Speaker 00: 0:00

Hi, and welcome to Behind the Paddle. I am Paulson Victoria and I'm Em Lee Sin. Yeah, and today we are going to talk about what is it called?

Speaker 01: 0:11

So it's the Proposed Prostitution Offences and Support Scotland Bill, which has been named Unbuble, Women Are Not for Sale, which is a lovely consultation that is on at the moment, and is due to end on the 12th of September. So we thought we'd do a wee episode on it and just kind of discuss what it's about, what the research for it is based on, and a little bit about really why it's wrong and why we should all be filling in the consultation to kind of speak out against it. Cool, so this consultation is by Ash Reagan, who is an MSP in Scotland. She is a member for Edinburgh Eastern and has proposed this bill to create an offence of pain for sexual services to repeal the offence of soliciting or importuning by prostitutes to repeal previous convictions for soliciting or importuning by prostitutes and to support those in or ex in prostitution. Which is a whole lot of words for basically saying the Nordic model, which some of you will have heard of before.

Speaker 00: 1:30

Yeah. I I love the way that they're saying oh supporting. Let's see what you've what evidence you have to like support this, basically. I mean we we start off by saying quoting prostitution is a system of violence that reduces women to commodities and affects women's ability to achieve equality.

Speaker 01: 2:04

Now we discussed this a wee bit um before the podcast, and it really, really, really annoys me when there's people like her who haven't done sex work and then they go off on about trying to achieve equality, and it's like how like why why yeah, it it boggles my mind that there are people in politics that are speaking on subject matters that they have no experience with, know very little about, because all of like your usual big names like the World Health Organization, like Amnesty International, like the UN all are in support of decriminalisation. So, like to put a bill like this together, you're going out against like all of these big massive worldwide organizations and their advice and all the teams of researchers that they have that have led them to that decision, like it just it it makes no sense, and it's the whole achieve equality, and it's like I think a woman having their own job, like being self-employed, amazing, absolutely amazing, and from my knowledge of sex work, it it starts off usually at like 150 an hour, something like that.

Speaker 00: 3:38

So it's like you can't talk about like equality and wages because that's quite a lot of money compared to like minimum wage, like you can make um a good argument for like minimum wage as for like equality and things, like um the pay gap. But when it comes to achieving equality, what I I would like them to expand on that. In what way do you want equality and you don't see the equality in not like prostitution it you you can also have males and non-binaries, so I again I think it's very gendered, yes, because this is only including women's ability to achieve equality, it's only talking about women, it's not talking about any anybody else in the sex work industry in prostitution.

Speaker 01: 4:42

It's really interesting that you've said that because um this is a quote from um Reem Al-Salem, who used to work for the United Nations, doesn't anymore. Um, and I'm not saying this is why they left, but during their time working with the United Nations um received quite a lot of pushback from their peers because of their anti-trans views, or or at the very least, some of the things that they had said publicly could be taken as such. Um they were very focused on like sex and gender not being conflated and that both need to be recorded in data, meaning that people like aren't able to change their gender because their sex at birth would always be like attached to that as well, like they're not able to separate the two. Um this seems to be a bit overrunning theme, but we'll we'll come back to that in a wee bit. Um, I just thought that was worth mentioning just because of what you were saying there.

Speaker 00: 5:48

Yeah, absolutely. I mean the the overrunning theme is just the people who talk about this and want to put the Nordic model in place usually do not come from sex work themselves. Um, especially they haven't done prostitution. And I mean I'm sure politics pays quite a good amount of money, but I I I love it.

Speaker 01: 6:22

So I there are negatives absolutely to prostitution as there will ever be in any other workplace where there is a woman, or just any workplace, you know, there's pros and cons to every job out there, right?

Speaker 00: 6:41

Exactly. My my first point was if you're a woman, you there is a high chance that you will be harassed in a workplace, totally, which is in any workplace and it's not especially if you're working alone, like lone working increases your chances of that by so much.

Speaker 01: 7:02

Like because you yeah, you're by yourself, like even just being out, not even working, just by yourself on the street, includes that risk.

Speaker 00: 7:10

Yeah, you like so for instance if they made the argument, oh you could get raped doing sex work, yeah, you absolutely can, but you can get raped by your boss in the office as well. I I don't see that much of a difference really because you are yes, you're giving a service, and even if it is prostitution, you still can get raped and sexually assaulted, absolutely.

Speaker 01: 7:35

But don't blame the job, it's like blaming the woman again. It comes back to this like that is the perpetrator's issue, like that that's an issue in and of itself, like the situation surrounding it makes no difference, like a crime has been committed, like that's exactly like why why are you damaging the victim rather than actually pursuing the person who has done the bad shit?

Speaker 00: 8:00

Yeah, it's just victim blaming, like because of their job, this is why this has happened, like um one thing which she says is some argue that involvement in prostitution is a free choice that must be accepted. I mean I'm okay with people knowing that I do it and things, and it is a free choice for some people. For some people, I I won't sit here and say, Oh, there is no trafficking, there is no bad things.

Speaker 01: 8:38

But again, that is true in so many other professions as well. Like it it feels weird to just tar this with the same like that is the that's the issue, it's not the job that's the issue, it's the trafficking that's the issue, and that should be what's been focused on and being tackled rather than like again victim blaming, like oh, they were put in this position because of X, like go to the root of the problem, yeah.

Speaker 00: 9:06

Like people get trafficked for all types of different things, so like to manufacture stuff to literally every job, yeah, literally every job, but they just want to pick on prostitution, and so yeah, free choice that must be accepted. The truth is that for most of women, prostitution is not a choice, but a response to dire circumstances, they sell sex to survive.

Speaker 01: 9:36

Again, that can be true of every job, like everybody's got money to make, everybody has to pay the bills at the end of the time. Absolutely.

Speaker 00: 9:45

And then and then to like destroy basically the whole frickin' argument of what they're trying to say, they then say poverty is the primary factor of driving involvement in Scotland as it does everywhere else in the world, and it's just like right, okay. So you've just said that poverty is the problem. Okay, so why don't you actually put money into like the police force, which are actually that's one of the sectors, okay?

Speaker 01: 10:23

Um let's go for mental health services or like education and training for poverty.

Speaker 00: 10:31

So like the police, I want them to have more training with cracking down on actually um finding more traffickers or things like that. Totally. That's where I think money could go in that way, and how to actually treat prostitutes when they do come in, yeah, rather than just treating them like a bloody piece of meat because it is not nice at all. Um but yeah, that's where I feel like some money could go, and then mental health, absolutely. Um I do make poverty the issue that you're trying to fix. Poverty is the issue, which a lot of sex workers uh we were trying to say. Um even people who are advocating for sex workers, we realise that poverty is a massive big issue. So what was it? We whore's eye view she made a very very good um breakdown of everything to do with most things to do with sex work. Yeah. Um highlighting that poverty is a massive big issue, yeah.

Speaker 01: 11:51

Which in terms of like exploitation, poverty is the driving force, but exploitation exists all throughout the world in all these different ways, and like it's not to say I don't even want to say that prostitution is one of them because it on its own, like it is a job, it is a role that people are trafficked into, but it's the trafficking that's the issue, it's the exploitation that's the issue. Like, is that what you were gonna say? Just yeah, like there are so many jobs out there that exploit people that people are going and they are selling their body every day for, like if they are working um and doing manual labour for 20 years, you know, they're gonna be like pretty broken at the end of that. Oh, absolutely, and it's strange that like we pick on some things and not others. Cool. To circle back a wee touch, um the there was another part to this where she was saying it violates the rights of those who are sexually exploited within it. Its victims are denied their human dignity and often experience inhumane and degrading treatment. Treatment which is today increasingly recognised as a form of torture. And then I quote, frontline organizations explain that the consequences of prostitution for mental health are similar to those of victims of torture. Now, this was quite a hard-hitting quote. Um, there was a couple of kind of references attached to this, which I obviously went and had a look into just to see, because this isn't something I have personally come across before. Um, as someone who is kind of quite aware of what's going on with a lot of the frontline organisations involved in sex work, um, at least in the UK, this wasn't something that I'd come across. So um one of the references is for Ream Al Salim again, so that was the United Nations work order that we were kind of speaking about at the start, um, and the other was for Dr. Melissa Farley, who is a researcher and presented this quote in a workshop called Prostitution and Torture in April this year. You had to be looking at her. Um, she is a psychologist from America. A lot of her studies have been in like New Zealand and South Africa, and there has actually been a complaint put in about her. Um two seconds just to grab the name of the boy. So Callum Benaci put in a complaint against her stating that the statistics she'd used in our studies were false. Um, one of which was she'd gone over to New Zealand who have full decriminalisation of sex work and have done since 2005, I believe. Wow, that's actually really early. Yeah, I think they were, I would imagine, one of the first places to do it. Um we will do a future episode of them. Anyway, so one of the things she'd stated was that after they'd introduced the full decriminalisation of sex work, that Auckland had a two between 200 and 400% increase in street prostitution, which is massive. This is like one of the arguments for the Nordic model is that D-crime will increase demand um rather than decrease it as what they think the Nordic model will do. And the the actual study that she is quoting was by the Prostitution Law Committee, which she cited several times throughout the study that she did, um had actually said that there was around 360 before the bill came into place, and there was actually only 230 in 2007, two years later. So there was actually a decrease in the amount of street sex workers over that time. Um the reason why he put in a complaint about her is that quite a lot of this study was just like a big massive criticism of um of the Prostitution Law Committee study. So she just went into really in-depth, like pulled up every lots of their points that they had made in the study and criticised them in great detail. So to him, she had like a really good understanding of this study, and she'd clearly read it in order to do this, and yet the information that she then presented about it was false. So to him, he thinks she's intentionally misleading people with um or papers that she's putting out, and this is what's quoted in the government consultation, which is great. God so it's interesting. Yeah. But part of her thing is that so the questionnaires that she had given out to people um she used to diagnose them with PTSD, which is where this um like prostitution's the same as torture kind of line came from. Right. Um apparently when she had gone over to conduct the study, had asked like none of the governing bodies in that country, which is like the kind of bare minimum you're supposed to do when you go in and conduct research in other countries, you know, the ethical thing to do. So, yeah, that's quite an interesting read. I'm not gonna go in about it too much, but I just thought it was quite relevant that even within the first paragraph of this consultation, like all the people that are being used are kind of discredited in some way by their colleagues and other professionals. So yeah, it feels like they've kind of had to grasp it straws while digging up some evidence to back up their claims, which I mean as makes total sense to me because it's just yeah.

Speaker 00: 18:06

I mean the the whole prostitution's like torture, you get like the same effect. Yeah, it's just like no this is what I mean, where it's like okay, cool. Like I would love if any sex workers who agree with this want to come forward.

Speaker 01: 18:31

I think where this gets complicated is that this woman has clearly been um interviewing people who are doing survival sex work, and what comes along with that is poverty, is trauma, is like um a lack of choice. Yeah. Which, like, I'm not denying that in any sense, like, there needs to be more done about that, but this like blanketing everybody to like quote unquote save these people that really just need like support in other areas of their life in order for them to make choices for their life, like it makes sense that there is like PTSD potentially, or what I don't even want to say that because it's just feels like nonsense, but that there is trauma there for these people because of the way that they're living, do you know? And that that is heartbreaking, and that is something that there definitely needs to be something done about, but this is no the way to go, this is no the answer.

Speaker 00: 19:34

No, it's like my experience. I love sex work, absolutely. Um, prostitution, great, love it. I love being an escort and everything like that. Um Tussie Stuck. Yeah, I love being an escort, it's great. I've done this for like seven years now. So I mean, with the trade you get a feel with who a certain client is and your alerts are always on.

Speaker 01: 20:13

Thankfully, I've never been in a situation where I have to that I'm doing survival sex work where I have no choice for it, or not necessarily I'm in danger, but like you're vulnerable, I feel, when you're in that position because you don't have the ability to make choices in the same way.

Speaker 00: 20:38

Absolutely. I'd say you are a hundred percent more vulnerable to a lot of lot of things.

Speaker 01: 20:44

Yeah. Like but again, that's not a job-based issue. That's just how these people that's that person and their full situation. Like, their job is just one aspect of that.

Speaker 00: 20:55

Like Absolutely, it's what whatever way you look at it, it always comes down to poverty. Yeah. And totally like when when I was growing up, I thought what's the word? I did I did college and all that shit, I got my grades and whatnot, but I didn't like minimum wage because it's so low, and especially these days, it's like how is it livable? Like, if you have a kid, you need at least 30 grand spare a year or something, especially when they're newborn because diapers are regarded expensive. So what was my point? My point was um that the minimum wage is way too low still, even in 2024.

Speaker 01: 21:49

It's not the living wage, no, no, and it boggles my mind that those two things like we accept that it's not the living wage and it still exists anyway.

Speaker 00: 21:59

Yeah, it's like with me and the situation I've put myself in, like financially, I would not be able to fucking live on that at all. Like my bills alone are like 60 grand a year. So it's just like how how on earth are people meant to actually get a good living? Like when um I think it was when we went bitches and we were sitting down for breakfast, and I was like, I don't know how people survive under 50 grand a year, and it's like I I I don't like good on them because I I I wouldn't be able to do it. I mean that's the majority of people, yeah, which is scary. Which it's it's not nice to think about, yeah. Because especially me who went through like a child custody case, and because I make over a certain amount, which over 14 grand, I think it is, you have to pay for your own solicitor, lawyer, all that stuff. And it's like a solicitor, lawyer, they're like at least 150 an hour, at least, yeah. And it's like, how is somebody on the minimum wage meant to afford that? Uh-huh. Like, even if you're just a grand over 14, that you're making. Maybe 14. I think it's 14 grand.

Speaker 01: 23:27

Because that's really low. Is it will it be 26 maybe? Like 14 over the let me see.

Speaker 00: 23:37

But yeah, I don't know how people live under 50 grand a year, especially when it comes to like emergency circumstances. If thankfully, here in the UK, we have DNHS, so we don't have to pay for services. But if we go private, we have to pay. Um, if you're over 25 and you need dental work, you have to pay. Um, the vets and stuff, like if you have an animal, like an emergency bill like that, it's it's it's crippling to some people. It's so so easy.

Speaker 01: 24:08

People just go into debt.

Speaker 00: 24:09

I was about to say it's so easy to get into debt. It's like, oh, credit card.

Speaker 01: 24:13

Yeah, nice. People have to get creative with their in 2014. The Scottish Government and Cosla, um, who I believe are like the governing body of like therapists and psychologists and stuff, like counsellors, right, issued a joint statement, a joint policy statement called Equally Safe, which says that prone prostitution is violence against women. And yet, in the 10 years since, there has been no attempt by the government to align the laws around prostitution to this policy.

Speaker 00: 24:49

Um there definitely needs to be better laws around prostitution. And I I I I just feel like it just all comes down to poverty. So that that is the main underlying issue.

Speaker 01: 25:08

Basically, I had seen a thing where she was talking about that at the same time as that change was made to um to say that prostitution was seen as violence towards women and girls by the government, um, was also the time they were talking about banning fireworks or at least putting more regulations on. That bill went through and there was changes made to who was able to buy fireworks.

Speaker 00: 25:37

But where where where's this? Sorry, is it in Scotland.

Speaker 01: 25:40

In Scotland, okay. Um but prostitution has kind of fell by the wayside because the SNP are working with the Greens party or trying to create like a coalition, like they they work quite closely with them, and Greens are obviously all for the decriminalisation. It's why this has kind of been put to the site because it's not something that they're going to see eye to eye on, and because they are currently trying to work together um or have been in the past, it's something that um has kind of been put a pin has been put in it and it's been put off to the site. Yeah. Which the woman who wrote the consultation actually left the SNP. Um she's not said because of this, but it's kind of rumoured that that was part part of the reason why. Yeah. Um that she wasn't happy about that, and she also wasn't happy about like the reform, the gender reform bill.

Speaker 00: 26:39

Who exactly is this?

Speaker 01: 26:41

So what was our reason?

Speaker 00: 26:45

Ash Reagan. Okay, so this is the person who has put this consultation together.

Speaker 01: 26:52

Yeah. Um, who's now part of the ALBA party.

Speaker 00: 26:59

Yeah, no, I like the Greens. I think that that they're the only party who actually want to decriminalize it and have actually Damon Lived Dem as well. Demon Lived Dem. I prefer the Greens over the Lived. Um and it's it's nice, it's really nice to see um parties actually saying they want to make a difference in a good way, I want to say.

Speaker 01: 27:25

Because they're actually listening to the advice of like actual sex workers? Actual like worldwide organizations that are doing the research that show that it just causes more harm than it solves. Like this is where um it gets really frustrating because this whole thing is talking about like the exploitation, the violence towards women, but when if the Nordic model comes into place, what happens is for those that that aren't aware of the Nordic model, it's basically criminalising people who buy sex. So it means that um if a client comes to an escort, it's gonna be so much harder to like vet them because why would they want to give their ID over when there's a chance that they could be arrested? Like it's just driving a lot of things that um are currently have processes in place for checking and keeping people safe, like all of that is gonna be so much harder.

Speaker 00: 28:27

Yeah, like me, for instance, I don't really scream my clients that much because um yeah, like I screen my clients just a little bit, not not like major, I don't ask for like ID or anything like that because if they kill you, they kill you in my fucking eyes. Like that that's the worst of the worst that can happen. Um you can like go to the police if anything happens, but again, it's a toss-up if the police would actually do anything. There is a lot of corruption and problems and stigma attached, which causes more issues than the thing itself, really. Then it should, yeah. There are a lot of clients that don't want to hand over their information because it's their information, they don't want you to know their real name, and they don't know if you could blackmail them. That there is a lot of not cons, but there are a lot of things where they might not want to do it for whatever reason. So I I understand from a client's point of view where they wouldn't want to give more information over.

Speaker 01: 29:46

If that's true just now, what would it be like if they face criminal charges on top of that? Oh, I don't see them. Like, it's just gonna draw even like the places that you would meet people or the way that you would actually get contact. Contact from people in the first place, like all of that would change. It's not to say it would stop, it would just change and it would become less safe because it would be through less regulated and it would be so underground. Yeah. It would just drive everything underground more.

Speaker 00: 30:15

And it's just we as sex workers get taken advantage of in general, with like how many how much fees we need to pay for advertising and how much like rent costs housing in terms of like if the landlord knows what you're using it for or if it's like a dungeon and things. Because there there are it can be pricey, it really can be. Forget about um sex workers like me who aren't survival, but when it comes to actual survival sex workers who are the people that this bill's aimed to protect the most, right? It's gonna just It doesn't make any sense because you're putting them more in more at harm. So like, okay, are you gonna bring this bill in and give the survival sex workers like a pot of money basically to like give out to help poverty and things like I like see what they're trying to do works, which is no gonna, but see it does, and it drives down the demand.

Speaker 01: 31:41

Um, because this is also called the end demand bill, it's been known by quite a few names, they keep changing it when people work out what it is, which is interesting. But so the aim of this is that if they criminalise um the buyers, that the demand for them will go down because they'll they'll put more people off, quote unquote, um, and they'll stop there being as many people that actually want to buy sex or sexual services, sorry. Um but that's not what even say that did happen, it's not, but say it did. Where is it leaving all these vulnerable people that have turned to this again for money because they don't have any other options? Like what's gonna happen to them?

Speaker 00: 32:30

Exactly.

Speaker 01: 32:31

It's so it just doesn't make any sense, like they're just gonna put them in even more vulnerable positions, yeah. And realistically, like it's not gonna happen. Like the places where they have tried this, the demand for sex like sexual services hasn't gone down.

Speaker 00: 32:48

No, no.

Speaker 01: 32:50

So the thing that it's trying to do is just nonsense anyway.

Speaker 00: 32:55

Absolutely, it's like I would you call it a metaphor? Um, I'm not quite sure. In the way of like it's like saying to your kid, Oh, you can't do this. It's like, oh I don't want to fucking do it ten times more.

Speaker 01: 33:14

Look at like the prohibition in America. I feel like this is what I always go back to, like when they were like, right, nobody's allowed to drink anymore, drinking's illegal, and it just made like there just ended up being like an ab like a black market, like crime went up, like it just caused so many more problems because it just makes the thing less regulated and makes people do things and take more risks to actually do the thing they were doing before rather than stop doing the thing, like it just doesn't even work like that.

Speaker 00: 33:45

Yeah, like yeah, it it's it's ridiculous that they think that this is going to work when they haven't tried to do sex work, they haven't actually realized what the consequences would be. Because the survival sex workers, what what are they gonna go into? Are they gonna go into drugs then into like selling them? Um are they gonna move around the UK and just forever be homeless or something? What what's gonna happen to their kid? Are they gonna now get their kid taken off them? It's affecting more than one person, yeah, totally. Absolutely. And it's like the people who have pimps that are survival sex workers, do you like do you not think of the consequences that could actually happen with them?

Speaker 01: 34:43

Yeah, you should be fighting poverty and exploitation, and exploitation that should be where the focus lies. And I find it funny that even like reading this consultation and the kind of the foreword to it, that is the big hitters, that's the thing that they keep referring back to all the way through. And it's like there's so much time and money and energy being spent on speaking about prostitution rather than these issues. Absolutely, like and again, it's just aimed at women, yeah, yeah, totally as well. Yeah, it's just aimed at women, and I feel like yeah, it's frustrating, it's frustrating.

Speaker 00: 35:24

Absolutely, like sex work for me, I love it. I would not be doing any other job. Um, me, I I guess a good example was like when I did professional cookery, I did that in college, and then I went to apply for a job as a chef, and they were really sexist, and they were just like, Oh, because you're a woman, it would be better if you were like bar staff and whatnot. And I was like, Okay, so I can be discriminated, yeah, and sex work because it's just it's a job at the end of the day, yeah, and it's a job with other people. So you there, my own experience kind of debunks the whole you won't have this sort of experience, yeah, totally.

Speaker 01: 36:21

Like, that is just an experience that you have as a woman everywhere, like it's not like just because it happens in sex work, also, like that's not like a sex work issue, that's like like a gender issue.

Speaker 00: 36:34

Yeah, absolutely. It's yeah, you could go as far as to be like teach the men while they're in schools how to actually teach women. You could go as far as that, yeah. Um, because we were on about the the whole way that sex ed was split up in school and things like that. So like a lot needs to change, which it's it shouldn't just be down to oh, it's the women, it's the woman's fault of going into this, and so we're gonna stop them from earning as much money as well.

Speaker 01: 37:10

We're just gonna make it harder for them in order to save them, yeah. Because that makes sense, yeah.

Speaker 00: 37:16

Like, I I can't speak for survival sex workers because I've never really been put in that position.

Speaker 01: 37:23

I've always depended on sex work for like payment, but I've never been That's different though, that's like a job, you know what I mean? It's not like you're in a position where you are like having a eye, you're not being forced into that position. That's a choice that you've made.

Speaker 00: 37:42

Yeah, like it's really hard to discuss survival sex work because it is sad and it is very brutal, and the fact that this uh what what is it meant to be? The paper, the building is meant to be helping those people when it doesn't, it really doesn't. Like I would love for Scotland and the UK to just have brothels in the way of managing sex work because they they have them in Germany, and that seems okay. They do read them every so often because they've um believe that there are traffickers in there and things like that, and they do have people standing outside and saying no, no, all that stuff, like protesters and stuff, yes. But I think that would help because then survival sex workers would it would just be for survival sex workers, they would just they would have a place to safely do it, and they would have condoms lube wipes, and there would be free um checks, free health checks, and it's one of those things which I really really hope happens, but I've I've not seen it be proposed or it being proposed in a way of like this consultation where it's saying it's helping survival sex workers, and it's just like why why don't you come up with that? Like we have certain places, we have one in, I think we discussed one in Dundee and one in Glasgow where people can use needles safely.

Speaker 01: 39:39

So why can't we have why can't we take the lessons learned from the decriminalisation of drugs and take them? If if we're looking from just like a harm reduction point of view for people like who are doing survival street work, uh sex work, sorry, like that I don't understand why we can't draw parallels between the two.

Speaker 00: 40:03

Absolutely. I I I think it also just comes down to the whole it's still taboo, it's still shameful.

Speaker 01: 40:08

More so than drugs though, more so than heroin? Like I don't understand like I feel like they're very different issues and they're separate, and I think like I'm not saying that the two should be treated the same, but just in terms of like harm reduction as a concept.

Speaker 00: 40:26

Yeah, but could you imagine that if there was a consultation built around just females doing drugs?

Speaker 01: 40:34

Uh-huh. Like Yeah, it just hits a bit wrong, it does.

Speaker 00: 40:38

Yeah, like putting it in that context, like because that's the exact way that they're doing it. And you're not getting paid to do drugs. I don't believe.

Speaker 01: 40:50

No. You're paying to do drugs.

Speaker 00: 40:54

I don't believe there's that sort of network. I'm just trying to think. Um I mean you get paid to do no, you do get paid to do drugs by scientists and uh trials and things like that.

Speaker 01: 41:07

Not here.

Speaker 00: 41:08

No?

Speaker 01: 41:09

I wouldn't have thought so here. Um I I don't want to say no. I just know like you don't get paid for like giving blood or like anything like that. Like all of that's illegal here. So I would imagine that that would come under the same thing, but I don't know.

Speaker 02: 41:25

Oh.

Speaker 01: 41:26

Because I feel like that's like an American thing, because you get paid for blood, you get paid for sperm, you get paid to be in research trials.

Speaker 00: 41:34

Ugh, the UK is so backwards with everything.

Speaker 01: 41:37

And it's I mean, I think that one's fair.

Speaker 00: 41:40

With like not getting paid to like spare than that.

Speaker 01: 41:44

Why? Because you're only supposed to give blood like every so often, and like people do it till they're ill to make money. True. People can be exploited for that. Oh, that's a good point. Which is now relevant to be fair, because aye. People can be exploited for everything, and that's the bad bit.

Speaker 00: 42:06

It just proves that.

Speaker 01: 42:07

Yeah.

Speaker 00: 42:10

Yeah. But what was my point? We went on the AGHD sidetrack there.

Speaker 01: 42:19

So as another quote, so prostitution in and of itself is an abuse of a woman's body. So how do you make abuse safe for its victims? Do we still today treat the injuries of a domestically abused woman and then send her back to her abuser? We do not. We campaigned for and adopted laws that recognise domestic abuse as violence against women. Today we punish the perpetrator, we support victims to leave their abuser and we help them to heal from their trauma. So this is I have mixed views on this because one, domestic abuse does not need to just be violence against women, it can be violence against anyone of any gender. It's gender-based violence, which I think is the like more like the better term for it than domestic abuse. I feel like there's a lot of connotations attached to that. We have definitely come far from like that time. Did you ever see the clip of the boy on the Jeremy Kyle show talking about his girlfriend locking him on the balcony laughed at that? And I'm having to climb, like having to jump out the window or something like that to actually get down, and everyone laughed. Like I think about that on the wreck. Like we have come a long way since then, I I feel. Um I feel like this is just another like campaign you're trying to like tug on people's heartstrings. Like, why is this relevant? Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 00: 43:41

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 01: 43:42

Like, in that situation, like who's the abuser? Like, what's the parallel they're trying to draw here?

Speaker 00: 43:52

I think maybe they're trying to say pimps. I'm not sure.

Speaker 01: 43:56

Which is fair. Make that illegal. I mean, that is illegal already. Do you know what I mean? That's no like who they're targeting with this, they're targeting the people that pay for that service, pay for any service. Yeah, the the this is the whole frickin' I wanna do that's no abuse, that's like a job. Yeah, like aye, I don't I feel like even in situations where there is a pimp where people are being exploited, like a lot of the time the women are seeing that money, they're not being paid for their title. Like that's that's the problem, yeah. Or if they are, like they're not in a situation where they're free to just exist, like out with but like that's choices being made for them. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 00: 44:46

My point uh going back that I remembered was yeah, I w I wish there were brothels that were that had security and things like that. Yes, it would um it comes with its own set of problems, yeah. It would lower the amount of clients, but at least the survival sex workers would be in a safe environment. Yeah. There might be some I would suspect that wouldn't want to use it, but the place is there. Yeah.

Speaker 01: 45:14

In in case they do opening options up for people. Absolutely. While hopefully there's something else put in place to tackle the poverty, to tackle the drug abuse, to tackle like um what was the other thing we said?

Speaker 00: 45:30

Minimum wage. Ah, people just exploitation, exploitation that was stuff. Yeah. But again, that is all down to the government that we have. And right now that is labour. Um, so we shall see because what we can only do so much people on the ground. It's all down to the government and what they say, basically.

Speaker 01: 46:02

So the next part is it's past time for a loan prostitution to be similarly updated to reflect our recognition of this as a violent exploitative system that promotes degrading views about women. In the countries that have adopted the Nordic model, a challenge and demand approach, women are safer, men's demand for prostitution is reduced, and the market for trafficking for sexual exploitation has shrunk. Harmful gender stereotypes as well as inequality between the sexes are changing for the better. This is achieved by shifting the criminal responsibility from the seller to the buyer, offering exit alternatives in public education campaigns. Who are we educating? What? So this is kind of going back to what we're talking about. Is it frustrating that it's again men's demand for prostitution? Like, I don't understand why all of this has to be so gendered.

Speaker 00: 47:02

Yeah, yeah. Like I've seen non-binaries, I've seen trans, I've seen couples and just females.

Speaker 01: 47:09

And it's like it's not like a men and women's issue. Yeah. Like it and it's frustrating that they've made it into that.

Speaker 00: 47:17

Absolutely. Um again, it could all just come down to treat men how to make uh how to be better around women. Go with that. If you think men are the problem, that you have to put sanctions in place for them not to be able to see prostitutes, female prostitutes, actually teach them how to treat a woman right. If if that if that's what they're thinking the problem is, because a lot of this is just that gender-based violence again.

Speaker 01: 47:55

Like that's where a lot of these statistics are coming from, rather than it being like an issue of like escorting, it's just an issue of like men and women being alone together in the workplace.

Speaker 00: 48:06

Yeah, yeah, which is where it's like, why doesn't it say that men are a danger?

Speaker 01: 48:13

Yeah, and this is the thing as well, like obviously we've just said that this this bill is putting everyone in gendered language, and then we are speaking about gendered things, but like the problem is bigger than just that, like the statistics that they're talking about are gendered, which is why we're discussing it in a gendered way. But the next part is literally talking about harmful gender stereotypes and shifting the inequality between the sexes, and I find it so frustrating because for me, like what this boils down to is people seeing sex as degraded, yeah, and people like seeing sex as dirty and as shameful and as wrong, and like that is like a gender stereotype thing, like that's like oh being penetrated makes you like worthless, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 00: 49:01

It's the whole um oh, if men had sex with hundreds of women, then he's a player, yeah. Whereas if a woman had sex for free w or actually getting paid, it doesn't make a fucking difference these days, does it? This still a whole, yeah.

Speaker 01: 49:17

Like that, like this bill is actually like um further like defending these outdated stereotypes rather than like being a part of the change that they're claiming to be.

Speaker 00: 49:31

Like I don't it's like when a woman wears a short skirt, it's like oh she's a tart.

Speaker 01: 49:35

Yeah.

Speaker 00: 49:36

Like, why are you dressing like a hookah? It's all of those things like combined, and it's just like, can we start thinking about that, please?

Speaker 01: 49:45

Like sex work is not what is promoting degrading views about women, yeah. Like I want to feel good about myself when I wear like a mini dress or yeah, like you should be able to wear whatever you want and be free from harassment, but that's just no the case, and that is where the issue lies. Yeah, like sex work is no the root of misogyny. No, like I I wouldn't even argue that it's a product of it. I feel like it being demonised is a product of misogyny. Like, I feel like the reason why people take an issue with it, like is coming from like what we've just been said, where like being penetrated is bad, like having sex with all these people is like bad, like it just comes and it must be that they're being exploited because nobody would choose that, you know.

Speaker 00: 50:35

Like it just oh, it's like um when somebody has a STD or SDI and people are like, oh they're daddy, yeah. And it's like fuck off, like they've just had hopefully they've just had some fun or whatnot. Um yeah, and it's just like that they're not like it goes also back to like HIV and things where people just didn't even uh want to touch them, yeah. AIDS and they they just they didn't want to be around them, they wore masks and things, and it's like can we not? Like, can we get out of the whole being a dick phase, please? Yeah, is very much still traditional, which not traditional, but like it's it's carried on.

Speaker 01: 51:26

I think at the end of this when they're talking about offering exit alternatives and public education campaigns, that's good if it has the correct information in it. Like, I think people should always be given an option to exit sex work or any job, you know. Like if anybody's in a job and they're not happy, a million percent there should be options for people, you know. Like nobody deserves to be trapped in doing something that they're not enjoying, but there are loads of people that do it that enjoy it, yeah. Like, and like that's okay, that's allowed, and that like they these people shouldn't they be getting blanketed in with all the people that aren't don't have a choice and don't have an option, and like fix that, don't just like tar everybody with the same brush and put everybody in a more dangerous situation, like it's just not that answer.

Speaker 00: 52:16

I think as well if you want to go into education and be like, oh, you could do this job for minimum wage, and it's just like I'm sorry, but like you can't go from say like 20 quid a blowy, and that blowy could that the blow job could last for like 20 minutes. So a pound an hour, that's not bad. Still 20 20 quid at the end of the day. Why would they then go to like a minimum wage job?

Speaker 01: 52:47

I I don't like that's not like to say that's the only option though for people.

Speaker 00: 52:53

No, no, but like I I'm thinking like of the worst of the worst of uh what could possibly happen in the ways of like minimum wage every day on minimum wage too. And then um a survival sex worker saying, Oh no, I'd rather go back to sex work because it pays more.

Speaker 01: 53:13

Yeah, but this is the poverty issue again. This is like you know, this this is where there needs to be bigger systematic changes that help everybody in poverty, not not just like people because there's loads of people that are working jobs that are working multiple jobs, working well over the legal limit every day just to pay the bills. Like, this is a problem that goes beyond just this one job that people focus on so much, like there needs to be changes made, and this is no the way to go about it. This is distracting for the issue at hand. Yes, like and it's just wasted energy, in my opinion, and it makes me a bit sad because there's better things to be focusing on that will help more people, including survival sex workers. Cool, I think it was just kind of rounding off um what she's written. So she's put um my proposal for a bill seeks to adopt an Nordic model in Scotland, it will challenge men's demands for prostitution by criminalising the buy-in of sex, protect those who sell sex by decriminalising them, which is the case at the moment anyway, um, and recognise them as victims of exploitation by giving them the legal right to support, which everybody has anyway, as far as I know, if they're making under the amount that we couldn't find. Um my hope is that in the not too distant future, when this trade in humans is finally consigned to history, people will look back and be horrified that we let the sex trade flourish in the way that it has for as long as it has. I want to flourish. So, going back to Horse Eye View, which is a show we went to a couple of weeks ago by Caitlin Bailey in the French. Um, this is the oldest profession. This job has existed since the beginning of t humanity. You know what it's been about for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. Like it's just frustrating that this is called a trade in humans. Like, it's it's grim to me that that is how this woman sees sex work, that that person is buying that other person when that is not the case, they are providing a service for an allotted amount of time. Yeah, like once that time is up, that's it, done. Like it's not fuck out, it's no different to like any other job where it works like that, where you like meet with somebody, you discuss what you are gonna do or what uh what service you're gonna provide, you set a price, you get paid that price, you do the thing, you leave and go home. Absolutely for the for the majority of people, at least doing sex work rather than survival sex work. Um like people aren't trading them their trolls themselves, like that's not that's not what's going on.

Speaker 00: 56:10

It is for an allotted amount of time, and yeah, that person could absolutely overstay. I've had clients who fucking stand there talking for like an extra like 20 minutes and I'm like, I want to get me tea. But who doesn't have that at work?

Speaker 01: 56:25

Exactly, it's the same when you're trying to leave, and like your boss wants to hold you back for an extra five minutes, like yeah, or even they want you to do overtime for free.

Speaker 00: 56:36

Yeah, so it's just like there is a lot of comparison, you're still in a quote unquote normal job, you're still confined to the same, like you still run into the same missions. You're you're still selling your body and stuff because like you're tired, you're using everything up to make it into work.

Speaker 01: 57:04

Yeah, like if you start pulling that string, like what job isn't you selling your body and you like for an allotted amount of time? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 00: 57:11

Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 01: 57:12

You're not allowed to leave, like you have some can't have breaks. Yeah, like you have been set a thing that you have to do for a certain amount of time that you have to do, like Yeah.

Speaker 00: 57:23

It all comes down to poverty, yeah. Some a detriment to your well-being and your body and yeah, like if I didn't have sex work, if that just was absolutely outlawed, banned, or just didn't exist, then I wouldn't have what I have today, and oh gosh, I don't know what I would do.

Speaker 01: 57:45

And maybe no builds up for anything.

Speaker 00: 57:48

Oh, I'm okay. Like you are it is a service that you're providing. Like, I provide a DOM service, I provide an escort service, I provide like a mixed service, it's all services. You're not gonna get a piece of like my personal life or anything like that. It's a service, it's a facade, it's a mask, it's a fucking good mask. It's like a little play that goes on basically, which is why I love it. You get to be somebody who like you aren't in like personal life or whatnot, and it's fun. I I like it. I understand for survival sex workers it might not be fun.

Speaker 01: 58:40

I feel like I I don't mean we shouldn't be talking about them, that is not what I mean, but that feels like such a separate issue, yeah.

Speaker 00: 58:47

Like I've only got my um your own experiences, and they're so different, but this will still affect me, even if like even though I've got like I guess you could call it the bright side of sex work, not being a survival sex worker, it still will affect me in so many ways. But it really, really needs to focus on survival sex workers rather than the whole umbrella of just female prostitution, which is where it's so so wrong where they're just shaming women basically. This has been a fun episode, it's been very, very annoying for me because it just doesn't highlight the actual problems that we have.

Speaker 01: 59:44

Instead, it goes, Ah it's just shock value, and there's nothing to back up what they're actually saying. Absolutely. Like we've not gone through absolutely everything, and I've realized we have just spoken about the four words. There is another fifty odd pages. Of consultation where they define and go into like all the terminology used and what the bill um is actually planning on setting out, which if anybody's interested, we'll put a link to on or all my links if anybody wants to go and have a look. At the very very bottom um is the actual questionnaire for the consultation, which I'm gonna attempt to cut out and also put on all my links if anybody wants to fill it in and send it back and just put their views across, whatever that may be. Um obviously everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but you hopefully should know ours by then. So I feel like we both feel pretty strongly on this. Um yeah. If you want more information and more kind of like correct facts and studies that have been done, um DCrim Now and ECP, so Echo Charlie Papa, um both have pages on their website about the Nordic model and go into a lot of the studies that have been done both in countries that have the Nordic model and how that's kind of changed the landscape of sex work over the time that it's been there, but also into um countries that have brought the full decriminalisation in, um which obviously both the organisations support as well as us, um, and a bit about how that has changed the landscape of sex work over the course of that being being in there. Definitely worth a read if you're interested. I feel that we'll probably cover that in a future episode as well. But we'll leave a wee gap so we're not going too politically. Um I hope it's at least been informative for you guys and not just been us ranting. But I think we were needing, we were needing a rant because it's just it's oh it's it's ridiculous. I'm almost at a loss for words with how just like yeah, it's just frustrating, it's very frustrating.

Speaker 00: 1:02:03

It is, it is when people just blanket the truth about what's happening and they think oh we can outlaw this, and it's like no, no, you're you're ignoring the actual problem.

Speaker 01: 1:02:15

I just I I hate it when people use a vulnerable group to like not guilt people into supporting them, but you know what I mean? They use stories and they they kind of twist what's going on to like get people riled up about a problem when like the th the thing they're suggesting is gonna make things harder for these people, like all these stories, all these statistics that they're like putting out all these women or people just in general, but in this case women because that's the angle they're gone for. Yeah. Um like it's actually gonna harm all these people if this goes ahead. Like it's just like it's so icky, like it's just icky and wrong to me. Like I just yeah, I kind of stomach it.

Speaker 00: 1:03:03

I just they need actual sex workers to come into this, allow us to come into this, and survival sex workers absolutely are a must to actually have their say, like sit around for a while.

Speaker 01: 1:03:18

Go and speak to them and find out what is what is gonna help them because there's no chance in hell that they're gonna turn round and be like, oh yeah, criminalise all our clients. That'll help. That'll help. That means that any place that I go, there's gonna be police potentially sitting outside waiting for clients to show up because that's happening, they can arrest them and great, that's gonna make my life easier.

Speaker 00: 1:03:42

That's gonna no like I want to build a dungeon in the future um for sex workers to use and things like that, and I don't want that to be just looming over them, just a fucking trap, basically.

Speaker 01: 1:04:00

I want people to feel safe, yeah, but no. Cool. So, as I was saying, we'll put everything up on all my links. Um, if you want to put your opinion across, you've got till the 12th of September is when the consultation closes. So yeah, yeah, we shall see what happens, we shall see what happens, but yeah, no to the Nordic model in Scotland. Right. I'm so disappointed in Norway. They're so good, and so much of their other social policies.

Speaker 00: 1:04:32

Like, it's just didn't you yeah, you said you wanted to move.

Speaker 01: 1:04:36

Yeah, yeah, I was learning Norwegian, like that that was like that was in my five-year plan, and now it is not. I may it's not. I can't I can't do it. I just I don't understand.

Speaker 00: 1:04:47

So sad, but it is, it is this has been Behind the Paddle podcast. Yeah, you can find us on Instagram, Twitter, uh, Spotify. If you want to support us, you are more than welcome to. We would really, really appreciate that. That really gives us a boost in keeping this going. Yeah, totally. We do have a dark fans where if anybody does want lovely and humiliating, then just contact us. What else is there?

Speaker 01: 1:05:22

Uh as always, we've got a little discount code for you guys on thesanctuaryofsin.com. If you use behind the paddle uh as the code at the checkout, you'll get a 10% discount.

Speaker 00: 1:05:33

Yeah. There is the Uncensored Market, yeah, which has um in December.

Speaker 01: 1:05:40

So the market's in December. Um we've got our launch event on the 22nd of September. Um, the tickets are up now if anybody is wanting to come along and just find out a wee bit more about the market and network with other people in the industry. Yeah. You're more than welcome to come along, check us out.

Speaker 00: 1:06:00

Yeah, and I think that is it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 01: 1:06:03

Thanks so much for listening, guys. Hopefully, you've learned something.

Speaker 00: 1:06:06

Yeah. Scotland is a bit depressing when it comes to sex work. But yeah, thank you very much.

unknown: 1:06:13

Bye.

Speaker 00: 1:06:14

Bye.