People who think they can abolish [sex work] entirely from any country are living in a dream world. – Ronald Weitzer
…In 2012, more than 1,000 people were booked into the Bexar County Jail for prostitution and the cost to taxpayers was more than $1.2 million dollars. State Representative Eric Johnson…has introduced House Bill 1363 to reduce punishment for prostitution. The bill would make a first or second offense of prostitution a Class C Misdemeanor and calls for an intervention program…community service, counseling, and treatment…
…an Orlando [Florida] police lieutenant…[is] accused of having a sexual relationship with a prostitute and taking nearly $10,000 from her…Gricelda Umana…[said] she and Lt. Samuel Riggi had sex every two weeks for two years, sometimes at the massage parlor where she worked. She said he asked her for money and said she made 17 deposits totaling almost $10,000 from her prostitution proceeds into his account to protect her from arrest…
A new site that claims to be “the AirBnB for escorts” doesn’t seem to be anything like AirBnB…or like a legitimate escort site, for that matter. AirSnB—which stands for “Air Sexy Buddy,” I was told— launched in December and, according to owner Amir Mo, is supposed to be the escort industry’s answer to the sharing economy…Mo said customers pay AirSnB upfront for a date arranged with their escort of choice (based on hourly rates). After the date, AirSnB transfers the money to the escort, skimming their percentage off the top…if there are any issues—like the escort doesn’t show up or doesn’t follow through…AirSnB will return the money to the customer or give them a percentage back, depending on the situation. But as if this didn’t sound sketchy enough already, many of the escort listings on the site don’t appear to be…real. Almost every profile I found was copied word-for-word from listings elsewhere on the internet…
…Anti-prostitution campaigners have made grand statements about the effectiveness of Sweden’s hugely influential approach to prostitution. However, researchers say the claims are grossly exaggerated and the law has put sex workers in greater danger. The so-called “Swedish model”…portrays itself as an example to emulate. Ambassadors for the approach preach its virtues to government regulators worldwide…But an increasing number of voices…say claims exaggerate its successes for ideological reasons. The most recent attacks on the 1999 Kvinnofrid law come from Malmö University researcher Charlotta Holmström. In contrast to the loud claims of anti-prostitution campaigners, that it has made sex workers safer, Holmström says they are far more vulnerable to exploitation and violence…
A high-profile pimping case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn nearly unraveled…[when] five of six plaintiffs…dropped their accusations against him…Strauss-Kahn has testified to having orgies…to being “rough” with his sexual “conquests,” and to needing sex with exceptional frequency. But none of that is illegal…Strauss-Kahn insists he didn’t know the women involved were prostitutes…
But while Straus-Kahn will probably walk away free, French sex workers may not be so lucky:
…Morgane Merteuil…of the French sex worker’s trade union Strass…believes the trial has increased the stigmatisation of the sex industry and has presented a skewed view of the profession. “There is a confusion with abolitionist organisations between when a client respects a contract and when he does not. [DSK] didn’t respect the contract…not all clients act like him”…Merteuil says she believes the trial may result in the criminalisation of the sex industry…
For many disabled people, sex is off the cards. While most needs are met through the provision of carers, or by parents, sex is often missed out entirely. But now a number of sex workers are looking to combat this, stepping into the breach to provide specialist services to help disabled people to fulfil their sexual desires. It’s easy for disabled people’s sexuality to become obscured by a web of societal assumptions about what it is to be disabled. But of course, disabled people are just as horny as anybody else…
After all, we wouldn’t want to waste effort investigating the rapes of “criminals”:
A new controversial policy requires sexual assault and rape victims to undergo police background checks before they can receive services…[including] rape kits or medical investigations into the criminal activity that was perpetrated against them…The bizarre policy has been around since 2007, but it has only been implemented and enforced since November…Critics of this law suggest that many will not come forward to report sexual assaults and rapes if they feel they maybe prosecuted for something…
Sometimes it’s hard to believe the people who write these stories actually take them seriously:
Their locations are blended right into the fabric of busy communities. They set up shop next to store fronts and restaurants…police raided the Queen Spa, an illegal massage parlor set up near the University of Rhode Island…next to a Dunkin’ Donuts and Subway sandwich shop…other suburban locations where illegal massage parlors open…[include one] just feet from an ice cream stand and a toy shop…
Remember, sex work was only recriminalized in Rhode Island five years ago.
Disgraced anti-sex trafficking activist Somaly Mam’s new charity – which is headed by former staff of her fallen foundation, a Hollywood actress and a PR guru – announced…that it has been given the green light in the US…The organisation, which will employ about 37 full-time staff and expects to generate more than $682,000 this year…
The war on sex worker advertising continues:
A [Colorado] man…was arrested…for “Use of a Facility in Interstate Commerce to Promote a Business Enterprise Involving Prostitution”…David A. Warmack owned and operated a website business named “Sowet.com”…[which] promoted and facilitated prostitution that took place at multiple massage parlors across the Metro Denver area…
…In the largest ever study into the health of trafficking victims, researchers interviewed more than 1,100 men, women and children in Southeast Asia who had been trafficked into at least 15 sectors – including factory work, domestic labor, sex work and fishing…Most previous studies [only] looked at…women trafficked into sex work…[but] this study found…that women trafficked for other forms of labor, including factory work, domestic work and as brides, suffered worse mental health problems than those trafficked into sex work…
Sex worker advocates are warning Ontario Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur that Canada’s new controversial prostitution law will “force people in the sex trade in harm’s way.” Meilleur is reviewing Bill C-36 and will file a report on the law to Premier Kathleen Wynne, who has expressed “grave concerns” about the federal Conservative government’s latest effort to deal with prostitution…
Add another “sex trafficking” porn fantasy to the list: “…Tricked…features interviews with people in all areas of the sex trafficking trade, including prostitutes who are often victims, the traffickers (pimps), customers (Johns) and the vice officers who fight the trade…”
That’s not true. Look at the 100% success rates of East Germany and the Soviet Union.
Abolishing sex work entirely from a country is easy.
You just have to abolish the country.
“The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The US will probably win the War on Drugs in that very same way.
The Maoist state of China eliminated prostitution from 1950 to about 1960. This was done by rounding up all the prostitutes and relocating them to Reeducated and Work camps. Of course, a few select girls were held back for the pleasures and entertainment of the elite of the Communist party.
“We were loading them into cars. These people all cried. They didn’t want to get into the cars. They hung on to the madams calling, “Mama, Daddy, the Communist are going to murder us, we don’t want to go…we want to stay with Mama and Daddy. They cried and carried on.” from ‘Dangerous Pleasures’
The idea was that prostitution was not a natural state of mankind but a result of imperialism and capitalism. Also, it was linked to the much hated landlords and urban gangs. Certainly it did not fit with Mao’s theories of eliminating gender identity; and that monogamy was the sexual ideal. These girl were therefore to be retrained for factory work and domestic services, primarily as wives.
Be the 1960’s, prostitution in China was beginning to flourish again. Its elimination being another failed Communist social experiment.
I guess that’s the plus side of Marxist governments.
They provide mountains of evidence as to what kind of sociological interventions don’t work.
The idea that the Maoists actually “eliminated” prostitution for a time is one of the most ridiculous and persistent myths of the Mao legend; prostitution was NEVER eliminated, and even some Hong Kong-based historians have admitted that. It just went deeply, deeply underground.
Oliver Burkeman writes a weekly column in the Graun about psychology and life. This week’s discusses ‘reaction formation’—the idea that those who protest too much about something are denying to themselves that they actually like it. One example he gives is how ‘American megachurch pastors become vocally homophobic, because they can’t deal with the fact that they’re gay’.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/20/denial-is-often-confirmation-psychology-oliver-burkeman
I wonder, what might Somaly Mam make of this idea?
Of course there’s plenty of other reasons someone might obsess over a particular topic. I don’t think Maggie or I criticise police because we secretly lust after them (though Maggie is into BDSM so maybe I assume too much 😉 ).
People might regularly rant about something because they have a phobia of it. Hence people who constantly warn others about germs or Muslims because it’s they who live in fear of them.
Or perhaps they think they know more about the ‘danger’ than most people. I suspect a lot of pastors are homophobic because they sincerely believe their repeated readings of homophobic passages in the Bible have given them special insight and it’s their civic duty to pass on their acquired ‘wisdom’.
Then there’s projection. You don’t have to like racism to condemn it in others while harboring it in yourself.
I think the most insightful thing in Burkeman’s article is the last para (despite the Richard Bach quote). You’re more likely to lecture others about stuff you still haven’t worked through yourself.
I’ve no idea how many mega-churches in the US have rabid homophobes; and I’m sure that some of them must be genuine in their beliefs. But, how many have been ‘outed’, subsequently resigning? In a similar vein, what about the NY prosecutor and his actions against prostitutes there; but then his activities were a bit down the road, weren’t they. You could enlarge this idea to include some ‘shrills’ amongst the ‘feminist movements’.
It may not be correct all the time, but I’d certainly accept that sometimes the loudest voices aren’t really what they try to represent, and I would take such pronouncements cum grano salis.
“In Warren, Tan Smart has been on the radar of detectives for a while. A man, dressed as a woman, was arrested in 2012 for soliciting sex. In the last few months since the I-Team began watching, Tan Smart folded up and abruptly left town, skipping out on paying the landlord rent. It’s unclear what spooked them. The threat of law enforcement closing in is an inherent business risk for these fly by night operations.”
Really? REALLY??
Gotta love this picture:
http://www.3generations.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/tricked-ftr-img-3gsite.png