The sex industry: our response?

Sculpture in Amsterdam bearing the inscription: "Respect sex workers all over the world."

In modern society where all manner of boundaries are blurred and broken on a regular basis, sex has become at once censored and exaggerated; a paradoxical combination of the erotic and the modest.

Since bursting out of the tightly locked doors of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, sex has found its way into every aspect of public life. Recent Channel 4 series The Sex Education Show saw porn being discussed before the watershed, causing outrage across the country. The tide of complaints expressed disgust at the transmission of explicit images of genitalia and the effects of sexual disease. Are people still caught in the dangerous holds of a moral society that denies access to sex?

While a bare ankle is no longer a symbol of sexual exhibitionism, it seems that the apparent and honest presence of sex is what people find most threatening. In the face of this uproar exploration of sexuality is confidently encouraged, icons like Dita von Teese have presented themselves as models of female empowerment, discovering and expressing the physicality of the female body.

On York campus itself you can indulge in Pole Exercise. Inviting men and women, the sport is an alternative to typical university team sport, such as netball or hockey. While the club is all about developing strength and exercise techniques, the club attended the Erotica show in 2007, acknowledging the connotations of sexual confidence that are inevitably associated with the activity.

Aside from this general gravitation towards sexual identity, the sex industry itself has taken a more central position and is no longer lurking in the shadows. Research into Sexually Transmitted Diseases conducted between 1990 and 2000 revealed that the percentage of men who had paid for sex during their lifetime had risen almost 4%.

'De Wallen', Amsterdam's red-light district

In Amsterdam, the sex industry has become a famous caricature of reality. Millions of tourists from all over the world visit it each year for its famous red light district which comprises of sex shows, shops and museums as well as its renowned network of windows where prostitutes offer their services.

In a world where selling sex is so blindly accepted, many forget that there is a darker side to the sex industry. Recognition of the sex trade is not enough. The generalised view of prostitution as sexual empowerment is frankly naïve and begs the question: when does sexual expression become exploitation?

The heightened awareness of sexual exposure seems responsible for the assumed attitude that we’ve now seen it all. What is increasingly evident is that we most certainly have not. While prostitution is sometimes a professional choice, in many tragic cases women become its slaves, whether by force or necessity.

Figures suggested that 4000 women had been trafficked into prostitution in the UK in 2006

Despite the fact that many women feel they have overcome the boundaries of sexism, prostitution is one area where this is often entirely untrue. Many women become involved in the sex industry not as free individuals but as victims of human trafficking.

The UK government fight against human sex trafficking began on recognition of the growing problem of women being brought into the country and sold into sexual slavery. Many of the criminal bosses of these underground organisations coerce the poorest women from areas in Eastern Europe such as the Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania and Albania.

These women are lured by a range of techniques including romantic seduction and even through false advertisements for jobs in their home countries. While some are aware that they will enter the sex industry on reaching the UK, many expect to become lap dancers or escorts and are lied to about the conditions.

What is more worrying about this form of sexual slavery is that it is impossible to track accurately, figures in 2006 after the Ipswich murders suggested that 4000 women had been trafficked into prostitution, but this figure is thought to have grown in recent years.

While the government is conscious of the pressing issue of human trafficking, most statistics are generalised and do not exclude figures of sex workers who have entered the profession through choice.

Since the term prostitute has become an umbrella term for all manner of sex workers (call girls, brothel-workers, street walkers etc) the focus on transgression in the sex trade has angered many voluntary sex workers.

Proposed law changes in late 2008 aimed at punishing the punter and protecting the prostitute were met with serious debate and discussion. The new laws sought to target sexual exploitation and expose the slavery of prostitutes controlled by pimps, making it illegal to pay someone for sex who is ‘controlled for another person’s gain’.

The Government is using the trafficking issue to clamp down and criminalise prostitution even further.
Female sex worker

Many argued that the laws were not addressing the real issues at hand and feared the changes would push trafficking further underground. In a world already on the blurred boundary of the law, many brothels and agencies would be afraid to report trafficking due to the risk of being shut down and convicting themselves.

Similarly, many untrafficked sex workers saw a risk to their own position; the government is using the trafficking issue to clamp down and criminalise prostitution even further.

It seems that the real problem we now face is abolishing naiveté; if the country is to overcome its ignorance about the sex trade and defy the massive generalisations of recent statistics and proposals it needs to focus on the specifics.

While the issue is now being formally recognised, one thing that’s crystal clear is that ‘sex’ is a word characterised by nuance, variation and misunderstanding and we’re still on the way to tackling it.

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