It may seem like a dirty job, but like it or not, the "world's oldest profession" is still going strong.
Society has long wrestled with the moral question about whether paid sex is a legitimate aspect of the labor market. Recently, the political economy of sex work took center stage in Geneva as part of an assessment of the United States by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
While the review process will consider many issues raised by advocacy groups and the Obama administration, a global critique of anti-prostitution laws hits a very raw nerve in the human rights community. How does the sale of the most intimate of human transactions fit with the regime of universal human rights?
Seeking to cool the fiery polemics surrounding sex work, the report presented at the review, filed by the Best Practices Policy Project, Desiree Alliance, and the Sexual Rights Initiative, foregrounds the sex workers' everyday struggles for equity. Both sides acknowledge that, from a human rights standpoint, sex workers are extremely vulnerable, and that social stigma and the illicit structure of sex work worsens their plight.
But the report advocates for decriminalization of sex work, citing dysfunctional criminal justice structures that compound sex workers' vulnerability while doing little to actually shut down the industry:
Arrests for sex work can lead to a cycle of continued exclusion from housing and other job opportunities, and to reimprisonment. Furthermore, because many forms of sex work in the U.S. are treated as a crime, law enforcement officials frequently fail to recognize that sex workers can be victims of crime, and thus deny justice or support to sex workers who seek their help.
The groups point out that within the sex work sector, exploitation and mistreatment, at the hands of both government and customers, disproportionately fall on marginalized populations such as transgendered people and women of color.
Pro-sex-worker activists argue for the repeal of anti-prostitution laws, including measures that elliptically target sex workers through the criminalization of patrons, and "public nuisance" statutes that allow police to preemptively crack down on suspected prostitutes on the street.
Advocates focus on reducing harm to the individual and society, on the assumption that fixating merely on penalties ultimately hurts much more than helps sex workers while often giving pimps and johns a pass.
Yet pro-decriminalization groups don't oppose all government intervention in commercial sex. A realistic, rights-based approach to sex work shares the realism of movements to decriminalize drug use and to overhaul the immigration system: the criminal code should protect people from real harm, including health hazards and violence, and not try in vain to stamp out an inevitable social process. Simply convicting women for prostitution won't change the fact that many lack the social supports they need to take control of their economic destiny. Just like busting low-level drug offenses does nothing to undercut violent drug cartels, and rounding up undocumented migrant workers doesn't dent the profits of businesses that feed on them.
The coalition's report also recommends providing sex workers with legal mechanisms “to find redress for human rights violations and hold law enforcement accountable for their actions” if they've abused “victims” they're purportedly rescuing.
Opponents of decriminalization say sex work is of a different moral nature than regular labor, that violence and shame are endemic in prostitution, whether legally sanctioned or not. But the persistence of problems linked to prostitution doesn't justify arbitrarily penalizing sex workers who are just trying to survive, nor does it enforce any kind of perceived moral consensus in society.
The Ontario Superior Court's recent ruling on Canadian sex workers' rights reflected this principle, contending that draconian laws "force prostitutes to choose between their freedom and their right to security as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms." As for the practical impact, especially when compared to the legalization policies of other countries, the court opined, “By increasing the risk of harm to street prostitutes," the court opined, the law in question "is simply too high a price to pay for the alleviation of social nuisance."
At Ms. Blog, sex-work scholars Crystal Jackson and Barbara Brents cite the ruling as an alternative framing of a taboo:
This case repudiates the dominant discourse around sex work today: that the majority of sex workers are coerced, that women are trafficked into the business and that selling sex is inherently violent. In sum, that whores are not capable of critical thought and informed decision-making.
Whore stigma is a particularly gnarly incarnation of misogyny marking women who dare to exercise economic independence or sexual independence.
The advocates' reasoning isn't that prostitution is great for women, or that trafficking and abuse aren't real threats. The proposition is pretty sane and simple, from a workers' standpoint: The sex trade, like many other "legal" jobs, falls on a wide spectrum of exploitation within a capitalist labor system. The work itself may represent realities that people find immoral or disturbing. But the people doing the work are more than mere proxies in a culture war; they're human, and that alone entitles them to equality before the law.
Cross-posted from In These Times.Follow Michelle Chen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/meeshellchen
Austria: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/docs/sexworker_uncat_Austria44.pdf
more: sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5976
Germany: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/ngos/SWFV_Germany45.pdf
submitted from sex worker forum www.sexworker.at - Berlin - Vienna - Zurich
~progressives who agree with adult choice vs. conservatives who dislike hos because of morality~
I went straight to prostitution. (Again, stupid argument that totally ignores any semblance of actual critical thought)
Maybe opposition it's related to the fact that prostitution is often (I say often not always, though personally I'd even venture to say usually) the act of someone financially desperate or exploited by another. I don't agree with the theory that legalization will magically give victims the tools to free themselves. The tools are technically their now and we need to figure out WHY they don't work.
There are so many legal things that need to happen in order to make prostitution safe as a legit business that I honestly don't believe our country is capable. I think we still have a long way to go on cultural overhaul in relation to gender, race, and class before we can consider ourselves ready for safe and legal prostitution.
That may be a perfectly appropriate, policy wise. It is NOT an appropriate basis for overturning a statute. It is not the Court's job to consider what is "appropriate."
So much for the land of the free and home of the brave.
DUH -- the "intimacy" and what they do with it is privately determined by the person, rather than some priest, slave master, pimp, cop, or politician making a determination for them; that's why it is squarely withing the realm of human rights, it is intrinsically the human's prerogative not the state's business except for appropriate legal protections and guarantees in exchange for taxes if there is a transaction involved. The real question is: by what right does the state presume to interfere in the intimate relations of consenting adults (always to antagonize the women much more harshly than the men, in keeping with authoritarian religious abuses, it might be added)?
This is not the first time for all the issues which many in the West presume are 'progress'.
Its actually a reoccurring demise of Greco Roman based Western civilization.
America is increasingly resembling 1st century BC Greco Roman civilization, just in global hyperdimensions and most likely with far less longevity.
Lots of mythical gods and idols which fill the leisure time and attention of the masses? Check.
Global imperial military power? Check.
Secular republics morphing into oligarchies protected by powerful states? Check.
Liberal capitalist driven economies morphing into a global economy which favors the motherland? Check.
And the social ills are far more pronounced in America.
1) Liberties and Freedom only apply to certain people. We just had elections in which the party that cried about losing its freedoms and liberties just got their power back. But isn't it their ideology that oppresses this behavior? Do you think that they will even consider legalizing this? Liberties and freedom only apply to certain people.
2) Free-enterprise only applies to certain people. Insurance companies can make a fortune off sick people, yet those down on their luck cannot even sell the one thing they own in order to survive.
3) Why is this a viable life choice? I think the fact that this is a viable life choice for people means that the system we have chosen doesn't work. If not for an oppressive social system, would women/men/children have to turn to selling themselves in order to survive?
To some of us; we are disgusted by the lack of initiative. When you have nothing to offer or don't want to do more than just lay there then one is a hooker. Rationalize it away, but only a narcissistic person who thinks they DESERVE to be paid for sex do so. What about thinking and hard work and being better than you were given. The ONLY thing required to be a hooker is circulation.