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Here’s a basic question, though it may be uncomfortable for some: If seeking sex from vulnerable women in return for rent is something so deeply immoral that it must be immediately criminalised, as several Irish politicians declared yesterday, then must it not also follow that seeking sex from vulnerable women in return for a cash payment is also so deeply immoral that it must be always criminalised?
In cruder terms – if it should be illegal to offer a woman sex in return for her own bedroom and living arrangements, how can you also, as many do, at the same time argue to make it legal to offer women sex in the back seat of a car for fifty euros?
And in addition, why is a new law needed, as Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan argued yesterday, when offers to purchase sex in return for any remuneration or compensation are already illegal?
For clarity, this is what Irish law currently says:
It is an offence to pay, promise to pay, or give any other remuneration or compensation, to another person in exchange for “sexual activity”. If convicted, you could be fined €500 for a first offence, or €1000 for a second or subsequent offence. In addition, if the person is trafficked, higher penalties apply. If convicted by the Circuit Court, the maximum penalties are 5 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both.
Sexual activity means any activity that a reasonable person would consider sexual. The law applies equally to men and women.
It should be said, by the way, that the law in Ireland as it relates to transactions involving the sale of sex is deeply unpopular with various political parties on the left, who have called for years for the full decriminalisation of prostitution. They make those calls on the basis that women should be entitled to exchange sexual services for cash as long as the two people involved are consenting adults.
This is, of course, a coherent position, albeit one I find personally unconvincing. Where it becomes incoherent is when it is applied to a situation like that outlined by RTE’s report last night: Desperate women being offered accommodation in return for providing sexual services to the landlord.
The difference, some on the left will say, is exploitation: The (scumbag) landlords offering sex in return for accommodation are taking advantage of someone in their hour of need, which undermines any notion that the transaction is “truly” consensual. And yet, their problem is that this is equally true of many, if not all, situations involving prostitution. It is an established fact that many women working in the sex trade in Ireland have been trafficked into it, and that many others are in, or emerging from, troubling situations with addiction and so on. Buying sex is almost always exploitative. So what’s the difference?
The difference, I suspect, is in the nature of the women involved: The stigma of being involved in prostitution makes it more empowering to have it presented, by the left, as a choice, and one which society should tolerate and condone. By contrast, the idea of selling sex to some grubby landlord in return for a roof is much more offensive to respectable women who are more likely on balance to get that kind of offer than they are to voluntarily engage in prostitution. In the example in which those who society may see as degraded must be made seem respectable, the law is supposed to legitimise the choices made. But in an example where the “respectable” might be made to feel degraded by functionally the same transaction – even if it is consensual – the law must de-legitimise. The instinct is to use the law, in both case, to make moral statements about people’s choices and make us all feel better about our various prejudices.
Which brings me back to the calls for a new law. Why is one necessary when the exchange of monetary value for sex is already illegal?
The answer, I suspect, is as basic as this: They don’t want “decent” women covered by the same laws as those that govern prostitutes. Which is, in itself, an admission that the sale of sex remains a societal taboo.
In any case, the existing laws should be enforced. Any man who is on tape promising to exchange sex for accommodation has already broken the laws around solicitation, and RTE should hand their names over to the Gardai for investigation, prosecution, and conviction.
But the question remains: How can you oppose this, as many on the left do, and at the same time wish to decriminalise and regulate prostitution? It’s a contradiction.
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