Nymphet Diaries

I walk past one of the world’s most infamous Red Light Districts every day on my way to school. This far north it’s often still dark at 7:00AM, and before the sun is up, that red glow is the one that lights my way to school. I see the same women every day, all nearly identical in glum facial expression and leather corset; I used to think it was strange they were up and ready so early in the morning, though now realise it’s more likely that they’re just about to close up for the night. Some of the women smile politely at me through the glass they sit behind, and I smile back, and then I go to school, and they go, I imagine, to sleep. 

Prostitution was first legalised in The Netherlands in 2000. Barring a temporary ban during the pandemic, it’s stayed that way ever since, and the country has become a notable hotspot for sexual tourism. Though some Dutch officials have claimed a decrease in sexual violence since prostitution was legalised, statistics provided by centers against human trafficking illustrate otherwise: the Netherlands has been the number one country of origin for sexual trafficking multiple times since 2005, with hundreds of victims - majority female - trafficked on a yearly basis. A few years ago, six men were sentenced to seven years in prison each for what prosecutors called “the worst case of human trafficking ever brought to trial.” Not long after that two additional men were convicted for violently forcing over a hundred women and girls into prostitution, and a couple years ago in The Hague, a series of houseboats which had been converted into brothels were shut down by the government due to the unbelievable amount of physical and sexual violence perpetrated against the women “working” there. Horrifically - though not surprisingly - rather than providing the victims with trauma informed care and helping them to find an alternate source of income, the Dutch government offered to help them set up brothels in a different part of the city where they could work on their own terms. Globally, the reality of the sex trade is similar: eighty two percent of prostituted women report being physically assaulted while working. Seventy five percent report being sexually assaulted. The majority suffer from PTSD. All in all, this is not a conversation about middle class women selling underwear pics online to pay their way through college: this is a conversation about the international reality of prostitution as an industry. The violence perpetrated against prostituted women is blaring and horrific, and despite this, pro sex work lobbyists continue to advocate for blanket legalisation on the basis that prostituted women are actively choosing to be involved in prostitution, and any attempt to criminalise sex buyers would be a jab at women’s right to bodily autonomy. 

It’s an argument usually applied to reproductive issues - her body, her choice, right? And while that line of reasoning may suffice for abortion rights rallies, prostitution is an entirely different matter requiring its own sleuth of carefully thought out feminist analysis. There’s a problem inherent in applying the “her body her choice” argument to prostitution: who’s right to choice are we really talking about here? In an encounter between prostituted person and sex buyer, two are involved, and yet the question of whether or not the buyer has the right to purchase access to another human beings body is rarely asked. 

Focusing disproportionately on the choice (acknowledging, of course, that in fact working is prostitution is rarely a choice - most prostituted people are impoverished, desperate, and working in unsafe conditions) of the prostituted person entirely ignores the role of the buyer. His choice - the choice to purchase access to the body of a very likely desperate human being simply because he wants to and can - is hardly ever discussed, even among feminists. Dare I say that this lack of focus on the male role is reminiscent of the victim-blaming logic men have happily applied to survivors of male violence for centuries: Did she want it? Did she like it? Did she chose it? Chelsea Geddes, a survivor of New Zealands (legal) prostitution system sums it up in a snappy sentence: “The unspoken part of ‘it’s a woman’s choice’, is ‘therefore, it’s her fault’.” Geddes is right. Pro sex work activists do something much worse than just spread misinformation when they apply the bodily autonomy argument to prostitution: they tell us that the violence perpetrated against prostituted people is a result of their own poor decision making. 

Upon hearing my critiques, many of which have to do with the insurmountable amount of violence that is perpetrated against those in prostitution (which, by the way, at a certain point becomes irrelevant: regardless of the amount of violence endured by any individual woman involved in prostitution, the question of whether or not men have the right to purchase sex remains unanswered) most pro sex work activists hit me with the same question “Why criminalise sex work, how else are those women going to make money?” I’m always happy to hear this familiar query, because it shamelessly admits two things. Firstly, it makes it abundantly clear that pro sex work activists understand perfectly well that prostitution is very rarely a choice. The phrase “Take away prostitution, what else has she got left” tells me that despite pro sex work campaigners claim that prostituted people are choosing their work, and therefore would by definition have other options to chose from, they know that the vast majority of women in prostitution don’t have any other options, and that their involvement in the sex trade is anything but a choice. Secondly, this argument illustrates that these campaigners are people who don’t see prostituted women as real human beings with dreams and goals and favourite bands: they see them as objects good for sex and sex only. The confusion that crosses their faces when they ask you what else prostituted women are to do with themselves is the same look that likely formed on the faces of misogynists from a hundred years ago when first wave feminists suggested that women should aspire to careers rather than stay home and care for children: disbelief that the population in question could ever be good for anything other than male servitude. 

Next year in college, I’m hoping to major in women and gender studies. I wonder if my future peers will - like so many well intentioned feminists today - fail to understand the reality of this issue: that it’s not about restricting a woman’s right to do with her body as she pleases, but rather about the idea that consent cannot be bought, that men do not have a right to sex, that no woman should ever have to surrender claim to her own body out of desperation. More importantly, I wonder if it’s fair to blame said peers for this. Andrea Dworkin, perhaps the most notable feminist critic of the sex trade, tells us that “the assumptions of academia can barely begin to imagine the reality of life for women in prostitution.” In a classroom full of curious young people where “there is some kind of discourse of ideas and freedom in which you can have disagreements,” it’s impossible to imagine a reality where the word “no” can literally cost you your life. The premise that tomorrow will come, that disagreement can be healthy and intellectually stimulating, are antithetical to the lives of those in prostitution. Additionally, I and most other radical feminists know that modern feminism is swinging in an unfortunate direction: an obsession with choice, with individuality, a lack of analysis of the global reality of women as a collective class. Given that this is probably the most mainstream version of modern feminism, I am more than prepared for the likelihood that many of my future classmates will simply not have a serious grasp on this issue when it is inevitably debated in some future classroom discussion, and I can relate to their probable confusion. 

Like these hypothetical peers, mere months ago I still didn’t understand why it was so important that these questions be about the buyers apparent right to sex rather than the prostituted persons right to “choice”. I thought it unfair to place any restrictions on prostitution as an industry, and that the best thing was to simply let people do as they saw fit. And then, an epiphany: a few months ago, I blew a couple waitressing pay checks to attend a feminist conference in Wales, and all weekend skipped happily from lecture to lecture, listening to women who’s books I’d read the previous year talk about lesbian literature, about women in Iran, about female sexuality. The session I remember most vividly, though, was one run by a grassroots group that aimed to create exit strategies for people in prostitution who wanted to find other work and needed help doing so. I sat in a tiny room jam packed with women more than twice my age and listened to one of the speakers, Annie, a survivor of prostitution, describe abuse perpetrated by clients and pimps so unbelievably brutal that I won’t repeat it here. It was enough to make me gag with horror, and at one point I had to step out of the room to collect myself. Out of every awful thing I heard, here is what stuck with me the most: Annie recalled an interview she read, in which a frequent sex buyer said the reason it’s so important that prostitution be legalised is because if he can’t buy sex from prostitutes, then he’ll have to go out and rape “a real woman.” 

“I wondered, am I not a real woman?” asked Annie, who I sat not ten feet away from, teary eyed and ashamed of myself for every thinking that blanket legalisation was the answer. 

After the session, I went outside and sat on the steps of the venue for a long time, and the conclusion I came to was this: legalising prostitution does not reduce sexual violence, as my government claims, nor does it greatly improve the working conditions of the prostituted person. The women in The Hague who faced such violence at the hands of their clients that their (legal) brothel had to be shut down are proof enough of that. What blanket legalisation does is it ensures that sexual violence is directed at a single demographic: prostituted people. And while pro sex work activists may believe that if that demographic “choses” to be the target of violence that would otherwise be directed at non-prostitutes, then that’s just fine, that is a stance I could simply never take. It is antithetical to my belief that all women - all people - have the right to live free of sexual violence. 

twenty years in the making…..

daffodills…. ‘you can just imagine the love story’… 🥺