Speaker 01: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Behind the Paddle Podcast. I am Porcelain Victoria and I am Emily Sun. Yeah, and we are here today with Caitlin Bailey.

Speaker 03: 0:12

Thank you so much for coming on. Really excited for this episode. Thank you for having me. I'm truly delighted to be here.

Speaker 01: 0:19

It's gonna be so fun. Um, could you first just explain everything? Goodness. Yeah.

Speaker 02: 0:27

I mean, yeah, are we starting with gravity or like the theory of relativity? I'm kidding, that's not my expertise. Uh so my name is Caitlin Bailey. I'm the host of the Oldest Profession podcast, and I am here in Edinburgh with my show, uh's Eye View, where I cover 10,000 years of history from a sex worker's perspective. Wonderful. Amazing. Um, so can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind Whore's Eye View? Yeah, it's been a long process for sure. I mean, I've been obsessed with sex worker stories from history, really, for as long as I can remember. Um, I remember reading about, you know, the great courtesans of Europe, and it always struck me that sex workers seemed to really be an exception to the rule that like women didn't have rights, right?

Speaker 03: 1:20

I was like, what about these ladies buying their own houses, their own parties and running businesses and stuff?

Speaker 02: 1:26

What's going on there? Um, and so like the bad girls of history have always been figures that I've been consistently drawn to. Um, and so when I was in college, I actually wrote my senior thesis on the economic structure of brothels between 1890 and 1920, leading up to white women's suffrage in the US. And I thought it was really interesting that as sort of civilian women gained legal rights, we began cracking down on the freedom of movement of like sex workers specifically, but women in generally. Like, for example, during um World War I uh for us, which started in in 1917, which was later than for you guys. We're sorry about that still. But um, in 1917, the United States criminalized not just prostitution, but also promiscuity, specifically around military bases and specifically to protect soldiers, uh not from the violence, obviously, but from venereal disease. And so this led to tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of women, many of whom were not sex workers, being rounded up and subjected to these horrible invasive exams. And I was fascinated by this period of history and specifically how prostitution policy leads to almost inevitably a crackdown on the freedom of movement for all women. Because how do you prove you are not a whore? Yeah. Right. And so, and you know, whore is one of those like loose and flexible concepts, you know, kind of like, you know, like witch or whatever, that has sort of come to mean like any woman that is making a man upset in the moment. So I graduated college, um, I got into politics in the United States, I got fed up with politics, I got into comedy, I got fed up with comedy uh and felt called back into politics, uh, specifically, you know, after Donald Trump was elected and after Sesta Fosta passed. Um, and I sort of came back to the research um looking at this history of eroding women's rights in the name of protecting us from our own choices, whether that's talking about criminalizing abortion or criminalizing prostitution or pornography or any of these other things. It seems like um like prostitutes have become like the scapegoat or just it's not really like PC to just out and out not want women to have rights these days. Right, right, right. So that's like the easy thing. I mean, unless you're JD Vance, in which case you can just say it.

Speaker 03: 4:04

Uh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 02: 4:07

Um so yeah, after um after I started the podcast, um, you know, every episode of the oldest profession podcast, we do a deep dive into a different sex worker from history. Um, and this pattern started to emerge, right? Of like if you go back far enough, sex workers, sacred whores are deified. And then we are are demonized, right? And that's sort of, I believe that whore phobia kind of sets the foundation of misogyny. And then the demonization narrative sort of gets transposed onto the disease narrative. Um, and you see, like, you know, like misogyny kind of overrules a lot of scientific theory, right? We've done a lot of nonsense. Uh and so I and even today, this idea of like pathologizing sex workers or like false consciousness, or a lot of these ideas are derived from these much older ideas um about women in general. And so the show is a combination of like that historical narrative, right? Where I tell individual stories, but I'm also telling the sort of like meta-narrative of like Western civilization from a sex worker's perspective, mixed with my own experiences, um, and comparing it with my with my father's experiences, who was who was a soldier. Yeah, that part in your show when it kind of got to the end, the conclusion just like a bit broke me. I was a bit sobbing, like I had to take a moment because it was just it really hit home, like it was really well done. Thank you. And I didn't say it last night and I meant to.

Speaker 03: 5:42

I really appreciate that.

Speaker 02: 5:43

Thank you. That was so wholesome. Like, not just yeah.

Speaker 01: 5:46

Yeah, it was really, really good. Really good, really informative. And for me, at least, like at the end of it, it was like, oh, men's menedics. Like that was the just just a usual outcome which I had.

Speaker 02: 6:01

Well, yeah, I mean, but it's it's interesting because I think one of the takeaways from my show is like what what misogyny has cost men. Oh like what my father, I mean, you know, my father is the one who was waking up in the middle of the night with night terrors and PTSD attacks. And uh, you know, everyone said that that would happen to me from like, you know, making dudes come for money. And I sleep fine.

Speaker 01: 6:26

Um I can agree to that.

Speaker 02: 6:28

Yeah. And so it's it's interesting, you know, like when we talk about trauma, so much of the infantilization of women. Um, it's I it's important for us to to see that. But but I really believe that like misogyny um and chauvinism and like, you know, gender the gender binary or whatever has cost men a lot. And we've absolute we we just keep choosing violence over sex. And that is something that has really screwed um, I think people of all genders. Yeah. Absolutely. I feel like that leads us quite well into the next question, which is how does the show challenge traditional narratives surrounding sex, work, and gender? I feel like we've covered this a little bit, but yeah, sure. I mean, you know, the the dominant narrative, right, is that we are still very much living in the midst of just like a new iteration of the white slave panic, right? You know, like we uh really believe that the only people who do this work are literal slaves, either to some horrible violent person or their own addiction. And prostitution is still um a very powerful symbol of violence against women. And so many people that think that they are against prostitution or against pornography, they think that they're doing that because they're standing against violence against women. But it's so important that we not collapse those concepts because exploitation is gross across labor sectors. And gender-based violence is horrific, whether somebody is being paid for sexual services or not. Um, and so my show, I really try to pull out uh those those concepts and create opportunities for you know audiences to look directly in the eye of the things that we are actually standing against poverty, exploitation, gendered-based violence, but to recognize that people who make other people come even for money, are not the thing tearing society apart. Um is one thing like I've really struggled with can you come in into um like our podcast covers a lot of topics and it covers like feminism and stuff as well. And we've had to be really careful about who we are following within the feminist movement because so many of them are so anti-sex work and it just boggles my mind. Like it just doesn't compute to me at all, and I don't understand it. It's so frustrating because this is a schism that you know goes back to at least the 1870s, you know, with the um in you know, I I come from the US and I I know more about US history, and and I know that there are a lot of uh we've walked parallel paths, you know, the the UK and the US. But um, in the United States, the you know, some of the most famous suffragists, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, wrote Victoria Woodhall, the first woman to run for president out of our history because she was a sex worker. Yeah. And part of that is respectability politics, right? Part of that is getting caught up in the white slave panic and you know, standing um, you know, against alcohol, which they, you know, thought was synonymous with domestic violence and like I see how they got there. Um but uh, you know, and then fast forward into the 1970s, we see the same fight happen again, uh, where mainstream, prominent mostly white feminists made pornography a symbol of violence and exploitation against women, and you know, put more resources behind trying to eradicate erotic labor than to protecting access to contraception. Um, in fact, there are, you know, I think uh Catherine McKinnon is very famous for saying that pornography, uh eradicating pornography is more important than protecting abortion rights. And you know, fast forward 50 years later, we've lost access to abortion and huge swoss of the United States. And we are not living in a world with less pornography, despite their best efforts. But we are living in a world where it is harder for, you know, content creators to keep bank accounts, to participate, to have access to the basic technological and financial platforms that we all need to move our lives forward. But yeah, and just one last point. Sorry, I it's my favorite topic, but you will not make somebody less vulnerable to violence and exploitation by taking away their livelihood. If you limit someone's choices, you're just making it more likely that they're gonna have to choose the bad ones. Correct.

Speaker 01: 11:24

Yeah, I I absolutely understand that. Um, one thing we're gonna cover in future podcasts is most likely the Online Safety Act, which is just in the UK. Oh, I'm not sure.

Speaker 02: 11:36

Is that something that you guys are We just passed, or no, excuse me, we just avoided passing the Kids Online Safety Act. Yeah. So which again, like so many bad policies, is sold to the American people of protecting women and children. Like kids know how to use VPNs, they're gonna use better than their parents, or like it's just nonsense. Yeah, like don't even with like taking the rest of it out, like it's just not gonna make a difference. Yeah. I it's you're not going to censor your way to safety. Yeah, you know, and the the fact is that we just don't want to look at the reality of child sexual exploitation, right? We we really want this to be a stranger danger story. And unfortunately, the reality is that children are exploited, often violently, often sexually, by people that are already in their communities, right? Yeah, their family members, um, a disproportionate number of priests and ministers and religious leaders. You know, your children are not safe at Sunday school, but it's not having access to sexual images or consensual adult pornography. That is not where child exploitation is happening. It's the whole thing, this is like the new violence in video games. Yes, like the same all over alert.

unknown: 13:05

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 13:06

Um, heavy metal music causes people to be violent and kill and murder and stuff like that.

Speaker 02: 13:12

Yeah, before we were panicking about rap, we were panicking about jazz. Like, I mean, it's like this this goes way back.

Speaker 01: 13:18

Oh god, are they gonna hit Beyonce next? Like, what's happening? Yeah, yeah. But no, going back to um the suffragettes and suffragettes, that was one of the only women things which I was taught in history. Now I I was taught in England, whereas I don't know about Scotland or the US. Probably similar. But that that was it. All I remember from those lessons were them saying how they would throw themselves in front of horses on the street.

Speaker 02: 13:49

It was a violent and radical movement, which was great and inspired. We were inspired. The US was inspired by the the movement in the UK. And a lot of uh there were not not a lot, but there were a few key suffragists from the UK that came to the US and like helped inspire uh a generation that helped make it happen. I think we won those rights earlier. Oh, you guys know that. Yeah, I think so. I think there was more definite year. Yeah. Yeah, you guys, um, and then they they were they were playing weird shenanigans where they were like only women over 30 can vote. I mean, like it was like a weird game. Um here. Yeah.

Speaker 01: 14:28

Yeah, that that's all I can remember. But coming to your show, it was no more better than my history lesson. And I wish that we did have a section in schools where they would teach about women of the past and of the future and what it's all been like, basically, rather than this is what happened, they threw themselves in front of horses, it was great and everything.

Speaker 02: 14:55

But it just got one horse and then they were like, Oh, we get it now. Um, please don't do that again.

Speaker 01: 15:05

Like we we got the vote and things, but it hasn't improved that greatly. It is still in the UK going down quite a bit. Yeah, it feels like things are getting worse here rather than better.

Speaker 02: 15:18

Where is like reproductive rights like access to abortion, contraception, medically accurate sex education?

Speaker 01: 15:25

Medically accurate sex education, that's a funny one.

Speaker 02: 15:28

I feel like when we've put so a lot of these issues are devolved in Scotland, and Scotland's actually can be like leading the world in some things, like um in terms of we are now given out free period products, we were the first country in the world to do that.

Speaker 01: 15:42

Um, but I think England's got a slightly different oh England England is a whole bunch of problems. Like it's it's great for sex work, it's it's okay.

Speaker 02: 15:57

Weirdly, it's better in that regard.

Speaker 01: 15:59

Yeah, in terms of rights in Scotland.

Speaker 02: 16:02

Like I know we've just passed a bill um that say like protests like anti-abortion protesters need to be so far away from the abortion clinics and stuff. Yeah, yeah, like there is things actively happening that are positive at the moment in Scotland, but I don't believe that same bill's been passed in England, as far as I know. Just to like remind I I think I know, but like I want to double check the legal status for sex work is that it's it's like legal technically, but everything around it is criminalized. So like solicitation, um advertising, advertising, working together, working together, yeah. All of that's illegal, but actual sex work in and of itself is fine. You just can't and what does that enforcement look like? It just ends up getting taken on a case-by-case basis. Right, yeah, yeah. We had to look at some guidance that we were given um from ECP about English collector prostitutes. Yeah. Again, this was advice for England, was it? For the police, and it was basically just saying that the the two people working together real should be judged on a case-by-case basis, depending on what the kind of situation surrounding it is. But I don't believe that's how it is taken a lot of the time. But most of the time people are just getting arrested. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 01: 17:21

It's an absolute like pass up if you get honestly a good police officer or a bad police officer.

Speaker 02: 17:28

Everything's just too ambiguous, right? Yeah, and police officers are not famous for their like subtlety or social work skills.

Speaker 03: 17:37

Like that's not that's not the selection process. No, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 01: 17:43

Yeah, that's so that's like where we stand with rights and things currently in Scotland. It is really in the Stone Age.

Speaker 02: 17:51

Um and obviously they're looking at bringing the Nordic model in as well. Yeah, I heard that like that uh Scotland was sort of like on the precipice of accepting that, and then also that there was this amazing poll that came out that like 70% of the Scottish public is like, this is a bad idea. Please don't do this. So there's like, I don't know if it's a consultation, but there's definitely um like people coming together to speak out against it at the moment that it's ending on the 12th of September. Okay. Um, I will need to find where that is. I will put in the link for this as well. Yeah, share that with me because I would love to share that with folks. I'd love to add that to the show to tell audience members to to contact their representative, their MP MP MP. Great, yeah, thanks. Nail it in. Love it. So cool to be here.

Speaker 01: 18:41

Yeah, it's like recently, just to add to this one last point, is um recently last year in Scotland, they tried to put a cap on how many strip clubs they wanted.

Speaker 02: 18:54

In Edinburgh.

Speaker 01: 18:55

Yeah, in Edinburgh. And they came to a decision um that we were only allowed three strip clubs in the whole of Edinburgh. That's it.

Speaker 03: 19:05

I think the three that are just all there together. Yeah, the funny triangle. Cool, all right, cool. Yep, great, yeah. Those three, yeah, they gotta stick together.

Speaker 01: 19:14

Yeah, and I believe it says if a sex worker herself from um one of the strip clubs wants to open up their own, she can, but she still has to ask for approval.

Speaker 02: 19:26

Which will not be granted.

Speaker 01: 19:28

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 02: 19:29

Cool, yeah, cool, cool, cool.

Speaker 01: 19:30

So they're like, oh, we could. You'll see, you'll see. You'll see. Okay. All right. And then in what did we find out? Because it is very much a rabbit hole with missing rabbits, basically.

Speaker 03: 19:47

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 19:48

In Scotland with when it comes to sex work because it's even difficult for lawyers to figure out what exactly are the laws because they don't make sense.

Speaker 02: 19:59

Yeah, it's that much or contradictory as well, a lot of them saw in uh interpretation.

Speaker 01: 20:06

So we in Gla Edinburgh and Glasgow, you need a license to open up a venue. How much did we assume that license costs? A good 18 a year. Yeah.

Speaker 03: 20:20

Or yeah. 18 grand, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not just 18.

Speaker 01: 20:27

And you can get denied. Um, you have to apply for it year by year.

Speaker 02: 20:32

And so, yeah, it's impossible to build a business with that kind of precarity because you have no idea when the rug will just be pulled out from under you. And so that really discourages investment, discourages taking care of the establishment. And it's you it's like combining everything that's terrible about like a legal regulated business with everything that's terrible about uh a criminal enterprise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like running, yeah, it's like running um a you know, underground uh market, but with all the paperwork.

Speaker 01: 21:04

Yeah. And and still not listening to the people.

unknown: 21:09

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 02: 21:10

Great. And so I know that like sex workers here in Edinburgh really came together to fight against the like strip club ordinances. Yeah. Did they win that fight? Yes. Um great. Fantastic. So that was the sex workers' union. Yes. Yeah. And then what happened? Like, were were they did their victory, were they able to hold on to their victory or were more shenanigans pulled? I think so. From what you were saying, I think they just changed the rules around opening more, but the ones that were there got kept because they were trying to just close all of them. Sure. Okay. So it was yeah, partial. Compromise. Compromise. Sure. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 01: 21:48

Yeah. That's what they like to call it. Sure. Okay.

Speaker 02: 21:51

That's a long one though. They got we we got them. I well when we fight, we often win because we are just right. Yeah. Yeah. That's very simple. I mean, I I know that I'm very biased, but like it it really is something that um you can explain to people that have never participated in this work. If yeah, like it, but because of the stigma and the shame, it's very difficult for us to come out and advocate for ourselves because you're opening up a whole other can of worms, right? There's a lot of personal um and professional like safety issues that come out with uh when you start doing advocacy. But when sex workers stand together and stand up against these ordinances, we are often able to convince huge swathes of the electorate that adult consensual sex work is like fine, actually. Yeah.

Speaker 01: 22:47

Yeah, I think um, because we went down to London to meet with the Amnesty, International Amnesty. Um we had a meeting and a lot of things they said I believe we were the only Scottish people there from Scotland. Um, and then a lot of things they said, it was very quiet in the way of like, why aren't people making a massive ruckus about this? Why isn't this on the news? Not a lot is getting shown or heard. Like we s we still need to make a lot of noise just to get our thoughts out there, which is insane. Yeah.

Speaker 02: 23:27

Like the consultation that I was talking about, I hadn't actually came across, which is mind-boggling to me with the amount of people that I follow. Like not all of them are Scotland based, a lot of them are UK based, but I thought I would have seen something, and it took me being in that meeting to actually hear about it, and it's next month, and I was like, Yeah, this is uh this is worrying. Yeah, yeah, do send me that information and I will absolutely include it in the show. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we can reach tens more people. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Um, so our next question is what can audiences expect from a performance support ID? He here in Edinburgh or or generally? Let's go generally. Generally, okay. So I was um I've been a stand-up comic for 13 or 14 years, but this show is is not stand-up comedy. It's um uh it's a history lecture, right? It's a funny history lecture, it's a personal history lecture, but I'm covering 10,000 years of history from a sex worker's perspective. Um, I blend that with my own, you know, personal humor and personal storytelling. And I think the the emotional heart of the show is this ongoing conversation that I have with my late father about what it means to be a soldier and what it means to be a sex worker. So I would expect um a uh a mad comedic dash through a lot of history um that's coming from a deeply personal and impassioned place. Yeah. That was really well said. Ah, thank you.

unknown: 25:10

Thanks.

Speaker 02: 25:12

Um here in Edinburgh, I would uh expect to receive that um in a really hot room. So uh if you have a fan, bring that um and uh yeah, dress in layers. It's yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's hot here just now.

Speaker 01: 25:32

It's really hot, yeah. So um where else are you actually touring?

Speaker 02: 25:39

That's yeah, I'm taking the show to um to Oslo and Geneva and Tallinn. Um I'm also taking it to uh I should really have these dates like top of mind. They are all on the website at horseiview.com. It's been um so much has been leading up. I mean, Edinburgh is the largest theater festival in the world, right? And so um I've been touring um all over the world leading up to this point. You know, we had a fantastic run in New Zealand and Australia, where I connected with some of the sex worker rights advocates that like made D krim happen. Um, they have so much to to teach us, I think, about like what is possible. Um, I took the show to Iceland, which was fantastic. They've had the Nordic model since 2009. Um, and it's not going great for them. Uh they can, they should, they can and should think about like uh fighting for fighting for D-Crim. Well, the the political party that um enacted the end demand laws in Iceland had are out of out of power and out of favor. And the Icelandic sex workers are organizing. Um, and it was so funny because like I would do the show, and then these like these civilian, mostly dudes, would come up to me and they would be like, Oh, that's like thank you so much for doing this history. But like you should know, like, we don't really have any sex workers in Iceland because it's like too small a country. And I was like, Well, that's weird because I met like a dozen of them yesterday. There's absolutely sex workers um in Iceland and they are they are organizing, and I think that they they have a really good shot of bringing bringing Decrim um there, which would be very cool to see. Uh, and of course I've been touring all over the US, which I hope to be doing um a lot more of that in the upcoming years. But I wanted to meet um sex workers that um helped make Decrim happen, and I wanted to meet sex workers that have been living under the Nordic model for decades so that I could uh come back to the United States and tell folks uh what those what those systems look like. Has Switzerland got the Nordic model? Switzerland, I believe, has the Nordic model. Yeah, that's gonna be an interesting show. Yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, and then of course, in like in Norway. In Norway. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

unknown: 27:59

Yeah.

Speaker 02: 28:00

We'll see. Yeah. Ruffle some feathers and beautiful.

Speaker 01: 28:05

Um, what are some of the key takeaways, uh, messages from your show?

Speaker 02: 28:11

I mean, the the most explicit policy proposal besides ritual castration is um uh I'm kidding. Uh yeah.

unknown: 28:20

Really?

Speaker 02: 28:23

You have to see the show to get that joke. Um, but anyway, no, the the most explicit policy proposal is the that the decriminalization of sex work is the only policy that reduces violence. But I think the larger ask of audience members is to think differently about the oldest profession and to change the stories that we tell about sex work. Because I think we've been so mired in, you know, these dual narratives of, you know, sex workers as um either evil or, you know, helpless victims or like the victims of circumstance. And I hope to reframe sex workers as not just active agents in their own lives, but also as major drivers in history.

unknown: 29:15

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 29:16

I I feel like if we had the Nordic model in Scotland, yeah, there would be absolutely way less clients. Really way less. Because from being um doing work in England and Scotland, there are weirdly in the UK, there's not a lot of people client-wise who want to hand over like their ID and things like that. It's very different compared to other places. Men don't really want to hand over all their information.

Speaker 02: 29:48

For sure. No, nobody wants to be put on a stigmatized list, right? Which is why in the United States we have like this new uh trend of age verification laws for watching pornography that's like really technically. Terrible. But I will say that where the Nordic model has been implemented in the past, you see a temporary decline in clients and a disruption of the economy, which throws you know sex workers into desperate situations. But long term, you don't see a reduction in demand. It doesn't achieve the stated goals. So this is quite a big question, but how do you envision the future of sex work? Like, is there any patterns or trends that you're kind of seeing? Yeah. I believe that we are at a critical turning point because technology has enabled sex workers to connect all over the world. And the the movement, you know, the sex worker rights movement has always been global, right? From the first World Horse Congress in 1986 to the um, you know, International Horse Day has always been international, uh, going back to 1975. And sex workers have always been connected, right? Because we, I mean, like we travel, we talk, we hang out. But the ability for us to in real time build relationships, share information across borders has, I think, strengthened our movement. And there are more and more of us who are coming out, who are owning our identity as sex workers and are pushing back against this, you know, old stubborn stigma. And so I think that sex workers are where the LGBTQ movement was in the 1960s, right? We live in a world where everyone already knows a sex worker. They just don't know that they know them yet. And I think that is changing. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown: 32:01

Yeah.

Speaker 02: 32:03

I'm excited too.

Speaker 03: 32:04

Yeah. I mean, I hope it gets better.

Speaker 02: 32:06

And I think I believe that you know, like sex workers can do a lot. We have so much to teach the world about uh shame and sex and mental health and negotiating boundaries. I think that all of our communities are better served in a society that enables sex workers to share our wisdom with the communities that we're already a part of. And we are already everywhere.

Speaker 01: 32:34

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 02: 32:35

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 32:35

Like even somebody who sells like feet pictures or something. It's it's part of sex work. But even something as simple as that is still a shame to say, sadly. So hopefully it does get better, the stigma and things. We'll we'll we'll see. Especially in Scotland. Yeah. Have you received any backlash or anything due to your show?

Speaker 02: 32:59

I will say that, you know, the title, Horizon View, it's a pretty self-selected audience, right? Like people know what they're they're asking for. I get pushback mostly from Nordic model feminists, right? Who really have a difficult time, I think, imagining themselves doing this work. Um, but I think it's really important to remind people that like you don't have to love your job for to have rights. And like not all work is for everyone, right? Like I, for example, could never work in a slaughterhouse. Like I could, I could never do that. I probably, I was absolutely a terrible waitress. Like, not, you know, we we can't do um everything, but just because you yourself can't imagine doing a particular job doesn't mean that outlawing or criminalizing that work helps anybody in it. Um, yeah. So I think the biggest opposition are people that identify as feminists who have really internalized the narrative that prostitution is a symbol of violence against women. And my show is really for them in a lot of ways. You know, like I speak directly to well-meaning feminists that are genuinely trying to help. And I ask those folks to look at the research, right? There's a reason that the World Health Organization and Amnesty International and uh the United Nations focus group on women and girls supports decriminalization, and it's not because they are like funded by the sex industry.

Speaker 01: 34:34

Yeah. I forgot what I was about to say. Yeah, it's absolutely crazy with how people say they're feminists, but they have their own ideas and views on how they want the world.

Speaker 02: 34:56

And specifically women, right? There's been an unfortunately long legacy of women or people who are declaring themselves to be feminists, spending their energy trying to coerce other women into making different choices. Yeah.

Speaker 01: 35:16

Yeah. I I I I see that a lot um mainly on TikTok in the US with like abortion clinics and things like that. I I feel like that's more um more there in the US than in Scotland, where you'll get a large amount of people protesting for like abortion and things like that, and trying to persuade the women not to do stuff.

Speaker 02: 35:41

Yeah, the crisis pregnancy centers are uh are horrific. Um and they, you know, they're built on misinformation. You know, they target women in desperate situations. Uh, they explicitly lie to them, don't provide them, you know, with any kind of medical care, but there's a lot of you know propaganda um around trying to uh bully women into having children that they, you know, don't have the resources to raise and in many cases don't want.

Speaker 01: 36:10

No, which is fair enough. I'm fully for the my body, my choice. Sure.

Speaker 02: 36:16

I mean, I do think it's important, you know, when we're talking about reproductive justice, like it can and should be easier to raise a child in the United States. Absolutely. And it is a tragedy when somebody has an abortion uh just because they they're poor or they don't have the resources to raise a wanted child. But forcing people to carry pregnancies to term is not how we achieve that vision.

Speaker 01: 36:42

No, absolutely. It's like um I was discussing with you um a few days ago. Like I I I have a child, so and I want to grow that family, but you only get I think it's 500 a month maternity. It's like how are you meant to live?

unknown: 37:03

Right.

Speaker 01: 37:04

It's really like for me at least it pays like one of my bills, and that's it. Right. So it's just I can absolutely understand that in the economy that it is, that people just have to think about that. And I find that really, really sad and devastating that their own country just cannot provide for them. Sure.

Speaker 02: 37:28

Yeah, especially since you know, ostensibly we all have a shared interest in getting the next generation the basic resources that they need to be like, you know, uh not just like contributors, right, from an economic standpoint. But like I want to live in a society where everyone has access to like food, water, shelter, education, basic medical care, right? You know, we just survived a global pandemic if we don't realize that like all of our health and wellness is connected. Yeah, like we want everyone to thrive, not just survive. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 01: 38:05

Talking about actually thriving, surviving, um, right now in England there are riots. Um, which I guess if you want to pick on certain people, it's not the society the next generation wants to live in, I would say. Especially with how outrageous it is with the economy, how much things are costing, different political people in power, different laws that are coming in.

Speaker 02: 38:43

Um, a scapegoat being used, of course. Yeah. What is usually a poverty issue. Right, absolutely. Yeah, the the problem is is poverty, right? It's not immigration, it's not prostitution, it's not people practicing a religion that's different than the religion that you would like them to practice. I mean, it's and it's it's so interesting that we keep uh uh making this mistake over and over again. It seems very easy for the people with the actual power, right? People who are hoarding wealth to point to other groups of poor people and be like, they're the problem. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right. Anyway, I think that's about us. Um thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. This has been amazing.

Speaker 03: 39:32

Yeah, and thank you so much for coming to see the show. It was good.

Speaker 02: 39:34

Thank you. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you.

Speaker 03: 39:36

It was so good. It was really, really good.

Speaker 01: 39:38

Yeah, like oh, if you recorded it, oh, so good. Just every bit of it and the history and the personal dialogue as well. It was really, really good. It made it so great.

Speaker 02: 39:53

And so hard hidden because it just wore so much. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 01: 39:56

Thank you.

Speaker 02: 39:57

Amazing.

Speaker 01: 39:58

Yeah, I I appreciate that.

Speaker 02: 39:59

Thank you.

Speaker 01: 40:01

So yeah, it's been amazing having you on. We are very appreciative.

Speaker 02: 40:07

Truly delighted and honored to be here.

Speaker 01: 40:10

Um, so yeah, if you want to plug anything in, you are more than welcome.

Speaker 02: 40:14

Sure. I mean, you know, I um we are right now recording our sixth season of the oldest profession podcast, where every episode we do a deep dive into a different sex worker from history. So if you would like more of me talking about history, that is uh five seasons of that are currently available for you. Um and make sure that you subscribe to the podcast so you uh hear when the sixth season drops. We also have a newsletter where we do a roundup of sex worker rights-related news from all over the world. Um, and so you can sign up for that at oldproseonline.org.

Speaker 01: 40:49

Nice, nice. All right, this has been Behind the Paddle Force of Victoria. Emily Son. Yeah, do you want to do your show?

Speaker 02: 40:58

Yeah, so as always, um got a little discount code for you guys. If you use behind the paddle at thesancryofsun.com, you'll get a 10% discount off my show.

Speaker 01: 41:08

Yeah. Right. Yeah, you can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify, everywhere where a podcast should be. And yeah, I think that's why that's it. Yeah. Thanks for listening, guys. Thank you. Thanks for having me.