Prostitution and its impact on women

Jan 14

Guest post from Nordic Model Now

If you listen to the mainstream media, it would be easy to think that prostitution, now rebranded as ‘sex work’, is a good career option for some women, with its flexible hours and ‘easy money’. And so, you might think, decriminalising it makes sense.

But when you think about what prostitution really is, it quickly becomes clear that things aren’t that simple. Who better to remind us of the true nature of prostitution than Andrea Dworkin, who was herself involved in it as a young woman:

“I want to bring us back to basics. Prostitution: what is it? It is the use of a woman’s body for sex by a man, he pays money, he does what he wants. The minute you move away from what it really is, you move away from prostitution into the world of ideas. You will feel better; you will have a better time; it is more fun; there is plenty to discuss, but you will be discussing ideas, not prostitution. Prostitution is not an idea. It is the mouth, the vagina, the rectum, penetrated usually by a penis, sometimes hands, sometimes objects, by one man and then another and then another and then another and then another. That’s what it is.”

So not an ordinary job.

There have been a lot of developments since Dworkin wrote this in 1993. Not only has the industry expanded, but we now have lap dancing clubs in almost every city, webcamming, Pornhub and a multitude of similar free porn sites, OnlyFans, and websites where men can browse catalogues of women and order one up to their flat or hotel room as if she were a pizza.

Prostitution is now a massive industry that has been growing year on year for decades. According to the ONS, it contributed £6.3 BILLION to British GDP in 2023 – and that doesn’t include OnlyFans’s $1.31 billion net revenue or the porn and lap dancing empires. Meanwhile in England and Wales the police have more or less given up on enforcing the law against pimping, brothel keeping, kerb crawling, and paying for sex with a child or with an adult who has been coerced.

All of these different forms of sexploitation present men with a picture of a multitude of interchangeable (mostly) young women who are sexually available and willing, desperate even, to flatter them and fulfil their every sexual whim, no matter how violent or perverse.

As such, the sex industry in all its forms feeds men’s individual and collective sense of superiority and entitlement to sexual access to and control of women. These are known to be the very attitudes that are associated with male violence against women and girls.

In other words, men who use prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation are more likely to be violent towards women and girls in the general community. In one study, they were found to be eight times more likely to rape women than other men. Is it any wonder then that in the past decade we have witnessed a huge increase in male violence against women and girls?

When treating women as sexual commodities is so accepted and normalised, we should not be surprised that more than 50 men in a small French town thought nothing of accepting Dominique Pelicot’s invitation to rape his unconscious wife. When the British police have almost totally given up on enforcing the law on pimping and child sexual exploitation, we should not be surprised that we have a “grooming gangs” scandal.

The normalisation of prostitution, the pornification of the culture, and the new forms of sexploitation, including OnlyFans, have simultaneously groomed girls to accept a life of objectification and service to men’s needs rather than their own. Signing up for OnlyFans is now only a small step from running an Instagram account. So we should not be surprised that increasing numbers of young women, like Lily Phillips, are engaged in ever more desperate stunts to “sell their virginity” or have sex with large numbers of men.

We must join up the dots and see how all these things are related. If as a society we continue to give the sexploitation industry free rein, or we go even further and fully decriminalise it, where will we end up? How many more lives must be ruined before we take action?

So what’s the solution?

Many feminists support the Nordic Model (also known as the Equality Model or Abolitionist Model), an approach to prostitution policy and legislation that has been adopted in Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Ireland, and Israel. It is a human rights-based approach that recognises the prostitution system as part of the structural oppression of women and other marginalised groups, and as both a cause and a consequence of the persistent inequality between the sexes.

It is the only approach that prioritises support, assistance to exit, and alternatives for those caught up in prostitution (almost all surveys show that the overwhelming majority are desperate to get out), while holding pimps and sex buyers to account.

Specifically, the Nordic Model:

Decriminalises the selling of sex, provides those selling sex with high-quality, non-judgemental support services, genuine routes out, and alternatives, and expunges criminal records and prostitute cautions for soliciting to sell sex.
Strengthens laws against pimping, brothel keeping, prostitution advertising, and human trafficking.
Makes buying sex a criminal offence, with the key aim of changing men’s attitudes and behaviour.
Must be accompanied by a whole raft of holistic measures, including a public information campaign, education in schools and colleges, training for the police and other front-line officials, and tackling the inequality and poverty that drive people into prostitution.

What about ‘decriminalisation’?

The alternative that is heavily promoted by a vocal and well-financed lobby for the expansion of the industry is full decriminalisation (‘decrim’). This involves the decriminalisation of all aspects of the prostitution industry, including pimping, brothel keeping, and advertising. Prostitution is treated like any other business and there is no public funding for services to help women exit the industry.

This enshrines in law men’s right to buy women for sex and third parties’ right to profit from women’s prostitution. This inevitably leads to more men buying sex more frequently, and more pimps and brothel keepers wanting to cash in on all that extra money. It therefore always leads to a rapid expansion in the size of the industry and an increase in human trafficking.

Full decriminalisation has been in force in New Zealand since 2003. It has not been the success that is often claimed.

Comparison of the two approaches.

	Nordic Model	Decriminalisation
Selling sex is legal?	Yes	Yes
Services for those selling sex, incl. routes out?	Yes	No
Pimping is legal?	No	Yes
Brothels are legal?	No	Yes
Buying sex is legal?	No	Yes

But isn’t ‘sex work’ just a normal job?

When you scrape off the sugar-coating, many of the things we expect in the workplace, like career progression, protection from sexual harassment, and health and safety standards, simply do not exist in prostitution. If dentists have to wear masks, goggles and protective clothing just to look in your mouth, what kind of protection would you need to conform to health and safety standards when having full-on sexual intimacy with multiple strangers?

Employers are required by law to protect employees from harm. Risks and harms of prostitution include:

Infections including gonorrhoea, chlamydia, herpes, syphilis, hepatitis, and HIV, some caused by microbes resistant to antibiotics. Unwanted pregnancy.
Injuries to the vagina, anus and rectum, including tears, abrasions, fissures and fistulas. Damage to abdominal and pelvic areas caused by mechanical trauma, including prolapse, incontinence, pain, and infertility.
Brain injury through strangulation and other acts of physical violence. Traumatic brain damage at levels comparable to boxers and victims of torture.
Dissociation. PTSD incidence in the range 47-68%, higher than in combat veterans. High rates of mental disorders correlating with high levels of violence from pimps and buyers.

Job specification

Women who have survived prostitution compiled the following job specification for prostitution.

General tasks: Sexual activity with multiple male strangers, regardless of their age, appearance, attitude, health, or hygiene standards. Every orifice must be available. Act degrading scenes from porn.

Responsibilities: Never complain. Simulate pleasure. Be convincing. Do whatever the buyer wants, even if it hurts or disgusts you. The buyer is always right. Conform to unrealistic standards, even when pregnant or distressed. Abandon personal and health and safety boundaries to remain competitive.

Career development: Typically downwards as you get older, less desirable and less able to tolerate the abuse. Potential negative impact on future career and even the ability to work. Physical, emotional and spiritual damage. Social isolation. Substance abuse.

Immediate boss: Brothel owner, human traffickers, escort ‘agencies’, pimps, and every buyer.

Desirable qualifications: As young as possible. A fuckable body. Vulnerability. Ability to dissociate. Lack of social support. A history of prior abuse, exploitation, self-harm, homelessness or being in care. Poor.

Remuneration: Fluctuates due to deliberate over-recruitment by brothel owners etc. leading to pressure to accept extreme porn-related demands from buyers. No pension, sick, or holiday pay.

Deductions: Large deductions to pimps, brothel owners, drivers and others offering ‘protection’ whilst being the greatest source of danger, or facilitators of it. ‘High end’ only means higher overheads and outgoings to satisfy buyers’ expectations.

Occupational hazards: Being urinated and defecated on, being strangled, raped, tortured. Long-term disability due to repeated internal and external injury. PTSD and other enduring mental health challenges.

Definitely not an ordinary job. This is why we reject the ‘sex work’ and ‘sex worker’ terminology. They are euphemisms that obscure the brutal reality.

Resources

We recommend the NMN website which has a wealth of information, including survivor testimony, myth busters, and blogs. It also has a website shop that sells a variety of resources (all items are also available as free PDF downloads). NMN can offer bulk orders at reduced cost (email info@nordicmodelnow.org for more information).

We particularly recommend the following:

What did you want to be when you were growing up? This four-sided A5 flyer briefly sets out the risks and harms of prostitution, introduces the Nordic Model, provides a comparison with full decriminalisation, along with some stats, quotes, and a job spec.

Decriminalisation of the sex trade vs. the Nordic Model: What you need to know. This 32-page A5-sized booklet sets out the pros and cons of full decriminalisation vs. the Nordic Model. It explains in simple terms the key features of both approaches, along with information about the results of the Nordic Model in Sweden, of full decrim in New Zealand, and of legalisation in Germany, which is very similar to full decrim in practice.

What are we talking about when we talk of the sex industry? This 48-page A5-sized booklet aims to provide a realistic understanding of prostitution and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation.

Power, Control and Coercion in Prostitution. This A4 flyer provides a version of the well-known Power and Control Wheel adapted for prostitution. The back of the flyer shows common reasons that make it hard to leave prostitution.

What REALLY happened in New Zealand after prostitution was decriminalised? This four-sided A5 flyer compares the claims of the lobbyists for full decriminalisation with recent research about what has really happened in New Zealand since it fully decriminalised prostitution in 2003.