Nothing even remotely resembling a fresh or original thought in this opinion piece regarding legalization of prostitution. Read the whole thing at the venerable Northern Iowan…

What’s so bad about prostitution anyways?
By Nick Krob

Isn’t it time for the world’s oldest profession to become legal? In a world of religious activists fighting to end abortion, crush the thought of gay marriage, abolish birth control and put religion into the schools and take sex education out, though, prostitution will never stand a chance.

Christian America will die before considering the arguments behind legalizing prostitution. Because it’s gross right? It’s immoral! It’s disgusting!

In our modern world, pornography is legal, as is stripping. Both involve nudity and sexual content, and rely on the internal sex-drive in both men and women. Neither serves a positive role in society, other than a gateway for horny America to release their collective hormones. The same can be said for prostitution. What negative trait does prostitution have that porn and stripping doesn’t?

The most common argument behind the legalization of prostitution is taxes. But the issue goes much deeper than that. While the country could benefit from increased income, there are humane issues that are much more crucial to our modern society than dollars and cents.

Opponents to the legalization of prostitution seem to care more about morals than health and safety. Looking at Nevada, where prostitution is legal (in brothels in counties with less than 400,000 people), it is reported by Reade, Richwald and Williams in their AIDS prevention study, that the AIDS rate among workers, more than 350, was zero in 1990, while illegal prostitution was measured to be above 25 percent infected. If prostitution were legalized, measures could be made to have regular health checks, and prevent diseases such as AIDS from spreading. Mandatory use of condoms and birth control could help fight disease and lower unplanned pregnancies, and thus, abortion rates.

Read more at Las Vegas Citylife…

Brothel bound
Nevada’s brothels a leading example for other states
by AMY KINGSLEY

Nevada’s relationship with its legal brothels is a lot like the one between a john and a hooker — financially rewarding for one party, vaguely shameful to the other and thoroughly unacceptable as a subject of polite conversation.

The tourism and prostitution industries feed off each other. But that doesn’t keep casino moguls from turning up their noses at brothel owners. They barely tolerate their presence in the rural counties outside Reno and Las Vegas, and balk at the prospect of bringing them to the big cities.

In her new book, State of Sex: Tourism, Sex and Sin in the New American Heartland, UNLV professor Barb Brents tackles the complicated relationship between the state and its brothels. Brents, along with co-authors Kate Hausbeck and Crystal Jackson, spent the better part of a decade researching the history, structure and working environment within legal brothels. Her research led her to some surprising conclusions.

“I used to think that women had no power in that situation,” she said. “But then, as a feminist, I started listening to the voices of the women, and more and more of them were telling me that it wasn’t exploitation.”

State of Sex is the first book that uses academic research methods to contextualize Nevada’s unusual system of legal prostitution. Readers looking for randy tales of sexual adventure might want to look elsewhere. Marketing aside, most of the women who work in brothels aren’t hypersexual, they’re just regular working women in search of a high-paying gig. For them, working in a brothel may not be much different than working in a shoe store.

“There are all different kinds of women with different levels of commitment,” Brents said. “It becomes kind of impossible to say that prostitution is any one thing. But the women all talk about the work as a job.”

Read the whole article in The Times-Colonist…

Editorial: Time to reduce sex-trade risks

How long do we have to follow a failed and destructive policy before we smarten up? The Brothel Project, a well-crafted debut documentary by Victoria director April Butler-Parry and producer/writer Gillian Hrankowski, premiered at the Victoria Film Festival this week.

It raises — once again — our peculiar attitudes and laws about prostitution and their damaging effects as it follows the efforts of Jody Paterson, a Times Colonist contributor, and Lauren Casey, a researcher and outreach worker, to open a legal brothel here.

Prostitution is legal in Canada. One person can pay another for sex.

But virtually every activity associated with the transaction is not. Public communication to arrange the exchange is illegal. Owning or running or having anything to do with a brothel is illegal. “Living off the avails” is illegal.

Remarkably, the situation was much the same 130 years ago in Victoria.

The fascinating website victoriasvictoria.ca, a project of the University of Victoria history department, looks at all aspects of our history, including the thriving sex trade.

It notes that in 1881, “legally, prostitution itself was not regarded as an offence, instead it was dealt with by means of a charge for street solicitation or the operation of a ‘bawdy house.’ In effect, the test of it as an offence was the extent to which it became a ‘fact of public annoyance.’ “

The effect today, as it was then, is that the work is more dangerous than it needs to be and the participants — mostly women — are excluded from the basic rights and protections enjoyed by everyone else in society.

The risk of arrest for soliciting forces sex workers and their clients into dark and dangerous neighbourhoods at night. Instead of discussing the transaction with a client, like any other business exchange, hurried judgments must be made before climbing into a stranger’s car.

The bawdy house laws make it legally impossible for sex workers to operate a brothel like any other business. They exist, of course, surreptitiously or as massage parlours or escort agencies. They pay taxes and licence fees and advertise. But they operate in a legal shadow that penalizes workers. The laws serve mainly to make the sex trade dangerous.

And they perpetuate a view of those in the trade that makes them less than human — even disposable.

The slow and ineffectual investigation of missing women in Vancouver and the Pickton murders showed the results.

Society’s concerns about the sex trade are understandable. Human trafficking and forced prostitution do exist, with the biggest coercive factors being poverty and addiction. Those concerns must be addressed.

That would be simpler if the trade was regulated and conducted like other businesses, with access to the same workplace and legal protections.

Many people object to the trade based on personal views on the role of sex in life and relationships.

While those views should be respected, so should the right of adults to make their own choices and to be either customers or suppliers in the trade.

We have pretended to support that principle by making prostitution legal.

But we have left in place laws that serve mainly to make it dangerous and difficult and turn participants into second-class citizens.

Read more at BCLocalNews.com…

No ‘choice’ for women in the sex trade

As a frontline worker at Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter I am not surprised at the series of excuses men use to buy women.

I am happy to see a news article that focus on the “demand” side of prostitution – that is the men. Prostitution exists because of demand. If men stopped buying and selling women, prostitution would be abolished.

We believe that prostitution is a reflection and product of women’s inequality, not a free “choice.”

Thank you for highlighting the men who drive the prostitution industry.

And for highlighting the violence prostituted women face and also that so many of the women cannot live on the abysmal welfare rates and “choose” prostitution because there are no other economic alternatives.

Daisy Kler
Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter

Read more at The Boston Globe…

RI lawmakers adopt indoor prostitution ban
By Ray Henry

Rhode Island would close a loophole allowing prostitutes to ply their trade indoors under new legislation approved by state lawmakers.

The bill approved Thursday would make prostitution a misdemeanor offense regardless of where it occurs. Prostitutes would face a maximum six-month prison sentence for a first offense, while their customers could face up to a year.

Gov. Don Carcieri supports closing the nearly 30-year-old loophole allowing indoor prostitution and was expected to sign the legislation.

Rhode Island is the only state, besides parts of Nevada, that now allows indoor prostitution. Trying to crack down on outdoor solicitations, the General Assembly passed a 1980 law that was silent on paid sex indoors.

As a result, more than two dozen suspected brothels operate across the state.

A recent poll shows Spaniards overwhelmingly favor legalized prostitution.  Read more at Angus Reid…

Spaniards Decidedly Favour Regularizing Prostitution

A large majority of people in Spain back a proposal that would make prostitution a regular occupation, according to a poll by Instituto Noxa published in La Vanguardia. 76 per cent of respondents support regularizing prostitution, while 17 per cent oppose it.

While prostitution in Spain is not illegal, owning or running a brothel has been illegal since 1956.

The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC)—a Catalan nationalist party—is proposing that prostitution be regularized across Spain, in order to offer protection to voluntary sex workers and combat illicit human trafficking organizations. The ERC has also put forward a bill that would ban all ads selling prostitution in print publications. ERC lawmaker Joan Tardà has called the ads “disgusting” and said that they “denigrate women.”

Lots of luck, ladies.  I have a feeling you will go down in failure.  Read more at The Toronto Star…

Sex workers set to launch landmark challenge

If she could do it herself, Terri-Jean Bedford would strike down Canada’s prostitution laws, perhaps using the riding crop she plans to bring to court.

Instead, the Toronto dominatrix and two other sex workers have launched a sweeping constitutional challenge to the legislation, arguing it perpetuates violence against women.

The landmark case gets underway Tuesday in a University Ave. courtroom where Bedford, in a nod to traditionalism, is promising to arrive conservatively attired, even if she is packing a tool of her trade.

“You never know when you might run across a naughty boy, or a naughty judge,” she teased in an interview.

The 49-year-old Toronto grandmother, along with prostitutes Valerie Scott, 51, and Amy Lebovitch, 30, is asking Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice to invalidate Criminal Code provisions that serve as Canada’s policy response to the world’s oldest profession.

They argue that prohibitions on keeping a common bawdy house, communicating for the purposes of prostitution and living on the avails of the trade force them from the safety of their homes to the insecurity of the street, where they are exposed to physical and psychological violence.

This book may be of interest to readers, so here are some resources where you may purchase it.

Escort Work And Motherhood
by Amee Barber

This book examines the complex relationship that exists between lone motherhood and sex work.

Utilizing interviews with fifteen independent escort workers from Edmonton and Toronto, the author demonstrates the need for policy makers to recognize the different environmental contexts of mothers and the uniqueness of individual experiences in order to produce more targeted and effective policy.

The interviewees reported leading a double life characterized by shame, fear, stigmatization and discrimination. It was discovered that the double life which many of these women live is not only stressful but also a serious impediment to their ability to effectively parent.

The author argues that it is the current legal status of sex work which poses barriers to these women, and asserts that decriminalization and the recognition of sex worker as work will grant these women access to the support that other working mothers may have.

Beyond decriminalization, the author makes a series of recommendations that were based on the needs expressed throughout the interviews. The implementation of these recommendations could be hastened by decriminalization and a strong sex workers union.

The author, Amee Barber is PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Alberta. Her fields of specialization are gender and comparative politics.

You may purchase the book at Amazon, or elsewhere.

An attempt to legalize prostitution in Span falls hard. Read more at The Earth Times…

Spanish parliament rejects legalization of prostitution
by Lisa Depoorter

A women’s group on Wednesday welcomed a decision by Spain’s parliament to reject a move that would have made prostitution legal. Parliament on Tuesday voted 329-5 against a proposal to recognize prostitution as a profession.

The Federation of Progressive Women welcomed the vote, describing prostitution as a form of violence and slavery which was being “supported and promoted by many people.”

The Catalan republican party ERC, which tabled the proposal, said it would prefer prostitution not to exist, but that it was better to grant prostitutes legal rights than to leave them at the mercy of pimps.

Others, however, argued that neither bans nor legalization had solved the problems created by prostitution in other countries.

I’ve said this for over a decade, now. Making legal prostitution an option won’t undermine most prostitution operations. Legality means regulations, rules, standards, taxes, etc.

Many working girls don’t want to deal with it, and most clients don’t want to deal with it. It’s not a difficult concept, but most advocates for legalization prefer to insist that denial is a river in Egypt.

Read more at The News-Mail…

Only 10% of Queensland prostitution legal

TEN years after brothels became legal in Queensland, 90 per cent of prostitution in the state occurs outside the law, university research shows.

The University of Queensland’s Human Trafficking Working Group said Queensland’s attempts to regulate prostitution have clearly failed.

Associate professor Andreas Schloenhardt (Schloenhardt) said current legislation was very restricted.

It is limited to legal brothels and to services offered by sole operators outside public spaces.

“This accounts for only 10 per cent of Queensland’s prostitution industry and does not include escort agencies, street prostitution or unlicensed brothels,” Prof Schloenhardt said.

“These activities, some 90 per cent of the prostitution industry, remain either unregulated or illegal.”

He said legalising some parts of the industry had not eliminated the demand for illegal sex services.