Instead a motion was passed in favour of the criminalisation of the purchase of sex. Within feminist thinking there are opposed views on sex work and violence against women. Radical feminists in alliance with neoconservatives campaign for the abolition of prostitution and, in the interim, are supporting legislation that proposes the criminalisation of men. They argue that, while the long-term aim is to eliminate the conditions that breed prostitution, in the short term the priority is to keep women safe.
The language itself is highly problematic and emotive. Second, this term is used because women who directly sell sex on the streets, in flats or in brothels are only a subset of a much larger number of women who work in the sex industry. The sex industry is difficult to define because it encompasses a huge range of diverse activities. According to the writer Elisabeth Bernstein:. Accurate figures are hard to come by, but there is a general consensus that the last two decades have seen a resurgence in the international sex industry, including street prostitution, the voluntary or forced migration of women to work in the sex industry and the proliferation of lap dancing clubs.
What is certain is that the sex industry is hugely profitable. However, many apparently more respectable companies make huge profits from providing telephone lines and cable and satellite programmes, and being the internet providers for the sex industry. In a world where everything is for sale, activities such as lap dancing, which were once viewed as oppressive to women, are now accepted as mainstream leisure opportunities.
Pole dancing lessons, which require stilettos and skimpy shorts, are widely advertised as the new way of keeping fit. Soft porn is routinely displayed at the counters of supermarkets and garages, and prostitution is glamorised on TV in programmes such as The Secret Diaries of a Call Girl.
At the same time there was widespread revulsion at the murder of five young women working on the streets of Ipswich in These debates are the focus of this article. It is argued here that understanding prostitution and the wider sex industry has to be rooted in understanding the specific oppression of women within the capitalist family unit and the increasing commodification of sex as the marketplace intrudes into the most intimate aspects of human existence.
