This morning, police entered premises in London’s Soho and arrested a number of people. Latest reports say 22. In an official statement, Chief Superintendent Paul Rickett said:

“Victims have identified brothels where they have been trafficked for sexual exploitation and raped.”

Commander Alison Newcomb of Westminster Police said:

“This is not about the prosecution of prostitutes, this is about making the area safe. We do know a lot of the women are trafficked or are vulnerable so this is about taking the danger out of Soho.”

So a quick question: if safety of the women involved is genuinely what the police were concerned about, then why the hell did they subsequently allow (or, indeed, invite) reporters to take gratuitous pap shots of the women involved?

Put aside your views on sex work

This issue isn’t about whether you approve or disapprove of sex work. Personally, I think that making money by selling sexual skills is as valid a life choice as making money by singing for strangers, fixing cars, or pushing paper across a desk until beer o’clock on Friday.

I’d further opine that those who are anti-sex work because they’re concerned about trafficking have got their logic knickers in a twist. If you hate trafficking, coercion and rape then you’re not anti-sex work per se, you’re anti-trafficking, anti-coercion, and anti-rape. Which we all are.

But even if you disagree with me on the work itself, I cannot see how you can be anything other than shocked that these photos were taken, let alone printed in the Evening Standard.

Focus on the pictures

In nearly all of the pictures, the women involved are covering their faces. What better way to categorically state “I do not want you to photograph me.” These women have removed their consent to be photographed by anyone.

But no matter, of course, because the most important thing to the press is that we get a good long look at groups of women who – *sexy shiver* – will fuck you for money. Go on, have a nice little look: that’s free.

At the same time as the press are slavering over these women, the Chief Superintendent is giving a statement which highlights the fact that the police believe some of them have been used and abused in the line of their work. Can you remember the last time you saw a story where the victim of a crime, or someone who was supposedly being protected, was photographed against their will and slapped all over a national paper while the police stood by and did nothing? Me neither.

As the excellent @Fornicatrix put it:

They pixelated those faces as much for our uninhibited viewing pleasure as for their privacy. Who cares about the privacy of whores right?

Why were photos taken of the brothel raids in Soho?

The police believe that in performing these raids, they’d secure the safety of women who had been trafficked or coerced into working there. There are two possibilities here:

– Option one: the police are mistaken, and these women are working off their own bat. If this is the case then the women, rather than having been ‘made safe’ have been subjected to some incredibly intrusive press attention. In fact, as the English Prostitutes Collective pointed out, they’ve potentially been put in danger: “The police must know that some women will end up working on the street as a result, where it is much more dangerous.”

– Option two: the police are right, and these women have been trafficked and coerced. If this is the case then what they have just done is lined some victims up in front of the paparazzi, and just let them snap away.

I’m not an expert on sex work, this is just my initial kneejerk ‘WTF’. But I think this needs discussing because, well, WTF. If you’ve read any other good blogs on this topic, or written any yourself, I’d love to hear more from people about it, especially if you’re more informed than I am on sex work and the myriad issues surrounding it. Please leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it to this blog post when I can.

@NymphomaniacNes has posted on this topic too – I’d recommend you check out her thoughts as well.

And this great piece from @sassylapdancer, which was recommended to me on Twitter.

You might also want to check out this petition.

And read @pastachips, who has given a brilliant overview of the ‘saving women’ issue in the Guardian.

Humbugs abound as I do my annual Christmas shop. Not because I don’t revel in the idea of finding exciting and unique gifts to shower upon my loved ones, but because everywhere I turn I’m confronted with ridiculous lists of ‘gift ideas for him’ or, indeed, ‘her.’ In honour of this horror, here are my 12 sexist (and not so sexist) Christmas gift lists.

On the first day of Christmas my true love/friend/mum/colleague who drew my name in the office secret Santa gave to me…

1. A Ryan Gosling tea-towel

That’s right, number one on the Prezzybox list of ‘stocking fillers for women‘ is a Ryan Gosling tea towel. Because if there’s one thing women love more than spending quality time in the kitchen, it’s drying pots and pans with a celebrity’s face. Bonus points for trying to persuade us to spend almost an entire tenner on a ‘stocking filler’.

Note that those who might not have been tempted by the Ryan Gosling tea towel might instead like chocolate pills. So what’s the equivalent for men?

2. Tabasco-flavoured chocolate

Luckily the man in your life can have chocolate in his stocking too, but none of this ‘chocolate pills’ nonsense.  This sweet treat for your man is Tabasco-flavoured. According to prezzybox, to women chocolate is some sort of emergency medication, but to men it is a delivery mechanism for SPICY HEAT.

3. A gendered gift experience

For those with more money to spend, why not treat your loved one to a special day? They can go paintballing, if they are blue, or for afternoon tea, if they are pink. Boots actually gets bonus points in the ‘trying not to be too sexist’ stakes, because when you click on either of these panels they take you to the same page. If they get rid of the pink ‘for her’ and blue ‘for him’ landing pages next year, Father Christmas might take them off his ‘naughty’ list.

4. A mug that kills women who touch it

There’s nothing more traditional than a mug with a crap slogan, and iwoot (the website formerly known as I Want One Of Those Dot Com) has come through with a few. Their gifts for him offers the ‘man mug‘. It comes complete with spirit level, to check how horizontal your masculinity is. It also has a sign on the bottom which makes it absolutely clear the mug is Not For Girl -, I can only assume that if a lady drinks from it, she is instantly poisoned:

Still, ladies mustn’t worry, because if they’re lucky then they’ll get a mug in their stocking too. For women iwoot suggests this ‘Little Miss Giggles’ mug (spirit level definitely not included):

5. Virgin experiences

If you’re after a special day out, Virgin’s one-upped Boots and does indeed have special, separate pages for women and men. Phew. No more wading through spa days when you want to buy a dude a day out: it’s cars and paintball almost all the way.  I say ‘almost’ because… what’s this?

That’s right – a special afternoon tea. Not one of those boring ladies’ ones with sandwiches, no. This one has been (as the copy explains) ‘designed to satisfy a man’s taste and appetite’. Which it turns out means switching sandwiches for mini toad-in-the-hole. Oh, and illustrating the ‘tea’ with a picture that contains ‘beer’. Although, according to the copy, there will only be a choice of tea or coffee, there is beer in the picture because that is what men like. See below.

7. Beer, glorious beer

How much do men like beer? A lot, according to totallyfunky.co.uk.

Of course these beer-related items only appear first because the list is alphabetical, and if you scroll down further you’ll see that men also like Darth Vader and eating out of dog bowls.

So that’s Christmas sorted for your dad/brother/husband etc. But what should you get your daughter? Totallyfunky suggests bath products, gloves, and a shoe that you put a spoon in. Or you could go for…

7. Anything to do with One Direction

If the lady you’re buying for is a bit too young for the Ryan Gosling tea towel, The Works has you covered. With One Direction. EVERYWHERE.

Of course, boys don’t like One Direction, so instead they get dinosaurs and helicopters.

8. Not-so-sexy underwear

One of my personal bugbears is that when it comes to Christmas underwear, straight guys are encouraged to buy something sexy, slinky, and sensuous for their partners, whereas straight women are offered a selection of comedy Christmas socks or hilarious cock-cosies with which to wow him. This red-hot image brought to you by TopMan…

9. A world I don’t want to live in

Onwards, now, to presentfinder, where boyfriends are ‘difficult’ and girlfriends are ‘gorgeous’. It’s tricky to compare these gifts because they’re all so twee and quirky, but essentially we’re being asked to believe in a world where men like booze, money and edible tits which come in a tiny metal box:

While girls like pink VW camper vans, and being given plasters for Christmas.

 

Is there a better way to write Christmas gift lists?

If we say to shops “hey, this Christmas gift list is a bit sexist, isn’t it?” their response will most likely be “but it has to be – this is the stuff you’re searching for, and the stuff you end up eventually buying. If we were to stop being twats about it we’d never sell anything.” Which is partly true. We do search for ‘Christmas gifts for her’ and ‘Christmas gifts for him’ (although it looks like we’re doing it less each year).

But that’s not to say they can’t grab our attention in other ways. It’s more than possible to market effectively without descending into lazy stereotypes. Even at Christmas.

To round off the twelve, here are a few examples of shops that, I think, are doing it better.

Not-so-sexist Christmas gift lists

10. Lovehoney’s underwear hot-off

As mentioned above, I dread the ‘Christmas underwear’ thing. Mainly because it seems the idea is for a woman to receive something sexy and lacy and beautiful, and a man to get a comedy santa-hat for his bellend.

So credit, then, to Lovehoney. As a sex toy retailer, it’d be pretty hard for them to not split their toys by sex, given that so many of them depend on the sex organs that you have. So their ‘gifts for her‘ and ‘gifts for him‘ pages make sense. But on top of that, they also have the same feel: these gifts are genuine gifts for people. It’s not split by comedy vs sex: there are genuinely sexy pants for the guys, and toys that individuals will actually play with (rather than giggle at) on both sides of the sex divide.

UPDATE September 2017: Well this is very embarrassing. It’s actually not necessary to split sex toys by gender – it’s far more helpful to split by category in this instance too. Not only because there’s no need to list out e.g. ‘butt plugs for men’ (spoiler: butt plugs can be used by anyone who has a butt) but it also excludes trans and non-binary people.

11. Argos

To show it’s possible to sell children’s toys without painting half your website pink and shouting “YOU WANT TO BE A PRINCESS, DON’T YOU, PRINCESS?!” here’s a picture of the Argos ‘toys’ menu:

Do you see? Toys divided by category, brand, age and popularity. If you can find any hint of gender segregation there I’ll give you a mince pie.

12. Marks and Spencer

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve had a peruse of the M&S ‘Christmas’ page, and I can’t find anything that is unnecessarily gendered.

It appears that the nation’s favourite place to buy socks and knickers has resisted compiling lists of ‘gifts for him’ and ‘gifts for her’. They stick to ‘men’ and ‘women’ for clothes, which is understandable given that’s how they split it in the shops, but there don’t seem to be any lists of gifts ‘for him’ or ‘for her’. The only page I can find where they categorise gifts is by personality. “Gifts for foodies”, “Gifts for gardeners” and suchlike.

For that they get a gold star to stick on top of their Christmas tree.

The examples above are, of course, the product of my own frequently-flawed opinions and half-arsed research via Google. But I’d welcome any more examples (especially ones of shops who do it well) in the comments or via Twitter. Please tag them with #RyanGoslingTeaTowel, because Christmas should be FUN. 

How to not be sexist at Christmas

Every good Christmas story has a moral, and this one’s no different. Just as it’s possible to sell toys without labeling them ‘for boys’ and ‘for girls’, it’s more than possible to flog your Christmas deals without assuming that men want beer and women want bubble bath. Not only will you get my admiration if you split your Christmas deals by personality, you’re also (prepare for a shock) making it genuinely easier for me to find the perfect present. After all, we’re not painfully simple creatures: we usually know more about the person we’re buying for than simply what gender they identify as.

I know that Sarah likes cooking, Bob likes cosy sleepwear, and yes, Ashley is a big fan of both Ryan Gosling and drying dishes. It’s a damn sight easier to find these presents if you narrow it down by something useful.

This week Cosmo tried to explain to people, with side-splitting hilarity, what the key differences were between porn actresses and real women. For example, porn actresses vs real women on doggy-style sex:

Porn star: “This element of degradation and anonymity is definitely not making me wonder whether you are actually attracted to me! I will call you ‘Daddy’ now because that’s not weird for either of us!”

Real woman: “I should really get that wall repainted.”

Performance vs preference

To regular readers, it might seem like I’m stating the spankingly obvious, but there is nothing deeply and inherently different about women who work in porn. They are not genetically-engineered sex-mad creatures whose only true joy in life is gargling with spunk while getting banged energetically by a group of colleagues. Nor are they sex robots, programmed purely to seek out new and exciting ways to get jizzed on. They’re people who are doing a job.

Last week I talked about the obvious differences between porn sex and ‘real’ sex, and the fact that a professional is going to do things a little differently to how you might in the comfort of your own home: it’s the professional’s job to put on a great performance. But just as I Am Not My Job, neither is a porn actress. She doesn’t live her entire life as she would at work.

At work I sign off emails with ‘kind regards’, wash up my coffee mug as soon as I’m done with it, and even occasionally wear make up. In the comfort of my own home I sign off emails with ‘See you tomorrow, twatface’, let coffee grow an inch of mould before I move it to the kitchen, and wear nothing on my face save the occasional chocolate smear. In the same way, porn actresses aren’t constantly acting.

You’re a porn star too

We all put on performances sometimes. Personally, when I’m having shiny new sex with a partner I’m far more likely to lean back when I’m on top and grab my hair with both my hands while I’m riding him. Why? Well, somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain is the idea that it makes my tits look lovely. Eager to impress, I’ll jiggle and grind hands-free so that the fortunate gentleman in question gets something to look at beside my own gurning sex face. This performance isn’t repeated often when I’m deeper into a relationship – I move towards my easier and more pleasurable default of ‘placing his hands on my tits so he can squeeze me while I fuck him.’ It’s not quite as pretty, but it more effectively hits the spot.

The Cosmo article frames what porn actresses do and think as the complete opposite of the thoughts and actions of ‘real’ women, which doesn’t make any sense at all. Sometimes I’m a porn star – with my hands-behind-my-head and my doe-eyed, spluttering blowjobs and my “please please fuck me in the ass”, because sometimes I fancy putting on a bit of a show. Other times I would prefer to just turn my back and have you lazily spoon me into an orgasm before turning the light off and falling asleep.

The problem with the Cosmo article is that it isn’t comparing the same type of shagging for each person: it’s comparing their work shagging to your play shagging. When off-camera porn actresses are the same as all of us: sometimes have the performance sex and other times they’ll have the lazy, comfortable, quick-orgasm-then-a-cup-of-tea sex.

Cosmo might as well write an article entitled ‘Accountants vs real women’, highlighting how hilarious it is that the accountant is careful about their figures, while ‘real’ women jot down a budget on the back of an envelope. Would we actually expect an accountant to get out a calculator and perform double-entry bookkeeping for the household bills, ensuring everything is signed off in triplicate? No. Because accountants, unlike porn actresses, aren’t expected to drag their work kicking and screaming into every corner of their life.

Porn actresses vs ‘real’ women

This matters because I find it a bit creepy to separate porn actresses from ‘real’ women. As if their lives are defined entirely by their jobs, and their jobs must necessarily bleed into every aspect of their daily routine. Separating women who work in porn from women who work anywhere else implies a lot of ‘other’ness that leads to uncomfortable assumptions.

If porn women are different to ‘real’ women, do they behave differently? Could you spot them in a crowd? Do they need to be treated differently, because of the sexual qualities than run through every aspect of them?

The answer, of course, is ‘no’.

It’s important for people to understand the difference between porn sex and real sex: of course it is. When I wrote about Sex Box I got a (probably justified) telling-off for not making it clear that we should educate people (particularly young people) on the difference between porn sex and home sex. Of course this is important – if you’ve never had sex before and all of your beliefs are shaped by what you see on the screen, you’ll could end up with a devastatingly inaccurate view of what a fun shag has to look like. Just as if you only ever watched Eastenders you’d have a terrifying impression of East London.

So the distinction is important. But let’s remember that it’s not a distinction between ‘real’ humans and a porn-making race of sexual superbeings. The people are all fundamentally the same: it’s the type of sex that changes.