Oh damn, still in this dream.

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/05/austeristy-forcing-disabled-women-into-sex-work

Wherein we find:

The disability benefit system is supposed to be there to catch people such as Alice; a safety net for when ill health means she cannot have a job to pay the bills. But she is in a catch-22: she cannot claim the out-of-work sickness benefit, employment support allowance (ESA), because she is still registered as a student, despite the fact that her mental health meant she had to leave her course. “On the one hand, I’ve got someone saying: ‘You’re too unwell to study or work.’ On the other, I’ve got [the government] saying: ‘You’re not unwell enough to get support, and go away.’”

On top of this, she was turned down for the other key disability benefit, personal independence payment (PIP). In the middle of a depressive episode, she could not fill in the extensive paperwork. “Ironically, I wasn’t well enough to chase them,” she says. After reapplying and being rejected again, she had to appeal against the decision, which constitutes a mound of paperwork and then a tribunal in court. Besides, Alice worries that mental health problems are rarely seen by the benefit system as being as debilitating as, say, being a wheelchair user. It is a concern backed up by evidence: in 2018, the high court ruled that the PIP system was “blatantly discriminatory” against people with mental health problems, even going as far as to order the government to review 1.6m disability benefit claims. It all adds up to a situation where Alice could not pay the bills with either a wage or social security. As she put it to me: “I’ve got no income to speak of and the government doesn’t care.”

Instead, she has had to rely on sex work to get by. When I first speak to Alice, she is working. I have accidentally called her early and her client is still in her home. This is an intimate set-up but it generally works for her health. Being her own boss, she has a flexible working pattern and can control the use of her own flat. “When I’m having my down days, I don’t have an employer to answer to, and then, when I’m elated or if I’m actually well, I can sort my own bookings out and organise my own working pattern to cover the days that I can’t work,” she says.

I loathe the morality of the austerity measures which give tax-breaks to the biggest and wealthiest corporations on the planet, and condemn folk with mental health issues to prostitution or criminality. This is a specific case, obviously; but previously, as in the case of Belle de Jour (Dr. Brooke Magnanti) I have opined that we have structural problems which lead our post-grad students and junior academics to supplement their incomes or grants with sex work, as it is the only work which pays enough and which gives them the time to pursue their studies/research properly. But at least for clever folk without mental health issues there is a small element of choice. With folk who have mental health issues however...

Well, at least they're not being radicalised and turned into jihadists. But sex workers with mental health issues... just a recipe for trouble really. I suppose we will have to wait for a captain of industry or an MP to get his cock bitten off by a damaged prostitute before anything gets done about it.

Magdalenes with madness. It will not end well.

Over the last few years I have been wont to describe the UK as a place where there is less racism than in any other major Western nation, despite the obvious pockets of racist behaviour. In fact I have said as much to many of my friends on LJ.

Alas, proof has come to the contrary and I must eat my words.

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/11/black-prison-population-increase-england
 
Now for a nation the prides itself as the birthplace of modern parliamentary democracy; a nation whose foundation myths are based upon honour, nobility and decency (and adultery, but we can leave aside Lancelot and Guinevere), and which prides itself on Justice and 'the Rule of Law', the figures presented in this landmark report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission are not just a blot on our country's escutcheon: they are a fucking disgrace.

Can we really claim that certain ethnic minorities (and admixtures thereof) in the UK are all inherently more criminal than those same ethnic minorities in other nations? I don't think so.

We need to get this fixed. This is so wrong it screams to heaven for redress. I say again: this is a fucking disgrace, and a shame on our country.