Censorship.

Allegedly the English Collective of Prostitutes are being censored. You could’ve fooled me, every time prostitution gets even the most vague mention in the media an ECP rep is there pushing their agenda.

Question - how is the ECP funded?

Question - how is their leadership elected?

Question - what percentage, if any, of their membership are or have been in prostitution?

Question - how do the ECP decide on their political agenda and group policies - is it after consultation with actual prostitute women or is it a policy decided thirty years ago by non prostitutes and stuck to mercilessly without further discussion?

I think it is both negligent and naive on the behalf of the government, socialist organisations, the media, and whoever else, that this group are presented as representative of prostitutes views and needs, when not even the most basic information about the ECP is known. Noone is asking for members names - but if the group is to be believed and trusted then they should need to do more than simply name themselves the spokespeople for prostitutes in England.

As for censorship - the Socialist Unity blog censored my comments and questions regarding their position on prostitution and the ECP, after they themselves had put a post up claiming that the activists who organised the International Women’s Day demonstration in London had censored a Trade Union speaker who was allegedly there to represent “sex workers”. So there you have it folks, Trade Union reps should be allowed to talk for women in prostitution, it is just a job after all! but those of us with some experience of it who dont consider it a job and name it as abuse and exploitation had best shut the fuck up.

The Oldest Liberation Movement at EVAW

Finn Mackay introduces the Feminist Coalition Against Prostitution.

Also see Mind The Gap for information regarding a Welsh branch of FCAP.

Misogyny and male violence against women is endemic but the truth must remain hidden

also at EVAW. Jennifer Drew questions the silence around femicide in the UK.

Ignoring forced marriage doesn’t make it go away at Rhetorically Speaking

Straw sacrifices prostitution law to ban strikes by prison staff at Incurable Hippie

IH also asks for support protesting the opening of a Hooters in Sheffield while Cruella-blogger Kate asks for support protesting the application from a London pub hoping to introduce strip shows.

Also at Cruella-blog, an argument in favour of the Swedish model and a hat tip for leading me to this interview of Roger Matthews, a criminology Professor and expert on prostitution, by Julie Bindel

Debs at the Burning Times suggests a national conference for Radical Feminists. Debs updates frequently and I find it hard to choose any single article to recommend, so here are a few more: an article on Rape Crisis, and a defence of women only spaces Part 1 and Part 2 inspired by this post by Michelle at Lonergirl, and here’s another response from RMott.

Another post by RMott to recommend, I am confused.

Maia writes on Contraception, sex education and abortion

Why Im a Feminist by Mwezzi at Me and My Army

Nectarine writes about meeting women from Swanseas Older Feminist Network.

Nectarine has also set up a new blog which I will contributing to, Crazy Like Us?, a feminist look at mental health in the UK. Please visit, comment, and contribute your stories and news.

Scotland Looks To Success Of Swedish Model at Sparklematrix. Sparklematrix also covered the story of Colin Norris, the male nurse who serial murdered the elderly women in his care - another clear example of femicide that went mostly unnamed.

Anji explains why Support of Pornography and Prostitution is not Feminist

Over at the F-Word, news of a campaign for feminist author Sheila Rowbotham to keep her job at the University of Manchester, who seriously need to untwist their budget priorities.

And finally - a reminder to support and subscribe to UK feminist magazine Subtext.

Guardian article here

A 16-year-old girl in Cornwall was repeatedly called a “slapper” because she had a large bust; she eventually had a breast reduction in the hope that the bullying would stop. A 14-year-old girl in Essex endured months of being called a “slag” and a “skank” and contemplated suicide; one day about 30 teenagers set on her, pulling her top down and exposing her breasts. She was beaten up so badly she was in hospital for three days. A 16-year-old schoolboy was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, and another was charged for filming the attack and distributing the pictures on his mobile phone.

…

Sarah, 17, was bullied by a group of boys as soon as she started secondary school. “I was called names like ’slut’ and ‘whore’ - those were terms most boys used against girls,” she says. “I was shy and I wore clothes that covered me up, and a group of boys would always ask me to take off my jumper, open up my shirt a bit, or tell me I should be wearing skirts so they could see my legs. A group of boys would grab me in corridors - it was embarrassing and I felt disgusting, but I couldn’t do anything back. I just froze until they left. There were other girls they would touch too.”

More to say about this later.

 Behind this car in traffic today, thought i’d take a shot so I could AAAAAAARGH here amongst good company.

Then before this idiot had even got out of view, there was this bus. You can see the other caron the right of this shot.

Believe it or not, there was actually ANOTHER bus with a similar ad on the back of it, but I wasn’t fast enough to get a photo of that one. It was a picture of a youngish blonde woman, from the waist up, naked and covering her nipples with her hands. I didnt catch what she was advertising, presumably the same sort of thing.

It’s like there is no escape. My kid looks at these pictures and I think, how do I explain this to her? How do I tell her some people will never see her as anything but flesh to be bought and used?

PS Im late making a note of it but dont forget to check out the Carnival Against Sexual Violence 31 at Abyss To Hope.

Anthony Barron, rapist of female children, has been given a life sentence after being found guilty of a total of 89 offences, including rape and attempted rape, of at least ten girls, who were as young as 3. He made video and photographs of some of these assaults.

The mother of a four-year-old who was one of his victims said: “He came across as really nice, genuine, charming. A really nice person, is the only way to put it.

“[He appeared] caring and interested in how the children were doing, in some ways my welfare as well, after my husband and I separated.”

We are accustomed to hearing how children are ‘groomed’ by sexual predators, but it is rarely discussed how adults are also ‘groomed’.  Grooming is the emotional manipulation of minors for sexual purpose. But men who rape children very often have to gain the trust of adult parents before they are able to access our children, and to do this they apply the same manipulation tactics. Not coincidentally these same tactics are very often used by men who rape adult women, in fact these tactics are condoned as authentic seduction methods when used on adult women.  Seduction is the emotional manipulation of another person for sexual purpose.  A mans success with this manipulation marks him as a ‘proper’ man, a real ‘ladykiller’. Adult women in a vulnerable emotional state, after a break up for example, are seen as ‘fair game’ and desirable targets for male manipulation/seduction.

Robert Greene’s book, The Art Of Seduction, contains the following chapers (quotes are from the website):

Choose The Right Victim

“Study your prey thoroughly.. The right victims are those for whom you can fill a void.. They are often isolated or unhappy, or can be easily made so.”

Create a False Sense Of Security - Approach Indirectly

“If you are too direct too early on, you risk stirring up a resistance.. Haunt at the periphary of your target’s life - approach through a third party.. Lull the target into feeling secure, then strike.”

Create a Need - Stir Anxiety & Discontent

“Tension and disharmony must be instilled in your target’s minds. Stir within them feelings of discontent.. The feelings of inadequacy that you create will give you space to insinuate yourself.. Pain and anxiety are the proper precursors to pleasure. “

Use the Demonic Power of Words to Sow Confusion

“The trick to making them listen is to say what they want to hear, to fill their ears with whatever is pleasant to them. This is the essence of seductive language.”

Isolate the Victim

“An isolated person is weak.. Give them the sense of being marginalized.. Lure the seduced into your lair where nothing is familiar.”

Take a look round the huge number of mens dating and seduction guides and you’ll see the same language over and over, the language of warfare and hunting. Male sexuality is overwhelmingly defined in popular culture as predatory. How can we as women trust any men when we know this, who can we trust when over and over men we thought were nice, genuine, and charming, are exposed as rapists and child molesters?

Christine Barron, the ex wife of the above child rapist, said:

I’m finding it terribly difficult to equate it with the man I knew. He loved children and children loved him. He wasn’t that kind of man as far as I knew. My family are shocked, I’m shocked.

Everybody thought they could trust him. He could be so charming, but obviously there was more to it than that.