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The Forum > Article Comments > Scarlet Alliance fails in bid to gag playwright Peta Brady > Comments

Scarlet Alliance fails in bid to gag playwright Peta Brady : Comments

By Matthew Holloway, published 21/8/2014

Freedom of speech is surfacing as the most common casualty in the ongoing debate over human rights for prostituted people in Australia.

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Adding to the pathetic nature of prostitution by decrying violence in the sordid sex industry, does little to recruit sympathy from a society which barely tolerates this degrading activity, an activity which is the totally unnecessary anti-thesis to pure womanhood!
Governments world-over have abandoned any pretext of care and concern by the act of decriminalisation; this is an unwanted enterprise in free-fall; buyer and seller both beware!
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 21 August 2014 10:45:23 AM
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The author fails to distinguish between consensual and non-consensual activities, which means the whole article is moral nonsense.

"We need to provide empowerment to those involved in the sex industry and we need legislation that ensures they can go to the police whenever they experience assault or harassment. This can only happen under the Nordic model of prostitution policy – a policy that criminalises the purchasers of sexual services but decriminalises the sellers, and offers them opportunities to exit the sex industry."

Why? Why can prostitutes only report assault if the purchase of sexual services is criminalised? What's stopping them from reporting assault etc. if it's decriminalised?

And why are other people's private and consensual sexual relations any of Matthew Holloways's business? Remember, don't jumble up consensual and non-consensual relations in your answer.

Talk of "prostituted people" of course implies that they are merely passive objects: they take no part in the decision-making process. But this is nonsense, which is why thousands of years of attempting to criminalise prostitution have never worked.

The fact that people have sex in exchange for money doesn't magically turn it into abuse or exploitation, any more than any other kind of consensual exchange or employment is axiomatically slavery just because money changes hands.

No-one talks about "dentisted people" - people who are "commodified" as dentists, dentists who are "exploited" as evidenced by the fact that they are being paid; or talks about the employment of dentists as "dentist trafficking". It's complete krap.

And of course if women who are paid to have sex are ipso facto being exploited, then it's hard to see how women who aren't being paid could be in any better position. According to Matthew's garbled illogic, all sex should be criminalised, which of course is exactly what the Catholic church would like: c.f. St Paul's advice on sexual incontinence.

By the way, everything Matthew says about violence towards women and unsafe workplaces applies much more to Australian men, so it's just more of the typical fake concern and trendy bias of the professional welfare-statists.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Thursday, 21 August 2014 11:21:54 AM
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"Whether we choose to admit it or not, violence against women is an endemic part of Australian culture"

Stopped reading after the first line Matt, if you begin an argument on false premises then nothing which follows is credible.
Violence against women is neither a cultural artifact nor endemic, it's not tolerated either overtly or covertly nor is it even commonplace, as anyone who bothers to look at statistics would know.
The number of men who are violent toward or who abuse women is somewhere around 4%, their actions account for 96% of assaults upon women and their average number of victims is 14, they are anti social criminals who victimise everyone the come across and who commit other forms of crime as well.
And surprise surprise, such men gravitate toward vulnerable women such as prostitutes, the mentally ill and the poor.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Thursday, 21 August 2014 11:31:07 AM
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Jardine,
I'm big and strong,I make my living off my body in the building industry,it's often degrading and dangerous work, I've come close to death from electrocution and falls on several occasions. I've been subjected to violence and intimidation, been ripped off, been exploited and had people misrepresent me to make money for themselves.
I dunno, I've been beaten up a few times and it's less scary than having an Accrow prop or a scaffold plank dropped on you or going crashing through a rotten floor...or having a trench partially collapse on you, or seeing a workmate sever his finger..or put a nail from a nailgun into his hand.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Thursday, 21 August 2014 11:42:52 AM
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Just have to agree with Jay Of Melbourne, which in Jay's inimical and very informed way, just says it all!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 21 August 2014 11:44:58 AM
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Oh...and I wonder how many prostitutes die or are permanently disabled while going about their normal activities on the job each year in comparison to building workers or farm labourers?
Rhetorical question I know and most labourers, like most prostitutes have little choice but to take up the most dangerous and unappealing work available
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Thursday, 21 August 2014 11:47:00 AM
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As prostitution is a somewhat more venerated profession than politics it is only a rumour that Mistress Lux, an "Australian dominatrix" (yes an actual Aussie) is standing for PUP in Victoria. http://youtu.be/z3uX58tQ7mQ
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 21 August 2014 12:17:37 PM
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Another article about sex work with significant misinformation.

The New Zealand experience demonstrates that decriminalisation and actively working to reduce stigma does provide better outcomes. Indeed, there have been cases of a brothel sex worker successfully suing the brothel owner for sexual harassment, the police forcing a non-paying client to withdraw money from their account following a complaint, and violent clients successfully being charged with assault.

While there has been little work to reduce stigma in Australia, similar positive work by police can be seen in the ACT and NSW. Indeed, sex work was decriminalised in NSW because of the heavy police corruption that existed there previously.

Meanwhile in Sweden, the one year anniversary of a sex worker's death facilitated by the Swedish government has just passed. Petite Jasmine was murdered by an abusive ex-spouse on the 13th of July 2013. Until the man started abusing social workers involved in the case, he was able to take full advantage of the Swedish government's hatred of sex work to destroy a sex worker's life, including preventing her from seeing her children and limiting her options further.

As to Norway, the 2012 report referred to is questionable in it's ability to claim a reduction in violence:
http://feministire.com/2012/07/01/the-oslo-report-on-violence-against-sex-workers/

This is not to say that violence (whether towards women or men) remains a problem, nor that it is more likely when there are two people in close, intimate contact. This must be about harm reduction and sunlight being the best disinfectant. Any form of criminalisation, will only guarantee a larger proportion of people prepared to break the law in the client pool. That is inherently more dangerous.
Posted by SilverInCanberra, Thursday, 21 August 2014 1:30:03 PM
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Hi SilverInCanberra

Yours is one of the better comments on OLO that I've read in some time.

Any connection to http://www.eros.org.au/ ?

Planta
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 21 August 2014 1:40:05 PM
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It's also worth noting that the World Health Organisation and the medical journal Lancet have both recently said they support decriminalisation because of the health benefits to sex workers and their clients (in both cases particularly around STIs including HIV).
Posted by SilverInCanberra, Thursday, 21 August 2014 1:45:00 PM
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plantagenet:

Just saw your comment after I hit send on my follow up. No, I have no relation to Eros, although I am a member of the Australian Sex Party (which does). I'm just a well read layman on this topic, and get annoyed by articles of this kind. Moralising behind a veil of "freedom of speech" isn't a good argument. Sex worker screening mechanisms are important, and it does seem that Brady abused access to such facilities in order to write this play. What's done is done, and I don't necessarily agree that shutting down the play is the best response, but that's a different argument to whether it should ever have come into existence in the way it did.

I'll readily agree that there are unsavoury aspects to sex work, (the punter and online review culture is tacky and often nasty), but I don't think sex workers themselves are helped by any form of criminalisation. Certainly if you want less people to be in the industry, attacking poverty and treating drugs as a health issue are the best ways to ensure only those who genuinely want to be there are. I also think that physical intimacy is something that all humans should be able to experience, but either through disability or life circumstance, some people just don't get the opportunity. That there are people who genuinely exist in both states means there is a natural supply / demand situation that will always exist. Money can be a corrupting influence in all trade situations, but it is necessary to live in our society.

There isn't a "Nordic" model as such, each of the countries that have implemented a buyer only ban have different systems. None have been able to demonstrate significant benefits, and all are based on the paternalistic (and often misogynistic) idea that people who choose sex work are unable to make their own choices about their own bodies. May as well make abortion illegal as well, if you're going to use that argument.
Posted by SilverInCanberra, Thursday, 21 August 2014 2:13:18 PM
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the reducing the stigma mantra. Yep everyone agrees but no one wants their wife or daughter selling and having her body abused to support drug habits. Maybe those making such profits would like whoring oneself put on the schools curriculim. I can imagine mums and dads telling their ten year old daughters what a great living can be made. Don't worry that you will probably want to top yourself by the time you are wrung out at 21.
Posted by runner, Thursday, 21 August 2014 2:27:04 PM
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Hi runner

I understand churchmen are some of the biggest customers of sex workers. Sex workers are doing society a favour, keeping churchman away from the kiddies...

Note from 1 minute 45 seconds into today's Training Film http://youtu.be/wOWn05b4p0I "the Catholic Church owned and operated brothels" for the money.

for the next 2 mins 30 seconds Bishops were also great customes.

Enjoy

Planta Pete
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 21 August 2014 8:21:57 PM
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I am a member of Vixen & Scarlet Alliance & am thus part of the email lists & fb groups for both. I am also a street sex worker in St Kilda. Jane is a dear friend of mine. She discussed all this with the sex worker community & got unity before proceeding. Which none of you did, either for your Nordic Model - which sex workers universally oppose - or the demeaning term prostituted. I am disgusted.
Posted by Suffragettekitty, Friday, 22 August 2014 11:26:54 AM
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Also the Swedish Model endangers us MORE. CRIMINALISATION IS TGE REASON WE DO NOT FEEL SAFE REPORTING VIOLENCE AGAINST US & STIGMATISATION IS THE REASON PEOPLE FEEL SAFE COMMITTING IT! Rendering my income source liable to arrest does not help me! & I know this because it is already rendered liable to arrest!

I want full decriminalisation of all aspects of sex work & drugs. I am a St Kilda street worker & IV drug user. You DO NOT speak for me.
Posted by Suffragettekitty, Friday, 22 August 2014 11:53:58 AM
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The author of the play is actually opposed to the Nordic Model Holloway is promoting here:

"It’s not like I’m out to get the mugs, either, because the mugs are their work,” says Brady. “It’s the bad mugs. I’m not out to say, ‘OK let’s go into some kind of Swedish law where they try and pick up the mug and take them away’, because that puts it more and more in the dark. The work’s not going to stop. It’s not going to go away."

She also acknowledges that a lot of workers enjoy their job:

"I know women who wish they were off the street and I know women who love it. That’s their choice and why should I judge that?"

http://www.theweeklyreview.com.au/well-read/cover-story/8795-out-on-the-street/#.U_rIRKMZldg
Posted by EC, Monday, 25 August 2014 3:26:56 PM
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