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 ESSAY
Old Profession, New Toleration
The state of prostitution, and the harm it causes
ROGER SCRUTON
As part of hosting the World Cup, the German government is preparing to ship in prostitutes for the use of the spectators, building special huts around the stadium, and — it seems — not asking too many questions about who obtains the women, by what method, and from where. This is one small but significant instance of a shift in attitude that has recently occurred in Europe. The oldest profession, which has survived for millennia without the benefit of public approval, is now officially endorsed — not merely legalized, but welcomed into the fold of the “inclusive society.” It is even politically incorrect to use the term “prostitute”: People on the left prefer “sex worker,” implying that the hint of disapproval contained in the old name is a mark of discrimination that has no place in a postmodern society. Proposals to introduce trade-union rights and pension funds for these newly discovered “workers” have been debated in France and Germany, and the implication — that the state should tax their earnings — is accepted as entirely unproblematic. Visitors to Amsterdam have long been familiar with the market in female flesh that surrounds the Old Church. This church, the oldest in Amsterdam, is a symbol of Calvinist piety and famous for its music. On their way to the lesser business of worship, the choirboys now pass a window display of nudes, performing like sluggish snakes in their heated cages of glass. And, although the Dutch themselves have awoken, somewhat late, to the consequences of a demoralized public culture, the rest of Europe is intent on following their example, and sanitizing this last dark corner where the puritan conscience reigns.
Official toleration is, in this matter as in so many others, the work of people largely protected from its consequences. Our legislators do not live in the areas of cities where prostitution is flagrant; they do not have to deal, in their daily lives, with the network of pimps and racketeers who live from the earnings of their female slaves; they do not have to fear for their daughters, now that the trade can be constantly resupplied from those places in the European hinterland where crime and cruelty are the norm. At the same time, so horrendous are the facts that the liberal conscience has an added reason for ignoring them. It is never pleasant, after all, to deal with the real consequences of human freedom. Prostitution in London, which was once a local industry among “fallen” women, supporting another local industry of philanthropists intent on rescuing them, is now largely run by illegal immigrants from the Balkans. These people do not conform to the standards adopted by the liberal conscience. The girls whom they bring with them are captured or purchased when too young to resist. Attempts to escape are severely punished by beating or torture, and communication with the outside world is expressly forbidden. Only in one particular do these girls conform to the ideal of the “sex worker” as now defined: Their earnings are taxed. That is to say, the pimp takes the lot, handing back what is required, as Marx would put it, “to reproduce their labor power.” If ever there were a case of exploitation, this is it.
It is still a crime in English law to “live off immoral earnings,” though it is anyone’s guess how long this provision will remain, now that the word “immoral,” used in the vicinity of sex, is regarded as anachronistic. In any case, it is hard to punish this crime and harder still to prevent it. Witnesses are reluctant to come forward to accuse those members of the Albanian mafia who dominate the London scene; the girls themselves — often monoglot captives from the mountain villages — risk death should they make contact with the police. The customers are happy with a deal that offers youthful flesh at rock-bottom prices. And attempts to deport illegal immigrants are now more or less futile, with “human rights” lawyers specializing in offering Her Majesty’s protection to Her Majesty’s enemies. The idea that a modern Gladstone could walk the streets of Soho in order to rescue the victims of this trade is laughable. Even supposing there were such a person, able to survive the public mockery of his beliefs, he would not last long in a world where assassination is the normal way with intruders.
THE UPRIGHT AND THE FALLEN
Many factors have contributed to our current demoralization. Perhaps the most important is that to which I have already referred: the refusal to believe that there are “immoral earnings.” In a culture in which girls are encouraged to be as promiscuous as boys, it is hard to insist on an absolute distinction between the upright and the fallen woman. Sexual liberation has made disapproval into a private matter, to be expressly kept out of the public domain. And women themselves have every reason to sympathize with the prostitute. Many of them, encouraged along the path of liberation, discover that sex really does have a cost. The men come and go, leaving heartbreak and insecurity in their wake. And if sex has a cost, why not insist on compensation? A woman who gives herself begins to look like a fool, when she gives herself for nothing. Why not sell herself instead? At least she will stand a chance of a fair and honest deal.
The prostitute used to be seen as the enemy of respectable women. She threatened the bargaining power of her sex, by offering cheaply what others were trying to offer at the highest possible price, namely marriage. She was immoral not because she satisfied the masculine urge to sow wild oats, but because she compromised the status of women, as companions who could not be purchased for an hour, but only for a lifetime. Sexual liberation has rubbed out that clear perception of the matter. Even if many people still feel that there is something sordid in reducing sex to a financial transaction, the difference between prostitution and marriage, in a world of prenuptial contracts and no-fault divorce, is, in the eyes of many people, no more than a difference of degree. Prostitution no longer looks like a threat to the moral order: At worst it is a threat to the woman, who puts herself at the mercy of strangers while at the same time removing any motive they might have to respect her.
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