Newsweek
The HIV/AIDS movement is widely understood as one that focuses on civil rights and health care for vulnerable groups. The popular perception is that the AIDS movement is made up of human rights campaigners, medical experts and scientists, searching for the best prevention methods and, eventually, a cure. What is far less widely known is that the AIDS movement, and the vast amounts of money attached to it, has done more to shape policy, practice and legislation on the global sex trade than any other movement in history.
Huge amounts of money have been poured into ‘safe sex’ programs aimed at punters. In other words, considerable effort has gone into assisting men to continue paying for sex. Indeed, without the support of the HIV/AIDS harm reduction approach, the pro-decriminalization lobby, including the likes of Amnesty International (AI), would not have gained anywhere near as much ground.
The arguments of AIDS activists and experts for blanket decriminalization of the sex trade is simple but horrendously flawed. It is widely claimed that if all criminal penalties were removed from the sex trade, including for pimping, brothel owning and sex buying, then HIV rates would plummet. I will explore and dissect these claims for decriminalization, and closely examine the relationship between the HIV world and the pro-prostitution lobby. I argue the harm reduction approach is damaging to women in the sex trade and, conversely, allows far more abuse to occur.
In the early days of the AIDS crisis in the mid-1980s, money was provided to two distinct groups in the Global North: men who have sex with men, and women involved in street-based prostitution. Understandably, gay men were at the helm of the charities and health service interventions, with some establishing organizations that attempted to deal holistically with the most at-risk groups. As a consequence, many projects devoted to HIV prevention and treatment were managed by gay men, including those with a client base consisting of women in the sex trade.
Because of stigma associated with AIDS brought about by anti-gay bigotry and misinformation peddled by governments and religious organizations, many projects dealing with this issue were involved in awareness raising and lobbying. Those who were HIV positive were frequently referred to as “authors of their own misfortune.” The then chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, James Anderton, for example, referred to them as “swirling about in a human cesspit of their own making.”
Unfortunately, gay male libertarian views dominated the discourse, likely conflating ‘safety’ with ‘moralism’ due to sensitivities toward any analysis of ‘sex and sexuality.’ Rather than critiquing the sex trade as an unsafe lifestyle for those involved, the message delivered to the general public as well as service users was so-called harm reduction and minimization. The condom was held up as the savior, and opportunities to examine the dangers of the sex trade were overlooked.
Exiting prostitution
Andrew Hunter, a gay man born in 1968 in Queensland, Australia, left home at 17 to live in the Gunnery Squats, Sydney, home to alternative ‘queer’-identified folk, including a number of those considered social outcasts. Hunter became involved in street-based prostitution in Sydney, and at 19 moved to Melbourne, prostituting from the infamous St Kilda district.
Hunter, who died in 2013, became the president of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), program and policy manager for the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW), and a member of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AID (UNAIDS) Advisory Group on HIV and sex work. During his activism, Hunter campaigned to decriminalize the sex trade and for prostitution to be viewed as labor. He openly supported organizations such as UN Women, sending a message of support for its stance on ‘sex work as work’ just months before he died. While with the Prostitute’s Collective of Victoria (PCV), Hunter initiated the first male street-based outreach service in St Kilda and a needle-syringe program.