Tim Worstall

Howling Lunacy

I do believe that the lunatics have taken over the asylum:

Ministers are considering proposals to prosecute men for buying sex in
a new effort to curb the demand for prostitution, the Guardian has
learned.

I’m not sure I can think of anything else where the purchase of something is criminal but the supply is not, but leave that aside.

In recent years we did seem to be making the move to a rational policy on prostitution. That its always been with us, that management rather than attempted prohibtion is better, even the liberal idea that voluntary exchange between consenting adults should not be interfered with. The law has always been a little strange here, as prostitution itself isn’t illegal: soliciting is, pandering, living off immoral earnings (which has to be the earnings of others, ie pimping) but th actual cash for sex part has always been legal.

And we had, at least I thought we had, got to the point where it was that surrounding illegality that led to the problems, in the same way that it’s the illegality of drugs that causes most of the problems.

And now the idiots are proposing to make it illegal altogether?

One side point:

Senior members of the government are discussing whether to criminalise
the purchase, rather than sale, of sex – as Sweden did eight years ago
– in part because of the growth in sex trafficking. According to the
government, 85% of women in brothels come from outside the UK.

Yes, I have no doubt that some women are indeed "sex slaves". A vile trade and one that should be stamped out, as with all other forms of slavery. However, that 85% number has nothing to do with it.

As Gary Becker pointed out (I think it was him, at least), prostitutes tend to come from outside the community they service. As you might have noticed, prostitution is a route to a low social status, so it does tend to be something that people go and do elsewhere, it being possible for them to retain their status at home while still doing the work. With the increased mobility of the modern world, and the increased distance that people travel, it’s really not all that much of a surprise that those working in brothels come, not from the next town over, but the next country over.

That there are, as I say, sex slaves who need to be freed is true, but that 85% number reflects something quite different.

In

7 responses

  1. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    If attempting to buy sex services is made illegal, then expect to see lots of entrapment as in this report about New York in the NYT:
    “The undercover police officer, clad in tight mini-skirt, fish-net stockings and high heels, strolled to the passenger window of a white Lincoln Town Car and talked briefly with the driver. They agreed on a price for sex as police officers nearby listened to their recorded conversation.
    “Before the man could flinch, a dozen officers swarmed over him like a bees to a hive. Several others converged on the scene in screeching cars from every direction. Shaking visibly, the man, Magry Zakhary of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, was handcuffed and whisked to a waiting van. . . ”
    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9806E7D81131F933A15752C1A962958260
    Contrast the situation in Germany, where prostitution is legal and where the government changed the law as recently as 2002 to improve the legal status of prostitutes:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Germany
    One predictable consequence of laws in Britain to make it illegal to pay for sex is that it will promote sex tourism.
    As for a claim that: “prostitution is a route to a low social status,” that is definitely not the impression created by the recent spate of books by the likes of Belle de Jour and Miss S etc etc. It has to be said that those books engender a view of the world that selling sexual favours is something that any enterprising, attractive and sensual young women might consider as a lucrative career option providing there are appropriately safeguarded marketing situations. Miss S claims that successful professionals in Britain are mostly opposed to any relaxation of present laws banning soliciting and brothels.

    Reply
  2. Jock Avatar
    Jock

    One thing that has to change to help prostitution become a proper vountary trasnaction is the drugs laws of course. Many are kept in servitude to their pimp because of drug habits.

    Reply
  3. Waldemar Ingdahl Avatar
    Waldemar Ingdahl

    This is the law how it is practiced in Sweden, as driven through by radical feminists. Has it eliminated prostitution? No.

    Reply
  4. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    By various reports, the effect of the law in Sweden banning the purchase of sexual services has been: (a) to shift the market for prostitutes from the streets to the internet; (b) to promote sex tourism to other Baltic states, especially those previously part of the Soviet Union.
    “Chased off the streets by a 1999 law that made it illegal to buy sexual services, Sweden’s prostitutes are turning to the internet to attract clients, a government study has found. Mostly free, with unrestricted access, Web sites are on their way to becoming the favourite way to advertise and buy sexual services in Sweden, according to a social study conducted by the country’s second-largest city Goeteborg.”
    http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/16/1042520720227.html

    Reply
  5. The Remittance Man Avatar
    The Remittance Man

    I don’t know whether Belle de Jour’s work will have any effect on raising the status of prostitutes, I suspect not. What is pretty clear is that attempts at banning the trade usually fail and simply drive the trade further into the shadows.
    I do wonder whether legalisation as per the German model is the best way forward though. Given the likelyhood that low status and even stigma will remain attached to the trade, I wonder how many women (or men) would want to have the fact they were once on the game permenantly recorded by the authroities. I suspect any attempt to regulate would have about as much success and the same unintended consequences as attempts to ban the industry outright.
    To my mind, policy makers have to find a way to bring the trade sufficiently into the light to afford the willing participants appropriate protection, make things like sexual slavery and so on more difficult to conduct, and yet still offer a reasonable degree of anonymity, particularly to the working girls and boys. Not an easy task I am sure, but maybe possible if people are prepared to abandon their prejudices.

    Reply
  6. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    I know nothing about this market beyond what I read. It’s evident that Sweden and Germany have set out on completely opposite legislative tacks and I only hope that the government here carefully and objectively examines the downstream experience of those two countries before pushing through new legislation to avoid the looming prospect of numerous unintended consequences.
    Making paying for sex illegal is bound to set the Police on entrapment expeditions and I believe we need to think hard about that particular scenario before we go down that route. The report that in Sweden the marketing of prostitution has moved from the street to the internet needs taking seriously and I think we should know just how the Police would prose dealing with that.
    Btw one argument often made for deregulating and liberalising the trade in banned addictive drugs is that liberalising the market would reduce the street price of drugs and so, at a stroke, reduce the incentives to engage in drug-related crime either on the part of dealers or addicts.. At present, it is illegal to pay to buy banned drugs because mere possession is illegal but, presumably, that would no longer apply were we to set out on the course of liberalisation.
    If that is a fair summary, it looks strange to see another argument which claims that making it illegal to pay for sex would reduce the pay rate of prostitutes and so reduce the incentive to engage in the trade – or am I missing something?

    Reply
  7. Donald B. Avatar
    Donald B.

    http://www.salli.org/muistio/kulick.html
    …Is there nothing positive to be said about the law? My own conclusion, based on 4,000 newspaper articles and on my reading of all the official reports commissioned by the Swedish government, is an unequivocal ‘No’. What is more, none of the negative consequences I have outlined here are surprising. They are all absolutely predictable – indeed, they were predicted – based on what we know from other countries about what happens to sexworkers when the transaction of selling sex becomes criminalized. The truly surprising thing is not that the law impacts extremely negatively on street prostitutes. The truly surprising thing is that those politicians and feminist groups that promote the so-called ”Swedish Model” so resolutely ignore these negative consequences in their continual insistence that the law is good. We may grant that the law may indeed feel good for those who are only interested in ‘marking a stance’ and ‘sending a message’ that they don’t like prostitution. But for those involved in sexwork, the law prohibiting the purchase of sexual services is disastrous… http://www.thelocal.se/6417/20070215/
    …nobody can say for sure whether fewer people have paid for sex since the change in legislation. It is thought that internet advertising and illegal prostitution in bars and clubs may represent growth industries
    So just why are British politicians so positive about this?
    well this is why.
    The Economist, London: Sept 4, 2004. Vol. 372, Iss. 8391; pg. 30
    Swedish message: Importing policies
    How Swedish policies influence Britain
    Once Scandinavians came with swords; now they come with social policies
    If policies were commodities, Sweden would have a large surplus on its trade balance. This small nation of 9m people has already exported to Britain active labour market policies, a model for universal childcare, and a merged prison and probation service. A ban on smacking children, pioneered by the Swedes in 1979 and successfully sold to 11 other European countries, was, after a struggle, voted down by the House of Lords in July. None of these policies, though, is being marketed so aggressively as Sweden’s policy of outlawing the purchase of sex.
    That Sweden should have developed Europe’s toughest prostitution policies is odd, because the country used to be known for its liberal attitude to abortion, co-habitation and sex education. The law was changed in 1999, after ministers became convinced that the sex trade was upsetting the balance of power between the sexes. As Lise Bergh, state secretary for gender equality, explains: “We have come to see men’s purchasing of women as a form of violence. It has nothing to do with sexuality.”
    …… Not content with having won over domestic consumers, the Swedish government is now self-consciously engaged in a battle for Europe, with the libertarian Dutch on the other side. It even has a roadshow, which begins with a showing of the film “Lilya 4-Ever”, about a trafficked Russian teenager, and proceeds with speeches from ministers, police inspectors and reformed prostitutes. Peculiarly, for a nation with such firm socialist traditions, the government has also teamed up with the White House to fund anti-prostitution campaigns in Europe. Britain’s Home Office is highly impressed by Sweden’s focus on the punter, and sees criminalisation as “definitely an option”, according to an insider.
    Why are the Swedes so determined to spread the word? Partly it’s pragmatism: the sex trade is global, and will disappear only if demand can be curtailed everywhere. Mostly, though, it is pure conviction. Sweden has long been conscious of its distinctive mission in Europe and proud of its marriage of capitalist freedom and socialist equality. Henrik Tham, a criminologist at the University of Stockholm, notes that Sweden touted its economic policies until the domestic economy ran into difficulties in the 1980s. Since then, it has marketed relatively cheap moral reforms.
    Sweden’s exports are not all successful. Outlawing drug taking, another modern initiative, has fallen flat. Yet the record is mostly good. At the moment, Swedes are discussing women’s quotas for the top levels of corporate management and trying to do something about what ministers call the “pornogrification” of everyday life–sexy advertisements, thongs being marketed to teenagers, and so on. Such initiatives may seem off-the-wall now, but if they are floated in Britain in a few years’ time, don’t be surprised.

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