will not be policemen outside my house.
There are a whole group of anti-prostitution campaigners who think every women working in the industry of selling sexual services wants to get out or would be better off if she were out of this business. This is simply not true. There are many mature, well educated women offering sexual services of some sort in the UK because they want to, it has been a life-enhancing positive career choice for them.Am I in denial, would I be better off if I didn't do Lingam Massages? Absolutely not, my life would be tougher.
What of the men who pay? They are not some criminal underclass, subset of society. In my experience they are respectful, polite and respectable. Many of them are single. Many of them have no sexual partner. For them, women like myself are providing a vital service that increases self esteem and a sense of mental well being.
