LAW

How should prostitution be policed? 🚔

There are many debates surrounding how the criminal law should be utilised in relation to prostitution, and whether it should be used at all. Prostitutes face incredible violence, long lasting psychological and physical effects, and are estimated to be up to 100 times more likely to be murdered.

Martha Nussbaum attempted to find the core reason for this stigmatisation: it cannot be the exchange of money for the use of one’s body since manual labour is not stigmatised; it cannot be the level of intrusiveness since if a person volunteered their colon to teach medical students then they likely wouldn’t be as stigmatised; and it cannot be the fact that it is illegal since stigmatisation is not necessarily derived from legal status e.g. marijuana’s societal treatment. One could argue that the stigmatisation is centred on old moral arguments and gender hierarchies ingrained into society. There are 3 main models that are used in relation to the penalisation of prostitution.

💡 Things to consider

• Regulatory model: The UK system falls within this system through attempts to regulate prostitution somewhat. Prostitution itself is not illegal, but associated activities like kerb crawling (s51A Sexual Offences Act 2003), loitering with intent to solicit (s1(1) Street Offences Act 1959), or keeping a brothel (s33-36 Sexual Offences Act 2003) are illegal. Prostitution is treated more like a public nuisance since only the public aspects are criminalised. There are many flaws in this system. For instance, since it punishes the prostitute, the resulting criminal record can be used to refuse them future employment, which can then trap them within prostitution.

• Legalisation/Dutch Model: This model emphasises gender equality and the prostitute’s autonomy. All aspects of prostitution are usually decriminalised, but there may be some qualifications to this like a requirement of a licence. The hope is that by providing legal protection, the prostitute will be safer and less stigmatised. However, the stigma is so ingrained in society that it is unlikely this will solve that problem; the inevitable increase in prostitution may just place more people in danger. There are also some less obvious issues. For instance, licencing brothels in The Netherlands leads to better working conditions and improved health and safety, but many prostitutes prefer to work outside of brothels. Individual licences are expensive and remove anonymity, so many prostitutes still choose to work illegally despite these safer legal options.

• Abolitionist/Nordic Model: This model views prostitution as inherently harmful to the prostitute and sees the ability for men to take advantage of vulnerable women as contrary to equality. There is also the question of whether a prostitute can consent when prostitution is not entered into by choice, but rather by necessity. Therefore, the purchase – but not the sale – is criminalised, which is accompanied by ‘exiting’ support to reduce prostitution and help prostitutes escape that life. However, this reduction in clients can lead to reduced prices, less choice over clients, and quicker transactions. These likely make it more dangerous for the prostitute.

🔎 Find out more

• https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/prostitution/

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/uk/7736436.stm

• Crown Prosecution Service Guidelines on Prostitution and Exploitation of Prostitution (2019)

• https://www.independent.ie/life/author-rachel-moran-on-her-life-as-prostituted-woman-i-had-a-seizure-one-time-where-i-was-so-close-to-death-that-its-amazing-i-came-back-at-all/41373861.html

• Nussbaum M, "Whether from Reason or Prejudice": Taking Money for Bodily Services’ (1998) 27 Journal of Legal Studies 693

LINGUISTICS

How different is French from other Romance languages? 🇫🇷

French has experienced a great deal of variation from Latin, being one of the most innovative Romance languages. Some linguists even say it is the Romance language that has divulged the most from Latin! But it still is a Romance language, which means it must bear some similarity to the other languages in its family. Here are some factors to consider when deciding how different French is from other Romance languages.

💡 Things to consider

• Proximity to other languages: the name France means ‘country of the Franks’. The Franks were a Germanic tribe who conquered France in the 400s. Roughly 1000 French words stem from Frankish including ‘jardin’ and ‘guerre’, leaving a lasting influence on the language. Before the Romans invaded, the Gauls lived in France and spoke a continental Celtic language (some of their words have also survived!) Other Romance language speaking countries did not have these same lasting influences on the language. The French spoken today is a langue d’oïl, meaning it comes from the languages in northern France where the cultural centre was found. These languages had closer constant proximity to Germanic and Celtic languages. This geographical disconnect caused a drift between French and other Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian. However, 85% of French words are from Latin!

• Sounds and rhythm: French, like all languages, underwent changes in the sounds of letters and pronunciation. French has nasal vowels, which are also found in Portuguese, but aren’t common in Romance languages, and lost pronunciation of the final consonants. French also underwent vowel deletion at higher rates than other Romance languages and faced lenition (a type of sound change occurring to consonants) where consonants were removed from words, placing two vowels next to each other. The Latin word ‘amatorem’ became ‘amatore’ in Italian but changed to ‘aimeur’ in French. This has led to French having a higher number of vowel sounds than other Romance languages. There are also theories to suggest that French retained Celtic sounds and rhythm in the language whereas other Romance languages didn’t have this influence. In parts of Italy and Spain, the dropping of the last consonant is also common. Do you think other Romance languages going to follow these shifts in pronunciation?

• Grammatical factors: French is the only major romance language that isn’t a pro-drop language, meaning the subject cannot be dropped before a verb. In Italian, you can say ‘io amo’ although ‘amo’ sounds more natural (dropping the subject ‘io’), but in French you can only say ‘j’adore’. Linguists believe this is due to geographical proximity with Germanic languages and the loss of final consonant pronunciation – it is extremely difficult to tell the difference between ‘il mange’ and ‘ils mangent’ in spoken French. Arguably direct and indirect pronouns can’t be placed as freely in the word order as they can in Spanish or Italian. French has also experienced the loss of the past historic as a spoken tense, which remains a spoken tense in most other Romance languages. However, French has still maintained the subjunctive and shares many grammatical similarities with the other languages in its family. Is the similarity in grammar more important than the difference in pronunciation?

🔎 Find out more

• What is it about French that makes it sound so different from other Romance Languages?

🍒 The cherry on top

• ✉️ Postcards: Before we had Snapchat, we had postcards. This website provides a rich and interactive experience for people interested in the history, art, and cultural aspects of postcards. Today, I learnt that The Eiffel Tower is the monument most featured on postcards: 5 billion postcards of it have been sold since 1889!

• ☹️ Loneliness: What is loneliness, and what can philosophers say about it? Kieran Setiya discusses loneliness with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Great if you’re interested in Philosophy!

• 🎻 Composer of the Week: This podcast explores the lives and works of some of the world’s greatest composers (old and new!). For example, here’s one about Antonio Vivaldi and his concertos The Four Seasons. Great if you love Music!

👀 Keep your eyes peeled for…

• 19th February - Magdalene College Cambridge History Subject Taster Session

• 20th February - Magdalene College Cambridge Computer Science Subject Taster Session

• 20th February - Sidney Sussex College Cambridge Supercurriculars Webinar

• 20th February - University of York Open Lecture: Illusions of Agency in Anorexia

• 20th February - University of Cambridge Biological Natural Sciences Teachers’ and Advisors’ Q + A

• 20th February - Royal Veterinary College Introduction to the RVC Sutton Trust Summer School Webinar

• 20th February - University of Oxford Historia Lecture: Female Patrons at the University of Oxford in the Middle Ages

• 21st February - Sidney Sussex College Cambridge Supercurriculars Webinar (Session 2)

• 22nd February - UEA Financing and Budgeting for University Webinar

• 22nd February - University of Cambridge Modern and Medieval Languages Teachers’ and Advisors’ Q + A

• 22nd February - University of Oxford Online Maths Club

• 22nd February - University of Greenwich Smashing an Interview Webinar

• 24th February - University of Buckingham Computing Taster Session

🗳️ Poll