Helena Wadia:
Mathilda, do you always love your job?
Mathilda Mallinson:
Look Helena, I love you, but no. Sometimes, sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes you’re hard.
Helena Wadia:
Thanks, what a great start to our nearly final episode of series one. Has there ever been a time where you’ve been in work, any work, not necessarily Media Storm, and you’ve been exploited in your job?
Mathilda Mallinson:
I started waitressing and babysitting at the age of 15. And in both jobs, I was paid £4.50/ hour. The waitressing agency would categorise us by looks and roll out underage girls for notoriously pervy parties. My first babysitting job, £4.50/hour, I was given a new-born baby with two toddler sisters. Do you know how long it takes to feed a new-born? And you have two kids wrapped around your ankles screaming to play hide and seek. And then I went into journalism and it was all downhill from there.
Helena Wadia:
Wow, to those stories, and you’re right, journalism and newsrooms are kind of notoriously bad for long hours.
Mathilda Mallinson:
We’re not worth very much.
Helena Wadia:
Yeah. But look, the reason I ask is that we often hear the phrase ‘sex work is work’. And sometimes that phrase gets misunderstood. And people think that what it means is that sex work is inherently good or always empowering. But really what it means is that, with the acknowledgement that all work is by its nature exploitative, sex workers need the same access to workers’ rights as everyone else.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Hmm. So, what is stopping sex workers from getting those rights? What is stopping us, as a society, from viewing sex work as work?
Helena Wadia:
Well, laws and unions to protect workers’ rights is something that you don’t get if what you’re doing is illegal, or under threat. And let’s face it, even in the parts of sex work that aren’t illegal. There’s a hell of a lot of stigma that comes with being a sex worker.
Mathilda Mallinson:
So, what do you mean when you say, under threat?
Helena Wadia:
Well, we see sex work in all its forms under threat. We see it online. It was only last year that OnlyFans did a U-turn on its plan to ban sexually explicit content. So called “full-service” sex workers, they’re driven further underground due to criminalization. And this week, I’ve been looking into closures of sexual entertainment venues like strip clubs.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Am I right in thinking this, local councils have had the power for over a decade to limit the number of sexual entertainment venues in cities? How many use that power?
Helena Wadia:
Yeah, that’s correct. But actually, only a minority of cities have introduced bans. But recently, Bristol might be next in line. And if they do go ahead with these closures, they’ll become the biggest city in the country to ban these venues. And that’s where I’ve been heading this week, to speak to the people who work in these venues about what a ban might mean for their livelihoods.
Mathilda Mallinson:
And I’ll see you back in the studio with a very special guest to discuss everything around this Media Storm.
[NEWS CLIPS DISCUSSING SEX WORK]
Mathilda Mallinson:
Welcome to Media Storm, the podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last.
Helena Wadia:
I’m Helena Wadia.
Mathilda Mallinson:
And I’m Mathilda Mallinson.
Helena Wadia:
This week’s investigation, Sex Workers: Ignored and Under Threat.
Helena Wadia:
Bristol. A city often viewed as progressive, radical, resistant. Yet for some of its residents, they’re starting to doubt that view. I’m talking about the dancers who work in the city centre’s two strip clubs: Urban Tiger and Central Chambers. Following a public consultation last year in which the people of Bristol could reply to questions about sexual entertainment venues, or SEVs, Bristol City Council are currently making a decision on whether to impose a nil-cap on SEVs in Bristol. That means no more strip clubs. The dancers who work in the clubs have been campaigning for them to stay open.
[SOUNDS OF PROTEST AND CAMPAIGNING]
Helena Wadia:
To find out what they really think, I went to meet with Chloe, Amelie and Scarlet, who work as dancers in Bristol’s strip clubs.
Helena Wadia:
So, what would be a typical evening of work for you?
Chloe:
Typically, I will get ready at home. Put on my lingerie, my makeup on, put pants over it. And then I’ll get to work quite early. So, I have time to relax and speak to my friends for a little bit before the doors actually open. And then, most of the job is talking to customers. A very, very minimal amount of it is actually pole dancing.
Amelie:
I think what people don’t realise is, it’s mostly a sales job. So, what you do is just establish rapport and then try to sell either a dance or like VIPs, which is more like you’re selling company, and then dances within that company. A lot of people like to say that were like, naked therapists! And I don’t like promoting that idea either, because I’m like, we’re not qualified and people shouldn’t come to us for therapy. But yeah, that’s why it happens.
Chloe:
When customers come in, we always come up and approach them first. They don’t come in and we’re in a line-up and they point and say, ‘you, get naked.’ It’s, we go and approach them and ask how their day was and chat them up a little bit. It’s, it’s not as straight to the point as some people make it seem like it is.
Helena Wadia:
The public consultation on Bristol’s attitudes to SEVs closed on 19th December 2021. Almost three months later, no decision has been made, leaving the dancers in what they describe as a limbo.
Amelie:
We literally all woke up one day and saw everyone sharing on Facebook, an article from one of the local papers, saying that the council is going to have a meeting in a few days to decide on whether there should be another consultation on whether we’re gonna close down the strip clubs or not. And it was honestly horrendous. Waking up and just seeing that your workplace, the one thing for me personally that has literally transformed my life for the better, that this might be taken away… it just like, just shook me, I think it shook everyone, it’s very horrible.
Scarlet:
Yeah, this whole experience has just been so unbelievably stressful, and generally just so unpleasant to constantly have your livelihood presented as this moral debate. And regardless of what your personal opinions are on strip clubs, we still deserve to be safe. If it did happen, and they did shut down our workspaces, the industry is never gonna go away regardless of that. And it’s only ever going to force us into unsafe situations, more uncomfortable situations, less regulated situations. It’s just so unbelievably stressful all of the time.
Chloe:
At work, we have the luxury of not speaking to a customer, or leaving a customer alone, if they’re being rude, if they’re being aggressive, if they’re making us uncomfortable. If you’re going to someone’s house and you need money, you’re not just going to get up and leave again, you’re going to be stuck there. We haven’t got the luxury of choice of speaking to who we would like to speak to or who’s making us comfortable like we would at a club.
Amelie:
People make it into this big moral issue. But no one goes into the bigger picture, what no one talks about the material conditions which push people to go into the industry. We’ve got massive utility bills rising, inflation is going up. Wages are stagnating, rents are going up. The cost of living is just increasing more and more. It’s just really hypocritical for me when then people are surprised like, “Oh my God, why are these people going into these disgusting jobs?” It’s like, well, you’re not offering any better alternatives.
Helena Wadia:
The dancers’ concerns come after nil-caps have been introduced in places such as Swansea, Exeter and Chester. I spoke to a sex worker who used to work in a strip club in Swansea that lost its license under the nil-cap back in 2013. She told me how it’s affected her since. She wanted to remain anonymous, so this part is voiced by an actor.
Sex worker from Swansea:
I care for my mum during the day because she’s disabled. Then in the evenings, I used to strip. It was good. Like, it was fine. The good thing about it was that if anyone crossed the line, they’d be kicked out or barred or whatever and there was a no-touching role. And it was flexible so I could look after my mum. Then when the club got shut… well yeah, now I do private stuff, full-service too. I didn’t think I’d ever do full-service. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it’s risky. And I didn’t feel that risk at the strip club. And yeah, I need the money.
Helena Wadia:
Has anything ever happened where your safety has been compromised?
Sex worker from Swansea:
Yeah, a couple of times. Nothing awful. Though, I guess it depends on what you think is awful. But the issue is what I’m doing now is illegal. And I’m not safe now. And if I did get assaulted, I mean, I did. But I wouldn’t call the police ever.
Helena Wadia:
Why not?
Sex worker from Swansea:
Because I know how sex workers get treated. And not only that, I mean, I’m black. I know how black sex workers get treated. Why would I call the police? And like I said, it’s illegal. I guess I’d be put in prison. I don’t know. I would move to another city to work in a strip club, but I can’t because of my mum.
Helena Wadia:
While Chloe, Amelie and Scarlet wait for the decision in Bristol, they point out that this is not the first consultation on SEVs that has taken place in the city. A similar consultation was opened in August 2019. The results: 66% of local residents were happy with the operation of SEVs in the area. Two thirds of people said the strip clubs should remain open and regulated. So, it begs the question, why was another consultation opened just two years later?
Chloe:
Because they didn’t get the answer they wanted.
Amelie:
There is a massive political motivation behind it. Where obviously in 2021, there was the local elections. And our Labour mayor Marvin Rees, when he got elected in 2016, one of his pledges was to shut down the strip clubs in Bristol. This obviously didn’t happen. And obviously he was running for mayor again. So I think it was just a good look for him to look like he was doing something about his election pledges.
Helena Wadia:
I contacted Bristol City Council and the Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees’ office. Both told me that while the council’s licensing committee are in the process of analysing the responses to the consultation, it wouldn’t be appropriate to put anyone forward for an interview or comment. When I specifically asked about the allegations of political motivation, I did not get a response. If the council does get back to us, we’ll update you on our social media pages. Some groups who have been campaigning for the nil-cap in Bristol say that stripping contributes to gender inequality, as it normalizes the idea of women as sex objects. I put this point forward to Chloe, Amelie and Scarlet.
Amelie:
First of all, what really gets on my nerves is calling it in itself, ‘the objectification of women’. Like it’s okay to call us objects, to call us commodities. I’ve rarely been highly disrespected at work. But we’ve had literally our local MP calling us ‘pieces of meat’ several times. And the people who call us the worst names are the people who say they want to save us, people who want to protect us, but they’re the ones inflicting the most harm.
Chloe:
Also, that objectification argument. It doesn’t allow for consent at all. Are you saying that someone can’t willingly want to be looked at a certain way? Are you saying that that’s the same thing as unwanted harassment? There’s just no nuance there at all.
Scarlet:
Just reading things about us by these people who are so opposed to us. I’ve felt so much more disrespected, and objectified and trivialised and dehumanised than I have ever in my worst interactions in a strip club. We’re all grownups. We all have our reasons for being here. But fundamentally, we are all consenting and that’s the difference. And I think it really, really trivialises the actual issues of the objectification of women, and the actual instances of harassment and assault and abuse when it doesn’t allow for the nuance of consent.
Chloe:
It’s just a terrible precedent to set as well, if you actually look into the reasoning behind it. It’s like they’re saying, men aren’t actually responsible for their own actions. To say it’s your fault, because you’re wearing too little and dancing too sexy and being too provocative with these men and you’re giving them ideas, and now they’re going to go and do all these horrible things because of you.
Helena Wadia:
Scarlet, who is non-binary, also says that the proposed ban targets the most vulnerable people – as the dancers point out whole communities are being missed out of the conversation.
Scarlet:
Essentially, they’re just using a very predominantly vulnerable work force, largely made up of women or trans people, as a scapegoat for violence against women.
Amelie:
There’s such focus on men as our customers. But I think gradually we’ve all seen there’s a lot more queer people, a lot more women, etc, that do come into the strip club, because that’s one of the only safe spaces for queer people to go to. And on several occasions, I’ve had discussions there and people coming because they’re questioning their sexuality. And yeah, it would be incredibly harmful to the queer community to remove these spaces.
Chloe:
Lots of have women also say they come into the club because of the high security presence because they feel safer being there or just drinking there because they know that because the rules are so strict for us, men will know that they can’t just touch them or grab them or speak to them in any kind of way that you could in, say, a normal nightclub. And the clubs that are actually concerned about those kinds of things, they’re just being completely ignored, not even not even ignored, they’re being promoted heavily. And we are completely left out of discussions about the night-time economy in general in Bristol.
Helena Wadia:
What Chloe is referring to here is a report in 2020 from Avon and Somerset Police about Bristol City Centre. It documented two years of crimes, showing the area and venues in the night-time economy that had the most police call outs. The top 20 premises that had the most incidents were night clubs, like PRYZM, which had 325 incidents in two years, and SWX, which had 228. Strip clubs, Urban Tiger and Central Chambers, don’t even feature on the top 20 premises. Plus, the data shows that in the two years, there were only two call outs for incidents concerning sexual assault in Urban Tiger, which is a fifth of the sexual assault incidents reported at the nightclub PRYZM.
While legal sex industry venues face continued threats of being closed down, operating outside of them can land you in prison. Criminal law and social stigma conspire to keep sex workers isolated and underground. But this International Women’s Day, they are making some noise. I am back in London in Leicester Square with sex workers from all parts of the industry and all parts of the country. They’re calling for the same labour rights as anyone else. So, let’s go find out why.
Protestor 1:
We get treated like workers but without workers’ rights. And that’s why we’re here to say ‘fuck that shit’.
Protestor 2:
I’m here for sex workers’ rights and parents, justice for parents who are sex workers as well.
Protestor 3:
The most vulnerable women in society who do sex work are criminalized.
Protestor 4:
Sex work is work and we deserve to work safely.
Protestor 5:
We want to live. We want to be safe in our homes. We want to be safe in our workplaces. We want to be safe on the streets. We are sick of police violence. We are sick of laws that criminalise our bodies and the way that we make money. If they’re not going to offer us any better solution than sex work, why are they punishing us for doing it?
Protestor 6:
You know, the police target migrant women, they target trans people, you know, and they target people who work on the street. But that’s not all. They’re still raiding people who are working indoors. You know, it’s really outrageous.
Protestor 7:
Get educated on what they’re actually going through.
Speaker at protest:
They want to close down our strip clubs, to continue raiding our brothels. We work together for safety and for those who work on the streets. But we won’t let them. Sex work is work! And work sucks!
Helena Wadia:
Sex workers are shouting at the top of their lungs that decriminalisation is the way forward. So why hasn’t it happened yet? That takes us back to the studio. Thanks for sticking around.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Welcome back to the studio and to Media Storm, the podcast that puts lived experience at the centre of reporting.
Helena Wadia:
Today we’re talking about sex work, common myths and stereotypes and how our mainstream media report on the topic.
Mathilda Mallinson:
With us is a very special guest. She is from the English Collective of Prostitutes, a network of sex workers campaigning for decriminalisation and safety. It’s Niki Adams. Hi, Niki.
Niki Adams:
Hello, glad to be here.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Can we just discuss the use of the term prostitute? We’ve had this discussion recently, actually, because it came up in a previous episode. You work with the English Collective of Prostitutes, yet we sometimes hear that that’s a term we shouldn’t use. So, will you just explain your feelings about the word?
Niki Adams:
Yeah, we started in 1975. And we called ourselves the English Collective of Prostitutes after the French Collective of Prostitutes. And then we have considered changing it over the years because obviously other sex worker organisations, as they have started, use the term sex worker instead. But our feeling now is that we’ll change when this stigma and discrimination goes. It’s a bit of a way of reclaiming ‘prostitute’ in the same way as we sometimes reclaim ‘whores’. Sex work is a very useful term because it obviously makes the point that we’re workers like other workers, but we don’t want to hide the fact that we actually don’t have legal status as workers and we are also persecuted and discriminated against.
Mathilda Mallinson:
So, is it kind of, if it’s a word being reclaimed, is it a word that people who are themselves prostitutes can use the term if they wish to, but other people should probably avoid it?
Niki Adams:
I think you might be right about that.
Helena Wadia:
You know, we’re going to delve more into language but before we kind of delve into all of that, let’s just clarify for our listeners, what the current laws on sex work are, and what the difference is between legalisation, decriminalisation and the Nordic model.
Niki Adams:
I mean, the laws in the UK are replicated in quite a lot of countries in the world. And the outrageous absurdity of it is that it’s illegal to work on the street and it’s illegal to work with another woman from premises and you can get prosecuted for brothel keeping. Brothel keeping carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
Mathilda Mallinson:
So, if you want to share your workspace with another woman, rather than doing it on your own, that qualifies as brothel keeping?
Niki Adams:
That qualifies as brothel keeping. So even though it’s not illegal to be a sex worker, it’s illegal to work with somebody else. And it really means that on a day-to-day basis, women are having to choose between risking arrest, and keeping yourself safe, and putting yourself in danger.
Mathilda Mallinson:
So, what you’ve just explained about the UK that doesn’t quite fit into the decriminalisation, legalisation or Nordic model…
Niki Adams:
No, it’s really just criminalisation really. Decriminalisation is supported by Amnesty International, in this country Women Against Rape. Whenever you get an impartial assessment of the evidence people come out for decriminalisation, it’s only when you’re up against vested interests that they decide on another route. The best example of that is what’s happened in New Zealand, which is the only country in the world that’s decriminalised. New Zealand decriminalised right back in 2003. So, they’ve had many years to see what the impact is and sex workers were central to the way that the law was framed and developed. After five years of the legislation, they did a very thorough government review, they found that there had been no increase in prostitution, which was one of the things that people were worried about, a big improvement in sex workers’ health and safety. Where women were attacked, the attacks were cleared up much more quickly, and people felt much more able to come forward and demand their rights. But yes, the difference between decriminalisation and legalisation is a very important one, the sex worker movement internationally is campaigning for decriminalisation. That’s the model that basically removes all the criminal prostitution laws. So, sex workers and sex work businesses are subject to the same laws and regulations as other businesses. Legalisation is really state-run prostitution. Women actually then complain that it makes the state the biggest pimp because you can only work in certain brothels or certain areas, if you work outside of those areas, you get prosecuted. I think in Germany, at some point, they had a legalised system in certain places, and only 12 percent of sex workers worked in the legalized premises because the conditions were so onerous. Also, of course, it sets up a two-tier system, because who’s never going to get into those places are migrant women, trans women.
Mathilda Mallinson:
So that’s the model that we would have in the Netherlands at the moment?
Niki Adams:
Yeah!
Helena Wadia:
And then tell us what the Nordic model is, and where that’s currently in place as well…
Niki Adams:
Well, the Nordic model is a scam, actually. I mean, it’s put forward in the name of gender equality, and it really plugs into women’s sometimes justifiable fury at men. You know, it’s like people look at the situation or some people look at the situation, and then they kind of go, “Well, women are getting criminalised, but the men aren’t, let’s criminalise the men.” Instead, why don’t we just decriminalise everyone, you know, what kind of equality is that? It’s been introduced in a number of Nordic countries, which is why it’s called the Nordic model, but also in France, and in Ireland. And it’s been an absolute disaster, because it has this veneer that it’s going to improve the situation of sex workers. The line is that sex workers aren’t criminalised, but only clients are criminalised. But of course, that’s absurd. If you’re involved in an interaction with a client, and one part of that interaction is criminalised, you are forced more underground. You know, if I’m working in a flat and something happens, there’s no way I’m going to go to the police to report it because the police then know where I’m working, and they can just sit outside my flat and wait for clients to arrest them and all my business goes down the drain. On the street, you have less time to check out clients. And that is really a matter of life and death sometimes. Those kind of safety mechanisms are employed by sex workers everywhere. And we feel infuriated that we’re working so hard to keep ourselves safe, and we don’t get any backing or support, including from feminists, the women that call themselves feminists, because I would dispute whether they’re feminists. We’re characterised as victims who need saving, and they behave like they know better than us, what’s good for us.
Helena Wadia:
If we have all this evidence that the Nordic model doesn’t work, that decriminalisation would be best, what do you think is the main reason that politicians or policymakers are ignoring the evidence?
Niki Adams:
I think there’s a few forces at work. One is that police are very attached to the prostitution laws because it gives them an enormous amount of power and control. A lot of police budgets for trafficking get justified on the basis that they’re raiding sex worker premises, even though no victims are actually found. And what happens to those women that get raided is that they get arrested or deported if they’re migrants. Feminist politicians, or the politicians that call themselves feminist, have jumped on the bandwagon of the Nordic model and I think the only reason for that, I can think of, is that on the one hand it’s actually a very law and order repressive measure, but it has the veneer of gender equality. It’s a place where there’s been an unlikely union of feminists, campaigners and Christian fundamentalists, but I think it’s fundamentally an increase in police powers.
Mathilda Mallinson:
I’m really interested that you started with saying that you think the police want this. It seems to me like a very cynical reading. And I wonder, what have you seen? What behaviours of the police have you seen in your time as a sex worker that makes you think that?
Niki Adams:
Well, first of all, I should say it’s not all police, but what we see on a day-to-day level, is that the police are threatening and abusive. They’re often violent themselves. They demand free sex as a condition to not arrest women, they actively refuse to pursue violent attacks. You know, one woman was recently just saying that when she came forward to report her partner for domestic abuse, the police told her, well either you are recruited by us to give us information about what’s going on in the community – and when she said, “no, that would put me at risk.” – they said, “well, we’re not doing anything about the domestic abuse, you can just go.”
Mathilda Mallinson:
Speaking of feminism, or so-called feminists, and the conflicts between feminists and sex workers, one of the arguments I’ve heard from women about why they might be a little bit iffy about sex work is some see it as work that equates women with sexuality and therefore contributes to a culture in which women are seen as commodities and gender inequality at large. What would you say to them?
Niki Adams:
Well two things. One is that even if that were true, that doesn’t justify criminalisation, because you have to look at the actual harm compared to the perceived harm. And the fact is, is that the prostitution laws and criminalisation are causing actual harm to sex workers. But I think it ignores the way that women themselves have used sex work to get money, to get power. People speak about how prostitution is inherently violent, which it’s not, but they don’t see the ways in which women have used the money from prostitution to escape violence. I mean, escaping domestic abuse is a really massive issue for a lot of women in our network, and also to lift that terror of not knowing how you’re going to eat, and how you’re going to feed your kids. I wouldn’t describe it as empowering. But there is a way that having a bit of money of your own, actually can really change your life. I mean, that was my experience and it’s the experience of many, many sex workers.
Helena Wadia:
You mentioned the word empowerment there. And there is this narrative where some people try and defend sex work by saying, “oh, but it’s empowering. It’s a woman in control of our own body.” Do you think that narrative is particularly useful or truthful?
Niki Adams:
We would never say that, because I don’t think that is most women’s experience. And in any case, we don’t have to love our job in order not to be criminalized. I mean, nobody would ask that about a nurse. You know, they wouldn’t say “Well, do you like your job or not?” Or, you know, somebody working in a supermarket? “Do you love your job?” And most people would say, “no, I don’t love my job.”
Helena Wadia:
The three sex workers that I interviewed in Bristol said to me that they feel like they’re unable to say anything negative about their experiences, because they fear that it will be used against them by the media or by policymakers to further criminalise sex work, or paint them as victims. Whereas in reality, right, everyone bitches about their job. And if you have a union, or you have protection in place, then you can work towards making your job better, but they felt like they couldn’t speak out about it for fear that it will be taken in the wrong way.
Niki Adams:
Yeah, so I think it’s very true, that it’s difficult to spell out how violent and abusive and exploitative sex work is sometimes, but we do it. Because we absolutely refuse to be categorised as either happy hookers or as poor victims. You know, we’re women doing a job to earn the money to support ourselves, mostly to support our kids. And we’re not going to be cornered in that way.
Mathilda Mallinson:
You’ve pointed out that for many, including yourself, sex work was the line between poverty and being able to support yourself. There is a common myth that sex work is always a last resort. Is it also dangerous to lean too far to the assumption that all people in sex work are doing it as a last resort? And not because it’s something that they choose? Or do they see it as the best of several options?
Niki Adams:
Yeah. So, on the one hand, you know, there really is a massive crisis out there of poverty among women and children. And they did a parliamentary inquiry into the connection between the introduction of Universal Credit and the increase in prostitution, and they found a causal link. So that, on the one hand, is true. But on the other hand, realistically, the one thing about prostitution is that it gives you a higher wage sometimes than other jobs traditionally done by women and it can give you some flexibility. For me, I think, at some points, it was an escape from poverty, but at some points, it was financial independence. I didn’t want to be with a man because I needed to be, I wanted to be able to live my own life and choose who I had a relationship with.
Helena Wadia:
I think what I’ve learned from doing this episode and speaking to sex workers is just how much their voices have been missed out and continue to be missed out in the conversation. But I do get why some people, women especially, women who really consider themselves feminists, would be anti sex work, because it’s that kind of Sexism 101 that we’ve been taught – which is like “women who show their bodies are bad, and women who use their brains are good.” But what I’ve really learned is that this conversation is not the place for your personal feelings. Whatever I might personally think or Mathilda might personally think or anyone might personally think about sex work, doesn’t matter. Whether you like it or not, sex workers deserve to be safe.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Ok, so this is something that goes against the culture of, of a digital era, the culture of a social media generation, where we’re all told that we all have the right to an opinion and not just an opinion, people have really strong opinions about everything. Why do we all feel entitled not just to an opinion, but to a strong opinion about things, A) that were not informed in, and B) that don’t affect us? And sex work is a really good example, because I have grown up being surrounded by quite strong opinions about sex work. When I was reading the brief for this discussion, I was just shocked at the evidence that shows the laws we have in place are harmful, and not remotely founded on the opinions of the people with lived experience.
Niki Adams:
We see that a younger generation of feminists are not judgmental in the way that the kind of older guard have been in the past.
Mathilda Mallinson:
That’s interesting.
Niki Adams:
And people have really broken with that association with the Christian fundamentalists. And they do stand by their feminist principle, which is that “I may not know much about it, I definitely don’t want to go into sex work myself. But my feminist principle tells me that I should listen to the people most impacted”. That means that we stand a good chance of winning decriminalisation, we just have to bring the politicians who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo with us.
Helena Wadia:
I think this is a really good time to talk about how sex workers and sex work is described in the mainstream media. I do think the common myths and stereotypes we spoke about play a big part in the depiction of sex workers in the mainstream with common terms like “troubled” used a lot. What terms do you see in the mainstream media? And what kind of messages do you think they send?
Niki Adams:
Well, the “troubled” is definitely very common, and the implication that the woman is somehow in a state, in a mess. Over the pandemic, we had to protest about some of the coverage of some of the women that were having to still work. And they put their pictures in the newspaper and they followed them home and it kind of unleashed a real witch hunt against some women.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Even in pieces I’ve read that have been written by people with lived experience, I often see that the photo that’s been used by the paper is either like nine-inch stiletto or a pair of bright red lips, or like a shadowy slinky figure.
Helena Wadia:
Like shadowy heels on the streets. A miniskirt leaning into a car.
Niki Adams:
Or, your back against a wall. I tried that pose and it’s extremely hard. I’d like to just say, it’s not helpful. I mean, we are always trying to break down those stereotypes so that sex workers are seen for who we are, which is, you know, women like other women with all the complexities of others.
Helena Wadia:
Right, and when we have these images, like these miniskirts leaning into car windows, it kind of gives off that impression that there is one type of hyper sexualized sex worker, when actually sex workers are, like you said, a broad range, a broad range of people, obviously not just women.
Helena Wadia:
Time now to look at some recent articles making headlines around this topic. Just under a week ago, there were concerns about women in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, that they were being picked up by human traffickers and abused. I’ll read out the headline from the Daily Mail: ‘Criminal gangs are targeting Ukrainian women fleeing the war in bid to turn them into sex slaves.’ Now, this is not to say that the fears of sex trafficking out of Ukraine or anywhere are not of concern, we just wanted to highlight how about two sentences in, this article then says ‘it is feared some of those escaping will become sex workers involved in criminal activity, domestic slavery or forced labour.’ Niki, how often do you see this kind of conflation of sex work and sex trafficking in the media?
Niki Adams:
Yes, that’s a very good example and we do see a lot of coverage like that. And it is really outrageous, because it’s a real deliberate misrepresentation. And it’s not to say that some of those women may end up having to exchange sex for money in order to survive. And if you’re in that situation, any of us may have done the same. But the thing that we object to is the implication or the assumption that because it’s migrant women, they are victims of trafficking. And we see that all the time. I’ve just been speaking to a woman who was just recently arrested in a brothel raid. She was abused by the police, given really a hard time and then she saw the very same police officers go into the newspaper to say that they just saved some victims of trafficking. I mean, that is a deliberate misrepresentation campaign about trafficking. The police get masses of money for anti-trafficking operations and we strongly believe that that is what is fuelling so many of the brothel raids because it’s the way that they justify their budget. Since about 2009, there has been a deliberate concerted misrepresentation campaign about trafficking, and it’s been aimed at increasing immigration controls and increasing police powers.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Yeah. So that’s what struck me about this story is, it’s a setup for the government, and this is exactly how the government responded in the article, to present organised crime traffickers as this ultimate villain, and therefore themselves as the hero. But we are not seeing the culpability of a government that is failing to provide safe routes to refuge for refugees at a time when there is a mass displacement crisis. It’s so frustrating to see the media play so naively, or as you describe, it so deliberately, into these very simplistic narratives that serve such strong political agendas.
Niki Adams:
It’s true because it’s very, it is infuriating, because if they wanted to do something about trafficking, they would address the poverty, they would address the hostile immigration environment, you know, they would address the reasons that women want to or have to cross international borders in order to survive.
Mathilda Mallinson:
And that is something else in this article, it quotes someone saying that these women are accepting the first offer without thinking it through. And it irritates me so much when I read people who’ve never been displaced basically call refugees idiots for taking life risking decisions. Maybe they have thought it through? Maybe that is the best offer available to them? I’ve seen this kind of exploitation of women in Calais, in any environment where you have displacement, and women are making that choice because it is the best choice available to them.
Helena Wadia:
Sometimes I just love looking at people when they’re speaking so passionately.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Okay, the second article we want to look at was written by the AP News Wire, which for non-journalists, means that it will be published as the same article in many subscribing outlets: The Independent, ABC News, The Daily Mail, CBS. I’ll read out the headline: ‘Ex-cheerleader guilty in Florida prostitute deaths.’ What struck us about this article was that we know very little of the women this man killed. In fact, all we know about them is that they are prostitutes. The only way they’re referred to in the article is as ‘prostitutes’ or ‘victims’, never mother-of-three, which is interesting, because normally, that’s how victims are described. But we do know that the man who killed them is a former criminal justice major, a college cheerleader. Does the media fail to portray sex workers as well-rounded whole human beings with lives outside of their jobs? And you’re nodding.
Niki Adams:
Yes, I think the media does portray sex workers in a very narrow and stereotyped way. But I think they often do that with women victims of violence generally. And it’s definitely something that needs to change. But I think the whole movement about Sarah Everard has demanded change. And that’s why we are disadvantaged as sex workers because we’re criminalized. It’s much harder for us to protest.
Helena Wadia:
Yeah, like you said, this applies to so much reporting on male perpetrators of violence against women in general, and especially to marginalised people, like sex workers. But even in this article, like there’s a picture of him, there’s a picture of the perpetrator, and it’s almost like these women aren’t given any time, they aren’t given any pictures, they aren’t given any tributes because they’re ‘just prostitutes’.
Niki Adams:
Yeah, it really does feed into this problem. The fact that some feminist Labour politicians see us purely as victims, rather than as women in our own right, and rounded human beings, and mothers-of-three, and all the rest of it. The thing that’s gonna make a difference is when sex workers are able to put our foot down and say no, we refuse to be portrayed like this. This is who we are. And that can’t happen really until we can decriminalise.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Niki Adams, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people follow you and do you have anything to plug?
Niki Adams:
So we have our website www.prostitutescollective.net . We’re also on Twitter @prostitutescoll and we’re based at a women’s centre in Kentish Town called the Crossroads Women’s Centre and we’re always looking for volunteers and for help, so please do get in touch.
Helena Wadia:
Thank you for listening. We’ll be back with a bonus episode next week featuring the exhibition by sex workers on at the Institute of Contemporary Arts called Decriminalised Futures. And our final episode from this series on ableism in the workplace will be out on 24th March.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Follow Media Storm wherever you get your podcasts so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-star rating and review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and our aim is to have as many people as possible hear these voices.
Helena Wadia:
You can also follow us on social media @mathildamall and @helenawadia and follow the show via @mediastormpod.
Mathilda Mallinson:
Get in touch and let us know what you’d like us to cover and who you’d like us to speak to.
Helena Wadia:
Media Storm, a new podcast from the House of the Guilty Feminist is part of the Acast Creator Network. It is produced by Tom Salinsky and Deborah Frances-White. The music is by Samfire.