Be heard on the issues that matter most to you!
Thanks to Morpheus (of the NYC Alt Events list) and to Doug Henwood I have these New York Post and New York Daily News stories about the recent persecution of NYC BDSM dungeons and the political response of the pro dommes who work in them. This Daily News story details the raid on Rapture, closing it down and arresting one of its workers (who later saw prostitution charges against her dropped as long as "she stays out of trouble"). And this Post story discusses the nascent attempts of dommes to organize, hiring an attorney, beginning the process of forming a political action committee and hopefully, eventually, a union.
Unfortunately one of the arguments being made, and it is very understandable, is that "BDSM isn't the same as prostitution." From the Daily News piece: Click here to read more
"The NYPD does not know the difference between prostitution and freedom of expression," said Reeve's attorney Salvatore Strazzullo.
"There is nothing on the books that states S&M is illegal," Strazzullo said.
"The City of New York should know the difference between prostitution and a perfectly legal S&M dominatrix house," he added.
And from the Post article:
More than a dozen dominatrixes and dungeon owners have retained John Campbell, partner of the Tilem and Campbell law firm.
"This isn't like the escort industry, where there's a lot of illegality and everyone knows it," said Campbell, who also represents escort agencies. "In the BDSM [bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism] industry, virtually everyone was operating under the belief that what they were doing was legal."
The law is unclear, and this poses a major challenge to dominatrixes who want to run legal businesses but can't figure out what is and isn't allowed, said Campbell.
I am thrilled to see these workers organizing. I am excited about their political action committee and the possibility of a union. I am completely in support of their efforts to clarify the law so that BDSM, whether for pay or for free, is clearly legal. But I am dismayed by what seems to be part of the overall strategy: making the law clearer by stipulating some kinds of consensual adult sexual expression as clearly illegal is a very bad idea. It is the kind of strategy that works well in the short term but in the long term it is likely to have dangerous unintended consequences. It is tempting to say "Look, what I do is not sex, so it can't be prostitution." But if we do that we are agreeing that commercial sexual exchanges are fine to criminalize. And just how comfortable are we about letting the law define what "sex" is? Once we stipulate that a list of sexual activities, when performed between consenting adults, is illegal, that list becomes expandable as the political mood dictates. We need to be on the side of saying that no erotic exchange between consenting adults should be criminal.
If we don't stand up for each other, all of us who engage in sexual expression that is stigmatized or criminalized, all of us who engage in sexual exchange outside of socially-sanctioned relationships, we are, all of us, sunk. At the risk of appearing to trivialize what I think is one of the most profound statements about why we need solidarity, let me offer you this:
First they came for the street workers, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a street worker.
Then they came for the escorts, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an escort.And in some places they came for the clients, and I didn't speak up because that seemed more "feminist" than coming for the women who serve them.
Then they came for the pro dommes, and I didn't speak up because I don't whip people for pay.
Then they came for the phone sex operators, and I didn't speak up because I don't talk dirty for money.
Then they came for the swingers clubs and SM dungeons, and I didn't speak up because I don't visit those places.
And then they came for the private suburban sex parties...
You see where this is going.
When marginalized groups fight amongst themselves the dominant groups get their way. Every time. And as long as the dominant group is operating under erotophobic and antisexual values, none of us is safe. We can't afford to fight with each other over what kinds of consensual sexual expression are okay.
Some people have of course been speaking up for a long time. Many many many of them, working to unite people across various sexual communities. These people, and the organizations they create, are role models for the rest of us trying to find our voices. But none of us can afford to remain silent, and none of us can afford to say that our preferred kinky sexual expression should be legal while the rest its okay to criminalize.
Prostitution is sexual expression. We can't scapegoat or sacrifice the prostitutes in our attempts to achieve sexual freedom for ourselves.
__________________________
...because public space really matters!
Elizabeth
Technorati Tags: prostitution, sex work, BDSM, sex, law
__________________________
...because public space really matters!
Elizabeth
How do I not speak to this? In fact, why do we not all speak to this in such a loud and unified voice that we must be heard and heeded?
The framers of our Constitution depended heavily on social and political thought when they published both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (any yes, the Articles of Confederation.) One of these influential thinkers was John Locke. The following is an excerpt from The Second Treatise on Government and is very important to what I have to say.
Sec. 243. To conclude, The power that every individual gave the society, when he entered into it, can never revert to the individuals again, as long as the society lasts, but will always remain in the community; because without this there can be no community, no common-wealth, which is contrary to the original agreement: so also when the society hath placed the legislative in any assembly of men, to continue in them and their successors, with direction and authority for providing such successors, the legislative can never revert to the people whilst that government lasts; because having provided a legislative with power to continue for ever, they have given up their political power to the legislative, and cannot resume it. But if they have set limits to the duration of their legislative, and made this supreme power in any person, or assembly, only temporary; or else, when by the miscarriages of those in authority, it is forfeited; upon the forfeiture, or at the determination of the time set, it reverts to the society, and the people have a right to act as supreme, and continue the legislative in themselves; or erect a new form, or under the old form place it in new hands, as they think good.
The Second Treatise On Government, John Locke
Another important influence was the English Jurist Blackstone. There is too much to attempt to offer a direct quote. Blackstone held that government should exist at the whim of the people as opposed to his student Bentham who maintained that the people should yield to the will of government. To fail to understand this is to create the atmosphere the current intrusive and limiting government we now have thrives. The short book cited below is important reading to understand this.
The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats are Trampling on the Constitution in the Name of Justice, Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Straton.
I will not reference or cite authority in my remarks beyond saying that every member of every society must read the above cited works. The first is Public Domain and can be downloaded from multiple sources, including just asking me and I will be happy to forward a text copy. The second can be found at alibris.com or amazon.com and purchased used for as little as $9.00 (used.)
First, it is the street walkers… This is so much larger than the sex industry. Government is a social contract. A population forms a society, that society recognizes a need for a social contract. A government is ordained. Our social Contract is the Constitution of the United States.
A government, of any nature, is an attempt by a society to establish limits on individuals. A government and a society are different entities just as a society and the individual are separate. The struggle of the individual is always to remain an individual. The momentum of a society is to cause the individual to conform to the society.
The struggle differs between society and government. Government, by its nature is a Tyranny. Being a Tyranny, government has the goal of conforming society and the individual to its World View.
To accomplish this conformation a government and/or a society practices two brutalities. One brutality is overt. The most humane form is through legislation and regulation enforced by loss of liberty or privilege. The other brutality is covert and more dangerous.
This covert brutality is employed when the social contract would not otherwise empower the government or society to affect the actions of the individual and the actions of the individual cause no harm to the society. The brutality is accomplished through social pressure, shaming and ostracizing the individual. Isolating the non conforming individual from society and branding the individual with, as it were, a scarlet letter. This allows society to ignore the protections guaranteed to the individual by the Constitution as government attacks the now weakened and defenseless social outcast.
This targeted ostracizing is easily recognized by the popularizing of untruths about the individual(s) society and government wish to isolate and attack. Consider this untruth. The rate of recidivism for sex offenders is very high. So high, that it is necessary to place all sex offenders of any sort on a registry and to restrict where they can live, work, or even be. Most of us believe that because when the term sex offender is used, we automatically draw images of child molesters and rapists. Of course the fact is that over 94% of all sex offenses are committed by first time offenders. Only 5% of first time offenders re-offend. There are clear indicators as to who those re-offenders will be; persons who committed a violent offense, have an extensive criminal history, did not have, as part of the sentence, a component of treatment.
Look at the parallels. Street prostitutes are diseased, they have been forced into the work by predatory pimps and criminal organizations, the money they are paid is used for criminal enterprise, they are kept in the activity by drug dependence and further the criminal enterprise goals of selling drugs. That is the myth.
Now, the myth is extended to encompass otherwise Constitutionally protected activities and no one will contest it. After all, are not street prostitutes involved in ‘abnormal’ sexual behavior? Are not activities such as Sadism and Masochism and Bondage and Discipline ‘abnormal’ sexual behavior? What does society answer to this logical error? Quad Erat Profundum (Latin, abbr QEP. That which was to be proved.)
It becomes even more complex. An adolescent in Texas sent nude pictures of herself to other teens by cell phone. The exploration was discovered. The 15 year-old female was arrested as were the teen males who received the images. The teen boys were arrested and charged with possession of child pornography. The female was arrested for producing and publishing child pornography. Then to make the charges stick against the males, the girl was labeled the victim of the crime. Now, after the convictions are completed (have no doubt, the state has no choice, they either convict or repeal their thought crime laws) all these teens will be on the SO Registry for life and their life will be ruined by statute.
When a society attempts to force its will on the individual where there is no actual harm done by the individual other than perceived harm to the individual mores of members of the society, the Tyranny is no longer limited to its inherent nature of government. The Tyranny has become pervasive and government uses that segment of society to increase its power and lessen the power of the individual.
Morality cannot be legislated. Morality has to be the choice of the individual. There is no desire expressed or intended in these words to change the moral position of the individual, especially those individuals who disagree with what is written here. The intent is to stop the Tyranny of the Majority because if government, our government, is to work, it must cease pandering to the ‘Moral Majority’ (which is neither), and resume its Constitutional limits.
That, of course, is up to the individual. We must each speak with one voice against criminal acts. Acts that involve the taking or forcing or coercion of the individual. We must all speak with one voice against a government and society that tramples on the Constitution and the individual. Alternatively, we can go back and apologize to McCarthy and his ilk. First there were the street prostitutes, then the sex offenders, then the adult entertainment businesses, then those who had marital sex in their darkened and closed bedroom for a purpose other than to procreate.…
Everyman's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind...
Some of your favorite sexy bloggers and sex educators are putting on their burlesque acts in this 2009 calendar. All proceeds will go to Sex Work Awareness. I've seen the proofs and while they're being carefully guarded I can tell you that this is going to be one hot calendar! The photography is gorgeous and the bloggers are stunning. Click here for our write up and here for my reactions to the shoot itself. Follow the calendar on Twitter or on its blog. Order yours early!
NYC Sex Bloggers Calender - $20 (US Shipping)
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