Naming and Shame

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/06/london-sex-workers-police-website

Didn’t these ladies (sex workers in London) used to promote their activities with stickers in phone boxes?  Now, apparently, they get publicity via a Metropolitan Police website.  Is Dutch liberalism breaking out in London?  I believe we should return to the days of ‘rogues’ under the old Vagrancy Act with respect to the criminal antisocial, if only to drive their activities underground so we don’t have to suffer the nuisance that comes with them.  Solon (the ‘law giver’) was popular in Greece because he legalised brothels.  I have no time for such myself, nor the crack house – but if we must have them why can they not be hidden away in designated areas or the activities done so quietly we don’t notice them (and immediately smashed if we do)?

I don’t want to delve in the private sleaze of others from pompous morality, but the quid pro quo is surely for those who want it not to stick it up my nose.  We certainly need something better than picking on the poor sod end of it all – those likely to be exploited.  Should we make whores feel shame, or smurfing bankers?

4 thoughts on “Naming and Shame”

  2. That appears to be a bit over the top and vindictive by the Met Police. It’s not as if no copper, at any time in history has never used the services of a sex worker, and the same can be said for other professionals, in the judiciary and politics too. Such male hypocrisy is nothing new.

    Just using the name ‘whore’ gives sex workers an instant label of shame. I am quite broad minded and believe that sex workers provide a service that has been used mostly by men, for a very long time. The sex industry needs to be properly regulated, and taken off the streets to protect the vulnerable workers and their clients from real dangers and abuses. Old religious dogma which promotes the persecution of women, [and gays] is outdated in the 21st Century.

    However it’s not I job I would want to do, no matter how skint I was! I’d rather scrub floors!

    Men often use the insult of calling a wife or girlfriend a ‘whore’ to hurt them during rows, which is a bit schizoid. Men appear to want it both ways, a woman who doesn’t answer back, who ‘obeys’ her husband, who keeps the house perfect, who cooks great food and who raises perfect children, who never looks at another man, but is his own private ‘whore’ in the bedroom……and has double standards about his own fidelity, often having sexual encounters outside of his marriage. But if the wife or girlfriend does that, he calls her a ‘whore’.
    I know of a case where paedophiles forced little girls, by means of violent threats against them and their families, to perform indecent sexual acts, and the paedophiles called their child victims ‘whores’. Not nice.

    I’m not sure what twitter and facebook have got to do with this post Julia, because I have never bothered to look on those sites. Unless they are being used to advertise sexual services? I suppose phone box advertisments via cards is just so last century!

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