The Pimping of Prostitution review by Josh

Note: Couldn’t finish this one, review based on the first few chapters.

Politics makes strange bedfellows and nowhere is that more true in the convergence of views among between ‘radical feminists,’ and far right conservatives on sex work.

The Pimping of Prostitution attempts to make the case for “abolitionism” or the idea that governments should work to eliminate sex work. She contrasts this view with what she calls the Scandinavian model, in which sex work is legal and regulated and prositutes and afforded the same protections and benefits as other workers.

Bindel sees herself as part of a battle against a powerful and shady cabal run by powerful pimps. She acknolwedges that may be some misguided prostitutes out. there who support these arguments, but she also seeks to umask members of the sex worker movement who claim be former sex workers but who she believes don’t qualify. For example she describes a conference where one of the women speaking on behalf of legalization claimed to be former sex worker, but Bindel had it on good authority that she had only been a secratary at a brothel for six month. So Bindel proudly called her out at the end of her talk, demanding to know exactly what kind of sex work she’d really done. Most of the journalism in the book is about on a par with this.

Bindel also goes to some length to defend the abolitionist movement against claims that it is a patronizing attempt by white feminists to save downtrowned non-white women. Bindel’s response is to point out the author of article making this claim was a white trans-woman (who, she pointedly notes, was raised as male), and that there are a number of women of color who also support the abolitionism. Ok.

Bindel is inveterate sophist, and never hestiates to interpret the statements, research and intention of her opponents in as uncharitable a light as possible. For example she discusses the murder of a prostitute, which triggered protests by sex workers rights activists who emphasized destigmatizing sex work, and points out that “stigma doesn’t kill prostitutes. Men do.” Bindel is too smart to believe that this is actually a reponse to the point the sex workers were making. They obviously were not denying that (mostly) men kill prostitutes who are (mostly) women, they were pointing out that the illegality and social stigma associated with prostitution are a major cause of these murders and of the frequent failure of police to find and prosecute the perpetrators. Saying that stigma doesn’t kill prostitutes, men do, isn’t a response to that argument - it’s a long winded way of ignoring it. It’s like saying that poverty and persecution don’t commit terrorism, people do. It’s obviously true… but it completely misses the point.

Many of Bindel’s other arguments are of type with those I dropped out grad school to get away from. For example, she dedicates a section to a newspaper article about “a Turkish trans-woman who was murdered by a man posing as a client.” Bindel takes unbridge at the claim that the murderer was “posing as a client” - she claims he probably was a client (which seems plausible enough, though she doesn’t seem to have done any actual research to support the claim). She argues that this is a part of a tactic by pro-legalization advocates to “minimize or deny the violence inherent in sex work.” That seems like a lot to read in to phrasing that is almost certainly literally correct. Even if he had sex with the woman he almost certainly didn’t pay her, so it seems accurate enough to say that he was “posing as a client.” If you shoplift from Walmart and then murder the greeter on your way out can you really call yourself a Walmart customer? It a pretty dumb question and, unless you’re 19 and stoned out of your mind, it’s not a very interesting one.

Dave Chappelle noted that if you feel absolutely sure you’re right about something “you can get drunk off the feeling of how right you are. That’s why gay people are so mean.” Bindel reinforces both of these these stereotypes. She’s in a holy war against pimps and patriarchy and as with most people engaged in holy wars she has many legitimate grievances, but she also comes off as dogmatic, uncompromising an unconcerned with collateral damage.