Sex work, job creation and the latest moral panic

The headline from the International Business Times was a moral panic classic: "UK Government Pays Sex Clubs To Employ Teenage Girls." But it is a headline that is misleading and it misses the point. It conjures up sordid images of underage girls being plucked from schoolyards by evil government sex traffickers to work as prostitutes.

What has actually happened is that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has paid cash incentives to a range of employers in the adult entertainment industry to hire unemployed people aged 18-24. Yes, if you are 18 you are a teenager - but you are also an adult in the eyes of the law and when you are an adult, you can work in for any legal employer in the adult entertainment industry. You may disapprove of the adult entertainment industry but if that's the case, you can go and do something else for a living.

The DWP distributed a list of the employers that can benefit from at least £2,000 in incentives funded by UK taxpayers. Here is the list:

1. Those involved in the sale, manufacture, distribution and display of sex related products;
2. Auxiliary workers in lap/pole dancing clubs – e.g. bar staff, door staff, receptionists or cleaners;
3. Auxiliary workers in strip clubs – e.g. bar staff, door staff, receptionists or cleaners;
4. Auxiliary workers in saunas/massage parlours e.g. bar staff, door staff, receptionists or clearers;
5. Glamour model photographers;
6. Web-cam operators;
7. TV camera operators, sound technicians, producers/directors for adult channels on digital TV;
8. TV camera operators, sound technicians, producers/directors for pornographic films.

Like it or not, these are all perfectly legal ways to earn a living.

DWP rules stipulate that such employers can offer young jobseekers full-time work for up to 26 weeks as long as the jobseeker is not a performer nor performing sexual acts. Given the laws surrounding the legality of prostitution in the UK are rather muddy (and frankly ridiculous), this rule seems fair enough.

But it's not the morality of working in the adult entertainment industry that is the real problem here. The problem is that the UK government is turning the employers into welfare recipients in a scheme that doesn't do a damn thing to create long-term jobs. It doesn't matter if it's Sainsburys or Spearmint Rhino - this policy is stupid.

There is nothing to stop any employer from simply hiring someone for 26 weeks, getting rid of them and then hiring someone else for another 26 weeks to do the same job. This is not real, long-term job creation. This is simply a way for employers to hire staff at the expense of the taxpayer. Sure, the experience might lead to another job, or it might lead to another 26 weeks of temporary work elsewhere or it might lead to nowhere but long-term uncertainty. If any employer has work that needs to be done, they should hire staff and pay a living wage. This way, people have some financial security, they are less likely to be dependent on benefits, they pay tax and they are economically active consumers.

Similarly, if people are forced to do any job under the threat of losing unemployment benefits, whether it's in the adult entertainment industry or not, that is problematic. This harks back to the case last year of Cait Reilly, the graduate who had to forego work experience in a museum to work in Poundland or face losing fairly meagre unemployment payments. The museum experience would have helped her get a better-paid job relevant to her degree. Instead, she has ended up working in a Morrisons supermarket.

There is nothing wrong with working in a supermarket but there is plenty wrong with a system that is focused on number-crunching. This is all about forcing people in any job at taxpayer expense to make the unemployment figures look more attractive in time for the 2015 election. There is nothing in this policy that focuses on creating real jobs across a range of industries, looking at the individual situations of unemployed people on a case-by-case basis, or regional development so that jobs are not just created in expensive, crowded London. But none of that makes for a good headline.

In short, the pearl-clutching article from the International Business Times is simply another excuse to slag off the adult entertainment industry.



Image courtesy of the British Library, 1885

Just in case anyone is still taking the Daily Mail seriously...

It was a front page that should come as no surprise to anyone, but the irony of the Daily Mail describing anything as a "vile product" is still astounding. Today, Mick Philpott (and his kids, it would appear from the picture that was used...) is the "vile product" of a welfare state, according to the screaming headline. No reasonable person would ever defend the actions of Mick and Mairead Philpott, who burned six of his 17 children to death. But to use an extreme example of one seriously dysfunctional family to demonise everyone on benefits is completely ridiculous.

The Philpott verdict conveniently coincides with the government's welfare reforms, including the ill-conceived "bedroom tax"/"spare room benefit cut"/whatever you call it, it's an unworkable policy that will cost a fortune to administer and fails to take into account a genuine housing shortage or do anything constructive about soaring private rents or job creation.

But with the crown alleging that Mick Philpott set the house on fire in attempt to frame his mistress and obtain a larger council house for themselves and all those children, the timing was Daily Mail gold.

Wait, hang on... This is the same Daily Mail that demonises women who have abortions as well as women who have "too many children".

This is the same Daily Mail that gets outraged about teenaged girls having access to free birth control and teenaged girls who become single mothers.

This is the same Daily Mail who condemns young mothers as feckless, older mothers as irresponsible breeders of deformed babies and women who don't have kids as bitter shrews.

This is the same Daily Mail that has no issue with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge about to move their family of soon-to-be-three into a nine-bedroom house.

This is the same Daily Mail that regularly peddles the "Won't someone think of the children?" mentality while treating underage female celebrities like sex objects.

This is the same Daily Mail that treats rich murderers far more gently than poor ones. When the rich kill, it is a tragedy that not even being a millionaire could have prevented but when the poor kill, it is because they are always feckless criminals.

Oh, and in case anyone has forgotten, there are six children who are dead. 

The woman with a womb like a clown car: a conundrum for the left and the right

Heather Frost. Mother of 11 to three different fathers. Benefits claimant. She who is getting a £400,000 house - always called a "mansion" by the likes of the Daily Mail - "built for her". She who sluttishly spends her welfare cash on a horse, multiple pets and flying lessons. It's easy to see why the tabloid press is having a field day with this woman.

Now that she has recovered from cervical cancer, she has been rendered sterile. This has been described by her father and others as a "blessing in disguise". It is also the reason why she has been unable to work for the last two years, but it's easier to demonise a cancer patient than express gratitude for living in a country where she was able to access treatment and not deprive her kids of a mother.

One of her daughters told the press that she is a good mother and that seeing her raise 11 kids has actually put her off such prolific breeding. If that's not a lesson learnt that should appease the tabloid disciples, I don't know what is.

It's easy to demand to know why she didn't avail herself of birth control, available for free in Britain, without knowing her medical history. It's easy to call her a slapper. Indeed, one of her neighbours was quoted as saying she treats her womb "like a clown car" - it's the kind of line one can imagine Estelle Costanza on Seinfeld using and it does conjure up a mental image that is awful and comical all at once.

Hell, it's always easy to make this all about the woman and her uterus and for nobody to question why the three men who fathered the children do not appear to be taking any responsibility.

Because it's simpler to make it the woman's fault. Just as unsavoury elements of the prolife movement think a universal "well, if women would just keep their legs shut" policy will render abortions unnecessary, it's always easier to slut-shame the single mother and let the father off the hook. As if all single mothers are reckless, feckless temptresses luring unsuspecting men into their bedrooms so their greedy wombs can take in lashings of semen.

Heather Frost's story troubles elements of the left and the right. She poses an intriguing conundrum for both the prolife and prochoice movements, for example. It would appear she truly chose to carry all 11 pregnancies to term and she has been quoted as saying she is opposed to abortion. But vocal elements of Britain's prolife movement, such as Nadine Dorries and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, (SPUC) have not hailed her as a heroine for "choosing life" 11 times.

Frost's story does not fit the welfare-cutting mantra of social conservatives, even those who are doing their best to reduce access to abortion in Britain. Nor does the Frost example offer a rosy picture of family life as per the SPUC narrative in which every woman who carries unplanned pregnancies to term has an endlessly joy-filled existence. The woman who has become a pariah in her own street and publicly slagged off by her own father is not likely to become SPUC's poster girl any time soon.

It certainly would have cost the British taxpayers less if she had multiple abortions instead of claiming benefits for the last seven years, but true prochoicers acknowledge that the choice to carry to term is just as valid as the choice to have an abortion. Plenty of prochoicers fly the flag for population control, but taking that to the extreme and advocating for a state that tries to dictate how many children people should produce is a troublesome stance for anyone who supports reproductive freedom.

Trying to police family size is a theme that crops up with both the "if you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em" crowd and fans of the one-child policy of China, a state that is frequently cited as an example of the evil left (despite the rampant capitalism and business opportunities this enormous and growing economy is offering). There is much awkwardness all round and, as a result, Heather Frost has been reduced to a sideshow freak with an obscenely prolific uterus.

But the whole circus is a moronic distraction.

The outrage is disproportionate. Of the 1.35 million families in Britain where at least one adult claims benefits, only 190 of them have more than 10 children. Heather Frost is in a tiny, tiny minority - just 0.014074% of the families on benefits. The majority of Britain's welfare budget is spent on the elderly, but it'd be political suicide to cut too deeply into the pockets of OAPs (except for those who fancy using a library once in a while...).

Tragically, this overblown outrage detracts attention away from the kind of things over which we should be marching on Westminster on a daily basis, such as killing off tax credits for workers, making unemployed people pay council tax, removing housing benefit for people under 25, the spare room tax, a rising deficit, mounting debts, pitiful economic growth, a taxation system that favours the wealthy, the incompetents of G4S running sexual assault referral centres, and the dismantling of the NHS. There are no prizes for guessing who might be pleased if Heather Frost is demonised.


Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com