A Red Umbrella contingent on the Reclaim the Night march in London in November 2010.
In May, Emily and I gave a workshop at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair: “The Struggle for Reproductive Autonomy: From underground abortion collectives to the fight to decriminalize sex work.” Before we had even left our home city of Halifax, we received a phone call from one of the bookfair’s organisers to discuss some of the conflict that had arisen in the feminist movement in Quebec around the decriminalisation of sex work. The organiser explained that there was a strong movement in support of the abolition of sex work in Montreal and Quebec.
Later, Emily and I spoke at length about strategies for addressing possible disruptions at the workshop, as well as a number of ways to ensure an effective discussion could be had recognising and respecting divergent views. There was no vocal presence from the “sex work abolitionists” at the workshop and largely the discussion was focused on the need for more inclusive, accessible, queer- and trans-positive health care providers focused on a model of informed consent with regards to care.
But we also had to ask ourselves – what does “abolishing” sex work mean?
Abolition v. Prohibition
Abolish, in my understanding of the word, means to eliminate, to end, maybe even to destroy. This is the way I use the word when I speak with my political allies about abolishing the prison system. I mean there should be no more prisons. I also know that this is a long and difficult process – one that involves struggle in many forms, and one that posits social revolution.
Near the end of her book, Are Prisons Obsolete, Angela Davis explains:
“[P]ositing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment–demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.
The creation of new institutions that lay claim to the space now occupied by the prison can eventually start to crowd out the prison so that it would inhabit increasingly smaller areas of our social and psychic landscape. Schools can therefore be seen as the most powerful alternative to jails and prisons.” (pp.107-108)
The struggle to abolish prisons, then, is an active struggle that works to shrink the role prisons have in our society – the role they play in the core of our understandings of justice.
Coming from this position, and having read a lot written by those who oppose sex work, I have a series of questions for “abolitionists” who are currently opposing the decriminalisation of sex work in Canada.
- What would abolishing sex work actually look like?
- How, in practical terms, does prohibition work towards the goal of abolition?
- Where has prohibition been an effective tool for changing social conditions or altering social practices?
These are not rhetorical questions; they are genuine questions I would like to see answered by those people who are currently opposing the decriminalisation of sex work. There are more questions that run through my mind: What kinds of sex work would/should be prohibited? What about strippers, professional dominatrices, webcam girls, freelance fetish workers, burlesque perfomers? Who should be criminalised? Sex workers, johns, madames, members of the kink community, bachelor parties, bar/club owners? I would like those opposing sex work decriminalisation to speak plainly – in materialist terms – about how that fight fits with their goals, strategies, and tactics.
In the current political climate of our “tough on crime” Conservative government, I can imagine the horrors of a “war on sex work:” the most marginalised sex workers and johns thrown into cages, perhaps first brutalized by the police. I can see the way that those who are most vulnerable to police violence – sex workers of colour, trans sex workers, survivor sex workers, Aboriginal sex workers, sex workers without status, underage sex workers – would be treated, forced further and further underground and out of sight. I can see it because it happens already. I can see it because these are patterns that pop up elsewhere: in our mental health system, the way that people struggling with addictions are treated, the way that survivors of domestic violence continue to be treated.
If the Canadian Border Service Agency can go into shelters and crisis centres searching for non-status survivors of abuse, why do we think we can trust them to treat non-status and/or trafficked sex workers with dignity, respect, and care?
The end of sex work will not come by way of the law, and as with many other things, the law continues to work in the interests of those who have power, not the oppressed.
For decades, feminists have repeated over and over that criminalising abortion will not stop abortions. Where abortions are needed, they happen – often with terrible consequences. Women die when abortion is not accessible. How many times have we repeated the chant, “Pro-life that’s a lie, you don’t care if women die,” in opposition to anti-choice forces?
So, why now do we think that prohibition of sex work would stop trafficking or violence against sex workers?
The Discussion We Cannot Have… Yet
There are valid political, ideological, and moral discussions feminists need to have on their analyses of sex work, of labour, of the police and prisons, and a hundred other facets of the role of sex work in our society. The time for those discussions is not now.
The decriminalisation of sex work could actually open up space for a larger, more creative discusssion to be had about sex work, sex workers, patriarchy, the criminal legal system, and state control of women’s bodies. We could start talking about new models for sex worker organising. We could think of new ways of approaching anti-violence work in our communities. We could think critically about what role (if any) we see the legal system having in our fight for a more just and equitable world.
It is in these discussions that we could actually talk about abolishing sex work because the question before the courts right now has nothing to do with abolition and everything to with prohibition.
I am prepared to have those discussions, debates, arguments. I am willing to be open and to challenge myself and to listen during what would be challenging times. But I won’t do that until this court case is settled because now my energy needs to be there, supporting sex workers in my communities – most of them women and queer and trans folk – in this battle against dangerous and oppressive laws.
-Kaley
Here is my response.
http://www.feminisms.org/3461/why-reproductive-rights-and-prostitution-are-not-the-same-thing-a-response-to-one-decriminalization-argument/
Here is a great reply by allies F-Word media Co-Op http://www.feminisms.org/3461/why-reproductive-rights-and-prostitution-are-not-the-same-thing-a-response-to-one-decriminalization-argument/
Have a look at our site http://www.educatingvoices.ca we will we writing our reply in the coming days.
You requested a response and I wrote one. I would appreciate some integrity here.
Meghan,
I am in Europe right now, and as such my time for approving comments is limited. Please do not question my integrity based on assumptions.
Best,
Kaley
Sorry Kaley! My mistake. It had looked like the comment had disappeared. Thanks for posting.
Meghan
as an active sex worker,feminist and activist i would like to thankyou for this amazing post kaley. i have never heard the abolitionist side ever describe in detail how exactly they intend to destroy my communty but i can tell you the casualties of their uninformed and self serving actions are all around us.
i can only hope that the abolitionist side will finally stop harming women in the name of saving women.
susan davis
I posted a response to this complex issue on the F word site, where it awaits moderation.
Thank you for your very interesting analysis and questions, Kaley. In response to Megan’s message linked here, I sent this response to Megan’s blog.
Hi Megan, Kaley asks a couple of questions 2) How, in practical terms, does prohibition work towards the goal of abolition 3) Where has prohibition been an effective tool for changing social conditions or altering social practices?
You first argue that the questions are unanswerable because they don’t represent your understanding of the abolitionist perspective. In other words, a person contesting your views doesn’t deserve an answer unless she agrees with your perspectives and definitions? Is that what you are saying?
Then you “answer” Kaley’s questions anyway, except that rather than actually answering them, you misrepresent them. As you must be aware, prohibition, like many words, has a number of meanings and first means: “a law, order or decree that forbids something.” Kaley is asking relevant questions and your only response is to rely on a secondary definition of prohibition that bears no relevance to the question. Added to that is your specious and offensive suggestion that Keley considers women to be the equivalent of alcoholic beverages. You are going to have to do a lot better if you expect to be treated with respect in these discussions.
Here’s a definition of rhetoric you might find useful to test the validity of your arguments in the future: rhetoric: 2. Language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.
Esther
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Abolishing sex work means removing the causes of sex work. A simplified cause of sex work would be: One person wants sexual services more than that person wants money, and another person wants that money enough to provide those sexual services.
In a true communism, money will not have meaning, but ‘sex work’ takes on a chilling new aspect: the ‘money’ is replaced with ‘acceptability’.
Removing the desire for, or ability to provide, sexual services also works, but with even more chilling results out of a bad science fiction plot.
Finally, removing all barriers to fulfillment of sexual desires a la Brave New World also technically abolishes sex work, but at a similar cost to eliminating sex.
Just as abolishing prisons isn’t the same as abolishing law or justice, abolishing sexual violence in prostitution isn’t the same thing as abolishing sex work.
I agree that arguing with one another about abuse-as-work is probably not benefiting women.
However, any claims that women as a group will benefit from legalizing prostitution are simply false. Legalizing prostitution says it’s okay for one group of women to be sexually violated so that women who aren’t so desperate don’t have to be (Interestingly, reported rapes among women have gone up in Sweden after implementation of the new model, showing that what sexual perpetrators say about going out and raping a woman if they didn’t purchase sex is true).
Also, please show me how decriminalizing prostitution works to end the subordination of women to men, what I thought was the goal of feminism.
Like the other sex work activists above, I want to thank you for writing this. I also want to thank you for trying to open up a discussion space with anti-sex work activists. Because, as you have no doubt noticed, it can be a quite disturbing experience. This was a well-reasoned and well-argued post. You have SWOP-LA’s support and solidarity. Let us know if there is anything we can do. <3
I would also agree that implementing the Swedish model won’t keep women being prostituted, but it’s a form of harm reduction for all women.
I think that there’s a specific set of women who are harmed: freelance and independent prostitutes.
I was speaking of women as a group. A neoliberal model focuses on individual harms as opposed to group-based harms.
Actually, any halfway non-authoritarian perspective takes the good of individuals into account rather than casually throwing them under a bus in the name of a Borg-like group. Having a socially aware perspective of the greater good does not mean a ruthless disregard for individual rights, something many socialists and feminists too often lose sight of.
There are no group harms, there are only sets of individuals who are harmed. If you meant ‘the greatest good for the greatest number (of women)’, I can understand. I just cannot agree that a significant involuntary restriction on the rights of a few is justified by a greater benefit to a superset of those people.
In other words, it’s not acceptable to reduce the safety or economic viability of self-selected prostitutes in order to protect people from the expression of rape culture.
I’m willing to concede at this point that banning ‘booking agents’ and ‘managers’ along with pimps is throwing the cheese out with the mold.
“I just cannot agree that a significant involuntary restriction on the rights of a few is justified by a greater benefit to a superset of those people.”
You’re not one of “those people,” being harmed.
I had more I was going to say, but words escape me at the moment.
Even some African American slaves claimed to be happy under conditions of slavery and chose to stay on plantations after the Emancipation Proclamation. Does that make slavery right? Are those the African Americans white folks in the U.S. should have supported? ‘Cause your arguments sound straight out of the “good slave holder” rhetoric published in those days.
Once again, prostitution “abolitionists” are making an inappropriate comparison of contemporary sex work to antebellum-era slavery, rhetoric they seem to be quite fond of. It is a comparison that fails on many levels, not the least of which is that the abolitionist arguments of that era were not opposed by a arguments of slaves who wanted to remain slaves in any capacity. Such arguments might have come from the slaveowning class and their supporters, but the voices of slaves and ex-slaves were conspicuously absent on that side of the debate.
In the contemporary era these so-called “abolitionists” (prohibitionists, really) are opposed by a strong international movement of sex workers that is pretty far from the “tiny minority of happy hookers” (or even more outright racist rhetoric referring to them as “house slaves” or “house negroes”) the prohibitionists try to paint the sex worker rights movement as. This fact alone should render the comparison moot.
If anything, the modern-day prohibitionists are the ideological descendants of middle-to-upper class Victorian-era who sought to “better” the condition of women in the “lower” classes in very high-handed ways. Many of them called themselves “abolitionists” against prostitution too, and in fact, some of their modern-day equivalents like Sheila Jeffreys acknowledge and celebrate this lineage.
Thank you Kaley. You’ve brought your own experience which I respect and you’ve put words to valuable and complex questions that have gone through my head and that I hadn’t been able to untangle.
More than that you show so much respect even when facing disrespectful assumptions made about you.
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