It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny. – James Fenimore Cooper
Not only do laws on prostitution vary widely from country to country, but even the terminology is different; American and Australian advocates tend to use terms like “legalization” and “decriminalization” the same way, but as Wendy Lyon recently explained in the comment thread for “Across the Pond” they are used somewhat differently in Ireland and the UK. In fact, she sent me this document showing no fewer than 21 different terminological schemes proposed by different authors! So I’d like to explain the one I use, which is admittedly less than wholly satisfactory but is understood by most American and Australian activists without much explanation. The following appeared in “It Is, But It Isn’t”, a guest blog I did for Nobody’s Business this summer:
First of all, you must understand that the way the terms “legalized” and “decriminalized” are used in reference to prostitution is the opposite of the way they’re used in regard to drugs. When people speak of marijuana being “decriminalized” they mean that merely having it won’t get you jail time, but there are still all sorts of laws surrounding it (sometimes even fines for possession); “legalization” basically means what it sounds like. In prostitution, on the other hand, “decriminalization” means that transactional sex is viewed as an arrangement between consenting adults in which the state has no legitimate interest (basically like any other sex), whereas “legalization” means it is viewed as a special case and therefore subject to all sorts of laws that aren’t applied to other professions. For example, prostitution is legalized in Nevada; it’s legal if one does it in certain counties, in a licensed brothel owned by somebody else, and follows a slate of rules so restrictive that about 70% of Nevada prostitutes prefer to work illegally. Nevada is also a good example of the highly arbitrary character of regulations under legalization schemes; in Canada and the U.K. brothels are banned, but in Nevada they’re the only venue for prostitution that is allowed! Most European legalization regimes are much more liberal, and those in Australia aren’t tremendously different from full decriminalization (which is what New Zealand has).
As Wendy (and also Stephen Paterson) pointed out, this can be quite confusing because countries such as Canada and the UK (where prostitution itself is legal but practically nothing about it is) are in the same general group as much more liberal regimes such as Germany and Australia! Take a look at these two recent news stories; both of them are from countries with “legal” prostitution, but what a difference! The first article appeared on CNN on November 18th:
…Taiwan…is moving towards legalizing the world’s oldest profession, but in practice the trade remains largely underground. Under the revised Social Order Maintenance Act, which went into effect in early November, prostitution is legal in designated red-light districts, but so far no local governments have been willing to create these zones, rendering prostitution anywhere illegal. “You [the government] tell us that both the sex worker and the client would not be penalized within the district, but where is it?” Chung Chun-chu, secretary general of the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters told the Taipei Times. “So far, none of the local governments have any plans to create red-light districts.” All 22 county and city mayors have expressed concern that creating prostitution districts would lead to increased crime and plummeting property values…
The new amendment also overturns Article 80 of the act which criminalized prostitutes but not their clients based on its unconstitutionality. Now, both sex workers and their customers could be fined up to NT$30,000 ($994) for engaging in prostitution outside of these designated areas. Brothel owners operating outside the red-light districts would also face fines of up to NT$50,000 ($1,655). This law is aimed at protecting women in the sex trade, but Mei Hsiang, a prostitute working in Taipei is worried it will affect her ability to make a living. “Punishing the clients is worse than punishing us because the clients will not come for fear of being caught and fined and we won’t be able to make a living,” she told the Taipei Times…
Technically, prostitution is now legal again in Taiwan (after ten years of American-style criminalization), for all the good it will do anyone; some fanatics who want to infantilize whores are even still trying to push the Swedish Model there. Contrast this asinine situation with the far more reasonable Australian discussion of allowable places for prostitutes to practice our trade which appeared in the November 16th Brisbane Times:
The sex worker whose $30,000 anti-discrimination case against a Moranbah motel was dismissed by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal has decided to appeal the ruling. QCAT found no case for discrimination in the charges levelled by the sex worker, known as “GK”, against operators of the Drover’s Rest Motel, and established a precedent for like matters of on-premises prostitution that favoured accommodation providers.
Clashes between hotel and motel operators and sex workers have become more frequent in Queensland’s booming regional mining communities, as brisbanetimes.com.au reported in August. Accommodation Association of Australia chief executive Richard Munro said the ruling meant accommodation providers now had clear parameters to refuse rooms to prostitutes…“This is different to short-term stays on business trips, this is people setting up their primary place of trade on premises,” he said. “Members had been concerned about how to handle these situations without breaching anti-discrimination laws. Now owners and managers have a clear precedent for taking action against conduct they don’t condone with the protection of the law.”
But Jenny King, chair of sex workers rights group Respect Inc, said affected prostitutes should not stop lodging complaints with the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland. “We have seen many sex workers successfully seek compensation for discrimination from motel operators throughout Queensland,” she said…
Queensland Council for Civil Liberties President Michael Cope said that…under liquor laws, a licensee may take steps to ensure business other than the provision of accommodation was not conducted from the motel or hotel. “It’s a difficult issue,” he said. “You have a sex worker with the right to ply their [sic] trade, and motel or hotel operators with the right to control their business as they would like.” And while the scales appear tipped in favour of accommodation providers, Mr Cope said there was still ambiguity surrounding interpretation of the Liquor Licensing Act…
GK brought allegations of discrimination against the Drover’s Rest in July last year on the basis of lawful sexual activity in the area of provision of accommodation. She also complained that she was asked unnecessary questions about being a sex worker and that she was overcharged because of her status as a sex worker…
What a model of sane, reasonable treatment of prostitution, especially in comparison with the sort of medieval “sin and degradation” nonsense one hears in North America and certain parts of Europe! The issue is being treated as what it is: an issue of one businessperson’s rights vs. another’s. There’s no “human trafficking” hysteria, no “degradation” dogma, no “associated crime” propaganda…just the same kind of give-and-take as one sees in any lawsuit without a sexual component. Would that all countries could treat the issue so sensibly!
One Year Ago Today
Prohibitionists claim that prostitution is the worst way to make a living imaginable and generally tar it with such melodramatic epithets as “inherently degrading” and “soul-destroying”. But “Bad Jobs” lists the ten most depressing jobs in America, and you may be surprised to see which socially-acceptable means of employment are at the top of the list.
Golly, Maggie, if I knew you were going to give me a plug, I’d have run and fetched a socket! Actually, you know, fitting nations into these boxes is never as easy as it seems, and it never seems easy! And then when you’ve done it, it’s sweet FA use, because the de facto in this area is never within light years of the de jure anyhow!
NZ, for example, is about as decriminalised as they come and (IMHO) a model for others, but it (wisely, I think) incists on (cheap) licenses for brothel managers to enable a criminal records check. Less wisely, last I knew you can’t operate as a sex worker there unless you’re from Australasia. There’s all sorts of regimes in Australia, decrim only in NSW, I think.
I find it of great comfort in this world to know that, come what may, boys will go on being boys and girls will go on being girls irrespective of all legislative attempts to the contrary. It’s just that vast damage can be done in the process of trying to make round pegs fit square holes.
In the case of the motel owner – I’d be more inclined to side with him than the sex worker. I just think people should have a right to decide who they’re going to do business with – even if they make stupid biased decisions about it.
With regards to “Bad Jobs” … I don’t think there is a bad job out there as long as the person in it is psychologically matched with it. Potentially, I can’t think of a more depressing job than being a submariner, though I loved it.
We were all extensively “screened” for the duty though. None of us were “normal” mind you. Every single one of us was loyal and pretty fearless … and we reveled in our ability withstand dirty hardships and work hard. But beyond that – I think every single one of us was “warped” and “perverted” in some way. I remember getting a phone call from a military nurse once, who was performing a physical on ten of my guys – and she said … “Dammit! Why is it that you Submariners don’t wear underwear!” Apparently she put all the guys in a room and told them to strip to their skivvies and well … when she came back all they were wearing were smiles. 🙂
I still remember my wife watching me get dressed after we’d first met and telling me … “I think it’s weird, but cute how you don’t wear underwear.” She’s the one that pointed out to me all the strange stuff we did – because to me and the others it was perfectly normal.
Meh … I don’t think Dwight Yokam wears underwear either.
It would just be cool if more people could get into jobs that they were mentally and emotionally suited for. I’ve never understood how a kid can graduate high school and choose a major for college in a field he’s not totally familiar with and he’ll end up performing in for the rest of his life.
That right there scares me more than a room full of naked submariners. 😛
“With regards to “Bad Jobs” … I don’t think there is a bad job out there as long as the person in it is psychologically matched with it. Potentially, I can’t think of a more depressing job than being a submariner, though I loved it.”
I have always been interested in getting a job as a driver for call-girls for an agency….Too bad that isnt extremely unlikely(or maybe i am being a pessimist) due to me my young age and maybe because they prefer gay guys
“It would just be cool if more people could get into jobs that they were mentally and emotionally suited for. I’ve never understood how a kid can graduate high school and choose a major for college in a field he’s not totally familiar with and he’ll end up performing in for the rest of his life.”
Many times the actual career is less stressful and time consuming than what is? was done in college(i think alot of times people forget this). Like myself for example, I am majoring in biology at a community college and will be venturing into chemical engineering at a 4 year, because i am interested in the subject.
Dont be surprised if a person is extremely successful in a job after years of struggling in schooling. its more common than you think.
By the way i wish my country(Canada) would stop being stuck in the middle when it comes to whether they want to FULLY legalize prostitution. Personally its even MORE annoying when countries are on the fence like this.
I think the people of my country as a whole are more open minded(generally speaking) than America when it comes to issues like these. I just wish the government acted more black and white and made a more “black and white” decision.
Not just a “yeah we will definately legalize this profession immediately….on one condition”
The NYT continues its unbelievably relentless attack on men and male sexuality:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/health/nearly-1-in-5-women-in-us-survey-report-sexual-assault.html?hp
Soon, “rape” will be defined as “he looked at me funny,” or, “I feel so bad after last night.”
The comments, as always, are instructive. They are also sinister.–
Actually, though some of that may be hyperbolic I’m still inclined to believe that there’s a lot of men behaving badly out there.
And … I think it’s because women really don’t expect much from men anymore. I think men, as a group, will generally perform to the level of women’s expectations. Don’t expect much – you won’t get much.
If men are just “sperm donors” … they’ll mindlessly act that way.
Krulac,
Sure, there are always plenty of scumbags — but we’re not talking about merely behaving badly. This is an article in which we are expected to accept an endlessly extended definition of rape — from people who want to control male behavior and define women as babyish eternal victims.
A poet once said: kill your puppet. Kill your white-knight, Krulac, it’s a bad reflex.
“I feel so bad after last night.”
It was not unheard of for black men (probably Latino men as well) during the height of the Jim Crow era to be accused of rape after a white woman decided, after the fact, that she shouldn’t have done that. Led to not too few lynchings.
Except now such women don’t limit the accusations to men of color. Ah, progress!
When reading The Scapegoat Generation, a book from the mid-Nineties, the author points out that the street gangs from his old neighborhood (Oklahoma City) are now as multiracial as can be, and so are the squads of cops fighting them. But this, he points out, isn’t exactly what Dr. King had in mind.
Change we can believe in! 😛
It’s so nice to know that I agreed with James Fenimore Cooper’s quote above just like I agreed with St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas about prostitution before I knew I agreed with them. I’ve said on here and other places that anti-prostitution on average wasn’t as much of a problem under the old European monarchies, but anti-prostitution became more of a problem when representitive government known as democracies came into effect, and it became most of all when women were allowed the vote. Other forces were at work against prostitution to be sure, but what I said in the previous sentence should not be discounted as it was a huge reason why anti-prostitution exists today. Note that anti-prostitution became more of a problem when the French republic started than under the previous French monarchy or that anti-prostitution came into fuller effect as more women got the right to vote in the USA as examples.
It’s a good point about legalization meaning wildly different things, from de facto criminalization to something close to freedom for sex workers.
One issue with legalization is that it makes re-criminalization easier. Instead of having to make new laws, governments can just stop renewing licenses, as in Turkey or even in the Netherlands to some degree.
Okay, so I’ve done a little survey. Admittedly, it’s self-selected sample, but an evening out with 15 whores at a social event (where I was introduced as foreigner doing some interviews) got me a nearly rapt audience.
They were friends or associates who worked together in various capacities. Firstly, I had no idea whores were so intensely social with each other. Secondly, I had no idea their social time was exactly like other peoples’ social time. Within the group, there was no stigma associated with their jobs and they used only a few euphemisms. I was invited along to check out the people by a woman I met last week at an interview. I asked her to help out, and did she ever deliver.
They ranged in age from about 20 to 35. One woman was, for want of a better word, a madam. She owned a bar, where no whores worked, but arranged girls for men. She was vague about what she specifically did.
I never pressed, and I’m getting it. If you just shut up and don’t ask too many questions, just let them talk, they go on and on and on and love it. In fact, I may have a problem of too much information in the end. There seems to be a pent up demand to discuss the nature of their jobs.
Survey question one, courtesy of Maggie: How many women found an increase in self-esteem? All of them said they like their jobs and one woman said it was tolerable but made her feel a little isolated. She joked that it’s impossible for her to get married now, but didn’t elaborate as to why.
I can throw out details if it’s interesting.
Question two opened a hornet’s nest. Problems at work. The bulk of the problems were with authorities and harrassment. Nobody liked the government interfering. their request wasn’t legalization; they just wanted the government to butt out.
Last issue: Difficulty having real relationships. Most girls found it a non-issue, but it got some to talking about past boyfriends and one about her husband; alas, she was talking on her cellphone and I didn’t get a chance to ask her anything directly, so I have no idea how having a husband worked out for her.
One girl was a suljib girl, and she said she never had sex with men; I presume she meant actual intercourse, because she alluded to problems men have when drunk and trying to get them off. I’m guessing handjobs and blowjobs don’t count as sex for her.
All of them have solid incomes. They all said they appreciated the money they get from their jobs.
So this appears to be the ringing tune I can’t avoid. The girls who do this do it for the cash. They also seem to be profligate spenders. This strikes me as a problem for whores who move in the material world.
I know women are much more bling bling materialistic than men; this is almost assuredly a natural trait. It’s women in every culture that are obsessed with showy social status games.
This must make the frugal, saving whore much more impressive when you meet her.
BTW, it’s far easier to talk to prostitutes or sex workers than normal people about any social issue. Living outside the bounds of proper social discourse seems to make them much more capable of being straightforward.
None would talk on film. Getting people to talk on film appears as if it will be an issue.
A bit of praise for our hostess: these days, when I read of *any* absurdity, outrage or injustice in the (vast and generously defined) sphere of our shared sexual culture, I instantly think:
If only Maggie McNeill were *on the spot* to eviscerate this cant with her characteristic, slashing insight — that would be good.
{curtsies} Thank you, kind sir! 🙂
You’re welcome. You devil. 😉
Back to the grim grind:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/nyregion/council-to-seek-penalties-for-prostitutes-drivers.html?src=recg
Im curious about Maggie’s take on the recent news about Victoria’s Secret
What news would that be? I don’t generally pay much attention to them because their lingerie is far too expensive for what it is.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/victoria_scanties_scandal_aQCMnjRd9XzDFQ8QM5sEDJ
Maggie, reading your definition of decriminalization in your quoted post raised some questions for me regarding your ideal legal schema for prostitution (in other words, you get to be the (hypothetical) Queen of Whores for a day, and set up the laws that they will all be subjected to).
1) Presumably, whores as businesswomen would be taxed like any other commercial enterprise, and therefore there would be a state interest in the transaction, unlike other noncommercial sexual intercourse?
2) Would you put any formal, legal regulations or informal, professional regulations into place at all? If so, would it be a licensing system, like plumbers? A competency exam, like engineers? Many years of rigorous schooling, like doctors? Sensible health and safety regulations, like restaurants? Professional ethics codes, like social workers and psychologists? Some combination? Something else entirely?
Also, if you are inclined libertarian-style to do away with regulations as a matter of principle, that’s ok. But given that we live in a society that regulates all sorts of businesses as a matter of course, what sort of system would make sense for prostitutes (and not be an odious burden, Nevada-style)? In other words, could you answer question 2 as a practical one, rather than one of principle?
Thanks very much for your continued commentary.
I am indeed a libertarian and recognize that most government regulations on business are a way for large, established businesses (which lobby or donate to political campaigns) to keep small startups out. Were I the dictatrix I’d scrap the whole mountain of business regulations and make the legislators start all over again, requiring a 2/3 majority for any new law (on the grounds that if a third of the legislators think it’s a bad idea it almost certainly is).
Prostitution is a normal female activity, and therefore indistinguishable from dating or using sex to get what one wants. It therefore can’t be regulated anymore than dating or other screwing can be, and any attempt to do so is doomed to failure; my constitution would prohibit as fatally flawed any unenforceable law. Escorts who advertised would be subject to the same laws as handymen or babysitters who advertised (if any) and would of course be responsible for paying taxes like anyone else. Escort services and brothels would be subject to the same laws as other multi-employee businesses with or without a physical place of business as applicable.
As for health regulations, I would encourage whores to form their own professional organisation (like the AMA or APA) with its own credential-issuing procedures; that has been shown to work far better than arbitrary (and usually paternalistic) rules imposed from without by people who have never done the work.
Queensland does have some pretty crappy elements to its laws, FWIW. Sex work is only legal in licensed brothels or by sole operators, and sole operators are severely limited in who they can pay to work for them (as screeners, security guards etc).
What always amazes me about societies is their determination to “stay the course” even when it’s clear that their approach isn’t working, or is doing great harm. I recently saw the Ken Burns history of prohibition on TV, and it was a great example. I didn’t know much about prohibition before that, but then, neither do most Americans.
Prostitution has been a part of most every society. It has never been eradicated. It’s time for societies, and dreary religious busybodies to admit that all the laws in the world aren’t getting what they want, and give up.
I don’t remember who said it, but I remember the quote if not the quoter.
“What happened with the War on Drugs? Drugs won.”
Well, in the War on Sex (not just prostitution), Sex won.
So Taiwan couldn’t do what South Korea did when I was there off and on between 1996 and 2006. Technically, prostitution was illegal in South Korea, but it operated out in the open with Red Light district brothels, massage parlors, barber shops, hostess(juicy) bars, coffee shops, escorts etc. The Red Light districts like other venues of prostitution were usually near train stations and commercial areas with hotels, motels, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, department stores, all kinds of stores and markets while being somewhat more distant from schools and residential areas. While I was in South Korea prostitution was almost run like it was legal. They started getting nutty in the end and arrested, imprisoning and fining the johns as well as the whores who they had done this to many years before going after the johns when the government decided to have an occasional crackdown on prostitution because of pressure from religious groups who were usually Protestant Christian groups, (neo) feminist groups, other anti-prostitution groups and the American government. As usual the overwhelming majority of the people in these groups were women especially middle aged and old women. South Korean prostitutes wearing nose and mouth masks with hats got organized, protested the government, and pushed back. It’s too bad none of the johns or men who did not pay to use prostitutes time slots did the same. There’s money to be made and taxes to be collected is all I have to say to Taiwanese county and municipal officials. Your national government made it easy for you so the first of you to break out and allow prostituion will have it better than those who don’t allow it.
I can understand why any women who are bisexual or heterosexual would be against prostitution because they are foolish enough to believe that stupid simple-minded selfish childish ideas will preserve their interests. They won’t of course as I’ll state lower down in this paragraph. Whores are the biggest strikebreakers of bisexual and heterosexual women’s control over bisexual and heterosexual men. What these women never seem to realize is that in the end they will hurt themselves or their descendant females. From St. Augustine of Hippo to St. Thomas Aquinas among other late ancient to medievil churchmen recognized that if government outlawed prostitution even though prostitution was and is immoral, then it would lead to a coarsening of society They also recognized that men would treat women in geneal and amatuers(non-sex workers) in particular worse without prostitution. Is it any wonder that there are GAME, seduction of women, internet blogs, books etc which try to teach men how to seduce women? It seems most are not aimed to teach men how to live in a stable happy marriages or long term relationships, and most are dedicated to teach men how to pump and dump women. At least the whore gets the dignity and respect for being paid unlike the amatuer women who would most likely be regarded as sluts(who weren’t even smart enough to get paid). An increasing number and percentage of men and women can not or will not have long term stable relationships or marriages. This is not good for society as a whole and is worse for women than men, and is worst of all for children who then are more likely to mature into dysfunctional adults. Lack of decriminalized and sanely legalized prostitution isn’t the only cause, but it is a huge factor which few will acknowledge. These women are wrong because they think like simple minded stupid selfish children who can’t take this to an adult level of comprehension and compassion. I can say without hesitation that a higher percentage of men today aren’t interested in marriage or other long term relationships with women and are more interested in pump and dump relationships with women due to misandry. Misandry includes but is not limited to the sick joke marriage has become especially for men and more so for children since 1965, anti-male legislation such as the Violence and Agaisnt Women Act of the late 1980’s which assumes men to be guilty until proven innocent when in a domestic relationship, U.S. Vice President Biden’s legislation to have almost no standards when a woman declares harrassment against a man on university campuses and again to say that the man is guilty until proven innocent with a mark which will even travel with him to the next college and beyond even if he has been convicted of nothing and anti-prostitution.
What I really don’t understand is homosexual women or any man who opposes prostitution. It makes no sense to me. They seem to have wanton cruelty to whores who are mostly women and towards men in general. Such people should have no interest to stop prostitution and shouls have the attitutude to allow it.
It is a problem when the same word means different things. Legalization and decriminalization mean the same thing to most people, but the Devil, as he so often is, is in the details.
In prostitution, on the other hand, “decriminalization” means that transactional sex is viewed as an arrangement between consenting adults in which the state has no legitimate interest (basically like any other sex),
It would be nice if the law made even this presumption everywhere, but it doesn’t. In mainland China, for instance, the law defines all premarital and extramarital sex as “prostitution”, thus indeed making prostitution “basically like any other sex” but not in the meaning you intended. (But of course even that’s better than Arabia where being a rape victim is effectively a crime that can get you killed.)
As for legalization schemes, it seems to me that not all regulations are uncalled for. I’ll dissect Nevada’s scheme because I know something about it.
Bad rules in Nevada:
* Only from one to three houses is licensed in each county, thus making each a monopoly or near-monopoly, and keeping prices too high but wages too low.
* Sex workers aren’t allowed to drink in a bar anywhere in the county where they work.
* Outcalls aren’t allowed.
* No sex work allowed at all in the largest counties and Carson City (because the casinos don’t want customers splitting their time between activities).
Good rules:
* Weekly health inspections
* No “barebacks” allowed
Debatable rules:
* Houses can’t be near a school or playground — maybe too strict, but residents and business owners do have a legitimate right to keep such things a comfortable distance from their property.
* No streetwalking — I support this rule for the same reason as above.
* Registration of workers — mainly a way to ensure that taxes get paid and to guard against underage or unfree workers. Probably not needed.
* Drug testing — partly nanny-statism but also a precaution against disease and against workers “being taken advantage of” because they’re high. You would know better than I whether those are good enough reasons for it.
* Age of consent — If I were writing the law it would be 16 (as it is for non-paid sex in most of the US and Europe). But as with drugs it is dangerous to even advocate improvements on this subject since it can get you labeled as a child abuser.
(Would be interested to hear if I’ve left anything out.)
When I’ve been a customer I’ve always gone to the legal houses in Nevada, not out of respect for the law but because that way I feel sure that the worker is her own boss and not somebody’s slave. Whether I’m really making that more likely by going there, I have no idea.
Oh, dear, JD; there are a few problems here. The weekly health checks are not only invasive and paternalistic (since illegal escorts elsewhere do fine policing ourselves), they provide the justification for keeping girls virtual prisoners during shifts. Germany eventually decided to do away with such checks for exactly those reasons. Registration is another concept that enables rampant abuse, because the government can easily change its mind about what to do with those records; a woman could easily be locked into prostitution literally forever, and in some times and places has been.
Nevada brothel workers are far closer to being slaves than any escort I’ve ever known, which is why 70% of Nevada whores work illegally and why brothel girls in Nevada are far less satisfied with their jobs than illegal escorts in California. But as for the idea that you’re responsible for determining whether a girl is “free” or not, see tomorrow’s column.
I’d also add that a rule against “streetwalking” simply ensures that a certain segment of the sex working population is going to remain criminalised, and subject to all the very serious risks that criminalisation brings, because they aren’t in a position to work indoors. And very very often, this is the most vulnerable segment of the sex working population. It’s a law that harms the very people most at risk in the industry.
I do recognise that there is an issue for communities; I lived for two years in a part of Dublin notorious for its street scene and so I know personally the kind of problems it can cause, particularly for non-sex-working local women. But this issue is better resolved by open and constructive dialogue between the workers, the community and the police – a dialogue that can’t really happen under criminalisation. Community concerns are legitimate and important, but not more so than sex workers’ lives.
Another very good reason for opposing the criminalization of streetwalkers is that anti-streetwalker laws (against “making signs”, “acting sexy”, or being unaccompanied in certain areas) are those most likely to be used by male cops against women who aren’t even hookers.
There are a number of huge problems with criminal justice interventions on street sex work, out of all proportion to the, frankly, minor inconvenience of being solicited suffered (?) by non-sex working women in red light areas. Displacement of sex workers into areas with which they are unfamiliar, complete with dangerous criminals with which they are also unfamiliar and the breaking up of their street networks are two of the problems. Another is that contact is frequently lost between street sex workers and outreach workers attempting to address drugs, housing and safe sex issues.
The increased violence caused by the forces of law and disorder has been measured in Kate Shannon’s (insufficiently) famous Vancouver study:
http://stephenpaterson.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/official-police-crackdowns-cause-violence-to-street-sex-workers-says-new-study/
In these days when some believe that the law needs to protect imaginary minors from abuse, I’m a little nervous that one of my stories not only has a high school girl losing her virginity the night before her seventeenth birthday, but also has her celebrate that birthday by getting slightly drunk, and she takes ecstasy the following night.
In another, an eleven year old girl takes MDMA, and her other personality takes LSD. Not for fun, but in conjunction with psychotherapy. She also beats people up, but only those she catches in the act of committing violent crimes. She get a little battered herself in the process.
And then there’s the one where sixteen high school girls are having sex with their coach, but it’s OK: he has a license.
I’m a little nervous that some showboating DA is going to try to throw me in the clinker for abusing these imaginary girls.