And as a reminder, the Consultation on the Criminalisation of the Purchase of Sex (Scotland) closes on 14 December! Get those responses in!

1. From: Another Angry Woman
“Being anti-rape must not involve being anti sex-work”
http://stavvers.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/being-anti-rape-must-not-involve-being-anti-sex-work/

“Glasgow’s upcoming Reclaim The Night march has a slightly baffling message this year. Rather than being simply a march against rape, it also appears to be a march against sex work.

….

Ultimately, the view put forward by Reclaim the Night displays a devastating lack of intersectional thinking. They are not showing solidarity with their sisters in the face of oppressions other than patriarchy. And sex workers need solidarity: their occupational hazards are violence against women. It is not what they are doing that is violence against women, but what they experience.”

2. From: Feminist Ire
“Taking Ideology to the Streets: Sex Work and How to Make Bad Things Worse”
http://feministire.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/taking-ideology-to-the-streets-sex-work-and-how-to-make-bad-things-worse/

“Those whose primary goal is to ‘send a message’ are worlds away from these women on the street. Their prioritisation of ideology over safety speaks volumes about their own motivations. It’s one thing if they simply don’t understand the practical repercussions of passing laws such as this one, although it’s too important an issue to excuse a lack of research – these are people’s lives we’re talking about here. But it’s quite another thing if their ignorance is a conscious decision.

….

Quiz: Your daughter is doing sex work. Please pick the best option from this limited range.

a) Criminalise her clients, increasing her risk of experiencing abuse, violence and exploitation, and likely incurring her to do business with more clients in order to make up for a fall in prices, while disrupting support networks and making it harder for her to leave the sex industry.

b) Ensure she works in an environment in which she is empowered to make her own decisions, to turn down clients and sexual acts as she sees fit, to access help from services, and to be taken seriously as someone who knows what her own essential needs are.

c) It’s too horrible to contemplate. Just don’t think about it.”

The first, in Northern Ireland, is part of the Human Trafficking & Exploitation (Further Provisions & Support for Victims) Bill (link here)presented by Lord Morrow. While CAAN is against all forms of non-consensual behaviour – including trafficking for the purposes of sex slavery – CAAN is firmly of the issue that criminalising the purchase of sex is not the way forward.

The second, in Scotland, is a stand-alone bill (Criminalisation of the Purchase of Sex (Scotland) Bill (2) from Rhoda Grant MSP) that follows in the footsteps of the earlier bill from Trish Godman. (Mentioned on our Prostitution page.)

Both of these bills amount to hate legislation against prostitution, an effort to drive the industry underground in a flurry of fear and disgust brought on by the fact that the acts involve sex. They may be couched in terms of saving the poor and unlucky victims of trafficking, and may have lofty goals of gender equality, but they will do nought but bring further harm to prostitutes in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

How is this different from the last few times that prostitution has been challenged? This time the anti-sex campaigners are riding a rising right-wing tide across the Western world that has led to discussions outlawing prostitution in France and Ireland. Denmark has also seen prostitution under attack, although the Danes in general were sceptical of criminalising prostitution. The current consultations also seem to be marginally better researched, now that more time has passed since Sweden passed their law.

In both of these consultations, numbers matter. CAAN encourages you, as an individual, to put forward your opinion on these new consultations. You may just have the one argument that turns the tide against the sex-negative campaigners. Your voice counts!

The Northern Ireland Consultation closes 5pm on Thursday 18th October 2012.
You can read the consultation in full with all directions of where to send it here.

The Scotland Consultation closes 14 December 2012.
You can read the consultation in full with all directions of where to send it here.

The objections from the competition – other strip clubs – included worry that it would reflect ill upon the good name of their own establishments which were nearby. Are snooker hall clientele so rowdy that they would cause disrepute upon other establishments? Or is this just a shrewd business deal? “No, let’s not have more competition on the market of strip clubs and allow us to have a monopoly on the post-snooker market!”

But in the end, the council decided on the age old “for the sake of the children” argument. If it’s next door to another strip club, you can hardly claim that it would be more damaging to the children!

You can read about the little-reported news item here and here.

Recent actions have exposed what might be described as a pitbull mentality in the ranks of UK law enforcement, that is very much at odds with public perceptions of what is and is not acceptable. The image of the pitbull with egg on its face is somehow rather less absurd than recent CPS actions and the legal arguments offered in the pursuit of those actions.

Things have moved on since Tiger porn and other CPS fiascos. We are now in a realm where the very motivation of prosecution is coming into question. It has been publicly suggested that the prosecution of Simon Walsh was not only vindictive but may also have been a malicious, determined, targeted and (unfortunately) successful attempt at his ruination; his aquittal in this regard is quite meaningless.

This case proves all too painfully that one does not have to be guilty or found guilty to be ruined and that anyone whose private life could be linked to porn (by personal design or otherwise), is a potential target and has good reason to be afraid. The ineptitude of legislators coupled with the flagrant disregard for the individual’s right to privacy and a sustained misrepresentation of “public interest”, courtesy of the CPS, has presented a golden opportunity for anyone with a malicious axe to grind. The prevalence and scope of Internet porn is such that significant numbers of individuals could be harbouring images that have been forgotten or of which they know nothing about; images that if found, could result in prosecution and with it, ruination, regardless of final outcome. One wonders just how easy it has become to remove an “undesirable” individual with nothing more than an anonymous tip-off of the right substance in the appropriate place. The worst case scenario may no longer be conjecture, it could actually be with us now.

Ironically, those most likely to suffer are those who feel they have nothing to hide. Serious collectors of porn (and especially that extremely small minority, the genuinely dangerous) will vet their collections and will employ computer applications that clean their machines leaving no recoverable trace of legally contentious material. They will seek to hide what they can’t bring themselves to destroy and will likely use novel methods to this end; methods that may well escape detection. Meanwhile, that ancient Powerpoint presentation that came from a mate a few years back, happens to contain something that falls within the CPS’s definition of extreme porn. All of a sudden and quite possibly in connection with an entirely unrelated matter, M. Average is suddenly seen as an unemployable sex fiend; even if acquitted.

This is not a time to take a sledge hammer to your computer and meticulously break every CD or DVD you have ever created that might contain something contentious. It is time for all reasonable people to demand the repeal of all laws that criminalise consensual imagery of legal acts and laws which place the burden of proof on the defendant. Juries have demonstrated that they are unimpressed with this legislative idiocy and it’s costing tax payers a veritable mint. And lets not forget the insidious vetting intended to protect the vulnerable, but which can destroy an individual’s career with neither corroborable evidence nor any hearing and most certainly without the scrutiny of a jury.

Regardless of whether you view, like or loath porn, your taxes are paying for this madness and you have every right to be angry.

Embedded within this article are links to articles and other resources, detailing the facts of the above case, such as are known, along with commentary upon the implications of the trial and Mr Walsh’s acquittal.

City faces legal challenge over ‘brothel’ policy (Scotsman 21 July 2012)

THE Capital’s “blind eye” policy towards sex-for-sale saunas is facing a challenge in the courts.

A campaigner has pledged to appeal against every sauna licence granted by the city council.

Mike Anthony claims councillors have been breaking the law for years by approving saunas which are effectively operating as brothels.

Earlier this week, he sought an interim interdict to stop the council granting any more licences. The bid for an immediate block on council approval for the city’s saunas failed, but the civil action will continue through the courts.

Mr Anthony said he would fight individual applications for renewal of the public entertainment licences as they came up.

There are around 15 licensed saunas in the Capital. Mr Anthony has lodged objections to 13 renewal applications which are due to be considered by councillors in the next few months. If the licences are granted, he can appeal against the decision to the sheriff court.

He said: “I’m going to appeal every sauna licence. So long as there are pimps running the saunas, this is just a licence for criminality.”

The one good thing that may come out of this is a discussion about licensing brothels legally. While prostitution is legal, brothels are not. So with no street prostitution and no brothels, prostitutes and their clients face a legal maze. The optimist in me hopes that this will simplify prostitution laws and regulations – for the better. The realist in me says it would be a tough fight to get that.

Please support your local sex worker rights group! Write to Edinburgh City Council and explain that consenting adults should be free to pursue their own sexual adventures and commercial activities!

The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) wants to hear from you! Please take our Consent Counts survey and tell us what you think about consent: www.ncsfreedom.org/survey.html

As part of decriminalizing BDSM in the legal codes, we need to be able to articulate a clear definition of consent that the BDSM communities believe in. The results of this survey will assist in the creation of a statement on consent that will be presented for the consideration by the BDSM communities at LLC in Seattle in 2013.

NCSF needs your input on defining consent. What do we mean by consent? When is consent invalidated? Does “safe, sane, consensual” still work as a community creed? Are there behaviors that the BDSM communities don’t accept? What is your experience with consent in the BDSM communities?

To participate in discussions of consent online with kinky people both in the US and around the world, join our Consent Counts group at https://fetlife.com/groups/46202 NCSF is committed to supporting and encouraging people to discuss ethical consent so we can move to a more thorough understanding of what consent is, and to provide better education for people who are interested in exploring their sexuality.

NCSF has actively participated in changing the social discourse of BDSM since 1997. The term “consenting adults” is a commonly accepted standard for sexuality today due in a large part to our work. NCSF has pledged to continue to lead the change in political discourse until all consenting adults need not fear prosecution or victimization because of their sexual behavior.

From the website:

About

The Festival of the Erotic Arts is the UK’s first showcase dedicated to the multi-disciplinary art forms which make up the Erotic Arts.

The event launches in Edinburgh, Europe’s premier festival city, and features a gallery-based visual art exhibition,  exotic twisted cabaret show,  short film showcase, workshops, erotic ball, talks & readings, an arts and crafts fair and performance art revues.

The event takes place over the weekend of the 22nd to the 24th of June 2012

Our Aims

The Festival seeks to create a nationwide platform to promote and showcase the work and creativity of erotic artists in all forms.

We aim to create a place to view art and performance rarely seen in mainstream galleries or theatre in a unique setting which celebrates the multi-disciplinary nature of the Erotic Arts.

The event is a sleaze-free, sex-positive celebration of a thriving artform.

Help support sex-positive arts in Edinburgh!

It was during Stage 2 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill in 2010 when then-MSP Trish Godman first proposed the law, aping the Swedish law that punishes prostitutes’ clients. This was rejected by the Justice Committee after hundreds wrote in, proving that a topic such a prostitution cannot simply be tacked onto another bill, but considered in its own right. Undeterred, Godman persisted with the offensive “Consultation on the Criminalisation of the Purchase and Sale of Sex” which came complete with its own 100% biased and anti-sex “consultation”.Godman’s second attempt “fell at dissolution”.

At the time, there was concern that “fell at dissolution” would mean that a future attempt to criminalise prostitution would forgo the consultation period, effectively silencing opposition. It turns out that our fears were justified. Godman horrific “consultation” on prostitution, which offered the choice between criminalising and criminalising, was indeed the justification that Grant used in her proposal.

Why consultation is unnecessary
20. In relation to the draft proposal for this Bill, I do not consider that further consultation is required for the following reasons.
21. Trish Godman’s consultation took place little over a year ago, on a very similar proposal. In addition, the Justice Committee gathered a substantial amount of evidence on her closely-related Stage 2 amendments earlier in session 3. I therefore believe that the practical, operational, legal, equality and financial considerations have been explored to a sufficient degree to test, develop and refine my specific proposal and enable me to proceed towards the development of a Bill.
22. On 17th January 2011 I met with stakeholders and representatives from a number of organisations who hold an interest in this area to discuss the bill. I have continued to liaise with organisations on this topic. Views expressed to me so far, as part of my on-going engagement with a number of bodies, the public and others with an interest in this proposal, confirm that the views expressed during the formal consultation process have not changed.
23. I am unaware of any major policy developments or changes in relation to the purchase of sex in Scotland since the consultation period ended. As a result, I consider that any further consultation would duplicate effort already expended on this issue, incur additional and unnecessary costs and be construed by the public as “over consultation” on a process on which views have already been clearly expressed.

How much do you want to bet that SCOT-PEP wasn’t included in the meetings of stakeholders?

This attack on prostitution was planned and thought out to ensure that anti-criminalistion groups appear to be pedantic and a waste of taxpayer money. If anything, this sort of law would have been a waste of taxpayer money, taking away the time of police officers and legal courts from crimes where people and property are harmed. I’m sure if most people were given the choice between the police pursuing the creep that smashed their car window or some escort they found online, most people would go after the window-smasher. ACPOS (ever the voice of reason on this debate) agreed, saying in the Scotsman on Sunday:

However, it met with concerns from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS), which warned that it could drive prostitution off the street and into areas where it is harder to identify vulnerable women and enforce the law. Assistant Chief Constable Iain Livingstone told MSPs on the justice committee he was not looking for “additional powers” in this area.

Likewise, MSP Margo MacDonald, again a voice of reason in the Scottish Parliament, said in the Scotsman:

Lothians independent MSP Margo MacDonald said bringing the new Bill was a waste of public money because it was sure to be defeated.

Ms MacDonald said: “Rhoda Grant is a very nice woman, but I’m afraid on this she is utterly misguided. This is a rehash of the sloppy thinking that characterised the last attempt to make all paid-for sex illegal.

“I agree some paid-for sex should be illegal – where it can be proved the seller is working at the behest of someone else. But where the woman or man is making the decision for themselves, I think we must judge paid-for sex in a very different way.”

That’s right, folks, consenting adults still have people standing up for their right to prostitution in Scotland. And it works. Congratulations go out to all of those who helped to defeat this ridiculous “bill”.

Thank you for your e mail.  Unfortunately it got caught by our firewall and has just been released.   It would be helpful if any further e mails could be sent to the generic email box to which you sent your first e mail (Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill) as they would be less likely to be caught by the firewall.

The second time was in the midst of a Freedom of Information Request in 2011. This email got lost permanently, and it took a nudge from the Scottish Information Commissioner to retrieve it and get the FOIR back on track.

I am writing to you regarding your clarification of your FOI request of 13 May.  I apologise that you have not received a response.  Unfortunately, I have no record of ever having received this email.

….

To ensure that there are no future problems with missing emails, I will send an acknowledgement email to you on receipt of any future emails from you on this topic to confirm that I have received it.  I think there may be a problem with the filters used on our email system accidentally blocking legitimate business emails.

Along these lines, CAAN-Scotland wrote requesting more information about the email system.

I would like to know how widespread this problem is, and what areas it effects. My emails were regarding the topic of pornography, but what other topics are at risk for the same problem?

1) Over the past 5 years (since Jan 2007), how many emails were blocked?
2) How many of these blocked emails were legitimate emails, like mine?
3) What topics (in general) were these legitimate emails about?
4) How many complaints about blocked emails has the Scottish Executive received in the past 5 years?

The response was detailed in some ways, but vague in others. From May 2008 to March 2012 just under 26 million emails were “quarantined”by the Scottish Government – this is roughly 6% of the 2.1 million a week they receive.  During a 26-week test period, only 939 emails were released from quarantine by the recipients, or around 36 emails per week. One would assume that the Scottish Government would receive a lot of spam from publishing their email online, but this isn’t the spam filter, this is the “questionable” filter, and it nets 126,000 emails a week, but only 36 of those are ever rescued.

This is an extraordinary amount of “questionable” email. It’s hard to believe that this filter hasn’t caused other legitimate emails to go missing. The Information Services and Information Systems (ISIS) manager who responded stated that records were not kept as to what topics the rescued emails were about. They also state that they “have no recorded complaints regarding blocked emails in the last 5 years.”

This filter should be called Hotel California: the emails check in, but they’ll never leave.

So what is so evil that it has to be quarantined and abandoned like this?

The official definition is: “when the software believes that it has identified an email containing malicious software or potentially inappropriate content”.

A follow-up FOIR obtained the slightly better definition:

Email content is quarantined for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:

• Emails which contain software attachments that could infect the Scottish Government network with a virus.
• Emails where the content cannot be scanned by the system for whatever reason (e.g. password protected).
• Emails containing content that could be considered offensive (e.g. swear words, sectarian or racist terms etc).

In the first email that was blocked, I used the word pornography 21 times, the word rape 8 times, the word sex 6 times, the word BDSM 4 times, bondage 3 times, the word alcohol twice, and some 400-odd words only once, presumably it was one of those that set off the censors.

In the second email that was blocked, I attached a pdf. Was this the problem? It’s not like pdfs are uncommon. This time pornography was used 31 times (including 4 times as porn), bestiality, rape, necrophilia, torture, and sadomasochism once each, but then, one needs to in order to describe the extreme porn law.

There is still no clear cut answer as to why my legitimate emails were blocked. I was not on a safe list for having sent other numerous emails to the individual. I did not swear. I was discussing a sensitive topic (sex), but sensitive topics is what the government deals with. If everything was cherry pie and roses, we wouldn’t need a government. I find it hard to believe, though, that no emails were filtered during the debates on minimum alcohol pricing, sectarianism and same-sex marriage.

So, in conclusion, if you do no want your email filtered by the nasty biased email system, if you have to send an attachment or use any sort of graphic language or language which might be considered offensive, even if that is the very topic of the email itself, you should send a near blank email directly following it asking if they can confirm receipt of your email.

Responses from the ISIS.

FOI_12_00518 – Email Blocking – Final

FOI_12_00726 – Firewall Blocking Request 2