Zenpuss says……
I’m confused, and so it appears are many others. What precisely is the Sex Industry in the United Kingdom
This question has materialised over the last few weeks with regard to the Lap Dancing Clubs that are opening on the High Streets of small and larger towns across the country. It has also reared its head in relation to the types of job that the packed out Job Centres are allowed to advertise – a point made in Jenni Russell’s article in the Guardian at the beginning of the week.
For me, there is a particular issue about exploitation that will not go away, and also differentiates what I deem to be acceptable and what is abhorrent. I cannot bear to think of the poor young women who feel forced into doing something against their will or their instinct because of poverty or the overriding and abusive influence of another. Nobody could ever condone that sort of practice and every feasible rule of law should be available to support these vulnerable and naïve folk.
Some would also argue that even if they have made this choice for themselves, there is a possibility that they are oblivious to the exploitation that they have stumbled into. They think that titillation is fun, when really it is merely an abuse of the female form, reiterating that it only has one purpose – for the amusement of the greater being, i.e. the male species.
However, it must be a fact that some people actually feel confident about their own body, enjoy their own sexuality and genuinely want to thrill and excite people into feeling good about themselves, and they utterly adore and enjoy being able to demonstrate their sexiness and get a real sense of excitement for themselves in arousing others. And I have to say that these people are extremely fortunate and have an important role to play. Somebody has to be happy to do this. Someone has to choose and enjoy performing for hard core because if they didn’t, hard core wouldn’t disappear. It would simply revert, if that is the case, to the exploitation that is so abhorrent.
Ms. Russell is correct. There is an enormous difference between sitting on a factory or shop floor making or selling dildos and performing ‘extras’ in a massage parlour in the back streets of Soho . She is absolutely correct in saying that if we don’t have the legal terminology to differentiate between these, then we should think about it – “fast”.
But this is only half of the issue.
At the beginning of the article, Jenni Russell also makes a very clear point about the contradictions within government. On the one hand, we have Jackie Smith and Harriet Harman talking about changes to the sex industry that will protect the innocents and at the same time, the Department of Work and Pensions is allowing advertising for jobs in what some would deem to be the same “Sex Industry” albeit in a different form to pimping and prostitution.
Well, yes. Of course there are contradictions. I can think of many more contradictions in government speak when one minister says one thing and another of the same party comes up with a completely different scenario or solution. There is very little that is new in that.
However, this shields a key issue about sex and sexuality in this country.
We’re all confused, or so it seems.
I am sure some readers of this blog, assuming that you are out there, would say they were far from confused. They are fascinated by sex. They love being aroused by hard core porn and are perfectly happy with the ambiguous boundaries regarding the various forms, roles, jobs etcetera within the industry.
Yet in reality, it is one shoddy mess, and there is no guessing for the reason. To me, it is quite apparent.
In this country, we cannot discuss sex sensibly. We cannot have these debates because as a society we are rather prudish and puritanical about this subject, and because of this, we get these hypocritical contradictions.
We loathe obvious sex, yet we window dress our chain stores with clothing for young children that are overtly and horrendously sexual. We hide sex toys in corners of shops to laugh at them , embarrassed at the thought of using them, yet we do use them, and if we don’t we wish we could. We do not condone the girly mags high on the shelves of the local newsagent, yet we are secretly dying to have a peek because that is our instinctual behaviour. Talk about an example of nature versus nurture.
We have a natural predilection to be interested in sex, yet our society tells us that overt sexuality is wrong, shared sexual experiences other than a monogamous relationship is unacceptable, even thinking about sex should be curtailed and hidden.
We brush sex and its successful and profitable industry away, hiding it in a deceitful and derogatory way, confusing its every avenue. We are appalled at prostitution yet legitimise it by using it – well some do!
We are completely and utterly confused, and why? Because the reality of facing our sexuality and being more liberal and thoughtful about sex would confront so many fixed and ingrained ideas of both individual and society, then in reality, it is probably best to just continue with the fudge and turn away because it is too damn scary to consider alternatives and think about sex in a more positive and stimulating way.
Until we have proper, sensible and open discussions about this, there will continue to be confusions, contradictions and hypocritical behaviour, and I do not exempt myself from this. I am as hypocritical as the next person, living a contradiction of being totally in touch with my sexuality and pretending that it doesn’t exist.
I suspect that Jenni Russell and I may have different reasons for wanting clarity. I suspect that Jenni has a fairly standard feminist view of the Sex Industry, though I am making huge assumptions. I share many of her views but I also recognise a real need to be more positive about some aspects of the sex industry that I am not sure some women will ever be able to do.
I return to my points above.
Not all who choose to be sexual within the industry are being exploited. Some are, and something needs to be done about that. But there are many who are simply being incredibly positive and honest about their sexuality and how it can be enjoyed by others.
Turning back to Lap Dancing clubs, the same issues apply. There are some girls who are being treated like utter crap, being exploited into paying for their spot. There are managers of these places who are clearly not adhering to the “no touching” rule that enables them to get their licence, and of course, something has to be done about this. There are people pretending that these are not sexual places. Why? Because the great British public cannot cope with sex being so prominent in theirs or our lives. The end product? More fudging. More confusion. More hiding. This is not good!
Utopia? What would that look like? Would we want to be like the Dutch or the Swedish in being honest and open about sex? Well, I think that is the case. What we cannot have is the status quo. We really need to have these discussions and we need them fast.
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Another interesting article this week that is slightly relative to this was the in the Observer Women’s magazine. It was titled something like “The married women of Britain
I wasn’t in there. Not one of them had anything to do with representing me, and I am fairly convinced that I am not unique.
Yet again, they talked about ambiguous and what I would have found somewhat patronising and futile questions. Not once were they asked about female orgasms or masturbation or what happens when they feel they want to go a step further in the flirting game. They weren’t asked about their ideas on polyamory or indeed the Sex Industry, whether they know about their partners sexual desires. Yet again, noone is facing the real issues. Nobody wants to talk about the real issues of sexuality that are far more interesting, and far more challenging.
When are people going to be ready to talk?
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Angelina is ready. But then again, she has always been ready.
She has always been extremely honest about where she stands sexually, and I would be more than happy to stand precisely where she is, and not because I have a particular interest in her partner. He doesn’t actually do it for me.
According to the headline piece on a magazine I saw today, Angelina has told Brad that she is totally devoted to him but also wants other sexual partners. He, apparently, is devastated about this and cannot understand her desire for others. I suppose if I was fucking Angelina Jolie, I may not want to share her with others but I would like to think that I cared about her enough to want others to experience her seemingly insatiable sexual appetite and experience. More importantly, I hope I would show enough caring to want her to enjoy her sexuality, knowing that she still wanted to fuck me more than fucking other people. Difficult concept, I know but I do think Mr. Pitt should think about this more rationally.
She wants to fuck other people. She wants to make love and fuck him!
He is in a relationship with one of the sexiest women that is known to many and therefore labelled as one of the sexiest women on the planet. I don’t know whether Angelina is the sexiest woman on the planet or whether the goer at 69 Mapletree Gardens
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I have to stop now. These are just some collected thoughts.
It saddens me that we, including I, cannot have this sort of honesty about sexuality. I dream of a day when this country will start to think more rationally and in a more enlightened way about sex and attachment and love and sexuality, about fucking and use of words deemed too naughty to print. Another example was in the newspaper today. There were complaints of an advert showing a woman having an orgasm using a new female-inducing orgasm product from Durex.
I beg to ask the question, were they worried about the offensiveness of hearing a woman doing an impersonation of Meg Ryan at her most famous moment, or were they more appalled by people making assumptions that there was actually a real thing that is known as the female orgasm, and if there was such a thing as a female orgasm, do these creatures really have to scream and bellow like that?
How I want to howl with the overwhelming delight of being brought to that sensational, rising and eternally divine moment of complete unforgiving and abounding orgasm?
And no-one is going to shut me up when I want to scream with the joy of it.
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