Category Archives: Politics

Sex Work Decriminalisation

The Great Sex Work Decriminalisation Swindle

Comment, Politics, , ,

As reported here last week, a parliamentary committee issued a report calling for sex work decriminalisation. My own reaction was somewhat sceptical; in contrast, sex worker activists and commentators rejoiced at a “historic victory” which, to me, didn’t seem much like a victory at all. This rejoicing led to deep confusion among observers, many of whom mistakenly believed that Parliament had rejected the “Nordic model”, which criminalises the purchase of sex.

In the intervening days, my scepticism has deepened. The sex work author and researcher Laura Agustín also questioned the report, referring to it as “meaningless”, and writing on Facebook:

“My advice is do not rejoice: This is stage one of making an anti-sex-buying law in which women selling are decriminalised while men buying are criminalised”

I agree: last week’s announcement was not a win for decriminalisation, but simply a deferral of the key decision wrapped in confusing language. And while, yes, the way is still left open for the committee to back decriminalisation, that isn’t what happened last week. Nor, I suspect, will it be the committee’s final verdict.

No decision has yet been made

First of all, the committee (as it made clear) has not reached a decision on whether to follow the New Zealand model (decriminalisation), the Nordic model (criminalise buyers) or some form of legalisation. Since this is the only decision that matters, then nothing of substance has yet happened. All the committee announced was that, whichever decision it eventually makes, it recommends the reform of laws on brothel-keeping and soliciting. But this is just stating the obvious: whether the committee favours New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, or some other model, there will be no point maintaining existing restrictions on brothels. So the lip-service paid to decriminalisation is – as Agustín says – meaningless, and apparently designed to mislead.

“Decriminalisation” has changed meaning

A good way to tell if you’re winning is to watch the reactions of your enemies. If – as sex worker campaigners claim – this is a victory, then prohibitionists will be fuming, right? Except… they aren’t. What the campaigners seem to have missed is that both sides have embraced the language of “decriminalisation”. Here, for example, is Vera Baird QC:

“Regardless of whatever brings women into sex work … I fully back the notion of decriminalising sex workers”

Yet Baird is a staunch prohibitionist. This is politics: when your opponent has succeeded in setting the narrative, steal their narrative. Note the subtle use of “workers” rather than “work”. Similarly, the Christian Tory MP David Burrowes has called for soliciting to be decriminalised. Both Baird and Burrowes went on to call for the Nordic model to be implemented in the UK: which is semantic nonsense, since the Nordic model criminalises sex buyers.

In other words, “decriminalisation” can now either mean decriminalisation, or the exact opposite, depending who uses it.

Why has a meaningless statement been issued?

Given that the interim report means almost nothing until the key decision has been made, the question then arises as to why it was issued at all. I asked activists who were close to the inquiry process, but none seemed able to answer the question. The report was clearly issued to get media attention; if it was intended to confuse and misdirect people, it apparently succeeded.

The political climate is ugly

As I have noted for some years, British liberalism appears to be in decline across the spectrum. This is true on both the political right and left; the liberal centre has shrunk as social conservatives and authoritarians have taken over both wings of politics. In this climate, it would be surprising if a radical decision – such as decriminalising sex work – were to take place.

I hope Augustín and I are wrong, and the sex work representatives are right; but as things stand right now, it seems to me that we have been witness to the Great Decriminalisation Swindle.

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Brexit

Britons Light Fuse With Brexit

Comment, News, Politics

This article was first published at XBIZ.com on Friday.

In my new book, Porn Panic!, I recount the rise of a new British fascism. What began a few years ago, for me, as a campaign against anti-sex feminists who were trying to censor pornography, grew gradually into a realisation that free speech and other fundamental underpinnings of liberty were under fierce assault from all sides. This new authoritarian movement, which is taking over both wings of politics, has been slowly gaining ground over the past 10-15 years. But with yesterday’s Brexit vote, the way is clear for an explosive rise in fascism across Europe – and beyond.

Having stayed up most of last night to watch, with increasing incredulity, the EU referendum results, I’m still reeling. It’s not that the result was especially unexpected; but the scale of the catastrophe that is now – in real time – engulfing the UK and European economy is staggering, and dwarfs the 2008 meltdown. And if the economic fallout is massive, the political implications will be even more so. Yesterday, the British people lit the fuse. The explosions are only just beginning.

For months, most people with any understanding of what has been unfolding have just looked at each other and said “But we’d never actually vote to leave the EU, would we?”, and we’ve reassured each other that, no, when it comes to the crunch, the British people would pull back from the brink. And so this morning’s news – that the UK population voted by 52% to 48% to exit the EU – is hard to stomach.

From the perspective of the goals of my campaign, Sex & Censorship, the news is very bad. Many of the protections of free speech, net neutrality and human rights that exist in British law have been passed down to us from the EU. EU law offers a good deal of protection against the anti-sex and anti-free speech laws and regulations that I’ve campaigned against. Now, those protections risk being stripped away. The British state, restrained in many ways by the liberalising influence of the EU, may shortly get free rein to pass laws that would not have been acceptable in a western democracy during the liberal postwar era. It’s probably fair to say that yesterday, that era came to an end.

The fact that the resignation of the Prime Minister is one of the more minor stories in today’s news helps illustrate the scale of events. It’s hard to find a comparison on a historical scale. Certainly, this crisis of European politics looks to be every bit as significant as that of the 1930s. Nationalism, which has been slowly rising in Europe (as well as globally) since 9/11, has now been unleashed in a way that few living Europeans have seen in their lifetimes. The European Union has presided over the longest era of peace in European history; the British people just voted to burn it down.

The global significance of the referendum was underpinned by the fact that Donald Trump chose today to fly in and visit the UK (he quietly pre-announced the visit a few weeks ago). Trump understands the nature of fascism, and has shown a far deeper understanding of the threat to western democracy than most of the established political class. This morning, he hailed the referendum result. Simultaneously, the odds of a Trump win in November were cut sharply. Nationalism begets nationalism, and today’s Europe provides Trump with all the nationalistic sentiment he needs to further his authoritarian bandwagon. Elsewhere in Europe, fascists are celebrating. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders celebrated the British poll and called for one to be held locally. In France, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen did the same. Those with a knowledge of WWII history will know that the Netherlands and France were deeply infected by the fascist bug in the 1930s/40s. It is not so surprising that the anti-immigrant backlash is growing rapidly in those same countries today.

Amidst the chaos, it seems churlish to ask what this means for the adult industry. But as has been so often pointed out, sex is the canary in the coalmine of liberty. Sexual and political freedoms have always gone hand-in hand; an attack on one is an attack on the other. And so surely we all – on both sides of the Atlantic – are in for a huge battle in the coming months.

 

Jerry Barnett is an author and campaigner, and runs the Sex & Censorship campaign and blog. His book, Porn Panic!, will be published in August, and is available now for pre-order on Amazon.

identity politics

Identity Politics is Killing Solidarity and Fuelling Fascism

Comment, Politics, , ,

There was a time when we on the British left owned terms like Unity and Solidarity. The broad left had formed around a single, enormous issue: the obscenity of poverty. Thus, the left once represented the disadvantaged, and the right fought to maintain the old status quo. When fascism last surged in the 1930s, it was the left’s broad base that ensured British fascism was crushed: it alone could unite the mighty industrial working class with immigrants and sympathetic liberals. It was opposition to poverty that united white working class people with the immigrants – Irish, Jewish, Black and Asian – that came to Britain over the past century. Ultimately, this was why the left eventually championed the fight against racism: because it understood that the biggest problems faced by immigrants – bad housing, low pay, state indifference, routine violence – were shared by poor white people, and formed alliances in factories and poor communities that transcended race.

Racism was never a one-way street. Tension and violence grew in high-immigration communities because of mistrust and misunderstanding on both sides. Mass immigration – then, as now – benefited the economy as a whole, but placed a disproportionate burden on poor communities. People who complained about rapid, disconcerting change in their neighbourhoods were not uniformly attacked as “racists”; instead, the left sought to find common ground and build unity. The Notting Hill Carnival is one of the lasting testaments to this approach: it was a community creation designed to bring white and black people together in the wake of race riots.

But the Labour Movement, the foundation of the old left, effectively collapsed during the 1980s and 90s for a variety of reasons. The left dwindled, and found new power bases: no longer in factories or council estates; instead in academia and the public sector. It lost touch with working class people, and lost interest in poverty. It instead adopted identity politics, dividing people by race, gender, sexuality just as it once united people across these lines. It became whiter and more middle-class, and gradually came to represent the interests of white, middle-class people above all others. Step by step, from the 80s onward, the left took on the attitudes of the old fascist movements, seeking to divide society into isolated, opposing groups of people.

None of this mattered much, until a new surge in left-wing support followed the 2008 financial crash. My initial excitement at the left-wing resurgence turned into disgust as I saw what the left had now become.

I first noticed the shift via my involvement in sexual freedom causes. The old Christian right had died along with Mary Whitehouse. Now, a new conservative movement surfaced, this time based around the remnants of the old feminist movement. The new attackers of sexual freedom came from the organs of the new-left: universities, trade unions, local authorities and the Labour Party. This new left had lost all interest in tackling poverty and disadvantage, because they had no experience or understanding of it. Instead, they declared gender, skin colour and sexuality to be the true marks of oppression. So, porn and other sexual expression came under attack, not because it was “ungodly” but because it was deemed to “oppress women”. Thieves had stolen the language of the (now defunct) progressive left and used it to advance fascist agendas.

So we saw the grotesque sight of middle-class “left-wing” people declaring themselves to be “oppressed” (for reason of possessing a vagina or extra melanin in their skin), and attacking poor white communities as “privileged”. The new-left had restarted the class war, but this time was firmly on the other side.

So when Edie Lamort, a stripper-activist (who I interviewed some time back), declared herself some years ago to be the “canary in the coalmine”, she was very prescient. The attacks on her and her comrades, by fascists in left-wing clothing, were indeed an early sign of a broad attack on liberal values from the political left.

The pus-filled boil of identity politics, quietly swelling since the 80s, really only burst within the past couple of years. And now, the identity fascists are dismantling all remnants of cross-community solidarity as rapidly as possible. Every progressive movement of recent years is collapsing as identity politics moves in. Among the most spectacular examples has been the undermining of the campaign against police violence in the United States. A few years ago, thanks to smartphones and social media, and campaigns such as Copblock, a bright light was shone for the first time on the astonishing violence of US policing. Although there was clearly a strong racial element, police violence was meted out across all communities. If there was a particular “identity” group at the receiving end, it was overwhelmingly poor, young men, of all races.

But to make it a “male issue” would have been foolish and divisive. A Martin Luther King character, should one exist today, would identify a common cause and an opportunity for cross-community solidarity; but this is not the liberal 60s, and there appears to be no room for uniting characters like MLK today. Instead, the issue was seized by black nationalists. The hashtag #filmthepolice gave way to #blacklivesmatter. In a remarkable reversal of logic, black nationalists – backed by identity fascists – declared #alllivesmatter to be a “racist” sentiment. Never mind that numerically, the single biggest identity group to be shot by police was white men; or that, proportionately the greatest sufferers were native American men. The issue was now owned by the 24% of victims who were black, and the other 76% were excluded (Source: The Counted). This marked the high watermark of the campaign against police violence: it had been killed by sectarianism. If there ever was a signal to white working class people that nobody cares for them, here it was.

Now, when a 12 year old (white) girl was shot dead by police, there would be no community mobilisation, no public outcry. After all, what hashtag does one use in such a case? #Alllivesmatter was already deemed racist, and #whitelivesmatter would be even worse. So, the girl’s name never made it into the public consciousness: Ciara Meyer RIP: killed by police, forgotten by identity politics.

Now, it seems, the scourge of mass shootings in the US is going the same way. While only a couple of years ago, every shooting was met with horror, and renewed calls for gun controls, now the campaign has been targeted, divided and sunk by identity politics. A steady stream of mass killings – driven by easy access to guns, however much the gun lobby denied it – was punctuated a year ago by the killing of nine people in Charleston, South Carolina. Like many such mass killings, the shooter was an angry/crazy/hateful (take your pick) white man. Unlike most others, the targets were exclusively black.

Dylan Roof, the shooter, was no doubt motivated by racist views: but statistically, the event was an outlier. It makes no sense to declare a single atrocity, carried out by a single person, to be representative of anything but the views of that person. Racial violence has, in fact, tumbled a long, long way since the days of the lynch mob. But identity politics (which previously had no interest in the long succession of mass shootings) now awoke, and declared the issue a black-owned one.

And with the recent mass-shooting in a gay club in Orlando, the divisiveness reaches a whole new level. This time, identity fascists of the right blame “Islam”, while those of the left are determined to blame “Homophobia”. But neither explanation is matched by a genuine trend: neither Islamist nor homophobic atrocities are regular enough events to be anything but outliers. Homophobia may still be commonplace, but is almost certainly at its lowest level in US history. The same old explanation holds true for this mass shooting as for all the hundreds of others: an angry/crazy/hateful individual managed to get hold of military-style weaponry.

Identity politics is really the politics of the self. The identity warrior’s deepest instinct is: “How can I make this all about MEEEE?” Thus, the ever-vapid commentator Owen Jones walked out of a Sky News dicussion on the Orlando shooting, ostensibly because the other commentators were refusing to acknowledge homophobia. But in reality, Jones had finally found an American massacre that he, as a gay man, could associate himself with, and so become outraged about. Never mind that, as a British person, the chance he will ever encounter a mass shooting is close to zero. Never mind that many of the dead were undocumented Latino migrants rather than middle-class British journalists. Jones’ sexuality is the hook with which he can claim a stake in the misery of strangers, far away.

And here is the real tragedy of identity politics: solidarity is dying. While, only a few years ago, we could all unite to express shock at the killing of a black person by a racist, or a gay person by a homophobe, or a Jew by an anti-semite, now this is quietly breaking down. Now, every atrocity is an identity atrocity, and so every atrocity fosters further anger and division, while not so long ago we could unite in our common humanity against the tiny minority that commit vile acts of hate.

Identity politics is the politics of self-pity. If I were to choose this route, I could assert my Jewishness: henceforth, I could declare any anti-semitic attack to be all about MEEE. But I choose not to be defined by my Jewish heritage, however much self-pity it could allow me to wallow in. My children are Nigerian-Jewish; should they revel only in the victimhood of Jews and Nigerians? Should my daughter declare herself a Judeo-Nigerian Feminist, and add gender self-pity to black and semitic self-pity? We are in a race to the bottom: when we selectively ignore horror, because we don’t identify with the identity of the victims, we are losing our humanity.

Is it surprising, therefore, that poor whites would now also choose to unite around their racial identity? Is the rise of Donald Trump or of Nigel Farage so surprising in this climate? This new ascent of the fascist right was clearly preempted and driven by the rise of fascist politics on the left. We have no chance of resisting the rise of of the far-right in Europe and America if we adopt fascist methods and ideas ourselves. We need to rediscover the solidarity of the old left: we must stand shoulder to shoulder with those who suffer, however much – or little – they resemble ourselves.

Queen's Speech Promises State Censorship

The Queen’s Speech 2016: Online Censorship Now Official Policy

Politics, , , ,

Since 2010, when the government empowered ATVOD to regulate video-on-demand services, the direction of travel has been clear: there would little point in enforcing tough regulations on UK content providers, without also the power to block overseas services. Last Wednesday, the Queen’s Speech to Parliament finally confirmed what has been looming for several years. The huge and unelected communications regulator Ofcom is to be given extra powers over Internet content. This announcement was tucked innocuously away within the plans for the Digital Economy Bill, as follows:

“All websites containing pornographic images to require age verification for access”.

On its own, this is an odd announcement. After all, this provision has already been a UK regulation enforced by Ofcom since 2010, and was strengthened in the AVMS 2014 law (which prompted the famous face-sitting protest outside Parliament).So why is the government repeatedly announcing the same measure? It isn’t, really: it just reuses the “child protection” justification for different actions. This time, Ofcom is to be given powers to disrupt overseas providers that provide “adult” content without first verifying users’ ages. If this seems reasonable, keep in mind the following:

  • The government consultation on online pornography, which closed only last month, has not yet even reported. What was its purpose then?
  • When government talks about “pornography”, this is shorthand for any content it considers unsuitable for children, which (as long experience has shown) includes anything from sex education to drug information; from “extreme” political speech to self-harm support sites.
  • Age verification is, in practise, riddled with problems, as I previously outlined here.
  • The powers assigned to Ofcom, as yet not specified, are likely to be open-ended. So although the talk is of pursuing adult payment and advertising services, it seems a certainty that site blocking will be on the table soon.

What does this mean?

The Internet as we know it is going to change fundamentally. Mindgeek, owner of the largest porn services, has signalled that it will comply with the UK law, which means that sites like Pornhub and Youporn will no longer be freely available. Most major providers will doubtless follow. And sites featuring strong fetish content – even that which is legal in the United States and much of Europe – will not be able to comply with UK regulations at all, even if they implement age verification. But porn represents the tip of the iceberg.

In 2014, the major ISPs implemented optional “porn filters” in response to arm-twisting by David Cameron. The result was that about 20% of all websites became unavailable to users that switched on their “child protection” at home: a reminder that “porn” is a shorthand for a very broad range of content. Most users simply switched the filters off: this new regime will be far harder to circumvent.

Many services that allow user-contributed content will be classed as “adult”: Twitter will, unless it heavily self-censors its adult content. So, no doubt, will its live streaming service, Periscope, which could well be used to stream sexual material.

We will be watching as the Digital Economy Bill progresses. The wording of Ofcom’s new powers will be important to the future of free speech in the UK. Join our mailing list or Facebook page to keep track of events. This campaign is entirely funded by donations from supporters – you can donate here.

Brooke Magnanti and Paris Lees Appear at Parliamentary Sex Work Inquiry

Moral Panic, Politics, , ,

An inquiry is currently under-way in the British Parliament into the laws governing prostitution, and last week Dr Brooke Magnanti (aka Belle de Jour) and Paris Lees – both former sex workers – gave evidence.

There are two broad forms that a change in the law might take: either towards full decriminalisation – as has been the case in New Zealand since 2003 – or towards the criminalisation of clients (the so-called Nordic model). While the vast majority of sex workers favour decriminalisation (96% according to a recent survey), the inquiry made clear from the start that it is inclined towards the Nordic model:

“The Home Affairs Committee is looking at the way prostitution is treated in legislation. In particular, the inquiry will assess whether the balance in the burden of criminality should shift to those who pay for sex rather than those who sell it.”

So from the outset, the inquiry appears to be slanted towards a legislative model that is opposed by sex workers: an approach that signals moralistic goals, rather than a desire to reduce harm.

Judging by The Mirror’s account, the discussion was somewhat surreal. Labour MP Keith Vaz, who seems to have a particular, long-term issue with sex work, appeared reluctant to believe the accounts of women who had actually been sex workers:

“Mr Vaz expressed disbelief at when Ms Lees said she’d never met anyone who had felt pressured into becoming a sex worker.”

It is well-known that prohibitionists claim to have met countless women who have been forced into prostitution, but these victims tend to remain invisible, and are apparently never able to speak for themselves. As Lees responded:

“It seems to me you’ve had people at this inquiry who’ve got absolutely no business talking about sex work. Whose only qualification seems to be that they write for the Observer.”

This experience is very similar to my own when debating against anti-porn campaigners. As I wrote in my open letter to the anti-sex Object some months ago:

“It has long troubled me that Object are prepared to make endless claims of rape and sexual abuse against the sex entertainment industries; and yet, to my knowledge, you have filed no police reports.”

Those interested in the issue should carefully watch the inquiry unfold in Parliament. Any truly open-minded exercise would doubtless come to the same conclusion as Amnesty International did last year: full decriminalisation is the only way forward that is backed by evidence. But, I suspect, this is not the recommendation that this particular inquiry will reach.

 

french fascists

France’s Prostitution Ban – and Other Signals of Fascism

Politics, , ,

France’s prostitution ban is a sign of a deep historical shift in French politics

Yesterday, France adopted the “Nordic Model” for attacking the sex trade, making it illegal to buy sex. As ever, supporters of the attack denied that prostitution was being outlawed – for example, in response to my tweet on the news, I received this:

But it takes a truly Orwellian mindset to believe that one can outlaw the buying of a service without hurting those who sell it. This is, of course, designed to hurt sex workers. The bigotry of the anti-prostitution movement is there for all to see. Sex workers are not divided on this: they are clear, whenever they are listened to, that sex work must be entirely decriminalised. Impartial observers – such as Amnesty International, who recently adopted a policy of decriminalisation – have not found this a tricky, two-sided argument. It is well known that criminalising any aspect of the trade clearly harms sex workers.

So let us not treat prohibitionists as misguided people who care, any more than we should waste breath over whether it is right or wrong to lynch black people or gas Jews. Anti-prostitution campaigners are bigots, plain and simple. They seek to attack what they hate and fear. And this bigotry born of fear and loathing, that is rising in France, is part of a far bigger historical shift. France is sinking back into fascism.

What is disconcerting is that, unlike last time around, the driving force of French fascism is the the political left. A few days ago, for example, French Socialist government minister Laurence Rossignol said that women who wore veils were like “negroes who supported slavery”. The anti-veil law was presented with a thin progressive veneer, using ‘secularism’ as an excuse. But France’s secularism is not the religious freedom of the Enlightenment. It is an opportunity to viciously abuse minorities.

And as the sex work commentator Laura Agustín wrote on Facebook yesterday, this anti-prostitution law, too, is rooted in France’s deep racism: “In France where more than half those who sell sex are migrants the law is overtly anti-migration. The message is if you want to do this – Leave.” France has always been one of the worst places in Europe to be an immigrant. Now the French war on immigrants is getting vicious, and the left is at the forefront of it. The job of far-right leader Marine Le Pen is done: who needs the far-right when fascism is just as comfortably at home on the left?

The collapse of the progressive left is not just a French thing. It is no coincidence that, in the UK, a Labour-led parliamentary inquiry is also trying to ban prostitution. Open anti-sex attitudes, and veiled racist attitudes are now commonplace on the political left everywhere: the recent attack on a student wearing dreadlocks – simply because the student was white – shows the rot is there on the American left too.

As someone who once felt at home on the left, this change in the political landscape is disconcerting. The left’s shift towards fascist attitudes forms the heart of my new book, Porn Panic! Liberal values of equality, liberty and reason are collapsing across the political spectrum. France’s prostitution ban, and that of the veil represent dark clouds rising over the western world.

Queen's Speech Promises State Censorship

Response to the Government’s Anti-Porn Consultation

Legal, Politics

Response to government consultation: “Child Safety Online: Age Verification for Pornography”

This is a response to the consultation titled “Child Safety Online: Age Verification for Pornography” dated February 2016. I am the founder of the Sex & Censorship campaign, and author of the book Porn Panic! (to be published on 26th August) which explores how recent moral panics over sex have become excuses for censorship.

Summary of Issues

There are numerous problems with the consultation document, which can be grouped into six areas:

  1. The chosen definition of “children” includes sexually-active young adults under 18.
  2. The document skilfully hides the fact that no other EU country is following the UK’s “lead” into censorship.
  3. The solution proposed would have no significant effect on the availability of sexual imagery.
  4. The evidence of harm presented is weak, cherry-picked, and ignores the strongest research, including the British government’s own research.
  5. Adequate tools for protecting small children already exist.
  6. The proposed solution would unnecessarily increase Ofcom’s censorship controls over the Internet. This is not how democratic governments are supposed to behave – especially those that lecture other nations on free expression.

Detailed Response

1 Definition of “Children”

It is customary to refer to those in the 13-17 year age group as young adults, not children. However, the government, and government regulators such as Ofcom, insist on referring to this age group as children. So the document, for example, provides the almost meaningless statement that “13% of children aged 6-14 visited an adult site in May 2015”. To talk about the behaviours of 6 year olds along with those of 14 year olds is deeply misleading: we suspect deliberately so.

We suggest that data combining small children with young adults is unsuitable for making important policy decisions and should be rejected.

2 The UK is Alone

This is far from the first UK government exercise in “protecting children from online adult content”. The UK has introduced a series of measures over more than a decade, including mobile content filters and home broadband filters. The age verification measures mentioned in this document have actually been part of UK regulation since ATVOD was established in 2010. Although we have often been told that other European countries are set to follow us, this has never happened. These measures have not been replicated anywhere else in the world. In other words, no other country sees fit to “protect its children” by introducing multiple layers of censorship.

The consultation document masks this fact, stating “It is clearly important that other nations have also been considering their own approaches to how best to protect children from potentially harmful content on the internet. However, we want to continue to lead the way.”

This statement is inaccurate. We cannot lead when no other nation is following. Going it alone is not leading. This misleading narrative hides the simple fact that no other democratic nation sees the necessity to implement expensive and draconian controls on adult content: indeed, many of the measures introduced in the UK would be unconstitutional in the United States under the first amendment, which protects free speech.

3 The Proposed Solution Would Have Little Effect

While it may succeed in changing the policies of some large, commercial content providers, the solution proposed will clearly have little to no impact on the availability of sexual material to UK consumers. As the consultation document itself points out, there are around five million adult sites in the world. Ofcom would need a huge and very expensive army of enforcers to make any dent on the availability of this material. Is this how the government intends to re-employ the estimated 40,000 people to made redundant by the collapse of the steel industry?

Alternatively, and more likely, Ofcom will come back to government in a year to point out that millions of sites are still ignoring UK law, and request further powers to block transgressors. This slippery slope of censorship is well known. Perhaps it would be better to abandon this exercise now, save time and money, and perhaps instead invest the savings in improved sex education.

4 The Evidence Offered is Weak and Cherry-Picked

The consultation document appears designed to mislead by presenting pornography as potentially harmful. In fact, not only does the growing body of research not back these claims of harm, but it in fact suggests that porn availability plays a role in reducing sexual violence. This applies especially in the case of teenagers: the very group to which the consultation aims to restrict access to sexual imagery.

The document instead cherry-picks and misrepresents the research available. Perhaps the strangest example is the following:

“There is also a question about the effect of pornography on ‘unwanted sex’ – for instance more young people are engaging in anal intercourse than ever before despite research which suggests that it is often not seen as a pleasurable activity for young women”

This is curious at several levels. The fact that some people report having anal sex, and other people report not enjoying anal sex is not evidence that anyone is being forced into anal sex as a result of pornography. Does the government really consider it its role to stop young people having anal sex? We would point out that anti-sodomy laws were removed from the British statute half a century ago and seem unlikely to return.

Most surprisingly, the document ignores the research into pornography carried out by Ofcom on behalf of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. To remedy this omission, here are key phrases from the government’s own research.

  • “There seems to be no relationship between the availability of pornography and an increase in sex crimes in other countries; in comparison there is more evidence for the opposite effect.”
  • “Research with adults indicates no relationship between the commission of sex crimes and use of pornography at an early age. Again in comparison there is evidence for the opposite effect.”

To put this simply: the government’s own research suggests that restricting sexual imagery to teenagers may result in a rise in sexual violence among that age group. We call on the government to abandon these plans until strong evidence can be presented that they will not increase harm.

5 Adequate Tools for Protecting Children Already Exist

Parental controls for child access to the Internet have existed for over two decades. They are mature and effective: so much so that tablets are safely marketed for children by family brands such as Tesco. Regulators have repeatedly ignored this fact when lobbying for more Internet censorship controls.

But specialists believe that the most effective child protection tool of all is comprehensive sex education for all age groups. We therefore call on the government to broaden sex education, rather than attempt to keep teenagers ignorant of sexual matters until they are 18.

6 Take a Stand Against Censorship

The British government takes a strong stance against censorship in states like Iran and China. We agree with this position, and believe that free expression should be defended without compromise by the British government, in the absence of clear evidence of harm. It is unsurprising that Ofcom seeks to extend its already significant censorship powers; we expect our elected representatives to stand against a power grab by unelected regulators, and in favour of a free and open Internet for British citizens. We cannot lecture other countries on free expression while allowing ours to be continually eroded under the pretext of protecting children.

Jerry Barnett
Sex & Censorship

[email protected]

poppers

Poppers to be Spared UK Ban

Politics, , ,

The British government has announced that poppers – a recreational drug – will be exempt from the coming clampdown on “legal highs”, to be introduced next month.

Poppers are popular for use during sex, and are especially widely used by gay men. In a recent debate on the bans, gay Tory MP Crispin Blunt outed himself as a poppers user. The government reversal comes following an intervention by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), which advised that poppers may not be a drug under the definition used in the new law.

It is to be celebrated that at least one drug will be spared the ban, but the exception only serves to highlight the ludicrous nature of the law. At a stroke, thousands of diverse substances will be made illegal to supply. The law is not drafted to deal with harmful substances, but all psychoactive substances, regardless of whether they are harmful or not – this makes a mockery of government claims that the bans are an attempt at harm reduction.

In fact, such bans tend to increase, rather than reduce drug harm, by criminalising the supply chain and reducing government ability to regulate drugs. Users often substitute one drug for another – so for example, cocaine usage fell when mephedrone was legally available. This fact didn’t stop the then Labour government from banning mephedrone (against the advice of the ACMD), no doubt to the relief of the cocaine trade.

British governments have a long history of pointless – and often dangerous – drug bans. Questionable decisions in recent years include the bans on magic mushrooms and khat – neither considered to be dangerous. But they have never, until now, tried to ban so many substances at a stroke. The repercussions are impossible to predict; but one can guess that again, the cocaine trade will benefit.

We can be relieved that some common sense was seen in the poppers exemption. But common sense and government drug policy are rarely found in each other’s company. At a time when cannabis is being legalised in a number of countries, Britain feels increasingly backward.

Caroline Flint MP

Twitter Day of Action: Caroline Flint’s Anti-Sex Worker Bigotry

Politics, , , ,

LONDON: Sex & Censorship announces social media campaign for Tuesday 8th March in response to The Labour MP Caroline Flint’s anti-sex worker statements and actions.

Sex & Censorship calls on sex workers and their supporters to join a day of social media action against the misrepresentation of sex work and sex workers. Please read on to see how you can help.

What a difference a few days makes. Last week, as reported here, Jeremy Corbyn expressed support for the decriminalisation of sex work; it should be noted that his statement was made informally, and is not a statement of party policy. Still, this was a first for a Labour leader.

This stirred up the powerful anti-sex work contingent within the Labour Party, including Caroline Flint MP, who sent a number of outraged (and outrageous) tweets, including this:

These claims are, of course, often made, yet never backed by serious statistical evidence. Do people like this really care about sex workers? Well, quite obviously not. The proof is in the way that Flint and others treat the workers themselves: by ignoring and silencing them.

Zara du Rose, a pornstar and sex worker, tweeted to Flint asking for evidence to back her claim. She was swiftly blocked. Du Rose wrote on her Facebook page:

So I’ve just been blocked on Twitter by Labour MP Caroline Flint MP

She made a comment stating that “few people” in the sex industry are there by choice.

I simply asked her if she had put any research into her comment & if she has the statistics to back it up. Does my question really deserve that result?

If this is how people in the government react when they are faced with an honest debate, then it’s no wonder so many voices are going unheard! The wrong decisions will be made & more sex workers will be put at risk if they go ahead with criminalising the buying of sex.

And the blocking continued. Dominatrix Megara Furie was also blocked for responding to Flint, as were sex worker activist Charlotte Rose, and National Ugly Mugs, a sex worker safety campaign. As ever, the message of abolitionists is: “We’re trying to save you, whether you want to be saved or not. Now shut up!”

How Can You Respond to Caroline Flint?

Sex workers and their supporters can make their voices heard as outlined below. Please note:

  1. Don’t be abusive – be polite. Don’t send multiple tweets. Take the moral high ground.
  2. Please wait until tomorrow (Tuesday) morning – then send one of the tweets below.

Here’s how to tweet:

If you’re a sex worker

Please copy and send the following tweet (feel free to adapt it but include the link and hashtag to maximise impact). Send your sex worker friends this link and ask them to join. We can get this issue trending and make news!

Dear @CarolineFlintMP – I choose to be a sex worker. Sex workers demand decriminalisation! http://ow.ly/Z9TkH #decrimsexwork

If you’re not a sex worker

Copy and send the following tweet. Again, free free to adapt. Alert your sex worker friends and supporters and ask them to join.

Dear @CarolineFlintMP – sex workers want to work safely. Criminalising clients does NOT achieve that! http://ow.ly/Z9TkH #decrimsexwork

After tweeting Flint, feel free to continue using the hashtag.

You can also adapt these and post on Facebook (note that Flint has her own Facebook page).

Quotes

Jerry Barnett from Sex & Censorship: “Flint’s comments are a reminder of the strength of anti-sex work feeling that remains in the Labour Party and elsewhere. Claims of widespread abuse and coercion are never backed by hard evidence, yet they continue in circulation. Flint is typical of activists who show contempt for the very sex workers they claim to be helping.”

The English Collective of Prostitutes: “Our question to Flint would be that if she wants an “anti-prostitution strategy” why isn’t it supporting Corbyn and McDonnell’s determined campaigns against benefit sanctions, the benefit cap, homelessness, low wages, zero hours contracts, etc? Regarding her comment that women are vulnerable and exploited. Our fact and fiction sheet reports research that shows that only 6% of sex workers are trafficked: http://www.pledgedecrim.com/#!fact-and-fiction/c9ik

Alex Bryce of National Ugly Mugs: “I am thoroughly disappointed by Caroline Flint’s conduct. As an elected official who has served in Government she has a duty to use her platform responsibly. She publicly expressed misinformed and, in my opinion, dangerous and stigmatising views about sex workers. Such comments entrench stigma which, in turn, can lead to the targeting of sex workers by violent individuals. When sex workers and organisations like mine, which provides life saving support to sex workers, responded to her comments she immediately decided to block them rather than engage in any meaningful debate. If she genuinely cared about the safety of sex workers then she would engage them and listen to their voices rather than silencing them. She should be thoroughly ashamed of her actions. It is tragic that elected representatives have so little regard for evidence and the voices of those most affected by the policies for which they advocate.”

I asked some sex workers what they would say to Flint, given the opportunity?

Charlotte Rose: “1st, what have you got against sex workers? 2nd, would you be open to come and discuss face to face with real sex workers? 3rd if you support democracy why have you blocked us?”

Laura Renvoize: “I’d say, in reality many countries recognise sex work as an industry. To continuously vilify sex work as crime is to perpetuate Victorian morals and harmful exclusionary “feminism”. As a sex worker the issues I have faced in sex work haven’t come from some kind of exploitation at all, but rather from the stigma perpetuated by public figures and the law, which leads institutions to treat me as a subhuman. If she claims to care so much about our safety then why isn’t she looking at the evidence or listening to us? Forcing us to be criminalised won’t stop sex work, it’s only going to force us to work with people now branded as criminals, forcing us into situations where exploitation could exist. This is my job, listen to me about it and try to not be so moralistic about other people’s sex lives.”

Megara Furie: “I would ask her to simply qualify her statements. As a trained scientist I learned to deal in facts. She has made a very bold and so far, unsubstantiated statement. I need to see how she intends to validate this and see sex workers on the other end of the scale be given a fair opportunity to put forward their facts and have them taken into respectful consideration. Plain and simple. If prostitution is part of organised crime then she sits with rackets in parliament, as I’m sure there are more than a few MPs who have used the services of sex workers or contributed to their motivation to work in the industry.”

Zara du Rose: “Why are you so determined to silence the sex workers who are trying to open an honest dialogue with you? All we have asked is where you got your facts from when you claim that ‘most’ of us are in it by force. For you to block every sex worker who is trying to tell you THEIR story is proving that you don’t care about anyone in that industry at all. Listen to the women who have made it their choice to be sex workers, you may learn something! Criminalising the buying or selling of sex will only make the vulnerable people out there more alienated & push them further underground. We need to start changing the way we view sex & women’s choices!”