Good men don’t buy sex, Ash Regan tells MSPs

Scots law has “failed to keep up” with the sex trade and must be updated to protect women, Ash Regan has told MSPs.

The Alba MSP aims to introduce new laws which criminalise the purchase of sex, decriminalise it sale and provide support to women and men exiting prostitution.

Giving evidence, she told MSPs of a friend who entered prostitution at the age of just 15, and had 39 convictions by the age of 17.

She said survivors like her friend want the law to change but a “well-funded, globally connected lobby that markets prostitution as sex work” opposes this.

Recently a demonstration against her Unbuyable bill was held outside the Scottish Parliament and critics have said a law change would make conditions more dangerous for those selling sex, particularly the women meeting punters, by making it impossible for them to choose their clients.

She told MSPs the case of Emma Caldwell, who was murdered by repeat sex buyer and serial rapist Iain Packer, proved it was not possible to know when or if a client would turn violent.

Regan said such people “don’t have ‘dangerous man’ stamped on their forehead”, stating: “Good men don’t buy sex. That is a myth.”

Appearing before the Criminal Justice Committee, Regan said current laws predate the advance of digital platforms on which “women are sold and reviewed like takeaway meals”. And she said organised crime networks routinely traffic into Scotland for prostitution, where they endure conditions akin to “torture”.

Regan said prostitution “isn’t a job, it’s the paid performance of compliance”, adding: “It demands that women fake arousal, endure unwanted penetration and shut down their pain so that men can forget that they're doing harm. This isn't about sex. This is about male entitlement, the belief that sexual urges deserve infrastructure tolerance and access to women's bodies. And that belief doesn't just harm the women in prostitution, it harms all women.”

Referencing feminist writer Andrea Dworkin, she went on: “The difference between women in prostitution and all other women is a matter of degree because as long as some women are for sale, all women are for sale, and when women are for sale or buyable, equality is impossible.”

On those who argue for the continuation of prostitution as “sex work”, Regan told the committee: “They reframe abuse as empowerment, poverty as consent, and violence as a career path. But they never explain whose daughter is this a job for? Should it be in schools’ career advice? In the DWP’s Back to Work Scheme? What does the Health and Safety Executive consider a safe working environment in prostitution, and if a punter violates terms during the act? Who would manage the employment dispute?

“These are not rhetorical questions. These are the logical consequences of pretending that commercial sexual exploitation is just another industry, and that prostitution is just another job, but the law already knows the truth.”

Former Scottish Government minister Regan is progressing the bill unsupported by the Non-Government Bills Unit and said she could not answer technical legal questions.

However, she said evidence from countries including France and Sweden prove the efficacy of her approach, based around what is known as the Nordic model, and said quashing convictions would free survivors of “the shame of commercial sexual exploitation”.

The SNP’s Rhona Mackay recounted testimony from one woman who said she did not “want her body to be seen as a crime scene”.

Regan said those providing sex would not be required to give evidence and suggested that most prosecutions of buyers would end in a fine, not imprisonment.

Regan said: “This is not a perfect solution. There are no perfect solutions. But what we know from the other countries that have done this is that if you criminalise the buyer… if you can reduce the demand by creating that deterrent effect, we know from the data that we have on buyers is that most buyers, if they know they're going to get a criminal record and it's going to be made public what they've done, they won't go ahead. They will stop. So in the countries that have brought in this legislative framework, the market of prostitution contracts.”