Sex In The Public Square - prostitution - Comments

Ashley

Susan — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:19:41 -0700

Hello Elizabeth,

People assume that when Ashley Dupre is saying "I know what it's like to have everything and lose it", they think she's talking about when she left home at 17. It would never occur to them to think that when she "had it all", she was working for NYC Confidential, and when she "lost it all", it was when NYC Confidential was shut down.

The need for caution in sex work law reform

Michael — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:26:50 -0700

Unfortunately, Working Girl, there is a lot of confusion around the law relating to sex work in each country and the terminology. In most countries in the world, the US being a notable exception, selling sexual services is not prohibited. However much of the activity is, such as communicating with clients (soliciting), using any premises (bawdy house, disorderly house, brothel), any form of organisation (living off the earnings), or movement from one place to another (trafficking).

Removing these from the Criminal Code is called decriminalisation. However as soon as you do that - ie it becomes 'legal' you run into new legal problems, because you are now running a business, and therefore subject to labour law, business law and zoning regulations. So in the end decriminalising sex work, still end sup with laws. In practice, countries like New Zealand and parts of Australia have left your typical independent working girl (or 2-4 working together) alone, and just regulated larger businesses such as brothels, massage parlours, strip clubs, saunas and escort agencies.

As a personal service business, health and safety regulations would apply as they do to restaurants, hairdressers and cosmeticians. Sex workers do not respond wel to be told what to do, so Libertarian, we recommend minimal regulatins. Requiring regular health inspections is an invasion of privacy, sexual discrimination and ineffective. Sex workers on the whole are careful and clean. If anyone should have health inspections it should be clients.

The age issue is a tricky one, and we should not be too rigid about it. Consider what other trades have age regulations, but also people's civil right to earn a living. Whether as self employed independents, independent contractors or employees, sex workers and sexual service businesses would be subject to income and business taxes.

Incidentally trsansmitting STIs is not a crime, but knowingly doing so is. Violence is already criminal. For a thorough handling of these subjects see Beyond Decriminalisation . See also Sylvia Law's paper on this.

Terms and conditions for decriminalization/legalization

Elizabeth — Sat, 10 May 2008 10:35:48 -0700

A working girl: I think your question is so important! Those words are used to describe so many different approaches, and not all are equally helpful, to say the least.

I'd love to see a system that decriminalizes the act of transacting sex, and then works on sensible application of labor, health & safety and zoning laws.

Legalize what, exactly?

A working girl — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:26:04 -0700

As a working girl, I'd like prostitution legalized, too. However, when people talk about legalizing prostitution, they often only mean to legalize brothels and agencies. In a sense, "pimping" would be legal. If people want to legalize independent prostitutes working on their own with a business license (just as freelancers and contractors of in all fields), then I'm all for it. Unfortunately too many people think prostitutes should be managed by others, and so when I hear "legalization," I cringe.

Legalise it

libertarian — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:06:56 -0700

A lot of middle aged men out there are teenage boys under the skin. We can huff and puff puritanical about that till we're blue in the face, or we can chose the path of least damage. Legalize brothels, require that the girls use condoms and undergo frequent medical inspections, require that sex workers be at least 21, and most of all, TAX THE TRICK MONEY just as we tax fags and booze. In exchange, the working girls would enjoy the full protection of labour law and the criminal code. In particular, johns who beat up or infect girls would be prosecuted.

I Too Am Saddened and Frustrated

WilliamC — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:49:09 -0700

I'm glad that Chris mentioned Ira Craddock, who is one of my heroines. Her work in the 19th century would be considered radical even today. The death of this young landy is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many people who suffer at the hands of left-wing and right-wing moralists. It is really time for us to have conversation about sexual expression, sexual desire and sexual reality in the Public Square. Deborah Jeane Pelfrey is in my thoughts and meditations. I think the way to honor Deborah Jeane's life is to keep organizing for the rights and dignity of all people to make choices about their sexual identity, sexual expression with judgement or reprisal. Adios, Deborah Jeane. You have fought the good fight for all of us. Even if you were not consciously fighting a political fight. I think it is vital that the fight become more obvious and more political. THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL AND THE POLITICAL IS PERSONAL.

WilliamC

And thank you.

Chris — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:13:30 -0700

That means a lot, coming from you, Amber.

Thank you

Amber Rhea — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:55:41 -0700

Chris, this is beautiful.

Those are the only words I have right now.

Real radical feminism and moral urgency

Elizabeth — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:27:00 -0700

Chris, thank you so much for your post. I am glad, more than anything, that you so poignantly describe the real radical feminist need to take the shame away, to avoid hypocrisy and to support women, whether their work is sexual or not. It is so important that we do not concede the term "feminist" and so important that we see our work as morally grounded. It is.

It is about right and wrong.

Harassing sex workers until they kill themselves iswrong.

Shaming women who use their sexuality instrumentally is wrong, as is shaming men who seek sexual exchanges.

Conflating sex work, labor abuse, and trafficking is wrong.

What is right is expanding protection of labor rights and of basic human rights (including reducing inequality, providing support for the poor, and making sure everybody has health care, drug treatment and job training -- oh, yes, and jobs with livable wages) so that we can be more confident that those who do engage in sex work are doing so in conditions that are no more exploitive than most other work.

Farley in Chicago

Michael — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:23:00 -0700

We became aware last night that a similar report to that published in Scotland, was going to be released shortly in Chicago, although we have not yet seen this. As in the Scottish study, it was produced in conjunction with a local group with a similar philosophy, the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation. An article about this by David Heinzmann appeared in the Chicago Tribune today.

I agree that it's very

Adele — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:39:21 -0700

I agree that it's very important to deconstruct faulty, skewed "research" like this. Farley also has an article in the Spring 2008 issue of Ms. Magazine called "The New Abolitionists; Taking on the Global Sex-Trafficking Industry", which will serve to popularize her views that there's never consent in sex work and that not listening to the actual sex workers is "the" feminist response.

Not much more to say

Alyssa — Sat, 03 May 2008 04:21:26 -0700

But I agree so wholeheartedly with what's been said above. I was one of those who hoped that she would fight her conviction; I was inspired by her intelligence and strength in the interviews she gave. I am very sad to see this happen, and I think it's about time we did something to change the hypocrisy and idiocy of the laws that caused her conviction and, I think, her death.

I wrote about sex workers

Amanda — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:32:11 -0700

I wrote about sex workers who committ suicide earlier this year after a public arrest of a normal sex worker caused her to kill herself.

http://www.texasgoldengirl.com/afterhours/collateral-damage-from-the-war-on-sex/

A twisted sad indictment of our society

barkingstar — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:20:44 -0700

Her death is not an indictment of her, but of our twisted sad society, just as Brandy Britton's death was. Yes, Ms. Palfrey did make the choice to end her own life, whereas many probably hoped she would fight back against her conviction. It was probably too much for her to bare. These trials are less about justice than about political posturing. As with the disaster in Iraq, we are all casualties of bloated double dealing political con-men/women.

Rest in peace

Michael — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:34:19 -0700

I would also like to thank Amanda for those words. I think we are all unutterably saddened and frightened by this terrible tragedy.

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

John Donne (1572-1631). Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII

There will understandably be rage and fury, which we must channel constructively, but now is a time for mourning, for remembering and for coming together. Deborah Jeane's death is a great loss, but I think she would want us to also remember all those who have lost their lives, were brutalised or had their lives ruined through senseless prejudice and oppression. In particular we remember her associate Brandy Britton who lost her life last year. When five young women were found murdered in Ipswich in England less than two years ago, there was a public outcry about laws that made women involved in sex work vulnerable, yet no action was taken. When it was discovered that over 60 women in Vancouver's downtown eastside had been murdered there was an outcry- nothing happened. Will we let this continue?

As Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) wrote " Als sie die Juden geholt haben, habe ich geschwiegen.
- denn ich war ja kein Jude. Als sie mich geholt haben, hat es niemanden mehr gegeben, der protestieren konnte." (Then they came for the Jews,- but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.) Let us then remember a life and then rage against the dying of the light. But let us also ask ourselves, where were we? Were we there to protest, did we speak up against injustice, did we offer to help, were we we there in her last moments to offer help and sustenance?

Let Deborah Jeane's death be a call to arms, we can do no less.

“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”

Albert Einstein

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