Thank James or John or whatever- But No Thanks
It pains me to no end to read a rare op-ed supporting prostitutes’ right only hear the usual neo liberal dribble that passes for support of our right to negotiate for our own labor and work conditions.
http://www.mndaily.com/2013/02/11/prostitution-should-be-legal#.URkviGNWVz4.facebook
Prostitution should be legal
Laws criminalizing adult prostitution need to be re-examined.
By James Castle February 11, 2013
Yes prostitution laws need to be examined and it would be good to ask those of us who’ve been on the front of lines working as prostitutes and the prostitutes rights movement what we think.
But since you didn’t ask, I’m going to tell you anyway because you need to have your archaic ideas that legalization equals enfranchisement abolished.
Its interesting that you look to Australia for justification for legalizing my profession as a means to expose better work conditions and end stigma for me and my kind. If you’d bother to read any of the blogs or become informed by actual Australian prostitutes or sex workers as they call themselves, you’d understand that 20 years of decriminalization and legalization hasn’t ended the negative stigma against our class there so why do you think buying a licenses to work as a prostitute will end bad work conditions and end stigma here?
Being made to buy a license for the right to work won’t be a welcome news to many of us because we don’t necessarily want to expose our work conditions because many of us work from our homes, we work in tandem with other workers, we hire reception help and security drivers and we don’t want have our situations disrupted by exposing us to our neighbors and city fathers who’d rather see us zoned out of sight without regard for our health and safety. One has only to look to what legalization of abortion has done to American women’s reproductive options are now 40 years after Roe v Wade where that service is only legal and ‘safe’ in 17 states.
Too its contradictory that buying a licenses for the right to work would be affordable for the likes of us who you’ve described as ‘…indigent’ and unable to ‘consent to being prostitutes;’ because we’re all ‘..coerced into prostitution in order to escape economic detriment…’. Well if this is true then how are we expected to afford to buy licenses of any sorts to gain access to the right to work?
It seems you really haven’t thought this threw very well. Why don’t you call me and we can talk.
So true. As a NSW sex worker come activist and town planner specialising in getting brothels approved through local councils, I am living testament to the fact that stigma and discrimination is alive and well down under in NSW. Even though brothels were decreed by law in NSW in 1995 to be a legal use of land and to be treated like any other land use, leaving the bodies of actual sex workers alone(it was largely to be a bricks and mortar thing with concern for residential amenity, removing potential for corruption and improving health and wellbeing of sex workers),Councils are hostile environments for anyone trying to get an approval and the majority of Councils refuse the application. This leaves applicants, those of whom can afford it or borrow it to challenge the decision in the Court. Luckily, most often good planning sense prevails and the appeal is upheld but the money spent on fighting it could have been better spent on setting up the brothel and providing facilities for workers. The latest hat trick by a majority of Councils in NSW (there are approximately 152 of them) is to require a home based worker to apply for a DA (development approval)just like the commercial brothel operators) and then they expect you to find a property in the industrial boon docks – and live there when generally speaking, residential uses are prohibited!! Then we have our state based liberal government reviewing decriminalisation favouring a licensing model…after years and years and years of fighting for law reform and better treatment of sex workers, it takes my breath away, utter madness…