the way we live now
Geoffrey Kirk reflects on the recent murders in Ipswich
and what they tell us about contemporary morality
T
o those, like me, who supposed that hol on which this fragile ‘happiness’ floats of heroic women taking control of their
the phrase ‘red light district of Ips- easily transposes into addiction to chem- lives (not unconnected to a romanticiza-
wich’ must be something approach- icals which can simulate it artificially. At tion of prostitution as ‘the oldest profes-
ing an oxymoron, the two weeks before a price both financial and personal. sion’). On the other there is the equally
Christmas were both shocking and revela- The second is the ethical confusion into feminist-inspired doctrine of woman as
tory. We have, of course, got used to the which, as a society, we have fallen. Media the eternal victim.
idea that come Friday and Saturday nights coverage of the murders has been a fas- Last of all there is the contemporary
our market towns are invaded by hordes of cinating spectacle, varying from the cen- fascination with murder. What was a
scantily-dressed young women and young sorious to the permissive. Some reports mere incidental in the case histories of
men in smart-casual clothes from Next, have stressed the profession of the five Sherlock Holmes has become the staple
whose expressed intention is to get drunk women: ‘Ipswich prostitutes’. Others have of detective fiction. Even the urbane and
and laid, in that order, if the two are not taken a more generous view: the euphe- opera-loving Morse was faced with an
incompatible. But the idea of an industry mistic ‘working women’. improbable number of homicides for a
of single mothers feeding an addiction to More than one news programme has smallish academic community. Fictional
crack cocaine by selling the only thing they interviewed representatives of the prosti- murders have come to dominate the air-
still possess, their bodies – and all that in tutes’ union, who have sought to highlight waves. Four murders a week is par for the
Ipswich – verges on the horrific. the failures of the benefit system which course for terrestrial channels. Ours is a
But that is the way we live now. drive women into this line of trade. There society in which murder is the favourite
Some unpalatable truths about our has been the predictable knee-jerk reac- crime and paedophilia the only unforgiv-
society have been laid bare. tion from some MPs and liberal groups: able sin.
The first is the extent of the drugs prob- legalize prostitution in order to accord a All this and more goes some way to
lem. Middle England is largely oblivious measure of protection to ‘working’ girls. explain the extraordinary reaction of press
to the size and virulence of the drug All this, though predictable, is hardly commentators to the events in Ipswich.
sub-culture. As I remove litter from the logical. It is not at all clear how turning At the time of writing five women
churchyard I wear heavy gardening gloves into a regulated commodity what should have been killed. But the pundits have
to protect myself from the hypodermic not be a commodity at all will help mat- been apparently less concerned about
needles which, in increasing numbers, ters; in the case of prostitution or prohib- the enormity of that toll than about ideo-
lurk beneath the bushes. I returned home ited drugs. Nor is it clear that the police logical in-fighting amongst themselves.
recently from a brief stay in the country and magistrates will have the time to Partisans of every political colour have
to find that a murder had taken place on regulate properly what would be likely to been out on their bandwagons with slick
the forecourt of the church. It was, as the become a rapidly expanding market. explanations and quick solutions. None
police chillingly put it, ‘drug related.’ Then there is the question of the rela- of them of course remotely Christian.
Recent surveys here, in the United tionship of prostitution to the aims and Christianity has been confined to
States and in Australia, have demon- ideals of contemporary feminism. Whilst Angela Tilby on ‘Thought for the Day’
strated a new world-view among Gen- a woman’s right to sell her body is obvi- and bizarre accounts of a Gladstone
eration Y to which New Directions ously aligned to a ‘woman’s right to look-alike who walks the Ipswich streets
has already drawn attention. It is the choose’ (the right to abort what her body paying to lecture young women on the
so-called Happy Midi-narrative, a value has produced), it does not accord well evils of prostitution. Too late there will
system in which ‘happiness’ (however with an attitude to pornography which probably be some comment from the
that is defined) is seen as the purpose of sees it as a patriarchalist attack on the Church of England: an intellectually con-
life. Hedonism, backed up by the uncon- dignity of women, or with current atti- voluted analysis from Rowan Williams
ditional love and forgiveness of family tudes to rape, where the woman is always and a snappy sound-bite from the Arch-
and friends, which this weltanschaung an innocent party. bishop of York. But the sad truth is that
embraces is surely a lethal cocktail. The attitudes to prostitution which Christian morality has been sidelined in
What happens when ‘happiness’ turns have emerged from the Ipswich events all this and, by the majority, can be safely
sour and friends and family desert or die? are a confused amalgam. On the one ignored. What was once the consensus
The cocoon of clubbing and cheap alco- hand there is a feminist-inspired notion view is now merely peripheral.
The paradox is that these murders pos-
sibly – probably, I almost wrote – spring
from a distorted view of that traditional
morality, and from frustration at the way
it has been rejected, ridiculed and trod-
den under foot. In his own perverse way
the perpetrator is likely to be a passionate
moralist, seeking to make a point.
Or have I been watching too much
‘criminal profiling’ on television?
ND
January 2007
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newdirections
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