Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order. – John V. Linsday
Another collection of short articles of interest to harlots and those who love us.
Make Up Your Damned Mind!
In my column of March 10th I pointed out the absurd contradictions inherent in the conflict of the traditional police rationales for persecuting whores (we’re evil criminals who seduce virtuous men, spread disease and attract crime) and the politically correct “trafficking” view (we’re helpless, innocent and morally incompetent victims of evil men). But it’s rare to see those contradictions displayed as explicitly as in this article from WINK-TV in Florida, posted on the same day my column appeared:
Deputies arrest a female body builder who goes by the name “Miss Sparkle” during a prostitution sting. They say it’s part of a continuing effort to crack down on what many don’t realize is a dangerous crime. Miss Sparkle, otherwise known as Rhonda Lee Quaresma is a bodybuilder from Toronto, and according to her website, a business woman. Deputies say she’s taken on another role recently in Lee County, as a prostitute.
They say, “Miss Sparkle” was arrested after she offered to perform a sex act on an undercover deputy. A crime Lt. Chris Reeves with the vice-narcotics unit calls a big problem for many reasons. Lt. Reeves says, “Bonita Springs is one of the areas we get a lot of calls from, people’s husbands, daughters, wives that are not working the streets that have to walk to get groceries are getting solicited for sex from these Johns that are roaming the area. So to try to cut down on what Reeves calls dangerous behavior, the sheriff’s office turns both to the streets, massage parlors, and online to websites which feature ads for escorts.
He says, “People think it’s a victimless crime, however when they are taking HIV, hepatitis home to their spouses or their significant others, that’s a big crisis.” Reeves says some of the prostitutes are victims of human trafficking. “A lot of them are beaten and abused. A lot of these are young girls that have gotten hooked on drugs,” A far cry from the glamorous or “sparkly” lifestyle some portray.
I honestly don’t know if I could’ve written a better parody of journalistic credulity and police stupidity and self-contradiction than this incompetently-written mess. It begins by characterizing escorts as “dangerous criminals” (I’ll bet you didn’t realize we go around shooting into crowds and throwing grenades into kindergartens) without explanation, then quickly switches to the “public nuisance” excuse with a particularly inept and unintentionally hilarious example which is clearly intended to give the impression that an upscale escort was working as a streetwalker. This runaway clown-car then visits the old “diseased whore” myth before doing an abrupt about-face into trafficking fetishism, detouring slightly to the “drug addict” stereotype and then closing with a sentence fragment accusing the real experts of lying. I almost feel as though I should stand up and clap.
Backlash
South African police have apparently decided to teach prostitutes a lesson for daring to speak up for their rights in several public events held on March 3rd, thus unwittingly proving the veracity of the protesters’ grievances. This article appeared in Sangonet on March 10th:
A significant police backlash is being felt by sex workers around the country following human rights events for the International Sex Worker Rights Day on March 3rd.
In Johannesburg, Sisonke Sex Worker Movement [SSWM] national coordinator, Kholi Buthelezi, had her hands full with sex workers calling her for help…27…were arrested and released with a [300 rands, about $44 US] fine in Germiston, while in the City sex workers were harassed and one was assaulted. Buthelezi [also] witnessed a police reservist soliciting a bribe from a sex worker – and took a picture of the culprit with her phone…
In Limpopo…[the SSWM]…and partner organisation, Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme (TVEP) assisted a sex worker who was whipped on the stomach by police officers…she would not go to the hospital… because she was afraid of being deported. The march in Limpopo [on March 3rd] had to be cancelled because the Musina Local Municipality took away permission…less than 24 hours before the march was expected to start. No reasons [were given]…and the…police…threatened…[the protesters] with arrest and detention should they deliver the memorandum that sex workers had prepared…[which] demanded that…[police] take complaints from sex workers seriously…
The Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) will be following up all cases and working with our legal advice partners in Johannesburg and Limpopo to ensure that the police officers responsible for the incidences will be harshly disciplined. But, says Mickey Meji “Until sex work is decriminalised, we will be dealing with the impunity of the police. The law with regard to sex work must be changed so that sex workers are safe and no aspect of their work should be criminalised.”
I’m sure the police were only beating women up for their own good, to save them from those evil traffickers. Or are whores still “dangerous criminals” in South Africa as we are in Florida? It’s hard to keep track these days.
For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea
On a number of occasions we’ve compared decriminalization (the official recognition that women have the natural right to have sex with whomever we wish for whatever reason we wish, even if money is exchanged) with legalization (the subjugation of prostitutes with arbitrary and often contradictory bureaucratic restrictions so as to enable governments to exploit us). Many well-meaning people think prostitution should be “legalized and heavily regulated”, often under the excuse of “protecting” the women. One common type of regulation, “living off the avails” laws, make it illegal for any adult other than a prostitute herself to receive a substantial portion of his support from her; such laws are widely touted as measures to “protect” whores from “pimps” (and indeed are sometimes referred to by their supporters as “anti-pimping laws”),
but actually make it illegal for her to be married, to hire employees or to support relatives over 18 (such as elderly parents or university-age children). Here’s a story from the Deccan Herald of March 5th about efforts by Indian prostitutes to overturn this and other “protective” laws:
According to the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA), 1960, if anybody above 18 years uses the earnings of a sex-worker, he or she can be prosecuted. If the children of sex workers use their mothers’ income, long hand of law can catch them. “How many children start earning at 18? Why this bias against us when we strive to study and make a living against all social hurdles,” rues Parvati, daughter of a [Calcutta]-based commercial sex worker.
Last week, sex workers aided by young advocates from Lawyers’ Collective met members of Parliament…to build up support…[for] changes in the ITP Act that criminalises sex workers’ earnings on which their children are dependent…According to an estimate made by the Union Health Ministry, there are approximately [1.25 million] self-identified commercial sex workers who were contacted as a part of the HIV prevention programme. “The number can be more as many don’t declare their status upfront,” said Tripti Tandon from Lawyer’s Collective.
Having sex in exchange for money is not an offence in the law. But everything around this transaction has been criminalised under the ITPA. Brothels are illegal as is sex work in hotels, rooms, lodges, streets and nearly all other premises. In the absence of a designated place, sex workers have to solicit business on the streets or gesturing from other conspicuous sites. But this, too, is punishable with imprisonment for six months and a penalty. An NGO, representing sex workers filed a [motion] in…July, challenging five clauses in the ITPA. The case is yet to be heard. The…clauses they challenged include criminalisation of brothels, criminalising the earnings of sex workers, prostitution around a notified public place, soliciting and the power given to a magistrate to evict sex-workers from their home and forbidding their re-entry.
That’s right, in India the child of a woman pursuing a legal profession can be prosecuted if he doesn’t move away from home and support himself on his 18th birthday, and the prostitute herself can be evicted from her own property for a number of reasons. You might think about that next time you’re tempted to support “heavy regulation” of prostitution in the United States.
The regulation issue is where I differ with others within this industry. Whether it is decriminalized or legalized, there will either be regulations or bylaws or ordinances still trying to tell us what to do and how to do it. It is not so much for the protection of women as it is for society in general though. To draw a comparison, x-ray techs are taught radiation safety and have to fall within guidelines and are restricted as to where and how the perform x-rays. This isn’t for the technicians protection, it is for the protection of the general public (and it makes the public feel better). If we as hookers want to advertise a service for pay, it’s a business. As a business there will be zoning restrictions and requirements. However, unlike hookers, radiation experts WITH years of experience of practice within the field are the ones consulted when establishing and discussing guidelines. I doubt this will be the case when it comes to prostitution. They will consult health experts, trafficking experts, etc but not the actual working women.
Practical, sensible guidelines would be much preferred over any heavy handed legislation for the issues held in belief by the public.
Of course if all whore’s were as sensible as us, we wouldn’t have an issue. However, I do know of internet escorts who are self centered enough to take a blanket decriminalization and run with it to the detriment of what we are trying to accomplish.
Wow I hope that made sense.
It made sense. I have no problem with regulation from inside an industry, i.e. something like the AMA; whores who complied with the guidelines could display an “ASWA” symbol in their ads and within a decade or so the non-ASWA practitioners would become pretty rare in escorting. Obviously, brothels would have to be subject to zoning. But as I’ve said before the analogy with restaurants is a good one; restaurants are regulated but cooks and waitresses are not, and if I want to hire some woman off the street to cook for me there’s no public outcry about “disease” or “slavery”, now is there?
There ya go! Inside the industry is the point. X-Ray techs are regulated by the ARRT (equates with the physicians to AMA correlation).
I don’t know about other states but in Texas you have to have a county health department issued certification for a “Food Handlers Permit” before you can work in a restaurant as a cook or waitress. Don’t know if this was due to a public outcry of disease but I can totally see some customer getting food poisoning and making a stink so the state decided you have to take a little online test and register in order to be able to serve food. Sigh. The stuff the public needs just in order to be able to sleep better at night.
I’ve advocated before for something similar to ARRT or AMA regarding prostitution to address public concerns AND be beneficial to the employee’s within the industry. Something where registered (members?) prostitutes are known to be of age and non-coerced without having to give private information to a governmental agency.
Ah, but by that analogy such a “penis handlers permit” would only apply to brothel girls. If you, Brandy, were wealthy and wanted to hire someone to cook for you in your home, that person would need no such permit. See what I mean?
OH LOOK! I found the page you are on! Yes, we are talking differences between brothel work and private in home consultations/cooking. (Course if we hired an illegal immigrant to do our cooking, some idiot would be crying slavery somewhere don’t you know.)
Personally, no I wouldn’t require a permit. HOWEVER, if I were a prudent/anal person, I would want to know that they could cook, that they do practice hand washing techniques and wouldn’t openly sneeze in my food, plus other experience they may have and request references. This can be accomplished by having oh say a Cooking internet site where there are reviews and references (which of course we already have). Even still, them showing a card or something by the ACA would make me feel better about hiring them. Again however, it wouldn’t be a requirement and probably would/count not need to be regulated by some government let-me-control-your-personal-life agency.
And of course if I hired this person without checking all of it out it’s all on me as I know the risks 🙂
BTW, I’m printing out my own card that says Penis Handlers Permit just so that it can ‘accidently’ fall out of my wallet when paying for my groceries or when I run across a guy trying to sell me a newspaper subscription 😀 Great idea!
LOL! 😀
I’m playing catch up on this blog, and I enjoyed your interchange with Maggie on this!
Underlying the whole thing, though, is an important point: one of the defining features of “a profession” is that the legal structure relies upon it to regulate itself.
Doctors license and discipline one another. So do lawyers. So do chiropractors, for that matter. (Whether they do so enough, or well enough, is a separate conversation!)
In my home State, they do so through “The State Board of …”, which is composed of members of that profession. The State has a supervising board of lawyers, which checks their decisions to make sure they are following the formal procedure; but that’s all that the the supervising board does.
My State has some 38 boards, which issue licenses for 56 professions, including physicians, vets, nurses, physical therapists, tattoo artists, professional wrestlers, professional boxers, and (of course) massage therapists. Many of whom work as independent business owners, under his or her own shingle.
If — *if* — its licensing board could consist of members of its own profession, who would define *for their colleagues* the guidelines for their profession, then … a professional license for professional sex workers??
I know, I know. Never gonna happen, in any state, right now.
In 250 years?
As the Cheshire Puss said to Alice, if you want to get somewhere, it helps to have a particular place in mind.
Just a thought, from a dumb civilian.
Of course there’s a lot of room between “a butt-load of regulations put in place to make the job, while technically legal, almost impossible to do legally” and “a few reasonable regulations like every other not-a-crime business has to follow.” It isn’t a switch, it’s a dial.
Dear Sailor Barsoom, thank you! The extremes with regulations are horrible and an example of this is how DEregulation of the bankers has lead to more HELL for too many!
The problem is precedent. Once one allows the government power to regulate women’s sex lives (not businesses with store fronts, but the choices of individuals) in any way, the door is wide open for more regulation. And once there are some regulations governing consensual personal behavior, they inevitably increase.
I repeat: it isn’t against the law for anybody to pay any private citizen to cook for him, do a little carpentry, unblock his loo, wash his car, babysit his kids, sing and dance, rub his back, mow his lawn, cut his hair, give him a manicure or almost anything else which doesn’t require years of school. NONE of those things require a permit until one opens an official business and puts an ad in the phone book, and whoring shouldn’t be any different because it isn’t.
OK, I’ll go for that. As long as it’s “on the side,” like me hiring the neighbor kid to mow the lawn, then fine. Hey, she’s got to pay for that new X-Box somehow, and it’ll teach the ten-year-old some responsibility. There are (and will be, and should be) laws that keep me from hiring her as a surgeon, prize-fighter, or prostitute. Her mom shouldn’t have to operate under all the same restrictions.
As soon as mother and daughter set up a lawn-care service, clinic, dojo, or escort agency, then they are a business and have to follow more rules, but again, those should not be rules designed to drive women out of the business. The best consultants for this would be the prostitutes themselves, with clients a close second.
Exactly. 🙂
[…] Maggie the Honest Courtesan explains it best: decriminalization …the official recognition that women have the natural right to have sex with whomever we wish for whatever reason we wish, even if money is exchanged legalization …the subjugation of prostitutes with arbitrary and often contradictory bureaucratic restrictions so as to enable governments to exploit us This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged decriminalization/legalization, legislation, Nevada, prostitution, sex work, underage. Bookmark the permalink. ← Junk Science and Inflated Sex-Trafficking Numbers […]
“Bonita Springs is one of the areas we get a lot of calls from, people’s husbands, daughters, wives that are not working the streets that have to walk to get groceries are getting solicited for sex from these Johns that are roaming the area.”
Now I have seen it all. What kind of bullshit is THIS? ‘Johns’ are asking women for sex who are just going about their business in a place where it’s illegal? Come on. Sell me beach front property in nevada but THIS? This has GOT to be rubbish.