worst human trafficking case I've ever heard of

[operator kos]

Brothel safety a dangerous myth

Caroline Norma
July 15, 2011
Comments 50

There is an alternative to a model that profits from the prostitution of others.

STAFF at Consumer Affairs Victoria must have broken into a cold sweat this week reading a report in The Age about a prostitute who plans to sue a brothel over a violent incident there. The ability of Consumer Affairs to continue to collect licensing fees from pimps, otherwise known as ''sex work service licensees'', who run legal brothels in Victoria depends on news about violence against women in the brothels not becoming public.
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Some great comments at link. The line "prostitution is going to happen anyway, might as well decriminalise & manage it..." comes in for a real beating.

The fact that some legal brothels need better security doesn't seem like a very good argument for making them illegal again. There have been numerous reports (like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KA_d2R6wAY) about the zero-percent HIV infection rate amongst legal brothel sex workers. The same certainly cannot be said of illegal prostitution which, as you say, is bound to happen one way or another. I'm more for the "harm reduction" model than the "in an ideal world" model.

[wintler2]

The fact that some legal brothels need better security doesn't seem like a very good argument for making them illegal again. There have been numerous reports (like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KA_d2R6wAY) about the zero-percent HIV infection rate amongst legal brothel sex workers. The same certainly cannot be said of illegal prostitution which, as you say, is bound to happen one way or another. I'm more for the "harm reduction" model than the "in an ideal world" model.

Its tricky, innit. If Johns are forcing sex workers into unprotected sex in legal brothels, then HIV infection is going to increase, yes?

If sex work itself is really economic violence, i.e. women being forced into it by lack of other earning options, then i think the long term goal has to be eradication. I and you worry that sex work is going to happen anyway, 'worlds oldest profession' etc, but the same argument could be used for slavery and i for one don't think decriminalising slavery is the way forward.

Criminalise the pimps and the Johns, not the sex workers.

[operator kos]

Its tricky, innit. If Johns are forcing sex workers into unprotected sex in legal brothels, then HIV infection is going to increase, yes?

Like I said, better security. If someone's trying to pull that shit, the bouncers beat the crap out of them and they get sent to jail.

If sex work itself is really economic violence, i.e. women being forced into it by lack of other earning options, then i think the long term goal has to be eradication. I and you worry that sex work is going to happen anyway, 'worlds oldest profession' etc, but the same argument could be used for slavery and i for one don't think decriminalising slavery is the way forward.

C'mon, that's pretty cheap rhetoric. If we're talking about human trafficking cases where someone is being FORCED to have sex, slavery is an applicable term, but at the moment we're discussing regular prostitution. Prostitutes aren't killed if they feel like taking a day off, and they get paid, often quite substantial amounts.

I happen to have known some women in varying levels of the sex trade over the years. Some of them did it due to shitty circumstances/life decisions, but most of them did it because they could make WAY more money doing that than from almost ANY legal job. In their minds the rewards justified the risks.

Criminalise the pimps and the Johns, not the sex workers.

I think we've criminalized more than enough people in our society. There must be a better way.

[blanc]

A problem with legalising such work which no-one seems willing to confront is that most unemployment benefit systems sooner or later oblige claimants to prove that they have applied for all possible/available jobs. Given the pressure put on claimants currently, I would have absolutely no faith that young women would not eventually be directed into such decriminalised industries. The power balance is all wrong already, legalising brothels just throws the owners and clients a bonus. Consent cannot be bought. Comments about the presumed motives of women in prostitution are little more than empty gossip, individual life choices depend on a huge variety of factors, some within the control of the individual, most not.

[Stephen Morgan]

A problem with legalising such work which no-one seems willing to confront is that most unemployment benefit systems sooner or later oblige claimants to prove that they have applied for all possible/available jobs. Given the pressure put on claimants currently, I would have absolutely no faith that young women would not eventually be directed into such decriminalised industries.

I don't know how many dole scum you know, but I for one fabricate anything the jobcentre requests of me. "Yes, of course I applied to be a whore, I had an interview the other day, just waiting for them to get back to me." It's not like prostitution is the only potentially awful job out there, and the ones that are legal now are also ones you could theoretically be forced into doing. But don't worry, the employees of the welfare system are both lackadaisical and incompetent, so this is unlikely.

The power balance is all wrong already, legalising brothels just throws the owners and clients a bonus.

Ought perhaps to be run as mutuals. But the owners benefit from the current system, like drug dealers do. You get to charge a premium for the illicitness, and you get to forgo spending on safety, protection, wages, and so on. There's no health and safety man looking over your shoulder, no unions or shop stewards, no lawyers except those who want to shut you down altogether, and that can be changed with legalisation. It would be good for clients, mind, as they could rest assured that they would be less likely to be infected with diseases, would have legal recourse if beaten and robbed by the brothel operators, and so on.

Consent cannot be bought.

It can if the one giving consent is willing to give it for money. Through violent sports you can give consent to be physically assaulted for money, which would otherwise be illegal. Sex is otherwise legal, I see no reason why doing something legal ought to be a crime if it is done in exchange for money. I mean, how many people would do their jobs if they weren't paid?

[blanc]

Yes, your reliance on the general incompetence of staffing in govt agencies is touchingly funny, but unconvincing. What will be legalised exactly - will legislation spell out the exact practices and forms of consent to which are blessed or leave it to that great regulator of human relations, the marketplace?
Violent sports take place under public scrutiny, and don't involve the most fundamental of all human freedoms. The 'assaulted for money' aspect is precisely regulated.
Sorry to be pedantic but I think there's a vital difference between giving consent and selling it.

[crikkett]

If sex work itself is really economic violence, i.e. women being forced into it by lack of other earning options, then i think the long term goal has to be eradication.

I am reminded of a thread here, the OP was video of a lecture on simian behavior, IIRC, where chimps were introduced to an economic system, trading chips for treats or something.

This experiment was ended shortly after the women female chimps started offering themselves up in exchange for their partners' chips.

I don't consider sex work to be economic violence, but opportunism. I know a sex worker or two personally, myself.

Wish I had time to search out a link to that thread.

[Stephen Morgan]

Yes, your reliance on the general incompetence of staffing in govt agencies is touchingly funny, but unconvincing. What will be legalised exactly - will legislation spell out the exact practices and forms of consent to which are blessed or leave it to that great regulator of human relations, the marketplace?

Generally anything not illegal is allowed, that which is presently illegal, which is to say the exchange of money for sex, although thoroughly shameful and immoral should not be illegal. It should be legalised in such a way as to allow the most effective regulation, only in licenced premises, say, and with regular inspections, and whatever else.

Violent sports take place under public scrutiny, and don't involve the most fundamental of all human freedoms. The 'assaulted for money' aspect is precisely regulated.
Sorry to be pedantic but I think there's a vital difference between giving consent and selling it.

I don't. By it's nature, giving consent is allowing someone to do something to you and heavily implies a very lopsided relationship, in which situation the only difference between commercial and non-commercial "consent" is price.

[operator kos]

A problem with legalising such work which no-one seems willing to confront is that most unemployment benefit systems sooner or later oblige claimants to prove that they have applied for all possible/available jobs. Given the pressure put on claimants currently, I would have absolutely no faith that young women would not eventually be directed into such decriminalised industries.

This is an honest question, as I don't know the answer: are people on welfare in the U.S. obliged to apply for employment by the armed services? My point is that there may be certain exemptions, and I can certainly see the general public supporting a law that says people can't be forced to apply to work at legal brothels under any circumstances.

The power balance is all wrong already, legalising brothels just throws the owners and clients a bonus.

If brothels are legal, it gives the people who work there the same organizing potential as any other workplace. I see no reason why there couldn't be a Whores Union or even a worker-owned brothel.

[blanc]

If brothels are legal, it gives the people who work there the same organizing potential as any other workplace. I see no reason why there couldn't be a Whores Union or even a worker-owned brothel.

Not in the real world.

[American Dream]

If brothels are legal, it gives the people who work there the same organizing potential as any other workplace. I see no reason why there couldn't be a Whores Union or even a worker-owned brothel.

Not in the real world.

In the United States, I can recall several.

The dancers at the Mitchell Brothers' Theatre in San Francisco organized a union quite a while ago. Different Wobbly groups have also organized unions, as for example at the Lusty Lady in Seattle, as I recall.

There are other efforts too- and people that I know have worked with the annual Sex Workers' Art Show as well...

[operator kos]

If brothels are legal, it gives the people who work there the same organizing potential as any other workplace. I see no reason why there couldn't be a Whores Union or even a worker-owned brothel.

Not in the real world.

I don't think you have any real basis for claiming that it isn't possible. AD beat me to providing some examples where sex workers have successfully organized.

[wintler2]

.. there's a vital difference between giving consent and selling it.

Absolutely.

If people can be forced via the 'economic draft' to kill and be killed, how is that different to being economically drafted into prostitution?

I've known three former sex workers (that i know of) quite well, and none of them, who 'got out', want to go back to it, no matter what the money.

[blanc]

I don't think you have any real basis for claiming that it isn't possible. AD beat me to providing some examples where sex workers have successfully organized.

OK I apologise for the terseness of my remark. I'm looking daily at pages of posts about the stranglehold on our society by a numerically small power group with deep pockets and wondering how legal brothels would go. I'd expect them not to be charming little collectives run by the ladies or gents (I assume we'd have equality of opportunity here and no homosexual prejudice) who provide the service. I'd expect them to go like every other industry catering for a perceived and fairly basic need - something between MacDos and any bar/casino chain you might name. Unlike these industries, not notable for the success of the workers in getting a fair deal so far, the workers in the service industry you envisage would have several additional disadvantages, not the least of which might be their desire not to have it widely known that they were earning a living in that way. Alcohol, tobacco - that didn't stay small and worker run.

I may be in the minority here, but I see a great difference in the commercialisation of that particular transaction (being that its fundamentally about human relations and procreation), to the exchange of some other kind of skill, service, or labour for money. Legalising the 'industry' is not the only or even the best way to help or protect those caught up in it. How many of the happy-with -their -lot workers you know are envisaging their current career as a good one for their children to get into? How many of us want that for our children?

[American Dream]

I don't think you have any real basis for claiming that it isn't possible. AD beat me to providing some examples where sex workers have successfully organized.

OK I apologise for the terseness of my remark. I'm looking daily at pages of posts about the stranglehold on our society by a numerically small power group with deep pockets and wondering how legal brothels would go. I'd expect them not to be charming little collectives run by the ladies or gents (I assume we'd have equality of opportunity here and no homosexual prejudice) who provide the service. I'd expect them to go like every other industry catering for a perceived and fairly basic need - something between MacDos and any bar/casino chain you might name. Unlike these industries, not notable for the success of the workers in getting a fair deal so far, the workers in the service industry you envisage would have several additional disadvantages, not the least of which might be their desire not to have it widely known that they were earning a living in that way. Alcohol, tobacco - that didn't stay small and worker run.

I may be in the minority here, but I see a great difference in the commercialisation of that particular transaction (being that its fundamentally about human relations and procreation), to the exchange of some other kind of skill, service, or labour for money. Legalising the 'industry' is not the only or even the best way to help or protect those caught up in it. How many of the happy-with -their -lot workers you know are envisaging their current career as a good one for their children to get into? How many of us want that for our children?

I think strong criticism of the business as it stands is completely warranted.

While I would never, ever claim to know all that much about what life is like for the workers here are a few stories that come to mind:

A woman I know who brought a friend with her to porn filmings because even though the money was good, the gangsters involved with the production were armed and dangerous.

Women whose drug addictions were "encouraged" by the gangsterish managers of the dance clubs where they worked.

Women who were drugged by patrons of clubs, and followed off-premises by these men.

Women who struggle very, very hard just to break even on their daily fees as "contractors" .

So, given the fact that the class struggle rages on within the sex industry and given that all workers deserve- at minimum, safe working conditions, decent pay etc. I personally think that the struggle for sex worker unions is a legitimate one.