The Pickup Artist: An Interview With Chester Brown

Chester Brown/Drawn & QuarterlyThe cartoonist talks about his pro-prostitution memoir and the loneliness of the Canadian libertarian.

— By Dave Gilson

The Pickup Artist: An Interview With Chester Brown | Mother Jones

Thu May. 26, 2011

More than a decade ago, Chester Brown decided he was through with romance. Certainly all the crummy stuff—the insecurity, the jealousy, the fights. The only thing he wasn't ready to give up was the physical part. As Brown, an award-winning Canadian cartoonist, explains to an ex at the beginning of his new memoir, "I've got two competing desires—the desire to have sex, versus the desire to not have a girlfriend."

That dilemma lead him to make a radical resolution: To never again have a girlfriend and to start paying for sex. The consequences of that lifestyle choice are the subject of Paying For It, a comic-book chronicle of Brown's experiences as a john. Honest and unashamed, Brown explores all aspects of his foray into prostitution, from furtively cruising for hookers on his bike, friends' reactions of disgust and curiosity, and the challenge of budgeting for sex when you're almost broke.

Brown, best known for his fascinating comic biography of 19th-century Canadian revolutionary Louis Riel, bares all as he draws each of his assignations with 23 different women over 5 years. There's nothing prurient or in-your-face about this. He alters or conceals the features of the women he's with (to protect their identities, he says), and he draws himself with a perpetually blank expression, his eyes hidden behind opaque glasses. Though he insists he's enjoying himself, the sex scenes blur into a monotonous loop—which may be the part of the point. A dedicated libertarian, Brown seeks to convey that there's nothing remarkable about a well-mannered guy like himself mixing business and pleasure. Willing buyer, willing seller—what's the problem? (Just in case his story doesn't convince you, Paying For It has an appendix that takes on 22 anti-prostitution arguments.)
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As the public face of the usually anonymous sex client, Brown doesn't come off as a pervert or a predator. Nor is he the rational actor he thinks he is. Paying for It ends with a twist—mentioned below—in which he finds that giving up the real girlfriend experience may be more complicated than he'd anticipated.

Reached in Seattle, a stop on his book tour, the 51-year-old cartoonist talked about putting his sex life on paper, legalizing sex work, and his side career as a libertarian candidate.

Mother Jones: Now that Paying For It is out and you're on tour, have you heard from other johns who have read the book?

Chester Brown: Only one. Last night in Vancouver a guy came up and admitted to me that he was a john. He liked the presentation that I did and appreciated where I seemed to be coming from.

MJ: When you decided to escape from what you call "possessive monogamy," why did you choose to go to prostitutes rather than, say, going the Craigslist "casual encounters" route or looking for a physical relationship with no strings attached?

CB: The Craigslist route—I don't have a computer, for one thing. When I started this, we're talking 1999—it didn't seem to be as much of a thing then, to pick people up on the internet. And as far as picking people up at bars, I just figured I didn't have the social skills for it. I don't know how good at it I'd be at it on the internet, either.

MJ: After you visit your first prostitute, you write, "A burden that I had been carrying since adolescence had disappeared." What exactly was that burden? Sexual repression? Moral concerns?

CB: Not moral concerns. Just the male desire for sex—like, where am I going to find it next? I didn't realize how strongly that was on my shoulders until it was gone.

From Paying For It by Chester Brown (Drawn & Quarterly)
MJ: Is it weird drawing yourself having sex over and over again?

CB: It didn't seem weird. The weird thing about doing those drawings was having to conceal the women's faces. That limited my ability to draw sex to some degree. But was it weird? Not really. What's weirder is being on the road doing these presentations where I show a slideshow of the book and project these images in front of an audience.

MJ: Why did you choose to depict the sex instead of fading to black or doing one of any other artistic sleights of hand?

CB: I suppose I could have. There were a couple of instances where what I'm thinking during sex was relevant, so I might as well show myself having sex. I could have gone from a shot of the bed to just showing the ceiling and my thought bubble. Or maybe just show the feet. It just seemed, sex was taking place—why drag the camera someplace else in the room?

MJ: When you are with a prostitute, is there any way you can be sure you're not having sex with a sex slave, or someone who's underage or being abused by a pimp?

CB: Well, those are three different things. Underage, you have to rely on your own ability to distinguish age, which isn't always completely accurate. As I show in the book, there were only two cases in which I was questioning the ages of the prostitutes. All the rest of the time I was confident the girls were of legal age. As far as sex slavery goes, in Canada, if the woman has a Canadian accent, I'm confident that she hasn't been trafficked and forced to work as a prostitute.

As far as women who are being abused by pimps, I think if you see women who do incalls or outcalls rather than work on the street, they are less likely—from what I've heard—to have pimps. But you can't be sure. And just because a woman has a pimp doesn't necessarily mean that she's being abused by the guy. You can't know for sure.

MJ: In an ideal world, how would you like to see prostitution regulated? What would you do to minimize sex trafficking?

CB: One of the significant reasons why women who are trafficked and forced to work as prostitutes often don't want to come forward is because they're worried they'll be deported. If the police are certain that a woman has been trafficked and forced into prostitution, then perhaps we should automatically allow her citizenship.

MJ: Beyond that, you would like to see prostitution legalized?

CB: I am for decriminalization. The significant aspect of that is that we don't force prostitutes to have to get a license to work. I think the whole idea of licensing consensual sex between adults is offensive. Inevitably, not all prostitutes are going to get licenses. When Denise [see below] was still a prostitute, I asked her if the profession was legalized and prostitutes were required to get licensee, if she would. And she said no way. She just didn't trust the government with that information. But that would mean that if something negative happened to her, like if a john beat her up, she would be less likely to go to the police because she'd have to admit she was doing something illegally.

MJ: One argument for licensing is public health—keeping track of STDs and HIV. Does that strike you as a concern?

CB: I think most people are motivated to want to do what is best for themselves. People want to avoid STDs. I believe in a system that leaves it up to the individual to protect their own health.

MJ: You eventually end up in a long-term relationship with one woman, whom you call Denise. You're her only client, and she's the only woman you sleep with. You say you don't think of her as a prostitute, but do you see her as your girlfriend?

CB: [Laughs.] I was talking with Tracy Quan, and she asked if I would consider myself a sugar daddy. That might be the closest we come to, though I usually think of a sugar daddy as someone who's got a bit more money than I do. I've asked Denise how she feels about those terms—sugar daddy and sugar baby—and she didn't like them any more than she likes being called a prostitute.

MJ: Beyond having a physical relationship, do you hang out?

CB: Yeah, we hang out. I pay for sex but I also spend quite a bit of time with her off the clock, so to speak, where I'm not paying her for the time we spend together. And actually we spend more time off the clock than on the clock.

MJ: So you see it as more than a business relationship?

CB: Oh yeah.

MJ: You have run as a libertarian candidate for Parliament. How big is the libertarian movement in Canada and what does it mean to be a libertarian in Canada? Does it mean you're opposed to nationalized health care?

CB: [Laughs.] I am opposed to nationalized health care. The libertarian movement is, from what I can gather, is much smaller than it is in the states. There isn't a Ron Paul-type character. Certainly the party itself did very poorly in the last federal election. And I personally did very poorly as a candidate.

MJ: Can I ask how many votes you got?

CB: Four hundred and fifty-four, which is fewer votes than I got in the 2008 election, when I got 490. So I was hoping to beat myself, and I didn't. I was very depressed on the morning following the election when I read the results. Although I did find out that I got more votes than any other Libertarian Party candidate across Canada.

MJ: Paying For It was sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts. You don't have an issue taking a grant from the government?

CB: Mmmm, no. To me, those are two different things. I'm against government giving money to artists, but I'm not against artists taking money. Just like I don't have a moral problem with people taking healthcare from the government, but I don't think government should give it. When I've had medical problems, I've taken the free healthcare that government gives and don't see it as hypocritical to do so.

MJ: The National Endowment for the Arts probably wouldn't touch a project like yours with a 10-foot pole. Have you gotten any reaction from the Canada Council for the Arts?

CB: [Laughs.] No so far. I was wondering if there would be some sort of a stir about that. No one's brought it up yet.

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It's Not Selling Your Body, It's More Like Controlled-Access Rental"
— By Titania Kumeh

Sat Aug. 14

"It's Not Selling Your Body, It's More Like Controlled-Access Rental" | Mother Jones

Asked if he’s ever felt exploited as a sex worker, Will Rockwell—the 24-year-old editor-in-chief of the sex worker-operated magazine $pread—replies, "Yes, by the media. Every interview we do is twisted for the purposes of sensationalistic propaganda, whether it's the conservative New York Post jerking itself off over the Spitzer scandal or Ms. Magazine fantasizing about female victimhood and applying it in broad strokes to people they never really cared to know, and certainly never offered a helping hand free of judgment and surveillance." He says the sensationalist and often stereotype-ridden depictions of sex workers—prostitutes, exotic dancers, dominatrices, phone-sex operators, and people who engage in informal forms of transactional sex—by media outlets sparked the 2005 creation of $pread, the country’s only magazine developed by and for sex workers.

With a circulation of about 3,000 ("Each copy is passed between 4 or 5 people on average, according to a readers' survey," Rockwell asserts), the quarterly magazine includes anything from "product reviews (from false eyelashes to anal lube), to personal essays about weird clients, to news reports on international public policy and events affecting sex worker communities around the globe," according to its website. $pread's current "Aging" issue, which is sold online and available in a few independent bookstores, grapples with maturity in a profession seemingly absorbed with youthful appearance ("Strippers in their 40s are hardly uncommon," Kristen Casey writes in one article).

Rockwell, a male sex worker who's serviced men for almost a decade, has been the head honcho at the New York-based publication for more than a year; he's volunteered for the magazine for three years. "I took the [unpaid] job because the first article I read in $pread was in Issue 2.4, named 'I killed a client in self-defense,'" Rockwell told Mother Jones via email. "It is an entirely matter-of-fact story about a woman working an outcall who was stabbed by her client before she took the knife from him and killed him in self-defense. When the police arrived, they arrested her for the murder of a married military officer, but she was later proven innocent. I was impressed that she described her experience without one iota of judgment for sex work in general—in other words, it wasn't the job that was wrong, but the world that surrounds it."

Rockwell answered more questions from Mother Jones about $pread, whether feminists should favor or fight the decriminalization of prostitution, and what he thinks about the Craigslist scandal.
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MJ: What are some common misconceptions that people have about sex workers?

WR: That we are all jet-setting call girls. That we are all crack fiends. In truth, we are everyone you can imagine: loving mothers, daughters, husbands, friends, neighbors, drug users, lawyers, tax-paying citizens, and human beings. That we are all in this career and no other—many, many people use sex work once a month to supplement their rent or another expense. That sex workers spend their whole lives either on the street or in the best porn studios—this is a highly mobile profession, and many people change venues and income brackets very quickly.

MJ: How does $pread tackle these myths?

WR: $pread publishes a range of experiences in the sex industry. For some people it's all a field of roses; for some of us, it was our best option among limited options, and others experienced violence at the hands of the police and a stigmatizing culture. In all cases, $pread provides a forum for sex workers to speak for themselves.

MJ: Why is it important that sex workers have a media outlet?

WR: We are talked about everywhere, in newspapers publishing our death notices, at lawsuits in court, but nowhere will people listen.

MJ: Has $pread ever gotten flak from conservative or religious organizations?

WR: Always, but mostly "feminist" ones, surprisingly. Apparently it's hard for some people to believe that women, let alone those of us men working, are able to choose sex work over other types of work under post-industrial capitalism. Despite the fact that the sex industry is the only one in which women get paid more than men, and they want to take that away from them!

MJ: How do you respond to feminists who say they could never imagine any person willingly selling their body for money?

WR: "It's not selling your body, it's more like controlled-access rental."

"It's not selling your body, it's more like controlled-access rental."MJ: Does your own narrative dispel or confirm myths surrounding sex work?

WR: I've long since stopped trying to reconcile the disparate narratives people think about when it comes to sex workers. Victim, whore, whatever, it's all about circumstance. Until you provide living wage alternatives and affordable housing for everyone in the sex industry, don't even dare claim you know what's good for us.

MJ: How do staff members at $pread handle accusations that the magazine is encouraging folks to join the sex worker industry?

WR: We just respond that we don't invent the fact [that sex work exists], we simply provide a venue for sex workers to be heard. Our articles come from the mouths of sex workers here in the United States who volunteer their stories to the community, as well as sex workers around the world who write in—Taiwan, India, South Africa, Mexico, Australia, and more.

MJ: What obstacles did $pread encounter before the first issue went out?

WR: A number of supposedly professional services such as banking and postal status are hostile to "adult businesses," despite the fact that we don't publish nudity and aren't selling sex in $pread's pages.

MJ: I’ve read that $pread is completely volunteer-operated. Where does the staff come from and what's the hiring process entail?

WR: Volunteers write to us and we fit them in—if they are in New York, they start slow, helping pack magazines or pick up where someone else left off in advertising or outreach. If they are outside of New York, we ask them to throw a benefit, promote subscriptions, and, if a sex worker and writer, pen articles for us.

MJ: Does $pread have any competitors?

Flickr/EliyaWR: We are the only by- and for-sex-worker magazine currently publishing in the United States, although Danzine [1995-2005] was the first. For years, however, sex workers have made their own media in the form of "Bad Date Lists," distributed to help protect ourselves from violent clients and cops. Bound, Not Gagged is an online blogging community that is currently in operation, and Red Light District Chicago produces videos. As for the rest of the world, Stella has the French-language ConStellation in Montreal. China has Flower in Beijing. There is also the Red Light Despatch in India.

MJ: What is the typical production process at $pread like?

WR: A long and arduous process that, with the help of lipstick and elbow grease, blossoms in genius.

MJ: I've also think I read that $pread operates solely on donations. Was it hard to find donors for a sex-worker magazine?

WR: We make money mostly from subscriptions, donations, advertising, and distro. Our donors are most often sex workers themselves, contributing $10 to $20 on top of their annual subscription charge in order to help us fight the good fight.

MJ: What uber-relevant newsy topics would you like to see $pread tackle in the future?

WR: The "Craigslist Two" letters being circulated, claiming the site profits off of the trafficking in women. It would be more accurate to say that Craigslist profits off of a culture of policing sex workers that results in heavy fines, phone and credit card tracking that has ruined one of the most equalizing forces in the sex industry in generations.

MJ: Could you explain why you consider Craigslist to be "one of the most equalizing forces in the sex industry in generations"?

WR: Craigslist was the most equalizing force in the sex industry in generations because it allowed anyone with a computer to advertise their services for free, from a position of safety, which allows an opportunity for client screening, and without depending on 50-percent-a-client agencies and other dung flies to advertise for you. Craigslist was responsible for moving many people into safer working conditions, and the transition from Erotic Services to Adult Services instituted phone authentication and credit card registration requirements, which open up sex workers to policing in huge registers and represent an oppressive financial burden. Just before the change, Craigslist announced on its blog that 80 percent of ads had been reduced by phone authentication. The Polaris Project estimates there are 3.65 million adult services ads per year Craigslist, which means 14.6 million posters were pushed to other means of advertisement—most likely more dangerous ones that opened them up to stigma, discrimination, and criminalization. Check out Melissa Gira Grant's article on Slate, "The Craigslist Sex Panic: How shutting down its "erotic services" section hurts prostitutes and cops." Melissa is $pread's "Caching In" columnist, covering technology and the sex industry.

MJ: Speaking of Craigslist, the website raised its adult-services posting fees back in 2008 as a child prostitution deterrent, which really doesn't make sense to me. (Do they think people who sell kids for sex are broke and won't pay?) Anyway, this topic is mentioned in the Aging issue, but could you talk a little bit about how decriminalization could help prevent child prostitution—something I've heard from various sex workers?

WR: I believe [Craigslist's] intention was to capture more information to make it available to law enforcement by subpoena or volunteering the information (credit card numbers are captured with the fees). I'm not sure what you mean by "child prostitution," but the first line of defense against traffickers is sex workers working in the same venues but not subject to the same controls, as well as clients that report the conditions to the police. Only in countries that criminalize sex work do sex workers and clients become a threat rather than a resource in combating trafficking.


"Too little attention is paid to the collateral consequences of criminal charges."MJ: Have you ever been in a scary or dangerous situation while working that you think could have been prevented or helped if prostitution was decriminalized?

WR: I was once shorted out of an entire night's pay by a client who told me he was going to call security on me if I didn't leave. I decided against calling the police, because every case I heard of involved the police arresting the sex worker. Instead, I had to let a rape go unpunished.

MJ: What are some other legal challenges that you've faced as a sex worker?

WR: While male sex workers aren't policed in the same "raid and rescue" manner as nontrans women in the United States unless they are considered "underage," police will use related charges, such as disorderly conduct, loitering, or drug possession, or simply charge up to what they feel will stick, in order to achieve the same effect minus the prostitution charge. In cities around the country, police file nuisance-abatement lawsuits and health code violations in the gay male sex venues where male sex workers work, denying us a safe place to work indoors and receive access to HIV prevention services.

MJ: Beyond having much-needed legal recourse to press charges if you are abused while working, what would you as a sex worker gain if prostitution was decriminalized?

WR: I would be able to stop looking over my shoulder and leading a double life, with fake names and fear of exposure.

MJ: $pread advertises itself as for and by sex workers. In that case, is the magazine concerned with debunking or verifying the judgments that non-sex workers may have about sex workers?

WR: We view the effect we have on civilians as secondary. Our mission is by and for sex workers, and anything else is just butter.

MJ: Why do you think prostitution has yet to be decriminalized in this country?

WR: Sex work has yet to decriminalized in the US because people fear what is most familiar: We know our fathers and husbands are clients of sex workers, and our sisters, cousins, and friends find a way to pay the rent when two or three jobs aren't enough to make ends meet.

MJ: You've said that no US legislator has ever contacted $pread to discuss public policies related to sex workers. But how would you respond to one who did?

WR: Well, would they be a client? It's a crucial question. We have so many clients in positions of power on this question, but so few who are willing to take a public stand.

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For a different tack and because one of our ex-contributor, Benjamin, used to be fond of mentioning Sweden in these discussions...

Is Prostitution Really Inevitable? | Mother Jones

Is Prostitution Really Inevitable?
— By Bradford Plumer
Fri Jun. 30, 2006

In the New Republic today, Michelle Cottle argues against Congress' brand new "pimp tax" idea, which aims to use the IRS to crack down on sex traffickers. This, I think, is a sharp point:

Obviously sex trafficking is a global atrocity...But the chairman's current proposal, which lumps together international sex traffickers with neighborhood pimps and down-on-their-luck working girls, comes with a built-in overreach that all but ensures that the agency's pursuit of sex criminals will wind up resembling its pursuit of tax cheats in general over the years: Overwhelmingly, the small fry are the ones netted since they are both the most abundant and the least able to defend themselves. [Here's a good example.]

Fair enough. A sincere effort to crack down on sex trafficking obviously wouldn't just give the IRS some token funding to hound "down-on-their-luck working girls." And there's certainly something to the criticism that many attempts to stop sex trafficking end up hurting women who become prostitutes "voluntarily" (yeah, those are scare quotes). The International Justice Mission, for instance, a Christian organization that helps the Thai police bust brothels, often "rescues" women who don't want to be freed. "We need to make money for our families," one woman said after a raid in 2001. "How can you do this to us?"

So that's all well and good. What I'm not so convinced about is when Cottle says that "some form of [prostitution] will always be with us," and so we should do what many sex-worker advocates in Nevada are calling for and decriminalize the business. Now these advocates are listening to actual prostitutes and know infinitely more than I, but there are studies looking into this subject that are worth noting. In 2003, the Scottish government, looking to revamp its own prostitution policies, did a massive report on policies in different countries around the world, and found that pure legalization plus regulation just isn't the best way to handle prostitution.

Among other things, the study found that legalization led to a dramatic expansion of the sex industry—in Australia, brothels expanded to the point where they overwhelmed the state's ability to regulate them, and became mired in organized crime and corruption. That was typical. In countries that went the legalization route, child prostitution and the trafficking of foreign women into the region also increased dramatically. Surveys, meanwhile, found that sex workers still felt coerced and unsafe even after legalization. In the Netherlands—often held up as a model in this regard—a survey done in 2000 found that 79 percent of prostitutes were in the sex business "due to some degree of force."

The best approach, as far as I can tell, turns out to be Sweden's. In Sweden, prostitution is considered "an aspect of male violence against women and children" and treated as such. Legislation, passed in 1999 as part of a broader "violence against women" bill, decriminalized the selling of sex while making the buying of sex illegal (pimping was already outlawed). So that was novel. But the bill also—and this bit was crucial—provided ample social service funds for helping any prostitute who wanted to get out of the business to do so, as well as funds for educating the public [Question, though: How much money is spent on re-inserting (no jokes here, please) prostitutes into the wider society and, assuming it works, it probably involves not-so-small amounts and why other hard-done-by should get less just coz they didn't/couldn't prostitute themselves?].

And after a few early hiccups, this strategy seems to have worked. Prosecutions of male buyers and johns went up dramatically. The sex trade doesn't seem to have been pushed underground, as many feared. Street prostitution in Stockholm has dropped by two-thirds since 1999. The Swedish government estimates that only around 200-500 women are trafficked annually into the country, as compared to some 17,000 trafficked into Finland each year. And most importantly, 60 percent of prostitutes took advantage of the social service funds and succeeded in exiting the sex industry. [If you're a foreign woman looking to live in the West and you don't mind snow, you know how to do it - Go to Sweden, prostitute yourself once, making damn sure to get caught and then all your problems will be solved. Seems like potentially putting perverse incentives at work, as when France legalise all illegal immigrants in the 80s and it ended up with a flood from illegals from other European countries trying to catch a break].

At any rate, when it comes to views on prostitution I think I pretty much agree with this post by Emma of Gendergeek, who opposes fully legalizing prostitution in theory and isn't swayed by the argument that it just allows women to "choose" for themselves what to do with their body. And although I'd be interested in seeing evidence to the contrary, Sweden's approach appears to best finesse the line between legalization—which seems to work out horribly in practice—and outright criminalization, while offering those in the sex industry more of a choice than they quite obviously have at present.

UPDATE: Petra Östergren, a Swedish writer who has interviewed a number of Swedish sex workers, has some strong criticisms of the law here, which are very much worth reading

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The Petra article: Sexworkes Critique of Swedish Prostitution policy

In this article I will not deal with the complex issue of whether prostitution is socially or otherwise desirable. Rather this article seeks to document some of the experiences and opinions of female sexworkers in Sweden. I have been concerned by the fact that the very women who are at the center of prostitution policy are so rarely heard and so often feel discriminated against. If equal rights for women is important, then the experience of sexworkers themselves must surely be central to our discussion, regardless of what position one takes on prostitution.

The law against procurement of sexual services (promotion or deriving profit from prostitution) and a recent law prohibiting the purchase of sexual services introduced in 1999 are the two main ways the Swedish state sees itself as "combating" prostitution. Swedish politicians and feminists are proud of the state's prostitution policy. They insist that it has positive effects. Sexworkers are of a different view. Most of the female Swedish sexworkers I have interviewed voice a strong critique of their legal and social situation. They feel discriminated against, endangered by the very laws that seek to protect them, and they feel under severe emotional stress as a result of the laws.

The material in this article stems from my interviews, informal talks and correspondence with approximately 20 sexworkers since 1996, as well as published and broadcasted interviews with sexworkers in Swedish media. It is also based on interviews with people working with women selling sex to support a drug habit (most whom also are homeless).

This article also contains a summary of reports conducted by Swedish authorities after the introduction of new legislation (the criminalization of clients).

Selling sexual services is not work

Sexwork is officially not considered work in Sweden. Rather, prostitution is seen as a social ill and a form of men's violence against women. Women who sell sex are considered victims who need protection by the state. Male or transgendered sexworkers are rarely spoken of. [That's for Zichao's personal windmill] In the task of creating a better and more equal society, the Swedish state has determined that prostitution has to be abolished. This is an opinion rarely called into question.

The law against procurement

The law against procurement renders it illegal to work indoors, work with others, to profit from the sexual labour of others, and advertise. Some women interviewed express satisfaction with the effect this law has had on exploitative pimps, since there have been relatively few of them in Sweden the last two decades. Other sexworkers find this law discriminatory. They believe that they, like any other worker or businessperson, should have the right to a reasonable work environment, work collectively, advertise or open a business etc.

Due to the law against procurement, sexworkers are forced to lie in order to rent premises, or alternatively they have to pay exorbitant rent. Either way, they constantly worry about being discovered. They also report often having to move (when discovered) and being treated badly by landlords and "rent pimps". Some women prefer to make contact with their customers on the street. Other sexworkers find this too humiliating.

Most of the women I have spoken to wish to be able to work together with others. This is to ensure safety and to support each other. They find it unfair that they cannot do this and feel scared when they have to work alone.

This law also makes it difficult for sexworkers to cohabit with a partner since it is illegal to receive any of a sexworker's income. It is hard for a sexworker to have a family at all since sexworkers are considered to be unfit parents and therefore can lose custody of their children if it emerges that they sell sex.

The law against purchasing sexual services

The new law which prohibits the act of buying sexual services is severely criticized by sexworkers. They find the law paradoxical, illogical and discriminatory. It further obstructs their work and exposes them to stress and danger.

The women I have spoken to say that the reasoning behind the law does not makes sense to them. How can the politicians claim that only the clients are being punished and that they are being protected? The effect of the is law mostly negative for the sexworker. Some point out that even if a few men might get fined, the majority will continue buying sexual services as usual - and as usual it is women and sexworkers who will be the most adversely affected.

As a result of the new legislation, the sexworkers say it is now harder for them to assess the clients. The clients are more stressed and scared and negotiation outdoors must be done in a more rapid manner. The likelihood of ending up with a dangerous client is thereby greater.

Due to the law, sexworkers feel hunted by the police, social workers, media and sometimes even anti-prostitution activists on the streets. [Hahaha. For some reasons, the mental movie I got with a sexworker being hunted by well meaning assholes is funny to me. So shoot me. But it'd be an awesome short movie.] They find this unacceptable. One sexworker commented that no other vocational group would accept that the police "patrolled their workplace".

Another consequence is that the sexworkers are now more apprehensive about seeking help from the police when they have had problems with an abusive customer. They do not want to be forced to report the client.

Since the number of sexworkers on the streets has decreased and they are more scared, previous informal networks amongst the sexworkers have weakened. The result is that they are no longer able to warn each other about dangerous clients or give each other the same support.

Women also report that another consequence of the law is lower prices on the streets since there are less customers and more competition. This means that women in more desperate need of money will engage in unsafe sex and sexual activity they usually would not perform. This in turn leads to poorer self-esteem and exposure to infection. Other women who have turned to the Internet to advertise claim a positive effect insofar as they have been able to raise their prices. But note that this only benefits some sexworkers. The more vulnerable sexworkers seem to be the ones most negatively affected by the law.

Women working on the streets in some bigger cities claim that there is now a greater percentage of "perverted" customers and that the "nice and kind" customers have disappeared. A "perverted" customer is someone who demands more violent forms of sex, sex with faeces and urine and who is more prone to humiliate, degrade and violate the sexworker. He also more often refuses to use condoms. Since there are fewer customers on the streets many women who sell sex in order to finance a drug habit can no longer refuse these customers, as they were previously able to. These women say the "kind" customers have either turned to the Internet to find sexual services or have been arrested by the police. On the contrary, the "perverted" customers know what to do to not be arrested and fined - they just have to deny it since there is rarely hard evidence.

Societal treatment

Another often mentioned grievance is how sexworkers feel treated by the authorities and by society at large. All sexworkers I have spoken to mention the stigma attached to prostitution where the sexworker is seen as weak, dirty, mentally ill, addicted to drugs and alcohol and viewed as a victim. Along with the difficult legal situation, this makes the sexworkers afraid that it will be brought to public attention that they sell sex, so they do all they can to ensure their anonymity. This includes for some women lying to friends, family and neighbours.

The sexworkers say that they feel incapacitated by the state and not respected. They maintain that their rights as citizens are violated. Several of them state that they are an important part of society, that they contribute to it, but that they are actively excluded from it. They also think sexworkers are denied the benefits of the welfare state - something that is granted all other Swedish citizens.

Several sexworkers say that they feel used by politicians, feminists and the media. They think that sexworkers are only listened to and being paid attention to if they say the correct things, i.e. that they find prostitution appalling, that they are victims, that they have stopped selling sex and will never go back, and that they are grateful to the current prostitution policy and to the policy makers.

Sexworkers feel overlooked in decision-making processes regarding juridical changes etc., something they find undemocratic. They question whether any other social group would have been so consistently excluded from any relevant policy making process

The sexworkers report having had very little or no help from the social authorities and in any case, they would rather be left alone by them. Some believe women wishing to leave sexwork can in some instances get adequate help from the social authorities.

Most of the sexworkers I have interviewed reject the idea that there is something intrinsically wrong with their profession, or that they should be subjected to therapy or retrained in order to work as something else. They also consider this to be a treatment that would not be foisted upon other professional groups. Sexworkers say that contrary to the official belief, they are not the victims of their customers, but victims of the state. This is not only because they are not listened to, or that the state puts them into dangerous situations and forces some of them to become affiliated with the criminal world, but also because the overall situation makes it impossible for them to be open about their work, speak out against injustice and to organize themselves.

Health issues

All the women I have spoken to report feelings of emotional stress due to the legal situation and how they are treated socially. They have to hide, lie and keep double identities. They fear harassment and ostracism for themselves, their children and their partners.

The emotional stress also stems from a vulnerable and unclear financial situation. Since most women do not pay taxes they are scared of what will happen to them once they retire. Their pensions will be low and barely adequate to live on. When they fall ill, they still have to work or rely on what savings they may have, instead of relying on a right to workers compensation. The legal situation regarding taxation is unclear and varies from city to city. Some tax authorities will leave sexworkers alone, others will seek them out and tax them according to an arbitrary estimate. This worries sexworkers. Some of them have been subjected to this procedure with disastrous financial consequences. Others have only heard about it and worry it will happen to them.

Sexworkers report an increase in their emotional stress subsequent to the introduction of the new law. The sexworkers say that they now feel more worried about being found out as well as more worried about future income. Several report that they now have more anxiety, sleeping problems, concentration problems as well as problems related to eating disorders, alcohol and drugs.

The sexworkers I have interviewed report greater feelings of powerlessness and resignation than before the introduction of the new legislation. They feel as if there is "no point" in trying to change the system (or its direct effects on their lives) and that no one supports them or speaks for them.

What they want

Sexworkers express anger about Swedish politicians who, in their opinion, brag and tell lies about the effect of the new law vis-à-vis other countries. They wish that other countries might find out "the truth" about the effects of the law. They also strongly discourage other countries from adopting similar legislation.

Even if few of the sexworkers I have spoken to claim to know the details of the new legislation regarding prostitution in the Netherlands and Germany, they all speak positively of it. They wish that prostitution in Sweden would be legalized (or at least decriminalized), that there would be unions and organizations for sexworkers, that the stigma around them would be lifted and that they would be granted the same rights and obligations as other women and citizens.

Women selling sex to support a drug habit seem to be less likely to regard sexwork as a positive experience or as a work. But they are just as critical of the Swedish legislation and policy. They would like to have better access to a methadone or subutex program, currently something only a fixed number of people have.

Official reports

Criticisms similar to those made by my respondents were voiced in the three official reports made since the law against purchasing of sexual services was introduced. One year after the law was passed, the National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet), conducted a survey of the practice of the new law and what problems had been encountered. The National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), also published a report one year after the law was introduced. Their task was to document existing knowledge of the spread of prostitution. The National Police Board (Rikspolisstyrelsen) published a report based on information from the first two years of practice of the new law. Their task was to evaluate the practice of the law and make suggestions about new methods in police work against prostitution.

All of these reports find that street prostitution dropped immediately after the introduction of the law. They also suggest that recruitment was lower, although the National Council for Crime Prevention means that the exact number of prostitutes in for example Stockholm was hard to estimate because street prostitution had moved to other streets and took place in a larger area than before. All of the authorities say that there is no evidence that prostitution was lower overall. Instead hidden prostitution had probably increased.

All of the reports address the problems emerging after the new law was introduced. The National Police Board writes that the sexworkers that are still in street prostitution have a tough time. This, they explain, is because customers are fewer, prices are lower and competition harder for the women. This leads to the sex workers selling sex without protection of condoms for a higher rate, and it leads to them having to accept more customers than before (since the prices are lower). The respondents in the National Board of Health and Welfare's study (of which none are sexworkers themselves) believe female sexworkers now experience more difficulties and are more exposed then before. The buyers are "worse" and more dangerous, and the women who cannot stop or move their business are dependent on these more dangerous men, since they cannot afford to turn them down as before. Even the buyers that were interviewed believe that the law mostly affected the already socially marginalised women. According to the National Police Board, the healthcare system has worries about declining health among sex workers and spreading sexually transmitted disease.

The National Police Board has also found the law an obstacle to prosecuting profiteers who exploit the sexual labour of others. Earlier legal cases against such men could sometimes be supported by the testimonies of sex-buyers. But these men are no longer willing to assist, since they themselves are now guilty of committing a crime. The Police Board report also points out that sexworkers have fallen into a difficult, constructed, in-between position with regard to the new law. The female sex worker sells sex, but this is not a criminal act. However, because purchasing sexual services is now a crime, the sexworker can be made to appear as a witness in the trial process. She therefore has neither the rights of the accused or the victim. The Police Board report also discusses the fact that sexworkers are subject to an invasive searches and questioning, so that evidence against the clients might be obtained in flagranti.

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