Thought for the Day, 17 July 2004

The Rev. Joel Edwards

Two days ago, David Blunkett said he was afraid of being labelled as a modern Gladstone, ‘rescuing fallen women’. The Home Secretary plans to carry out a major consultation on prostitution.

Should he introduce controlled ‘toleration zones’ or bring measures to manage the practise?

Well, he’s quite right to be nervous. For in a liberal democracy, managing the balance between private morality and the interests of society can be a tricky business.

Even the Bible can be ambiguous in this regard. In the Old Testament, Rahab the prostitute was rewarded for her faith and cunning when she used her trade as a smoke screen to protect the spies in Jericho.

In a free society, how can the law regulate sexual behaviour between grown-ups? Can it affect what the French philosopher Toucqville described as ‘habits of the heart’? Or bring about what the abolitionist William Wilberforce saw as the ‘reformation of manners’?

When it comes to prostitution, who are the real victims? Is it the young boy or woman on the street? Or is it the offended neighbourhood? Who is using whom? Is it the shady looking man in the driving seat of the car? Or is it the no-nonsense woman wearing the hot pants in the passenger seat?

Pimp, prostitute or punter, who’s in charge?

In 14 years as a probation officer, I met middle aged prostitutes, brash, precocious women and nervous young boys. Call me a soft touch if you like, but all of them, their sexual masters and the customers felt to me like victims.

So lets imagine that you have a private audience with the Home Secretary. How would you help him square the circle?

Well, here’s my take for what its worth. As a Christian whose values are shaped by the Bible, I’m convinced that prostitution is sinful. An age-old blemish on our society. It’s the desecration of our bodies which the Bible describes as temples of the living God. So I would prefer the law on this issue to be explicitly Christian.

In the meantime, I’ll settle reluctantly for laws which make the best of a bad job. But for society’s sake let’s not have ‘toleration zones’. They’re nothing more than legal compounds of social pain. And what’s more all the evidence says they don’t work.

As we legislate for the impossible, we want laws which tell us that selling your body is a sell-out of your dignity. Laws which tackle the social and economic circumstances which lead free people to become sexual slaves.

And we want to be guided by laws which remind us that prostitutes are often victims, but they are always people.