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There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Live Drive, SDrive, Project M, Folders, FolderShare, Windows Live Sync, Live Mesh, SkyDrive, OneDrive. Yes, Microsoft has been at this file syncing game for a long time. The company bought FolderShare back in November of 2005, and has been …

Just recently, some front-end code Clearleft delivered to a client was making its way through acceptance testing. We were slightly surprised to discover that their standards required our code to be supported by the two latest versions of web browsers. And then we realised we didn’t have a browser support policy of our own – something we set about rectifying.

When considering browser versions, we were fairly sure our client didn’t mean, for example, versions 124 and 125 of Chrome (released on 16 April and 14 May 2024 respectively). Instead their support standard would most likely be harking back to the days when Internet Explorer was a thing, and major browsers were updated once a year at best. To put this in context, the final version of Internet Explorer shipped in 2013.

It’s at this point we noted that Clearleft didn’t have a written browser support policy to counter or complement that of our clients. We probably did in the dim and distant past, but in recent years we’ve just built accessible, progressively enhanced websites without feeling the need to codify what that means. For the sake of professionalism and good client relationships, we decided to rectify that.

But where to start? Using browser versions clearly doesn’t make any sense, so what do we turn to instead? As it turned out, Jeremy had already nailed it in a recent blog post. We wanted a browser support policy that would focus on outcomes for the user. Rather than being fixated on specific browsers, we needed to consider capabilities, using the mindset that sees modern coding use feature detection in preference to browser detection. It turns out there’s an initiative for that.

The Baseline initiative is a joint effort by Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla to categorise browser support for web standards. Baseline provides clear information about which web standards features are ready to use in websites. It designates new features into two categories:

• Newly available – a feature is supported by the latest versions of all core browsers
• Widely available – a feature has been supported across browsers for at least 30 months

We use the Baseline project to determine which browser features to use in production. If a feature is widely available according to Baseline, we can use it.

Quoting directly from our browser support policy:

Progressive enhancement

If a feature is newly available, we might still use it, but we’ll ask a follow-up question:

“Can this feature be used as a progressive enhancement?”

In other words, will using this feature harm browsers that don’t support it? If a newly-available feature can be used as a progressive enhancement, we might well use it. If not, we’ll wait until the feature becomes widely available and choose a different method in the meantime.

This approach restricts usage of new features to nice-to-have additions rather than mission-critical requirements. But it also means we don’t necessarily have to wait for every browser to support a feature before using it.

Access for all

Underlying our browser support policy are two foundational principles:

1. Website content and core functionality should be accessible to everyone.
2. It’s okay for websites to look different in different browsers.

If content is unreadable in some browsers, that’s a bug that we will fix. If content is displayed slightly differently in some browsers, we consider that to be a facet of the web, not a bug. This means that there will sometimes be subtle visual and functional differences from browser to browser. We deem this acceptable provided that content and core functionality are unaffected.

We think this the right approach to browser support, and it’s something we believe the whole industry should follow in principle. To that end we’ve made our browser support policy available under a Creative Commons license, meaning you can use it for your own purposes if you find it helpful.

Originally published on the Clearleft blog.

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Update: The title of this post was originally a knowing nod to the considered harmful cliché. I thought it might be amusing and get a bit of attention. However it was brought to my attention by a few people I respect that the title as written might be harmful in itself, so I changed it. However I believe that the subtle point I’m trying to make still stands:

When did we start using the ch unit to specify the maximum length for a line of text? Many places you look nowadays you'll see a variation on:

.prose {
  max-inline-size: 60ch;
}

Is it because of a direct reading of Bringhurst and people (like me) who’ve quoted him:

Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text face in a text size. The 66-character line (counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal. For multiple column work, a better average is 40 to 50 characters.

I get it: there’s all that talk of ’characters’. But that’s not what Bringhurst means literally. I’ll come back to that shortly.

Firstly let’s remind ourselves about the CSS ch unit. While ch sounds like it should equate to a number of characters or a character width, that’s not strictly the case. The ch unit specifically refers to the width of the zero ’0’ character within the selected font, or 0.5em if no ’0’ is present. So unless you have a line made up entirely of zeroes, or are using a monospaced font, a width of 66ch will probably not give you a line containing 66 characters. What’s more, the rendered width of that line will vary with the font design, sometimes significantly.

The important part of Bringhurst’s guideline is not the ’66-characters’ but the ’satisfactory length’. This is about readability, and readability is affected by the length of a line more so than the number of characters in it.

A consistent finding is that long line lengths on screen are least preferred or judged as least easy to read [my emphasis]

With that in mind, restricting your line length using rem would be a far more appropriate unit to use:

.prose {
  max-inline-size: 30rem;
}

This would give you a line length accessibly tied to text size, but independent of font design.

But is using ch harmful?

Bringhurst’s guideline includes this little caveat: a page set in a serifed text face in a text size. This enables him to equate the number of characters in a line with its length. So if you are using a fairly standard typeface for your text then you’ll probably be fine. However that ’standard typeface’ assumption is implicit anytime you use ch to set the width of a column of text. Using rem removes that assumption and gives you what you are probably really after – a consistent, predictable limit on line length.

It didn’t surprise me to find that Eric Meyer had written about this six years ago. I’ll leave you with an important observation from his post:

If you’re working with multiple typefaces, say one for headlines and another for body copy, be careful about setting ch measures and thinking they’ll be equivalent between the two fonts. The odds are very, very high they won’t be.

So is using ch harmful? At the risk of saying it depends, it might not be harmful, but it could be, and there is a far more reliable and appropriate unit to use by way of the rem when it comes to limiting line length in a column of text.

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When marking up a web page featuring text that requires superscripts or subscripts, we should use the semantically meaningful <sup> and <sub> elements. Examples include footnote references⁽¹⁾ and simple maths 12₁₀=C₁₂.

When browsers come across <sup> and <sub> elements, their user agent stylesheet usually applies rules like this:

sub { 
  vertical-align: sub;
  font-size: smaller;
  line-height: normal;
}

This makes the text smaller and shifts the baseline up or down. There’s two downsides to this. The first is that the baseline shift usually causes anomalous line spacing, that is to say lines are pushed up or down to make space for the sub- or superscript. Secondly the sub/superscripted characters look slightly off – effectively their font weight has been reduced compared with the surrounding text.

Many OpenType fonts ship with properly designed sub- and superscripts. These are specifically designed for the purpose – the glyphs are already small (no change in font size required), retain a comparable weight and have a different shape compared with regular characters, as befits a thoughtfully shrunk down glyph. Even if these characters are available in the current font, browsers will ignore them and continue to synthesise using CSS properties. There are sensible reasons for this, as we shall see.

It is very easy to get browsers to swap in the OpenType glyphs instead – just use the font-variant-position property. For browsers which support it (all modern ones) you can override the user agent stylesheet and implement font-variant-position as follows:

@supports ( font-variant-position: sub ) {
  sub {
    vertical-align: baseline;
    font-size: 100%;
    line-height: inherit;
    font-variant-position: sub;
  }
}

But there’s a potential problem. What happens if the characters in the text you need to superscript are not all available as OpenType alternates in the current font? According to the CSS Fonts Module Level 4 specification, browsers should synthesise the whole superscript, even if some characters are available as proper superscripts:

Because of the semantic nature of subscripts and superscripts, when the value [of font-variant-position] is either sub or super for a given contiguous run of text, if a variant glyph is not available for all the characters in the run, simulated glyphs should be synthesised for all characters using reduced forms of the glyphs that would be used without this feature applied.

Phew. Job done. You’d have thought. Unfortunately at the time of writing only Firefox supports this behaviour; WebKit and Chromium do not. If the webfont has loaded, the font you are currently reading contains the following superscript alternates: ^0123456789(). That is to say no letters or other characters except the numbers 0–9 and a pair of parentheses. Now let’s consider the following markup:

2a<sup>2</sup> a<sup>2a</sup> a<sup>(2)</sup>
a<sup>(2a)</sup> a<sup>[2]</sup>

The superscripts vary, in that some of them contain characters which are all available, and others contain a mixture. The text should render like this:

This is how it renders in the browser you are currently using:

2a² a^2a a⁽²⁾ a^(2a) a^[2]

The chances are that none of the ‘a’s or square brackets are superscripted at all. I’ve filed this as a bug in Chromium and Webkit. I’ve also asked that font-variant-position be removed from Baseline until these bugs are fixed, as support is evidently incomplete, but also because that lack of support is harmful to the visual semantics, in other words it could change the intention and meaning of the text.

Finally I’ve proposed that full support for font-variant-position is included in Interop 2025. If you want to see this happen give my proposal some love.

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The new series is produced by the BBC’s Natural History Unit in Bristol.

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The Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD has seen its quarterly revenues soar, beating Tesla’s for the first time. It posted more than 200bn yuan ($28.2bn, £21.8bn) in revenues between July […]

The post BYD revenues overtake Tesla’s, Reddit makes profit for first time appeared first on ShinyShiny.

It's a well-known rule in journalism that if the headline asks a question, the answer is invariably "no". So to see the question above on this blog will probably not surprise you.

What might surprise you is to learn it was also the headline of a prominently-featured article on the BBC website yesterday. Of course, as is the current fad, when they say "prostitutes" they mean "trafficking", and vice-versa.

It's been long known that there is no connection between major international sporting events such as the Olympics, the World Cup, and sex trafficking. But don't take my word for it. Take the word of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who hosted a meeting on this very topic earlier this year. Take the word of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, who produced a must-read report (pdf) on the actual effects of sports events on human trafficking. Go check out Laura Agustin's excellent summary too.

The facts:

• 2010 World Cup, South Africa: the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development did not find a single case of trafficking over the Olympics time period.

• 2010 Olympics, Canada: no evidence of trafficking and sex workers reported a fall in business.

• 2006 World Cup, Germany: 33 cases were referred to the police for further investigation, out of which 5 cases were confirmed to be trafficking (4 women and 1 man). No other cases were found, despite the fact that the police conducted 71 brothel raids (these raids did not identify the 5 confirmed trafficking cases, but did lead to 10 deportations).

• 2004 Olympics, Greece: When trafficking statistics were compared for all of 2004 with all of 2003, there was an increase of 181 trafficking cases (which is a 90% increase). According to both the police and the International Organization for Migration, none of these cases were linked to the Olympics.

• Super Bowls in the USA in 2008-2011: Although law enforcement increased, they made no additional arrests for sex work-related offences during this time.

You might be wondering, and it is a good question, why there isn't sex trafficking during these events. The answer is simple. Criminals may be criminals, but organised crime does not exist for the purpose of being evil. It exists to make loads of tax-free dosh. Does it make financial sense for sex trafficking to occur at these events? With London rents skyrocketing around the venues, with the Home Office plans to tighten border security, with the police already well misinformed about the magnitude of the trafficking problem, you'd have to be mad to pursue this as a business plan.

There was perhaps a time, back in the 90s, when sex trafficking in some parts of Eastern Europe might have netted you some cash if you already had the distribution network, but it's not the case now. Add to that a large native population willing and legally able to exchange money for sex and you'd be laughed out of Dragon's Den for even suggesting it as a goer. I've met a lot of dodgy characters in my day - drug dealers and worse besides - and to a person they were not in it to lose money. In many cases the black marketeers I know were actually better businesspeople than anyone in legit trading.

In spite of all this, we are still treated - almost daily now in the run-up to London 2012 - with the same old guff such as stories that sex trafficking 'almost doubled' during the Athens Olympics.

In this particular case, 'almost doubled' means that the number of reported incidents was 181, a 90% increase over the previous year. So yes, they did 'almost double'.

However if you too are underwhelmed by that number, it's with good reason. Applying all the usual disclaimers - any instance of forced sex trafficking is abhorrent and should be prosecuted vigorously, this is an argument about best use of police time, tax money and other resources - what does the reported change from just-shy-of-100 people to 181 actually represent?

Prostitution is legal and regulated in Greece, however, not everyone works legally and not everyone registers, because hello, do you want your name on the Greek government's hooker list? Probably not. Anyway, estimates put the number at about 1,000 legal prostitutes and 20,000 illegal ones. Given that these numbers are the ones put about by the US State Department which does not have a great track record on accuracy, it's a little suspect. But let's say for the sake of saying that represents some kind of starting ballpark figure and probably even an overestimate. The 21,000 total gives us about 1 in every 250 women in Greece working as a prostitute - actually a realistic enough proportion for Europe.

In the year before the Athens Olympics, the reports of sex trafficking at 95 represented 0.45% of all prostitution in Greece. And after the Olympics? 0.86%. Less than 1% of prostitutes in Greece were trafficked both before and after the Olympics.

There is no particular evidence, statistical or otherwise, to suggest that the fluctuation in this rather small number was due to the Olympics per se. In fact it is certainly within the bounds of what we call the 'law of small numbers' which dictates that they can and do fluctuate in a way that represents a high percentage of the values themselves, but given the rarity of the events involved, this is expected and not necessarily significant.

Here's an example. Let's say in the year 2008, there was 1 death in all of Scotland from a vending machine falling on someone. Then let's say a year later, in 2009, there were 2 such deaths. While it would be technically true to say that the number of vending machine accidental deaths 'doubled', is this a fair representation of the data? Is this a significant trend that is likely to continue? (Which would mean that by 2032, there would be 8.38 million such deaths in Scotland, or approximately... er, 150% of the population). No, obviously not. The change from 1 to 2 in a given year seems clearly attributable to chance. You'd be silly to conclude the change from one small number to another "means" very much without a lot of additional evidence.

If you've read my paper on the effects of lap dancing on sexual violence in London, you'll already be aware of how over time these small numbers fluctuate wildly. For context, the UNHCR gives the number of trafficked persons for Greece as 137 in 2005, 83 in 2006, 100 in 2007, 162 in 2008, 125 in 2009, 92 in 2010.

Now if these things had no knock-on effect, and if police resources and tax money were infinite, then sure, why not go after human trafficking even if it's only a very tiny proportion of all sex work in Greece - or in the more immediate case, London? But alas, it is not a matter of infinite police time and tax money. And it is definitely not a matter of no knock-on effects.

According to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, "Police crackdowns and brothel closures tend to displace sex workers from flats and saunas to less safe work venues, including the street, and make them wary of all authorities so they are less likely to access services or to report episodes of violence or crime to the police."

Given that the anti-sex lobby are so dead keen to keep claiming that all sex workers are inevitably the victims of violent and sex crimes, that seems like it's going to affect a hell of a lot more than a couple hundred people, no? Why does a small number of people matter to them more than a potentially far larger pool of people? Is it because that's where the grant money and column inches are at?

Not only is this increased danger the outcome in previous incidents of trafficking panic, it's happening right now in London. The Moratorium 2012 campaign, organised by x:talk, confirms:

Stop the Arrests Campaign is aware of ‘clean up efforts’ already underway in London, particularly east London, in the run-up to the Olympics ... Last December in Barking and Dagenham a violent gang carried out a series of robberies on brothels at knife point. Sex workers were deterred from pursuing the attacks after police threatened them with prosecution. Thus many more were attacked and one woman was raped.

Got that? Send the police after non-existent sex trafficking, and they end up cracking down on non-trafficked sex workers. When that happens, people in sex work are put in more danger. No one is made safer by doing this. No one is saved. Moratorium 2012 is calling on an end to the pointless and dangerous harassment. Please, sign the petition.

Like most people I saw the Science: It's a Girl Thing! teaser on Friday. My first reaction was "meh". Watch, ignore, move on.

But apparently it has ignited all sorts of controversy. Within hours my twitter feed was filling up with people - mostly not girls, not scientists, or both - who were slamming the advert for being too pink, to feminine... in short, too stereotypically girly.

Disclaimer: my science heroes as a kid were Mr Wizard, Carl Sagan, and Jack Klugman in Quincy M.E. Not overly feminine, I'll admit.

While I found the original advert a bit like Cosmo on acid and really not to my taste, it's fair to say the UK media Twitterati were not its intended consumers.

I wouldn't have been impressed with the trailer even as a teenager, but then, I already knew I wanted to be a scientist and had already stopped caring what the mean girls thought. Not everyone who could be interested in science gets there by age 13.

So, about Science: It's a Girl Thing! does it hit its target, or does it fail?

What a lot of the negative comments focused on was that this was funded by the EU. For those who don't know, the EU funds a lot of projects under its Framework Programmes to not only conduct research, but also to promote science and technology in general.

A few years ago I worked on an EU project, for instance, that was interested not in research per se, but in managing a consultation about existing knowledge in the area (the contribution of particular pesticides to child neurological development). We organised conferences on these themes, and produced guidance documents for the EU on various related subjects.

Being able to present well was a vital part of the job. It wasn't the coal-face of research that most of us came from, but if you think things like that aren't important to science in general, you're much mistaken. As far as EU-funded projects go, making videos to try to get teens to think about science is absolutely within their remit.

The second thing is that the video everyone objected to was a trailer. As we all know, trailers are sometimes misleading. In this case that's definitely true.

If you look at the other videos associated with the project - something very few people seemed to do - it's clear the teaser is not the meat of the campaign and was probably made by a different team. The teaser had been removed presumably because of the negative reaction, but the rest of the videos are still there. Those videos cover things like a day in the life of a virology student, a nanotechnology engineer, and a bioengineer from Helsinki. With nary a pink lab coat to be seen. I dare you to go and tell any of these women their work is "fluffy" or "inconsequential".

Rest assured the project will come with a follow-up assessment of how well it did reaching its target audience... an audience that, by definition, is not you. At least for once we were not treated to the usual monochrome 'woman with hair in a bun looks at petri dish' or 'woman at lab bench peers into microscope' crap. Like it or not this was a campaign that was trying something different and for that alone should be commended.


Someone tweeted at me that there's research that "proves" this sort of encouragement of girls doesn't work. So I went and had a look at it.

To summarise, "Betz and Sekaquaptewa recruited 142 girls aged 11 to 13 and showed them mocked-up magazine articles about three female university students who were either described as doing well in science, engineering, technology or mathematics (STEM), or as rising stars in unspecified fields. The three also either displayed overtly feminine characteristics or gender-neutral traits."

Apparently the subjects reacted negatively to the girly girls. Interesting stuff. But it's not clear that the paper sought to define an approach to addressing attitudes about women in science. Rather its results seem to confirm what surely we already know: that these negative associations exist and that people do not see femininity and science as complimentary. If you're going to write off visible femininity being not-opposed to science ability based on a 'personality science' study that serves to approximately tell people what we already know, then why bother doing anything?

Then there's the tone of the criticism in general which is, frankly, as condescending as it accuses to advert of being.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend who is making a career change into science. I found myself getting somewhat irritated that she, unlike me, did not appear to be willing to follow science to the nth degree and put her nose to the unrewarding research grindstone. Rather she wanted a degree in a subject she was interested in that could lead to a solid job in a few years' time.

She basically caught me out making the very assumption critics of the Girl Thing campaign are making: that if you're not on track for a Nobel prize, then you're not good enough for science. I realised how many of my assumptions about what science is "for" were shaped by my education-positive, science-positive upbringing... a background she did not have. In other words, the luxury of wallowing around in academia? Was not of any interest to her. She's the best judge of how to live her life - not me.

It felt pretty shit to realise what I was doing (sorry, S).

This points to what I feel is a greater malaise and one which seriously does hamper achievement. When we already know what class and income barriers there are for young people - not only girls - to get into white collar career paths, why would we want to make that worse?

We have to acknowledge that something that offends your taste may not actually have a negative effect. I hate CSI and Silent Witness. I hate forensic fiction shows with the white hot heat of a thousand suns. As someone with a PhD in forensic science, I feel it cheapens the real science and misrepresents what we do.

However, I can't deny the simultaneous explosion of students into forensic science that accompanied Marg Helgenberger and Emilia Fox swishing their luscious locks over murder victims. An explosion of students, by the way, that is predominantly female.


I would probably raise an eyebrow at any colleague who told me that they got into forensic science because of CSI, but to be honest, is that really any worse than my love of Quincy? And does being dismissive of eye-candy actresses pretending to be like me make me a better scientist than my CSI-loving colleague? No, it doesn't. The difference in our influences is not a matter of ability, it's a matter of personal taste, and that is something which is in no way correlated to being good at the job.

It's an effect that is not uncommon, in fact. Loads of people looked at Indiana Jones and fancied a go at archaeology. I'd wager Ally Beal had some impact on the law profession. Maybe the key to getting more young people interested in science isn't having a snarky blog only people exactly like you read (controversial, I know), but having relatable images in wider media for others to observe. Even if those images happen to be model-pretty and a bit daft.

(Insert your own paragraph about the impact Brian Cox will surely have here.)

Whether the rapid post-CSI expansion will have been a good thing for forensic science is another conversation. But it's interesting to see this happening largely at the former-poly universities. I would hold that these girly girl characters have made the field relevant to young women who had the innate ability to go into any science, but perhaps lacked the self confidence and support to see which field might be most relatable to them. Things which some of us take for granted. Having the confidence to strike out and do something different is not a given for everyone. And yes, this is absolutely a class thing... and a girl thing. It is all kinds of a privilege thing.


If you work in a lab with lots of other women, you'll see girly girls, tomboy girls, and plenty of others in between. It literally takes all kinds. Ability to do well in STEM subjects is not a function of appearance or sexiness.

But at the same time looking good and being sexy aren't barriers to being capable at science, either.
With so many people concerned about the crisis in young women wanting to be Kim Kardasian instead of Madame Curie, maybe it's time to acknowledge that we need to cast the net a little wider. Your experiences as a woman are not limited to these extremes.

While the original splashy video has been removed, I'm not sure this is a victory of any sort. I'm a little disappointed they turned tail at the first sign of criticism. Frankly the tone of the backlash provided a level of coverage the rest of the campaign would not otherwise have had. And if it turns out to have been misguided as so many believe, then what better way to learn how to improve the campaign?

But my guess is that regardless of whether or not you like pink and whether or not the advert offended you personally, the outcome will not have been all negative. The assumption that someone who aspires to look like a Kardashian can't or shouldn't become interested in science is frankly bollocks. And the assumption that young girls should be influenced by whatever the chattering classes deem appropriate is also bollocks. If that offends the po-faced middle class - for whom access to science careers is not in question anyway - then so be it.

As you may know, there is a consultation that closes today for a bill in Scotland that would criminalise the purchase of sex.

The response to the consultation that I have submitted to MSP Rhoda Grant is included below. It's long.

If you would like to make a last-minute submission, please consider the excellent template letters offered by SCOT-PEP. Please be sure to request anonymity if you want to do it privately, or consider signing with a pseudonym. You don't have to be in Scotland to reply.

My response:


First off, I would like to address to comments Trish Godman MSP made at the Conference Against Human Trafficking in October this year that “Belle” does not exist and is not happy. I am Belle de Jour, I do exist, and please thank Ms Godman for being so concerned about my feelings – I am happy.

QUESTIONS Q1: Do you support the general aim of the proposed Bill? Please indicate “yes/no/undecided” and explain the reasons for your response. 

No, I do not support the general aim of the bill.

If the current laws are not working, as you claim, what makes you think new, badly thought out laws would work better? Or is this another 'send a message' law? Passing laws is easy. Passing a law which actually works in the way intended, is enforceable and has no harmful unforeseen consequences is far more difficult.

Such a law as proposed here will not affect whether or not prostitution happens: it will simply affect the conditions under which it takes place to the harm of sex workers. The question is, do you care about those conditions? I do. My priority is access for sex workers to the services they need to preserve or improve their circumstances.

The criminalisation of the purchase of sex in other countries has been shown not to be a successful approach in either helping sex workers or stopping the phenomenon of paying for sex. The extensive evidence for this position is outlined in the replies to the following questions.  

Q2: What do you believe would be the effects of legislating to criminalise the purchase of sex (as outlined above)? Please provide evidence to support your answer.

The effects of criminalising the purchase of sex would be increased danger for the people involved in selling sex and no reduction in demand. It is neither the logical response to sex work nor is it the compassionate one.

It has been reported that at a meeting in London at the House of Commons in November, Rhoda Grant said that harm or attacks that might be suffered by sex workers as the result of this bill was a “price worth paying”. How easy to say when other people are the ones paying the price! This shows me the bill is putting ideology above people’s lives. That the desire to punish sex workers and their clients matters more to her than women’s safety. It is horrifying. [Alex Bryce, ” A Regressive Move Which Would Further Stigmatise and Endanger Sex Workers”. Huffington Post, 28 November 2012]

Legislators who care about lives should focus on the provision of essential support services first and foremost. There is ample evidence to suggest that introducing criminalisation as well as spending valuable time and police resources would be to the detriment of the sex workers this Bill claims to want to protect.

My opposition is based upon the fact that the Swedish model is flawed; on the negative impact of such criminalisation on existing sex workers, particularly in their ability to access health and criminal justice services; the fact such an approach ignores and thus fails to address limitations within the criminal justice system (and other agencies) to effectively address abuses; the negative influence it has on the broader narrative of human trafficking to the detriment of other kinds of trafficking and exploitation.

The law in Sweden criminalising buyers has not been successful. It was brought in based on very little evidence. According to Dr Laura Agustin, an expert on sex work and migration, one of its data sources was a survey of only 14 people - just 7 of whom were sex workers.

Statistics show Swedish men are not deterred by the law. Many go to Denmark and Germany where prostitution is legal. The demand has not dried up. The number of men in Sweden who have paid for sex is actually rising. The laws have proved unpopular. A recent newspaper survey found 63% of the population favoured abolishing the sex purchase ban. When the Justice Minister proposed increasing penalties, 88% of Swedes disagreed.

There are health and safety concerns about prohibition. Condom distribution and HIV prevention, “ugly mugs” schemes identifying violent punters, and exiting services show far lower uptake when prostitution is criminalised.

As Purchasing Sexual Services in Sweden and the Netherlands found, the impact of the law on sex workers was to make such work more dangerous; for example, by reducing the time available to sex workers to assess clients. [Purchasing Sexual Services in Sweden and the Netherlands, A Report by a Working Group on the legal regulation of the purchase of sexual services, 2004, p. 20]

Much is made in anti-trafficking discourse of the Swedish model based on the assertion that, by making the purchase of sex an offence, human trafficking declines. But as an example, a 2011 report found that:

[W]hen reviewing the research and reports available, it becomes clear that the Sex Purchase Act cannot be said to have decreased prostitution, trafficking for sexual purposes, or had a deterrent effect on clients to the extent claimed. Nor is it possible to claim that public attitudes towards prostitution have changed significantly in the desired radical feminist direction or that there has been a similar increased support of the ban. We have also found reports of serious adverse effects of the Sex Purchase Act – especially concerning the health and well-being of sex workers – in spite of the fact that the lawmakers stressed that the ban was not to have a detrimental effect on people in prostitution.

[The Swedish Sex Purchase Act: Claimed Success and Documented Effects, Susanne Dodillet and Petra Östergren, Conference paper presented at the International Workshop: Decriminalising Prostitution and Beyond: Practical Experiences and Challenges. The Hague, March 3 and 4, 2011, p.3.]

This year UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, stated unequivocally that decriminalisation is the best strategy for both safety of sex workers and disease control. Swedish statistics in the 2012 UNAIDS progress report show Sweden has no data on whether HIV and safer sex programmes are reaching sex workers, or if sex workers are getting tested. This is a worrying development that could lead to an Aids timebomb. Such things are already happening in countries like Cambodia, where abusive and violent police enforcement of anti-sex work laws has led to decreased use of prophylactics, fewer people coming forward for STI testing, etc.

Close reading of the Swedish publications on the topic make it clear that UNAIDS is correct in their interpretation. For example, the report claims “it is reasonable to assume that the reduction in street prostitution in Sweden is a direct result of criminalisation” and “The overall picture we have obtained is that, while there has been an increase in prostitution in our neighbouring Nordic countries in the last decade, as far as we can see, prostitution has at least not increased in Sweden” (p. 36).

The language reveals that Sweden has no data and is simply pulling numbers out of thin air. As such, we argue that the Swedish model should be more carefully considered, especially in relation to its alleged ‘success’, and its applicability to Scotland. Criminalising sex work makes prostitutes more vulnerable to violence.

The UNAIDS report notes “In Sweden, sex workers who were unable to work indoors were left on the street with the most dangerous clients and little choice but to accept them.” This has also been the case in reports focusing on human rights in countries like Cambodia, where efforts to reduce prostitution have had a significant harmful effect.

By contrast, decriminalisation has been beneficial in terms of welfare of women. In 2003, New Zealand opted to overturn their laws that criminalised prostitution in favour of regulation. The people most visibly affected by the law were streetwalkers in larger cities like Auckland, where in 2003 about 360 girls were estimated by police to be working. Streetwalkers represent about 11% of the total number of prostitutes in the country. ["Big Increase of Sex Workers a Myth: Latest Research". Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences. 2006-09-12] An evaluation of available data shows that the number of sex workers changed very little – and in some places, the numbers of them on the streets actually decreased – compared to before sex work was legal.

In Auckland, the estimated number of girls working the streets decreased significantly, from 360 to 106. People working in massage parlours and other establishments expressed a desire to stay in the work because of the financial rewards. [Report of the Prostitution Law Review Committee on the Operation of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003. Available online at: http://www.justice.govt.nz/policy-and-consultation/legislation/prostitution-law-review-committee/publications/plrc-report/report-of-the-prostitution-law-review-committee-on-the-operation-of-the-prostitution-reform-act-2003] In 2010, interviews with over 700 sex workers in New Zealand were published. [G Abel, L Fitzgerald, C Healy, (eds). Taking the crime out of sex work: New Zealand sex workers' fight for decriminalisation. Policy Press 2010] The number of interviews represents almost 12% of the estimated 5932 prostitutes in the country, a far higher proportion than in virtually any other qualitative study of sex workers ever conducted.

It concluded that the majority entered and stayed in the sex trade for financial reasons, that they felt the new laws gave them more protection, and that the result was positive changes overall for safety and health. As a result of the legislation they had become more willing (and able) to report crimes to the police - surely a victory for women’s safety.

We have a relevant and recent Scottish example with Aberdeen. From 2001 onward, the city had an established tolerance zone for sex workers around the harbour. That ended with passage of the Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland) Act in 2007. In the following months the city centre experienced an influx of streetwalkers and an increase in petty crimes. Quay Services, which operates a drop-in centre for streetwalkers, reported that sex workers became more afraid to seek assistance and the number of women coming to the centre dropped to “just a handful”. [M Horne. “Safety tips texted to prostitutes after tolerance zone ends.” The Scotsman, 08 June 2008.] There was also evidence that displacing sex workers led to more activity in the sex trade, not less – convictions for solicitation tripled. [K Keane, 18 November 2008. “Prostitution 'forced into city'.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7734480.stm]

To give a more specific example – when I lived in Sheffield in the early 2000s I saw firsthand the tragic effects of driving sex work away from well-trafficked, well-watched areas. At one point a de facto ‘tolerance’ area of streetwalkers had existed around the St George’s area of the city. It was fairly central, well lighted with CCTV, and police went through the area regularly. The streetwalkers I saw there (for I lived in a flat nearby) all seemed confident and in control. The interactions I saw with them and punters, and them and police, did not appear strained or overtly dangerous.

This changed when the crackdown came. Bollards went up to prevent kerb crawling. Women were pushed out to less populated, more industrial, less policed areas. It happened at that time I was a student, working in the city’s Medico Legal Centre.

One day I was called down to look at a postmortem. The mortuary was a rectangular room, with parallel stations set up for performing autopsies. That particular morning, there was one case I remember in excruciating detail. A young woman had been stabbed in a frenzied attack out past the dark underpasses of the Wicker, not far from Corporation Street. She died in hospital. The victim was just 25 years old. I had turned 25 the night she died.

[Name Redacted] was picked up by someone unknown, stabbed 19 times, and dumped in a lot. She lived long enough to give a partial description of her attacker, but died in hospital. I remember the dark hair, the pathologist methodically recording the position and appearance of each place the knife entered. I remember the stuffed teddy bear with a little red heart someone brought to the centre for her. Later I heard she had a 7-year-old son. Her killer has never been found.

Such a terrible, violent murder is only one tragedy. Many murders go unsolved every year. But the connection between what happened to [Redacted] and where she was working seemed clear to me. The more I learned, the more the effects of “zero tolerance” policing seemed partly responsible for her untimely death. This would not have happened if she had been on the streets near St George’s, with loads of walk-by traffic and well-lit corners. This crime could only have happened away from prying eyes, where anyone alerted to [Redacted]’s distress would not have been able to save her. Where there were no witnesses.

There is growing evidence that moving prostitutes into the darkened industrial outskirts of cities makes their lives more dangerous. [Redacted] is just one victim of a policy that is more concerned with exploiting prostitution myths and preserving a façade of public order than it is about benefitting women.

Perhaps rather than assuming these women are targeted because they are prostitutes, we should consider that they may be targeted because of message society is sending about their value as humans. Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River killer, murdered 48 women in America in the early 1980s. He later talked about why most of his victims were streetwalkers: "I picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.” [EW Hickey. Serial Murderers and Their Victims (5th edition). Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. P. 25.] It wasn’t the commercial sex angle that was attractive to him, but the convenience.

Many such killers are opportunists; they not only target shamed outsiders like prostitutes, but also hitchhikers and people travelling alone. People whose whereabouts are not exactly known at any given time. And yet no one would endorse a law criminalising solo travel under the rubric of “protecting” holidaymakers – that would be ludicrous.  

Q3: Are you aware of any unintended consequences or loopholes caused by the offence? Please provide evidence to support your answer. 

The unintended consequences of such a law would be greater personal risk for the people who sell sex, including both criminal danger, risk of attack, and exposure to sexually transmitted infections as detailed in the evidence for my answers given above. Attacking sex workers or their clients is not successful in changing behaviour. Prohibition in general tends to backfire.

We all know how badly alcohol prohibition in the US went and the frightening criminal implications of the ongoing “War on Drugs”. Instead of addressing the underlying social issues that might have been leading to unwelcome behaviours, it simply gives criminals a far greater hold on the industry than they would have otherwise. It does nothing to solve any actual family or societal problems. The government policy of the last several decades against sex workers has failed. No matter what deterrents are applied it always continues.

Even the Swedish government admits sex work advertising has increased on the internet – in other words, the trade has disappeared from public spaces but it has not gone away at all. What has happened is that sex workers have gone underground. This makes them more vulnerable, not less, to attack and abuse. It makes them more vulnerable to criminal gangs.

It is worth noting that Sweden’s largest trafficking prosecutions have all happened since the criminalisation law came into being – criminalisation makes trafficking worse, not better. If was as a society are serious about protecting women then we should rethink the current approach. The only country in the world that has put safety of women and men in sex work above subjective moral ideals is New Zealand. Their decriminalisation of sex work over ten years ago has been a great success.  

Q4: What are the advantages or disadvantages in using the definitions outlined above?  

“80. I want to ensure that the proposed legislation avoids any potential loopholes where a purchaser could avoid prosecution by means of non-cash payment.” 

“82. I intend to pursue this approach as it would mean that the offence would not be limited to sexual intercourse or oral sex but could potentially include a wider variety of sexual activity.”

So that’ll be everything from marriage to dating websites to flirting made illegal, then. The section relevant to this question makes clear that the intent of the bill is not simply the question of sex work, but policing any gendered or sexual interactions and behaviour with ill-defined parameters that make virtually all human relationships susceptible to prosecution. This is relevant to Q3 as the unintended consequences of such a law are potentially limitless.

Q5: What do you think the appropriate penalty should be for the offence? Please provide reasons for your answer.

I do not believe the consensual sexual activities of adults, monetised or not, should be in any way criminalised or subject to penalty. There are already laws in place to rightly prosecute those who engage in forced labour practices, abuse of children, rape and sexual assault and these should continue to be enforced robustly.

The consultation is low on information about what sex workers’ lives are really like, and seems informed mainly by skewed sources and dodgy assumptions. Since no space in the questions has been allocated to dispute these dangerous stereotypes, I’d like to use this opportunity to provide some data. When researchers allow sex workers to tell their experiences in a way that does not prejudge the outcome, the results reveal things that are well-known to those in the work, but still news to people on the outside.

A 2009 study polling sex workers is an excellent case in point. Beyond Gender: An examination of exploitation in sex work by Suzanne Jenkins of Keele University (2009) revealed the results of detailed interviews with 440 sex workers. Not simply street-based women, either, but women, men, and transgendered sex workers in all areas of the business. Over half were from the UK; the rest were based in western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

The results turn almost everything we think we know about sex work on its head. Is paid sex all about clients dominating sex workers? No. Less than 7% of the women interviewed thought that paying for sex gives the client power over the escort. 26.2% thought paying makes clients vulnerable, while the majority, 54.5%, said that 'commercial sexual transactions are relationships of equality'.

People generally think that clients get whatever they want from sex workers, abusing and taking advantage of them. But when asked 'in your escort interactions who normally takes overall control of the encounter?' 78.7% said they always or they usually did. 22.3% said it varies, and only 0.7% said the client decides.

Sex work is often characterised as brutal, with abuse a commonplace and even usual outcome. But when asked if they have ever felt physically threatened, only 25% of women and 18.7% of men said yes. 77% of women said they felt clients treated them respectfully; the same percentage said they respected their clients. When asked "how much longer do you plan to do escort work for?” " I have no plans to stop escort work‟ was joint first choice of answer for women along with "one-five more years" (both receiving 35.3%). Only 3.2% said they planned to stop in less than three months.

In many ways, this reflects a pragmatism and familiar to anyone with a more ‘traditional’ career. Sex workers are often stereotyped as very young and naive, unaware of the dangers of the choices they are making. But the age data do not suggest the field is populated with teenage runaways and naive youngsters: Almost 85% of the women were aged 26 or older, and 19% of them were over 40.

Sex work is frequently assumed to be a choice suitable only for the uneducated. But 35.3 % of the men held degrees, whereas for women, it was 32.9%. More than a third of the total were degree-educated, and over 18% held post-graduate qualifications. Only 6.5% had no formal educational qualifications. When asked what things they like about the work, 2 in 3 respondents in the Keele study reported 'like meeting people'. 75% of women and 50% of men reported 'flexibility of working hours' as an aspect they enjoy. 72% of women cited 'independence'.

Jenkins noted: “an appreciation of flexible working hours and independence were factors that were valuable to women generally, not only mothers. The benefits of greater independence and flexible working hours were not just about the demands of parenting - they were often about time provided for other, non parenting-related pursuits.”  

Q6: How should a new offence provision be enforced? Are there any techniques which might be used or obstacles which might need to be overcome? 

  I do not believe this should become an offence and therefore my opinion on how it should be enforced is irrelevant, except to say: not at all.

We can see that Denmark have recently rejected a similar bill that would have criminalized the purchase of sex and their reasons for doing so are worth considering carefully. The Justice Minister was of the opinion that such a law would be both illegal and unfeasible. Manu Sareen, the Danish gender equality minister, said during last year's election he wanted to ban the sex trade because it exploited women, but last month said he was not sure a ban was the best solution. The government is expected to offer counselling and other support programs to prostitutes. This is a far better use of human and financial resources.

Without engaging in the debate as to whether women (and indeed men and transgender individuals) willingly sell sex or are victims forced by circumstance to undertake this activity due to a lack of other income generating opportunities, there is nothing within this Bill or the accompanying consultation document as to the services and ‘help’ that will be provided to this group.

If the Scotland decides to criminalise the purchase of sex, and thereby seriously undermine the livelihood of sex workers, then they must acknowledge the need to provide alternative employment options and that this will require organisation and funding - both of which have been notably underfunded to date. Spend the money on services and support, not on policing victimless crimes.  

Q7: What is your assessment of the likely financial implications of the proposed Bill to you or your organisation; if possible please provide evidence to support your view? What (if any) other significant financial implications are likely to arise?

As a former sex worker and advocate of sex workers’ interests I know firsthand from friends and family in countries where sex work is illegal what the financial implications of this bill would be to the people involved. Imagine for a moment a downward spiral where someone who turns to sex work as a quick financial fix finds themselves in increased danger. There is also the question of how much money the government are going to waste on endless consultations for a law that will not work.

In times of financial austerity, throwing more money at unsuccessful policies is against the public interest and out of step with public opinion. Many opinion polls clearly show people support protecting the safety of sex workers and support decriminalisation. Criminalising consensual sexual activity between adults is expensive and dangerous.  

Q8: Is the proposed Bill likely to have any substantial positive or negative implications for equality? If it is likely to have a substantial negative implication, how might this be minimised or avoided? 

This bill will have a substantial negative implication for equality. What the people who believe in such numbers fail to acknowledge is that the continued attitude towards sex workers of being “damaged” or “fallen” women who must be saved by white knights only serves to exacerbate many of their problems.

Consider, as an analogy, that in the past society used to think of homosexuality as a disease rather than a sexual preference. Reams of supposedly “scientific” evidence were produced in order to “prove” that homosexuals suffered from mental health problems. These issues faced by gay, lesbian, and bisexual people (including stress, depression, and addictive behavior) are now understood to be the result not of their sexual preferences, but of the stigma associated with them and the pervasively negative social messages about them.

The mental health problems associated with outsider status are well known. Social isolation increases the risk of violence, blackmail, and coercion. Stigma and fear of humiliation and prosecution exacerbates any existing mental health issues. The current policy therefore is responsible for many of the mental health issues associated with sex work.

The consultation document cites among its evidence studies conducted by Melissa Farley, whose opinions have been found to be of insufficiently high quality to be admitted as evidence in Canadian court [Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Bedford v Canada, 2010. “Conclusion: Expert Evidence” http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2010/2010onsc4264/2010onsc4264.html#_Toc270411950], who has been the subject of serious ethical allegations to the APA from her colleagues [http://maggiemcneill.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/complaint-to-apa-re-melissa-farley.pdf], and who makes rape jokes about sex workers on her own website. [http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/WhyIMade.html] Her work is a prime example of the persistent, institutionalised hatred against sex workers and it has no place in any serious discussion of sex work and public policy.

There are some hopeful and encouraging things going on that actually could benefit sex workers and reduce their exposure to harm. In Liverpool, police adopted a policy that recognises violence against sex workers as a hate crime. The result is that they can approach the police and know that violence against them will be taken seriously. This has led to a dramatic increase in prosecutions and a decline in assaults. But it’s a model that has yet to be picked up anywhere else. In Aberdeen, police are working to build links with outreach workers and streetwalkers to identify and assist women who want to transition out of sex work.

To give a personal example, while my own experience of sex work is long in the past, as someone who is “out” as a former sex worker I am subjected to high levels of verbal abuse, harassment, and threats, be they over the internet, through the post, and even in person. This has ranged from written threats posted to my workplace, to harassing phone calls, to being harassed and accused of supporting paedophilia by members of the SSP during a public event, to a PCC complaint I filed against the Guardian in which they defended a comment on the site that stated I “should be dead in a ditch”. The PCC, by the way, sided with the newspaper. Imagine if anyone ever wrote about you on a national newspaper’s website that way. It is unpleasant to say the least.

The help of police in various areas when I report these things has been, shall we say, variable. Some are very helpful, some are not. This has affected things like where I have my post sent and whether to be listed in the phone directory. I have undertaken substantial legal efforts to keep the exact location of my home from being printed in the newspapers.

As a result of the amount of abuse and the threatening flavour of some of it I sadly have had to make the decision not to start a family. This is because I feel the risk of subjecting anyone else to the unfiltered hatred and threats I receive would be unacceptable. I feel lucky to have the strong support of family and friends which I do not take for granted. Even in my privileged position it is a constant struggle to “not let the bastards get me down”. It is easy to see how others without such support would fall into depression from constant abuse encouraged by our society. If you are okay with the fact this happens not only to me but to thousands of others every day, then by all means support this bill and keep the hatred going.

I do not believe however that people with empathy and compassion would want that to continue. There are many people who claim to support women’s rights yet deny the rights of large numbers of women whose lives they don’t approve of. Evidence shows that places where prostitution is tolerated or decriminalised produce better outcomes for the people involved.

Attacking visible signs of prostitution results in more criminality, not less. There is no such thing as “ending demand”. This is documented by research, by statistics. Anyone who supports criminalisation is basically saying to me and people like me, ‘women’s rights are important, except of course for women like you.’ They are endorsing the kind of attitudes that allow a national newspaper to defend the statement that I “should be dead in a ditch”. I reject such a stand as hypocritical and anti-women.

This substantial negative implication can only be avoided by rejecting the bill altogether.

Regards

Dr Brooke Magnanti

I was re-reading Iceberg Slim recently (as you do), and wondering what exactly it is the anti-sex brigade mean when they go around calling people "pimps".

I've been called a pimp before. By Julie Bindel, to my face, and I laughed because it is so ridiculous: I have never profited off of anyone's erotic capital but my own… and arguably Billie Piper's, though that makes me no more and perhaps significantly less pimp-like than (say) her agent and the show's producers.

I don't get particularly offended by such obviously over the top labels. But the word itself has started to crop up more and more in the arguments surrounding sex work and the proposed laws regarding prostitution. Take for example in Ireland, where the widespread assumption is that all sex workers are a) women and b) "pimped". Both of these are demonstrably and flagrantly not true, and yet are found in virtually any media coverage of the topic which is heavily influenced by an unholy coalition of extreme religious groups and extreme radfem ideologues.

The side issue dogging the proposed changes, that is, the discourse about what exactly constitutes trafficking and who exactly is trafficked, is of course pretty openly racist - both the words and the imagery. This has been covered in some detail and extremely well by eg. Laura Agustin, whose work on the topic I highly recommend.
 

Typical "trafficking" propaganda: shades of White Slavery all over the place.
 
Anyway, back to the concept of "pimp". Now we all know, or think we know, what a pimp is, and much of this archetype comes from highly fictionalised misrepresentations of Mr Slim's own work.
Go on, you know exactly what people mean by the word. What "pimp" implies. A man who runs women, lures them with money and romance, then turns them out to whoring, often beaten, always drug-addicted.

And he is black.

Starting to sound like casual use of "pimp" is dog-whistle racism, isn't it?

For the life of me I have never met a person even remotely like the stereotypical pimp, and yet I "know" they exist, largely because I have been told so over and over again. I've met streetwalkers, both drug-addicted and not; escorts and call girls, same; not one ever had what popular imagination would classify as a "pimp," but then I keep getting told I'm not representative, so maybe the literally hundreds of men and women, cis and trans sex workers I've met are just "not representative" too?

Occasionally you also hear talk of the "Eastern European gangmaster", but for some reason the class- and racially-evocative term "pimp" comes up far, far more often. Could that be because plain xenophobia just doesn't inspire the troops in quite the same way bald racism does?

Independent sex workers who organise their own affairs and work solo. Roommates who share a flat and both happen to sell sex. Managers running escorts agencies with a dozen or so girls they mostly interact with by text. Massage parlour owners. Women whose house is used by other sex workers, so technically I guess are madams. People who set up message boards and internet forums where clients and sex workers talk among themselves and with each other. All of these are people who get called "pimps" by the anti-sex lobby.

A guy in a crushed velvet suit on a street corner, keeping his girls high and working the neighbourhood? Not so many of those to the pound.

But, let's say he really is out there, because we all keep getting told he is. This working-class black man in the loud clothes who is sexually and physically aggressive and probably has a criminal record. This "pimp".

Do you think his choice of work isn't somehow constrained by society too? That he wouldn't rather be earning money some other way? Because anyone with any sense can surely suss out that a lot of activities, both legal and illegal, would be far more profit and far less hassle than running girls.


Iceberg Slim: hustling because it's not as if you were going to save him and his mother from poverty, were you?
 
This is the reality of waged work, all waged work, whether sex is involved or not. No one, but no one, has "free choice". If you think otherwise, remind yourself what you wanted to be when you grew up, and reflect on how exactly you ended up where you are now. Did you freely select from all career choices in the world, ever? Or did you choose as best you could from the options offered by your abilities and (more crucially) your circumstances? You know, like Iceberg Slim did?

Some folks seem especially resistant to acknowledging the truth about work, so I'll underline it some more. Entire towns in the North weren't full of miners because everyone there just happened to have the aptitude and preference for that sole job, but because it was the only job going. NE Scotland isn't full of fishermen because they have a particular concentration of people whose life's dream was to catch fish, but because that's what the job market offers. Everyone's outcome is the product of limited choices, from streetwalkers to the Queen. And no one's suggesting she needs to be "rescued" from her lack of career options.

If you want to improve someone's options, you address the things that constrain their choices in the first place. Poverty, addiction, education, to name a few. Not take away the only choices they have.

The pimp as we perceive him is a low-end tough. He's not exactly a criminal mastermind. And unlike a lot of the people who talk about "pimps" and whatnot, I know criminals. I have seen that life up close and fucking personal. I have lived in their neighbourhoods and their houses, and even in their families. I know that anyone who runs a business in the way the supposed pimp supposedly does is making little money, if any. What's 50% of that £10 anal bareback the anti-sex lobby claim is available in red lights everywhere? A fiver? Yeah, that sounds logical. Now pull the other one.

I know that his power - again, if he exists, because even when I was living in Cracktown, Pinellas County I saw shit that would stop your heart but I never once saw a "pimp" - is a power of an extremely limited kind. The power of someone with few and possibly no other options.

The anti-sex lobby's fantasy use of the term "pimp" is bogus and it is racist. Anyone who claims otherwise is being purposely disingenuous for the sake of striking fear into white, English-speaking, middle-class people.

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