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D.C. Could Be The First U.S. City To Decriminalize Sex Work.
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I am not doubting that you are homeless but that hardly makes you an expert in anything but how to survive on the streets.
Darkforbid
Well-Known Member
You, don't think it gives me a deeper incite into those that earn their living on the streets, then?
(I haven't been homeless since the start of February this year)
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Just curious... Why's it all guys saying this is a good thing?
Might say more about RF population than anything...lol
But in truth, the sex workers themselves are Key advocates, and are majority female.
Darkforbid
Well-Known Member
The death rate among active US prostitutes of 459 per 100,000 person-years, which is 5.9 times that for the (age and race adjusted) general population.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Some but not much. I have known drug dealers and hookers that were homeless. I could see some of their blind spots. My roommates son and fiance. Amazing that they got back together after the both did some time. So far they are living clean.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Which, if you're to be believed, points to the fact that our current handling of prostitution isn't working.
.
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
A victory for liberty.
Cooky
Veteran Member
I can see that coming. But the people who mostly want it here in the U.S., view this legalization as a victory for secularism. They think the reason it's always been illegal is: "religion", and since it's their job to "fight" religion, they think they're gaining some kind of progress.
Of course they've got another thing coming.
Cooky
Veteran Member
You must think the government will successfully be able to regulate sex traffickers and pimps. You might be surprised to find that there are more variables involved, that seperate this "industry", making it largely rogue, secretive and essentially unregulatable.
Darkforbid
Well-Known Member
And they'll quite happily point the finger at religion if it goes badly
I thought it was already that. Reminds me of a line from the movie Greedy:
Daniel: You know there is an old man shacked up here with a very young girl!
Hotel Clerk: Sir, most of these rooms have old men with young girls. This is Washington.
Washington is the center of our nation's political system, where it's a different kind of prostitution, but it still seems to fit nevertheless.
In any case, I agree that it should be legal in all 50 states and DC.
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
Here are arguments from both sides of the debate.
Sex workers weigh in on what decriminalization would mean for their own lives
"Earlier this month, a clash over the criminalization of sex work ignited in the nation’s capital. Over the course of 14 grueling hours on Oct. 17, more than 170 people testified at the first-ever council hearing about a bill to fully decriminalize sex work in Washington, D.C. — including the buying and selling of sex. If the bill passes, the District will become the first U.S. city to decriminalize sex work, putting it at the vanguard of a growing movement that workers say would make them safer by preventing police abuse, increasing access to medical care and allowing them to make a living in the way that they choose. Many human rights groups and public health organizations agree: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch support the full decriminalization of sex work, and the World Health Organization and the United Nations Population Fund say it would contribute to major global health gains.
However, there’s still fierce opposition to the Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2019. The debate at last week’s hearing was so heated that councilmembers threatened to end the session early multiple times.
As The Washington Post reported, those who oppose the bill argued that decriminalizing the act of paying for sex would embolden pimps, sex traffickers and others who coerce and force people to sell their bodies. They also said it would turn the nation’s capital into a sex tourism destination.
“Residents of the District of Columbia should not be subjected to a social science experiment that we already know the consequences of,” LaRuby May, an attorney and a former D.C. Council member, said at the hearing. “This legislation will create more victims and subject our residents to more trauma.”
Advocates who support the legislation, meanwhile, say that decriminalization is an issue of safety for sex workers. Kate D’Adamo, a consultant with Reframe Health and Justice, an organization that works on harm reduction, says it’s okay to personally disagree with sex work. “All we’re talking about when we talk about decriminalization is violence … the violence of homelessness, of arrest and incarceration,” she says. “You can be in support of decriminalization and feel complicated about sex work.”
Sex workers have been organizing for decriminalization for decades, but their campaign has gained national momentum as attention to mass incarceration, police violence, the #MeToo Movement and the legalization of marijuana has grown. The passage of legislation known as “FOSTA-SESTA” — a bill intended to fight human trafficking by targeting websites used to sell sex — also became the focus of national attention last year. Sex workers opposed the legislation, arguing that the law would make them less safe by taking away their means to advertise online, thereby pushing them onto the street, where they are more vulnerable to violence and harassment. Reports show their predictions were likely right.
The Lily spoke to sex workers and activists who attended the hearing, testified and were involved in writing the bill to understand how criminalization has affected their lives. Committee members will vote on the legislation at a later date.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Sounds good to me.Tamika Spellman has been a sex worker for 37 years and is one of the architects of the decriminalization bill. She works for HIPS, a D.C.-based organization that helps people working in street-based economies, including drug users and sex workers.
The reason sex work is criminalized is simple, says Tamika Spellman: It’s about controlling women.
“I’m not a bad person,” Spellman says of her own decision to sell sex. “I’ve been a good parent, I’ve raised my kids well; I put them both through college through my work as a sex worker. I’m just as human as the person who lives next door to you.” Spellman says she has never had a problem with sex work in theory or in practice; instead, “society is the one with a problem with what I do,” she says.
Spellman doesn’t practice street-based sex work anymore. Now, she connects with clients online. That allows her to screen them for safety, she says, though the passage of FOSTA-SESTA has made online sex work more difficult.
But when Spellman did practice sex work in the streets, her life was often defined the criminalization of her work — she “hid in the shadows a lot,” she says. The number one reason, according to Spellman, was police harassment. She says she has been arrested three times in undercover prostitution stings."
source
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it's a hot button topic. Lots of emotional and religious angles cause people to spin up the hyperbole instead of taking a detailed rational look at it.
It would not be difficult to simply take a good detailed look at, say, Amsterdam, and see what both the positive and negative sides of decriminalization are. Is it a completely good thing? No. Is it a completely bad thing? No.
As to emboldening pimps, etc. just the reverse should happen. If sex workers are not in fear of the law, they would be much more likely to report abuse.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Sand Dancer
Currently catless
Just curious... Why's it all guys saying this is a good thing?
lol I'm female and have no problem with it. At least the women will get better treatment.
Sand Dancer
Currently catless
They don't feel the need to take a deeper view. Just compare it to what pastor says, and voile, easy answer.
Azihayya
Dragon Wizard
This is the complete opposite of the truth. Victims of sex trafficking are only oppressed by the criminalization of prostitution. Rather than convicting pimps, law enforcement is most often convicting prostitutes--as a sex trafficker often puts everything in their name. Cars, hotel rooms, credit cards, etc. Sex trafficking is a horrifying reality, where young, unsuspecting women and trans people's lives are literally hijacked by powerful and manipulative men, who often force them into lives of prostitution through isolation and threats of death. If the cops ever caught a prostitute, they can pin everything on her. Then when she is released from prison or jail, she will be found and punished. As it turns out, women's prisons tend to be recruitment centers for prostitution, and if you ever asked a prostitute about their life or what they do, they wouldn't say anything to incriminate the people who control her. They would tell you that they do what they do to get by, that it's their choice, that no one is forcing them to do anything. They're as afraid of the police as they are of their pimps.
Don't think this kind of thing happens in the United States? Read up on or listen to a story like that of Sara Hunt from Portland Oregon. She was coerced by a man promising to take her to a party, where she was raped by several men. They took her back to her apartment where men were smoking blunts and playing Playstation. They'd found out everything about her, had her phone and texted her parents telling them that she no longer wanted to communicate with them. Then she was hustled to Las Vegas to learn to be a prostitute.
This is the story that we need to be talking about when it comes to prostitution. Not the story about the woman who loves sex and figured she could make some money from it, and that it works out really well for her--except that it's illegal. It's very clear from stories like that of Sara's that the criminal status of prostitution is only inhibiting justice from being served for victims of sex trafficking. Then again, there are a great deal of police who are themselves rapists.
She's young, *but* struggling to find her way. (Like young people usually have it all figured out) She could really use some help (generally people need money), but there's not much available. What this story says to me, essentially, is that our lack of humanity has created a space where a person who is desperate enough is willing to resort to having sex for money--and you're painting this old horny guy who lost his wife decades ago as the hero who has the money in his wallet to give to this girl... But only if she's willing to polish his knob.
How about this. That old guy put aside his desire to stick his dick into some young girl that is struggling for cash and instead just give her the money out of generosity? Let's put this in another context. A Hong Kong protester who was arrested from Poly University is taken into the mainland to be interrogated by police. One of the officers approaches him. He's cold and underclothed, and the officer pulls out his dick and says, "It'll warm you up. I could get you some clothes if you suck on it." Tell me this -- why would a sexual act, accepted by the boy, compensated by the officer, useful to both, be wrong?
Here's another example: a father has taught his daughter how to play "find the lollipop" and has told her not to tell anyone about it. She has a lot of fun playing "find the lollipop" except for the time that her father was really rough and hurt her. Tell me this -- why would a sexual act, enjoyed by the girl, enjoyed by the father, fun for both, be wrong?
You're essentially saying that it is acceptable to coerce vulnerable people using whatever means that you can given the station that you've built within the economic market place and their lack of. That as long as you have a carrot on a stick and that other people are hungry, that it's okay to tell them to pull down their pants to eat. That the economic market place is an acceptable replacement for treating people with dignity and respect. This is exactly how Jeffrey Epstein and his cohorts conducted their prostitution ring.
That old guy is a predator, and he outta be satisfied with having a talk with a girl and helping her out with some money out of the kindness of his heart. Not the hardness of his dick.
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Apparently, you have all the answers. I've just got the life I lived.
See, I was brought up in the Children's Aid, after being a battered and (thus) very disturbed child. The Children's Aid had no authority nor money to help me after I turned 17, and so there I was, on the streets of Toronto with 3 months bed and breakfast (at the YMCA) paid for, and then, "so long and good luck."
I'm also a gay male. So guess what I did for a while? And truly, it helped me get through. And one of the men that I met that way was a minister in the United Church of Canada who, in fact, helped me a great deal, and without the demand for any more than that first encounter. He's a man I still thank often in my thoughts, though he's been dead for many years.
Eventually, with his help, and some growing up of my own, I found my way, and I found work with a growth path. I took an accounting designation at night, and once I was working as an accountant, I went to university at night. Was working too hard to get all the way to a degree, however.
But eventually, I got into Information Technology, and was eventually elevated to Vice President of IT for a major international financial firm.
So just to my point -- I was speaking a truth that I lived. And I never felt exploited.