This week has been replete with horrible news stories about our attitudes to sexual violence. First there was Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on whose claims to innocence I will not presume to cast judgement, but whose arrest has sparked a bout of French self-reflection about the tacit acceptance of sexually predatory behaviour in powerful men. Then there were Ken Clarke’s idiotically ill-advised comments about rape and the return of the ever-horrifying MP Nadine Dorries, with her gobsmacking claim that teaching kids about abstinence will minimise child sexual abuse (why how right you are Nadine. If children had taken the ‘sorry but I’m celibate’ approach it would have really helped with all those dodgy priests from your beloved Catholic Church). Add to these the furore about Slutwalk and you have a veritable bonfire of discourse to throw yourself into. And yes, I have linked to the Daily Mail. I am an equal opportunity linker. Even permanently outraged bigots get a say on these pages.
I’m still marshalling my thoughts about what all this conversation about rape and the culture of sexual violence/coercion suggests. In the meantime, though, The Opinionist is enormously pleased to present you with today’s guest blog, a bold and thought-provoking take on the issue by author and barrister Amber Marks and artist Caroline Coon.
With as many as 75 women a week being punished for offences of prostitution, we shouldn’t be surprised that the rape conviction rate has fallen to its lowest ever (7.5% of reported rapes). The use of the word ‘whore’ for moral condemnation creates a fatal link between rape and prostitution. Many men when accused of rape will rely on the ‘whore-like’ behaviour of their victims to bolster their courtroom defence. Most rapists are able to convince prosecutors, judges and juries that the immorally ‘whore-like’ women dragging them to court are liars who readily consented to sex.
What is ‘whore-like’ behaviour? In law a prostitute is a woman willing ‘to engage in acts of lewdness with all and sundry’. The police and courts determine this willingness by looking at how available a woman makes herself to men, how ‘well behaved’ she is, her ‘attractiveness’ and how she is dressed.
Prostitute fashion reigns from plebeian street to posh drawing room. As a result, prostitute words like ‘whore’ ‘slag’ ‘slapper’ and ‘tart’ are publicly pinned on modern girls and women more frequently than ever before. The downside of sexual liberation is that it gives violent sexual abusers ample opportunity to plead in court that women who complain about rape are lying whores. Paradoxically the social justice of equality with men has exposed women to the injustice of sexual violence by stripping women of a defence to sex crime in court. The hard won right to birth control, to be out of the home, to work, to enjoy public leisure, to drink, to look ‘sexy’, makes modern women easy targets for those who claim that women are ‘asking for it’.
By freeing ourselves to revel in male company and enjoy adult sexuality women are exposed to the certainty of being branded ‘whores’. Being sexually active like whores gives men permission to rape modern women, since men are rarely convicted of raping women who are willing to ‘engage in acts of lewdness with all and sundry’. The opposite of a permissive prostitute is the chaste nun. While covering up our bodies helps in the courtroom it is useless for women to imagine that being as sober and veiled as a nun is a way to avoid sexual violence. Men fantasise about and do rape nuns.
No, the solution is to continue to revel in sexual freedom ‘like whores’ while posing this question: Why is it considered moral, ethical and justifiable to pillory, humiliate, denigrate, hate, imprison, rape and even to kill prostitutes? Every time we call a woman a prostitute-name as a means of disapproval or moralistic character assassination we collude with the sexist culture of denying women freedom from sexual violence. Sexist name-calling gives men permission to rape with impunity. Next time the ‘whore’ in court could be you.
The only way out of the sexual liberation paradox is to elevate the status of whores. Only when we refuse everyone permission to denigrate, insult, criminalise and imprison prostitutes, will we refuse men the permission to rape sexually liberated sex-enjoying whore-like women that most of us are. Only by respecting prostitutes will all women who want sex be respected. Only when the law recognises prostitution as a respectable profession will all sexually liberated women be respected in court and only then will more rapists be convicted.
Is it safe to legalise prostitution? With 50-plus new laws in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 children and adults have never been better protected from potential dangers and side-effects of prostitution. We have laws to protect us from violence, assault, threats, murder, rape, sexual abuse, grooming, kidnapping, theft, robbery, abduction, exploitation, coercion, trafficking, smuggling, immigration, fraud, tax evasion, public order, nuisance, noise and litter.
So long as adults obey these laws and so long as they trade according to standard business codes why should they be prosecuted for selling sex? The European Court of Human Rights requires that ‘the law should not intrude on consensual sexual behaviour between those over the age of consent without good cause.’ Isn’t it time to agree that ‘moral condemnation cannot in itself be regarded as sufficient ground for making consensual adult behaviour a criminal offence’ and repeal all the legislation that prevents consenting adults from buying and selling sex?
If adult women who consent to sell sex continue to be stigmatised as ‘immoral’ in law and punished then the legally unprotected and punished status of whores is perpetuated and exposes any woman whose reputation can be impugned as ‘whore-like’ to the sexual violence of rapists.
Respecting prostitutes, and all whores, is the only way that all women will be respected. Only when adults are free to work in a lawful, respected sexual service trade and free to use sex trade services within the law will we be able to protect all women from sexual violence.
This is an edited extract. You can read the full text of the pamphlet, including examples of how ‘whore-like behaviour’ has been used in individual rape cases, here.