The internet is making the buying and selling of sex easier and safer. Governments should stop trying to ban it
STREET-WALKERS; kerb-crawlers; phone booths plastered with
pictures of breasts and buttocks: the sheer seediness of prostitution
is just one reason governments have long sought to outlaw it, or corral
it in licensed brothels or “tolerance zones”. NIMBYs make common
cause with puritans, who think that women selling sex are sinners,
and do-gooders, who think they are victims.
The reality is more nuanced. Some prostitutes do indeed
suffer from trafficking, exploitation or violence; their abusers
ought to end up in jail for their crimes. But for many, both male
and female, sex work is just that: work.
This newspaper has never found it plausible that all prostitutes
are victims. That fiction is becoming harder to sustain as
much of the buying and selling of sex moves online. Personal
websites mean prostitutes can market themselves and build
their brands. Review sites bring trustworthy customer feedback
to the commercial-sex trade for the first time. The shift
makes it look more and more like a normal service industry.
It can also be analysed like one. We have dissected data on
prices, services and personal characteristics from one big international
site that hosts 190,000 profiles of female prostitutes
(see pages 17-20). The results show that gentlemen really do
prefer blondes, who charge 11% more than brunettes. The
scrawny look beloved of fashion magazines is more marketable
than flab—but less so than a healthy weight. Prostitutes
themselves behave like freelancers in other labour markets.
They arrange tours and take bookings online, like gigging musicians.
They choose which services to offer, and whether to
specialise. They temp, go part-time and fit their work around
child care. There is even a graduate premium that is close to
that in the wider economy.
The invisible hand-job
Moralisers will lament the shift online because it will cause
the sex trade to grow strongly. Buyers and sellers will find it easier
to meet and make deals. New suppliers will enter a trade
that is becoming safer and less tawdry. New customers will
find their way to prostitutes, since they can more easily find exactly
the services they desire and confirm their quality. Pimps
and madams should shudder, too. The internet will undermine
their market-making power.
But everyone else should cheer. Sex arranged online and
sold from an apartment or hotel room is less bothersome for
third parties than are brothels or red-light districts. Above all,
the web will do more to make prostitution safer than any law
has ever done. Pimps are less likely to be abusive if prostitutes
have an alternative route to market. Specialist sites will enable
buyers and sellers to assess risks more accurately. Apps and
sites are springing up that will let them confirm each other’s
identities and swap verified results from sexual-health tests.
Schemes such as Britain’s Ugly Mugs allow prostitutes to circulate
online details of clients to avoid.
Governments should seize the moment to rethink their
policies. Prohibition, whether partial or total, has been a predictable
dud. It has singularly failed to stamp out the sex trade.
Although prostitution is illegal everywhere in America except
Nevada, old figures put its value at $14 billion annually nationwide;
surely an underestimate. More recent calculations in
Britain, where prostitution is legal but pimping and brothels
are not, suggest that including it would boost GDP figures by at
least £5.3 billion ($8.9 billion). And prohibition has ugly results.
Violence against prostitutes goes unpunished because victims
who live on society’s margins are unlikely to seek justice, or to
get it. The problem of sex tourism plagues countries, like the
Netherlands and Germany, where the legal part of the industry
is both tightly circumscribed and highly visible.
The failure of prohibition is pushing governments across
the rich world to try a new tack: criminalising the purchase of
sex instead of its sale. Sweden was first, in 1999, followed by
Norway, Iceland and France; Canada is rewriting its laws along
similar lines. The European Parliament wants the “Swedish
model” to be adopted right across the EU. Campaigners in
America are calling for the same approach.
Sex sells, and always will
This new consensus is misguided, as a matter of both principle
and practice. Banning the purchase of sex is as illiberal as banning
its sale. Criminalisation of clients perpetuates the idea of
all prostitutes as victims forced into the trade. Some certainly
are—by violent partners, people-traffickers or drug addiction.
But there are already harsh laws against assault and trafficking.
Addicts need treatment, not a jail sentence for their clients.
Sweden’s avowed aim is to wipe out prostitution by eliminating
demand. But the sex trade will always exist—and the
new approach has done nothing to cut the harms associated
with it. Street prostitution declined after the law was introduced
but soon increased again. Prostitutes’ understandable
desire not to see clients arrested means they strike deals faster
and do less risk assessment. Canada’s planned laws would
make not only the purchase of sex illegal, but its advertisement,
too. That will slow down the development of review
sites and identity- and health-verification apps.
The prospect of being pressed to mend their ways makes
prostitutes less willing to seek care from health or social services.
Men who risk arrest will not tell the police about women
they fear were coerced into prostitution. When Rhode Island
unintentionally decriminalised indoor prostitution
between 2003 and 2009 the state saw a steep decline in reported
rapes and cases of gonorrhoea.
Prostitution is moving online whether governments like it
or not. If they try to get in the way of the shift they will do
harm. Indeed, the unrealistic goal of ending the sex trade distracts
the authorities from the genuine horrors of modern-day
slavery (which many activists conflate with illegal immigration
for the aim of selling sex) and child prostitution (better described
as money changing hands to facilitate the rape of a
child). Governments should focus on deterring and punishing
such crimes—and leave consenting adults who wish to buy
and sell sex to do so safely and privately online.
STREET-WALKERS; kerb-crawlers; phone booths plastered with
pictures of breasts and buttocks: the sheer seediness of prostitution
is just one reason governments have long sought to outlaw it, or corral
it in licensed brothels or “tolerance zones”. NIMBYs make common
cause with puritans, who think that women selling sex are sinners,
and do-gooders, who think they are victims.
The reality is more nuanced. Some prostitutes do indeed
suffer from trafficking, exploitation or violence; their abusers
ought to end up in jail for their crimes. But for many, both male
and female, sex work is just that: work.
This newspaper has never found it plausible that all prostitutes
are victims. That fiction is becoming harder to sustain as
much of the buying and selling of sex moves online. Personal
websites mean prostitutes can market themselves and build
their brands. Review sites bring trustworthy customer feedback
to the commercial-sex trade for the first time. The shift
makes it look more and more like a normal service industry.
It can also be analysed like one. We have dissected data on
prices, services and personal characteristics from one big international
site that hosts 190,000 profiles of female prostitutes
(see pages 17-20). The results show that gentlemen really do
prefer blondes, who charge 11% more than brunettes. The
scrawny look beloved of fashion magazines is more marketable
than flab—but less so than a healthy weight. Prostitutes
themselves behave like freelancers in other labour markets.
They arrange tours and take bookings online, like gigging musicians.
They choose which services to offer, and whether to
specialise. They temp, go part-time and fit their work around
child care. There is even a graduate premium that is close to
that in the wider economy.
The invisible hand-job
Moralisers will lament the shift online because it will cause
the sex trade to grow strongly. Buyers and sellers will find it easier
to meet and make deals. New suppliers will enter a trade
that is becoming safer and less tawdry. New customers will
find their way to prostitutes, since they can more easily find exactly
the services they desire and confirm their quality. Pimps
and madams should shudder, too. The internet will undermine
their market-making power.
But everyone else should cheer. Sex arranged online and
sold from an apartment or hotel room is less bothersome for
third parties than are brothels or red-light districts. Above all,
the web will do more to make prostitution safer than any law
has ever done. Pimps are less likely to be abusive if prostitutes
have an alternative route to market. Specialist sites will enable
buyers and sellers to assess risks more accurately. Apps and
sites are springing up that will let them confirm each other’s
identities and swap verified results from sexual-health tests.
Schemes such as Britain’s Ugly Mugs allow prostitutes to circulate
online details of clients to avoid.
Governments should seize the moment to rethink their
policies. Prohibition, whether partial or total, has been a predictable
dud. It has singularly failed to stamp out the sex trade.
Although prostitution is illegal everywhere in America except
Nevada, old figures put its value at $14 billion annually nationwide;
surely an underestimate. More recent calculations in
Britain, where prostitution is legal but pimping and brothels
are not, suggest that including it would boost GDP figures by at
least £5.3 billion ($8.9 billion). And prohibition has ugly results.
Violence against prostitutes goes unpunished because victims
who live on society’s margins are unlikely to seek justice, or to
get it. The problem of sex tourism plagues countries, like the
Netherlands and Germany, where the legal part of the industry
is both tightly circumscribed and highly visible.
The failure of prohibition is pushing governments across
the rich world to try a new tack: criminalising the purchase of
sex instead of its sale. Sweden was first, in 1999, followed by
Norway, Iceland and France; Canada is rewriting its laws along
similar lines. The European Parliament wants the “Swedish
model” to be adopted right across the EU. Campaigners in
America are calling for the same approach.
Sex sells, and always will
This new consensus is misguided, as a matter of both principle
and practice. Banning the purchase of sex is as illiberal as banning
its sale. Criminalisation of clients perpetuates the idea of
all prostitutes as victims forced into the trade. Some certainly
are—by violent partners, people-traffickers or drug addiction.
But there are already harsh laws against assault and trafficking.
Addicts need treatment, not a jail sentence for their clients.
Sweden’s avowed aim is to wipe out prostitution by eliminating
demand. But the sex trade will always exist—and the
new approach has done nothing to cut the harms associated
with it. Street prostitution declined after the law was introduced
but soon increased again. Prostitutes’ understandable
desire not to see clients arrested means they strike deals faster
and do less risk assessment. Canada’s planned laws would
make not only the purchase of sex illegal, but its advertisement,
too. That will slow down the development of review
sites and identity- and health-verification apps.
The prospect of being pressed to mend their ways makes
prostitutes less willing to seek care from health or social services.
Men who risk arrest will not tell the police about women
they fear were coerced into prostitution. When Rhode Island
unintentionally decriminalised indoor prostitution
between 2003 and 2009 the state saw a steep decline in reported
rapes and cases of gonorrhoea.
Prostitution is moving online whether governments like it
or not. If they try to get in the way of the shift they will do
harm. Indeed, the unrealistic goal of ending the sex trade distracts
the authorities from the genuine horrors of modern-day
slavery (which many activists conflate with illegal immigration
for the aim of selling sex) and child prostitution (better described
as money changing hands to facilitate the rape of a
child). Governments should focus on deterring and punishing
such crimes—and leave consenting adults who wish to buy
and sell sex to do so safely and privately online.
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