Sensible women exploring best practices in brothels

What happens when the women of the Hampshire Women's Institute decide to take a clear-headed look at prostitution to figure out what makes for "best practices" in brothel prostitution? You get the UK's Channel 4 program, A WI Lady's Guide to Brothels, which describes itself like this:  Click here to read more.

The Last year Middle England met the sex trade head-on when the Hampshire WI emerged as an unlikely champion of the reform of prostitution laws and members Jean Johnson and Shirley Landels led their 7,000-strong membership to advocate the legalisation of brothels in Britain.

Now investigative journalist Nicky Taylor joins forces with the ladies of the Hampshire WI on a journey to find out what makes a best practice brothel, how the laws need to change to create it and whether it's possible to set up the UK's first legal brothel.

The WI women visited brothels in the Netherlands (Amsterdam window style), New Zealand (two, one "small owner operator brothel" and one upscale if more traditional establishment), the United States (Nevada's Moonlight Bunny Ranch, and the UK (where brothels are illegal, so this one didn't officially exist). According to its web site the program aired on August 10th, but Michael Goodyear, our regular contributor from Halifax Nova Scotia says it aired there last night. As far as I know it hasn't been shown on any US broadcast or cable stations. (Has anybody seen it?)

Ironically, just the other day the UK Minister for Women  came to the women of the Women's Institutes asking them to help oppose sex-work-related ads in newspapers. That news item clearly indicates that there is division - as we might expect - between women within the Women's Institutes, even within the Hamphsire WI. On the one hand, Niki Adams of the English Collective of Prostitutes, praises the Hampshire WI "A Lady's Guide to Brothels" investigation and subsequent promotion of a decriminalization resolution. On the other hand, the chair of the Hampshire WI, Pat Marshall, is quoted as saying ""We are waiting to see what Harriet Harman has to say and will think about that in the light of our resolution." And the national WI organization "according to a spokesperson" will be advising its members to write letters of complaint to newspaper editors when they find prostitution ads.

This attempt to further stigmatize prostitution is in opposition to the recommendations of Jean Johnson and Shirley Landels, the Hampshire women who went on tour investigating brothels. Rather than coming away from their tour condemning prostitution, they found ways they thought it could be done such that the work is safe, well compensated, and largely autonomous. Specifically they recommend the following as "key elements for a perfect brothel"

• Clean, safe, working environment for all sex workers and clients.
• Sex workers in charge of their own hours, their own earnings and working cooperatively to ensure their own safety.
• Lowered sinks (genital height!), shower or bathing facilities to maximise hygiene for both men and women.
• Panic Button in each room linked straight to police.
• Clients who are abusive or threatening to be barred and not allowed back.
• Regular Health and Safety inspections.
• Condoms, lubricant and dental dams available at all times.
• Regular health checks for the sex workers

The focus is clearly on health, safety and autonomy. If opponents could put aside moral opposition to prostitution and consider human rights and safety, it would be very hard to argue that women would be safer where prostitution is kept underground.

Click here for an article from the Independent that explains the new restrictions on prostitution in the UK and includes significant quotes from sex workers about how they anticipate being affected by the changes. An important insight from these workers is that further stigmatizing prostitution harms people working in other parts of the sex industry as well. I would go further and say, as I have said before, that stigmatizing prostitution is bad for women in general because it creates a class of women who are stereotyped and treated as less worthy of respect, and that disrespect - and even violence -can be reflected back onto any woman. 

That is something I wish the UK Minister for Women could come to understand.

~~~ 

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