Pimp State, 2021
Introduction
Pimp State is both a bowl and poster. It is a dystopian feminist satire on what I imagine the State would look like under the ‘full decrim’ regime. ‘Full Decriminalisation’ refers to a proposed model of legal reform that seeks to decriminalise men who pay for sex along with all third party profiteers. This would include brothel owners, pimps, traffickers, ‘grooming gangs’ and everyone else. They all have different labels, often depending on what social class they belong to or what country they come from. They’re all doing the same thing though. All are involved in organised commercialised rape. Some profit, some pay, but they’re all part of the same system whether they’re a former prince or a taxi driver.
About the Bowl
The bowl resembles a roulette wheel with gambling and gaming terms on the rim. The vertical words are the departments of the Pimp State government - its ministries, commissions and agencies. The Grooming Gangs Services Commission, Department of Pimplomacy and International Relations, Office for Cuckooing and County Lines, and the Trafficking Standards Agency, all feature along with the Kink and BDSM Training Unit, the Sex Party Advisory Service, and the, Migrant Sex-Worker Commission. It is an absurd but also grim picture.
The Pimp Lobby
Some of the 'sex workers rights' organisations, also known as the 'Pimp Lobby,' maintain that full decriminalisation of the sex trade could pave the way to its abolition - yes, some of them claim to be abolitionists. Is this wishful thinking? Self Delusion? Or is it just cynical marketing for a policy to liberate the sex trade – and its considerable wealth. I think it’s the latter. But I do think a great many young, left leaning, nominally pro-feminist women are simply deluding themselves too. That and desperately trying to separate themselves from the older generation of ‘second wave’ feminists.
Exhibition
Pimp State has been shown several times. It has probably fared better than any of the other pots from the Mind Your Language series in this respect. In the UK it was shown at The London Art Fair, 2022, with Ruup & Form, and at Education for Women's Liberation, organised by Woman's Place UK. It was also shown in Poland, at Ujazdowski Castle Gallery, Warsaw, in Summer 2023. It was in my solo show, 'Feminist Satire, No Safe Spaces.'
Mind Your Language
Pimp State is one of a series of work that I did in partnership with women@thewell. The series is based on the report produced by Julie Bindel on the language used to describe the sex trade and the women exploited within it, by pretty much the entire professional class, including: statutory agencies, departments of government, the NHS, the voluntary and charity sector, journalists, academics, and the criminal justice services. The term 'sex worker,' is almost ubiquitous now. The exceptions are survivors of the sex trade and feminist abolitionists - we who want to see the trade abolished in the same way the slave trade was.
What's wrong with 'Sex Worker?'
The problem with 'sex worker' is that it obscures the brutal violence inherent in prostitution and all areas of the sex trade. It is a euphemism, effectively. It is designed to comfort the middle classes - many find it easier to say than 'prostitution,' or 'women in prostitution.' It is sex neutral but it is women and girls that form the overwhelming majority of those exploited in the trade. It suggests some degree of voluntary compliance or consent, choice even, a simple 'transaction,' but it is very far from that. The money is used to silence women in the sex trade, not to reward them. Choice cannot be bought. There are ten pieces in this series - Bindel's report certainly gets you thinking. I returned to using text on pots for the first time since the 1980s. In another post I'll talk more about text on pots. Meanwhile, head over to the shop and see the poster - £18.00 incl p&p.