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“You’re all a bunch of feminists, and I hate feminists!” shouted Marc Lépine as he gunned down 14 female engineering students in Montreal in 1989. I first visited the city in 2012 to write about this particularly horrific, misogynistic massacre. And every time I return, I see the terrible toll that unbridled male violence takes on women and girls.
Justin Trudeau has been a disaster for women here. He has done nothing to stem the violence and abuse faced by indigenous women, has made single-sex shelters illegal while supporting the blanket decriminalisation of pimping, brothel-keeping and sex-buying — and all in the name of “freedom and choice for women”.
This makes their resistance here that more powerful. I see it in full view when I return for the World Congress for the Abolition of Prostitution and march alongside survivors of the sex trade. Women of all ages, all nationalities, march and shout in unison: “What do we want? An end to prostitution!” We are rowdy, blowing whistles and singing in the vibrant and colourful demonstration. Placards bearing slogans such as “No john is a good john”, and “Prostitution is bought and sold rape” jostle above the throng.
There is, inevitably, a counter-demonstration. Whenever sex-trade abolitionists gather, rival activists who consider prostitution a “choice” and a legitimate form of “work” turn up to shill for the pimps and punters. They refer to us as “carceral feminists” because we believe that the law should intervene to stop men from buying and selling sexual access to women and girls.
And so, a wall of mounted police is mustered to protect us from a group of women and men shouting through megaphones. Some of these protesters are draped in blue and pink trans flags, and many wear keffiyehs covering their faces. One man wears a T-shirt that reads: “No Swerfs, No Terfs”. Another, dressed in a tartan skirt, holds up a placard: “It’s pride month: fuck a tranny”; while a woman waves a sign which reads “Fuck TERFS”. There are shouts of “Real work sucks! Blowjobs are real jobs”, and “No room for whorephobia, no room for transphobia, terfs and swerfs”.
Then, I hear my name through the loud hailer: “The fact they invited Julie Bindel to speak says everything we need to know. She hates trans people and sex workers.” I’m not surprised. Wherever feminists gather to discuss the threat to women’s rights, the masked marauders show up.
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SubscribeLogically speaking, if a woman chooses to sell her body, then she is exercising agency over it. Preventing her from doing so is denying her this. At which point, who exactly is exercising control over women’s bodies.
Obviously the realities behind the decision of an individual woman to do so are in many cases grim indeed. (It could be pointed out that the realities behind men who do backbreaking work in poorly regulated mines are grim).
And perhaps there is a case for somehow trying to prevent pimps profiting from it. But define a pimp – is helping a woman market herself in a contractual agreement pimping? Is that what OnlyFans is doing?
I just find it very difficult to see how you can square believing in the right of women to control their own bodies with the belief that the law should intervene to prevent them from willingly doing so for financial gain.
Many prostitutes start out as girls—14-17–because some men like them young. Do they have agency? Also, prostitution has gone international. Women think the are getting work permits—even though their pimp has taken away their passports. Many Ukrainian women and girls (and young boys) disappeared at the beginning of the war. Authorities are pretty sure that they were sold into sexual slavery. These women, girls and boys are trapped. They are given drugs to keep them docile. Maybe some high-end call girls like what they do, but 96 percent of prostitutes want out.
Any genuine research to back this up? Especially the 96% claim. And does that mean they want to get out provided they can find a nicer job which pays the same.
A woman will never ever sell her own body. Pimps do. Women do rent rather than sell. Most prostitutes work on their own without a pimp. They charge for their time. OnlyFans is a marketing platform for self-employed women.
I don’t think prostitution should be legalized, liberalized, or made more socially acceptable.
But the reason it is the oldest profession in the world is not because of ‘the patriarchy.’
It’s because human beings are animals, the male of the species has an overwhelming biological drive to reproduce, and markets will always emerge to sell sex through those women less fortunate in any society.
By all means help the women with support networks and aid to assuage the root causes and don’t puff up the ‘business’ with hyper-liberal propaganda.
But it’s never going to disappear.
As you say, this is not a problem anybody should expect to solve. I think the imperative should be to protect the rights of women, particularly the poor and vulnerable. Whether criminalizing and prosecuting the practice of prostitution actually accomplishes this purpose better than legalization and regulation is debatable. There are legitimate arguments both ways. Shrieking activists with equally unrealistic expectations screaming at one another in the street are not where anybody should expect to find sensible arguments or pragmatic policy solutions.
Great comment.
Exactly. It’s easy to recognise that prostitution is a net negative when weighing up human flourishing / suffering. But a ban on the oldest trade in the world seems unrealistic.
…human beings are animals, the male of the species has an overwhelming biological drive to reproduce, and markets will always emerge to sell sex through those women less fortunate in any society.
–
Males of all mammals have an overwhelming biological drive to reproduce, but only human females (and perhaps of very few other mammal species) are almost always ready for copulation, which is, for the most part, is used as reward. This is not an accusation against women; none of us are to blame for the fact that God or nature created us this way, with our species hyper-sexuality and its consequences.
I think this is something to keep in mind when dealing with problems related to prostitution. Women are mostly not victims, and men are mostly not predators.
Used as “reward”?! Only a man could say that.
Is everything that’s wrong always the fault of the ‘patriarchy’? Or could it be that some women choose prostitution out of greed or laziness or lack of self control?
A common reason is to fund a drug habit. I met quite a few female addicts in Montreal funding their habits by prostitution and dealing. They didn’t strike me as victims (they didn’t see themselves as victims even if they had hard lives), rather they were very strong characters who took responsibility for their choices despite being slaves to their addictions. I found their world fascinating. I don’t think they had pimps. There was quite a strong sense of community: dinner parties etc (A woman high on cocaine spent 90 minutes talking, at speed, about parrots without repeating herself. I was amazed by her knowledge). The women had connections to men higher up in the drug chain who didn’t treat them badly, in fact they were friends. I think life is much more complicated than the way Julie Bindel sees it. She is too hung up on the victim/villain dichotomy.
Secret Diary of a Call Girl on Netflix starring Billie Piper is one long advertisement for prostitution presenting prostitution as a way of extremely earning large sums of money for a few hours of work. I suspect, prostitution turns many into drug addicts as drugs numb the senses and makes the task less repellant.
I don’t know why but I find surrogacy more repugnant than prostitution. For me it is pure Handmaid’s Tale.
“…they were very strong characters who took responsibility for their choices despite being slaves to their addictions.”
Eh? Could this be an oxymoron?
No! It emphasises life is complicated. People are not one dimensional, they are full of contradictions.
Contradictions ideed! That’s the problem with logic today. I hope you’ll agree that contradictions don’t make good sense. ‘Strong characters’ are unlikely to be slaves to addiction, since addiction is a weakness. Pursuing illogical thinking is what has led to confused people unwarily believing that falsehood is truth. Many examples exist in our current society and that is why we have ‘culture wars.’ (With respect.)
I strongly suspect I am actually far more logical in my thinking than you and consequently am far more aware of the contradictions of human nature.
According to Zen Buddhism the truth lies beyond the contradiction.
You call yourself good fellow which suggests you are a ‘do-gooder’ who refuses to see people as they are preferring to rely on stereotypes of the villain and the victim so you can feel heroic.
Lots of projection going on there, Aphrodite Rises.
Not at all. I am not a do gooder or a sycophant and never have been. Any projection is on your part. As to my ability to think logically it is far superior to most and I have the qualifications. As to you, I know nothing about you apart from your comment. It suggests you are profoundly ignorant.
I think the point is that many people fail to take responsibility for their own actions but prefer to blame others. We would call these people weak.
These women perhaps have more reason than most to blame their circumstances – and a whole movement encourages them to do so. But instead they take responsibility. Making them strong.
They’re not really capable of responsibility if they are impaired by addiction. This leads to denial as a form of self-protection, and this is a hard thing to break.
And the last thing they need is protection and support in their addiction as breaking an addiction requires acknowledging the addiction, desiring sobriety above all else and taking responsibility. It is generally recognised most addicts will not seek help until they reach rock bottom. You may have good intentions but to support addicts in their addiction and deny them autonomy is to do them a disservice: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Exactly!
I guess your income requires you to deny reality.
It’s pretty classic for pimps to give the women drugs and turn them into addicts. It’s easy to control the women if they are always looking for their next hit.q
They dealt as a sideline. The dealers were not their pimps. In fact, I don’t know which was their main line of business: prostitution or dealing. I think it was easier for the women to raise the funds for their next hit than men as prostitution was always an option. Sometimes they would quit and try and going straight but they lacked the skills for well paying jobs and found waitressing both boring and ill paid. They tended to find ordinary life dull. If a do gooder came around, such as the author, they would tell them exactly what they wanted to hear. Life is complicated if you can be bothered to go below the surface, particularly if you bear in mind for every sob story that is used to explain drug addiction and prostitution, there are women with very similar back stories who follow a completely different path.
It’s hard not to have some sympathy there. Perhaps what Jesus should have said is “let whoever amongst you is happy throw the first stone”. My own life is pretty good, but I do sometimes look at ordinary middle class lives and think “how can you possibly be happy with this tedium?” And by the look of them, many simply aren’t.
Interestingly, Billie Piper’s character – Belle – found ordinary work dull and ill paid.
One sex worker biography is hardly representative of a whole industry. I wonder if Piper had access to interesting work, might she have felt differently about it?
I never claimed it was. I just pointed out it supported my claim that life is complicated. I guess you are one dimensional. I could elaborate but I cannot be bothered.
It takes two to engage in prostitution. I don’t hear you being judgemental about Johns. Btw there are also male prostitutes.
They pay. Nobody forces them to buy. I am not being judgemental, you are.
Is it classic, or is it a stereotype? Women, like men, are quite capable of getting into drugs on their own.
Yes, there’s a kind of symmetry there. The women sell sexual pleasure in order to buy chemical pleasure.
Theres really no reason for us to be surprised if these women’s lives are 80% just like everybody else’s.
As soon as the drug habit turns into addiction it is not about pleasure anymore but about avoiding pain.
The Billie Piper series was based on a blog Belle de Jour which caused a fair bit of controversy at the time. Feminists claimed it was written by a man, and could not be written by a woman, so far was it from their own victim narrative of prostitution.
Eventually the author revealed herself as a highly educated professional woman, working, if I recall, in a STEM field.
Yes. I always find it odd when feminists argue against the autonomy of women. It’s just hypocrisy really.
Why would women willingly choose a job that is “repellant”? Research has shown that overwhelmingly sex workers were sexually abused as children.
Many children who were sexually abused as children are not prostitutes.
Only a man could that.
If men have such an “overwhelming biological drive to reproduce” why don’t they march and advocate in support of prostitutes who cater to alleviating the biological drive? The fact that there is a greater demand for oral sex than intercourse from sex workers, would seem to belie the “overwhelming biological drive to reproduce” claim.
Biology cannot distinguish between which method of sexual satisfaction disperses the seed.
Men crave feminine companionship. As the feminine becomes masculinized, hypergamic, and increasingly mercenary, men at the bottom end of the sexual market will fill the feminine void in their lives with their own idealized version of women.
A society that turns against its men will eventually turn against its women.
Geez Unherd. Get your poop together when it comes to headlines. They’re important.
It’s click bait.
My body my choice is a popular feminist mantra. The problem is that choices are never made in the void but in the context of the circumstances of a particular woman’s life. For some prostitution is a freely chosen choice for may others it is coerced or the lesser of unpalatable choices. But then so is abortion. Many children would not be aborted if the women were better placed to support a child and in some cases no doubt it is coerced.
A blanket judicially enforced ban on all prostitution is clearly contrary to feminist bodily autonomy. Would it not be better to concentrate on providing protection and assistance to those women who wished to abandon the trade even if it bears the taint of a Gladsonian desire to save “fallen women”.
And perhaps greater opportunities for women to develop skills so that prostitution ceases to be the best amongst a bad set of choices.
Like all things we are all dealing with right now culturally, we need to be very very careful about what we actually do and the natural consequences of doing so. These things never in reality get thought out.
A Substack article by Yoshi Matsumoto refers to the recent legalization of prostitution in Belgium I think it was and what would be the consequences of doing so. In effect, it would render power to The Pimp who as an employer would set a contract of rules and laws that as an employee (as in every other industry has to do) comply. This makes sense. So in that sense, the Pimp, as employer can state what the prostitute must perform regardless of whether she wants to or not, how many ‘Johns’ she must take for instance in a day…..etc etc. This then becomes a further form of sex slavery – much more entrenched than before and absolutely legal with no come-back right or right to say no. Fabulous article. Really takes it to its obvious end.
Excerpt:
Contrary to popular belief though, laws don’t actually exist on paper. The document is nothing. The execution and enforcement, everything. See, the new law also grants protection to pimps. Yes. And, honestly… That just makes sense. Afterall, is that not what everyone wanted? A decade of women repeating (I must say, often seemingly mindlessly) that, “sex work is work” set the stage for this exact scenario. As I said, employee / employer contracts are never one sided. They can’t be. If you demand things in writing from the people that pay you, rest assured, they’re going to demand things of you in writing in return. People maybe don’t think about that when they’re busy spray painting their signs and protesting but… that’s the tragedy of Democracy.
Talk about the further denigration of the most vulnerable………
Sex is never just Sex no matter how hard we try to wrap it up…..
we never seem to want to learn. In our ever demanding right to complete so called ‘freedom’ – you become the slave.
The traditional brothel system was largely female run, often by older women who had once been prostitutes. This was the case, for example, in Ireland before the brothels were closed and the women sent to work in the laundries. The Japanese Geisha system is female run. Often there are social services aspects to these systems.
There is evidence (from Chicago University I think) that women with pimps make more money. They may also be safer. It’s not a simple exploiter/exploited relationship.
Im not arguing for prostitution, but we need to be sure we have an accurate view of how it works, and why we have it – and not just take the propaganda from one side or the other as fact.
Does the “evidence” from Chicago University say why women make more money with pimps? Since pimps always get the money perhaps they force the women to work more than they would if self-employed.
In Germany a legal brothel is a place that rents spaces and provides infrastructure and (in larger establishment) security to prostitutes who are self-employed. Pimping is illegal, at least in theory.
I don’t understand why there has to be a pimp as an employer. If prostitution is legalized why can’t women be free to be self-employed?
Ahh – so it was mostly women on both sides then, with the putative “powerful pimp lobby” not bothering to show up.
Presumably the punters don’t show up because there is more shame involved in buying sex than in selling it and it might put careers and families at risk. Fair enough perhaps – but not really consistent with the idea of an all powerful patriarchy (and powerful pimp lobby) backing the sexual exploitation of women.
Justin Trudeau is an odd poster boy for the oppressive patriarchy. I assume that his policies are based on an attempt to make prostitution safer rather than to promote it.
I already know JBs opinion on all major issues, I don’t need to be told it again. Could we get some more balanced pieces, so that we are left more informed. And with a less propagandist style.
Yes – and let’s hear no more about ‘patriarchy’. Use of the term signifies a failure to grasp basic historical reality.
Well, aside from the Middle Eastern sects that surround Iran, Trudeau and Biden are the strongest emissaries of the Dark Lord on the mortal Earth today so nothing they could do would surprise me.
Isn’t this dilemma just the predictable result of a Liberal, post-moral, consumer world ?
If there’s no other moral framework and everything on the planet is a potential product for somebody else, and there’s moolah to be made……
This article does a fine job of illustrating the confusion that is modern-day feminism. The movement has made common cause with people who are bent on erasing womanhood itself. To wit, “Some of these protesters are draped in blue and pink trans flags, and many wear keffiyehs covering their faces.”
and ““No room for whorephobia, no room for transphobia, terfs and swerfs”.
On what planet do trans flags, or rainbow flags, go with keffiyehs? Accompanied by the ever-elegant attacks who think ‘woman’ means something, like the absence of a male appendage, for instance.
The “our bodies, our choice” crowd has some decisions to make. It would be better served to make those decisions through reason rather than emotion. When everything is branded as some form of phobia or ism, nothing good will follow. That’s the language of the intellectually stunted.
Lastly, there is this: “Justin Trudeau has been a disaster for women here.” —->Many Canadians think him a disaster for all Canadians, yet he is the standard-issue progressive spear carrier who is friendly to all of the leftist social causes. Who could have possibly guessed that some of those causes would be at odds with each other.
The common thread is a hatred for traditional western culture. LGBT for Palestine can only escape cognisant dissonance if you believe the enemy of my enemy is my friend absolutely and hate the west. Victimhood narratives and utter lack of gratitude through ignorance have resulted in superficial spasms of emotion.
is there a reason why comments are being deleted? One gets the sense that getting too close to the target draws the heaviest fire.
While I can agree with Julie Bindel that prostitution is a bad thing, the reasoning presented here is full of contradictions. As much as I dislike Justin Trudeau, I don’t think he is an advocate for prostitutuon. Canada’s prostitution laws (Bill C36) forbid the purchase of sex, but (contarily) not the sale of it–supposedly this is meant to protect women and others. Living off the proceeds of prostitution is also illegal. As regards the influence of the imagined ‘Patriarchy’, and the feminist cry of ‘my body, my choice’– which is applicable with moral flexibility, apparently, I find there is too much confused thinking to sort out. Instead, I would simply say: whom do you love that you would wish to participate in prostitution? I can’t believe that anyone could conscientiously answer that question affirmatively.
Which is a bit like forbidding the purchase of drugs, but not their sale. Bizarre.
It is a bizarre and inept concept.
Good observation.
Prostitution has existed for 10,000 years or more, good luck with eradicating that, it’s like trying to end drug use or alcohol use, prohibition failed and led to a huge black market and fuelled organize crime networks, where there is a demand for something, there will be suppliers, legal or illegal. I don’t condone it, but it’s economics. Where there is money to be made, someone will step up.
It appears in the Gilgamesh epic, the earliest piece of writing we know of. And under a pretty positive light. As does sex, which is seen as having a humanising, civilising effect on men.
Good luck with that!
Prostitution is but one facet of the undeniable transactional aspect of human sexuality – marriage is another one. And: sex in its crude and basic form is but one motive for males to see a prostitute.
That’s a huge generalization.
I am a bit surprised that the Nordic solution to the problem isn’t invoked: criminalising the purchase of sex.
Experience of legalising prostitution doesn’t eliminate human trafficking or sex slavery, rather it takes the stigma from the consumer. The Scandinavia approach seems to have some effect in reducing the trade. As observed, it’s never going to entirely disappear, but this does not exonerate us from finding a solution. And in this case, among many, many others, Justin Trudeau’s approach doesn’t inspire confidence but provokes opposition.
The Nordic Solution isn’t helpful as it forces prostitution underground, into areas with even less protection from harm.
Truth!
What is wrong with legal prostitution? So long as both buyer and seller are adults, obviously.
Some marriages are legal prostitution.
Handy that Paris Lee was in Ibiza at the exact same time as a convention for the visually impared. That can be the only reason for the catcalls as no one who has ever seen that dude in real life has ever mistaken him for a woman.
Catcalling can be more about agression than adoration. Apart from that, todos los gustos no son iguales.
I knew Trudeau was more than an idiot on so many fronts, but had no idea I could add the destruction of true feminism to the list. Thanks, Julie. You are a rock star.
So why do millions of women vote for him? And why are there near zero women commenting here?
You can’t tell the sex of everyone from their user name. That said the comments here tend to be male-heavy.
Bindel is right on trans but utterly wrong on prostitution. It is ineradicable and a certain level of it is desirable. There will always be women willing to voluntarily supply sexual services for cash and it is their right to do so. There is no corporate right of one sex to control the behaviour of others of the same sex.
The trafficking of women is done by intelligent ruthless criminals many from Eastern Europe often have military and/or intelligence background. The only time a Police Force had the capability to defeat such well trained criminals was during the Malaya Emergency where The Special Branch recruited higher calibre people and then were put through close quarter combat training by Ex Commandos/Special Forces.
I am sure the criminals have infiltrated international police organisations. Human Rights Law makes it almost impossible to defeat these criminals couple with the fact they come from countries where they have bought politicians, legal system and Police. To defeat such organisations western countries need to recreate the Special Operations Executive / Special Forces where leaders are killed and premises destroyed such as when the Allies attempted to kill Rommel on two occasions and they killed Heydrich. This is highly unlikely to happen.
The film ” Taken ” is stomach turning.
Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich – Wikipedia
The immune system of the West has become so weakened it is no longer able to protect itself.
Bindel too often pre-determines the answer to all her questions as being ‘because men are b******s’. It does somewhat undermine her arguments. It is also not offering a solution, unless she envisages a Two Ronnies type world where, “The Worm has Turned”.
https://youtu.be/GcMd1F1acSo?si=P2n147IVY7uPF9BN
‘The term “forced sex work” has become widely used among some international non-governmental organisations (including, for example, Action Aid), which strikes me as an oxymoron.’ I’m trying to understand this as an oxymoron. Do you mean tautology?
There is so much money in the trade that some women and men will enter it out of choice. Yes, society should stick its nose in far enough to see that minors are protected and that relationships of coercive exploitation are not at play. Other than that, it should let adults be adults.