After Bible Study one night I told my friend Kate about the Red Light Prayer, and the next time we met she showed me some literature she found on human trafficking. Poverty is the cause of trafficking, one pamphlet concluded. People who have no hope of economic advancement are particularly vulnerable to criminal gangs. As the brochure is produced by a socialist worker’s organisation, they go on to say the solution to the problem is a redistribution of wealth. I showed Kate that passage in the leaflet, and she laughed.
“Okay; no mention of education and awareness, never mind prayer!” she said, taking the literature from me. Kate is a teacher, so to her mind, any discussion that omits the role of schooling is not worth pursuing.
“They have a point,” I argued, trying to get the brochure back from her. “If your primary concern is not survival, spurious sounding job offers from shady characters won’t seem so tempting.”
She made a disapproving face at me. “If not having money is the source of the problem, how do you explain the traffickers? They have plenty of funds, from their victims and the people they sell them to! Why don’t they stop when they get enough money?”
“Because maybe they don’t know any other way to make money…” I let my voice trail off, while Kate gave me a knowing smile.
“Education,” she practically sang. “Let people know about the world, about opportunities, and more importantly, about God!”
“You’re the one who had the pamphlet,” I said defensively, my cheeks burning. I caught myself clenching my jaw, and tried to relax my face.
“Their literature has valuable statistics,” Kate explained. “You don’t have to agree with their conclusions, but yes, poor people are easier to lure into exploitation.”
“I don’t understand the traffickers. I can’t see how people can treat other people so badly!”
Kate flipped through her stack of brochures. “Maybe they don’t see it as wrong.” Anticipating my outrage, she showed me a picture of a poster campaign in Southeast Asia. A little girl was smiling up at her daddy, who was holding her hand. Printed above her head was My father does not go to prostitutes. My heart melted – how could anyone not be moved by that image?!
“So they’re not saying my father does not traffic people, but they are targeting the attitudes in society that exploit people,” Kate said. “In some societies, paying someone for sex is perfectly acceptable!”
“Isn’t it in ours?” I asked. Kate raised an eyebrow at me, but looked thoughtful. “Okay, maybe out and out prostitution is not, but what about lap-dancing and strip clubs? Remember what Tommy told us?”
Tommy is a high-flying accountant in our congregation. At one of the Bible Studies, he asked for prayers of strength and perseverance, as he had a very difficult colleague to deal with. A colleague who thought after-hours gentlemen’s clubs were good places to have meetings with clients.
“I didn’t think there were men who would pay a lot of money to not touch a girl,” Kate said. “I’d do it for free!”
I sighed. “According to Tommy, there are. Accountants and businessmen!” I playfully slapped Kate’s shoulder. “Maybe you should let them know you’re offering your no-touching services for free.”
She smirked. “I don’t think they’d want to see me writhe,” she said. “I certainly couldn’t fit into a slinky outfit, what little of it there is.” She gestured to her ample features, which she tends to cover up in cardigans and shapeless trousers.
Her referring to a sexy outfit made me picture the scene: some poor girl clad in very tacky (and skimpy) clothes, having to grind up against some leering customer. Worst of all, the woman would have to pretend to like it. She’d have to pretend there was nothing wrong with taking money for simulating sex, that it was all part of a day’s work.
“Do you really think that’s it?” I asked Kate. “That lap-dancing really does stop at no contact?”
Kate winced. “Tommy says everything’s available for a price.”
I felt a jab of pain in my face, and realised the mere thought of lap-dancing descending into prostitution was making me clench my jaw again. I rubbed my jaw. “Kate,” I began, “would you ever pay for sex?” The shocked face she made answered my question. “I don’t get it either, but obviously there are people out there who would.”
She considered this. “Instant gratification,” she said. “I want my pleasure now, and can’t be bothered to go through a relationship or considering someone else’s needs.”
I kept a hand to my throbbing jaw. “So you’re not doing an act with someone…the prostitute is not a person, just a means to an end. You’re a person, but she’s not.”
“You really should see a dentist about that jaw of yours,” Kate said.
I groaned. “I did. He said I have to stop clenching my jaw.” I opened my mouth slowly, stretching the joint. “Maybe that poster doesn’t go far enough,” I said, referring to the campaign is southeast Asia. “Maybe it should be my daddy knows the prostitute is someone’s daughter!”
Kate nodded. “I hear some celebrities are getting into the act,” she told me, listing off some well-known Hollywood hunks. “They appear in campaigns with the message Real men don’t buy women.”
“Do you think that’s effective?” I asked Kate, thinking of how many times some of those actors played someone who patronised the sex industry in the films.
She shrugged. “One can only hope,” she said. “I wish they’d get some rappers to make statements like that!” As a teacher, she always complains about the music her students are listening to. Rap music with misogynistic lyrics is a particular bugbear of Kate’s. “Hey, you’re in the PR business…how about getting rappers involved in an anti-prostitution campaign? Or at least get them to stop calling women bitches and whores…”
I started thinking about how Jesus lifted women up when he was on earth. He lived in a society that could be seen as chauvinistic by today’s standards, but he did not shy away or keep the Word from women. He openly spoke with them, praised them – even saved one from stoning. In Middle Eastern society, it’s the prostitutes who are the “bad” ones, not their clients – and these were the people Jesus reached out to, defended, and forgave.
“You know,” I said to Kate, “we need to make these anti-trafficking posters with Christian messages!” She gave me a look that said that’s obvious!, so I tumbled on. “I mean like, Jesus forgave me and says go and sin no more. How about you?”
Kate nodded slowly. “Like, Jesus doesn’t see me as dirty – neither should you!”
Just then, Tommy came in, and sat with us. He’s a middle-aged man, full of biblical wisdom and practical professional ideas. He’s one of the more respected elders of our church, and only through this Bible Study had I learned not to be intimidated by him. He asked Kate and me what we were talking about, and we told him. In light of his difficult colleague who wanted to have meetings in strip clubs, we figured he would like hearing about campaigns to stop the sex industry. “Reminding men that a woman is a person, not just an object, is great,” he said. “When I had clients from the Middle East, they used to talk badly about prostitutes, but still went to them. But I think a poster reminding them that the “dirty whore” is someone’s daughter would just make them think the prostitute is dishonouring her father.” I was disheartened. So what message would get through to them?
Kate, as usual, wouldn’t be discouraged. “Did you know that in Scandinavian countries it’s illegal to buy sex, but not sell it? So it’s not the prostitute who’s the criminal, it’s the John! If they had laws like that all over the place, no one would think a woman was dishonouring her father.”
Tommy frowned, unconvinced. He was thinking out the picture, as he always reminded people to do. “What is the point of legalising only one side?” he asked. “That wouldn’t work in other scenarios. Do you think it makes sense to penalise the drug taker, who’s probably addicted, and not the drug kingpin who is supplying the stuff and profiting from the misery of others? Why not keep it all illegal!”
“I don’t think a prostitute is the same as a drug kingpin,” Kate said quietly. “Prostitutes very rarely see any gain from their activity – it’s usually the pimps and brothels who get the money.”
“OK, so what they’re doing in Scandinavia is trying to ensure a more fair distribution of wealth from prostitution?” Tommy countered with a sceptical lift of his eyebrows.
“It’s changing the way society looks at prostitutes,” Kate clarified. Tommy shook his head.
“In places where prostitution is legal, it’s still a shameful business,” he argued. “I saw a documentary on the red light district in Amsterdam, where things being legal provides more protection to the prostitutes, but the prostitutes were still using assumed names and not appearing on camera, as their families didn’t know how they make their money. I don’t think any kid says “I want to be a prostitute when I grow up!”
“That’s what bothered me at the end of Pretty Woman,” I admitted. “Yes, man rescues woman from a life of prostitution, but what happens in ten years’ time, when their child wants to know how mummy and daddy met?”
Tommy sighed. “I get where you’re going with this. You want to say it’s not OK, and that the prostitute is also a child of God. But does criminalising only one side do that? Doesn’t that make prostitution more like aiding and abetting instead of a full crime?”
I was dejected by the flaws Tommy was pointing out, but I still thought it was good to get a male perspective on this. “Well, what do you think we should do?” I asked Tommy.
“Get men to see that using someone is not power,” he said quietly. “Make them see that it is exploiting someone, that prostitutes do care what happens to their bodies. Make them realise that when you can buy someone, that doesn’t make you strong or virile. Paying women to do things for you degrades you as well as them!”
“It’s like a talk we had on bullying at school a while ago,” Kate said. “The facilitator had us consider why the bully was doing it. Only people who feel small and worthless themselves have to make other people feel bad. Once some of the students understood that bullying was a big flag that someone felt inadequate, the bullies lost their power. People felt pity, not fear for them.”
Tommy smiled. “So if we make people who use prostitutes look weak, that will stop them?” he asked. “I’d like to think so.”
I studied Tommy for a moment. He sounded so depressed. “Are you still having troubles with your colleague?” I asked him. He laughed bitterly.
“I tried to get him to see things differently. He told me you can’t outlaw sex.”
“Prostitution isn’t sex!” I said, louder than I wanted to. People looked up from their conversations and over at us. Again, I felt a twinge in my jaw as my cheeks burned. I cleared my throat, and continued, quieter this time. “I mean, yes, technically it is, but it’s like the difference between having sex and making love…you know, the talk grown-ups used to give us when we were teenagers. Going to a prostitute is not a conquest…those women will go with anyone who has money!”
Kate tried it out. “Going to prostitutes does not make you special.”
“When you have to pay for a woman, you’re not a man,” Tommy intoned. I rubbed my jaw, nodding.