Why do we need to believe the worst about the sex industry?

A new study out of Simon Fraser University concludes that people who buy sex are no more prone to violence than anyone else.
Fewer than two per cent of the 1,000 respondents who took part in SFU sociologist Chris Atchison’s study reported ever having hit, hurt, raped or robbed the person who they’d bought sex from.
Granted, that’s just them saying so. But Atchison noted in a Vancouver Sun story this week about his research that there was little reason for the respondents to lie, given that the survey was anonymous.
That his findings are provocative is an understatement.
"It's an outrageous study and it really works towards normalizing sexual assault," said Aurea Flynn of the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, which is the go-to organization in B.C. when media are looking for a quote from someone vehemently opposed to prostitution.
"I'm really angry about the emphasis on the compassion for johns that the study provides,” added Flynn, “and I'm very concerned about its impact on the continued normalization of prostitution in Canada because I believe prostitution is violence against women."
It’s odd, really. Atchison’s findings ought to be considered good news in a society that puts so much emphasis on reducing violence for all British Columbians. Shouldn’t we be happy that most of the thousands of British Columbians who buy sex on a regular basis aren’t violent toward sex workers?
Ah, but this is about the sex industry. We don’t want to hear anything “nice” about it. We don’t want anybody telling us that most of the customers of the sex industry are largely average, non-violent guys - the kind of men we work with, live with and even love. We don’t want to hear that most adult sex workers in Canada might actually be choosing to work in the business.
When it comes to prostitution, we only like it violent, coercive and miserable. I guess we pretty much have to cling to that belief, because otherwise we just might question the ineffective, discriminatory and ultimately harmful laws that govern how the sex industry operates in our country.
We prefer a single story line when it comes to public conversations about the sex trade - one in which all the people who buy sex are exploitive predators, and all the people who sell it are victims needing to be saved (or at the very least prosecuted in the event they refuse “rescue”).
But what if we’ve got that wrong?
Without question, there are some loathsome and horrendous things that go on in the global sex industry. No civil society should tolerate the truly awful parts of the sex industry. We need strong laws - and much more effective enforcement of them - to protect against the exploitation of vulnerable people and prevent child abuse, human trafficking and sex tourism.
We also need plenty of community supports to help people wanting out of the sex trade. It’s not a job that anybody should have to feel they’re doing against their will, including for economic reasons.
But at the same time, it’s profoundly hypocritical for a country with so many eager customers of the sex trade to pretend that the entire industry is monstrous. It doesn’t seem implausible to me that 98 per cent of the people who took part in Atchison’s survey really are just looking for a sexual encounter, not the opportunity to hurt anybody.
I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a number of adult escorts over the past couple of years, and they’ve given me a whole new perspective on who their customers are. I’ve been stunned to discover just how many customers there are, and their many complex reasons for paying for sex.
So to judge them all as vicious creeps just doesn’t work for me anymore. We may like to tell ourselves that they’re all Robert Pickton types looking for any excuse to make some crushed and exploited woman’s life a little more miserable, but it just isn’t true.
I do think the people who buy sex need to get a spine, however, and start doing more to change the laws to ensure fair, safe workplaces for adult sex workers. The customers of the massive sex industry hold all kinds of authority positions, in our region and around the world. How about they start using some of that influence to create real change for adult workers, starting with decriminalization?
For another view of the industry, come on down to the screening of The Brothel Project Jan. 31 at the Victoria Film Festival. The documentary by April Butler-Parry follows me and UVic researcher and outreach worker Lauren Casey in our 2008 attempt to open a co-op brothel in Victoria.

Pointless prostitution laws help no one but hurt many

Sex work is back in the headlines again, and will be for quite some time with a constitutional challenge to Canada’s prostitution laws finally underway this week.
I wish miracles for the three brave sex workers who launched the challenge. That’s what they’ll need to survive the savaging they’re in for at the hands of those who staunchly oppose anything that might make it easier or safer to be a sex worker.
The case in front of the Ontario Superior Court is challenging three sections of the Criminal Code: the “common bawdyhouse” laws that make anything to do with operating a brothel illegal; procuring or living off the avails of prostitution; and communicating for the purposes of prostitution.
In deciding the case, Justice Susan Himel will be gauging whether our prostitution laws are proportionate to their purpose, or if they have the effect of forcing sex workers into unsafe situations where they can be preyed on by deviants and serial killers.
So let’s ponder those two issues for a moment.
Sex work is legal in Canada, yet everything required for a sale to take place is illegal - location, marketing, even the earnings. That renders the work just legal enough for men to be able to acquire paid sex anytime they like in any city, and just illegal enough to continue the pretence that Canadian society is hard at work trying to eradicate prostitution. What exactly IS the purpose of laws like that?
As for whether the impact of the laws is proportionate to their purpose, I can’t wait to hear the arguments on that point. How many vulnerable women have died across Canada just in the last decade because our laws forced them to work out of sight in the rough parts of town, getting into cars with strangers? How could a gruesome impact like that possibly be proportionate in a civilized society?
What gets me the most about the laws around prostitution is the grand hypocrisy of it all.
We wrung our hands and wept for all the missing women when Robert Pickton’s exploits were the news of the day. We went to their vigils. But we didn’t do one thing that made life safer for the women working our streets.
We tell ourselves that only deviants and weirdos buy sex, and only victimized, desperate people sell it. But Canadians of every stripe are frequenting the places where sex is sold, and leading secret lives as part-time sex workers. Were a scarlet letter ever to appear on all the chests of people who have ever bought and sold sex, I think you’d be amazed to see who was in the club.
The sale of sex is a rip-roaring business in every Canadian community. Every moment spent denying that is another nail in the coffin of women working in isolation and danger on the nation’s outdoor strolls. Outdoor work is the mere tip of the iceberg in terms of the scope of the industry, but it’s certainly the place where the most negative impacts of our poorly considered laws are felt.
I understand the powerful emotions that drive the abolitionist movement. I know that some people have had tragic experiences in the sex trade. It’s definitely a job for adults only, and even then it’s not something that most people are cut out for.
But it’s still a job. Occasional monsters and victims notwithstanding, the buyers are for the most part ordinary people. The sellers are by and large happy for the money. Meanwhile, those who aren’t happy in the work take no solace from the law, because it can only punish them further.
I read an opinion piece the other day from an abolitionist exhorting Canadians to resist anything that might normalize prostitution as a legitimate career choice. That tired old argument is trotted out anytime someone dares to mutter about decriminalizing the industry: “Oh, horrors, your child could end up working as a prostitute!”
Read the research. Prostitution doesn’t increase when it’s decriminalized, because it’s already so well-entrenched in every community that there’s no increase in demand just because it’s now legal. All the men who buy sex are already buying it.
Nor is the growth of sex tourism much of a concern in Canada. Sex workers here are no more likely than any other Canadian to work for the pathetic, exploitive wages that sex workers earn in countries like Thailand.
And even if all that weren’t so, surely we don’t want to support laws that maintain an ugly and dangerous work environment just so our own daughters won’t be tempted into that line of work.
Every woman who works in the industry is somebody’s daughter. We owe it to all of them to fix this mess we’ve made.