
My work as a prostitute led me to oppose decriminalisation - cturner
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-41349301
======
Animats
A decade ago, San Francisco had a ballot initiative, Proposition K (2008) to
decriminalize prostitution. [1] It got 41% of the vote and failed to pass.

The trouble with the New Zealand law [2] is that it empowers brothel
operators. There's a presumption in the law that sex workers must work for a
brothel. That put sex workers in a weak bargaining position. Nevada is like
that, too. The UK, though, allows prostitution but not pimps or brothels. So
it's all phone and Internet based.

(I had this explained to me by one of the people behind Prop. K, a high-end
call girl who was also a labor organizer. Definitely not a victim. She wanted
to empower sex workers, not pimps. But she was having a hard time getting that
message across. At the city level, all they could do was reduce the level of
police harassment, not fully legalize sex work. So they couldn't really make
rules for sex work.)

[1]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/01/us/01prostitute.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/01/us/01prostitute.html)
[2]
[http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2003/0028/latest/D...](http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2003/0028/latest/DLM197815.html)

~~~
the_stc
This is one reason why we're excited about our company (info in profile). By
operating anonymously, we can choose ethics over legality. By erring on the
side of sex workers, we can shift some of the power away from abusive clients
and review culture. Since we are involved in every transaction and serve as a
commercial focus point, we can encourage unions and collective action.

------
turblety
Everyone must have the complete right to do what they want with their own
body, so long as they are not hurting anyone else. No person (especially
government) should ever be telling you what you can and can't do with your
body.

But let's say we could get pasted the ethical boundary of controlling peoples
rights over their own body. Making prostitution illegal does nothing to
protect the legitimate women (and men) in the industry. By making it illegal
you force people who want to work in the industry to have little to no legal
rights: \- If a client rapes or performs unagreed/unconsenting actions, there
is no legal place to go for help \- If a consenting prostitute discovers
trafficking they are unlikely to report it because they have a distrust of the
police \- Legitimate people who would want/enjoy being in this industry stay
out, making unground businesses resort to trafficking and abductions.

We already have a legal system capable of protecting and punishing those who
kidnap, rape, abuse, molest and hurt other people. All criminalisation of any
industry does is prevent participants from receiving government protection.

~~~
kosy
I don't think it's any women choice to be a prostitute. Did you read the
article? She had an abusive step-father and had nobody to talk to.

People are forced to do it and when they start is hard to end. Goverments
should have something to say as they are to protect people and being a
prostitute is not a solution for lack of education or money.

~~~
turblety
Yes I read the article and shouldn't the government then focus more time on
providing emotional support for adults who were abused as children rather than
criminalising an industry because one person (or even a group of people) are
in it because they were abused. I'm sure whether she was a sex worker or
working in another job she would have struggled emotionally with what happened
to her.

What about the people who have to work in McDonalds? Should the government
also ban those jobs, where staff are around dangerous hot cooking equipment,
rude customers, rude management, dangerous spills that could make them fall?
It's a hard life and people have to make money. By criminalising an industry
you are preventing people who don't share your own ethical beliefs from making
a living. And sex pays a hell of a lot better than McDonalds and has better
working hours. Just because people (government) thinks (and it is "thinks" not
knows) that sex is unethical and dirty does not make it true.

Also while people may believe that no one wants to be a prostitute that's
simply not the case. There is a great deal of people who enjoy it or at a very
minimum see it as a legitimate way to make money. You (and government) have to
be very careful that they don't enforce their own ethics and policies on
people unless it is absolutely necessary (e.g. rape, killing, etc)

~~~
Chris2048
> sex pays a hell of a lot better than McDonalds

That's the problem. Drug dealing also pays a lot, I don't think that should be
legalized either.

------
jimworm
People sign contracts for terrible work conditions all the time, is that a
reason to make one specific industry criminal? And this is before mentioning
that a contract that specifies "everything" as the job description renders the
industry irrelevant - if an accountant signs an employment contract that
includes "everything" in the job description then technically that also
includes prostitution, coal mining, deep-sea diving, assassinations etc.

~~~
jim-jim-jim
>People sign contracts for terrible work conditions all the time, is that a
reason to make one specific industry criminal?

Yes. Absolutely. Even setting aside the ways in which legitimized prostitution
can still be ripe for individual abuses, the message it sends also needs to be
taken into account. Prostitution (and pornography) condition society to see
women as commodities. That's unacceptable.

I expect this comment to go gray with lightning speed.

~~~
s4vi0r
No, prostitution and pornography condition society to see sex workers (20% of
them are Male, and likely a significant portion transgendered as well. Thought
it was interesting that you only mentioned women) as workers, which is what
they are. The argument against legalized prostitution is ridiculous.

Prostitution will always be around - there's no benefit to leaving sex workers
to live in the shadows. If you legalize the industry - and not just the
workers - you can have at least some amount of control over the health,
safety, and quality of workers, employers and clients. By legalizing the
industry you also help to normalize sex, which is IMO on way too high of a
pedestal in most societies. Sex workers are perceived the way they are largely
because of how "sacred" sex is - if you take that power away from sex, then
you remove this stigma of sex workers being objectified or somehow less than
others because of how they make their living.

------
uoaei
From what I've heard on the subject so far, decriminalization aims to make it
harder to profit off of human trafficking, i.e., to help those who are
forced/enslaved into prostitution, or at risk of such. Taking a prostitution
job by your own decision won't afford you the same perspective as those whose
entire lives have been claimed as property of someone else.

------
pbadenski
This is a sensitive and complex topic. I found it clear after reading the
article how even people personally involved struggle to address it well. It’s
unsettling to me how definite and confident some of the comments in this
thread are. This will sound patronising, yet.. Please do think twice before
posting - you’re talking about someone’s life.

------
barrkel
An individual's personal journey falls some way short of a rationale for
public policy.

Policy in this area surely has to focus on harm minimisation rather than ideal
worlds. The question to ask isn't if decriminalisation doesn't do any harm;
it's whether it is better than criminalisation.

------
pfisch
After skimming that I still have no idea why she opposes it. Because it made
her cry? Because she doesn't like the businesses that offer all inclusive
packages? Not a great article.

~~~
trhway
well, i'm kind of surprised that decriminalization of prostitution included
decriminalization of pimps. To me it is an area where agency of a service
provider should be protected (similar to how it is protected in law and
medicine, even if for a different reason).

~~~
noobermin
It sounds like sex workers more than any other type of worker need a union.

------
jim-jim-jim
It's refreshing to see a major outlet carrying perspectives like this, at a
time where "sex-positive" liberal feminism seems to dominate popular
discourse.

~~~
swang
but this article was about, "sex-positive liberal feminism"?

if you read the article, she is against what happened in NZ where
decriminalization also included decriminalizing the pimps/johns, who are
essentially forcing the women they hire in the brothels to work to do
"anything" for a set price.

~~~
201709User
What if she falsely says she was raped - how is the customer protected? Having
a sympathetic middlemen helps.

~~~
jstanley
What if _anybody_ falsely says they were raped? The same rules apply.

