Prostitution: Compassion, yes – Normalisation, no

There is a long Christian tradition – rooted in the Gospels – of showing compassion for women who work as prostitutes. Christian women and early feminists took up this cause in the 19th century – the anti-slavery Christian campaigner Josephine Butler sheltered prostitutes, and halted young girls from being trafficked into prostitution, too.

Compassion and empathy towards women in prostitution is well-established. But so is recognising that women in this trade – now usually called ‘sex workers’ – can be helped to escape from the fate of selling their bodies.

The mainstream culture has a more ambiguous approach. There is condemnation of the exploitation and trafficking of young women – and by definition, the sex trade seeks to employ young and nubile females. On the other hand, there is also a certain level of glamorising sex workers, even of advancing their activities as a career opportunity for young women.

George Bernard Shaw’s play, Mrs Warren’s Profession, first staged in 1902, suggested this theme – brothel-keeping as a business like any other, although as a socialist Shaw also intended a critique of capitalism. (He also predicted – wrongly, it turns out – that there would be no more prostitution once women had other job opportunities.)

While compassion and kindness are right and just, is it acceptable to advance prostitution as just another career choice, as some do?”

The success of the movie Anora, which won five awards at the recent Oscars, has generated sympathy for sex workers, and its garlanded star, Mikey Madison, has also praised the sex-worker practitioners and “community”. She said, at the awards, “I want to recognise and honour the sex worker community. I will continue to support you and be your ally… You deserve respect and human decency.”

In the movie, which features some explicit scenes, Ms Madison plays a stripper who also works as prostitute, and marries the son of a Russian oligarch. She prepared for the part by spending time with sex workers. Fair play to her for feeling gratitude towards this group of women who assisted her research.

But while compassion and kindness are right and just, is it acceptable to advance prostitution as just another career choice, as some do? Would most people really want their daughters or grand-daughters, nieces or god-children, to choose this path?

Monto

It’s interesting to observe the way in which the closing of Dublin’s ‘Monto’ is being marked. A hundred years ago, in 1925, Dublin’s ‘Red Light’ district – originally in Montgomery Street, now Foley Street, near Connolly Station – was shut down by the police and public pressure. Frank Duff and the Legion of Mary played an active role in closing the Monto brothels, and from what I have read, his campaign was overwhelmingly supported by young women.

The old prostitution area can be revisited as a theme park”

Duff himself was compassionate towards women caught up in the sex-trade – and tried to rescue them from a way of life that involved not only degradation but disease.

But Monto’s closure is now being re-interpreted as an oppressive move by the power of the Catholic church, and the Madames who ran the brothels revised as grand old Dublin characters. One such, May Roberts, was known as the ‘Queen’ of Monto, profitably commanding a cast of sex workers in her bordello.

Tourists can now take a ‘Monto Walking Tour’, with knowledgeable local historian Terry Fagan. The old prostitution area can be revisited as a theme park.

Hypocrisy

There’s been plenty of social hypocrisy around prostitution: women at the higher end of the activity were called courtesans, and often gifted with jewels, carriages, and splendid residences. But at street level, prostitution has involved poor girls, often inveigled into selling their bodies by ruthless pimps – or mobster networks. Compassion and care, yes: but normalisation of sex work as a career? I think not.

Time travelling

King Charles has chosen has favourite musical playlist, heavily drawn on Commonwealth performers from Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (New Zealand) to Daddy Lumba (Ghana). I’m glad to see he has included the old-fashioned, sweet-sounding Al Bowlly, who grew up in South Africa and who crooned so successfully in the 1930s. Al Bowlly was set to be the new Bing Crosby – until he was sadly killed during the London blitz in 1941.

He (The Very Thought of You) had that light tenor voice popular at the time, like Charles Trenet and Jean Sablon in France (all on YouTube). Ah, when popular music was tender and gentle, and now strikes such a nostalgic note!

The new Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney has solid Irish roots and a Catholic education. His siblings, Seán, Brenda and Brian have distinctly Irish names, and schooling at St Francis Xavier High School in Edmonton brought Mark to Harvard.

Critics have called Mr Carney a woke globalist with the usual trendy views but Trump’s policies of threatening tariffs and even territorial appropriation are putting some backbone into political leaders. They are coming to realise that defending your own country means drawing on patriotism, and even some of the values bestowed by St Francis Xavier.